“Really, Maleah,” she said as if her disappointment in her daughter couldn’t sink any lower. “Rebecca Shoemaker called and said Lori from the bakery department at the grocery store had quite the story to tell her about you. Are you telling me Rebecca is lying? She’s been a friend since we moved to Three Peaks. Just because your father and I retired to Hawaii doesn’t mean we don’t still have connections in town.”
“Mom?” Maleah interrupted again. “I’m going to say this one time. There’s nothing going on between me and Ben Erickson. If you call his mother, so help me God, I will never speak to you again.”
Silence fell over the line, and Maleah wondered if she’d gone too far, or if Jona had already called Mrs. Erickson. But seriously? What in the world was happening? The absurdity of small-town gossip was too much for her at the moment.
“Well, then I should tell you that I don’t need to call Mrs. Erickson because Rebecca already did. And I don’t appreciate the tone, Maleah. I was excited to hear about your new relationship, and a little worried you were keeping good news from me,” Jona said with a touch of concern that Maleah wasn’t falling for.
She groaned, then settled her rankled nerves before starting over. “My only news is that I wasn’t able to spend more than five minutes with Aunt Kiki. I’ll go back first thing in the morning, but she didn’t look good. Sorry. I wish I had better news. It’s been a tough couple of days, Mom.”
“Oh goodness. Okay. I’ll let you go. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did,” she argued.
“You didn’t. Everything is fine,” Maleah said, trying to end the call before her head exploded.
“It’s not fine.”
Arguing with her mother felt similar to beating her head against a mattress. It was pointless and didn’t accomplish anything, but was still repetitively annoying. “I need to go now. I’ll call tomorrow from the hospital.”
“Okay. Keep me updated. I apologize for overreacting. You know how I get when it comes to your love life. I want grandbabies more than anything else. Your children will be adorable and beautiful.”
Maleah cut her off before getting sucked into another wormhole of agonizing parental torture. “I’ll keep it in mind. Bye. Love you too.” She disconnected. Maleah blinked at the phone and wondered if death by ant bite would be more enjoyable.
“Hey,” Ben said from somewhere behind her.
Maleah turned and they stepped outside together to stand beneath the dim glow of a streetlight in the alley. She was speechless after the weirdest call of her life. Someone called her mother in Hawaii to tell on her. What in the ever-lovin’ this-is-no-one’s-business-but-her-own kind of town was this? Ben didn’t question her diminishing sanity as she stood there unable to talk.
“While you were on the phone, I checked with the electrician. He was here earlier today and didn’t have the right part to make the repair. He’ll be back tomorrow and should have the electricity on sometime in the afternoon.”
“No electricity,” she repeated, disbelieving, and then mumbled to herself more than to Ben, “Which means no lights, no cooking, freezer thawing, and probably no water either.”
“You have hot water. The tank is heated with gas.”
“Good, because even if I have to use candlelight, I need a shower.”
“But…” Ben added knowingly and slowly. “The water pump is electric.”
Kill me now. The vision of sleeping in the dark cold building or in the chair beside Aunt Kiki’s bed at the hospital were fast becoming Maleah’s best options. Paying for a hotel room wasn’t in her non-existent budget.
After the extremely long day and too many things weighing heavily on her mind, defeat threatened to consume her.
“What now? Do you want to go inside and look around? We can use flashlights. The building is a work in progress, but it’s great.”
Maleah shook her head and stared at Ben’s truck. “I hate to ask, but would you mind driving me to the hospital?”
“Why?” Ben asked.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go.” She felt embarrassed to say it, but without forewarning or an invitation, she didn’t feel comfortable asking old friends, either hers or her parents’, for a place to sleep. “I can’t stay here and I need to be with Aunt Kiki.”
“Err,” Ben said. “I, uh,” he stalled.
“I can’t ask you and Kinsey to let me crash at your place. Thanks, though, but I really couldn’t. Kinsey and I were never friends. It would be weird. And awkward. And weird. Did I already say it would be uncomfortable? It would be.”
Ben lowered his gaze down and to the left. His jaw hardened just long enough for Maleah to notice, and then he stared toward his truck.
She didn’t know if he would give her another ride, but she could hitchhike if necessary. If no one picked her up, she would walk. It wouldn’t take too long, and the way her day had been going, a long, cold walk was what the universe probably had planned for her.
He said, “I wasn’t going to offer you a room at the house.”
Embarrassment and humiliation were simply icing on the cake. She stammered, “I’m such a goof. And I’m tired. I’m sorry for jumping ahead. I do that sometimes.” Maleah walked over to the back door of the building. “Can you lock up? There’s supposed to be a key around here, but with my luck it was swallowed by an alligator, and I probably will be too if I go searching for it.”
“Maleah.” Ben stepped in her path and held his ground. “I was going to offer you a place to sleep, but not in my old house. I’ve been staying in the camper.” He tipped his head in the general direction of the fifth-wheel behemoth.
“What about Kinsey?”
Kinsey Robson and Ben were married the summer after graduation. When Maleah was growing up, Kinsey treated her like an outcast. Over many years, Kinsey made fun of her clothes, her honor roll status, and anything to make Maleah feel less than the pretty and popular blonde. Maleah learned to avoid Kinsey and her group of friends at all costs. Their maliciousness wasn’t worth her time or energy. Maleah wasn’t about to walk in on her and Ben’s life now.
“Kinsey is not staying in the camper,” Ben said. “It’s sort of my office and my home at the jobsites. Come on. You can take a look inside, and if you want the spare room for the night, it’s yours. There’s even a shower with hot water.”
The mention of a hot shower had her aching, stinging legs begging for relief, but she hesitated. Staying in Ben’s camper didn’t seem right. What did she know about Ben Erickson? Just because they grew up together didn’t guarantee he wasn’t a closet-gorilla-porn-watching-hot-dog-eating-contest-champion. Is this what delirium is?
“If I could take a load off for a few minutes and regroup, that would be nice. Thanks,” Maleah said and mentally patted herself on the back for sounding like a reasonable, functioning adult for two seconds.
“Good idea.” Ben entered the Columbine Building, then returned with Maleah’s bags. He locked up and said, “Come with me.”
A tornado had definitely hit an office supply store, made a run through a hardware store, whirled through the sporting goods, and then landed inside Ben’s camper. Maleah stood at the door and wondered if she should leave her bags outside. There wasn’t any other place to put them.