The Sweet Spot

by Joan Livingston

  “Don’t you go anywhere, Edie. I got something to tell ya,” she announced loudly. “I know all about you and Walker. Him cheatin’ on me.” She dug her free hand into her hip. “What’s the matter? Didn’t think I’d find out? What kind of a sister-in-law are you?”

  Edie was silent. Customers gawked. Her in-laws were somewhere in the store. But she thought only of Amber as she searched for her.

  “Look at me. I’m talking to you. I threw the worthless piece of crap out last night. I gave him two sons, twins, and this is how he treats me.” Her voice rose higher. “Everybody in town felt sorry for you cause of Gil dying in Vietnam. No father for your baby. Truth is no one thought you deserved him, especially his parents. Right, Marie?”

  Sharon gestured toward the end of the aisle. Marie held her hand to her throat as she croaked Gil’s name.

  “Benny Sweet’s daughter marrying someone like Gil. Your old man runs the dump for Christ’s sake.” Sharon made a scornful laugh. “Then you go try to steal his brother, my husband. You pig, I hope you want what’s left when I get through with him.”

  Amber came around the corner, taking a few steps before she stood beside her grandmother. Edie shooed the girl away, but she stared dumbly, and Marie stood there, useless, shocked about her and Walker.

  Sharon’s head shook as if she were having a stand-up fit.

  “I heard all about you picking up men at the Do. Edie, you were no different in high school. You let anyone get in your pants. How you got someone as nice as Gil to marry you, I’ll never know.”

  Amber bit her fingernails.

  “You done yet?” Edie asked in a low hiss. “No? Too bad. Take it with up Walker. I have nothing to do with him anymore.”

  She stooped for the last box and moved past Sharon to her daughter. She whispered to Amber, “Put the food on top. That’s right. We gotta get going.”

  Edie nodded as Amber went forward, but she made one quick peek over her shoulder at the stunned faces of the customers. Sharon kept screaming.

  Shame

  Edie backed her car into a space behind the store.

  “I want you to stay here,” she told Amber. “I’m gonna give the money to Grandma.”

  Her daughter’s blue eyes blinked fast.

  “Can’t I come?”

  “Not this time, honey. I need to talk with Grandma. Grownup talk.”

  “All right, Ma.”

  Amber had been upset for hours, and it seemed whatever Edie said came out wrong. She swallowed hard.

  “I’ll only be a few minutes. I’ll leave the car running, so you can listen to the radio, but don’t take it for a drive.”

  Amber smiled weakly at the joke.

  In the office, Marie peered over her spectacles as Edie placed the envelope of checks and cash on the desk. The muscles on her mother-in-law’s neck were tight. She dropped her pen and patted her hair, permed and dyed a brassy yellow.

  “Edie, I don’t have to tell you how disappointed I am in you and Walker. You hid it well. I’ll give you that.” The diamonds rings on her thin fingers glinted as she swatted the air. “I didn’t know about Walker and Sharon either. It was awfully embarrassing to learn about it in the store, and Amber having to hear all that. The customers, what must they be thinking?”

  Edie felt her face go red.

  “I’m sorry, Marie.”

  Her mother-in-law squinted.

  “This thing between you and Walker. I understand what kind of a man my son is, selfish, uh, very persuasive. He’s nothing like Gil.” A swallow passed beneath the crepe-like skin on her throat. “Fred and I have been very generous to you, considering. I think out of respect you should’ve controlled yourself. I mean, what kind of an example are you setting for Amber?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You know very well what I’m saying. And poor Sharon.”

  Edie’s regret receded, and anger slid in its place. She heard this shaming tone before. She and Gil sat on the couch in his parents’ living room. She wore her best dress. The two of them held hands as Gil tried to make them happy about their wedding.

  “Mom, we just love each other so much, we can’t wait to be together,” Gil said. “I love Edie. I hope you feel the same way about her.”

