by Joan Hess
"You know I'd hang the moon for you," he said, meaning it but not real clear where this was going.
Dahlia sat down in his lap and wrapped her arms around him. "If we get all-fired rich and live in a mansion in Beverly Hills, you won't go running after some skinny little actress in a bikini. I know I'll be all swollen like last time, with my ankles thick as stumps and my belly so big it could be mistaken for a ten-pound sack of turnips. If I was to lose you to a starlet, I don't know what I'd do. Swear you won't leave me, Kevin."
"Leave you?" he said, squirming as his legs became increasingly numb. "You are the light of my life, my dandelion wine princess. You are the mother of my fine, sturdy children, and the only thing I think about all day while I mop the floor at the SuperSaver and restock the shelves. Ain't no sickly actress ever gonna catch my eye, much less steal my heart away."
"Well, then," Dahlia said as she stood up, "I'm gonna call this number on Monday morning. We got the two cutest babies in the country. Not even Brother Verber could say it's a sin to take advantage of that."
Kevin was kinda glad Brother Verber had rolled out on the bus, along with Mrs. Jim Bob. He didn't want to think about what his parents would say over Sunday breakfast, but he had a good twenty-four hours to consider it. With any luck, about the time the scrambled eggs and grits were set on the table, the babies would commence to wail, Dahlia and his ma would get all flustered, and his pa might not hafta hear about the limousine just yet.
"Don't go fingering those cupcakes," said Jim Bob, glaring at the scruffy boy who'd been lingering by the checkout display. "Shoplifters go straight to the state penitentiary, where they're locked up in cells with murderers and rapists. You won't last twenty minutes with the likes of them. A little pissant like you'd be someone's girlie about the time you took your first shower."
"I ain't dun nothing."
Jim Bob was feeling pretty good, what with his wife gone for a week. Brother Verber was gone as well, meaning there'd be no tedious church service in the morning or one of those goddamn awful potluck suppers in the evening. Without green bean casseroles and raw carrot salads facing him in the immediate future, he figured to take home some tamales and beer, put his muddy shoes on the coffee table, and watch wrasslin' on the television. He'd burp and belch so loud the windows would rattle clear across the county. His farts would scare off any skunk that dared come across the yard. He'd sleep naked and put on dirty underwear in the morning. It was unfortunate that Cherry Lucinda was peeved at him, but she might relent by the middle of the week if he showed up on her doorstep with a handful of daffodils from the garden out back and a pint bottle of peppermint schnapps.
It wasn't all that bad being single, Jim Bob thought as he continued to glare at the kid. "Get your sorry ass out of here. I'm giving you a break this time, but if you ever set foot in here again, you'll end up being a princess at the prison prom."
"Fuck you," the kid said succinctly.
"Haven't I seen you before? Seems to me you're one of Robin Buchanon's bushcolts. Hammet's your name, right? You and the rest of the runts did some serious damage to my house. All of you should have been hauled off to the pound and been put out of my misery, if not yours."
"Want I should spell it this time?"
Jim Bob thought about smacking the kid, but he was in too good a mood to bother. "Go on now, and don't come back. All the checkout girls are gonna be on the watch for you. Set foot in here again and I'll whip your sorry butt, then have you arrested."
"Like you could," the miscreant said as he backed toward the door. "Like you could fuck your way out of a gunny sack." His further parting remarks were obscene, implying without subtlety that Jim Bob's mother had found satisfying sexual relationships with immediate family members and farm animals. Some of the combinations were highly improbable, but they were enough to cause Eula Lemoy to clutch her bosom and Constantinople Buchanon to clack his dentures as if they were castanets.
"What you gaping at?" Jim Bob snarled at the checkout girls, then went back to his office and pulled out the bottle of bourbon he kept in his desk drawer. Somebody ought to come up with a bigger fly swatter, he thought as he took a pull on the bottle. Little shits like the one up front needed to be slapped flatter'n a red flour beetle.
He amused himself with the scenario as he finished off the bourbon and sat back. Cherry Lucinda could stew in her own juices for a few days. In the meantime, there was no telling what pretty things might be at the Dew Drop Inn on a Saturday night.
