by Pat Henshaw
“Me and my husband have children,” the sheriff said. “You know why Tommy and some of the others are so pissed off?”
I shook my head and looked at Guy. What didn’t I know?
“This is one of the fastest-growing communities of queers in the country,” Guy said. “Started moving out of the Bay Area when prices went sky high there. From around here through Placerville and on up a ways.”
He and the sheriff glanced at each other again.
“The good ole boys have to either go with the flow or leave,” the sheriff said. “I’m not tolerating this hate shit.”
Something on him squawked, and he sighed.
“Okay, well, if you don’t have any more questions, we’ll see you’re protected.” He nodded to Guy. “Maybe we can get the two of you up to the ranch sometime for a barbeque.”
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t know if I was supposed to say anything.
“It’s good to meet the man who’s caused so much ruckus in the county,” he added. “You just don’t look much like a troublemaker.”
He was staring at me with a slight grin on his lips.
“Me?” I turned to Guy. “Me?”
“Oh, yeah, he’s a whole lot a trouble,” Guy drawled.
“Looks like the best kind of trouble to me,” the sheriff said and clapped Guy on the back.
They both broke out in a laugh.
“Yeah, a whole lot of trouble. You’d better keep a close eye on this one,” the sheriff said before he turned and left.
“What was he talking about?” I demanded of Guy. “I didn’t start any trouble.”
Guy shrugged. Then he pointed outside the broken window at the group of women storming toward Penny’s.
Felicity had gotten up and had been hovering while we were talking. Now she too looked up at the women.
The leader appeared to be a former cheerleader with her blonde ponytail swaying as she strode our way. The eight women behind her were clones, all toned bodies and no nonsense beauty.
“Melissa?” Felicity yelped. “What’s going on?”
The woman nodded at Guy and muttered, “Stone.” Then she turned to Felicity, and she pointed at me.
“This is your boss?” Melissa asked.
“Uh, no,” I said before she got going. “Felicity and I co-own Penny’s. I’m Jim Patterson.”
“Jim?” mouthed Felicity as Melissa shook my hand.
“Mr. Patterson,” Melissa started.
“Jimmy, please,” I relented, rolling my eyes at Felicity. Okay, she didn’t want me to be a “Jim.” I got it.
“Jimmy,” Melissa agreed, although she seemed to be sharing a laugh with Felicity. “I came to apologize for my husband and to help pay for the damage.”
“Your husband?” I felt like the only one who didn’t know what was going on here.
“Tommy, my husband. I’m Melissa Thompson,” she introduced herself.
Ah, all the lightbulbs went on.
“Oh, Melissa, you don’t have to do that,” Felicity said. “We don’t know Tommy’s had anything to do with this.”
Melissa was shaking her head.
“No, I was there last night. I heard what he said to you two.” She turned to Guy. “Stone, we owe you a dinner. You had a reservation. I saw it before the boys decided to erase it.”
She was pissed, and her anger was spilling out around her to her posse.
“The rest of us want to apologize too, Mr. Patterson,” said a shorter, stouter, blonder version of Melissa. “It was the rudest thing I’ve ever seen anybody do. I was so embarrassed. I’m so sorry.”
Now I was embarrassed. Had all the women here been at the restaurant last night?
I must have been standing there gaping, because Guy nudged me with his hip.
“Oh, uh, not to worry,” I said weakly. “I, uh, it’s okay.”
“No,” Melissa countered, “it’s not okay. All of us have been coming to Penny’s since you opened, and we love this place. No matter how awful our kids behave, no matter what kind of a mess we make, you always make us feel welcome and special.”
“Yeah,” another woman in the group said, “if it weren’t for Penny’s some days, I think I’d want to just stand up in church and scream.”
The others in the group looked at her in surprise. After a couple of beats, they nodded.
“And you’re a good place for our teenagers to work for a few hours and where they can come after school to hang and visit,” an older version of Melissa added. “I’d much rather have my boy come here after a movie than go anywhere else.”