  “Of course, dear.” Marie’s voice dropped. “But you’re both so young, only out of high school, and there’s no time to plan this right.” Marie glanced at Fred, and then Edie. “You’re not, uh, expecting, are you?”

  Now Edie gave Marie a cold once-over in the store’s office.

  “I’m not a bad example to Amber. I love her more than anyone.”

  Marie shuffled papers.

  “I understand it’s not been easy bringing up a little girl all by yourself. I’m sure it’s been lonely for you. But you have to think about Amber. And what about Gil?”

  Edie pulled back her shoulders.

  “Believe me, Marie, I think about them all the time.”

  She left the office.

  A Satisfying Shatter

  Walker used a pry-bar to bust open the back door of his house. Sharon already changed the locks, probably had one of her brothers do it, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He figured rightly she’d be driving the boys, normally his job, to their baseball practice. He jimmied the bar until the jamb splintered beneath the metal claw and the door popped open. He felt like doing the same to his wife’s thick skull.

  Sharon left a message at Dean’s place that the rest of his clothes was in the garage, but now he searched for his valuables: his guns and fishing gear, his hard liquor. His tools were safe in the shop he rented.

  Walker tracked dirt on purpose across the beige wall-to-wall carpeting while he hauled stuff to his pickup. He took the strongbox of cash he hid in the basement before he went through the house for one last sweep.

  He paused in the living room, studying the curio cabinet holding Sharon’s collection of statues, the elf kids with thumbs in their mouths and dopey poses. He marched into the boys’ room and returned with a baseball bat he held high before he whacked the cabinet. The glass cascaded to the carpet in one satisfying shatter, but he went on swinging, hurling the figurines against the walls. When he tired of that, he raked them onto the floor and bashed them to pieces.

  Walker thought about his wife’s reaction when she got home, and he felt glad for the first time in days.

  Officer Buddy

  Walker sat drinking with Dean on lawn chairs in front of his friend’s singlewide. He came back in a reasonably pleasant mood after smashing his wife’s things. His stuff was stashed safely in Dean’s extra room now that the two of them agreed on rent until he found something more permanent. He wore jeans and his third-best cowboy boots, but no shirt as he soaked in the summer sun. His dark hair hung in waves along the back of his neck.

  “Dean, you’d have a pretty nice view of the town and the Berkshires, except for that pile of tires and the junker you got in your front yard,” Walker said. “That the pickup you crashed last winter? I bet you ten bucks I could pick out the tree on this road that fits the crease in the front end.”

  “Very funny, Walker. But you’re right. It’s the maple on the last curve here.”

  Walker thrust an uncapped bottle of Jack Daniels toward Dean, who took a swig before handing it back. They were half in the bag and high from the joint they shared.

  “Why don’t you start fuckin’ Sharon, get her to fall in love with you, and I’ll give you a big, fat raise,” he told Dean.

  “Shit, Walker, I’m not taking your sloppy seconds.”

  “She might not be much to look at, but she keeps a real clean house. And she’s a halfway decent cook. Come on, Dean, who else you fucked lately?”

  “On second thought, she don’t look too bad,” Dean joked, plucking a pack of smokes from the pocket of his
unbuttoned flannel shirt.

  “Now you’re talkin’.”

  The phone rang inside the trailer.

  “Jesus, who keeps calling?” Dean said. “That’s about the fifth time that damn thing’s rung. No one ever calls here, except you.”

  Walker chuckled.

  “Maybe it’s my dear sweet wife finding the surprise I left for her at home.”

  Dean gave him a sideways glance.

  “You sure you don’t want me to get the phone?”

  “Nah, there’s only one person I wanna talk with today. I’m gonna go see her later and tell her myself about me and Sharon.”

  “Let me guess. Edie?”

  Walker wagged a finger.

  “Who else?”

  Dean’s hounds tied in the back yard started howling. Blue lights flickered through the trees.

