The Sweet Spot

by Joan Livingston

  Harlan stumbled forward, dragging his leg, impatient at his clumsiness, but he made it to the door first, so he could open it for her. The kitchen was a large, square room with wooden cabinets and six-over-six paned windows that would let in natural light once their glass was washed. This was the first room he cleaned. The appliances were long gone, except for an iron cook stove in one corner. The plumbing was missing beneath the sink, but its porcelain was in decent shape. He already fixed the leg on the kitchen table. That and a chair he found in the attic were the only pieces of furniture in the room. He set the bread on the table.

  “I liked your grandmother an awful lot,” Edie told him. “I work at my in-laws’ store. I used to bring her groceries on Saturdays. It was the day she baked, and she always gave me something to take home.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t know her very well. I only came here a few times when I was a boy.”

  “That’s a shame. Elmira was a wonderful woman, and she was awfully kind to us. I remember she made us all dinner when my mother died. I still have the pink blanket she crocheted for Amber after she was born. Amber’s my little girl.”

  She laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Whenever your grandmother hired Pop to help around the house, she made sure he completely finished the job before she paid him. She’d give it a close inspection. She knew my father all right. She’d say, ‘Alban, don’t ever try to fool an old lady, at least not this old lady’.” Edie raised a finger. “I suggest you do the same, Harlan Doyle. I love my Pop, but he’s bit of a rascal, if you get what I mean.”

  He handed her a paper and a stubby pencil from the counter. He watched her write.

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  She gave him back the paper.

  “By the way, if you want to swim, there’s a clean, deep river across the road just up a few yards from the end of your driveway. Take a left, then a right onto an old logging road. You can’t miss it if you’re on foot. The land belongs to my Aunt Leona, but she won’t mind if you use it. If you want to wash up, that’s okay, too. The closest Laundromat is two towns away, but I bet Pop could hook you up with a washer when you’re ready for one. We have a back yard filled with ’em. He’d load up the front yard if I let him, so you’d be doing us both a favor. He might have a refrigerator and a stove, but it depends on your taste. None of ’em match.”

  He heard himself laugh.

  “Thanks. I’ll remember that, too.”

  She nodded toward the door.

  “I gotta head out. Amber and I have to get to the store. She catches the school bus there. Stop by the house some day. You can meet her. She’s sort of shy, but she’ll get used to you.”

  The door closed, and she was gone. He tucked the paper with Walker’s number in the breast pocket of his t-shirt. He thought about the next time he could see her.

  Somethin’ Worth Somethin’

  Harlan inched his pickup over the rutted road. He passed Benny’s house, both vehicles gone, and Leona’s, buttoned up. Then he was on a paved road to the town’s main route, a few miles to the Conwell General Store. He’d been here only five days, and already he knew his way around. The public buildings like Town Hall and the school, plus the Conwell Congregational Church were centrally located. The general store, a garage, and a graveyard, where the Doyles were buried, were a few miles away on the same road. The Do-Si-Do Bar was in the western end of Conwell. A few paved roads crisscrossed the town, but most, like the one where he lived, were dirt.

  He pulled his pickup into the entrance of the town dump and then backed the truck to the edge of a large pile of garbage. He had a full load, his second trip today. Benny Sweet came quickly to examine the contents, but once again he complained all he had was junk.

  Benny’s breath smelled of liquor.

  “Looks like your grandmother’s place got cleaned out. Hope your family got the good stuff she had,” he said.

  Harlan flung a lampshade on top of the pile, its side stove-in badly like someone took a foot to it.

  “I hope so, too,” he said.

  “You can’t leave an empty house alone without asking for trouble,” Benny said. “Kids started hangin’ out there, making a mess. That’s when your uncle had it boarded up and asked me to watch the place. Kinda too late by then.”

  Harlan held the racks to a refrigerator no longer in the house and scraps of metal he couldn’t identify.

  “Want any of this stuff?”

  “I’ll take the racks. Toss the rest.”

  Harlan hoisted himself onto the truck’s bed. He planned to use a shovel to scoop what was left.

  “Thanks again for letting me do this,” he said.

  Benny winked then pointed to what he had set aside, a couple of lamp bodies and a wooden trunk between his attendant’s shack and the dozer he used to move the trash. He leaned against the pickup’s fender. He made a whistling laugh through the gaps in his front teeth.

  “You won’t believe what people dump here. Once I seen a woman grab a wedding dress and veil outta the back seat of her car and toss it onto the garbage. I laughed to bust a gut after she left. Gotta be a story there.” He tipped his head. “I seen sad things, too. I wanted to cry out loud the day a young couple who lost their baby threw out their crib.”

  Benny frowned at the memory.

  “I run an orderly dump here. It’ll get a bit tricky when it gets hotter, and I gotta keep the flies down. But the dozer does an excellent job gettin’ it covered.” He spat a yellow wad of phlegm on the gritty ground near a stray tin can. “I get rats, too. Big suckers. Some nights I just come down here with a bottle and my twenty-two and pick ’em off one at a time. My Edie used to come. She’s a real hot shot like her old man. You might like to join me sometime.”

  Harlan leaned on the shovel.

