Ray nodded somberly. Her menu still sat on the table in front of her, untouched. I had her undivided attention. It was nice to feel so important, and I wanted her to feel the same.
So, I put my menu down and said, “She’s Harry’s daughter. Have I ever told you about Harry?”
Ray and Harry had yet to be formally introduced, but I knew she had to have noticed the older guy coming around my place once or twice a week since I’d moved in. His visits were frequent, and I was sure I’d mentioned him enough that she would remember his name by now.
But she shook her head, to my surprise. “You’ve mentioned him a few times, but I don’t think you’ve ever really told me about him.”
“Well”—I picked up my menu again—“why don’t we order some drinks and appetizers? Then, I’ll tell you everything there is to know about Harry Fischer.”
***
“So, tell me about the elusive Harry,” she said after the waiter walked away with our drink and appetizer order. “Did you know him as a kid?”
I shook my head, folding my arms casually against the table. “Nope. I met him in prison.”
She didn’t even bat a lash. “Was he an inmate too?”
I smiled and chuckled at the thought of Harry doing anything bad enough to put him behind bars. “Nah. He’s one of the officers at Wayward, and he kinda took me under his wing.”
That took her aback a little. A line formed between her brows as they pinched with curiosity. “You actually made friends with an officer? Isn’t that, like, frowned upon or something?”
“Eh … I mean”—I lifted a hand with my shrug—“there’s appropriate relationships, but then there’s inappropriate ones. Like, this guy I knew, Zero—”
“Not his real name, I’m assuming?”
“I never thought to ask. He was just always Zero.”
She pressed her lips together, stifling a giggle, and nodded, gesturing for me to continue.
“Anyway, he was hooking up with one of the lady officers, and …” I pinched my lips and shook my head. “Yeah, that was one of those inappropriate ones. We all pretended not to know, but, I mean, it’s hard to ignore the people fucking in the dorm bathroom, you know? Not exactly the most private place on the planet.”
Ray sniffed a laugh as she propped her chin in the palm of her hand. With a serene look on her face, she listened like I was telling her about cherished Sundays in my childhood or something. And I didn’t care to wonder if that was weird or not. It was nice to be listened to. Like what I was saying mattered.
“Anyway, Harry became my inspiration to do even better. He’s a good guy—the best really. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”
“How did you meet?” she asked.
“Well, I mean, apart from me getting there and him being in charge of performing a very, very thorough search of my body?” I smirked and sniffed lightly at my own feeble attempt at making a joke, but she didn’t laugh, and I quickly cleared my throat and shifted in my chair. “Um … so, I had, of course, seen him around. I knew who he was, and he knew who I was … but we never really talked. I didn’t really talk much, you know? I was more focused on, like, keeping my head down and not pissing too many people off at first.
“But after a while, it was my birthday. And it was also the anniversary of Billy’s death. And I, uh …” I diverted my gaze toward a mounted deer head on the wall and shrugged at its lifeless gaze. “I didn’t handle it well, I guess. It was like … I’d always known what I had been arrested for, what I was convicted of, but it never really hit me until that particular day.”
It was an awkward moment for the waiter to step in and bring our drinks with a muttered apology. After assuring us the appetizers would be out soon and he’d take our dinner order, he scurried away again. I figured he just didn’t want to prolong his discomfort by hanging around longer, and I wondered if maybe this wasn’t the time to talk about this.
Hell, maybe I shouldn’t ever talk about it at all.
“So, what happened?” Ray asked, stirring the straw in her Coke.
I shook my head. “No, you … you don’t want to know this shit. I shouldn’t have—”
“Soldier,” she cut me off gently, “I do want to know. I want to know everything about you.”
It seemed unlikely that someone like her—beautiful in an understated and plain sort of way, innocent to the things I had done and seen—would care to know this shit, let alone sit here with me with the knowledge that there was a good chance she would kiss me later, as she had done every night for a couple of weeks now. Yet I had to eventually acknowledge that this was my reality, as surreal and good as it was, and Ray wanted to know about me.
So, with a little hesitation and a heavy exhale of anxiety, I picked up where I’d left off. “Okay, um … well, I had gotten into some shit with this random guy. I didn’t really know him. He … I dunno … he had given me a look or something, so I made a stupid, nasty comment, and—in any case, I got thrown into the hole for a week, which was …”
It didn’t take much thinking to put my mind back in that deafening, maddening cell of dark despair. The soul-crushing silence and solitude were, in itself, enough to drive a man toward insanity if he wasn’t already there.
I shook the thought away and continued, “Anyway, I was in a bad place, and when I got out of there, it was worse. I thought more about Billy than I ever had, which is saying a lot, considering I thought about him pretty constantly, and it was driving me out of my mind. I felt like whatever I got in there, I deserved, so I was intentionally trying to mess stuff up for myself. Got into fights, got more time in solitary, and after a few months of that went by, Harry finally confronted me and asked what the hell I was doing. He told me he’d seen some real pieces of shit in that place and he had never thought of me as one, so it was about time I pulled my head out of my ass before I got myself more unnecessary time. So, I listened.”
Ray rewarded me with a warm smile. “And the rest is history.”
“The rest is history,” I concluded as the waiter brought our appetizers.
***
Later, she asked, “When you were a kid, what did you dream your life would be?”
I told her very plainly, albeit depressingly, “I didn’t dream of anything. I just hoped my grandparents would live forever, but they didn’t.”
A wave of melancholy washed over her as she slowly popped a piece of grilled chicken into her mouth.
Then, she asked, “Okay, one more for now. Who was your best friend, growing up?”
And I answered simply, “Billy.”
That startled her, and I bit back the urge to confirm that, yes, I had inadvertently killed my best friend.
“I’m so sorry,” she said instead of saying the obvious, and I appreciated her response so much more.
Nobody had ever been sorry before.
Nobody ever was for the villain.
“Okay, my turn.” I rubbed my hands together, determined to make this at least somewhat interesting. “Um … so, why did you move to River Canyon?”