“These crazy kids,” she could imagine her grandmother saying about her parents and their friends. “Now that the war is over they want to spend all their time having babies and buying every sort of newfangled appliance and car that rolls down the pike.”
She smiled. As wise old King Solomon once declared, there’s really nothing new under the sun. Comparing the generations would make a good column, though she wasn’t sure what kind of photo would best illustrate it.
“What’s so funny?” Rett asked, frowning.
“I’m sorry. It had nothing to do with you. Sometimes my mind goes off on these tangents, and I completely forget where I am. Used to drive your grandpa Cy crazy.”
Rett’s frown softened. “Yeah, I do that sometimes. Like when I’m thinking about a song that I’m writing.”
Love cocked her head. “You write songs?”
Rett’s face flushed pink. “None have actually been, like, bought or anything. I . . . I mess around.”
“I take photos,” Love said, feeling like she should share something about herself, trying to relieve Rett’s embarrassment. “I have a monthly column for a local magazine. I take a picture, then sort of comment on it. The magazine’s publisher is the father of the doctor who examined you last night.” She put two fingers to her cheek, laughing softly. “That sounds really small town, doesn’t it?”
Rett’s eyes lit up. “You’re published in a magazine? Cool.”
Love lifted one shoulder, trying not to look overly pleased at her granddaughter’s approval. She would have liked to continue this conversational detour, but they had unfinished business that was best taken care of now. “About what happened with our family. Let’s just get that out of the way. I’ll answer your questions flat out, okay?”
Rett nodded, her face serious.
“When Tommy . . . your daddy . . . passed away, your mother and I were both very hurt and very sad and, I guess, looking back now, we both felt cheated. She lost her husband, and I lost my only child.” Love stopped, taking a deep breath. Just saying it out loud was still hard. And she wanted to tread carefully, not make Karla sound horrible. “Instead of being able to comfort each other, I think we both wanted to be mad at someone, so we chose each other. Grief makes people do strange things sometimes. But I did try to make up with her once I got back to California. I sent cards and letters and we even came to visit you once, but—”
“The Disney World trip,” Rett said softly.
That surprised Love. “How do you know about that? You were just a tiny girl.” The remembered humiliation of that visit still caused Love’s blood pressure to rise.
Rett started picking the half-eaten muffin on her plate into little pieces, not meeting Love’s eyes. “When I was eight, I heard Mom talk about it to a friend. Mom said you could visit, then we went to Disney World before you got there. That was totally mean of her.” She looked up at Love. “Why does she hate you so much?”
Love bit the inside of her cheek. Rett’s candid words hurt more than she probably realized. “I guess it boils down to the fact that we both loved Tommy and thought we knew what was best for him, and they weren’t the same thing.”
“What she did to you was so wrong,” Rett said.
Though she wanted to jump up and hug her granddaughter, Love held back. “We have both said and thought hurtful things, Rett. I know your daddy loved your mama and you girls to the last day of his life.”
Rett stared at her hands, clasped together, fingers entwined as if in prayer. She didn’t reply for a long time, causing Love to wonder if she’d made a mistake in being so honest. When Rett lifted her head, her pupils were large black spots.
“It wasn’t you. It was Mom. She’s always been so, I don’t know, pissed off at life. She never got over not making it as a country singer, and she is sure that one of us girls will do it for her.” Rett gave a bitter laugh. “That’s not exactly true. She wants Patsy to be the big old Nashville star. And that’s screwed up royally now. Don’t worry about Mom being upset about me being here. That not what’s really bugging her. What’s freaking her out is that her shining star has gotten pregnant. The only reason she wants me to come back is that she thinks I can talk Patsy into telling her who the daddy is. I’m sick of being the person who always has to tell everyone what everyone else is doing. Let them punch it out. I’m so over the whole stupid thing with Dale.”
Love stared at Rett, floored by this unexpected cascade of information. “Patsy’s pregnant? Who’s Dale?”
