Not So Lonely

Jesse

I cut into the meat that was simmering on the stove and nodded approvingly. It was just the perfect amount of pink. I turned the stove off and transferred a portion to a plate, scooping out some rosemary-roasted potatoes and steamed vegetables onto the side. Then, I headed into the living room and watched the news as I savored the delicious meal.

Afterward, comfortably full, I headed back into the kitchen to put away the leftovers and clean the dishes, still listening with half an ear to the news in the other room. It was my nightly ritual, polished down to an art. There was no better way to relax at the end of a long day of work than to come home and cook a good, satisfying meal and get caught up on what was going on with the world beyond this small town in North Carolina.

Like most of the other people my age around here, I had once thought only about how I was going to get the hell out of here. But shit changes. I had responsibilities here, and even though I liked to keep up with what was going on around the world, I’d probably live here for the rest of my life.

Someone knocked on the front door, and I glanced at the clock as I wiped my hands off on my apron. I rolled my eyes and went to answer it. “How many times do I have to tell you to quit knocking and just walk in?” I asked Joe with a grin. He was my best friend, after all; no reason for him to stand on propriety.

Joe smiled as usual and shrugged. “Sorry, you know I’m still scarred by that time I walked in and your mom was in here with curlers in her hair, singing opera while she cleaned. That lady sure was a character.”

I snorted as I led him out to the back porch, detouring to shut off the TV as I went. Joe made a face when he saw that I was watching the news, but he didn’t say anything. I knew he thought I was a nerd. I didn’t give a shit.

Truth was, Joe was pretty damn smart himself. It was why I liked having him as a friend and as the assistant manager of my shop. He was one of the only kids from our class who was still hanging around town without starting all the bullshit of a family and whatever. He still came over every Friday night to knock back a few drinks with me. We were well past the stage of playing beer pong and passing out on kitchen floors, but some things would never change.

Whenever I got into a funk about the fact that I was still here in Aberdeen, I thought about that. Hanging out with Joe and my other friends around town was right up there on the list of things that I would miss if I left. We had grown up together, and those guys knew me better than anyone else ever could. I would have been far lonelier if I had moved off to some big and heartless city, I was sure.

It was a warm evening, and I gladly accepted the beer that Joe handed me. He set the cooler down between the two Adirondacks and grabbed a beer for himself as well. “Shop’s been doing good, eh?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Same as usual,” I said, taking a sip of my beer. “Gearing up for a busy summer. Memorial Day weekend’s coming right up, and you know that means people are thinking about decks and picnic tables and whatever else.”

“How’s the new kid doing?” Joe asked, squinting over at me. “Is he actually going to be any help to us?”

“Yep,” I said, nodding. “Chance has got his third shift tomorrow morning.” I grinned. “It’s been pretty amusing training him. He’s a bit of a lost cause.”

Joe chuckled. “Somebody in this town had to take pity on his ass and hire him,” he joked.

“Misfits got to stick together,” I retorted, shrugging, and Joe laughed.

“Yeah, but we all knew you were a hard worker,” he reminded me. “A weirdo but a hard worker. There’s a difference. It’s a wonder he hasn’t managed to hammer his head to the table yet.”

“Guess so,” I said. “But either way, everyone’s got to have a job.”

We chatted for a little while until Joe caught me yawning for the third time. He laughed and glanced at his watch. “Guess I should let you get to sleep, huh?” he asked. “Old man.”

I snorted. “You’re not the one who needs to get up at five every morning to get the shop open.”

“You wouldn’t have to get up so early if you’d sell off this place and move closer to town,” Joe reminded me.

I shrugged. We’d talked about it again and again over the years. There was a certain amount of inconvenience with living way the hell out here, but at the same time, I liked the quiet. Besides, there were memories here. My parents had been the ones whose neighbors lived farthest away, so half the parties that we’d had when we were younger, and all the ones that we’d had since my parents had passed, had been held here.

My old comfortable couch was where Jessica had first kissed Bobby. The end table beside it was permanently stained from the time someone gave Mike a handful of permanent markers mid-party while he was stoned out of his mind. The stain on the floor over there was from when Greg decked Joe because he thought Joe was trying to sleep with his kid sister.

There were memories here that I never wanted to leave behind.

“I’m here for good, and you know that,” I told Joe. “Now get out of here so I can go to bed.”

“What, not going to offer me the couch tonight?” Joe asked, mock-offended. “Where’s that southern hospitality when you need it?”

I laughed. “Trust me, as soon as I trust the kid to open up on his own, we can have a rollicking blowout of a night and pass out wherever the fuck you’d like. But he’s not trained to that point just yet, and I don’t want to scare the poor guy.”

Joe shook his head. “If we’ve got to wait until you trust him to open up shop on his own, we’re going to be waiting until hell freezes over,” he lamented.

“Hey, it snowed here in Aberdeen last winter,” I reminded him. “That’s pretty damned close to hell freezing over. Could happen again.”

Joe grinned and pointed a finger at me. “I’m not waiting until next winter for that blowout,” he warned me.

I rolled my eyes. “All right. But it’s not happening tonight.”

The truth was, though, that when the door closed behind him, before I started a podcast on my phone, it was so damned quiet living out here in the middle of nowhere. Once, that had comforted me, but now, the silence just seemed to ring in my ears.

“Maybe I’ll get a dog,” I said, heading upstairs to bed and setting my phone down on the nightstand.

Yeah, getting a dog might be nice, but at least living here in Aberdeen wasn’t half as lonely as living anywhere else would have been.