  “I met your daughter today. She brought me some banana bread she baked. I ate a slice already. It was really good.”

  Benny made a whistling laugh again.

  “She gave you one, too? She’s a fine girl, my Edie. She’d make some man a great wife. You might wanna think about it.”

  Harlan grinned as he scraped the flat-edged shovel across the bottom of the pickup’s bed. His leg throbbed, and he moved slower than earlier this morning, but this was the last load today.

  Benny squinted.

  “Harlan, hand me that copper wire you got back there. Now there’s somethin’ worth somethin’.”

  After he returned home, Harlan found the entrance to the path, where Edie told him, and he walked through the forest, following an old logging road until it ended at a river. He scanned the area. No one was here.

  He set a bar of soap and a bundle of clean clothes on a dry, flat rock. He stripped off his shirt and pants, both so soiled from work, dirt was on the inside. He sat on the rock in his shorts, stretching his toes into the cool river water. He ran a hand over the ropelike scars on his bad leg and the one on his abdomen. He snorted. His body looked as if it belonged to a monster.

  Harlan was glad he came to live here. He liked being around people who got to the point fast. “Were you in the war?” Edie St. Claire asked him. “You got hurt real bad.” She said that, too, and she was right.

  Tonight he planned to eat out instead of heating food on his camp stove and drinking warm beer. Bennie Sweet told him where to go, the Do-Si-Do Bar, which he passed on the way to the dump. Nothing fancy, the old man told him, but he wouldn’t leave hungry. Besides, it was Friday, so there might be a band. He could enjoy a little music.

  Harlan yanked off his shorts and stepped into the river until it was high enough for him to let his body go with one long yell. He dunked himself, using the soap on his hair and body, moving fast because the water was cold. He tossed the bar to the shore and dove beneath to rinse off before he swam back to land, feeling like a new man. />
  The Do-Si-Do

  The Do-Si-Do was crowded by time Harlan got there. People were finishing their meals, or drinking and waiting for the band setting up on the stage. Harlan made a lumbering step. Some in the bar took notice. It was to be expected even if he weren’t the ugliest man in the place because he was the latest stranger who moved to town. He figured he’d eat alone at the bar, but then he heard a shout. His neighbor, Leona Sweet, slapped his arm as he passed her table.

  “You, Harlan Doyle, sit here with Edie and me,” she said. “Unless you’d rather eat standing up.”

  “No, ma’am, I wouldn’t.”

  Leona used her foot to push a chair forward.

  “Park yourself right here.”

  Harlan sat across the table from Edie. She wore a jersey with Conwell Women’s Softball stitched across the front.

  “Hello, neighbor,” Edie said. “We meet again.”

  “So we do.”

  “I see you found the swimming hole and cleaned up. You look a lot better than the last time I saw you.” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. Sometimes we Sweets just can’t keep our mouths shut when we should.”

  He chuckled.

  “It’s okay. I found the river like you said, and it did feel great to get clean again.” He glanced over his shoulder to give the waitress his order, a burger and fries, before he turned toward Edie and her aunt. “Edie, do you want another beer? How about you, Ms. Sweet?”

  Leona’s red hair shook as she made a hooting laugh.

  “Ms. Sweet? Ha. You can call me Leona.” She bent toward him. “And, yes, we’ll take those beers.”

  He grinned as he raised two fingers.

  “Make it two more,” he told the waitress.

  Edie’s head moved with the tune on the jukebox.

  “How was your game?” Harlan asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Eh, we lost. We stunk up the place.”

  Leona pawed the air.

  “It’s not Edie’s fault. She’s the best player on the team.”

  “Aunt Leona, that’s not true. How about Gloria and Patsy?”

  Leona waved her arm over the table.

  “Shush, honey. Let me tell the story. We were down by one run. Edie was at the plate. First, she gets a ball, then a strike. I yelled for her to wait for her pitch, and she does, sending it where the leftfielder couldn’t get it. My Edie had enough time to reach third.” She winked at Harlan. “I had my rally cap on.”

  Edie crossed her arms.

  “I believe you’re boring our neighbor,” she said.

  Leona wagged a finger.

  “You be quiet, Edie,” she said. “Then Vera, that dumbbell of a coach, keeps the first basemen in the game. The woman couldn’t run the bases if her shorts were on fire. She does manage to get a base hit, but she’s too fat to make it to first.” Leona slapped the table. “Game over. We lost.”

  Edie laughed.

  “You can’t win ’em all,” she said. “But you sure like to.”

  Leona gave Harlan’s arm a playful slap.

  “Edie’s the best all-around on the team, maybe the league,” she said. “She can hit and has a good glove and arm. I never miss a game. You should go. You’ll meet people that way.”

  Harlan chuckled. He was used to quieter people. Certainly, his parents were that way, hard-working folks who gave him enough love growing up, but you had to know they loved you because they would never say it. His ex-wife, Susan, was like them. “Don’t you know I love you?” she used to say. Then again, it turned out she didn’t. Her little boy must be walking now, and maybe she’d have another. He would have liked starting a family with her although now he was glad he didn’t. He would never leave a child behind.

  “She’s my biggest fan,” Edie said.

