Sweet Water

by Anna Jeffrey

“While she’s sick?

  “She has Alzheimer’s Disease.”

  He looked at her for a moment and she was sure she saw the same expression in his sky-colored eyes that she had seen the day they danced to the jukebox. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

  Marisa lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “One of those things. When she was...when her mind was right, she was sort of the mayor of Agua Dulce.”

  “I see. And who has that role now? You?”

  Marisa gave a sarcastic huff. “Are you kidding? Mama was one of those natural-born leaders. I couldn’t lead a flock of ducks.” She picked up a ketchup bottle and blindly stared at the label. “No, I’m just...I don’t have a family to take care of or anything, so I’m sort of passing the time and doing the best I can to...to keep things going for her.”

  Both of them remained silent, him eating, her choking on the question she wanted to ask him. Finally she found her courage. “Tell me something, Mister Ledger.” He looked up and she locked her eyes on his. “Are you going to put us out of business here?”

  His gaze dropped to his plate and he picked up his napkin and dabbed his mouth. A muscle worked in his jaw. “It’s too soon to say.”

  He was lying. Marisa could read that much for sure. “That isn’t a no, is it?”

  He picked up his mug and sipped. “No,” he said, carefully placing his mug back on the counter. “No, it isn’t.”

  Though she had known the answer before he said it, the impact was more than she was prepared for. A burning sensation passed behind her eyes and she started to turn away.

  “I’m fair,” he said, stopping her. “I always try to be fair.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat, but she couldn’t look at him. “Hey, don’t worry about it. We’re not your responsibility.”

  He stood, his breakfast unfinished, his demeanor no longer relaxed. “Look, put this on my bill, okay? I probably won’t go back to Fort Worth ‘til next Thursday or Friday. I’ll settle up with you then.”

  Chapter 10

  Terry returned to his temporary home in a black mood. After leaving the café he had dropped in at Tanya’s Tangles to look over the interior of the space that adjoined Pecos Belle’s. Any time he bought a new property he examined it before deciding to sell it or raze it. During his inspection, Tanya Shepherd with the oddly dyed hair came on to him so openly he had almost run from her shop.

  Women. Not a damn one of them could be trusted.

  He plopped into a chair at the dining table and called Kim at her home number in Fort Worth. His office was closed on Saturday, but he could call his assistant any time. Her, he could trust, which was to be expected. He paid her well for her loyalty, along with her ability to keep his multi-pronged business running like a well-oiled machine even in his absence.

  When she answered, her excitement came across the phone lines. The first words from her mouth were that a phone call had come yesterday. A couple of property development guys from Larson’s had a sudden gap in their schedule and could make it down to Agua Dulce next Tuesday. She had assured them Terry would pick them up at the Midland airport at ten o’clock that morning. Otherwise they might get lost trying to find Agua Dulce in The Big Empty, as some called West Texas.

  “Great,” Terry said, but what he thought was, Shit! He was hardly ready for representatives from Larson’s. He hadn’t prepared a sales pitch and he hadn’t had enough time to make up his mind if he wanted to try to place the new travel stop where Pecos Belle’s and Tanya’s Tangles were located or if he wanted to present another location a few feet away where no building existed. Larson’s had told him they wouldn’t have the time to peruse a site in West Texas for three weeks to a month. His mind shifted to a vision of a Larson’s Truck & Travel Stop sitting on the site now occupied by Pecos Belle’s and Tanya’s Tangles. “That means we can get things rolling sooner,” he said.

  “Yup,” Kim replied. “And Brad called. He and his crew will get there in a couple of days. I told him about the Larson’s folks and he said he’d try to wrap up the survey before they show up. I called the motel and made reservations for them. Is that motel owner weird or what?”

  “Hm. He must have told you a flying saucer story.”

  Thinking of his new town’s residents brought Gordon Tubbs to Terry’s mind. He had started the day with a visit to the park manager and had seen with his own eyes the condition of the man’s health. The guy was only fifty-five years old, but he looked seventy. He had no wife, no children, no extended family. He had lived in Agua Dulce and managed the Sweet Water RV & Mobile Home Village for fifteen years.

