by Lisa Wingate
“Imagene, maybe you and Frank ought to take the tickets!” I shot out, since we were all just popping off anyway. “Give him a reward for goin’ down to fetch your van and Kai’s bus.”
Imagene blushed and her eyes went wide. “Donetta Bradford, you are shameful sometimes!” Her face got serious, and her mouth straightened. “But I wasn’t kiddin’ about you and Ronald. Maybe that’s just what y’all two need. A romantic trip together. Somethin’ to spice up your love life.”
“Imagene!”
Lucy said something in Japanese, and you didn’t have to speak Japanese to get the meaning.
“Lucy!” I gasped out.
We got to laughing again and making jokes about the cruise ship until we were red-faced and out of breath. It felt good to finally cut loose, and better yet now that we knew Betty’d be headin’ out of town soon and we’d be home free.
But somehow, even with all the laughing and the cutting up, a little case of the worries was needling the corner of my mind. Try as I might, I couldn’t shake the feeling that trouble was hanging over my shoulder, crouched like a mountain lion in the cedar brush, just waitin’ for the right time to pounce.
Chapter 22
Kai Miller
After four full days in Daily I already felt like I’d fallen into a routine. In the mornings, I woke early, then showered and dressed with expectation fluttering in my chest, because I knew Kemp would show up before breakfast. Through the giddy haze, I occasionally looked at myself in the mirror and caught a glimpse of the practical girl, the one who was nothing like her parents and never would be. She frowned at me, wondering why I was still there, why I hadn’t called the cruise line to see about catching up with the Liberation, why I hadn’t been elated yesterday, when Kemp’s father and Buddy Ray had driven south with a truck and a flatbed trailer and brought home both Imagene’s van and my Microbus. They had even procured a replacement tire for me on the way home, so the van was quickly returned to working condition. Having my vehicle back with everything in it and no damage except a cracked window should have seemed like a miracle, but instead, I felt like a vacationer trying not to count down the days until it was time to go back to work.
Even Maggie and Meredith had begun to sense that something about me was off. I hadn’t responded like they’d thought I would when they called to tell me they’d finally gotten word from Don, via a network of shortwave radio operators, who were helping to get messages out from the storm zone. Don was back at the surf shop after weathering the storm on the third floor of the Seaside Hotel, two doors down from Blowfish Billy’s. Don’s shop had been gutted by the storm surge, but the piers were still solid and the apartments on the second story were largely untouched, other than some broken windows. The coffee shop was in similar shape, as were many of the businesses along our section of highway.
Farther down the strand, many of the historic buildings and neighborhoods remained under several feet of floodwater, and debris lay everywhere, clogging streets and hampering attempts to deliver supplies to stranded residents. Despite the lack of basic services, those who’d braved the storm were making plans to dig out, and the National Guard was aiding in the effort to clear debris from the port, which they hoped would reopen within a few weeks. Perdida would rise again.
The news from Maggie and Meredith only reinforced what the girl in the mirror already knew. It was just a matter of time before she’d have to come back to reality and face the months of hard work ahead. Every day, I told myself, Today you need to call the cruise line and report in. The ball’s over, Cinderella.
But as soon as I would hear Kemp’s truck rumble up in the driveway and his voice in the kitchen, the only plans I’d care about were the plans to load the dogs in the back of his truck, grab breakfast at the Dairy Queen or the Buy-n-Bye, then head for the high school to open the field house.
As we drove up the street, Miss Peach would peer suspiciously through her storm door, her chalky legs bare beneath her housecoat. In her arms, the gray cat would hiss as Radar strained against his leash, barking furiously from the bed of the truck. Kemp and I would laugh and wonder whether Miss Peach had noticed that her glue traps were missing.
At the high school, Kemp and I would eat the breakfast we’d brought at a table by the ball fields while his students got in some workout time before school. When they finished, we’d play Wiffle ball. My batting average had steadily improved, as had the reputation of Highfly Hilda. One of Kemp’s ballplayers had even borrowed my cell phone during a game, then returned it to me with “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as my new ringtone and a Daily Dawgs logo on my screen background.
