by Anne McAneny
Comfortable as ever in the spotlight, he let loose with a big “Hey, folks! Lovely evening out there. What a night!”
Bridget wished she could agree, but Mr. Abel’s eyes were still peeled on the window, watching Sam Kowalczyk’s Mercedes drive off, the same Mercedes he’d seen earlier when Bridget was the passenger.
Mr. Abel caught Bridget’s eye and lifted his arm like a tin man in need of oil. He beckoned her over.
She froze for only a moment. Oh well, nothing to it but to do it; she hoped he’d show some tact. She smiled to indicate she’d be right there, then glanced down at her other party-of-one customer, the turkey Reuben guy. He was the only person not staring at Grady. Instead, he clutched his treasured pen so hard that his index finger looked like a barbershop pole, flashing red and white as blood fought through his rigid grip. Grady might have a tough time switching this guy’s vote to his column.
Bridget felt sorry for the lone man and felt doubly bad about her earlier heist from his pocket. “How ’bout some pie on the house?” she said, leaning over him. “Since I knocked down your pen and all?”
The man nodded, just barely, and Bridget wasn’t even sure he’d processed her question.
While Grady signed autographs and chatted up customers, Bridget forced herself to step lively to Abner Abel’s table. “Yes, Mr. Abel? What can I get you?”
“You know,” he said, his demeanor smug, “the missus found out she’s pregnant with a little one.” He looked pointedly at Bridget’s belly.
“How wonderful for you both,” Bridget said, wondering if her words sounded as flat as her reaction to his non-news.
Mr. Abel turned his eyes to Grady just as laughter erupted from a group of admirers forming near the door. Then Mr. Abel glared at Bridget, making it clear he knew the truth.
“Be a shame if that McLemore gentleman loses his election.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Humility. It’s both a gift and an obligation. Those who feel superior, who try to pull the wool over the eyes of the flock, they suffer the wrath of the Lord in unexpected ways.”
Bridget stiffened. “And you think Mr. McLemore has not humbled himself before the Lord?”
“Not my place to say, now, is it?”
“On that, we agree, Mr. Abel.” She forced a smile. “You interested in dessert this evenin’?”
“I hear the pie is sinfully delicious but . . . it can be a bear payin’ for sins down the line. Don’t you agree?”
Bridget delivered her rebuke with a joyful lilt in her voice. “Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it, Mr. Abel, about what past sin you might be payin’ for, given how your children behave half the time. Children can be a bear sometimes, don’t you agree?”
Mr. Abel practically breathed fire from his narrow nostrils. “How dare you? Barton made a big mistake not encouraging you more strongly to get baptized. I tried to spread the Good News to him, but he failed to hear.”
Bridget could put up with a lot, but she wouldn’t allow anyone to disparage her father, and she wasn’t about to start with this pastor wannabe. “The only thing you’re good at spreading, Mr. Abel, is your seed. And poor Mrs. Abel, she bears the brunt of the results, doesn’t she?”
Mr. Abel jerked up from his seat, scraping his chair and making Bridget jump. He leaned toward her, his breath tinged with alcohol, and his taffy-stretched face testing the limits of elasticity. “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
“Ephesians, Mr. Abel? Thought you’d be more of a Corinthians flee from sexual immorality type.”
With nostrils flaring and lips quivering, he shoved his hand into his pocket and cast his money down on the table without breaking eye contact, as if a steady glower could excise Bridget’s sins. Two quarters clanged to the floor. “I warned Barton. I warned him what would happen.”
“And he warned me—to watch out for those who drape their beliefs over others. Usually means they’re too afraid to draw back their own curtain.”
Grady suddenly approached the table to save his damsel in distress. Mr. Abel reared his head back to sneer at the sinner. As Grady opened his mouth to speak, Mr. Abel put up a hand to shush him. He shook his head in an X pattern, like he was warming up for a boxing match, then thinned his lips into a satisfied grimace, directing his words at Bridget. “Sins come full circle,” he hissed. “But all who receive Christ as Lord can receive forgiveness.”
