"What about Hoyt?"
"He hasn't been around," Jason said, sounding puzzled and hurt.
Holly, his fiancée, wouldn't want him hanging around with Jason. I could understand that.
"Mel?" I asked.
"Yeah," Jason said, brightening. "Mel comes by. We worked on his truck yesterday, and this weekend we're going to paint my kitchen." Jason smiled at me, but it faded fast. "I like Mel," he said, "but I miss Hoyt."
That was one of the most honest things I'd ever heard Jason say.
"Haven't you heard anything about this, Sookie?" Jason asked me. "You know - the way you hear things? If you could steer the police in the right direction, they could find out who killed my wife and my baby, and I could get my life back."
I didn't think Jason was ever going to get his old life back. I was sure he wouldn't understand, even if I spelled it out. But then I saw what was in his head in a moment of true clarity. Though Jason couldn't verbalize these ideas, he did understand, and he was pretending, pretending hard, that everything would be the same ... if only he could get out from under the weight of Crystal's death.
"Or if you tell us," he said, "we'll take care of it, Calvin and me."
"I'll do my best," I said. What else could I say? I climbed out of Jason's head and swore to myself I wouldn't get inside again.
After a long silence, he got up. Maybe he'd been waiting to see if I'd offer to make lunch for him. "I guess I'll go back home, then," he said.
"Good-bye."
I heard his truck start up a moment later. I went back in, hanging the jacket back where I'd gotten it.
Amelia had left me a note stuck to the milk carton in the refrigerator. "Hey, roomie!" it said by way of opening. "Sounded like you had company last night. Did I smell a vampire? Heard someone shut the back door about three thirty. Listen, be sure and check the answering machine. You got messages."
Which Amelia had already listened to, because the light wasn't blinking anymore. I pressed the Play button.
"Sookie, this is Arlene. I'm sorry about everything. I wish you'd come by to talk. Give me a call."
I stared at the machine, not sure how I felt about this message. It had been a few days, and Arlene had had time to reconsider stomping out of the bar. Could she possibly mean she wanted to recant her Fellowship beliefs?
There was another message, this one from Sam. "Sookie, can you come in to work a little early today or give me a call? I need to talk to you."
I glanced at the clock. It was just one p.m., and I wasn't due at work until five. I called the bar. Sam picked up.
"Hey, it's Sookie," I said. "What's up? I just got your message."
"Arlene wants to come back to work," he said. "I don't know what to tell her. You got an opinion?"
"She left a message on my answering machine. She wants to talk to me," I said. "I don't know what to think. She's always on some new thing, isn't she? Do you think she could have dropped the Fellowship?"
"If Whit dropped her," he said, and I laughed.
I wasn't so sure I wanted to rebuild our friendship, and the longer I thought about it, the more doubtful I became. Arlene had said some hurtful and awful things to me. If she'd meant them, why would she want to mend fences with a terrible person like me? And if she hadn't meant them, why on earth had they passed her lips? But I felt a twinge when I thought of her children, Coby and Lisa. I'd kept them so many evenings, and I'd been so fond of them. I hadn't seen them in weeks. I found I wasn't too upset about the passing of my relationship with their mother - Arlene had been killing that friendship for some time now. But the kids, I did miss them. I said as much to Sam.
"You're too good,cher ," he said. "I don't think I want her back here." He'd made up his mind. "I hope she can find another job, and I'll give her a reference for the sake of those kids. But she was causing trouble before this last blowup, and there's no point putting all of us through the wringer."
After I'd hung up, I realized that Sam's decision had influenced me in favor of seeing my ex-friend. Since Arlene and I weren't going to get the opportunity to gradually make peace at the bar, I'd try to at least fix things so we could nod at each other if we passed in Wal-Mart.
She picked up on the first ring. "Arlene, it's Sookie," I said.
"Hey, hon, I'm glad you called back," she said. There was a moment of silence.
"I thought I'd come over to see you, just for a minute," I said awkwardly. "I'd like to see the kids and talk to you. If that's okay."
"Sure, come over. Give me a few minutes, so I can pick up the mess."
"You don't need to do that for me." I'd cleaned Arlene's trailer many a time in return for some favor she'd done me or because I didn't have anything else to do while she was out and I was there to babysit.
"I don't want to slide back into my old ways," she said cheerfully, sounding so affectionate that my heart lifted ... for just a second.
But I didn't wait a few minutes.
I left immediately.
I couldn't explain to myself why I wasn't doing what she'd asked me to do. Maybe I'd caught something in Arlene's voice, even over the phone. Maybe I was recalling all the times Arlene had let me down, all the occasions she'd made me feel bad.
I don't think I'd let myself dwell on these incidents before, because they revealed such a colossal pitifulness on my part. I'd needed a friend so badly I'd clung to the meager scraps from Arlene's table, though she'd taken advantage of me time after time. When her dating wind had blown the other way, she hadn't thought twice about discarding me to win favor with her current flame.
In fact, the more I thought, the more I was inclined to turn around and head back to my house. But didn't I owe Coby and Lisa one more try to mend my relationship with their mom? I remembered all the board games we'd played, all the times I'd put them to bed and spent the night in the trailer because Arlene had called to ask if she could spend the night away.
What the hell was I doing? Why was I trusting Arlene now ?
I wasn't, not completely. That's why I was going to scope out the situation.
Arlene didn't live in a trailer park but on an acre of land a little west of town that her dad had given her before he passed away. Only a quarter acre had been cleared, just enough for the trailer and a small yard. There was an old swing set in the back that one of Arlene's former admirers had assembled for the kids, and there were two bikes pushed up against the back of the trailer.