Our daily Wiffle ball contests would end when the first bell rang. As the kids rushed off to class, I’d untie the dogs and Kemp would walk with me to the other side of the football field. We’d linger behind the bleachers like a couple of high-school kids, talking until the second bell rang.
“Looks like you’re tardy, Coach,” I’d say.
“Don’t report me,” he’d answer, and grin, and I’d feel like the ground was shifting under my feet.
“I might.”
“When?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s good for me.” As the bells faded, he’d check over his shoulder, grab me and steal a kiss, then melt me with one of those ridiculous one-sided grins and drop his ball cap back on his head before jogging off across the field. I’d stand there and watch him go, trying to catch my breath.
After Kemp disappeared into the field house, I’d walk across town with the dogs tugging happily at their leashes and the crisp morning air slowly clearing my head. The farther I walked, the more I’d remember the days when my mother and father were so caught up in each other they couldn’t see straight. Look what happened to them, I’d think. Before they met, my father was in college, albeit against his will, and my mother was a contestant in a beauty pageant on campus. If she hadn’t been crying on the steps after flubbing her song lyrics in the talent competition, and he hadn’t stopped to see what was wrong, she might have continued to compete for the Miss Texas title, and he might have become an engineer, as Grandmother Miller planned. Instead, they met for ice cream after the pageant dinner, spent hours talking about family expectations, the pressure to be something you’re not, the life adventures they were being cheated out of. Two days later, they ran off and got married, alienated two sets of family, and proved that love won’t pay the bills.
On the walk across town on Wednesday, I tried to force myself to get real, but my parents’ story was just a tiny dim spot in the face of something so bright I couldn’t see past it. By the time the dogs were safely in the yard and I proceeded to the beauty shop to help with coordinating supplies and meals for the group at the ranch, I was hopelessly floating again. For the first time in my life, I understood the incredible power of infatuation. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything but Kemp. The feeling was mesmerizing and frightening all at once.
The beauty shop girls saw it, of course. They fed the obsession by sharing Pickle-poo stories—little Pickle-poo making ghostly noises upstairs to scare his sister and her friends on sleepovers, then slipping out the window and shinnying down the drain pipe when they went to see if anyone was there, Pickle-poo knocking out one of the windows goofing around with a ball and a bat on the street, Pickle-poo finding a garden snake hibernating in a bunch of leaves by the curb, taking it inside and putting it in one of the hair sinks to warm up.
“Once that thing got warm, it slithered into one of the hair dryers.” Donetta fanned her face, laughing. “That snake hurried out of there when I turned that dryer on, I’ll tell you. Shot right into Mrs. Lulu’s hair and slid down her dress. She went to bellerin’ and screamin’ and dancin’ around. I thought she’d got the Holy Ghost right here in the beauty shop… .”
When Jennifer Mayfield came by for a late-afternoon haircut, I learned more than I wanted to know about the past escapades of Jenny and Kemp. They’d done everything fro
m build a raft and try to sail down the creek like Huckleberry Finn to door-knocking Miss Peach’s house on Halloween.
“Kemp and I were just laughin’ about that yesterday,” she said, and I wondered, When were they together, strolling down memory lane? He was with me. We were together all afternoon, all evening… .
“It would’ve worked out all right if Mr. Big Feet hadn’t gone and tripped over the garden hose.” Jen’s voice was a smooth mix of southern belle and cowgirl sweetheart, her laughter jingling across the room. “When I made it around the corner and looked back, Miss Peach had him grabbed up by the collar and she was headin’ in to call the sheriff. I just knew he’d get scared and tattle, but he never did. Kemp was always so good that way.” When she said that, she gave me a long, interested look. I tried to decide what that meant—whether it was a challenge, or whether she was gauging my reaction to her.
