The River Valley Series

by Tess Thompson

  “Go on, girl. I’ll just watch from here but you call me over if you need anything.”

  At the table, Lee handed out menus, grabbed the pencil from behind her ear, and asked for their drink orders. The oldest of the bunch, gray beard, huge belly, clad in overalls, spoke first. “You’re new.”

  She nodded and put her hand on her hip like she’d seen Cindi do. “Sure am.” She sounded stiff and fake, like the first time she’d said a curse word in junior high.

  He raised his bushy eyebrows and looked around at his buddies. “We’ve never had a redhead before.” They all laughed.

  She dropped her arm to her side. “What can I get you?”

  A man at the end of the table wearing a baseball cap and with an unshaven greasy face raised his hand. “You on the menu?” Again, they all laughed. Another glanced at her crotch. “You a real redhead?” he said.

  Cindi appeared at Lee’s elbow. “You boys behaving yourselves?” The way she stood, hands on hips, indulgent smirk, her voice a mixture of banter and authority, reminded Lee of a Madam at a whorehouse. And Lee was the sweaty, quaking, sacrificial virgin right before she went upstairs for her first night on the job.

  The bearded ringleader put his hands up in the air. “Of course, Miss Cindi.”

  “What can we get you then?” said Cindi.

  “Beers. Couple of pitchers. Burgers all around. Get Billy to sneak us extra fries.”

  Cindi nodded and shook her finger at him. “Not that you boys deserve it, but I’ll see what I can do. You be good, or I’ll be saying goodnight early.”

  * * *

  Lee carried the pitchers in one hand and six plastic beer mugs in the other. She wasn’t sure what to put down first and the beer was heavy. The young greasy one got up and came around the table. “Let me help you.” He reached for the pitchers at the same time Lee moved to put them on the table. The pitchers slipped and beer spilled down Lee’s front, causing her shirt to cling to her breasts.

  The men stared, whooped and hollered. “Didn’t know it was wet t-shirt night.” The table exploded with laughter, whistles, and boot stamping. Cindi came to the table and they quieted.

  “How much you boys drink before you got here? I have a right mind to cut you all off.” They all moaned. The greasy one slapped the table and another got down on his knees. “Please, Miss Cindi, it wasn’t our fault.”

  The bearded one stood. “We’re sorry. We’ll be good the rest of the night.”

  There was more laughing and back slapping and Cindi whispered in her ear, “I have an extra shirt in my locker. I’ll be right there.”

  Lee ran to the kitchen, past Billy, and into the back area where there were several lockers. She sat on the chair. How will I make it through the rest of the night, she thought? She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Cindi. “Now, listen, sugar, don’t worry about it.” She opened her locker and handed Lee a shirt. “Take off your wet shirt and put this one on.” She grabbed an apron from one of the hooks. “Here, I forgot to tell you to put this on.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this.” Lee pulled the dry t-shirt over her head.

  “Sure you can.” Cindi tied the apron on Lee and gave her a squeeze. “It’s just beer and perverts.”

  The back alley door opened and Zac strolled through the kitchen with a half smile on his face. He strode past them to his office and slammed the door shut.

  Cindi clicked her tongue and her eyes were hard. “Bastard’s gonna get us all killed.”

  Billy’s voice sang out from the grill. “Order up.”

  Cindi helped her take the burgers out to the table. The men were finished with the first two pitchers and asked for more, but seemed to have forgotten the wet t-shirt contest.

  The two school teachers waved her over and one of them put her plump hand on Lee’s forearm. “You have any low fat cookies?”

  “We have oatmeal chocolate chip. They looked kind of healthy.”

  “We’ll take three each.”

  * * *

  Tommy was at the microphone, guitar around his neck, when she came back to the table with the cookies. The two women leaned forward in their chairs, eyes in a school girl glaze, fixated on Tommy, the corners of their mouths lifted in shy smiles. Lee set the oversized cookies on the table. The blond one grabbed the largest without taking her gaze off Tommy.

