RE: Trailer Trash 44 pt 3

/// Another 'before the actual birthday get together' section finished, I think I have the fluffy comfy bits of 44 done, so time to start structuring in the layers of hurt.

   “I could just be overreacting,” Elena frowned, looking down at her crossed arms. “I don’t know anything for sure.”

   “Better safe than sorry,” Mrs. Seelbaugh said, keeping her eyes on the road.

   Elena’s mother was tense; she was sitting stiff in the driver’s seat and both hands were rigid on the wheel rather than her more typical relaxed posture Elena was familiar with. The short stretch of state road between Springton and Fairfield offered little in the way of distraction—the sights to take in were bare pavement, an ugly median of dead grass and then wire fence and the passing stands of trees in the distance, the nearest trunks occasionally adorned with POSTED signs to indicate private property.

   “I just,” Elena bit out.

   “I know, hon,” Mrs. Seelbaugh said.

   “I just—it makes me feel dirty, like I’m,” Elena scowled, turning her gaze back out the window again. “I don’t know for sure, and it’s from stuff she kinda told me in confidence, so—so, it feels shitty going around behind her back like this.”

   “I know, hon,” Mrs. Seelbaugh repeated. “Still the right thing to do, and I’m proud of you. Better safe than sorry.”

   “Yeah,” Elena agreed, but that didn’t change the bitter taste this had in her mouth.

   The production plant was situated outside Fairfield proper, and after making a turnoff at a desolate intersection sporting a single seedy gas station and then traveling down a long stretch of semi-rural back road, the Seelbaugh’s silvery minivan arrived. The sign in front spelled out LINE SAFETY and featured a silhouette of a lineworker working on a utility pole. The parking lot was mostly filled with employee vehicles, and though each of the actual buildings were large, they were simple boxy cinderblock affairs with aluminum roofs.

   I pictured something more IMPRESSIVE when mom said it was a ‘production plant.’ Lots of pipes and silos and electrical transformers and stuff, like you see in movies and on TV. I guess what they do here is some other, more boring kind of production?

   Mrs. Seelbaugh pulled into an empty space, turned off the ignition, and then the mother and daughter pair unbuckled their seatbelts and popped open their doors in strained silence. The entire situation had Elena feeling more and more uncomfortable, and she lagged somewhat behind her mother as they made their way towards the doors of the nearest building.

   “Hey,” Mrs. Seelbaugh put on a weak smile. “It’s gonna be okay, alright? Just tell her what you told me, and we’ll get everything figured out, alright?”

   “Yeah,” Elena frowned again.

   “If you’re wrong, then that would be for the best, but if you’re right—if you’re right, it’s better that we find out about it and do what we can. Better safe than sorry.”

   “Okay.”

   The glass double doors opened into what looked to be an employee break area, featuring a pair of long couches facing a television, a spread of a dozen round tables with simple chairs, and a large kitchen that took up the far wall. Two sinks, four microwaves, a refrigerator with a few photos and at least six printed out sheets of what might have been rules, warnings, or notices tacked to its door with magnets. A small office with a pair of computer desks and an enormous photocopier and printer took up the corner opposite the kitchen area, and a man with graying hair rose to greet them.

   “Hey there, how can I help you?”

   “Michelle and Elena Seelbaugh, we’re here to see Sandra Macintire?” Mrs. Seelbaugh explained. “I was told I could find her here at plant two.”

   “Sandy? Right, she’s out on the production floor—feel free to take a seat anywhere, she should be out in just a minute.”

   “Thank you,” Mrs. Seelbaugh glanced around and finally chose one of the tables. “Elena honey, here.”

   When the man ducked out through the door that led into the production floor, Elena could only say that their soundproofing was damned impressive, because the moment that door opened, a cacophony of hammering, heavy machine thumping, mechanical clacks sounding off in staccato, the hiss of hydraulics, and the ominous steady roar of industrial fans the Seelbaughs could hear was overwhelming.

   “Jesus,” Elena remarked.

   “I know!” Her mother looked just as surprised. “That man—was he wearing earplugs? They must have to wear earplugs to work back there, it can’t be safe otherwise.”

   “Probably?” Elena shrugged, having not paid the man much attention.

