Talk of the Town

by Lisa Wingate

  Near the front windows, the beauty shop was dim except for the glow of a chrome floor lamp on the counter by the cash register. The pink gooseneck hairdryers with their cone-shaped heads took on an alien countenance in the low light, their dual adjustment knobs watching me like glassy eyes as I came closer, moving toward the exercise area. From my vantage point, I could see the weights moving up and down on the machine, but the person moving them was hidden behind an old hotel counter converted to serve as a coffee bar. I hoped that, when I rounded the partition, it was Carter and not some ghostly Confederate soldier trying to stay in shape.

  The weights paused, and I stopped where I was. Maybe he was coming back upstairs now. If I knew there was someone—a living, breathing someone—in the next room, I could probably relax and turn in.

  I heard metal slide against metal as he loaded up a barbell—my best guess—and then after another minute heard him exhaling at regular intervals. I swallowed my pride in one big lump, then walked around the corner. Carter lay face-up on a bench, doing chest presses with his eyes squinted shut. An impressive amount of weight moved smoothly up and down as his chest tightened and strained beneath the SPCA shirt.

  “Hi,” I said, so as not to startle him.

  Letting the bar drop into its rack, he bolted upright and screamed, “Ahhh!”

  I stumbled backward, my heart bouncing into my throat.

  “Just kidding,” he said wryly. “I heard someone coming in the door.”

  Slapping a hand over my chest, I caught my breath. “I think you just gave me a ministroke.”

  “Sorry.” Grabbing his towel off the partition, he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, then dried the fringes of his hair, creating something between a mess and a Shirley Temple. His hair turned from wavy to curly when it was wet. “Change your mind about using the exercise equipment tonight?” He took in my sweats and fuzzy blue socks.

  I considered lying and saying that I’d come down to exercise. But if there’s one thing they hammer home in Episcopal school it’s that lying, especially the kind of lies that you think about ahead of time and still decide to tell, is wrong. “I couldn’t sleep,” I told him, feeling pathetic and inept. “I’m not stalking you, I promise. It’s just kind of weird up there.”

  “It’s a little weird down here, too,” he admitted, probably just to make me feel better, because he didn’t look scared. “You’ll be happy to know, though, that Buddy Ray has the front of the building staked out.” He pointed toward a police car moving slowly down Main Street. “You might not want to dress near the window up there.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I answered, and for a minute we just stood there watching the car pass out of sight. When it was gone, I shifted uncomfortably, feeling like the dorky girl at a middle school dance. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

  “You’re not.” He motioned toward the TV in the corner, where a salesman was advertising aluminum siding on some late-night cable channel. “Turn up the sound and stay a while if you want.”

  “Okay.” The word rushed out far too quickly, sounding terribly uncool. “I mean, if you’re sure I won’t be in the way.”

  “Not a bit.”

  I felt him watching me as I crossed the exercise area, but by the time I sat down in one of the sixties-style vinyl chairs at the edge of the carpet, he’d gone back to work with the weights. I concentrated on the TV so he wouldn’t think I was watching him. It was surprisingly hard not to look.

  An episode of Bonanza came on, and I focused in, a sudden sense of home and family enveloping me like a favorite blanket. “My dad and I used to watch reruns of this show. My mom had bit parts in some of the episodes.”

  His rhythmic breathing stopped. “Really?”

  Curling my legs into the chair, I waited for the opening scene, hoping this would be one of her episodes. “Oh sure. She had little parts in a lot of old shows. She’s half Italian, so she’s been everything from a gypsy to an Indian princess. She even got to play Little Joe’s romantic lead once. I was always jealous of that one. I had a major crush on Little Joe.”

  The bench squealed as Carter sat up. “Oh, you’re a cowgirl, huh?”

  “Hardly,” I laughed. “There wasn’t much chance of my having a horse in LA, but I fantasized about it a lot. I had a cousin who lived on a ranch up by Truckee, and we went there once or twice.”

  “Pretty country up by Truckee.” He didn’t return to exercising but just sat there astraddle the bench, as if he’d rather talk than work out. “I wanted to take a drive up that way when I was out in LA but couldn’t spare the time last trip.”