Rett’s face seemed to collapse, and she turned her head, staring out the kitchen window at the navy-colored ocean. In that instant, Love pieced together the whole story. Rett was in love with this Dale, who got her sister pregnant, and she was running away from the situation.
Heavenly stars, she thought. It sounds just like a soap opera episode. Or a country western song. She gently asked, “Dale is the father of Patsy’s baby?”
Rett nodded silently.
“And you and Dale had a relationship too?”
Rett nodded again.
Love took a deep breath. “Does your mother know the whole story?”
Rett shook her head, her eyes glistening. “I told you, Mom doesn’t even know Dale is the father. At least, she didn’t know when I left three days ago.”
“And you and this Dale?”
“Mom doesn’t know about that either. Neither does Patsy. At least I don’t think she does. No one knew except me and Dale.” Her expression was both defiant and apologetic. “I didn’t know about him and Patsy. I’d never be that skanky.”
“I believe you.” Love wanted to strangle this Dale creature with her bare hands. She reached over and touched her granddaughter’s hand. It was as cold as a winter tide pool. She was almost afraid to ask the next question. “How old is Dale?”
Rett raised her chin. “Not that old. I’m eighteen.”
“But how old is he?”
“I’ve known him, like, forever. Since I was thirteen. He played Dobro and banjo in our backup band when we cut our CD a few years ago.”
Love just looked at her and waited.
Rett’s chin went a little higher. “Twenty-six, okay? So he’s a little older. So what.”
Love felt her neck grow hot with anger at this man who’d taken advantage of her granddaughters. But that wasn’t something she could do anything about. Not at the moment. She cleared her throat. “We’ve been very adult and been perfectly honest with each other. I can’t think of a better way to start our new relationship, can you?”
Rett started playing with her already mangled muffin and squirmed just enough to make Love suspicious.
“What else, Rett?” she asked. “If we’re going to have a good relationship, we need to be honest with each other. Don’t you think there have been enough secrets and misunderstandings in this family?”
Rett nodded, her face miserable. “I kind of . . . well . . . I sort of . . . borrowed something from someone?”
Now Love was really confused.
“I guess, sort of without asking.”
Love could feel the vein in her right temple start to throb. “In other words, you’ve stolen something.” She panicked, thinking, What do I do if she’s robbed a liquor store, and the police are after her? For a split second, she contemplated the places on the Johnson ranch where she could hide her granddaughter.
“What did you take?” Love’s voice jumped an octave.
“My banjo,” Rett said. “I mean, his banjo. It’s Dale’s banjo. It was his grandfather’s. I took it out of the back of his truck. Dale’s, I mean. Not his grandfather. His grandfather died ten years ago.” She sat up straight and looked Love in the eye. “I don’t care. Dale deserved it. He’s a creep.”
“I won’t argue with the fact that he is a creep, but that doesn’t make it right for you to take something that belongs to him.”
Rett narrowed her eyes. “What he did was way worse. He lied to me. I’m not giving it back.”
Love was not quite certain how far she should pursue this. After all, as she’d pointed out to Karla last night, Rett was a grown woman. If she wanted to steal her cheating ex-boyfriend’s banjo, why should Love care? How much could a banjo be worth, anyway? Granted, if it was his grandfather’s, it would have some sentimental value. Love was certain that once Rett cooled down, she’d let Love send it back to this cockroach of a man.
“So, just to keep things aboveboard, how much would you say this instrument is worth?” Love was thinking, Four, five hundred dollars, tops.
Rett wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Kind of a lot.”
“Meaning?”
“Twenty-five . . . umm . . .”
Love felt her stomach drop. “Twenty-five hundred dollars?”
There was a long pause. “Uh . . . thousand.”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars? That banjo is worth twenty-five thousand dollars?”
Rett’s expression was sheepish and a little fearful.
Love had always believed there were dramatic moments in every Protestant believer’s life when they fervently wished they were Catholic just so they could cross themselves, when that comforting holy gesture seemed the only conceivable response to a situation. This was, without a doubt, one of those moments for her.