  “I want to add a new employee to Legendary Development’s payroll and enroll him in Blue Cross,” he told his assistant. “His name’s Gordon Tubbs. You’ll have to call him and get more information from him.” He gave her the manager’s phone number.

  “Got it,” Kim said, “but who is he?”

  “He’s the RV park manager here.”

  “But you’re closing the RV park.”

  “Not yet. The thing makes a profit, so Tubbs pays his way.”

  Kim didn’t ask, but Terry knew she was wondering what Legendary Development was going to do with the manager once Terry closed and dismantled the RV park. LD was a tight operation that carried little fat. Gordon would inevitably become an employee that could only be labeled as “fat.”

  They finished their conversation and Terry hung up feeling the pressure of Larson’s showing up three weeks early. Just one more glitch in an entire day filled with glitches.

  ****

  “God,” Marisa mumbled, standing in the middle of the flea market. Her eyes scanned, her brain inventoried the massive amount of stuff, something she had been doing ever since Terry Ledger left earlier in the afternoon.

  Stuff. That was all you could call it. Just stuff. Some items were genuine antiques, most were junk. Some had been in the flea market for twenty years and would never sell.

  How in God’s name would she ever get back the money her mother had paid for all of it somewhere back in time? What would she do with a damn stuffed and mounted rattlesnake more than fifteen feet long or a giant papier-mâché gorilla? Then there were the heavier-than-granite plaster reproductions of dinosaur footprints. And two dozen lava lamps of varying configurations. Only the full-size covered wagon might find a home in some Old West museum somewhere. She made a mental note to contact the one up the highway, in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

  For Clyde Campbell’s widow, eBay had been a solution. Was it a solution for Pecos Belle’s? Should she learn how to use the Internet auction site? And how long would that take?

  She looked around the café at the ten square tables and the long lunch counter with its eight padded vinyl stools. The cafe would comfortably seat fifty, though she couldn’t recall that many customers ever being present at one time. The tables and chairs were from the fifties and sixties—mismatched, Formica-covered kitchen sets with chrome trim and legs. The chrome-legged lunch counter stools had come out of an old drugstore in El Paso. The tables and chairs and the stools would bring fair prices as antiques, but how would she ever get even half the value back from seventy or eighty thousand dollars worth of restaurant equipment?

  And even if she succeeded in selling all of it for a decent price, then what?

  She dragged herself back to a stool at the lunch counter and sank down. Well, she had to do something....

  She would start tomorrow--calling auctioneers, calling antique dealers and ferreting out a broker of used restaurant equipment. There had to be one in Odessa or Midland.

  She had to sell the mobile home, but what was a twelve-year-old singlewide mobile home worth and where was the title? No telling where Mama had put it.

  A list. She needed a list to remember all that had to be done. She plucked a napkin from its holder, dug a pen from her pocket and wrote the number “1” on the napkin, but nothing followed. She couldn’t think of which absolute necessity was most important.

&
nbsp; Suddenly all of it was too much for her small brain. She laid her head on her arms on the lunch counter and cried.

  At ten o’clock, when she finally fell into bed exhausted, even with all that vied for her attention, Marisa’s thoughts centered on Terry Ledger. Lean and mean. If asked, that’s how she would describe him. He had that quality she hadn’t often seen but had always been able to recognize. An edge, an air that he instinctively knew what to do about everything and anything. Including women. The type had always appealed to her. And had always been as dangerous as appealing.

  He had been attracted, too. She just knew it. She had felt his eyes touch every part of her—hair, face and body. He had looked at her, even with Tanya showing off her lizard tattoo and enhanced cleavage.

  Well, there were worse things than having a rich, good-looking man ogle you.

  She shoved that fantasy to a distant place and focused on Item One on her list of priorities. Mama hadn’t had a bath in two days. Events outside the singlewide mobile home had overtaken all available time, but Mama’s bath would come first tomorrow morning. Marisa sent a silent prayer heavenward that her charge would awaken in better shape mentally.