“Y’all two always did get each other into mischief,” Donetta said as she finished fluffing Jen’s hair, and in spite of Jen’s pink scrubs with little kitty paw prints, she looked like she was ready for the cover of a magazine—Veterinary Vogue, or Canine Cosmo. “His daddy made him go work in her flower beds for a month all by himself,” Donetta added, raising an eyebrow and frowning, giving emphasis to all by himself. “He’s probably still got ni-ightmares to this day.” Lowering the seat, she pulled off Jen’s hair cape and tossed it into the basket. “There you go, hon. You’re done.” Donetta was in a hurry to get Jen out the door, and when I glanced at the clock, I had a feeling I knew why. Any minute now, Kemp would show up on his way out to the ranch to entertain the kids of the Holy Ghost Church with a bag of random sports equipment.
Kemp walked in before Donetta could successfully clear the competition from the room, and we shared a few moments of uncomfortable Daily memorabilia during which Jen seemed unusually interested in the evening plans at the ranch and my plans in general, or more specifically my plans to return to the coast, now that I had my vehicle back.
Donetta was quick to cut the conversation short. “Well, nobody can go anyplace right now, with everything bein’ such a mess down there. Hadn’t you been watchin’ the TV? There’s a house sittin’ in the middle of I-10. A whole house. There’s dead gators and cows everywhere, and the water’s all polluted. It’ll take a while for all that to get cleaned up, sure enough. Frank said he was lucky just to make it down far enough to get Imagene’s van.”
Jen blinked at the answer, seeming surprised and less than pleased. She was about to pop out another question when Imagene appeared from next door to let us know the fried chicken, peach cobbler, and sweet tea were ready to be loaded for the trip to the ranch.
“All ri-ight, here we come.” Donetta seized the distraction and proceeded to give Jen the sticky-sweet bum’s rush. “Jenny, hon, I know ye-ew got to get back to work now. Thanks for stoppin’ by, though. Tell the gals over to the vet clinic hey for me. Kemp, why don’t you go out back and clear some space in your truck, all ri-ight?” She hooked arms with Jen and began escorting her toward the front door while Kemp, seemingly oblivious to the female jockeying around him, strolled toward the back door, whistling a happy tune.
Donetta booted Jen out the front, and we proceeded to the café to discuss the best way to box cobblers, pies, and sweet tea for the drive to the ranch. After some packaging and repackaging, the girls were ready for Kemp to do the heavy lifting.
“Where in the world is that boy, anyhow?” Donetta complained. By then, the ladies were in a minor argument about cobbler transportation. “How long does it take to clean out a truck for some boxes?”
“I’ll go check on him,” I offered, then grabbed a container of deep-fried chicken parts and headed through the storeroom of the café, down a dark, narrow hallway, and stepped out a door into the blinding afternoon light. When my eyes adjusted, there was Kemp, standing with one hand propped on his truck, engaged in what appeared to be an intimate conversation with, of all people, Jen, Jenny, Jennifer. A chill gathered in my chest and worked slowly outward as I took in the body language—Kemp leaning casually against the truck, his elbow crooked over the side of the bed, Jen sitting on the tailgate, as if she’d been there awhile.
The café door slammed shut, and the body language changed instantly. Both of them turned and saw me there, loaded down with fried chicken. I had no choice, really, but to proceed to the truck and dump off my cargo.
“Ready?” Kemp asked, sliding the box into the back of the pickup.
I nodded, but didn’t look at him. I was afraid of what I’d see.
Jenny jumped down from the tailgate and dusted off her scrubs. “I thought I’d help y’all load up.” She caught my eye and smiled pleasantly, but there was an appraising look behind the niceties, a curiosity thinly masked. I wondered if she was curious about me or if she was trying to gauge my reaction to finding the two of them with their heads together in the alley.
“There’s not that much to load,” I said as Kemp jogged ahead and disappeared through the café door.
Jen smiled again, and this time the smile seemed genuine, guileless. “Oh, that’s all right. It’s been so busy at the clinic, I haven’t done much to help those folks out at the ranch. I’m feelin’ a little guilty.” She rolled her eyes in silent admission, and as much as I didn’t want to, I once again found her likable. She seemed like a really decent person.
