by Lois Ruby
“Omigosh,” Stephanie squealed. “I swear, I’m going to write a book before this summer’s over, and it’s going to take place right here in Spinner, Kansas. I mean, what an exotic setting.”
SIX
Tag had spent four nights in Red Cottage 4 without a word from Cee Dubyah. Then, tucked in with the Wichita paper on Sunday morning, there was a letter Cee Dubyah must have left while we were all asleep.
Dear Whatsyernames at the Klondike Cafe,
By now y’all see I’ve got my boy installed there at your place for a while. He’s not going to be any trouble, because that Tag’s a kid who knows what to do with himself. See that he gets a decent meal every day or two. He doesn’t always think about things like that. He’ll pay his own way, don’t you worry.
Listen, I am coming back, and I’ll settle up with you on the room. I just can’t make it yet. I’m asking y’all to trust me, just a while, hear?
Tag got to you yet? It doesn’t take that guy long, does it? I’ll be seeing y’all as soon as I can swing it, all things considered.
Take care.
Gratefuly,
C.W. Layton
Stephanie, Momma, and I sat in the empty cafe talking about whether to tell Tag we’d heard from Cee Dubyah.
“Maybe Cee Dubyah visited him last night,” Stephanie suggested.
“Well, if he did Tag would never say a word about it,” I reminded them. “He’s the most stubborn, independent mule I ever saw.”
“He has a right to know we’ve heard from his dad,” Momma said.
“It would just make him sad, wouldn’t it?” asked Stephanie. But then Stephanie is the kind of person who isn’t happy unless she has at least twenty minutes of intense misery each day.
“But it’d be reassuring. At least he’d know Cee Dubyah is coming back, right?”
“Oh, sure, Aunt Marilyn, but when, he’ll wonder. How long’s the poor thing going to have to shift for himself?”
“Tag’s no poor thing,” I muttered. “He’ll be opening a restaurant out there any day now.”
“Let’s show him the letter,” Momma said.
“Let’s lie about it,” suggested Stephanie.
I had the only reasonable idea. “I say we look him over and see if he says anything about Cee Dubyah being here. If he does, we’ll tell him about the letter. If he doesn’t—”
“We’ll tell him anyway,” Momma said firmly.
“Who you talking about, that kid?” Johnny called out the pass-through. “Put him out on the highway. Maybe a truck’ll run the runt over.”
“Cook, Johnny. Don’t philosophize,” Momma said. “Oh dear, it is a responsibility having this child here. Your father will have a fit when he finds out.”
“Oh, he’ll pretend to have a fit, you know that, Momma, but he’ll put up with it.”
“Is he coming up this weekend, Aunt Marilyn?”
“Not until the end of the month,” Momma said, shaking her head from side to side. “He’s not terribly supportive about our efforts to feed the truckers, you know. He thinks we should settle down to respectable work. The last time we talked about it he suggested an insurance office.…” Momma’s voice trailed off.
I hid my face in my hands, bracing myself. Here it comes, I thought.
“Can you imagine anything more tedious than an insurance office? If there’s anything I hate, girls, it’s routine. Well, I’ll just have to explain it all to Dad when he comes home next weekend. Or maybe Tag will be gone by then. See what you can do, Dovi. Johnny, what’s our Sunday Special this week?”
“Squirrel,” Johnny snarled.
“Oh, yuck!” cried Stephanie.
“You don’t like squirrel? Then you can have chicken-fried and mashed potatoes,” Johnny growled. “There isn’t much I can do to hurt potatoes once they’re smashed up that way, and a chicken-fried steak is a chicken-fried steak, even if I cook it in axle grease. Yep, squirrel’s our Sunday Special, take it or leave it, folks.”
“He’s kidding,” I whispered, for Stephanie had a squeamish stomach and was quite green. She couldn’t even stand hearing someone talk about an operation while she was eating. When her face had turned back to its usual color I said, “Momma, we’re going to look Tag over outside, and you can trust me to do what’s best for him and us both, okay?”
“Oh, I know I can. You’re just like your father, loaded with common sense. Thank goodness none of it rubbed off on me. You will tell him, however.”
