Wild at Whiskey Creek

by Julie Anne Long

  Eli was aware that his tone was approaching parodic, that he sounded like a sardonic folksy kindergarten teacher, that he was doing it on purpose.

  But frankly, it pissed him off that he needed to actually say any of this to a grown man. Especially to this one.

  “You know who I am.” More a statement than a question. “I’m Franco Francone.”

  Eli stifled a sigh. The “don’t you know who I am?” would never work in a million years on Eli. And he’d really hoped Franco Francone was above that.

  “Yep,” he said neutrally.

  Francone eyed Eli thoughtfully, almost encouragingly, as though he was a fellow actor who had delivered the wrong line in front of an audience of hundreds and trying to decide whether they could save the scene.

  And then Eli took off his sunglasses, because he wanted Francone to remember his face and to read implacability in his eyes.

  Eli did occasionally let people off with a warning. A few weeks ago, a seventeen-year-old girl had forgotten to turn the headlights of her dad’s old pickup back on after she pulled out of a brightly lit gas station, for instance, and had sobbed in distress over her mistake. Or a clearly terrified teenage boy who’d been feeling his oats speeding just a little in his dad’s old Camry when he’d been pulled over, and Eli figured he could still be sufficiently and permanently unnerved into driving the speed limit by a big granite-faced law enforcement officer. Or a harried mom with a car full of rambunctious kids having the sort of bad day that culminated in accidentally running a stop sign, then remembering to stop ten feet into the intersection. He was experienced enough to deploy discretion.

  But he was going to give Franco Francone a ticket. Because Franco Francone deserved a ticket and he could afford it, and he was a grown-ass man and he’d known exactly what he was doing. Franco could wreck this Porsche and buy another one. Franco Francone could probably wreck his own face and buy another one.

  There passed a moment of mutual alpha-male staring. But Eli had the badge and the gun and his penis size was more than adequate, even if he wasn’t famous and didn’t own a Porsche.

  He was also aware that he might be behaving like a slightly bigger dick than usual.

  He was man enough to own up to the realization that a breezy, self-satisfied person can only make you irritable if you’re not precisely content with your current life circumstances.

  He couldn’t shake a peculiar sense of premonition—an ominous one—and it had to do with Mr. Francone. Not the sort that told him who might have stuffed drugs down his pants five seconds before Eli appeared. This was something else. Like he was picking up the sound of an advancing army from a long, long way off.

  “I enjoyed your show, Mr. Francone,” he offered. Every-so-slightly conciliatory. “Used to watch it with my dad.”

  He and his dad had actually enjoyed making fun of the law enforcement inaccuracies in Blood Brothers, the wildly popular cop show that had starred Franco Francone and John Tennessee McCord. To be fair, they were pretty scarce, though the show had taken some wild liberties with procedures. For the most part, it was a well-written drama, even if the pithy exchanges and one-liners made his dad snort.

  He was surprised there was enough innocence left in him to be disappointed that the guy who had played such a heroic cop on Blood Brothers was so cavalier about the law.

  “Glad to hear it.” Francone had likely heard this a million times in his life, but he managed to make it sound more or less gracious.

  “You here on business?” Eli was writing the particulars on what was going to be a very expensive ticket.

  “Have a three-episode arc in The Rush. Filming on location nearby.”

  Eli wasn’t entirely positive he knew what an arc was, but he could hazard a guess. “Oh yeah. I’ve met J.T. McCord. Good guy, J.T. Just met a makeup artist named Bethany. Her grandmother lives at the Heavenly Shores Mobile Estates here.”

  “Mobile Estates, huh? So quaint. I don’t often find myself in small towns. Usually it’s L.A., New York, Paris, London. The odd tropical island.”

  Eli didn’t know if the guy was joking or bragging. He frankly didn’t care.

  “More deer than Kardashians in Hellcat Canyon, Mr. Francone. They don’t often look both ways before they cross the street, and a deer could do some major damage to this beautiful machine. Not to mention those sharp sunglasses. And that would be a damn shame, wouldn’t it?”

  “Sure,” Francone said tautly. After a moment’s pause, during which he’d probably entertained and discarded various other sardonic things he wanted to say.