  Turning to her side, she punched up her pillow and tucked her hand under her cheek. Ben drifted into her mind, which he had been doing sporadically since the day before yesterday. From the looks of him, he had been on a bender for at least two weeks. Lord, someone had to do something about him. He was over sixty now and he hadn’t taken very good care of himself.

  In a pathetic way, Ben was the father she had never had. She had known him her entire life, could remember being a kid and him bringing her records and eight-tracks from Nashville, autographed by country music stars. In those days, he always had poems to recite and lyrics to sing that he had written for some artist. In one animated drunken recitation, he had introduced her to “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” He had made her weep with a dramatic presentation of “The Face on the Barroom Floor.” Somewhere among items she had saved from childhood, she had a few poems Ben himself had authored.

  Ben had been the first to alert her when Mama had started doing peculiar things.

  As much as Marisa detested interfering in other people’s lives, she would have to go over to Ben’s trailer and try to help him. If she didn’t, who would? If he had living family members, no one in Agua Dulce had ever seen them or heard him mention a name, other than Rachel. Marisa didn’t know Rachel’s identity, but she knew from the softness that came into Ben’s voice when he talked of her that she was someone special. Since coming back to Agua Dulce this time, Marisa hadn’t heard him mention Rachel once.

  At some point, she slept.

  She awoke at daylight.

  Now, after a mind-clearing morning jog, followed by helping Mama bathe, she was in Pecos Belle’s kitchen. The breakfast rush had ended and she was bracing the phone receiver between her chin and shoulder, holding a conversation with an Odessa auctioneer. She felt energetic, unwarranted considering the night she had spent. It was probably adrenaline.

  She disconnected more confused than before she and the auctioneer talked. She scanned through the pages of notes and phone numbers she had written on a yellow pad. She had to start making decisions.

  From the radio, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss broke into “Whiskey Lullaby,” a ballad about lost love and the ravages of liquor. She stopped and listened and thought of Ben.

  The door opened and Bob Nichols and Mr. Patel came in. She gave a mental groan. Their being together could mean only one thing. They intended to gang up on her again about approaching Terry Ledger.

  They sat down side by side at the lunch counter and stared up at her with long faces.

  Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee.

  “Y’all eating or drinking?” she asked.

  “We’ve come to make a formal request,” Bob said, his voice so low she scarcely heard him.

  She closed her eyes and hung her head. “Y’all, listen to—”

  “Please, Marisa,” Mr. Patel said. “Do not say no. We are here to say we will pay you.”

  She gave him an arch look. The only money she expected from her friends and neighbors was payment for the food they ate in the café.

  “What Mandan means,” Bob said, “is we discussed it and we know your time is worth something. We know you have much to do. All we want is for you to meet with him and tell him how we feel. Perhaps he will share his plans with you.”

  That this was a continuation of yesterday’s conversation was so clear, they didn’t even have to refer to Terry Ledger by name. “And why can’t you meet with him?”

  “I do not speak English so good to argue,” Mr. Patel said.

  “There’s no argument to this, Mr. Patel. He’s in the driver’s seat. He’s bought the town. He can do what he wants to. I imagine if you tell him your honest concerns, he’ll be candid about the future.”

  “But, Marisa,” Bob said, “if Mr. Ledger is planning a large gasoline station and truck stop, he must know he will destroy us. He’s very rich. We won’t be on an equal footing.”

  Marisa sighed. They were so right. No one in Agua Dulce would be untouched by Mr. Ledger’s plans, whatever they were. “I don’t know what I would say to him,” she said.

  “You are very articulate, Marisa,” Bob said, “and you are a good businesswoman, like your mother. She always knew what to say. You can talk to him. We trust you.”

  Marisa remembered how as a child she had witnessed meetings similar to this one between her mother and these same people. Why did these grown men find it so difficult to simply ask the guy a few questions? She sighed again.

  “The water,” Mr. Patel said. “He owns the water.”

