by Lisa Wingate
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I mean it. Now, I got to fix some pecan rolls and a big ol’ egg casserole for the folks at the hotel, and I don’t need anybody messin’ around my kitchen. You put down that bacon.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” His lips twitched at the corners, and there was a playful twinkle in his eye as he slid the box onto the counter and backed away with his hands in the air, surrendering it like contraband.
“It’s too early for you to be wartin’ me.” Donetta’s frown cracked around the edges as she turned to the stove to assess the mini-disaster Kemp had left behind. Snorting, she waved the spatula over her shoulder, then swiped it on the towel Kemp had used to try to beat out the flames. “You just got to ignore him, Kai. He’s always been a pill. Got too much of his father in him, and besides that, he grew up hangin’ around the beauty shop with all them ladies wrapped around his little pinkie finger. Wasn’t a day went by those women didn’t bring him cookies, or penny candy from the grocery, or give him a quarter to run down and ride the little horse out front of the hardware store. He’s ruint.”
Nodding gravely, I pretended to now have an understanding of Kemp’s devil-may-care personality. “So that’s how it happened.”
Kemp flashed me a wide-eyed look, as in, Excuse me, but who figured out the biscuit can? “Aunt Netta, you know those ladies didn’t mean anything to me.” He produced a wounded tone, which she rewarded with a rotational swipe of the bacon spatula, ringing his stomach like a tightly wrapped drum.
“You hush up now and take this gal for somethin’ to eat. I got to get my food down to the hotel the same time as everyone else’s casseroles, and to get that done, I need you out from underfoot.”
“I could stay and help,” I offered, because it didn’t seem right to leave her here to do the work by herself.
“Oh, no,” Donetta’s eyes widened, as if she were aware that I was about as much use in the kitchen as a buzz saw. “I do my best cookin’ on my own. You just go on and do whatever you need to do. There’s some exercise suits in the closet by the bathroom upstairs. They found your bag last night, but everything’s soakin’ wet in it. I just dropped it there by the washer. We can get that stuff laundered up today. Those exercise suits of mine’ll be kind of big, tiny as you are, but at least they’re clean and dry. Kemp, them clothes you forgot here when you changed for the church banquet are on the dryer, folded. I washed up your tennis shoes, too. Them things had a gallon of ball field dirt inside, I’ll tell you. Run out and check on Kai’s dogs while you’re back there, all ri.ight, Pickle-poo”
Pickle-poo? I quirked a brow at the nickname, but Kemp just ignored me, gave a good-natured shrug, and headed for the door. I caught myself watching him go, and then I caught Donetta watching me watch him go. I blushed and muttered, “I’ll be upstairs.”
“There’s some hairdryers and brushes and things of Lauren’s there in the bathroom drawer, hon,” she called after me, her voice honey coated again. “Ye-ew just help yourself to anythin’ you need, darlin’.”
“Thanks,” I said, then circled through the laundry room to check my duffle bag. Just as Donetta had assessed, the clothes were a mess—soggy and smelly from muddy water that had seeped through the walls of the old church. But in the dry pocket, Gil’s Bible and my personal papers were safe. Taking the little packet of things that actually mattered, I went upstairs while Donetta hummed happily in the kitchen, pleased to have the place all to herself again.
It occurred to me, while I was tucking my belongings into a bathroom drawer, then selecting an eighties-era green and purple windsuit from Donetta’s closet, that Kemp probably had things on his agenda today, other than shuttling me around and baby-sitting Don’s dogs. Here in Daily, life was going on as normal. People had jobs to do and business to take care of. The polite thing would be to offer him an out. There wasn’t, after all, much chance of my getting lost in Daily, Texas.
When I came back downstairs, Kemp was sitting on a stool with a cup of coffee, watching his aunt roll out dough on the counter. His hair was slicked back in dark, wet curls, and he’d traded the sawdust-covered jeans and boots for a gray T-shirt that brought out the little silver flecks in his hazel eyes, silky black athletic shorts that had a Daily Dawgs logo on one leg, and sparkling white freshly washed Nikes. Today, he looked like a coach instead of a cowboy-lumberjack.