  Tommy adjusted his guitar and spoke into the microphone, his voice and body fluid, relaxed. “Thanks for making it out tonight, even with the terrible weather. We’re Los Fuegos. Got a couple of tunes to keep you entertained this evening. This first song I wrote myself.” He smiled at the school teachers. “You regulars will recognize it.”

  The ladies giggled and clapped their hands together. Lee watched from the bar, fascinated but scornful of their adoration for this small town singer. She began to pour another pitcher of beer from the tap.

  Then he sang.

  Lee looked up from pouring the pitcher and stared. His voice was a melodic baritone, soulful and emotional, James Taylor mixed with Jackson Browne. There was something unusually frank in it, like you could hear into the place most people kept hidden. The song was a ballad, kind of folk and country mixed. He sang the chorus, eyes closed. “See you in a stranger’s gait, cry each time it isn’t true, how I wonder where you wait, was heaven waiting there for you?”

  Her scalp tingled and she felt tears sting the corners of her eyes.

  “Are you in the blades of grass, are you the breeze of mountain air, do you swim with river bass, how I wish I saw you there.”

  She looked down and realized she’d forgotten to let go of the beer spout and it overflowed onto the plastic pad and dripped to the floor. She pushed the spout shut and wiped the excess beer with the towel from the sink. Cindi came around the counter, grabbed Lee’s hand, and talked in an important, self-congratulatory way, like she was personally responsible for his talent. “Don’t he sing like an angel? This song’s about his dead brother. He lived in Nashville for a long time but never could make a deal. He says no one wanted to sign a Hispanic country singer. There was no American Idol back then or I bet he would’ve won.”

  Lee swallowed to rid the lump from her throat. “What’s he doing here?”

  Cindi shrugged her shoulders, fluffed her hair, and sniffed. “Some folks love it here, you know.”

  The song ended and Lee found herself clapping along with the rest of the restaurant. He acted comfortable, like he was in his own living room instead of a mob of half-drunks that she imagined could turn at any moment. Lee practiced for hours when she had to do a presentation for clients and couldn’t imagine what possessed someone to perform. She remembered a college friend, a drama student, explained the quality as “owning the stage”: the way he talked into the microphone like they were all old friends, like he was there to make their pain a little less potent, the way he opened his mouth and his soul poured out. The crowd couldn’t take their eyes off him, even the men. “Thanks so much,” he said. “This next one should liven things up a bit, get you all moving.” He pointed to a young couple holding hands. “Mark and Laura just found out they’re having a baby, so this one’s for you. Little Chuck Berry diddy called C’est la Vie.”

  The first licks of the classic rock song shook the room, and several people got up to dance. The young couple danced close and slow, arms around each other. Their happiness radiated across the room and she felt a pang of jealousy and the familiar anger.

  She shifted her eyes from the couple to Tommy. Lee had to admit, he was sexy, in a dark, Latin kind of way. If you liked that type. Regardless, the first thing on her list of recommendations to Mike—keep the band.

  More people wandered in. They all ordered fries or onion rings and an occasional plate of nachos dripping with Velveeta. The tables filled and they clapped to the music, or chatted, heads close together to be heard over the music, or danced in the small space in front of the band. The night wore on and seemed almost festive. The crowd cheered after each
song and their feet tapped to the music—Birkenstocks, tennis shoes, pointy cowboy boots, and work boots. It was an assortment of small town people enjoying themselves after what she imagined was a long week of worries. We all have that in common, she thought.

  Zac emerged from his office around nine, joined several rowdy women in tight clothes, and ordered pitchers of beer on the house. He disappeared from time to time out the back door but returned within minutes, redder and more animated with each glass of beer. By midnight he stumbled and slurred his words. At a quarter after, he disappeared out the back door with one of the women, who, according to Cindi, “Took him home to help him sober up, if you know what I mean.”