Grady, undaunted as ever, extended a hand. “Hi. I’m Grady McLemore. And you are?”
Mr. Abel jerked away, turning his linear form into a curve as he veered away from the practiced politician and stormed out the door.
With most patrons’ eyes upon her, Bridget forced a smile.
“He didn’t want dessert, after all,” she said, getting a laugh from several relieved customers. She grabbed what Mr. Abel had thrown on the table and shoved it into the first pocket she found in her apron, hoping her hand wasn’t trembling too visibly. After clearing his plate and shaking off the encounter, she went and got the final piece of pie for her other customer.
Grady, the master of smooth in all situations, acted like nothing had happened. He chatted with two older women, who used any excuse to touch him, then put his arm around a blushing Lucinda—insisting that everyone tip her well—and finally headed straight to the table where Bridget was setting down the pie for her turkey Reuben customer.
“Rusty!” Grady said, patting the customer’s back in recognition. “Didn’t know you frequented this thriving establishment. Best milk shakes in town, wouldn’t you say?”
Bridget glanced back and forth between her customer and Grady, surprised they knew each other.
“Hey, there, Mr. McLemore,” Rusty said, turning to shake hands while keeping his eyes low, a slight tremor evident in his fingers now.
“Rusty here is the best handyman around,” Grady announced, riveting everyone’s attention. “He’s only been in town a few weeks, and already he’s fixed the dripping faucet in my office, patched a hole in the roof, and silenced a radiator that squealed and kicked like a toddler every time I was on the phone.”
“Simple adjustment, simple adjustment,” Rusty mumbled, staring at his pie as if it held the secret to the universe, his face the color of the ketchup bottle.
The female half of an elderly couple, seated a few tables down, chimed in and wagged a finger at Rusty. “Sir, if that’s true, I’m gonna have you over to my place. The radiator and refrigerator have been on the outs with each other all week. When one works, the other doesn’t. I’ve either got cold milk or cold feet all day long!”
Her husband released a hearty chortle and Grady chimed in with a laugh.
“I remember you,” Grady said in a teasing voice as he suddenly focused on Bridget. Now it was her turn to make like the ketchup.
“And I, you, Mr. McLemore,” she said, giving as good as she got. “You campaigned here—what was it—ten months ago?”
Grady’s lips twitched in amusement. “Longer than that, I’m afraid. Closer to a year and a half. Just kicking off the campaign back then.”
“That’s right,” Bridget said. “You ordered a fruit salad and scrambled eggs—and something else that wasn’t on the menu.”
“That I did. All of it well beyond my expectations.”
“Makes one wonder why you waited so long to come back.”
“Well,” he said, “I do think about this place every time I’m ravenous.”
Rusty cleared his throat and shoved a too-large piece of pie in his mouth, clearly uncomfortable with the odd exchange going on above his head.
“Awfully long campaign,” yelled the husband of the cold-footed woman. “Over a year? Back in my day, they kept the campaignin’ to a minimum, the work to a maximum.”
Grady
knew an opening when he heard one. He strode over to their table and, within a minute, was seated in their booth, fork in hand, scooping a chunk of the woman’s mashed potatoes into his mouth—at her insistence, of course.
Bridget slid the repairman’s check onto his table. She noticed him glancing at Grady periodically with an expression she couldn’t quite distinguish. Distress? Awe? Jealousy? Usually she could decipher others as easily as breaking down a recipe and detecting an extra sprinkle of cinnamon, but this fellow was so twitchy and reticent, she couldn’t get a solid read on him, as if he were wearing a mask. Well, she’d gotten what she needed from him anyway; her craving had subsided. Let him retreat to his life in the shadows, fixing faucets and radiators, with circuits and sounds for company.