   They settled in at a table to wait, the seats the same stiff metal-and-cushion stackable kind of chair their church used for their big community room. When the back door was closed, the unearthly din from the production floor couldn’t be heard at all, but whatever the mechanical thumping had been, they could still feel its vibrations through the tile floor of the break area. Elena tried to stop hunching her shoulders and forced herself to stop crossing her arms—she needed to compose herself and make sure she was able to properly explain what was going on.

   Both Seelbaughs looked up as the door opened again and the noise engulfed them again for a moment, Sandra Macintire quickly turning to close the plant door behind her.

   “Sorry about that. It’s so loud!” Mrs. Macintire gave them an apologetic smile as she strode towards them that didn’t quite mask her look of concern. “It’s nice to see you, Miss Elena—is everything okay? You must be Mrs. Seelbaugh.”

   “Just Michelle’s fine,” Mrs. Seelbaugh rose from the chair to shake the woman’s hand. “We just wanted to talk to you about something potentially concerning we heard from Tabitha.”

   “From Tabitha?” Mrs. Macintire’s eyebrows rose. “What’s happened?”

   “Is it okay if we take some of your time?” Mrs. Seelbaugh asked. “This could take a bit, we don’t want you to get in trouble with your bosses here, or anything. We could wait for your lunch break, or something?”

   “Oh no, I’m the biggest boss here today, just about,” Mrs. Macintire waved off her concerns. “I work over in the office, I’m just helping out here at production today. Not doin’ anything in there that can’t wait.”

   “Do you use earplugs in there? It’s so noisy!”

   “No, but I probably should,” Mrs. Macintire rolled her eyes. “They say it’s perfectly fine so long as you’re not right next to the punch press, but I’ve been standing at one of the rivet machines all day and they’re loud as all heck, too! You hear that big heavy thump? That’s their big machine punching our die cuts into the big leather sheets. You can feel it all the way out in the parking lot, sometimes.”

   “Yeah, we can feel it from here.”

   “I’d give you guys a big tour, but honestly we’re only partway-staffed back there, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you what half of the stations are actually for,” Mrs. Macintire winced. “So—what’s going on? Something about Tabitha?”

   “Elena, go ahead,” Mrs. Seelbaugh prompted.

   “Um,” Elena swallowed, cleared her throat, and then took a deep breath. “Last weekend, when we were all at the mall, something Tabitha said jumped out to me as, uh, as potentially concerning.”

   Mrs. Macintire visibly tensed.

   “She was… well, it was a random part of a longer conversation about a bunch of other things, but she happened to mention a friend of hers she named ‘Julie.’ Part of the way she described things led me to think that Julie may or may not be real, like, Tabitha might have been trying to tell me… that whether or not ‘Julie’ really exists is up to my interpretation. And. She said that this ‘Julie’ girl, at thirteen years old, was being molested by her father.”

   The Macintire woman’s eyes narrowed and she stared down at the table for a long moment. The set of her jaw suggested she was gritting her teeth, and eventually she looked back up at Elena with wet eyes.

   “I um, I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, because it was something that Tabitha sort of was telling Alicia and I in confidence, and I hate feeling like I’m betraying that confidence, just—you know. I also felt like. Like I couldn’t risk not saying anything about it, just in case ‘Julie’ was Tabitha’s code for Tabitha herself being… yeah.”

   “Fucking CHRIST,” Mrs. Macintire sagged, hiding her face in her hands.

   “Better safe than sorry, honey,” Mrs. Seelbaugh reached over to grab Elena’s hand. “I thought, we thought, that with the girl’s present circumstances you would be the one to go to about something like this.”

   “Yes. I—” Mrs. Macintire wiped her eyes and tried to straighten herself. “Thank you. You’re right. Is it alright if I ask you some more questions? Elena?”

   “Of course, anything,” Elena felt a relief she didn’t even know how to articulate.

   “Okay, you’re sure it was ‘Julie,’ and not ‘Ashlee?’” Mrs. Macintire asked. “Because, she’d had this other friend Ashlee who—”

   “Ashlee Taylor, I’d heard about that, and no,” Elena shook her head. “She didn’t name Ashlee, and I feel that she would have if she meant her, since I think she knew both Alicia and I were kind of aware of the whole Taylor family situation. People were saying that the Taylor girls were all being abused. But also, and this is part of what was setting off alarm bells for me—the ‘Julie’ she used wasn’t consistent. Sometimes she said Julie, sometimes it was Julia. That’s a big part of what made me think it was a um, a cover or a fabrication. I just. I don’t know. All of it just all of the sudden made me very, very uncomfortable. Because it felt like pieces weren’t adding up.”