So, Stephanie and I went out looking for Tag at his roadside stand. In four days he’d gone from beer to beer and Life Savers to beer and Life Savers and newspapers. Then on Saturday he’d added a line of combs, disposable razors, and toothbrushes. I couldn’t wait to see what he’d be selling on Sunday—maybe Bibles? But there was no sign of Tag out by the road.
“Do you think his father’s come for him?” Stephanie asked.
“We just got the letter today. Maybe he’s sick.”
“We’d better go check his cabin, don’t you think?”
Well, I knew Tag wasn’t the kind of kid you just outright checked up on. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go get a mop and stuff.”
With a bucket of soapy water, some spray cans, a bunch of rags, and a bundle of clean sheets and towels we were armed to invade Tag’s room. The calico curtains of Red Cottage 4 were pulled tight, as though they’d been pinned or paper-clipped together inside. And there was no light showing under the door, no sound of the radio or the air conditioner humming inside.
“Shall I knock?” asked Stephanie.
“How else is he going to know we’re out here?” I replied lightly, but to tell the truth I was worried.
Stephanie knocked, pounded, beat on the door. I thought I heard someone scurrying around inside, like a puppy or something, but I couldn’t be sure because a big semi was grinding its way out of our lot right behind the cottage.
“Use the key, for heaven’s sake,” Stephanie whispered.
On my belt loop was a jailer’s ring, and I fumbled around for the key with the red dot painted on it. Stephanie pushed the door open while I was still wrestling the key out of the stubborn lock.
Believe me, the air in the room could have knocked out a pack of St. Bernards. It was a killer combination of sweat socks and overripe bananas. The room was pitch-dark besides; there wasn’t a sliver of light. It took us awhile to spot Tag sitting in the middle of the bed and looking a lot like he was being stalked.
“Taggert!” I yelled.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked in a morning voice deeper than usual—a frightened voice, I thought, not the kind of angry sound I’d expect from a Tag cornered by two girls with a bucket of wash water.
“Well, we’ve got to clean the place,” I huffed. “It smells like a pigsty. Can’t you smell?”
Tag sniffed around like a bloodhound. “Smells just regular.”
Stephanie coughed and busied herself dusting the rickety old desk.
“Hey, watch it, you,” Tag warned. “I’ve got my business records over there.”
“Sor-ree,” Stephanie said.
“How come you’re still in bed?” I asked. “You’re missing customers. Half the guys have already pulled out for the day.”
“Isn’t it Sunday?” Tag scurried to the head of the bed and reached for something on the bedside table. It was too dark to see what he was fiddling with, but I guessed it was one of those nylon wallets, because there’s no mistaking the grating sound of Velcro being yanked away from itself. Finally he pulled the chain on the bedside lamp, and yes, it was a wallet. He slid a card out to study under the dim light.
“Umhmm … like I said, it’s Sunday. It says so right on my pocket calendar, so there, smarty.”
“So what if it’s Sunday?” Stephanie said. “You waiting for a ride to church?”
“It just so happens, I don’t work on the Lord’s day.”
“Oh, pardon us. We didn’t know you were such a saintly person. I mean, wh
o would guess it of a guy who steals newspapers and sells beer against the laws of the state of Kansas. Would you have guessed it, Stephanie?”
“Never for a minute,” she replied.
“Why are you guys so mean?” Tag asked.
Then I noticed that he was wrapping a towel around his middle and tying it in a messy knot at his left hip. “What’s the towel for?”
“I don’t have to tell you,” Tag replied, inching under the sheet.
“Who cares, anyway?” I said. “All I know is we’ve got to clean out this hog pen or the county will condemn the whole Pig-Out, and then where are you going to go, huh?” Tag didn’t answer, and in the dim light it seemed to me he got this worried look on his freckly face.
“She’s just kidding. But we do have to clean, or none of the neighbors will be able to leave their windows open.”
“What neighbors?” Tag taunted. “You never rent any of these holes out. Nobody would stay here who didn’t have to.”
“Oh, just get dressed,” I said. “We’ll be doing the bathroom.”
