Megan Hart - The Favour

Janelle peers over the edge. “No? Really?”

“Really.”

She dangles her feet. He could grab her ankle if he wanted, she’s that close, but Gabe only climbs the ladder halfway.

“How come?” Janelle sounds serious, not smug.

He wonders if she’d have been jealous if he’d said yes. Sometimes a few buddies, sometimes his brothers. But no other girls. “There isn’t any girl I’d want to bring out here.”

“Seems like a great place for a party,” she says. “I can think of loads of girls who’d like to come out here with you.”

“I don’t have parties.”

“I know you don’t, Gabe.” Janelle rolls her eyes. “But if you did, you could have them here. Who owns the land?”

It’s a practical question, and he shouldn’t be surprised she asked it. She’s a practical kind of girl. “My dad. He started this place. It was really just a storage shed where he kept some hunting supplies. He always said he was going to turn it into a real camp, but he didn’t. So I did.”

“What does he think?”

Gabe climbs the rest of the ladder to sit next to her with his feet hanging over the edge. Below them is the square room without dividers, a space blocked out for a kitchen. He’s planned on a small camp stove, a propane-powered fridge. There may never be indoor plumbing—that’s beyond what he thinks he can do—but there is an outhouse in the back and he’s done some research into composting toilets. The work’s been haphazard, piecemeal, and cobbled together from scrap lumber and scrounged materials. It’s garbage, most of it, but he’s done his best and it’s not too shabby a job.

“He doesn’t know.”

She twists toward him. “What do you mean, he doesn’t know?”

Gabe shrugs. “There’s a lot the old man doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t come out here anymore?”

“Not really. If he does, he’s never said anything. And he would, if he knew about it.” Gabe’s sure about that.

Janelle pulls up her feet and scoots backward. She stands, her hands on the railing, to look over it. From this angle, she looks so tall, but he knows she’s not. She’d fit just under his chin, if he ever hugged her.

She takes a few steps back to the mattress and sits. She flicks through one of the ancient magazines and pushes it aside. “I’m cold. You’re always so warm. Hot-blooded, Gabe. That’s you. Come here.”

The sleeping bag’s not really big enough for two, but they manage to squeeze into it, anyway. Janelle pulls the flap up over their faces like a tent. Other girls smell like perfume. Janelle smells of cigarette smoke and hair spray and fresh air.

“Why’d you bring me here?” She turns on her side, her butt against his groin, and takes his arm to put around her.

It’s easy to answer her when he doesn’t have to see her face. “Because...I thought you’d get it. You’d understand.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long time, so long Gabe starts to doze. If this was another girl, she’d expect him to kiss her now. With another girl he wouldn’t be able to sleep like this. His heat has warmed the air inside the sleeping bag, enough that a trickle of sweat tickles down his spine. She’s linked their fingers and put his hand flat against her belly, inside her coat, under her shirt.

“Understand what?” She sounds as sleepy as he is, and somehow this also makes it easy to answer.

“How it feels to need a place that’s only yours, so you never have to...”

Janelle takes a snuffling breath. “Never have to what?”

“Rely on anyone for anything. You know what it’s like to want a place of your own so that when everyone else leaves, you still have a place to go.”

She’s quiet for another long few minutes, so long he starts dreaming. When she shifts and rolls toward him, her head does fit right under his chin. His arms go around her. Her knee nudges between his. They fit together like puzzle pieces.

He’s wide-awake now, embarrassed to be wrong. His heart pounds. He tries to push away from her, but the sleeping bag’s too small, and Janelle’s got her arms around him, too tight.

He’s said too much.

Janelle doesn’t tell him he’s right.

But she doesn’t tell him he’s wrong.

TEN

AT THE KNOCK on the door, the old man shouted, “Tell them we don’t want any!”

Gabe, who’d been reading on the couch, ignored him. At this time of evening it wouldn’t be a salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness, but that didn’t mean whoever was on the other side would be any more welcome. He answered it, anyway, surprised to find Janelle.

She wore a heavy coat, a knit cap squashed down over her hair, a long striped scarf wound around her throat. She smiled brightly. “Hey.”

Gabe didn’t open the door wide enough to let her in, and he didn’t glance over his shoulder to look at the old man, who shouted out, “Who’s there? Who is it?”

“Hey, Mr. Tierney,” Janelle called, peeking around Gabe. “It’s Janelle Decker from next door.”

“Jesus, don’t keep her standing in the cold. Let her in.”

Gabe didn’t move to do that. He stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him. “What’s up? Andy’s not here.”

“What makes you think I’m here for him?”

“Because he’s been over there a lot since you moved in.” Gabe’s breath became smoke, and he wished it was from a cigarette. “Just figured you’d want to talk to him. But he’s at work until ten.”

“I know. I came to talk to you.” She bounced on the soles of her feet, still grinning. “You’re not going to let me come in?”

She’d never, in all the times he could remember, ever come in the front door. Always through the bedroom window. Once or twice through the back. Never through the front, and tonight wasn’t going to be the first time.

He hadn’t said a word, but her smile faded. “Umm...okay, well...I just came over because Andy said you could fix our dishwasher.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t wash the dishes. I guess if I knew more than that, I could fix it myself, huh?” She eyed him. “I could call a service center. I just thought I’d ask you instead.”

“Save yourself some money.”

Janelle’s smile tipped a little wider. “No. I’ll pay you. It’s not that, Gabe.”

He didn’t ask her what else it was, but she told him, anyway.

“It’s good to see you again. I thought maybe...” She trailed off, sounding uncertain in a way he could never remember her being.

He didn’t want to hear any more. “Yeah. I’ll come. Let me grab my tools. Now?”

“Sure. Or another time, if you want, that’s fine. I mean, sooner rather than later, obviously.” She bounced again, rubbing her mittened hands together and blowing out a steamy breath. “God. So cold.”

“I guess it would be, when you’re used to California.”

Janelle paused, tilting her head just a little. “You know about that?”

He’d said too much. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

He shut the door in her face. The old man looked at him expectantly. “Was that the Decker girl? What did she want? Why’d you make her stay outside? Ashamed of your old man, that’s what you are.”

Ashamed wasn’t the right word. Gabe ignored him and got his tools from their place in the kitchen closet. He thought about going out the back door without a word, but the old man would wonder, and it would be worse when he came back.

“I’m going next door to the Deckers’ to see if I can fix the dishwasher.”

“Oh, she crooks her finger and you go running?”

“Dad, please. Shut up,” Gabe said. “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, okay?”

The old man laughed heartily and pointed. “Maybe if I had a set of titties you’d be more interested in fixing things around this shit hole.”