  * * *

  Cindi and Lee sat at the table near the kitchen. It was after one a.m. and the restaurant was empty of customers. A few of the band members, plus Tommy and Billy, ate leftover fries and drank beer. Cindi counted her tips, licking her thumb to separate the bills. She looked over at Lee. “How’d you do?”

  Lee took the beer-soaked bills out of her apron pocket. She flattened and organized them in the same direction before she counted. It was thirty-three dollars. She rubbed her temples. “Was this a busy night?” She thought how naïve she had been just hours before as to the level of transformation needed to make this place profitable and how many nights it would take to save up the kind of money she needed.

  “Yeah.” Cindi took off her shoes. “Doesn’t seem like much after all that work.” She sighed and put her feet up on the opposite chair. “I know.”

  “How do you live on this?”

  “I gotta little coming from one of my ex-husbands.” She fluffed her hair. “It helps. Plus, my kid is grown.”

  “There has to be a better way than this,” said Lee.

  “Amen, girl.”

  Chapter 11

  It was a thump and a metallic bang that awakened her from a deep sleep two nights later. She half opened her eyes, feeling drugged, not sure if she heard the noises in her dreams. The clock read 2:30. There was another crash and this time she knew the sound came from her backyard. Heart pounding, fear the taste of metal in her mouth, she grabbed a flashlight and her cell phone and stumbled to the window. She aimed the light into the yard, expecting to see Von, but the trash cans were on their sides, and out of the end of one was something large and black. The trash can moved and Lee gasped, fingers sweating on the plastic of the cell phone. The figure had a black coat and enormous paws with long black claws.

  It was a bear.

  Relief flooded her at first, but then the animal lifted the trash can and slammed it against the ground. She felt the force of him ripple through the air and into the house. He backed out of the can, pawing out the remnants from one of Ellen’s pies, lapping at the tin pan with his long pink tongue and then tossing it on the fence, berry juice dripping down the weather-beaten boards. Upright, he smeared his paw on the fence, interrupting the drips into swipes of magenta. He dropped back on all fours and paced the yard, shaking his head, smelling the ground, green eyes glowing in the beam of her flashlight.

  He ambled over to the garden shed, got up on his hind legs and looked in the small glass window, human-like. He turned, let out a long growl, and crept on two legs closer to the house, all rolling muscle. His fierce eyes stared at Lee. She stood mesmerized, a jolt of energy racing through her body, goose bumps on her arms, unable to look away. Even through the closed window the air was heavy between them like before a thunder storm. She imagined she could smell the gamey rank of his oily fur and some kind of telepathic connection to the bear’s thoughts. A revelation, an unearthing, hung in the air between them, but just out of her grasp like one of her early childhood memories. She touched her fingertips to the window as if to say, I can’t get it. Her small movement seemed to break the spell between them and the bear threw back his head and roared, the sound shaking the window. Like from a dream she awakened and filled with terror, the reality that a rickety house was the only thing between her and this beast. Her mind raced with a jumble of thoughts. Should she call 911? What would she say, there’s a bear in my yard, and they’d say, good luck lady, we don’t do bears, call animal control? Did they even have that here? Could he get in the house? What could she do to scare him away? And then, a coherent thought: call Ellen, she’ll know what to do.

  Ellen answered on the third ring, sounding groggy and thick with sleep. “Lee, you alright?”

  “There’s a bear in my backyard.”

  “Is it Clive?”

  “What?”

  “That’s what your mother and I called him, Clive.”

  “Was he big and black and scary?”

  “Sounds like him. I’ll be right there.” The line clicked off before she could say, no, don’t come, he’s right outside the house, there’s no way to get in.

  * * *

  Lee stood, pressing her forehead on the window next to the front door, searching the darkness for Ellen. Clive was still in the fenced backyard. She could hear him pacing and pawing at the garbage cans. Ellen emerged from the night, lantern in hand, in a walk-run down the dirt driveway, her long gray hair in a braid and dressed in a flannel nightgown and work boots. She was carrying a long gun—a shotgun, Lee supposed. Lee opened the door a crack and yelled to her, “Hurry, he’s in the backyard.”