  So true. The conversation she had already had with him about the well rushed into her memory. She rubbed her temples with her fingers, wanting to rant about her own problems, but what would be the point? If these two couldn’t even bring themselves to knock on Mr. Ledger’s door and express their concerns for themselves, how could they possibly help her? “Y’all are making me crazy.”

  They both started to speak, but she raised a palm like a traffic cop. “Okay, dammit. I’ll talk to him. But just this once. And I still don’t know what the hell I’m gonna say.”

  They left together, both of them appearing happier.

  By noon, she had seen no customers. Sometimes Sunday was that slow; sometimes it was the busiest day of the week. She locked Pecos Belle’s front door and walked to Ben Seagrave’s trailer.

  Ben lived in a ten-by-forty-foot singlewide that had to be more than thirty years old. Even from a distance, she could see rust stains trailing down the mottled gray siding from steel riveted seams. A skewed and faded-green canvas awning haphazardly protected a rusted wrought-iron porch and the front door from the relentless sun. She strode past a rusting barbecue grill anchored to the ground in front of the porch and headed for the set of four rusted wrought-iron steps.

  She clomped up to the screen door and found it open, giving access to the solid front door. She pounded with the flat of her hand, an echoless whack-whack-whack. A muffled roar came in response and then words she couldn’t make out.

  “Ben,” she called, “it’s me, Marisa. You okay in there? Open up. Say hello.”

  Another roar and a few thumps. Finally the door flew open, almost knocking her

  backward, and Ben filled the doorway. He looked awful enough with his greasy gray hair and days of whisker growth, but worse than his appearance was his sour odor. He wore the same clothing he had been wearing when she saw him two days back and he smelled to high heaven.

  “Marisssa,” he slurred.

  “Hey, I was worried about you. Can I come in?”

  “Ahhh...the place ain’t fit”—-he belched—“ferrr comp’ny.”

  “That’s okay. It’s just me.” She stepped forward and he stepped back, allowing her to lenter. The stench of close quarters, stale cigarette smoke and bourbon made her catch a quick breath. “You nee
d some air in here,” she said and left the door standing open.

  She couldn’t recall the last time she had been inside Ben’s trailer. Letting her sight adjust to the dim light, she glanced around. A small living room lay to the right. Its brown-paneled walls encompassed a short blue-and-tan plaid sofa and a beat-up Naugahyde recliner. It hunkered in front of a small TV resting on a leggy stand. On a side table beside the brown recliner sat an ashtray heaped with cigarette butts. An empty fifth lay on its side on the sofa seat, along with a guitar. Two more guitars stood against the wall, neatly lined up beside an assortment of speakers and stereo equipment and a cabinet holding more CDs than any one individual could possibly listen to in a lifetime.

  “Want a li’l drink?” Ben asked, running a leathery-looking hand through his thinning hair and leaving tufts standing upright. A worn Masonic ring encircled his left ring finger. Marisa had often wondered where and at what point in his life he had been a Mason.

  “No, thanks,” she said. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” he said and shuffled barefooted to the tiny shotgun kitchen. He picked up a quart-sized tumbler from the cluttered counter beside the sink.

  Marisa saw no sign of food, confirming her suspicion that he hadn’t been eating. But he had certainly been drinking if two empty fifths and a half-empty gallon jug of Jack Daniel’s sitting on the Formica counter were any indication. At least he didn’t drink rotgut whiskey. He turned to the refrigerator and pulled out an ice tray. For the shape he was in he was amazingly adept at cracking out the ice cubes. He methodically dropped three into the tumbler, which boasted a Golden Nugget casino logo. Clink...clink...clink.

  His true condition revealed itself when he tried to heft the gallon jug by its glass loop and it slipped off his finger.

  “Here, let me,” Marisa said, fearing he would spill whiskey all over the counter or drop the jug on the floor. She took it from him and poured what she estimated to be a shot over the ice cubes.

  “More,” he said and listed backward.

  She grabbed his elbow with one hand and steadied him. “Come over to the café and let me fix you something to eat.” She set the jug on the counter. “Some scrambled eggs, maybe.”