Suddenly she remembered that she needed to return his item. It was buried somewhere in her pocket and she hadn’t even read it, let alone had a chance to return it, but she didn’t want him to leave without it. That preachy Mr. Abel had thrown her off her game, but all was good; the act of the taking had been precisely the thrill she needed. She’d drop the item on the floor and pretend to find it for him.
But before she could, the man stood and paid with cash on the table, swiftly, as if he’d had the money counted out in advance. Leaving half his pie uneaten, he strode out, head down, looking at no one, hands tucked firmly in his pockets. Slightly emptier pockets.
So distressed was Bridget by his sudden exit that she never noticed the lit cigarette across the street from the parking lot, traveling up and down in a smooth arc, from thin lips to narrow hips, far too fast for a leisurely smoke. Occasionally, its flame reflected against the grille of the truck where the smoker was leaning.
CHAPTER 25
Janie and Jack Perkins, Age 15
The sun made steam rise off the dark roof shingles, so Janie and Jack grabbed towels before climbing out.
“Did you get ’em?” Janie asked.
“Course I did,” Jack said. “Got a little something else, too.”
“What? Marijuana?”
“No, idge-head.” It was his word of the month for idiot. “What does Grandpa Barton always have when he’s smoking?”
“Brandy or whiskey or some god-awful smellin’ thing.”
“Exactly.” He held up his knapsack in triumph. “Got us some mulberry wine from Mrs. Peckinpaw’s.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Old Lady Peckinpaw’s deaf as a doorknob, so last night I snuck into her canning shed and took two bottles.”
“Two?”
“The Haiku Twins do everything in twos.”
Janie nodded in simple agreement, then smoothed her towel so she could stretch out her legs. She loved looking out over the yard. If she angled herself just right, she could block out everything, including the distant smokestack from the Lucky Strike plant, leaving her with only trees, sky, and hawks—three of her favorite things.
Jack reached into his back pocket and pulled out the coveted pack of smokes and handed them to Janie. She peeled the red string from the cellophane and stuffed the crinkly cover into her pocket. “We’d never get away with this if Elsa was still here.”
“Elsa the Terrible!” Jack shouted. “Why’d Grandpa even need a housekeeper?”
“They hired her when Grandma got the cancer. Guess she just ended up stayin’.”
“She was plumb nuts, rearrangin’ the pillows on my bed for ten minutes at a time, makin’ ’em into perfect squares and facin’ ’em all the same direction. She about pulled her hair out once when I jumped on the bed and messed ’em up.”
“You were what they call a Grade A pain in the ass.”
“Finally faked a sneezin’ fit and convinced her I was allergic to the stuffing in the pillows. Showed her an article on dust mites and everything.”
“You can talk your way out of anything, Jack, unless you’re wantin’ to talk your way in, of course.”
Janie held the cigarette pack to her nose and let the sweet scent coat her brain. Then she smiled, her teeth even whiter than her hair.
“You gonna smell ’em or smoke ’em?”
She slid the first one out and slipped it between her lips like a pack-a-day smoker, lighting it with ease, and inhaling as if it might be the last breath she ever took.
Jack lit one up and took out the wine. Five minutes later, they were lying back on their towels, staring at the sky, woozy and happy.
“You know why mulberries are blood red?” Jack asked.
“’Cause they ain’t green?”
“No. It’s ’cause of this guy Pyramus and his girlfriend, Thisbe.”
“Weird names.”
“They’re Greek. See, Pyramus and Thisbe loved each other but they weren’t allowed to date ’cause their parents hated each other.”
“That sucks.”
“Their houses were attached, like apartments, so they’d talk through this crack in the wall, and one day, they decided to meet in secret at this white mulberry bush.”
“White?”
“That’s what I said. So, bein’ the girl, Thisbe got all prettied up and put on her nice clothes and got to the bush early. But she got scared when she spotted a lioness walking by with blood all over its mouth, so she ran away to hide. But in the mad dash to escape, she left her cloak behind.”