“… not on Satur-dey, surely?” Donetta was saying, and I stopped in the doorway, counting the days in my head. Was it really only Saturday? It seemed weeks had passed since I left Perdida. Last night when I’d used Donetta’s phone to call Maggie and Meredith, it felt like I was checking in with people I hadn’t seen in a month. It was hard to know what to say, except that I was safe. None of us could tell much about Perdida from the weather reports. Glorietta had hit a bit west, so there was some hope, but with a ten-foot storm surge and flooding rains, at least some of the historic district and other lowlying areas of Perdida would be under water. Depending on how well the seawalls and the Geotube held out, the stores and homes along the beach might or might not have made it through. So far, there was no news of Don, but as Maggie put it, he’d lived there thirty years. He knew what to do. The M&Ms were trying to call him and other contacts in Perdida every few hours, but right now there was no communication. As soon as they learned anything, they’d let me know.
In the kitchen, Kemp answered his aunt’s question. “Need to go by and open the field house. Got kids coming in for a workout.”
“Ffff!” Tension puffed into the air like a cloud of flour. “Why can’t Coach Groves do that? Why’s it always you that’s got to do extra?”
I stood in the doorway, feeling like an eavesdropper and thinking, Maybe I should make a noise or something. At the same time, the bit of ongoing drama involving Kemp had my attention. Or maybe I was just looking for a reason to deny the obvious evidence that he really did have other things to do today.
He calmly took a sip of his coffee. “It’s not a problem.”
“He always leaves you to do it. It ain’t right.”
“It’s not a problem,” Kemp said again, and glanced out the window, as if the needs of the day had floated by and caught his eye. “I’m the new guy, remember?”
“Groves is probably down at the river with a fishin’ pole in one hand and a big ol’ cup of coffee in the other. Him and Ronald are probably out there together. Nobody worryin’ about whether they’re needed to home.”
Kemp’s lips pursed speculatively. “I could drive down the river later and look for Uncle Ronald—let him know what’s going on. Most likely, he’s camped past Boggy Bend or Rock Island.”
Donetta smacked a spoon against the edge of the bowl. “If he was worried about it, I guess he’d check in. Wouldn’t be too hard to figure out there’s been a hurricane.”
“There’s no radio in the boat, Aunt Netta, and you know he won’t carry a cell phone.”
“Ffff!”
Tiny worry lines gathered between Kemp’s eyebrows as he studied his aunt.
So Pickle-poo does have a serious side. The thought caught my interest. In my line of work, I met too many fun-but-flaky guys who were suffering from Peter Pan syndrome. Those bumming-around-the-beaches-of-Never-Neverland vagabond types always reminded me of my father.
I tiptoed back down the hall, then came in again, making noise this time. Both Donetta and Kemp turned my way. “So, listen,” I said, “I think I’ll just take the dogs for a walk and grab something at the convenience store. I know you both have things to do today. I’ve held you up enough already.” Suddenly I felt like the dorky cousin from Hackensack—the one your mother forces you to take along to the drive-in, where your real friends hang out.
Donetta turned apologetically to me. “Kai … darlin’ …” Stretching the words and coating them with honey, she gave me a remorseful look. “I’m sorry I don’t have anybody better than this rotten rascal to take ye-ew for some breakfast. It’s the best I can do on short notice, thay-uts’
s all. Really, there’s plenty of ni-ice people in this town that don’t give their poor old aunts gray hairs, but he’s all I can come up with ri-ight now. If you get down to the café and you find someone better, just chuck him into the river.”
Kemp slid off his stool, crossed the kitchen, and opened the carport door. “Ready?”
All of a sudden, I was. I didn’t care if he had other things to do, or if his aunt was trying to get me out of her kitchen, or if I looked like a dork in the oversized purple windsuit with the rolled-up cuffs. My head did a giddy little twirl as I slipped out the door and crossed the carport, passing the cooling bacon pan on the way.
“I feel bad, leaving her with a mess to clean up,” I said, really just to make conversation. Obviously, I didn’t feel too bad to wander off to breakfast with Kemp. I also wasn’t terribly burdened with guilt over the fact that I hadn’t even checked on the dogs this morning. They’ll be all right, the happy voice in my head was saying.