  The waitress brought their beers. Harlan’s order would be out soon, she told him.

  “Did you call Walker?” Edie asked Harlan.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “Make sure you do. He’ll give you the best price.”

  The crowd took a couple of songs to get dancing. Harlan drummed his fingertips on the tabletop and hummed to the music. He wasn’t a fan of Country and Western, but this was a mixture of old-timey stuff and new, and the band was doing a decent job with this standard.

  A tall, blond man stood over Edie and asked her to dance. The expression on her face was playful.

  “Why not?” she told him.

  Leona arched an eyebrow as she drank from the bottle. She made a point of peering down at Edie’s feet.

  “Good thing you’re not wearing open-toe shoes tonight, honey,” she said. “This one’s got such huge feet, he might not have much control over them.”

  “Aunt Leona, shush. You’re embarrassing him.” Edie looked up at the man. “We’re gonna do just fine. Right, Pete?”

  “Yup,” he said.

  Harlan’s eyes traveled toward the dance floor, where Edie and the tall blond did the two-step to a lively tune about happy cowboy love. The man rushed her some, but Edie gave him the lead, so they were a smooth-moving couple. Her mouth was open and laughing as he guided her around the floor, twirling her this way and that. Sometimes she sang along.

  Edie returned, drinking from her bottle of beer. Her eyes searched the crowd.

  “Be right back,” she told Harlan.

  She returned moments later with a dark-haired man. He extended his large, rough hand. His grip was tight and dry.

  “Name’s Walker St. Claire. Edie says you might want me to give you an estimate for a new roof. Your grandmother’s house?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I could come by tomorrow afternoon, say around one, one-thirty. Does that work for you?”

  “It does. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. See you then.”

  The waitress set down Harlan’s plate of food, and when he looked up, Edie and Walker were gone.

  “Where’d they go?” Harlan asked Leona.

  She shook her head and frowned.

  “You don’t want to know. Believe me, you don’t.”

  Only One

  Walker grinned when he saw Edie’s car ahead on the town’s main road. His twin sons, Shane and Randy, so identical he usually called them “boys”, sulked beside him. They were coming from Saturday morning baseball practice, and the boys had been bickering about something the other was supposed to have done. Walker, tired of it, told them to shut up, or he was dumping them alongside the road. Little brats, their mother spoiled them.

  Walker flashed his headlights, signaling Edie to stop. He pulled to the shoulder. She did the same.

  “Why are we stopping?” one of his boys asked.

  Walker checked himself in the rearview mirror.

  “I need to talk with Aunt Edie,” he said. “You boys behave yourselves, or I’ll give you both a smack when I get back.” He waggled a finger. “You know I will, right?”

  The boys raised their eyes slowly. Walker waited.

  “Yeah, Daddy,” they said in unison.

  Walker reached into the breast pocket of his black t-shirt for a pack of gum. He tossed two sticks onto the front seat.

  “Don’t leave the truck.”

  He strolled across the road toward Edie’s car, the heels of his boots clicking over the road’s pavement. He leaned against her door, feeling happier than he did all day. She wore a rosy scent he liked. Her blouse was open a few buttons at the top. Edie knew how to make him feel welcome.

  He smiled at Edie’s girl, Amber, his niece, who sat in the front seat with a comic book on her lap.

  “Hey, there, cutie pie,” Walker said. “How’re you doing?”

  Amber blinked. Her eyes were the same blue as her mother’s.

  “Good, Uncle Walker,”
she said.

  “Here. I have this for you.” He reached across Edie to hand the girl two sticks of gum. “You can save one for later.”

  “Thank you,” she said in a thin whisper as she slowly unwrapped a stick.

  He grinned.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Walker ran his hand over Edie’s arm.

  “What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

  She stared at his hand.

  “Not sure,” Edie said. “Probably hanging out at the Do. You?”

  “How about a ride to my camp at the lake? I need to get it open for the summer. Check on things, you know?” He lowered his voice. His eyes shifted briefly toward Amber. “Can you get yourself free?”

  Walker glanced toward his pickup. His boys were shoving each other and shouting. But he didn’t say anything to stop them. He waited for Edie’s answer.

  “I can’t now, Walker. I gotta finish my route.”

  Her head bounced toward the back seat filled with boxes of groceries. Edie was making her Saturday morning deliveries to the old folks in town and beyond.

  “I see that. What about later?”

  “I dunno, Walker.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Why are you acting this way?” He lowered his voice. “Are you mad at me for somethin’?”

  Edie’s mouth stayed open as if the words were stuck in there.

  “No, I’m not mad at you.”

  “All right. Ask my mother if Amber can stay the night at her house. She’s crazy about her.” He paused. “We can take the canoe out. Just you and me. We’ll have a great time. You’ll see. And I’ll get you back home tonight.”

  “Overnight? Your mother had Amber last night.”

  Edie stared through the windshield as if she were expecting someone she knew to drive from that direction.

  “Come on, baby,” Walker said. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll ask your mother. I’m sure it won’t be a problem. When do you want to pick me up?”

  “How about two?”

  “No, make it later. Two-thirty. Your mother gets off at two.”