The café door was locked when we reached it, and Jennifer lifted her hands palm up, then leaned against the side of the building. “This thing always used to do that. It’s the ghost of the Daily Hotel.”
“I didn’t know the place was haunted.” Ghosts seemed like a fairly benign conversation, considering that I was trapped in the alley with Jen.
She laughed—a high, musical sound. “Oh sure. Daily’s got its secrets, you know. You ask around, you’ll get a hundred different stories about the ghost.”
“Sounds interesting. I’ll have to ask around. Learn a little Daily history while I’m in town.”
She quirked a brow at my answer, her demeanor morphing from casual to guarded and serious. “So, how long do you think you’ll end up bein’ stuck here?”
Suddenly, I knew how Radar felt when Miss Peach’s cat hissed at him from behind the storm door. “Hard to know for sure. It depends on the ship’s revised itinerary and where I have to go to catch it. They may fly me somewhere to meet up with the rest of the crew.” Of course, I’d have to actually report in first. As far as the cruise line knew, I was missing in action due to Glorietta.
Jen studied me, her brown eyes narrow at the corners. She turned an ear toward the door, then focused on me again, and I had a feeling we were about to get down to the real reason she’d hung around to load fried chicken. “You know, he never stays involved with anybody. Not for long.” Her gaze met mine in a way that, for a moment, seemed earnest, as if we were talking girlfriend-to-girlfriend, and she was only trying to help, but then the look turned sharp, possessive. “He’s headed back to the team this winter.” She spit out the team like it was a dirty word.
“It sounds like he’s not sure what he’s going to do about baseball.” I tried to make the comment sound offhanded, slightly dispassionate, as in What business is it of mine? Kemp and I had talked about baseball just yesterday, when we stopped by to give Bottle Baby a late feeding after we finished helping with supper for the evacuees.
“I think your aunt’s glad to have you back in Daily,” I had remarked as Bottle Baby took in supper with amazing speed, causing the milk receptacle to contort into a crumpled figure eight in my hands. Somewhere in every conversation, Donetta slipped in the assertion that she was certain her nephew had finally outgrown his wanderlust and was ready to settle down.
Kemp sat on the fence, his elbows braced on his knees. He was wearing a straw cowboy hat, and he looked good in it. “Aunt Netta tries to marshal everyone … it’s what she does for entertainment.” He motioned to the calf. “Looks like he’s done.”
I yanked the mini
udder from Bottle Baby’s mouth, then ran for the fence to keep from ending up with milk slobber and calf snot all over me.
Kemp laughed as I scaled the obstacle, then landed on the other side as Baby wailed out a complaint. He let the calf chew on his boot toes for a minute, then swiveled around and slid to his feet.
“So, are you?” I asked, popping the slimy top off the bottle so it could be washed and hung on a wire to dry. Over the past few days, I’d become expert in the calf-feeding routine. A real hand, as Kemp put it.
“Am I what?”
“Happy here.” Moving a couple steps to the spigot to rinse the bottle, I tried to appear casual so he wouldn’t see that I was probing.
He took a moment to answer. I glanced up, and he was gazing across the pasture, toward the grove of live oaks by Caney Creek. His secret play place with Jenny. “Well, you know what they say about happiness. It’s something you decide on.”
I finished washing the bottle, then hung it and rinsed my hands before turning off the water. A quote ran through my mind, rumbling like thunder in the distance, Happiness is a bird that stays on the wing. A quote from one of my father’s songs. A fair representation of his life. Never content, always looking for something new, something better. Always dreaming.
Kemp had that faraway look in his eyes, familiar yet distant. Disconcerting.
As I stowed the milk bottle, he kissed me, and the head talk vaporized instantly. When Kemp touched me, I couldn’t think of anything but him.
Now, here was Jen, Jenny, Jennifer trapping me behind the café, smiling like a Cheshire cat up a tree, out of reach. “Don’t let him kid you. He’ll do anything for a chance to get back with the team, and he knows it. That’s why he was up in Dallas having an MRI yesterday. He’s getting cleared to go back. He told me last night that the doctor said it looks good.”