FIFTEEN
Mel
Before she went to sleep, Mel loaded her .38 pistol and placed it on the bed next to her, something she hadn’t done since she left Las Vegas. She managed to get a few hours’ sleep, though she tossed and turned most of the night, dreaming of plastic-wrapped money and Patrick’s leering face.
When the alarm clock went off at five a.m., she turned on her bedside light and was surprised to see terra-cotta-colored spots dotting her pale blue pillowcase. Her bottom lip throbbed, and she touched the soft, swollen flesh with a tentative finger. Sometime during the night she’d bitten her lip. Ice cubes wrapped in a dish towel and pressed to her lip made it presentable. It took two large mugs of coffee before she felt able to get dressed. Though normally she didn’t mind covering for Brad and Evan’s surfing, this morning she cursed their flakiness and swore she’d find a job where she wasn’t at the beck and call of two horny guys with boy-band looks and excessive trust funds.
By the time she opened the feed store at six a.m., she was a little less cranky. They’d promised to be here by nine a.m. Coffee would sustain her until then. Once they took over, she’d go to the Buttercream for some of Shug’s sourdough-banana pancakes.
From the first day that Cy hired her, she’d felt at home in this small wooden structure with the huge back lot. Though at first foreign, now the malty smell of hay, toasty cracked corn, sweet new leather and grassiness of rabbit pellets was like a heady perfume to her, a sensory memory road to long, easy days when Cy patiently taught her the ins and outs of running a feed store.
“Though most folks round here don’t want to face it, ranching isn’t going to be the top moneymaker in this county forever,” he’d said while they counted bags of dog and cat chow. “But there’ll be enough die-hard ranchers, rancher wannabes, weekend farmers and pet owners to make an okay living for a feed store if we stay up with the times. This county will always have its dogs and cats and goats and rabbits and horses. Whatever critters people want to own or raise, we’ll be here to take care of their needs.” He grinned at her. “Besides, the barbershop can’t be the only place where men go to gossip.”
She glanced over the to-do list she made yesterday. The shipments of Nature’s Variety and Paul Newman dog food were coming in today. At first, the new owner, Bill, was reluctant to carry any of the fancy organic dog foods, afraid their higher prices would scare customers off. But she convinced him that the new breed of pet owners moving into the once primarily rural San Celina County were not people who would balk at buying the best for their pets. Her next idea that she was going to run by Bill was stocking the ever-growing-in-popularity raw food diet touted by magazines like Whole Dog Journal and Bark. Then she’d broach the lucrative suggestion of pet toys and beds. Bill was old school, but he trusted Mel enough to give these new products a try. Last month the store actually made money, which made Bill happy. He’d really only expected it to be a place for his grandsons to appear to be working.
Mel had been there only a half hour when her first customer of the day, Rocky Sanchez, walked through the door. She was cleaning an old saddle that Mrs. Tenorio, a widow lady from Cayucos, wanted to sell. It had been her husband, Oscar’s, she told Mel when she brought it in yesterday in the back of her ancient Ford pickup. He used it for fifty-seven years, starting when he worked for the Hearst Ranch back in the fifties. He died last year of a heart attack. Mrs. Tenorio didn’t want to sell it, but the taxes were due on her little house, and she didn’t have the money to pay them. She was hoping someone would buy the saddle since, she said, they hadn’t kept horses for years and had no children to leave it to. It was filthy and stiff from nonuse, and Mel couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to buy it, but she spontaneously offered to clean it in hopes that some kind person would see its homely beauty and feel drawn to it.
“Beautiful carving,” Rocky said, reaching over to touch the fender that Mel had been meticulously cleaning with saddle soap.
“Yeah, I was surprised. It’s an old working saddle that looked kinda tacky when Mrs. Tenorio brought it in. Wasn’t sure anyone would buy it, but now I’m thinking it might have a chance.”