  Ellen began to run towards the door. Lee opened it wider, pulled her by the arm into the house, slammed the door shut, and bolted the lock. “You must be insane, running around outside with a bear on the loose.”

  “I’ve had the pleasure of his acquaintance five years in a row now.” She held the shotgun with ease, like an umbrella. “He always appears this time of year.” Ellen started up the stairs to the bedrooms. “He’s hungry after the long winter.”

  Lee followed her. “What are you going to do?”

  “Get rid of him.” They reached the second floor and Ellen marched to the window. “This is the best place to get a shot at him if he’s in the yard.”

  “I don’t think we should hurt him,” Lee said. “Isn’t that illegal or something?”

  Ellen opened the window and put the barrel of her shotgun through the opening. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill him.” She lifted the gun to her shoulder. “Too messy. We’ll just scare him off.”

  Ellen pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening. The air filled with the smell Lee remembered from firecrackers at Fourth of July. Lee moved closer to the window and Clive gazed up at her, his head tilted like he was confused. She had the distinct, crazy feeling once again that she could almost hear his thoughts, but they were a jumble of confusion, disappointment, anger, instead of information. He snapped his jaws and lunged toward the house, disappearing from view under the awning of the kitchen’s door. They heard him pushing the door, the wood creaking with his weight. Ellen fired another shot out the window. Lee collapsed to the floor, hugging her knees, afraid to look. Ellen fired again and then they heard a scrambling noise at the side of the house.

  Ellen backed a few feet from the wall. “He’s climbing up the side of the house.”

  Lee hugged her knees tighter and squeezed her eyes shut. “What?”

  Ellen’s voice was raised an octave, yelling like an excited child. “He’s using the awning for leverage!” Lee opened one eye to see Ellen creeping towards the window and peering up. She heard claws on the side of the house, and it sounded as if he were making deep holes into the wood siding.

  “What’s happening now?”

  “He’s reached the top. Good Lord, he’s on the roof.” There was the sound above their heads of wood splintering and falling in the attic space between the roof and the ceiling. Outside the window several shingles floated to the ground. Lee expected to see him break through and land on the floor in front of them. She jumped up and grabbed Ellen’s arm. They looked in each other’s eyes and fear passed between them. “What does he want?” said Ellen.

  For a moment there was silence and then more back-and-forth movements as he walked the roof-line.
“Clive, what do you want?” Ellen raised the shotgun and the barrel followed the sounds, her blue eyes intense. “I’m ready if he falls through.”

  Lee backed towards the window, and for several minutes they heard him pace until finally his footsteps descended the slope of the roof and then there were several loud thumps. They ran to the window just as Clive reached the ground. Ellen raised her gun and aimed it at his head. “The mess be damned, I’m gonna shoot the son of a bitch.”

  Lee, standing behind Ellen now, saw beyond the fence a dark shadow and grabbed the flashlight from the window sill. She aimed the light towards the movement. “Oh my God,” Lee said. She saw two bear cubs. “Don’t shoot.” She gripped Ellen’s shoulder. “Clive has cubs.”

  Ellen lowered the gun. “Clive’s a girl?” She leaned closer to the window. “Clive’s a girl. Well, I’ll be.”

  Clive scurried over the fence and growled direction to her babies. They ran to her and she nuzzled them for a moment before looking back at the house. Lee touched the window with the palm of her hand and felt something enter her, not words exactly but a feeling. It came from Clive through the air, a small zap like electricity inside her mid-section where she imagined her uterus dwelt and then the thought: I want this baby. Clive shifted her gaze away from the house to her cubs and led them towards the thick trees at the edge of the woods. Lee watched from the window until they disappeared into the night. She sat on the edge of the bed. Had Clive come to tell her to keep the child? Ellen had asked what Clive wanted. Could it be that Clive wanted her to have the baby?