“No,” said Tag in this sorry little voice. “I can’t.”
“What do you think, we’re going to look at you? You haven’t got a thing we’d be interested in seeing.” I shoved Stephanie toward the bathroom, wondering how we were both going to fit into that tiny slot while Tag got himself decent.
Oh, the bathroom! It smelled like a gym suit that’d been forgotten in the washing machine for a week, and it didn’t take a minute to figure out why. Tag had strung a line from the shower head to a hook on the opposite wall, and flung over it were a pair of jeans, at least six used-to-be-white socks, two misshapen shirts, and three pairs of underpants. It was all wet, or damp, but no longer dripping into the puddle of water I’d just slipped around in. The underpants were drying into funny little twists of gray, like dishrags.
“Don’t you have rules against things like this?” Stephanie asked. “He can’t just do his laundry like this.”
“Certainly not like this,” I agreed, catching a whiff of the socks that were still black at the toes and pocked with little sticker stars from the wild grass out by Tag’s roadside stand. By now my clogs had made a bunch of black smudges on the floor and I was squishing water between my toes, so I motioned to Stephanie that we should clear out.
Tag was in the bed, with the sheet pulled up to his head. One eye watched us.
I swallowed a lump in my throat, then said, “What do you think, Tag, that this isn’t a first-class motel? Listen, we have laundry service here.”
“Laundry service,” Stephanie agreed. “Everybody just puts his clothes outside the door every day—”
“Every Sunday,” I corrected her, “and the laundry staff does ’em up with the sheets and towels.”
“Oh yeah? Nobody told us when me and Cee Dubyah checked in,” said Tag, his voice muffled by the sheet.
“Oh sure,” said Stephanie. “And guess what else. We provide loaner clothes while your stuff is being washed.”
Loaner clothes? Where were we going to get anything to fit this shrimp? I gathered up all the grungy laundry from Tag’s line, and we left the bucket and all in his room. “We’ll be back in a while,” I assured him.
“Next time knock,” he shot back.
“Knock? We practically beat your door down,” Stephanie reminded him.
“I wasn’t ready for any company then. Later I might be. Depends.”
“Oh, brother,” I sighed, trying to hold Tag’s smelly mess away from me so I wouldn’t stink all day.
Stephanie said, “We’ve just got to get that child something to wear.”
“Terrific, Stephanie. Got any ideas?”
“Johnny’s old jeans?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Johnny weighs about four hundred pounds more than Tag, and even my dad’s stuff would swim on him.” I stepped back, like an artist admiring a model. “You’re pretty slim, Steph. You haven’t got a whole lot of shape,” I added. “Have you got some old jeans we could make into cutoffs for Tag?”
“Oh no—I’m not sacrificing a perfectly good pair of jeans!” she protested. But it’s no use trying to change my mind once it’s set on something.
Half an hour later, with Tag’s smelly heap soaking in Biz, we brought a decent pair of cutoffs down to Red Cottage 4 and knocked.
“Who is it?” came this sort of rasp from inside.
“Who do you think it is?”
Tag opened the door a crack, then backed up behind it so we could get in. I swear, the change in the room was amazing. He’d stripped the bed and tossed the dirty sheets into a corner, and the clean ones were tucked in as tight as a baby crib. All his “business papers” were stacked neatly on the desk, and we could see places on the floor where the mop water was drying in deformed shapes.
“Boy, you’ve been busy,” I said. “Even wrapped in that stupid towel.”
“Check the bathroom,” he told us proudly. Sure enough, he’d Ajaxed the sink and tub to a glistening white, despite the cracks and rusted places, and the mirror over the sink, which he must have climbed on the toilet to reach, was sparkling and barely even smudgy. Except for a few hairs along the baseboard, the floor was spotless.
“Why, Tag, you’re a regular houseboy,” Stephanie cried.
“Am not!”
“Oh, shut up. That was a compliment, dope.” I tossed him the jeans. “Here, get dressed.”
He turned them this way and that. “Is this all?”
“It’s hot out. You don’t need a shirt or socks.”
“He means the you-know-whats, Dov.”