While the cat's away, he thought, rubbing his hands together, the mice got no choice but to play.
Hammet hunkered by the Dumpster behind the supermarket, greedily gnawing on a discolored head of lettuce. He would have preferred a sandwich, but at least he'd made it out the door with a candy bar in one coat pocket and a package of cheese in the other. He hadn't had more than a few crackers in the last twenty-four hours, and he forced himself to eat as much lettuce as he could.
When his gut growled ominously, he tossed aside the lettuce and prowled through the vehicles parked alongside the building. All of them were locked. He supposed he could bust out a windshield with a rock, but it wasn't gonna do him much good to steal CDs or magazines. It wasn't gonna do him much good if he saw a key in an ignition switch, for that matter, since he didn't know how to drive.
One truck caught his attention. It was parked nearest the steps leading up to the delivery dock, and a spray-painted sign on the wall indicated that the space was reserved for Jim Bob. Slashing the tires would have been entertaining, but required a knife or a screwdriver. He found a sharp rock and scratched lines across the doors and hood.
The problem was, he thought as he threw the rock into the trees at the back of the parking lot, Arly weren't nowhere to be found. Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill was darker than the inside of a cow, and all the motel units were locked.
There weren't no way of knowing if the shack was still standing up on Cotter's Ridge. Even if it was, the only food he might hope to find there would be scraggly carrots and maybe a few ears of corn in the garden. Catchin' critters was harder than it sounded, and it wasn't like he had matches or anything to make a fire.
The church was likely to be empty on a Saturday afternoon, he reckoned. He could at least stretch out on a pew and get some sleep.
Running away was damn hard work, even harder than memorizing multiplication tables and state capitals.
When I returned, Estelle's station wagon was parked in front of the lodge. Jarvis and Billy Dick were unloading it, while Heather, Amy Dee, and Lynette watched from the veranda.
"Finished with lunch?" I asked them.
"Was that what you'd call it?" said Heather. "My pa's hogs eat better than that."
"And we had grapes for dessert," Lynette added.
I tried to look encouraging. "Grapes are good. Were they green or red?"
"Brown and mushy," muttered Jarvis as he went past me, bedding under his arms.
I found Larry Joe in the living room and told him about the two sacks of cheeseburgers in the bus. Once he'd rounded up the kids and led them toward the ball field, I went into the kitchen, where Big Mac and Parwell were washing dishes under Mrs. Jim Bob's unwavering supervision.
"I assume you bought the bit," she said to me.
I had no idea what she was talking about. Bought the bit? Bit the bullet? Bought the farm?
"The four-inch bit for the drill," she continued. "That is why you took the bus into Dunkicker, isn't it? I'd like to think you weren't looking for an establishment that sells alcoholic beverages."
I slapped my forehead. "Oh, the bit! The hardware had one, in a box on a shelf in the back corner. The Lord's looking after us, Mrs. Jim Bob."
"I will not tolerate blasphemy!"
Ruby Bee came into the kitchen. "Where's the skillets and the mixing bowls?"
Mrs. Jim Bob sucked up a breath. "Although it is kind of you to offer to assist, Ruby Bee, I think it's better that the teenagers take responsibility for meals.
They tend to assume that food simply appears on their plates."
"Fine," said Ruby Bee. "You just make sure they understand whose decision it was to have spaghetti and lima beans, instead of fried catfish and hushpuppies."
"Hushpuppies?" said Brother Verber, joining us. "Those moist, delicious morsels of cornbread and a delicate flavoring of onions, crisped to perfection and just beggin' for a dollop of butter? The Good Lord created hushpuppies, Mrs. Jim Bob."
"As He did lima beans," she responded tartly.
Tears welled in Brother Verber's eyes. "I'm gonna go upstairs and study my Bible, but I have a feeling that the Good Lord didn't have much to say about lima beans."
"Nobody has much to say about lima beans," inserted Estelle. "Not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, if I recollect. Loaves and fishes, on the other hand, were on the menu on one occasion."
