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He showered quickly, decided he might go by The Bullpen and grab that burger and a beer. He could eat at home. Wouldn’t take much to thaw some burger out and put a couple on the grill. He’d just restocked the fridge with a twelve-pack. But he wasn’t in the mood to sit at home by himself.
4
Tatum had lived in the Sage building nearly a month now, but she was still pulling her clothes out of her old soft-sided luggage and her kitchen tools and pans from boxes as needed. Being so unsettled was unlike her, but she was so exhausted—just too damned tired, too worn down to give a damn right now.
Well, she had been when she left her apartment this morning. But Charlie Murphy’s comment had stirred something inside her. Not lust. She wasn’t sure she’d ever recover the energy or the give-a-damn to find that inside her again. Nope, Charlie’s observation about how she never smiled was a slap in the face.
She didn’t feel like smiling about a damned thing and hadn’t in so long she didn’t remember when she did. But she was an actress. A damned good one. Not classically trained. Not aspiring to be on Broadway or in top movies or TV shows. Nope. Just her life. She’d learned how to act like everything was okay when she was eleven or twelve. Apparently, she was more drained than she realized.
Time to pull it together. Get her stuff out of the moving boxes and put it all away. Wasn’t like it would make her feel any different inside, but maybe she could find her plastic smile somewhere and stick it on. Besides, Long Grove, Illinois seemed like as good a place as any to land for a while. She’d been chasing Sutton around the tri-state area for the last year, again, and as usual, it was obvious Sutton didn’t want her around. Apparently, things weren’t dire yet. She only came running to Tatum when all was lost.
Tatum rummaged through the refrigerator for something to eat. She had leftover Chinese food from a few nights ago. Or was that from two weeks ago? She took the container out and opened it. There was no fuzz growing on it, but the steak looked a little gray. Probably best to toss it and find something else. The trouble with that was she didn’t have anything else for a meal. Lots of snacks—crackers, chips, even some fruit. But she was hungry for something substantial.
With a sigh, she threw the takeout container away and decided to head out to grab a new bookcase. She had three boxes of books to unpack, and she’d left her bookcases—plywood and milk crates—at her last place. Tatum didn’t splurge often, but maybe it was time. She liked Long Grove, and even more than that, she liked Everleigh and Adele. Maybe, if Sutton was going to keep running, it was time for Tatum to put down roots.
She would get a new bookcase and grab something to eat on the way back to her apartment. And, she promised herself as she grabbed her purse and keys and headed out the door, she would get to the grocery store tomorrow so she could start cooking. Healthier and cheaper, even though eating alone in her little kitchen would get depressing after a while.
When that happened, and it would, she would give Everleigh a call and see if her new friend wanted to go out for chips and salsa. With that thought in mind, she stepped out into the hallway, pulled her door closed and locked it, and then hurried to the elevator.
She found a reasonably priced bookcase at a locally owned home décor store. Rather than hurry out with it, she browsed for a while, happy to push her shopping cart through the aisles and listen to the canned music coming from the speakers. Who knew Boz Skaggs could be so relaxing?
By the time she left the store, she had added two prints to her cart, a picture frame for her only picture of Sutton and Bryony, and a small lamp for her nightstand. Perfect for all the nights she would spend curled up in bed alone with a book. She swallowed down the guilt over spending money, reminded herself she didn’t do it often, and put her purchases in the backseat of her old white Civic.
Really hungry by now, she settled into the driver’s seat and tapped the maps app on her phone screen. She typed in restaurants near me and scanned the list that popped up. Tacos did sound good, but she wasn’t in the mood to sit by herself somewhere and eat Mexican food. Something better saved to share with Everleigh. Maybe just a burger and fries. Even better—a bacon cheeseburger and fries. The supposedly top-rated burger in Long Grove was served at The Bullpen.
Tatum wasn’t thrilled about going to a bar, but she could always grab a burger and fries to go. She’d already had Chinese takeout, and she’d done a sub sandwich earlier in the week. As she drove to The Bullpen, following directions on her GPS, her stomach started growling.
The bar—obviously a sports bar with a name like The Bullpen—was about halfway between the home décor store and her apartment. Windows down, she turned the radio up and sang along with Yola as she drove. There was a time when summer nights like this were her favorite. Popsicles. Long walks or bike rides with her parents and her little sister. Catching lightning bugs with Sutton. Softball games. Her whole family had taken a couple of vacations when she was younger, too, though not like the vacations families took these days. She’d heard people talk about flying overseas to visit Europe. Her family had packed a rented fold-down camper and gone to the state park a few times. From there, they’d rented a johnboat and gone out on the lake.
Things had changed, though. In fact, things had started to change by the last time they’d gone camping. The fighting started. Escalated. The family trips, family togetherness, stopped. Tatum had grown so used to the tension, the negative vibes, that she’d focused simply on getting through another day. She’d been doing that for years.
She pulled into the parking lot at the bar wondering when she’d last given a thought to the season. When had she last noticed it was summer? Put her window down and drove like she didn’t have a care in the world? Likewise, she rarely paid attention to the trees in the fall, and fall was her favorite time of year.
Grabbing her billfold from her purse, she jumped out of the driver’s seat, swung the door closed, and hurried inside. The interior of the place was old, simple. Not a bar masquerading as a trendy, cool place to hang out. Just a bar. Serving all the adult beverages and bar food.
Tatum met the bartender’s eyes as she approached the battered-looking wood conglomerate. The woman who was probably old enough to be her mother offered her a friendly smile. Would her mother even know her if she came face to face with her now? Would Tatum know her mother?
That was a sobering thought.
The woman had been gone so long.
Tatum would know her. Sadly, she’d never been successful at shoving the image of her mother’s face from her mind. Or the memory of her mom telling her to watch Sutton for a little bit, she would be right back. Tatum had sat at the kitchen table working on math homework and watched her mom walk out on them to never return. Tatum had tossed off a little wave, muttered something—probably mean—to Sutton, and turned back to her book.
“What can I getcha?”
Tatum shook the memory off—nothing good ever came from traipsing down memory lane—and returned the woman’s smile. Take that, Charlie Murphy. She could smile all damned day long. Just because she didn’t send any his way didn’t mean she never smiled.
“Can I get a bacon cheeseburger and an order of fries to go?”
“Of course.”
Tatum slid onto a barstool, marveling at the fact that she’d sworn never to do such a thing, and here she was doing it, as she watched the woman walk away to get her order to the kitchen. When the swinging doors closed behind the bartender, Tatum looked around. TVs hung in a couple corners of the bar. Red vinyl chairs and booths that had seen their better day crowded the smallish room. The tables weren’t much better.
The place was busy, though. The stool she’d sat on was the only one empty. Most of the tables were filled—some groups looked like families and some maybe like work friends. Tatum sighed softly. She should find another job. Not just because she needed money, but because working in graphic design enabled her introverted self to hide away from the world. If she had an office-based job somewhere, she could come out with friends after work and catch a ball game while she had a burger.
She wouldn’t, though.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
