The Solidity of Us: A Novel Read online

  The Solidity of Us

  By

  Shana Vanterpool

  Shana Vanterpool © 2019 The Solidity of Us.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced whatsoever in any manner, including electronically or mechanical, photocopying, or by an information and retrieval system, without written permission from the Author/Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s overactive imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual persons, alive or deceased, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Other Titles

  Stay Connected

  For the broken and the lost.

  May you find your way,

  or even better…

  someone as lost as you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I stared, fixed, at the stick in my hand.

  My fingers trembled.

  I didn’t exactly feel horror.

  Horror didn’t feel morally right.

  Now, severe nausea and unease? Sure, I felt that in droves.

  “This isn’t happening,” I whispered, my body heat steadily draining. I felt faint and shaky.

  My life—or lack thereof—flashed before my eyes. Every single thing I didn’t have, and I needed to have a lot of, flashed through right after. I could barely take care of myself. How was I supposed to take care of a…?

  “Baby,” I breathed, swallowing hard.

  There was a rough knock on the bathroom door and my boss’s voice sounded. “Bray? Break’s over, honey!”

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah, okay,” I called back unsteadily. “Coming!”

  I tucked the pregnancy test securely in my back pocket, and then washed up, wiping my face clean and going back to work. I shoved my emotions into the back of my mind where they were safe—and contained—and pasted a smile on my face. I had a baby to take care of now. Smiling for tips felt slightly less inspiring in the face of that thought but smiling for tips was what I would do.

  Working as a waitress wasn’t a terrible job. Logically and emotionally, I knew that. It kept me fed and my bills were paid. I was never alone thanks to the mostly female staff and I got to eat one free meal during my shift. But I wasn’t supposed to be here. My life hadn’t always been eight-dollars an hour and standing on my feet for ten hours at a time. I grew up in Los Angeles with the sun and the stars as the backdrop for every dream I ever had.

  But that was my life before. Before my father’s real estate empire went up in flames due to tax fraud, and Mom ran into the arms of the closest rich guy she could find. In that case, Dad’s business partner. It was messy. So messy and decimating, I put up with it as long as I could. I put up with being wrenched from college, having my house and possessions seized, and going from knowing where I was going to having no clue at all.

  I was nineteen when that happened. My only option left was to ask my grandparents for help. Mom was one of those people who never set down ties, at least not ties she couldn’t take with her everywhere she went. Small town life wasn’t for her. Once she left Well Water, Kentucky, she never looked back. It was why I never really knew my grandparents. I met them here or there; I remembered a birthday card every once in a while, and a few phone calls, but Mom never made the effort and my grandparents were too sweet to push.

  They had no reason to answer my phone call. No reason to help me out and open their doors to me. I was a spoiled, entitled brat who had a deeply startling wakeup call. But they did. And I would be forever grateful to Grammy and Grandpop. I smiled thinking about them, setting down a bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of one of my customers at the counter.

  The Goldenrod Diner was the most well-known diner in Well Water. Across the street were the arches for Main Street, and they were bordered thickly on both sides with bright golden flowers. The police station was right down the road and everyone knew everyone. I was most certainly not in LA anymore. The messed-up part was how out-of-place I still felt.

  I’d been living in Well Water for a little over a year-and-a-half now. It should feel more like home.

  Instead of a southern movie playing out in my head.

  Which was how I ended up in this mess, stuck in my head. My hand went to my stomach instinctively, and I quickly pulled it away, my eyes shooting around the room to see if anyone noticed. When no one seemed to be watching me, I looked more closely around the room.

  It was all his fault.

  The stranger in the Armani suit. The brooding and handsome passerby that had sat in my section. He’d had a look about him that had immediately put a warm pit in my stomach. His suit had been worn, like he’d been in it all day, but it still somehow fit him just right. Sharp, angular jaw with these smooth shapely lips—he’d caught and held my attention. He’d had a Rolex watch on and he kept checking the time, but he didn’t make a move to get up. And I was lonely. So damn lonely him looking at his Rolex in the middle of a Kentucky diner resonated so deeply with me I couldn’t help myself. I sat down and smiled at him when my shift was over.

  He didn’t smile back, but he did do a double-take. Figuring that he liked what he saw, I asked if he wanted to go into town to Bud’s. It was the only bar in town the younger crowd frequented. Call it desperateness, loneliness, insanity… whatever it was, he said yes, and I had to say yes to something that connected with me.

  He was a quiet guy. I did all the talking. I wasn’t normally a talker, but he was too quiet and too handsome, and I had to do something with the silence. I talked through four beers each, and then finally he opened up. He cracked a few jokes about the city that made me laugh and it made him smile, and damn it ya’ll, that smile made that pit in my stomach turn into a flutter of desire.

  I put my hand on his thigh and leaned in.