  “Thirty-five,” Eli said again, pleasantly. “That’s the downtown speed limit. I’ll hold you to that during your visit with us. Which I hope is otherwise enjoyable.”

  He ripped the ticket from his pad and held it out. It fluttered in the breeze for another second.

  And then Francone’s hand extended slowly.

  Giving Eli a chance to change his mind.

  Finally, he took it gingerly.

  And when he had it in his hands, he looked down at it, as if to ascertain it was real.

  Then looked slowly up at Eli again.

  There was another little moment of silence. Quite stunned on Francone’s part.

  “Must be tough, working in a small town,” Francone said thoughtfully, finally.

  If this was meant to be a dig, it didn’t come close to penetrating Eli’s hide.

  “Tough is relative,” Eli said evenly.

  Franco sighed, as if a favorite child had disappointed him. “Maybe I’ll see you around, Deputy.”

  “Maybe. I’ll be easier to spot if you drive the speed limit. You give my regards to J.T.”

  He gave the Porsche roof a pat and headed back to his cruiser.

  He was pretty sure he and Franco Francone weren’t going to be friends.

  Glory reported to the Misty Cat at five minutes to eleven o’clock the next morning, wearing a pair of jeans and a snug, short-sleeved flowery blouse she’d picked up for a song (not literally, though if she could trade songs for things, all her problems would be solved) at Walmart a few years back.

  Sherrie intercepted her at the door. “Good morning, hon. Don’t you look pretty! Now turn around.”

  For one wild moment she thought Sherrie was telling her to get out, and for one wild moment, Glory was tempted to take off at a run down the street.

  And then she realized Sherrie was brandishing a barrette. “We need to get your wonderful mop up and out of the way so it doesn’t wind up in the food. No one likes to floss while they’re eating. If you turn around I can put it up for you.”

  “Oh, let me do her hair!”

  Casey Carson from The Truth and Beauty had just crossed the street. She was the local expert on all things fashionable, and she could do anything you wanted to any hair on your body, whether it was cut swingy layers, blow it silky straight, wax it into a heart shape, pluck it into submission, bleach it, ombre it, or tease and pin and spray it into a two-foot high red-carpet updo. Glory visited Supercuts about twice a year for a competent but no-frills trim since her budget didn’t quite run to Casey’s expertise. But they liked each other. Casey was a strapping golden blonde and her sunny confidence was like a major C chord to Glory’s major G.

  “Morning, Casey!” Sherrie handed her the barrette. “Send Glory back inside when you’re done with her. I’ll go see if Giorgio has your to-go order ready yet.”

  Casey pulled Glory onto the sidewalk, turned her by the shoulders, whipped out a brush, and used it to drag Glory’s hair back from her forehead. Glory felt her eyebrows go back, too.

  “Easy there, Casey.”

  “Sorry, hon. Sherrie said to be quick. I’ll just do a French braid,” she announced. “Fancy but not complicated. Always wanted to get my hands on your hair! Just didn’t think it would be outside the Misty Cat. You taking Britt’s old job? What happened to your San Francisco plans?”

  “Let’s . . . just say I experienced a little setback.
Resulting in a slight delay.”

  She saw Casey’s reflection shrug in the Misty Cat’s window. “I like to think of setbacks as trampolines. They eventually bounce you up a little higher than before.”

  Glory was arrested by this image.

  And then she immediately started thinking of all the things that rhymed with trampoline.

  “I think you gave me an idea for a song, Casey.”

  “Well, if Rihanna can sing about umbrellas and Sia can sing about chandeliers, there’s no reason you can’t sing about trampolines.”

  Glory laughed. “You gonna stop in for the open mic night? I haven’t done one in a while. I have a new song I might spring on everyone.”

  “Oh yeah, I’ll be there. There’s that chamber of commerce reception right before it, too. Free booze! I’m going to try to get in to see The Baby Owls, too, aren’t you?”

  “Oh yeah. I’ll be at The Baby Owls show, for sure.” Glory surreptitiously crossed her fingers about that one.

  Casey spun her around again. “Okay, every last one of your hairs is strapped in there and you look great. Good luck!”