“You try to go back in that kitchen, you’ll be in mortal danger.” Sliding his hands into his pockets, he slanted a glance down at me. Something tugged and jittered in my stomach. “Don’t let that sweet-little-old-lady act fool you. Behind that heart of gold there’s an agenda. Always.” The words were matter-of-fact—not a complaint, exactly, but a slightly weary observation. I had the unusual urge to probe into it. Normally, I let people keep their stuff in their boxes, and I kept my stuff in mine. Everything calm and cordial. Nothing too personal.
“An agenda?”
He shrugged, as if it were elementary. “Aunt Netta’s a natural-born mother hen. My dad is her little brother. She mothered him, right along with the rest of us, after my mom passed. Or at least she tried to. Dad always had a wild streak.”
“I hear it runs in the family.”
He winced as if I’d injured him. “Ouch. I’m wounded.” He actually had a little bit of a pout lip, if you looked closely. How cute.
“You don’t look wounded, Pickle-poo.” I paused to eyeball Miss Peach’s house as we came closer. The place was quiet this morning.
“I hide it well.” The comment swiveled my attention, and for a moment, I felt the pull of something just beneath the surface. He was gazing up into the trees, so I took advantage of the moment to observe him. I could see his dad in him—Frank’s square chin with the cleft in the middle, Frank’s straight, dark eyebrows—but I could also see Donetta. He had his aunt’s slightly crooked grin, her tall, lean build. I imagined what he must have looked like as a little boy, with the chin dimple and the precocious light in his hazel eyes. No wonder he had all the ladies in the beauty shop wrapped around his little finger.
“So, where does that nickname come from, Pickle-poo?”
Kemp scratched his chin, shaking his head sheepishly. “Depends on who you ask.”
That was a vague answer, and of course it intrigued me. “Really? How so?”
Shrugging, he snaked a hand out and plucked a feathery stalk of grass growing from a crack in the edge of the road. “In my family, nicknames are like birthmarks. Everybody gets one shortly after arriving in the maternity ward, and they don’t wear off easily. Pickle is a baseball term—you know, getting caught in the pickle—getting stuck between bases?”
He cut a quick downward glance, as if he were wondering whether I was buying.
“So the nickname comes from baseball?”
“Sure,” he said, tossing the grass over his shoulder. “Of course.”
“And you’ve been playing baseball since shortly after arriving in the maternity ward?” Having grown up around cheats and con-men, I knew how to sniff out a snow job. “Why do I have the feeling that if I asked your aunt, she’d tell me something different?”
He shrugged, watching a cardinal fly over. “Oh, she’d probably come up with some implausible story about how I arrived in this world with a face like a grouchy old man, and the doctor said, ‘Looks like this one’s been eatin’ sour pickles.’ But she’d be wrong, of course. It’s a baseball term.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said, and he just shook his head at me. “So, what was it like, growing up as Pickle-poo?” My own question surprised me. I never ever brought up childhood, because the next logical step, after someone shared theirs, was for them to ask about mine. There was no way to cast an attractive light on my trailer-trash past. It was so much easier just to steer conversations in a different direction.
“It was good.” Kemp punctuated the answer with a nod, pressing his lips together as if he were trying to decide whether the word tasted right. “Quiet. Small town, you know, you sort of have to make your own fun. Everybody’s into everybody’s business, so most of the time our fun got us caught. My dad pioneered every available form of trouble in Daily, anyway. He usually knew what we were up to before we did. His philosophy was, You step in a mess, you clean it off your own boots.”
“That’s cute—‘clean it off your own boots.’ ”
He gave me a lopsided grin. “Thanks. I specialize in cute. My sister’s the serious one. That pretty much freed me up to be a goof-off.”
Goof-off wasn’t at all the term I would have picked for him. “You must have been serious about baseball.” As soon as the sentence came out, the change in his expression told me I’d opened the wrong door. “I mean, it’s a huge accomplishment, making it to the majors. Not many people manage that.”
Slipping his hands into his pockets, he pushed both shoulders up like he was trying not to think about it too hard. “My dad always said when you love something, it doesn’t feel like work. I love baseball.”