I left them to battle it out, grabbed the last sandwich off a tray, and went to make sure Darla Jean had not made good on her implicit threat to leave.
Which she had.
4
I walked to the cabin, collected my sleeping bag and duffel bag from the ditch beside the road, and went into the cabin. Darla Jean was not there-surprise, surprise. I dumped my gear on a bottom bunk, checked the stalls in the bathroom, and wandered around, trying to figure out where Darla Jean might have chosen to deposit her shampoo, mousse, conditioner, hair dryer, rollers, makeup kit, stuffed animals, lurid magazines, candy bars, and cigarettes. In that all six girls seemed to have brought identical survival kits, I couldn't tell.
However, it looked as though all six remained fully equipped for any crises of a cosmic-or cosmetic-nature. Being a trained professional and all, I concluded that Darla Jean would not put herself in a situation that might lead to bad hair, and therefore was more likely to have headed for the lake instead of the highway.
I ambled down the road. The songbirds were out in full force, trilling, warbling, and screeching. Foliage was lacy enough to permit glimpses of cabins identical to ours scattered higher on the hillside. The insects, both butterflies and less engaging species, had determined they were safely past the final frost and were on the lookout for blossoms and blood. Critters rustled in the leaves, but I'd grown up in the pastures and woods surrounding Maggody, and nothing short of a skunk was worth worrying about.
Music, however, was. Rattlesnakes rattled, but they did not harmonize. Crows did not form string quartets, replete with violins, cello, and bass-if that's what I was hearing. I wasn't sure. I pushed through some brush and squinted at the lake as sunshine hit my face. Two flat-bottomed fishing boats were visible, but both were at a distance and did not look like the source of what was increasingly sounding like an adulation of springtime, courtesy of Vivaldi.
The New York Philharmonic, if present, was deftly hidden. The only potential conductor in view stood at the edge of the lake, leading his invisible orchestra with a pliant plastic rod. Rather than a tux, he was wearing a flannel shirt, a torn khaki vest, baggy pants, sneakers, and a canvas hat adorned with those weird little feather doodads beloved by fishermen.
"Hello," I called as I thrashed my way toward him with all the stealth of a backhoe.
He looked back. "Yeah?"
I came through the final barrier of briars. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
"I hope you're delivering a pizza," he said, his face creasing genially. "Otherwise, it looks as though I'll have bologna sandwiches for supper again. A couple more days of this, and I'll be out of mustard."
He was not unpleasant looking, despite the stubble on his cheeks and the stains on his clothing. Nice chin, clear blue eyes, only a hint of gray in the hair visible beneath his hat. I could easily imagine him (after an overnight stay at the Fly By Night dry cleaner's, anyway) striding down Wall Street to his corner office with a window overlooking the East River. His receptionist would have a gelatinous English accent, and his private secretary would be named Kaitlin. Men called Brett and Bart would bring him coffee and simper. Senior partners would propose him for membership in politically incorrect clubs.
So maybe I was making a bit of a leap. "No pizza," I said, wishing I'd stayed in the cabin long enough to wash my face. "You camping here?"
He put down the rod. "Well, that's my tent."
"Mr. Vivaldi hiding in there?"
"I'm not trespassing, am I? I have a fishing license, and I thought this area was-"
"I'm not from the fish and game commission, and I don't think anyone cares if you are trespassing. I certainly don't."
"How kind of you." He came across the muddy expanse and studied me. "Jacko."
"Arly," I said, mentally kicking myself for the blush heating my face. There's something about tall, blue-eyed, slightly ungroomed guys that reduces me to a middleschool mindset. A Peter O'Toole fantasy from my childhood, perhaps. "I'm here with a bunch of teenagers, and one of them's missing. I'm looking for her."
"Short brown hair, braces, bikini, transparent white shirt knotted around her waist, mesh bag hanging on her shoulder?"
"You've seen her?" I instinctively stared at his tent, which was zipped. Music wafted out, but unaccompanied by whimpers.
Jacko gave me a disappointed look. "Do I look like the type to detain some backwoods Lolita and have my way with her?"