The group was getting wound up.
“Thank you,” I said, breaking from Guy and pulling Felicity next to me. “That was our vision when we opened Penny’s.”
“Somebody said you’re opening another Penny’s downtown. Is it true?” a woman in the back asked.
“Yes. Yes, we are,” I answered.
“It’ll be more formal, for adults,” Felicity said, jumping in. “It’ll be a quieter place, somewhere you can go to have coffee and read when the kids are in school. Surf the web. Play bridge or mah-jongg. And get a great cup of coffee.”
Now the women were circling the wagons, eagerly making plans to visit the “I’m-not-a-mommy” Penny’s.
“When will it be open?” another woman asked.
“Uh, we’re hoping in a couple, three months,” I answered her while Felicity answered other questions.
Melissa turned to Guy. “Now if we could only get you to upgrade Stonewall so I don’t feel so grungy going in there,” she started.
Guy grinned at her. “I’m thinking about it, Meliss. Jimmy here has been trying to reform me,” he said, his grin getting bigger as he grabbed me around the waist.
She beamed at him. “Why, Stony, I do think you’ve met your match,” she simpered. “And about time too. You treat Jimmy good now. He’s an asset to the community.”
By this time the real teardown crew had started coming in, and I had to sign some papers from mall management about what to discard and what to move. I also had to go down to the mall warehouse and pick out temporary tables, chairs, counters, and everything else we needed to be back in business soon.
I left Felicity talking to the women, and Guy walked me out to the parking lot.
“See you tonight, yeah?” he asked.
“Well, Melissa said we could come by for the steak dinner we missed,” I said. “I think we should let her make the reservation this time, don’t you?”
He laughed and nodded.
“So how do you think it’ll go down in the Thompson house?” he asked with a snicker.
“Yeah, about like that,” I snickered back.
We kissed, hugged, and headed for our vehicles.
OUR GREETING at the Roadhouse was remarkably different that night from what it had been the night before. To begin with, Melissa met us almost at the door. She slid around the same partition Tommy had last night.
Secondly, the restaurant was packed. As I looked around, I noticed there were a whole lot of sullen-looking men and eagle-eyed women at each table. In fact, there were only a few tables where the occupants weren’t either staring at us or studiously avoiding us while surreptitiously watching us.
I felt like we were on stage.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Melissa said in a low, sexy voice. “Right this way.”
She turned with a flourish, palming two menus as she did.
Guy smirked at me, but I shook my head at him. It was a little early in the evening to get cocky. Let’s wait until we get out of there alive before we rejoice.
She led us to the one empty table, next to the windows and central to the room instead of in a corner.
“What can I get you to drink?” Melissa asked. She acted as if she hadn’t just seen us at the mall earlier.
Guy ordered a beer, and I asked for decaf. I was sure anything alcoholic would do a rough tap dance on my stomach.
Melissa was about to turn aw
ay from our table when Tommy burst into the room from the front door. He wasn’t just angry. He was registering way past livid.
“What the hell’s going on here, Meliss?” he yelled.
Now all the people who’d been pretending not to stare at us had joined the others, and everyone was blatantly following the action.
My hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t even take a drink of water. I needed something because I’d gone dry at Tommy’s shout.
Melissa swiveled toward Tommy, and her eyes looked as hard and disdainful as the devil’s glance at a minion.
“You idiot,” she said softly. “I was at the mall today and saw what you did.”
Tommy stopped and blinked at her.
“What I did?” He shook his head as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “At the mall?”
“Don’t you play games with me, Tommy Thompson,” she said, stalking toward him. “Jimmy’s shop is trashed. All because of you.”
“Me?” His voice rose higher than mine when I’m screeching. “I didn’t do anything at the mall!”
“You had your idiots smash up the place,” she accused.
I looked around. The entire restaurant was riveted to their shouting match. Diners, waiters, busboys, even the cooks were staring at them.