“Everybody has something they feel that way about, I think.” It occurred to me that the way he felt about baseball was the way I felt about Gifts From the Sea. I couldn’t wait to walk the beaches in the mornings, or comb the port markets when I had the chance to debark in Mexico, the island markets of the Caribbean, or points beyond. Every journey was a treasure hunt, a chance to bring home found objects and create something from nothing. It never felt like work. “You’re lucky if you get to do it for a living, though.”
“True enough,” he agreed, flicking a sidelong glance at me. “So, what about you, what’s your game?”
His gaze unnerved me. I should have been prepared for my question to ricochet, but I wasn’t. “Cooking,” I joked.
“No … seriously.”
“Thanks a lot!” I pretended to be shocked, but I wasn’t. Short of boxes, cans, hot dogs, and McDonald’s bags, my mother never cooked anything, nor did she have any interest in teaching me. “Your aunt’s right. You are a pea-ul,” I said, imitating the way Donetta pronounced pill, in two long syllables.
He chuckled softly, and I liked the way it sounded. “Okay, actually, I do have a kitchen, but I use it for a studio.” Every square inch of counter space in my apartment was, typically, covered with tools, supplies, and several small vices I’d mounted on the side of the cabinet, to Don’s dismay. “The last few years I’ve been getting an art jewelry business going. Perdida’s a good place for it. Lots of tourists canvassing the shops, looking to take something back from vacation.” Home flashed through my mind, and a sick feeling settled in my stomach. “There were, anyway.”
Kemp, of course, was oblivious to the jumble of thoughts in my head. “Jewelry … so you’re an artsy type?”
Artsy type. A strange way to think of myself. My parents, being free spirits, abhorred labels. “I guess so. I love creating things. It’s interesting, gathering objects from different places—beach glass, stones, beads, fossils, pieces of coral or whatever, and seeing how they fit together. You never know what the tide will turn up. There’s something poetic about it.”
Kemp chewed the side of his lip. “An artsy type,” he confirmed. “I should have guessed that.”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted of affirmed. “Why?”
“You’re different.”
I wondered if he was seeing the raggedy trailer-camp girl the town kids made fun of at the carnival—the
weirdo they all thought came from another planet. I’d always hated the fact that we were different. I wanted to be like the normal kids—normal house, normal town, normal parents, clothes that actually matched and didn’t come from the Goodwill store.
Kemp didn’t have any way of knowing that, of course.
“Different, how?” Although maybe I didn’t want to know.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“That isn’t an answer. You can’t tell a girl she’s weird and then just leave it at that.” For some inexplicable reason, my breath caught as I waited for his reply, and I felt my gaze tangle with his. I wanted to know what he saw when he looked at me.
“I didn’t say weird. I said different, as in—”
A commotion behind us halted the sentence just as it was about to get interesting. Kemp and I spun around so quickly we collided with each other. The zipper of my borrowed windsuit caught the hem of his T-shirt, and we were attached at the hip as Miss Peach’s gray cat streaked up the street. Radar was hot on her tail, bellowing like a foxhound on the hunt.
“Radar!” I gasped.
“How did he get out?” Kemp disengaged my jacket from his shirt by ripping them apart just as the cat made it to Miss Peach’s yard and ducked through the narrow crack between the doors of an old garage. Radar, who was too large for the crack, collided with the opening at full force, propelled himself halfway through, hung there a moment with his back legs churning up gravel, then succeeded in bending the entire door inward. Wood cracked, hinges squealed, and the dog disappeared inside the garage.
“Whoa!” Kemp exclaimed, then took off toward Miss Peach’s house.
I ran down the road after him and caught up as he was trying to pull the mangled garage door back to the correct side of the frame. Inside, Radar howled like a banshee, gravel pelted the walls, mystery objects clanged against other mystery objects, and something metal fell over and rolled all the way across the room.
Grabbing the door, I added my weight to Kemp’s, thinking, When I get my hands on that dog, I’m going to kill him. Any minute now, Miss Peach would come out of the house and I’d get shot, or citizen’s arrested, or both, and then I’d end up having to pay for a new garage door and whatever else Don’s dog was destroying in there.