  “Oh really? What brought you to LA?” Mandalay Florentino, hard-edged associate producer, reared her suspicious head. Carter had recently been to LA. Hmmm …

  “Business. Nothing very interesting.” He closed up like a clam in a riptide. The weight bench squealed as he lay down again.

  “Did it work out all right?”

  “We’ll see.” The weights started moving up and down again.

  I shifted toward the TV, contemplating what We’ll see might mean. My stomach gurgled unexpectedly, sending out a long, loud moan. I hugged my knees against my chest, but the moaning got louder.

  “Is that you or the ghost?” There was a heavy clunk as he set the barbell in the rack.

  “It’s me,” I admitted with a growing sense of humiliation. This was so undignified. I should have stayed upstairs in my room. “I dumped soda all over my takeout food, and the cookie plate downstairs is empty.”

  “I think Buddy Ray ate the cookies.” The weight bench squealed and rattled as Carter stood up. I glanced over my shoulder, and he was watching the sheriff’s car pass by outside the windows again.

  “Come on,” he said, giving a clandestine shrug toward the far side of the room as the car slipped out of sight.

  “What?”

  “Midnight snack.” Shrugging again, he checked the front window, then said, “Watch this,” and started across the room.

  I’m not normally the adventurous type, but something about Carter’s invitation was impossible to resist. Uncurling my legs, I followed him through the room, past the hair dryers that looked like alien mind-sucking devices, to a four-foot-wide bookshelf, which he proceeded to swing open, creating a doorway in the wall.

  “Whoa,” I gasped, standing back. “Is that the secret door Imagene was talking about?”

  “Must be.” He winked in a way that told me he’d seen the doorway in operation before. “Let’s go see what we can rustle up in the café.”

  “No way!” I laughed, poking my head through the hole. The café was on the other side, the interior dimly lit by neon signs in the window and a flickering fluorescent bulb on the huge Vent-A-Hood.

  “Ladies first,” Carter urged.

  “Huh-uh.” Stepping back, I adopted what I hoped was a steadfast posture. Something in there smelled really good… . “That’s breaking and entering.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “It is, too.”

  “She said to make ourselves at home.” Carter lifted his hands, indicating It’s elementary.

  “We’ve been arrested once tonight already,” I protested, but Carter was slipping sideways through the opening, heading toward the good-smelling stuff.

  “That was mostly your fault,” he pointed out just before he disappeared. “Hey, there’s pecan pie in the case. It looks fresh.”

  My stomach went wild and a slew of primal urges pulled me through the wall against all good sense. I stopped on the café side, thinking that if Buddy Ray passed by, I’d hurry back through and leave Carter to explain why he was rummaging around the café. This time, he could get arrested without me.

  He didn’t seem worried. In fact, he was taking his time, looking in cabinets and opening metal bins on the prep table. Momentarily, he appeared to consider turning on the cooktop.

  “I’m thinking … nachos,” he decided finally, grabbing an open bag of tortilla chips and dumping some
into a paper hotdog boat. “Nachos and pecan pie.” He spun a partially filled pie plate down the counter and motioned to me. “Cut a couple pieces of that.”

  Hesitating a few steps into the room, I tried to reconcile myself to pie larceny. My mother would be horrified. Then again, my mother wasn’t the one starving in the middle of the night and standing mere feet away from a luscious dessert. “All right.” In the morning, I’d confess to the café owner and pay for the pie. And the nachos.

  At the prep table, Carter whistled as he sprinkled shredded cheese on the chips, popped the whole shebang into the microwave, then dropped the metal cheese lid noisily back into place.

  I jumped. Again. Guilty conscience. “Sshhh. You know, there’s a ghost under here counting Confederate coins.”

  Carter leaned over to observe the nachos, his finger poised to press the microwave button at exactly the right moment. “Let’s hope the pecan pie isn’t his.”

  Shaking my head, I finished cutting our slices and handed the pie back like a hot tamale. “Here. Put this away.”

