Confrontation Brewing Part 4
1148 Words
She surveys the Lancaster estate, massive and looming and built of unimaginable money. Gates surround the property like ambition in iron and wire, making her wonder if anyone is welcome. Like everything else, they tell her she's not. Her Harley and her resolve take up the whole of the wide street, leaving little room for even the expectations of others. They are the loudest things this close to the mansion. Everything else is as quiet and neat as the trimmed hedges and muted luxury vehicles. They form a perfect and silent alliance with the world Vondrel won't let his brother leave.
It occurs to her, as she rolls to a stop, that she's left the fast world of motors and recklessness. She's in another now, one that's empty as the yawning windows of her shop. Empty and pristine, just like the message Alicia left.
She ignores the doubt in her mind, but it can't be avoided any easier than the fountain she parks beside. In the driveway of this private and moneyed universe, it splashes with an artless gurgle. Even its spray forms obedient droplets, arcs of gravity and propriety, Rhonda's enemies from the very start.
She sits and breathes. She shakes her head.
Even with a thousand bricks to her name, nothing she has is as heavy as this.
It's a dare.
The walls of the estate won't say it aloud, but she hears them all the same.
"Show me."
She sets the kickstand, then swings a weary leg to the pavement.
Her feet land with a soldier's gravity, but her heart doesn't follow. It's too high, too fast, out of sight.
Rhonda grabs the helmet and stares at it. The shine's gone, like everything else.
It wobbles in her hands, but her determination steadies.
They take a good long look at each other, her determination and this world. They don't see the same things.
The Taylor and the luxury, and it's uncertain which one looks the most out of place.
Rhonda is deliberate. Rhonda is absolute. She's here, and the rest of the world? The rest of the world is not. It's quiet, and it's not.
She ties the hair back and her loose thoughts with it. She does both with the harsh grace of a girl who should be working and the deft touch of a woman who should not be working so hard.
She stays soft on the outside, hard on the inside. A fine balance that doesn't last long.
Rhonda sees every small detail. She keeps them in her mind as long as they are useful. She's a keen observer and a blunt instrument, two sides of the same furious coin.
She notices them, the signs of privilege and power. The deep-green hedges are cut to a uniform height, a leafy army in perfect formation. Her gaze lands on the three luxury cars in the driveway, not one of them any color but grey or navy. The curves are expensive and safe, the bodies sleeker than hers will ever be.
She sees every small detail.
A guard who doesn't seem to understand what his eyes are telling him.
A young man approaches. He's sharp in the pressed uniform, but not in the rest of him.
He glances at her bike and its wild, uncertain rider. Its untamed challenge to what they are both seeing.
It's a short distance from his station. It's a long distance from his understanding. He repeats the trip several times.
It seems to take him hours to reach her. It seems like Rhonda could undo him with the same grace that ties her ponytail.
He loses nerve before he gains voice. "Excuse me, miss."
Rhonda catches the doubt in his voice. She catches it as easily as she would if it belonged to Jimmy.
Her thoughts are as bright as the paint on her bike. Her doubts are as muted as everything else.
They tangle again, wind-tossed things and easy to lose sight of. They blow away and return, familiar and hard to see all at once.
"You don't seem to understand," they tell her. It's the same wordless voice as the brick and metal. This time, it echoes.
It returns again and again, but every time it's softer.
She'll ignore them, she decides. She will.
Rhonda takes one step, then another, both soft as a promise. Both harder than expectation.
The sun is already high and her memory is higher. It's only come as far as she lets it.
Her ride may be short, but it's a long way to fall.
She sways like the bike, an unsteady thing when left on its own.
But not when she's left on it.
A tighter rein, a tighter knot, and it all comes into focus. Just like a little sister. Just like the little piece of life the rich bastards won't let her hold onto.
Rhonda catches the guard in the middle of both their plans. He's between her and what she needs, and that's exactly where she needs him. He says some more things, a voice on the wrong end of his own muffled, orderly world. He may not know it yet, but he's out of sight and already out of mind.
She grabs it and holds on like an engine going full speed. Like the other words Alicia sent, knowing that she didn't mean them and ignoring them just as hard.
She breathes deep.
Hangs tight.
He really did it this time.
The guard stands in her way, her long road to a closed gate. His presence tells her nothing she doesn't already know, nothing she hasn't thought or isn't ready for.
Nothing but this:
She's going to show him.
It's the most certain thing she's ever done. The softest and the hardest.
Rhonda lets him find his own way, back to his station or his life. It's the least and most she can do.
She ignores the world, and the world does what it's supposed to.
It's as soft and perfect as Alicia's hair. It's a precise line in the silence, an untangled and unexpected sound.
"Uncle."
She sees them too, every detail of her own plans.
Rhonda stands outside her thoughts, a stranger and a genius to them all.
And when she touches the intercom, when it makes its own soft gasp of surprise, she knows.
She's sure of herself again. More than a thousand bricks and more than a dozen hopes.
She knows.
They care about each other.
She makes Mark happy.
This time, it will.
And when she turns around, when she doesn't look back at the guard, it seems like the longest thing ever built.
She's softer than it is, than ambition or the quiet way things are. She's too hard for them, for all of them.
Rhonda makes one last vow.
She fires herself up and runs on it.
All the way.
- Writer