  “Seems like we got us some visitors. Looks like pigs to me,” Dean said. “What’d you do with the roach?”

  “You mean this?” Walker sniggered as he chucked the snuffed end in the bushes.

  The cruiser stopped, and Sharon’s brother, Buddy Crocker, and another cop, both part-timers since Conwell was such a hick town, got out. Buddy’s red hair shined in the sun.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Sgt. Buddy,” Walker said in the mocking way he always greeted his brother-in-law. When he wasn’t a cop, Buddy worked in an auto repair shop. “What can I do for you today?” He reached for a can of Bud from the six-pack near his feet and popped the top. “Care for a beer, boys? Something stronger? Too bad you’re both on duty.” He gestured toward the driveway. “Maybe you could change the oil on those pickups over there. I believe mine’s overdue. What about yours, Dean?”

  Buddy cleared his throat, all police business. Dean was silent.

  “I need to ask you a coupla questions,” Buddy said, reading from a notebook. “I hear you broke into my sister’s house and smashed her valuable collection of ceramic figurines.”

  Walker held the beer can against his thigh as he snorted at Buddy.

  “You’re tryin’ to tell me I broke into the house I built, that I paid for, and that’s in my name? That I broke the things she bought with my money? Since your sister hasn’t worked in seven years, any money she uses is money I made. Ain’t that right?”

  Buddy glanced at the other officer.

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know. Here’s how it goes. While I work my tail off, your sister sits on her fat ass, getting fatter. You know how it works, right, Buddy? You’re married to one of those, too.” Walker chuckled as Buddy stepped forward. His hand was on his holster. “Gee, I hope you’re not planning to use that gun on me.”

  Buddy’s partner gave him a warning look.

  “You think you’re so smart, Walker,” Buddy said. “My advice to you is to watch your step. I’ve got my eye on you.”

  “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m an upstanding citizen.”

  Buddy sneered.

  “That’s not what I hear from my sister. She told me about you and Edie.”

  Walker’s jaw tightened.

  “Yeah? Why don’t you go ask your sister if she has a permit to carry a firearm? Seems to me she didn’t when she pointed a gun at me last night. It was one of my guns by the way. Maybe I should file a report with the police.”

  The other officer tapped Buddy’s arm, telling him they should hit the road. Walker leaned back in his chair, watching them leave. He chuckled.

  “I think I got more weed in the truck,” Walker told Dean as he chucked his beer can into the pile of empties beside the tires. “Wanna smoke another joint?”

  Falling Stone

  The bartender at the Do-Si-Do announced last call. Walker pointed to his beer and raised two fingers since Dean, who was using the toilet, would want another.

  The bar was dead. The band was a no-show, so disappointed music lovers drifted in and out, some playing pool or pinball, or having a couple of drinks before they moved on. Diehards like Walker and Dean stayed all night.

  The bartender placed two longnecks in front of Walker.

  “I’m surprised Edie isn’t here tonight,” the man said. “It’s not like her to miss a Saturday night at the Do. She on the wagon?”

  “Edie? Nah,” Walker said. “Maybe she had some other place to go. Family stuff.”

  Dean returned to his stool.

  “Thanks for the beer.”

  Walker glanced up when he felt a friendly slap on his back. One of the guys from his crew greeted him and Dean.

  “Just got back from the track in upstate New York,” he said. “Didn’t have much luck on the horses. I was hoping to get laid tonight, too, but it doesn’t look like I’ll have any luck with that either.”

  Walker glanced over his shoulder. The only single women were a middle-aged divorcee on the verge of losing her looks and a couple of homely girls just over the legal drinking age.

  “Yup, pickin’s are pretty slim for women tonight,” Walker told him.

  “Boy, that was something else between your wife and Edie at the store this morning,” the guy said.

  Walker frowned.

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “You didn’t hear?”

  “No, I was with Dean most of the day.”

  The man’s eyes jerked from Dean to Walker.