“Yeah, what am I s’posed to put on under these?”
“Nothing, macho man,” I teased. “Oh well, these cutoffs are pretty soft and harmless, and we’ll have your clothes disinfected in about a week, so don’t worry.”
He tightened the towel around his middle.
“Suit yourself,” I shrugged. “If you ever get dressed, come on into the cafe for the Sunday Special. On Sundays we always feed our cottage customers for free. Especially if they’re not wearing underwear.”
SEVEN
Stephanie had a major decision to make: Was she going to stay at the Pig-Out for the summer to write her fiction novel, or was she going back to Wichita for Wayne Firestone’s All Star game?
“This is a tough one, Dov. I—am—torn. I’d really like to stay and see how things turn out with Tag, and I wanted to finish my fiction novel, which I’m going to start tomorrow, but sometimes we have to make sacrifices for love.”
By this time I’d heard so much about Wayne Firestone that I was beginning to believe he looked like one of those hulking gargoyles outside the Spinner Public Library, and I was sure he had as much personality as a head of iceberg lettuce.
“Look at it this way, Steph. Have you even gotten one letter, one single word from Wayne the whole time you’ve been here?”
“Well, no,” Stephanie admitted. “But I promised him before I left that if he made the All Star team I’d be there for the game, and Judy wrote that he made it.”
“I guess if he invited you …”
“Uh, well, he didn’t exactly invite me. I sort of volunteered.”
“Yeah, but if you’re going with him …”
“We’re not exactly going together. It’s more like we’re really good friends.”
“Okay, so if you’re so close …”
“Well, it’s not exactly that we’re terribly close—yet.”
“Stephanie Fisher, what exactly is it between you and the great first baseman, Wayne Firestone?”
“You mean actually? Specifically?”
“I mean on the nose.”
“The exact, particular, actual, specific nature of our relationship is that I’m wildly crazy about Wayne Firestone, and he’s wildly crazy about baseball.”
“He doesn’t even like girls?”
“Baseball, and Emily Ryan,” Stephanie said miserably.
“Oh, Steph.” I put m
y arms around her, feeling genuinely sorry for her. But deep inside my heart was pounding joyfully because Stephanie hadn’t really gotten any further than I had in the boyfriend department.
“Emily Ryan is four foot eleven,” Stephanie said, “and she has red hair that she wears in a wedge that bounces.”
“Oh no, the worst—bouncy hair,” I cried, yanking on the brown straw that hung to my shoulders.
“She’s what my mother calls ‘perky,’” Stephanie confessed. “Perky, bouncy, they go hand in hand. And her hair’s not the only thing that bounces. It makes me positively nauseous.”
I handed her a carry-out sack. “Here, have a barf bag.”
She grabbed one of the cheap, bristly napkins we kept in the holders—I mean, these napkins could scrape off the top layer of flesh—and she wiped the tears off her face. Blush and dripping mascara went with the tears. “On the other hand, if I’m not there for the All Star game, Emily could really get a strangle-hold, and Wayne will be lost forever.” This was enough to soak two more napkins. I pulled out a stack as thick as a Viva sponge.
“Wayne Firestone sinks into the bog,” I pronounced it as if I were reading an Eagle and Beacon headline. “Starting first baseman’s head visible only for seconds before he is sucked into the gurgling mud. Implicated in the drowning is fifteen-year-old Emily Ryan, described by classmates as perky. Wayne Firestone is survived by Stephanie Fisher, waitress at the world famous Pig-Out Inn of Spinner, Kansas.”
Stephanie giggled and sort of brightened a bit, with her face all streaked in about three different shades. “This is really dumb, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, really dumb.”
“But I’m part of a long tradition. Cleopatra and Juliet and all.”
“They’re dead. I’m not sure, were they ever really people?”
“Oh yes. I went to Shakespeare-in-the-Park last summer and saw at least one of them, I forget which. Anyway, if they weren’t real, they should have been.”
As far as I was concerned the whole issue of Stephanie’s leaving was decided right then and there, but I guess she wasn’t sure until the next Saturday, when something happened to convince her.