  He quirked a dark brow at me, seemed to weigh his options with the ones I’d presented him with, and then he met me half-way, pressing his warm, full lips to mine. It was the strangest hook-up I’d ever had. He’d kissed me almost sadly, like I wasn’t the one he wanted, but I was the one he had. I kissed him almost desperately. Like he wasn’t the one I needed, but he was the one that was there. A mutual understanding passed between us.

  Say no more.

  And take your clothes off.

  We drank a few more beers, you know, to get good and drunk and stupid, and then he mentioned that he was staying at the Well Water Inn, and all I could think about was how my father was going to prison and my mother hadn’t called once in months. Obviously, the condom failed. Or he had bionic sperm.

  I never even got his name. I remembered telling him mine but wasn’t sure he’d told me his. Not my proudest moment as I got dressed after we were done. As far as one-night stands went, he wasn’t half bad. Sweet kissing, no talking, almost like he didn’t want to give himself time to think and I hadn’t wanted to think. I orgasmed, so that had to count for something. His ring finger was und
ecorated, and he hadn’t had a tan line. So, I knew he wasn’t married.

  He’d lain there, on his back, the sheet pulled around his lower half, the low lighting turning him into shadows. There was something about people after sex that stripped them of their appeal. He was still physically attractive to me, but I hadn’t gotten from him what I wanted. I guessed because he was a stranger, and what I wanted he hadn’t taken from me to begin with.

  I turned back to him right before I left and gave him a small smile. “It was nice meeting you.”

  That made him quirk that same brow he’d quirked in the bar at me. “You too,” he said, his deep voice washing over me. “You need a ride?”

  “Nah, my truck is parked at the diner. A five minute-walk, tops.”

  “You sure? I don’t mind.” He started to get up.

  I lifted my hand. “I’m sure. Lay back down. You have to go back to sleep, so you can dream about me.” I closed his door behind me.

  I’d sworn I could’ve heard him chuckle but wasn’t sure whether it had come from the room next door’s television blaring through their open window.

  That was a month ago.

  He was the only man I’d slept with in eight months. The last guy had been Reed Parson. He lived down the street from my grandparents and he’d been home from college during winter break. Reed was nice. Sweet. Not to mention unavailable. I had a thing for men who didn’t want to be tied down. I didn’t want to be tied down myself and didn’t want to hang out with anyone who wanted more.

  Now here I was.

  Pregnant with a stranger’s baby.

  Who I’d most likely never see again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  My reflection stared back at me in the mirror.

  My grandparents hadn’t anticipated the arrival of a new occupant in their small cottage. I shared the room under the stairs with Grandpop’s many hobbies. He collected everything under the sun. Stamps, newspaper clippings, bottle caps, and baseball cards. The boxes were neatly labeled in his handwriting and stacked on the far end of the room. My side was actually really nice. I had a twin bed, a desk, a TV I scored second-hand at a flea market, and a vanity table with twinkle lights around the mirror.

  It was fine for me.

  But it wasn’t for a baby.

  The long mirror on the back of my door showcased my body. I stood there in my bra and panties, eyes studying my stomach intently. It didn’t look any different. If pregnancy tests weren’t so dang expensive, I’d buy another one just to see if it said the same thing.

  YOU’RE SCREWED.

  My eyes welled as I turned this way and that. Me? A mother? On what universe was that a good idea? I lived under my grandparents’ stairs, and it wasn’t nearly as cool as Harry Potter. Panic followed me around. What are you going to do? That question followed me, too.

  I had a late shift that night at the diner. Which left me with a few hours to think. I pulled my purse over and extracted my tips from last night. I hid my cash in my leather riding boots. I grabbed the right boot where it lay, the long leg flopped over. I dug down in the toe, pulling out loose cash. After counting it, I had five-hundred in cash and about the same in my bank account.

  To think I used to spend that much alone on a single pair of shoes. Or dinner with my friends. Clothes. Phones. Makeup. “Spoiled,” I whispered sadly. “And entirely ill-prepared.”

  I got dressed for the day, peering around the corner and listening intently.

  “We got any sugar?” Grandpop asked from the kitchen.

  “For what?” Grammy wondered.

  “For my coffee.”

  “You’re not drinking coffee, Wilmer. You’re drinking tea.”

  “Oh.” He paused. “Where’s my damn coffee?”

  Grammy sighed. “Coffee makes you too hyper. I don’t need you out back trampling in my garden again, throwing your back out. Or worse. Throwing mine out yelling at you.”

  He grumbled under his breath.

  Grandpop and I both knew better than to argue with Cara Judson. I’d learned in the short time I’d gotten to know her that she was determined, caring, and hard-headed. Which meant there was nothing she wouldn’t do for you, even if she wasn’t right. Which she was. All the time.

  I took a deep breath and went into the kitchen. She turned to me first, giving me a sweet smile.

  “Morning, Bray. Sleep good?”

  No. I just tossed and turned all night. “Yup.”

  “Not too warm?”