  Carter set the pie in the rack, then pointed calmly toward the front window. “Down in front.” Giving my shirt a quick tug, he ducked behind the counter, and I turned around just in time to see the sheriff’s car passing slowly along Main Street.

  I froze, silently praying that the headlights were reflecting on the window and Buddy Ray couldn’t see inside. Please, God, don’t let me get arrested again tonight. Please?

  The car passed and I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, something was going right.

  Carter popped up behind the counter. His cell phone rang and I gasped, slapping a hand against my chest.

  “You’re not very good at this,” he commented. Checking the number on his phone, he seemed to consider answering it, then he turned off the ringer and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

  “I’m probably not the person you want along on your next bank robbery,” I joked, catching my breath.

  “I don’t know. You’ve got possibilities.” He grinned at me as he moved to the refrigerator case. “Root beer, Coke, or Dr. Pepper?”

  A little tingly feeling traveled over my skin. “Root beer. Let’s get out of here, all right?”

  “As you wish.” Balancing the nachos on his palm, he ushered me out with the two bottles of root beer laced between his fingers. As we made our getaway, he reached into the pocket of his workout shorts and left a twenty on the counter. “My treat,” he said as we slipped through the bookcase and pushed it into place again.

  Back in the beauty shop, Carter set the nachos on an overturned box that doubled as a magazine table. Then he opened the lids on both sodas and handed mine to me with a ceremonious flourish that made him look like a waiter serving up fine wine. He hesitated there for a moment after I took my drink, and I was afraid he was considering excusing himself and going upstairs. I wanted him to stay, but of course I couldn’t tell him that. Any way I said it, please stay would sound like an invitation to something more than a late-night snack and an episode of Bonanza.

  I gave myself a mental kick. That was hardly a proper line of thought for a happily engaged Episcopal-schooled girl to be descending into. What was wrong with me tonight?

  Scooping up a nacho, Carter plopped down in the chair next to mine, seeming perfectly happy to spend the wee hours of the night watching Bonanza with me.

  David wouldn’t watch Bonanza. David hates cowboy shows… .

  Focusing on the television, I stuffed a nacho into my mouth, hoping the food would clear my head.

  Chapter 8

  Imagene Doll

  For a few minutes every morning I wake up and think Jack’s there. In my mind, he’s in the kitchen making the coffee like he always did before he headed off to the insurance office. He’d bring me a cup and we’d sit in the bed, me underneath the covers and him on top, because he was already dressed. Some mornings even yet, I hear him downstairs, whistling “Danny Boy” or “The Old Rugged Cross.” I smell soap and Old Spice and I reach over and feel the sunken spot beside me in bed.

  I lay there smiling, pretending I’m still asleep, waiting for him to come and kiss me and say, “Rise and shine, Majee. Coffee’s on.” I always loved when he used that little pet name. Nobody else ever called me that, and even though Jack wasn’t a romantic man in big showy ways, those little things let me know his feelings more than any high-dollar roses on Valentine’s Day ever could have. In Corinthians, Paul says love’s not boastful, so I reckon Jack got it right. His love was patient and quiet, and it endured.

  I never would have told anybody, but even all these months after Jack’s passing, I still felt like he was with me in the house. The kids bought me a coffee pot with a timer to turn on in the mornings, but my heart said that Jack made the trip down from heaven every day to turn on the coffee, fill up the house, wake me with a kiss, and whisper, “Rise and shine, Majee. Coffee’s on.”

  I was glad the whisper of my Jack was there to ease me into morning, but I hoped my wishing for him wasn’t a burden. I wanted him to have time to enjoy his mansion up there in heaven. I hoped there was lots of open country around it, because Jack sure loved wide spaces.

  Usually, about the time I was turning over to ask him what heaven was like, one of the kids would call. With all four of them living out of town, they felt the need to take turns getting me up and making sure I wasn’t lying around feeling sad and lonesome.

