Shop Talk

by Carolyn Haines

  “Where did you meet my sister?” Bo asked.

  “At the bank. She’s the cashier in the window.” LaMont studied his handsome hands before he looked directly into Bo’s gaze. “Your sister is nothing less than extraordinary, a talent boxed in the narrow confines of that dehumanizing plexiglass window.”

  “A talent?” Bo nearly stuttered.

  “She read one of her poems to me over the speaker system.” Driskell brushed more glass out of his clothes. He looked toward the front of the shop and his dark eyes picked up the reflection from one of the televisions. The Energizer bunny marched madly in duplicate in the depths of his pupils. “She captured my emotions with her moving words–and then she asked me for my help.”

  Chapter Two

  His lips pulsed with red hot passion, a longing for her that made him press against the taut denim of his pants. There were cows waiting for him to punch everywhere along the Chisholm Trail, but he could think only of Clara, and his need for the one woman who could satisfy him. The one woman who would not give herself to him, body … and soul.

  He turned his horse west and scanned the horizon. Montana was an unforgiving territory. But it was more forgiving than Clara Lloyd. The damnable part of it was that he, Slade Rivers, could not forget her.

  He pulled the crumpled paper from his saddle bag and smoothed it atop the horn of his saddle. It was all he had left of Clara, the simple poem he’d penned to her. The poem she had cast into the dust and left behind her, just like all of his dreams.

  ODE TO CLARA

  Like the morning dawn, my lady Clara,

  you make me rise and need you bare-a,

  on my bed of purple thistles,

  I await your merry whistles.

  In your eyes, the moonlight dances

  All my dreams,your love enhances

  We shall join with great thunder

  When I rend your thighs asunder

  And claim my love.

  Slade held the paper in his sun-baked hand, wondering what type of woman could fail to be moved by such an open, honest heart. He’d put the most vital part of himself into the poem, and Clara Lloyd had viciously wounded him. Yet still, his every waking moment was spent thinking of ways to see her again. The fact that she’d joined a convent made things a little difficult. But he was Slade Rivers, man of the range, and a few dumpy old ladies who dressed like penguins weren’t going to keep him away from Clara. With his hand clinched in a fist, he raised it to the heavens, and before the herd of cows he made his everlasting vow. “I will find Clara, and I’ll never go hungry again.”

  Lucille Hare sat back at her desk and laced her fingers together. Her hands were shaking with excitement and fatigue. Slade Rivers was one of her most vivid creations. Even as she tried to snap back to the reality of the cool April night in Biloxi, Mississippi, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Slade’s blue, blue eyes were gazing out over the Montana vista.

  The idea of Slade, cowboy-slash-poet, had come to her on the drive to work. Her car radio’s scanner had stalled on National Public Radio long enough for her to catch the sign off of a cowboy whose name escaped her, a man who’d given up bulldogging to write poetry. And Slade Rivers had leapt from the pages of her mind, a tall, lean man who fought with his gun, but had a vital artillery of words, too. A man who wrote poems as lean and virile as himself. He would be a new type of romantic hero. She, Lucille Hare, writing as RoxAnne Flambeaux, would birth Slade Rivers, the man who would carry her to fame and fortune in his brawny arms.

  All day at the bank she’d been beside herself, eager to get away from the window and get home. Her heavy brows drew together in anger. Her older brother, Bo, had taken the key to her computer and locked it up. Bo found it unreasonable that she sat up into the early morning at her keyboard, writing and editing and writing some more. Exhausted, she often fell asleep at her keyboard, only to awaken and discover she was late for work.

  Bo had no idea what it was like when her creative juices flowed and characters leapt to life beneath the pulsing white cursor. And none of her prior characters had nearly the life of Slade Rivers, with his blue, blue eyes, chiseled jaw and thick chestnut hair. He was a man’s man. A cowboy-slash-poet.

  How could her work at the bank compare to creating one of the modern heroes of romance literature?