I struggled not to imagine what his way might be.
"But you did see her, right?"
"About an hour ago, she came stumbling down here like you did. She took one look at me, screeched, and then dashed back up to the road. I will admit I haven't shaved or done more than bathe out of a basin for the last four days, and my wardrobe's not from a pricey catalogue. What's more, not everyone likes Vivaldi-or even Bach, which I believe was on the tape player at the time."
"She didn't say anything?"
"She screeched," he said patiently. "I was so unnerved that I had no choice but to pour myself a shot of bourbon. Would you care for one?"
"I'd better keep looking for her." I began to back away. "Good luck with your fishing, Jacko."
"And you with your hunting, Arly."
Vivaldi failed to produce any appropriately impassioned strains that might send thwarted lovers dashing across a muddy expanse to fling themselves into each other's arms. Damn.
"If you run out of mustard, come up to the lodge," I said. "We're having fried catfish and hushpuppies."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"You haven't seen anything else, have you?"
"Like what?"
I'd had more poise at the ninth-grade mixer. "Anything that might have seemed odd."
"Odder than a voluptuous teenaged girl in a bikini, goggling as though I'd just reeled in a kissin' cousin of the Loch Ness monster?"
"Just asking," I said, barely stopping myself from scuffling my shoe in the dirt. "If she shows up, tell her I'm looking for her."
He did not reply. I fought my way back to the road and went on, noticing for the first time a battered black hatchback pulled well off the road and partially hidden by scrub pines. I wasn't much interested in whether he was trespassing. If he was, it was Corporal Robarts's problem.
Half a mile farther, the road fizzled out at the remains of a concrete boat ramp leading into the lake. Darla Jean was not sunning herself, paddling in the water, constructing a canoe from birch bark, or doing much of anything that I could see. I sat down on a stump and munched on the cheese sandwich as I regarded the brown water.
So where was Darla Jean? It seemed likely that she'd deliberately provoked Mrs. Jim Bob in order to be banished to the cabin for the remainder of the day, thus avoiding physical labor and supervision. Jacko had mentioned she was wearing a bikini when she'd skittered into his campsite.
I wasn't worried, exactly. Darla Jean most likely had come this far. There were no sandy beaches fringed with palm trees along the shore, but a few scattered plastic toys and gnawed apple cores suggested it might be a picnic area for folks in the area. The only background noise came from the birds and squirrels. I con
sidered shouting her name, then decided against it. Later in the day, if she hadn't returned, I would feel obliged to take action-presuming I had a clue how to go about it. Larry Joe and I might have to organize a search party, but I wasn't sure if we could do so without tipping off Mrs. Jim Bob.
I peered at the two boats, wondering if there were any possibility that Darla Jean had been bound with duct tape and was floundering atop empty beer cans, Ding Dong wrappers, and bait buckets. Monet might not have opted to capture the scene (it was sadly lacking in water lilies), but it seemed tranquil.
I went back to the cabin. Darla Jean had not returned in my absence, as far as I could tell. I continued to the lodge, not at all sure what I ought to do. Estelle's station wagon was parked next to the bus, and next to it, a monstrous, mud-splattered SUV. I could hear shouts and laughter from the softball field. Brother Verber was sitting on the end of the dock, either rehearsing his evening homily or plotting a watery demise. Whatever.
"Here's Arly," Mrs. Jim Bob said as I came into the front room. "She's here to keep an eye on the girls."
An unfamiliar woman seated on a folding chair nodded at me. "It was very admirable of you to agree to chaperon these youthful Christian soldiers."
"I do my best to be admirable, if not admired by one and all," I said. Although the woman was lean in areas where Mrs. Jim Bob was plump, she had an uncanny resemblance to her. I finally realized it was the smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth, as though she'd judged me on first sight and found me sadly lacking. Her hair had been lacquered into unwavering obedience; not even a gust from the lake would have dislodged a single strand. She was dressed in a floral dress as though she'd dropped by on her way to a tea dance at the local country club, although I suspected the only golf played in Dunkicker was of the putt-putt variety.