  “Your wife went up to Edie in the store and tore into her something awful. I was there for it. You should’ve heard the things she was saying about you and Edie. The whole store did. No one told you?”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “You sure you wanna hear this?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  The man licked his lips.

  “Sharon said Edie wasn’t good enough for your brother, Gil, and she tried to steal you away. She said she kicked you out last night when she found out. There was other stuff.”

  “Shit, she did all that at the store?” Walker asked.

  “I didn’t know about you and Edie. She’s real special. You’re a lucky guy.”

  “Yeah, I am.” Walker swallowed hard. “How’d she take all that?”

  “Eh, Edie acted cool and blew past Sharon with her little girl, but I could tell she was shook in front of all those people.” The man’s head jerked side to side. “Your parents went nuts after she left. I’m surprised Edie didn’t tell you about it. It was kind of a big deal.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk with her yet,” Walker said. “I’ll see ya Monday. Okay?”

  Walker waited until he and Dean were alone.

  “Did you hear all that?” he asked Dean.

  “Yup. Sounded like a bad scene.”

  “I stopped by Edie’s place earlier, but she wasn’t home. I wanted to tell her myself about me and Sharon.” Walker frowned. “You think she’s the one who kept calling your place today?”

  “Dunno.” Dean downed the rest of his beer. “Let’s head out. Looks like they wanna close up the joint.”

  They were about a half-mile down the road when the lights of a cruiser flashed behind them. Walker swore when he checked the mirror.

  “It’s that dumb fuck of a brother-in-law.” He steered the pickup onto the road’s shoulder. “Let’s see what that asshole wants.”

  Walker thought he was sober enough, so he felt smug when he rolled down his window. Buddy Crocker shined his cop light inside the cab.

  “Anything wrong, officer? Excuse me, sergeant.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, Walker. Your pickup swerved when you came out of the parking lot. I’d like you to get out.”

  “Sure, Sgt. Buddy.”

  Buddy put Walker through the usual tests, making him touch his finger to his nose and asking stupid questions any moron could answer.

  “I told you I wa
s sober,” Walker said.

  Buddy waved his flashlight across the pavement.

  “Go ahead. Walk in a straight line,” he said.

  Walker shook his head at Dean, who stayed inside the truck as Buddy ordered.

  “What an asshole,” he said to himself.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Buddy said in his cop voice.

  “Sure did, Sgt. Buddy. So, what’d your sister say about the gun permit? Or was she too busy gluing the pieces of those dumb statues of hers? Those eyes and noses and little dicks all over the rug. Must’ve been a sight seeing her bend over to pick ’em up.” Walker chuckled at the grim-faced cop. “You could’ve charged tickets and made some money.”

  Buddy Crocker gestured for Walker to begin, but after a few steps, he used his boot to trip him. Walker fell onto the road, the pavement scraping his jaw, but he was on his feet fast, flying toward Buddy. Too late, when his fist hit Buddy’s jaw, he realized it was exactly what the man wanted.

  He shoved Walker to the ground, beating his flashlight against his shoulders and back. Dean hollered as he tried to pull Buddy off Walker. Buddy began hitting Dean, too. Walker crawled forward, reaching for the cop’s legs. There was a knock on the back of his head, and he felt as if he had gotten stuck beneath a pile of falling stone.

  Behind Bars

  Walker stared at Buddy Crocker through the bars of his cell. Dean snored on the cot beside him. The city cops let the country cops put their prisoners in their jail, but they had to guard them until they made bail. Walker had enough money on him. He was waiting for one of his crew to give Dean and him a ride home.

  “I bet your dumb ass sister put you up to this,” Walker growled. “Am I right?”

  “Shut up, Walker.”

  “You ain’t gonna put a hand on me in this cell, are you? It was easier on a dark road back home. You can’t get away with it here. I believe they call it police brutality. Wait till I get me a lawyer.”