  Lucille shook out her fingers. Her creative juices were working overtime, but her fingers were tired. Without her computer she was forced to write on a legal pad. Maybe the slower pace, though, was conducive to better fiction. What she’d written so far was the best she’d ever produced. Maybe Bo had done her a favor in the long run.

  She glanced at the wall clock in her bedroom, a black and white Felix cat with a tail that swung like a pendulum. It was nearly eleven o’clock. She felt a surge of panic. Had the man she’d met in the drive-up window actually gone down to Bo’s shop to retrieve her computer key? She felt a shudder of anticipation. He had been intriguing. The way he’d driven up at closing when all of the other lanes were empty and she was alone in the window, always the last to tally her cash accounts. It was almost as if he’d waited for that exact moment when the other tellers were getting their purses and sweaters, and Everett Johnson was rubbing his hands in glee at the day’s take.

  Driskell Lamont had appeared in the far lane with a hint of mystery she found as delicious as a chocolate malt. At the memory of his intense appreciation of her poem, she curled her toes inside her fuzzy, brown, badger bedroom slippers. Driskell’s appreciation of her work had led to her telling how Bo had taken her computer key.

  With a shadow of a melancholy smile, Driskell had offered to retrieve it.

  He drove a big black Cadillac. An older model, but well maintained. She liked that about a man. The good-looking car, big engine, shiny wax job, let her know that he understood the role of a man in a woman’s life.

  Other than the car, the first thing she’d noticed was that his lips were inordinately red. The red of a passionate nature. The glass of the drive-in window had been designed to deflect bullets, but it was no shield against the erotic way his lips had moved as he’d spoken in that odd, husky voice, like some character in a movie. Husk was an important quality in a man. In his voice, his size, his élan, his pith, his hub, his warp, weave, and his woof.

  Without batting an eye, he’d offered to break into the shop and retrieve her computer key. He’d told her that he knew the shop well because he’d planned on applying for a job. His specialty was electronics. He had not known about the skylight, though, and had been delighted with that tidbit as he’d made his plans to become her literary protector. He was obviously a man of action, a seeker of adventure. At the idea of breaking into the shop, his lips had darkened slightly, a sure sign of excitement.

  More importantly, though, he’d genuinely liked her poem. He’d sat there, his motor idling, and listened attentively. When she was done, he’d told her that she had talent.

  It had taken a lot of nerve to recite the poem to him. The last three customers she’d recited to had reported her to Everett Johnson, and he’d threatened to fire her if she didn’t “cease and desist” harassing the customers.

  How could the recitation of a poem be classified as harassment? But the low-brows had control of her world. They could take a thing of beauty and make it into a tribulation.

  She consoled herself with the fact that once Slade Rivers had a few more pages under his belt, she’d have a fat contract from New York and she could tell the bank to kiss her backside.

  She was reaching for her pen to take up Slade’s saga once again when the telephone beside her rang. It seemed to her that it rang sharply, with a complaint. Her hand hovered over it, indecisive, and she remembered Driskell and his promise to get her computer key. What if he’d acquired the key and wanted to bring it to her? She snatched up the pink receiver.

  “Lucille.” Bo’s voice barked out at her.

  “What is it, Bo?” The one person she didn’t want to talk to was her brot
her. He sucked her dry of all creative juices. He was a roll of Bounty to her imagination. “It’s eleven o’clock at night. First you hound me about staying up too late and missing work, and now you call me at mid–“

  “There’s someone here at the shop who claims to know you.”

  Lucille gripped the phone tighter. “Someone who knows me? At your shop? Fancy that. Who could it be?”

  “Some guy in a cloak and wearing lipstick. Does that ring a bell?”

  His lips had been red, but in the glare from the drive-up window, she hadn’t been able to determine that it was lipstick. “What shade?”

  “Iris says it’s Cherry Red.”

  “No, I don’t know anyone who wears that shade.” Lucille started to return the phone. It would be better for Driskell LaMont–and herself–if they weren’t implicated in this together.

  “Lucille, if you hang up on me, I’m coming over there.”

  Lucille hesitated. Bo was not a violent man, but he could be pushed. And there was that small trouble the past week with her landlord. Another infraction and she’d be out on the curb. She lifted the phone to her lips. “I’m going to bed, Bo.”