  Glory’s hands went up to her head in a sort of exploratory alarm. Her eyebrows felt an inch or two closer to her hairline. Casey was pretty strong from hefting blow dryers and ripping wax from bodies and that braid was as tight as a trucker’s hitch.

  Glory figured that she’d just have to get used to it the way a horse has to get used to a bit.

  Casey gave Glory an affectionate little shove back into the Misty Cat, and Sherrie intercepted her as if she were a baton, looped a chummy arm around her shoulders and steered her about the restaurant, narrating Glory’s duties like a Universal Studios tour guide. She pointed out the difference between the caf and decaf pots of coffee, introduced the little creamer pots as if they were celebrities, demonstrated how to stuff the little jellies and butters neatly into their caddies as though it was an E-ticket ride, and there was a whole part of the tour involving lemon slices and straws and napkins and tabasco and so forth. It was pretty clear Sherrie had given this spiel a few dozen times over the years to various waiters and waitresses. She barely stopped to breathe. Glory hoped for her own sake and Sherrie’s she wouldn’t have to give it again to some other waitress tomorrow.

  Glenn signaled Sherrie with an eyebrow wag and Sherrie gave a nod and wrapped things up. “Take their drink orders first. Bring ’em water only if they ask. The specials today are eggs Benedict, which comes with potatoes and white, whole wheat, rye, or sourdough toast, and the turkey club, which comes with a salad or fries—and tell them the specials right after you say hi like they’re your long lost best friend and dazzle ’em with a smile. Oh, and push the pumpkin muffins. They’re delicious and Glenn made a big batch of ’em. You think you can handle it?”

  “I will!” Glory vowed, momentarily infected by Sherrie’s zeal. “I can!”

  “Okay, you take that side of the restaurant, I’ll take the other, I’ll be in charge of seating, and if you have any questions, ask me on the fly. Here’s your order pad, hon. And . . . go!”

  She gave her a little nudge toward a table occupied by one person, which seemed like the perfect way to dip a toe in. Fueled by a peculiar mix of hope, dread, brio, and truth be told, a little thrill at the novelty of it all, Glory strode over.

  The world went slo-mo as she registered who was sitting at that table.

  Hell’s. Teeth.

  Or, to quote a song Mikey McShane had played at an open mic not too long ago: “fuck small towns.”

  Mrs. Adler hadn’t changed much in about eight years: she was petite, linear as an exclamation point, her face oblong and weathered to a glossy walnut brown, her inky black hair bobbed precisely at her shoulders and sliced in the straightest imaginable line across her forehead. Her eyes were huge and round and dark, like a colon turned sideways. She was the human equivalent of a diagrammed sentence. Glory never could decide if she’d morphed into an English teacher because of how she looked or if her looks had given her no choice.

  “Well. Myyyy goodness. Miss Glory Greenleaf.” Her eyes glinted sardonically up at Glory. “As I live and breathe. It’s been quite a while. I thought you were . . . now how did you put it on that last day of class? ‘Getting the hell out of this stuffy, dusty hellhole’? Which is why you didn’t have to care whether you got an A or a C on your English final? And why you found diagramming sentences such a ridiculous pastime?”

  Alas, this was all true. She had said this. Glory kind of wanted to go back in time and smack herself, even if the sentiments held true. And Glory had given enough thought about diagramming sentences to be able to use them as a metaphor. And that was about it.

  She tried a smile, but her mouth was having none of it. She finally managed to peel her top lip up off her teeth a little. “Hi, Mrs. Adler. What a great memory you have. I guess all that stuff I said . . . was a figure of speech.”

  Which she recognized immediately was the wrong thing to say to an English teacher.

  “Ah. A figure of speech, was it? So you didn’t mean to imply that the town resembles a hole in hell, one which is coated in dust, populated by prigs, suggesting that it’s a very unpleasant place indeed?”

  The way forward was littered with little landmines, representing all the things she desperately wanted to say. Glory counted to five in her head before she opened her mouth.

  “I guess I have an impassioned way of expressing myself.”