“Uh-oh,” Janie said.
“Yeah, well, when Pyramus arrived, he saw the cloak and by then, the lioness had got all up in it and it was mangled and bloody. Pyramus thought for sure Thisbe was dead and decided he couldn’t live without her, so he pulled out his sword and hari-kari’d himself right there.”
“That’s horrible!”
“It gets worse. Thisbe came back to the mulberry bush, but it was too late.”
“Pyramus was dead?”
“Not quite, but he was on his way.”
“Kinda like Mom was after she was shot.”
“Yeah, well, I guess we should be glad Grandpa Barton didn’t do like Thisbe, because when Thisbe saw Pyramus dying, she whispered sweet nothings to him, and then she took up the sword and killed her own self. They died together next to that bush.”
“That’s awful. Why are you tellin’ me this?”
Jack lifted the stolen bottle from Mrs. Peckinpaw’s shed. “’Cause we’re drinkin’ mulberry wine. The story goes that it’s Pyramus’s blood that stained the mulberry bush and turned the berries red forever.”
Janie shook her head. “I can’t imagine bein’ that much in love.”
“You seen Carline Waters’s bosoms lately? I could definitely imagine bein’ that much in love.”
Janie smacked her brother. “Well, I guess it’s how much I would’ve loved Mom if she’d lived.”
“Nah, you’d hate ’er for curfews and such. And who knows? Maybe Mom would’ve been a real witch.”
Janie flicked her brother with her finger. “Promise not to laugh?”
“No.”
“Sometimes I pretend Mom’s in one world and I’m in another, and they bump up next to each other, and there’s this vicious storm that rips a hole between the worlds.”
“Like the cracked wall between Pyramus and Thisbe?”
“Yeah, but this crack is big enough for a whole person to squeeze through. And Mom does, and she’s all beautiful and wearin’ this white dress that blows in the wind, and she has gorgeous hair, you know, the way long hair looks underwater.”
“Ever hopeful, Janie.”
“Anyway, she tells me all the things a mom is s’posed to tell a daughter.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Stuff a girl should know.”
Jack looked sympathetic. “Yeah, guess you never had anyone to teach you that stuff, did you?”
“Picked up what I needed to.”
“So what happens at the end of your c
olliding worlds?” Jack asked.
“Mom goes back before the crack closes ’cause she can’t survive in our world.”
Jack laughed. “Why don’t you change it? It’s your thing. Make it so she can stay.”
“Then it’s too disappointing when she’s not really here. This way it’s still possible, you know, even if the chances are like one in a billion.”
Jack sipped more wine and gazed out over the expansive backyard. “I think this is what they mean by the good life.”
“I’m hopin’ it means a little more than this,” Janie said, “but this ain’t bad.”
“Heard Jenna Abel teasin’ you the other day,” Jack said.
“She’s gettin’ as nasty as her sister. Said I’ll be the fourth Perkins woman to die young and tragic.”
“What’d you say?”
“Pulled her hair. Told her she’d be the first Abel girl to die young and tragic if she didn’t shut her trap.”
“Nice.”
“Grandpa Barton says snotty retorts are my for-tay or something.” A mellow silence floated between them. “You think it’s true, though? You think the Perkins women are cursed?”
“Nah. We all create our own fate, like that poster in my room with the motorcycle dude and that long stretch of road. He’s goin’ wherever he wants. Like for me, I’m gonna be president. Otherwise, why bother, you know?”
“You will go all the way, Jack. Just don’t forget about me.”
Jack directed a confidential sideways glance at his sister. “Speakin’ of goin’ all the way, I heard Annelise Abel started doin’ it recently.”
Janie came to full attention. “With who?”
“Not sure. Fella a couple towns over. Now they call Annelise ready, willing, and Abel.”
“Wow,” Janie said, “that’s not good.”