  “Not so fast. Your friend here says you sent him to the shop.”

  Lucille had a stroke of genius. “He said he was a trained technician. He was looking for a job.”

  “So he came to the shop at eleven o’clock at night to apply, via the skylight?”

  Bo’s disapproval itched and annoyed her. “Something about the sun hurts his eyes, so he went up to the shop while it was dark to see if he wanted to work there.”

  Bo tried to follow Lucille’s train of thought, but it wasn’t a linear ride. He looked over at Iris and put his hand on the phone. “She says he wants a job.”

  From his seat on the bar stool beside the counter, Driskell LaMont nodded. “I’m very good. Government trained.” He straightened his posture. “The reputation of your shop would be safe with me.” He waved his hand around the room. “I could clear these televisions in two weeks.”

  Bo returned his attention to his sister. “What did you send him up here to get? He was trying to break in the skylight.”

  “The key to my computer, if you must know. My fingers are cramping from writing in long hand. I want my key, and I want you to stay out of my life. I have a right to write. One day I’m going to write my autobiography, and I’m going to tell the world how you tried to thwart me, to make me conform, to make me into the perfect little wife, like Iris.” Lucille felt all the hurt and frustration of years welling inside her. “And I’ll burn in hell before I vote Republican!”

  “Lucille.” Bo’s voice was low and patient. “You can’t be sending people up here to break into the shop. Especially some sickly white guy with painted lips.”

  Iris shook her head at her husband. “It’s not lipstick, it’s pencil.” She’d been studying Driskell’s lips. “Red pencil.”

  “Lipstick, pencil, whatever.” Bo felt the weariness in his shoulders. He’d repaired over twenty televisions, supplying the endless hordes with electronic stimulation. Another sixty sets waited. It would be dawn soon; the shop would open and televisions would pour in, blind eyes that watched him every time he took a break for a cup of coffee.

  “Bo, I’m thirty-four years old, and you don’t have a right to take something that’s mine. I paid for that computer.”

  “Lucille, if you don’t start going to work on time, they’re going to fire you.”

  “I get to creating, and I forget the time.” Lucille calculated that it was now time for penance. “I’ll set an alarm clock when I write, to remind me to go to sleep.”

  Bo sighed. Lucille would write in long hand, or she’d find another way to pursue what she viewed as her God-given destiny. It was truly self-destructive behavior, but he had to accept the reality. She was going to produce that awful fiction, and he couldn’t wean her from it. She was an addict.

  He tuned back in to her list of promises. A long list of meaningless words. “I’ll give you the key,” he capitulated.

  “Oh, Bo.” Lucille felt a moment of intense love for her older brother. He was only trying to look out for her. He couldn’t help that he was a member of the bourgeoisie and she an artist. They were opposites. Souls at odds with one another. She had to learn compassion for her brother.

  “What about LaMont?” Bo asked.

  “Who?”

  “Maxwell Smart here. The man you sent to steal your key.”

  Iris recited the facts loud enough for Lucille to hear. “The series was Get Smart, 1965-70, starring Don Adams as the bumbling spy.”

  “Well, Lucille, what about him?” Bo was ready for resolution.

  “Oh.” Lucille hadn’t a clue. A real hero would have gotten the key and avoided this whole nasty episode. But he had tried. And that was heroic. To try against incredible odds, to take on a task, the search for the Holy Grail, even when all thought it was impossible, that was true bravery. Yes, Driskell had some potential as a hero.

  “Lucille, is this man a friend of yours?”

  “Yes,” she answered, a little breathless at her lie. If Driskell LaMont could be heroic, the least she could do was play the role of heroine. “Yes, he’s a friend. Just let him go. He won’t bother you again. Or better yet, give him a job. You’re always complaining about having to work fourteen hour days. He’s an excellent repairman.”