  As much as I love my boys, I always dreaded the morning phone call, because it meant my time with Jack was over. I’d get out of bed and answer, feeling like I’d woke up in the wrong place. I didn’t tell the boys that, of course, but every once in a while, when it was Donetta calling first thing, I could get a little closer to the core. Donetta never hears much that I say on the phone, anyhow. Whenever she calls, it’s because she’s packing some news, and if she doesn’t get it out, she’ll explode.

  When the phone rang first thing, I had an inkling it was her. Outside, it was just getting light. Too early for the kids to call, and nobody with a lick of sense would phone someone’s house at the crack of daylight without an emergency.

  “Well, mornin’, mornin’, mornin’!” As usual, Donetta sounded like she’d been pacing the stall for an hour waiting to be milked. “I wake you up?” She always pretended she didn’t realize how early it was.

  “I was just having coffee,” I mumbled, grabbing the glass of water by my bed to wet down my throat and loosen my lips. Terrible thing, snoring in your sleep.

  “Well, good. I didn’t want to disturb your sleep.” Considering how long we’ve been friends, Donetta knew she’d be waking me, calling this early. “I heard there was a little excitement down to the hotel last night.”

  “A little.” Swinging my legs around, I sat up and put my feet on the floor without making a sound. I always kept quiet around the house in the mornings and left the curtains closed a little while. If there was even a hint of Jack still there, I didn’t want to spoil it.

  Donetta Bradford’s voice booming through the phone spoiled the quiet anyway. “Well, you should’ve called me.” No telling how she heard about the mess at the hotel already this morning. Maybe Buddy Ray came by her house while he was finishing his shift.

  “I tried to call you,” I told Donetta. “Your phone was busy all evening long. I figured y’all had it on the eBay again. Anyway, things down at the hotel were all taken care of. When I left, both of your guests looked pretty well settled. Carter was headed off to exercise and Amanda-Lee said she was turning in. They were probably tired, what with Buddy Ray putting them in cuffs and frisking them and all.”

  “Lands,” Donetta sighed. “If that Buddy Ray Baldrige ain’t about as thick as a pine knot on a post. Just when you think them Baldriges can’t get any dumber, they go and produce Buddy Ray.”

  “He meant well.” If I hadn’t promised Buddy Ray I’d keep quiet, I would have told Donetta about him locking the keys in his cruiser. “Anyhow, both of your customers were goo
d sports about it. I don’t think that Carter fella minded much. He seemed to get a kick out of it, actually. The girl was a little put off, but not too bad. Of course, Buddy Ray caught Carter in nothing but his exercise shorts, and not too many women would mind being handcuffed next to that.” Donetta gasped into the phone, and I added, “Young women, I mean,” just in case Jack actually was listening. “She looked like she had a little shine for him, actually, but that’s neither here nor there.”

  “I thought she was engaged.”

  “She did say that. She’s not wearing a ring, though, I noticed.”

  “Ooohhhh.” Donetta stretched the word out until it had some drama to it. I could hear her clucking her tongue against her teeth. “Maybe that’s part of her cover—you know, so folks won’t know she’s from American Megastar. She say anything about that last night—maybe about when Amber’s coming for her big hometown appearance? You find out anything more about what Carter’s doin’ here and whether them two know each other?”

  “Nope. Not a thing. Hang on a minute, I’ve got to visit the facilities.” I set the phone down on the nightstand with Donetta complaining and reminding me that the phone was cordless, which I knew. The boys had bought me the cordless phone for Christmas so I could keep it with me around the yard and such. Still, it didn’t seem proper to take someone into the bathroom with you. Donetta wouldn’t have minded. She carried me into the bathtub, the kitchen, the garden shed—pretty much anywhere she went.

  Donetta huffed a little when I came back on the phone. “Imagene, I swear. You got to get with the modern times.”

  “I’m too old and slow to get modern,” I said. The sun was rising over the hills in the distance, and that heavy feeling had started to settle in. I needed to get up and get moving or it would take hold of me and I’d want to curl up in bed and lay there and pass the day and the night and wait to feel Jack close by again.

  Tears stung my eyes. Sometimes it was more than I could bear, being just sixty-nine and a widow, alone for the rest of my life.