Page 51 of Trailer Trash

“Talk about what?” he asked as he continued his search.

“Skeeter.”

His fingers stopped typing and he glanced up at me. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“That’s not true. He hurt you.”

His gaze returned to the screen. “He didn’t hurt me.”

“But he did. He’s like a brother to you, and you thought you shared almost everything. When you found out he’d spent all those years working for J.R. without ever telling you . . . that had to sting.”

“I trusted him, Neely Kate.” He didn’t look at me.

I covered his forearm with my hand. “I know.”’

“I knew his story about running off to Memphis to make seed money for the pool hall was a lie, but I didn’t press him. I figured he’d done something he was ashamed of.” He shook his head. “He wasn’t ashamed of it. He came back and worked for the man. He cleaned up your brother’s messes.”

“Joe’s?”

He glanced up at me. “Joe kept him pretty busy at times.”

Joe had rebelled against our father’s expectations, enough so that he’d gotten himself into trouble with the law in his earlier days, despite the fact that he worked for the Arkansas State Police. I’d heard that J.R. had always sent in a cleanup crew to smooth things over. I had no idea that Skeeter was the one who’d pushed the broom.

“Skeeter was always running off to do some secret task. I started to get more and more suspicious about what he was doing, but he’d shut me down straightaway whenever I asked. Then the secretive trips stopped one day five years ago. No explanation. I guess that was when he quit doin’ J.R.’s grunt work, but I never heard a word of any of it until last winter . . . when he was working with Rose.” He shook his head. “Even when shit was goin’ down last fall, he never breathed a word.”

“Maybe he was ashamed after all,” I suggested. “Skeeter’s a powerful man in his own right. Being on J.R.’s leash had to chafe. Even years later. I would guess that could wound a man’s pride.”

Jed seemed to consider my words. “Maybe. But it doesn’t fully explain why he’d keep something so important from me.”

I glanced out the window. “Rose doesn’t know about this part of my life, and I don’t want her toeverknow.”

“But you’re telling me.”

I turned back to him. “And I’m dolin’ it out piece by piece. Maybe that’s how Skeeter did it . . . with Rose.”

Jed didn’t look any happier.

“Maybe we need different friends for different things,” I said. “I don’t know why I feel more comfortable sharing this part of my life with you . . . Maybe it’s because you’re more worldly when it comes to seedy doin’s. Or maybe it’s because Rose has always believed in the sugar-spun version of me, and I can’t stand smashin’ that image to bits. But I do know that I always feel like I’m pretending, like someone’s gonna point at me and shout, ‘She’s not wearin’ any clothes.’”

He frowned. “Because you were a dancer?”

I laughed. “No.Because of the story of the emperor’s new clothes.”

He gave me a blank look.

“You know . . . the story about the emperor who gets bamboozled by some tailors who claim they can make a suit only smart people can see. Only, there is no suit and they charge him a lot of money, and the king won’t call ’em on it because he doesn’t want to look stupid.”

“Anyone who would fall for such bullshit is stupid.”

I laughed. “It’s no different than a princess sleepin’ on a stack of mattresses on top of a pea to prove she’s royalty. They’re fairy tales.”

His frown deepened. “There’s no room for fairy tales in my life.”

I held his gaze. “Maybe it’s time you started makin’ room for them.”

His expression softened and the hint of a smile appeared just as the waitress showed up to take our order. When she left, Jed turned back to his computer.

I let the subject of Skeeter drop. Jed Carlisle didn’t strike me as a man who went around talking about his feelings. I was lucky to get what I had out of him.

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