   “Okay. Okay,” Mrs. Macintire rubbed her temples. “So, doesn’t seem to be Ashlee. Maybe.”

   “We went through the yearbook we got from Laurel Middle," Mrs. Seelbaugh explained. “Since Elena and Tabitha, they both went to Laurel. We found no Julie. There were two Julias, but in both cases, either the grade doesn’t match up, or the age wouldn’t match up—not if Tabitha had said this girl was getting molested at thirteen.”

   “And, because of the grades, I don’t know that Tabitha would have known either of the Julias we found,” Elena added. “Plus back in middle school, Tabitha was—she was very unpopular. Enough that she stood out for that, a little.”

   “Very unpopular?”

   “She was, um, she was very overweight and never talked to other kids at all,” Elena grimaced. “So, she was… made fun of a lot, excluded sort of.”

   “She was a social pariah,” Mrs. Seelbaugh summed up.

   “Yeah, she’s… she’s way different now,” Elena said. “She’s changed completely, so I know that it sounds hard to believe. But, back in middle school she was very different.”

   “Sudden, drastic changes to her appearance. And behavior. Lots of domestic issues with her family. It’s. I think it’s certainly possible—but dear Lord fucking god damnit I hope it’s not. Fuck. Fuck,” Mrs. Macintire hid a snarl in her hands again. “Sorry. Okay. Okay—we’ll, we’ll get this all sorted out, no matter what it takes. Did she give you any other clues or hints, anything? Anything else she said, that might have stood out?”

   “Nothing… nothing that makes sense,” Elena said with some difficulty. “It’s… hard to explain. A lot of that talk was personal stuff to Tabitha that I’m not comfortable sharing. Stuff that didn’t have to do with… that kind of stuff. With the Julie thing, I wanted to demand immediate clarification because I was freaking out but, also—also it’s a little weird. The circumstances, the conversation it was part of.

   “Parts of everything she was saying were… phrased as if she thought that no matter what, I wasn’t going to believe her or take her seriously. I, I don’t want to, to just argue with her or poke and prod into her painful traumatic issues, or—or put her on the defensive, or make her feel like she needs to clam up and not say anything. I didn’t know what to do, don’t know what to do, so… so I went to my mom about it.”

   “You did the right thing, ‘Lena honey,” Mrs. Seelbaugh assured her. “If Julie’s real, we need to find her and get her safe, and if she’s not real, then we need to take care of Tabitha’s situation. Maybe the whole thing is made up! I don’t want to judge, sometimes girls can just—you know, make things up. For whatever reason. But, we can’t afford to take that chance. We really can’t.”

   “Yeah,” Elena let out a slow breath. “Better safe than sorry.”

   “I’ll be on the lookout for any signs,” Mrs. Macintire continued to fidget. “I’ve already been trying to keep an eye on her for trauma, just—well, she’s just a very strange girl. I love her to pieces, but she can be very difficult to understand. I’ll see about tracking down Julie or Julia with Mrs. Williams, she knows about doing that kind of thing. Elena hon, do you think you’d be able to talk directly with Tabitha about any of it? Get her to open up a little more?”

   “I… maybe,” Elena hedged. “Maybe. Alicia might be better for that. I don’t want to push things the wrong way and have Tabitha start to close up about everything. I kinda worried that I was already doing that before she even brought up the whole Julie thing, so. I don’t know.”

   “Okay,” Mrs. Macintire nodded. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. From here on you just—you just keep on being a good friend to her, keep on being supportive however you can, for now. Keep your eyes open, pay attention. You’re already doing great. I’ll see about… inobtrusively investigating whatever we can. If that ratshit crazy father of hers has ever laid a finger on her—if anyone has… I promise you, they will fucking pay.”

/// Again, sorry to drip feed these up out of order, I feel like I owe patrons whatever sections I feel are good enough to read, and I start to get super guilty and stressed when I go for way too long while just giving everyone silence. Sections that are finished to acceptable quality and don't spoil or ruin sections that haven't been posted up yet will all get put up. And yeah, the birthday chapter's just a doozy. Definitely gonna be the new longest chapter I've written. Just the bits I've put to Patreon so far amount to sixty pages, and there's still an obnoxious amount of ground to cover.