  They didn’t have air-conditioning in their house. There was nothing they could do for the heat. Summer was just starting in Well Water. I thought I knew heat living in LA, but the summer in Well Water made every summer I had before that seem like a vacation. The heat was thick and suffocating here. And long. Summers lasted well into the beginning of September, and then bam, it was too cold for words. Mentioning the heat would only make her feel bad, so I shrugged. “It was perfect. Thank you.” I kissed her cheek and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table.

  “Is that all you’re eating?” She gave my apple a look.

  I wanted to tell her the truth. Right then. That I was pregnant, afraid, and screwed, but then I’d have to tell her about my one-night stand; in the light of morning, and her kind blue eyes, I couldn’t dare broach that subject with her. There was only one option: I had to move out. My grandparents hadn’t signed up for a baby; they’d barely signed up for me. I couldn’t burden them with that responsibility.

  I forced a smile and did what she wanted. I put the apple back in the bowl and sat down.

  She nodded approvingly and returned to the stove. I wasn’t a big eater. Food didn’t make me crazy for it. But then again, not much did make me crazy for it. I sat there as Grammy flipped pancakes at the stove, trying to think of the last real thing I loved so much to go crazy over it. Nothing came to mind, but my hands went instinctively to my stomach. A deep sense of warmth moved over me, leaving me full of goosebumps and also something fierce. Protectiveness, determination; it was time to grow up.

  To stop relying on everyone else to take care of me. I had to be independent, so my baby would never know what I felt. The disappointment of relying on parents who’d created a false sense of security, aka money. Money had been there to hold me. When Mom was too busy, and Dad wasn’t home for weeks at a time, money bought me what I needed to make me feel better. Hell, it even bought my friends. Once the money went, I was truly alone.

  With no idea how to create a healthy platform to stand on. It had been hard, but in an entirely unrelatable way. Most people didn’t know what it was like, and thus they didn’t care. I got that, I guessed. So, I tried not to care either.

  I tried not to care that the only people who cared about me were eighty, and one-night stands kept me company.

  I ate breakfast in silence, trying to keep my hand off my stomach. Grammy was intuitive. Grandpop and she bickered in their way. Little picks followed by loving touches. The entire time I felt the weight of my secret bearing down on me.

  After breakfast, I slipped out of the house without drawing attention to myself. I went to the bank to drop off my savings of tips and then I went over to the newspaper stand beside the bank and sat on the curb, going over rentals and such. In a town that small, there weren’t an overabundance of options. There was an opening in the Ridge Apartment complex, but they weren’t within my budget, which was somewhere between almost free and super affordable. Now, if only I could find a place within that price range…

  I circled a few places and then got in my beat-up Chevy. Grandpop was so excited to get it running again. It was a nice truck, albeit old, and the bed was slightly rusted. It was clean inside, and it got me where I needed to go. Plus, as he put it, “this thing could stand a run in with a tanker,” whatever the heck that meant.

  All the while, my stomach felt like it had a spotlight on it. Doing the math in my head, I was probably three weeks along, give or take a few days. I could hide in the meantime. Most of all from my boss
. Sheila was a hard-ass. She had to run a diner that literally served everyone in town, and she didn’t have time to play with sick days and unreliable employees. I hadn’t been unreliable, not since I’d started working, but I had a target on my back as well. It wasn’t hard to see and feel.

  The spoiled LA girl would quit eventually.

  But they were wrong. I worked ten times harder just to prove myself. Thus, proving them wrong.

  Sitting in my truck, however, I had to wonder if I truly wanted to work there forever. The idea gave me a headache. If I’d gotten a chance to finish college at UCLA, things may be different, but half-way into my business degree, Dad’s tax evasion came raining down and I’d been ripped from the sorority and the university.

  “Bastard,” I hissed under my breath, punching the steering wheel.

  Was it healthy to blame my father for everything? Probably not, but it sure as hell felt good.

  My first course of action was making and saving more money. That night at the diner, I asked Sheila if I could have more hours.

  She looked up from the register, her eyes shrewd. “What for?”

  “Uh, money? I want to…” I told a half-lie. “Get my own place and I can’t do that if I don’t have the income.”

  She studied me. “Hmm. You work on the weekdays. I can add a weekend shift to see how it goes. Saturday night is the second busiest time we have, even worse than Friday.”

  I cringed.

  She laughed. “Yeah, you thought Friday was crazy, it’s a break compared to Saturday. It’s a ten-hour shift. Master that, and I’ll see what more I can do.”

  She had no idea how thankful I was. I didn’t want to lay it on too thick, so I gave her a brilliant smile. Thanks for the invisible braces, Dad. “Thank you. I won’t let you down.”

  “Hmm,” she grunted once more, waving me on, uncomfortable with my affection.

  One more shift on Saturday could add a few more hundred to my check. If I worked my ass off before I started to show, then I could save up enough to get a one-bedroom. Once Sheila found out that I was pregnant, I would be out of a job. I wasn’t even sure that was legal, but the only reason I’d gotten this job in the first place was because the girl I replaced had been canned for being “unreliable,” even though my coworkers said everything was fine until she started to show.