  “Right.” Bo didn’t exactly trust Lucille’s character references, much less her evaluation of employee abilities. Not to mention the fact that one good look at Driskell LaMont in the light of day and every customer he had would take their business elsewhere. But he was sick of working day and night, six days a week. He gave LaMont a sharp look. The red lips turned up in a tiny smile, a little red curl of hope.

  “Bo, are you still there?” Lucille sounded cross. “Good night, Lucille.”

  “Good night, Bo. I’ll be by for the key on my way to work.”

  Bo replaced the receiver and turned back to Iris and LaMont. “She vouched for him. She sent him up here for the computer key.”

  “Then Lucille ought to be the one to climb up on the roof and replace the skylight.” Iris flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “That’s just one more job for you to do. One more thing to keep you working night and day.”

  “I’ll repair it,” LaMont said, sliding off the stool. “Tomorrow night. On one condition.”

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to make conditions, Mr. LaMont.” Bo was tired of the whole mess. “I think you should leave, and unless you can turn into a bat and fly out through the hole in my roof, I’ll let you out.”

  “Don’t you even want to hear my condition?”

  “I do.” Iris shrugged. “Hell, I’m a sucker for those damn quiz shows.”

  “Go ahead,” Bo said tiredly. “Just make it short.”

  “I’ll repair the skylight if you’ll give me a chance to work for you.”

  “Forget it.” Bo had a sudden feeling of rising water, icy, black water. His feet went cold, then his shins. The numbness was moving up to his knees in a big time kind of hurry. He needed to get Driskell LaMont out of his life fast.

  Driskell kept his attention on Bo. “I’m desperate for a job. I went to the bank today to rob it. When I saw your sister sitting there behind the glass, the lurid cover of that book hiding everything except her bat-winged eyebrows and that wine-colored hair, I couldn’t commit an act of aggression against her. I knew I didn’t have the right to rob her of her dreams just for my putrid survival.”

  “Oh, give me a break,” Iris said.

  Driskell ignored her. He looked up into Bo’s hazel eyes. “Please, Mr. Hare, give me a chance. I’m an excellent repairman. Let me tell you a little about my background. I think, as a small businessman, that you’ll understand. I came down here from Cranberry because I couldn’t take the toll highways anymore. I couldn’t drive to my job without paying tolls. Coming home I had to pay more tolls. Each day I re
sented it more and more. Another form of taxation foisted off on the citizens of this country. Taxation without representation. That’s what started our rebellion against the throne.”

  Bo shook his head and tried not to listen. “I’m sorry, Mr. LaMont, I need some help but I’ve gotten used to working alone. I guess Iris and I prefer to have the shop to ourselves.”

  “But that’s perfect.” Driskell rose slowly to his feet. He was not as tall as Bo and at least thirty pounds lighter. “I only work at night. I could come in after you close and repair the sets you haven’t gotten to. That way when the customers come back in the morning, you can simply hand them over.”

  For a moment Bo was blinded by the vision of smiling customers lined up from his counter out the door and into Pass Road. They chatted among themselves as they swiftly approached the counter, forked over cash money, and took home their working televisions. There were no angry scowls, no threats because a part had not come in, or a set or VCR was not repairable.

  Driskell sensed he was close. “I can repair microwaves and refrigerators. I can also refinish furniture and do a small amount of reupholstering. My mother ran a dress shop when I was a little boy and some of those women she sewed for were as big as sofas.” Driskell smiled. “I really love large women.”

  Bo felt his wife’s gaze upon him and he looked at her. She lifted one shoulder as she lit a cigarette.

  “Can you get me some references?”

  “Of course.”

  Driskell LaMont was a weird looking guy, Bo mused, but if he worked at night, the customers would never have to see him. With Driskell working, he and Iris could go out, maybe catch a flick on the big screen. Maybe go to the casinos, or for a walk on the beach. After ten years of owning his own business, he’d almost forgotten what the outside world was like.

  “Let me look at your references,” he said carefully. “And it depends on how well you repair the skylight. I’ll call the glass shop and have them deliver the panes.”

  “It’s a deal.” Driskell extended a thin, cold hand. His grasp was firm, even if his fingernails were a little long for a man.