Rocky’s broad, smooth face looked thoughtful. “I preached Oscar’s funeral. Great old guy. Lived to be ninety-six and was still riding the last year of his life. Gracie’s had it a little tough financially since he’s been gone. Both their children died before they turned eighteen.” He shook his shiny bald head at the tragedy.
“That’s rough,” Mel said, setting down her chamois cloth and grabbing a paper towel to wipe off her slick hands. The smell of the saddle soap always reminded her of August, who first taught her how to clean leather. “What can I get you, Padre Sanchez?”
“Rabbit feed,” he said. “I’m doing visitations today, and I’m going to see Lenora up in Cayucos, and she needs some food for her floppy ears. Maybe I’ll drop by Gracie’s house as long as I’m up there. How much she asking for the saddle?”
Mel went over to the aisle where they stocked the rabbit food. “Three- or five-pound bag?”
“Make it five. That’ll last her awhile.”
Mel tucked it under her arm and walked back to the counter. “That’ll be six fifty.”
He pulled a worn leather wallet from the back pocket of his dark blue Levi’s. “About Gracie’s saddle . . .”
“Oh, forgot to say. I sold it.” She made the decision on the spur of the moment. She knew what Rocky was going to do: buy the saddle himself so Mrs. Tenorio could pay her tax bill. He was always doing things like that, which is why, she’d heard Magnolia complain in an indulgent voice, they had an almost-full storage unit they rented over by the golf course. She kept threatening him that they’d have a big old garage sale someday. Not, he told her seriously, until the people whose possessions he’d bought had died.
He looked at her from under thick, bushy eyebrows, not fooled a bit. “Do tell? And who bought the old thing?”
She just smiled at him. “Now, you know I can’t tell you that.” Gracie Tenorio had wanted three hundred dollars for it. Mel had about almost two fifty saved in the blue Maxwell House coffee can. She’d find the rest somewhere.
“You’re a good girl,” Rocky said, patting her shoulder. “God will reward you for your kind heart.”
She avoided his eyes. “You going to the lighted boat parade tomorrow night?”
He nodded. “Magnolia and I are wimping out this year. We’ve reserved a table inside the Happy Shrimp.”
“So did August and Polly. I think you all are smart. I’ll be out in the cold freezing my tail off taking photos of Bert and Ernie and their kayak brigade.”
“Wear your long underwear, and pray for no wind.”
“Th
at’s your department.”
“He doesn’t listen any better to me than he would you; that’s a fact.”
She looked him directly in the eyes. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Rocky gave her a big smile, white, white teeth against dark brown skin. “Well, I am, and I am an educated man. I’ve got a piece of pretty parchment paper that declares it to be so.”
“Tell Mrs. T. that I’ve got her money here. I can mail her a check or pay her cash.”
“I’ll tell her.”
After Rocky left, business picked up, and there was a steady stream of customers for the rest of the morning. Mel was glad, because it gave her little time to think about Patrick. She knew that he wouldn’t just go away. He was absolutely convinced that she had the rest of Sean’s money. Somehow she would have to persuade him that she didn’t even believe it existed.
The boys finally showed up about noon, three hours late, their sun-streaked hair still damp and wild from surfing. She was hungry, her nerves jangly from apprehension and too much coffee. She was in no mood for their jokes.
“Hey, Mama Mel,” said Brad, the older by ten months. “Business been good?” He flashed a perfect smile, thanks to thousands of dollars of orthodontia and an image-conscious society mother. They both could have posed for Surfer magazine or an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.
“You said you’d be here by nine,” she snapped.
“Man, the waves were awesome,” Evan said, picking up her freshly poured fifth cup of coffee and taking a swig. “You gotta go with the flow.” He was shorter than his brother by two inches and had a slightly broader nose. Other than that, they could have been sun-kissed twins.
“That sounds like bad Beach Boys dialogue,” she said. “And that’s my coffee.”
“Ah, don’t be mad,” Brad said. “This enough?” He pulled out a damp wallet and took out three fifty-dollar bills.
Love Mercy Page 14