“He didn’t do it,” I whispered to Guy.
Guy’s eyes didn’t move from Melissa and Tommy.
“What?” he grunted.
“Tommy didn’t have Penny’s trashed,” I said, still whispering. “He’s too surprised. Whatever he was planning last night, it wasn’t the attack on Penny’s.”
Guy looked at me, then back at Melissa and Tommy.
“Huh. You’re right,” he agreed and stood. He walked to the combatants.
“Meliss, I don’t think Tommy did it,” Guy said as he walked up behind her. “Meliss, honey, stand down.”
Melissa turned on Guy, fire in her eyes.
“What do you mean? He didn’t do it?” she yelled.
Tommy broke in. “Yeah, see? I didn’t do it. What didn’t I do?”
Guy turned to Tommy and got in his face. “Last night when we were leaving, you said something was happening. It was a threat.”
The men glared at each other.
I took a deep breath and let it out. Then I got up and joined the dance.
“W-while you were threatening us, I got a call from Felicity telling me somebody had come into our coffee shop and trashed the place, and hurt two of our teenage employees,” I told Tommy. “Since you were the one threatening us, we thought you’d sent them.”
Tommy glared at me as if he were about to punch me.
“What?” he bellowed. “I didn’t trash your place! I didn’t hurt any teenagers!”
“You threatened us,” I said with a shrug. I looked around at the spellbound faces staring at us. “How many of you were here last night?”
A spattering of hands went up, mostly women’s hands.
I turned back and nodded to Tommy.
“Witnesses,” I said, gesturing toward the hands in the air.
“You bastard,” Tommy yelled and moved in on me.
Guy stepped in front of him.
“We didn’t set you up, Tommy. We came in to eat last night, not make trouble.” Then Guy glanced at me and suddenly smiled and laughed. “Just like tonight.”
Melissa, however, wasn’t taking his offer to lighten the mood.
“What did you do, Tommy?” she asked in a viper voice.
“Huh?” He turned, looked at her, and took a step back. “I didn’t do anything.”
“What was the threat about?” she asked, slithering forward.
“What?” He wiped his forehead. He wasn’t shouting anymore. “I didn’t….”
“Tommy.” Her voice promised pain.
“Some of the guys were going to Stone’s place and maybe rough it up a bit,” he answered. “But they didn’t do it, babe.”
Guy’s smile was huge as he turned to me. “There was a Clampus get-together at the bar last night. Some of the guys look a little intimidating,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders. “How you doing there, Jimmy?”
I stared at him, shook my head, and sighed.
“So who trashed Penny’s?” I asked.
Guy squeezed my shoulders as the diners went back to eating, the cooks back to the kitchen, busboys to cleaning, and the waiters back to the tables.
Melissa spat a “Come with me” at Tommy, and they marched to a door marked Office.
“I don’t know, Jimmy,” Guy said. “I wish I did.”
WE ATE a subdued meal, both of us trying to come up with why Penny’s was currently a bunch of rubble and who would do such a thing. And why. Was this the beginning of a wave of hate crimes?
Later we lay in Guy’s bed, stunned by the turn of events of the evening. We hadn’t talked much as we ate, and both of us were too tired and adrenaline deprived even to think very deeply. No sex tonight. Neither of us was in the mood.
With a sigh, Guy turned off the bedside light and pulled me into what was becoming our regular sleep position.
“You got a name to guess?” he asked.
My heart wasn’t really in it, and I suspected neither was his.
“King Elvis?” I asked, the name coming out of the ether.
Guy gave a tired laugh, making his chest hairs tickle my back. But I was too tired even to giggle.
“Nope. You’re close. I am royalty, just not a king,” he said softly with a sigh. “Just not a king.”
“No,” I agreed. “You’re better than a king.”