  She was pleased with that answer, but all this did was make Mrs. Adler go silent and grim. This was in part what had maddened Mrs. Adler about Glory. Glory was clearly intelligent and articulate and did indeed express herself colorfully, and Mrs. Adler could count on one hand the students she’d known who bothered to use the word impassioned in a sentence. But Glory had always balked against doing things when she failed to see their point. Diagramming sentences, for instance.

  “And you said all that in front of the whole class, no less.”

  “Guess I can’t resist an audience. Ha ha. Let me tell you about our specials, Mrs. Adler. Eggs Benedict is the breakfast special, and we’re serving that all day. And the turkey club is the lunch special. Only $6.99!”

  “Weren’t eggs Benedict the special just last week?” Mrs. Adler countered, shrewdly.

  Crap. This was turning out to be right up there with all the dreams she’d had about showing up to school naked or all of her teeth suddenly falling out into her hand.

  But she was not about to flail incompetently in front of her former English teacher.

  “The eggs Benedict here is truly special every day, but you can get them for a little less today. You’ll have enough money left over for . . .” She shot a sneaky glance at the whiteboard over the grill. “. . . a pumpkin muffin. And if the eggs Benedict is special,” she riffed, “well, the pumpkin muffins are spectacular.”

  Sherrie breezed by with her arms full of plates, but she still managed to give Glory a surreptitious thumbs-up and a nod.

  Mrs. Adler was eyeing Glory with those huge dark eyes that missed nothing and loathed everything about overly spirited students. “I want the turkey club, Miss Greenleaf. But hold the turkey, lettuce, tomato, and cheese. Bacon very crispy.”

  Glory processed this like a word problem. “So . . . what you want is a triple-decker toasted bacon sandwich pinned together by a toothpick?”

  The worried look Sherrie shot her on her way back to the kitchen was confirmation that she’d failed to keep incredulity entirely from her tone.

  “That’s exactly what I want, Miss Greenleaf. If only you’d paid that much attention to detail in class, young lady, you’d have gone far indeed. At least as far as the next town over.”

  Oh. Well done, Mrs. Adler. Perversely, she appreciated skillful sarcasm when she heard it.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’d like on the side?” Mrs. Adler prompted sweetly.

  Why, you bitch, Glory thought admiringly.

  Glory knew it would make M
rs. Adler’s decade to hear Glory say “do you want fries with that?”

  They stared each other down.

  “I’ll bring you a pumpkin muffin, Mrs. Adler,” she said finally. “They’re good for . . . sweetening things up.”

  She pivoted immediately lest she say the “you bitch” part out loud instead of in her head, scribbled the order on the tag, and headed over to Giorgio. She hovered there by the grill a second, distracted and soothed by sounds: the rhythmic swish of the flour sifter in Glenn’s hand, the clink of silverware and glasses, the jingle of the bells on the door.

  The jingle of the bells on the door.

  Followed by more jingling of the bells.

  She whipped about. A veritable flood of customers was pouring in. The lunch rush was officially on.

  “One customer down,” Sherrie murmured to her in passing. “Keep moving, hon. Daydream later. If things get too hairy, Glenn can help out on tables. But speaking of hairy . . .” She gestured with her chin. “I had to seat him on your side. But if things are a little weird between you, I’ll take that table.”

  When she heard the word him Glory’s thoughts immediately leaped to Eli. It was interesting that the pronoun him now seemed to be his alone. But Sherrie couldn’t possibly know anything about that.

  She realized too late who the him in question was. She tried to turn around before he got a look at her face, but it was too late.

  “Glory?”

  And the fact that the braid was tugging her eyebrows up into arches probably made her look surprised to see him, too.

  She sighed. “Hi, Mick.”

  He was staring at her in frozen, wounded, puppy-eyed shock.

  In high school, Mick had been considered quite the catch, what with the long hair and leather jacket and the GTO and arm tattoos, only one of which was misspelled. (It said “Piece.” He’d meant it to read “Peace.”) He was sweet and a little dim and while a pretty good kisser, he went at sex the same way he went at Dance Dance Revolution. Or reading the instructions for how to assemble an IKEA desk. As if he was following steps in order to get to the next level. The same ones. Every. Single. Time.