8
SINCE THE next morning started out calmly, Guy suggested we take the day off and chill. At breakfast I called Felicity and asked her if she wanted to come with us to the mountains where Guy said he had a rustic cabin.
She opted to stay in and sleep and answer any calls the mall or the sheriff’s office might have. She sounded beat, so I told her I’d take my cell phone with me and she could call me if she needed to. I figured everything was pretty much in motion, and we wouldn’t be needed until the mall had our temporary place set up.
We took Guy’s truck, which was a collection of grinding gears and no shocks.
“Granddad’s beater,” he told me. “We had some good times in her.”
We’d packed overnight bags with a change of clothes and necessities so we could spend the night and drive back the next day. I wanted to take the motorcycle, but Guy said it was too cold at night and it would feel colder the next morning when we’d go out to eat. If we were still together in the summer, I was going to insist we take both our bikes up there.
The day was perfect, one of those pristine, clear days where the snow on the mountain tops looks etched at the edges and the sky is a watercolor pastel. Every breath seemed to fill my soul with peace and happiness.
It didn’t hurt to have Guy with me, I must admit. He was game for anything I suggested, so we hiked and explored and sat and talked.
“You know, there’s one thing I’ve been wondering,” I said as we basked on the porch of his three-bedroom log cabin.
“Yeah?” he said, sipping his beer. “Only one thing? That’s a first, Jimmy.”
I motioned away his playful gibe.
“How come you took me home the night of my birthday?” I too sipped my coffee. “I mean, I pretty much threw up on you and was totally disgusting.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “You were pretty much the shits.”
“So why would you clean me up and take me home?” I asked, turning toward him. “You had to know I was going to vomit some more.”
He nodded and glanced at me with a glint of humor in his eyes.
“Maybe I get off on sick men,” he answered with a shrug.
“No, come on,” I said. “You didn’t know me from Adam, yet you helped me at my lowest moment. How come?”
He grinned and shook his head.
“You’re wrong there,” he said slowly and softly. “I knew you.
I knew you pretty well, actually.”
“Nuh-huh. You didn’t,” I argued.
“Sure I did. You and what’s-his-face had been coming into the bar for months. I remembered you real well because you’re one of the few people who saw me as a real person.”
“Every man in there sees you as a real person,” I told him.
“No. No, they don’t.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t tell you how many guys have told me how great you are and how they wanted to go home with you. Everybody sees you loud and clear.”
“Nope. Not even close.” He squinted at me. “You saw more than the body and the bald head. You saw me.”
“What?”
“Look, the other guys come in and see the bear behind the counter and hear my voice and that’s it. You? You talked to me. You’d come and sit at the bar while the shit was working the room, coming on to everything in pants. Don’t you remember?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We talked about my dream to start a coffee house on Main Street, and about running a small business, and what the area was like, and the weather, and a bunch of stuff. But everybody talks to you about stuff.”
“Ah,” he said, “but you were the only one with a legitimate beef, and you didn’t sit there and complain or get sullen and angry. You talked to me like I was someone you wanted to get to know.”
“Well, duh,” I answered, and he laughed. “I mean, look at you. You weren’t drinking, so I knew I could have a civilized conversation with somebody in a bar where everybody else was trying to get drunk. Besides, you’re intelligent and interesting. Why wouldn’t I talk to you?”
I didn’t get it. Most of the men in the bar who I talked to came there just to drool over Guy and try to get him to ask them out. But when they went up and sat at the bar and tried to talk to him, he shut them down. He was right about talking to me, of course. I always figured it was because I wasn’t making any plays for him.
“So you remembered me because we talked?” I asked to clarify.
“Well, and the fact you were the only one in all the years I’ve worked there and worn a name badge who noticed I didn’t wear the same name every time,” he answered.
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. The only one,” he answered softly. He took another sip of his drink. “When my grandpa was there and I was working after class when I went to college, he thought it was pretty funny I wore different name tags every day. I had maybe fifteen or twenty name tags then and switched them around all the time.”