by Ann Charles
However, in the light of morning, Claire was ninety-nine percent certain that the Deborah who was crashed on the other side of this door was not nearly as sugar tempered. All Claire needed to do was get a couple of answers about who her mother might have seen down in the office and find out if she had discovered any pieces of extraordinary value in Joe’s collection that Claire had missed. Pieces that Claire should be concerned about someone not-so-nice coming to take back. Then she would head out to start spying on the archaeology crew in between sanding drywall and rolling on primer. Something weird was going on there, especially with those creepy glass eyeballs under the khaki twins’s camper. A box full of eyeballs was no blood-covered weapon, but hiding them like that was definitely not normal behavior.
Claire lifted her knuckles to knock and heard a long, shuddering moan come from the other side of the door. It almost sounded pain-filled. Yep, Deborah was hungover. Rather than provoke her mother with knocking, she grabbed the knob and turned it, quietly pushing the door open.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
She stepped over the threshold and froze at the sight of a bare, hairy male ass smack dab in the middle of the bed. The smell of liquor and sex and something sweet slapped her in the face. Her gaze darted to the bottle of tequila on the nightstand next to a red and white aerosol can of whipped cream and a can of refried beans with a spoon sticking out of it. Her tongue recoiled to the back of her throat.
Holy fuck!
Manny rolled onto his side, the morning sunlight shining through the curtains and spotlighting him. Her mother popped up next to him like a whack-a-mole. She grasped the sheet and pulled it up over her naked chest. “Claire,” she gasped. “You should have knocked!”
“OH! MY! GOD!” Claire yelled, stumbling backward out into the hall.
“Hijo de puta,” Manny cursed, starting to stand up. The sheet slid down below his navel. Way below, the image burning into the backs of her eyes.
With a screech, Claire grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door closed. The scene she had witnessed replayed in her head in high definition. The memory of the smells and that can of refried beans made her stomach heave and buck. She covered her mouth.
“Oh, shit, no!” She stumbled down the hall to the bathroom and upchucked her blueberry pastry into the sink.
* * *
Ronnie stumbled out of the Skunkmobile, shielding herself from the mid-morning sunlight. She needed Manny’s sombrero to block the UV rays that were passing right through her cheap sunglasses and stabbing her behind the eyes with sharp sticks.
She kept her head down as she passed in front of the archaeology crew’s campers. Several of them were sitting outside at a cluster of picnic tables, sorting, sifting, and brushing off their finds or pieces or whatever they called them. She wondered why they weren’t up at the mine, but then remembered it was Sunday, their sort-of day off. Most of them still made the climb to the mine on Sundays from what she had witnessed in the past, but some stayed at the R.V. park and enjoyed a more relaxed schedule.
The two ladies whose camper had the box of eyeballs tucked under the back bumper were lounging in lawn chairs under their awning. One of them waved at Ronnie. Ronnie waved back, wondering if either or both of them knew the box was there, or if someone else had stuck it there for safe hiding, like what she had done with the watch. In their matching khakis, photographer vests, and safari hats, they seemed friendly enough to be selling Girl Scout cookies. Could Claire be right in suspecting them of something dark and menacing?
The smell of sausage cooking at one of the fire grates made her nauseated. She had overmedicated with gin last night. During the wee hours, her stomach had waged a rebellion, but this morning she had managed to keep it all down with the help of some antacids on top of a glass of baking soda and water. By no means was she up for a breakfast buffet though. Even a dry piece of bread made her mouth water like she was about to imitate Mount St. Helens.
It was a good thing Grady had left when he had. If he’d stayed, she might have done something she really regretted, besides making a super huge ass of herself by almost kissing him. The lack of his star and uniform had thrown her off. She needed to remember that he was the law, cast from the same mold as those who had torn her world to shreds, smirking all the while.
After Grady had disappeared, she had returned to the bar and allowed Claire to refill her glass. That last one was the clincher, finally pushing her beyond the ability to think at any level deeper than a mud puddle. It floated her away from all thoughts of her mother’s forked tongue, her ex-husband’s lies, and Sheriff Harrison’s all-knowing eyes.
The dry grass crunched under her feet as she detoured off the gravel road and cut through a few empty campsites toward the front of the General Store. Sun dappled shadows danced under the old cottonwoods as a comfortable breeze rippled through the R.V. park.
At some point last night, she remembered dancing with a cowboy who had looked vaguely familiar at the time. Actually, it was more like she had stumbled about, tripping over her own boots, while he held her up. She couldn’t quite remember his face, only that his breath smelled minty and his eyes were light, light green. Oh, and he kept giving her weird advice about how to take better care of herself. The oddest thing was a warning that he made her repeat several times: “Watch out for the husky and the polar bear.”
At the time, she had laughed at him and buried her nose in the buttons of his shirt. But in the skull piercing light of morning, she questioned if he had been a figment of her imagination.
Pausing at the bottom porch step leading up to the General Store, she looked around, noting Natalie’s pickup, Kate’s car, and Mabel with her shiny coat all within view. She had seen Ruby’s old Ford parked around the back next to Mac’s truck.
Good ol’ Mac. She remembered him carrying her from his pickup into the Skunkmobile and lowering her onto the bed. Then Claire was there, pulling off her jeans and tucking her in. Katie might have been there, along with Natalie, now that she thought about it. She groaned and covered her face. There was nothing like having the whole family there to see her at her worst. Thank God their mother had not been around to witness it, too. She would never have let Ronnie forget it.
Lowering her hands, Ronnie stared out at the soft browns and sage greens of the desert, soaking up the calm of the quiet morning. It was time. She needed to face her past decisions head on, to hold herself accountable for her choices and then figure out where to go from there.
Last night’s wake for Veronica Jefferson was over. From now on, Ronnie Morgan ran the show, and she had no problem with being a general fuck-up, proper posture and perfect dinnerware placement be damned.
First things first, though. Ronnie needed to find Claire and tell her about the watch.
She climbed the stairs and opened the screen door. The cash register sat abandoned, no Jess or Gramps or Ruby in sight.
“Hmmm.” That was weird.
Grabbing a can of iced tea from the cooler, she dug in her pocket for a couple of bucks and came up with lint and a phone number scrawled on a piece of paper. Whose number was that? She had pulled on a new shirt and underwear when she crawled out of bed, but these were the same jeans as last night. Had there really been a dancing cowboy? Or had there been someone else there who she could not remember? Much of the time after Grady left did not exist in her short term memory, so for all she knew, a tiny car full of circus clowns could have come along. She needed to ask Claire if she remembered someone slipping Ronnie a phone number.
Ronnie looked up as Katie walked through the curtain from the rec room. She was dressed in her work shirt with her purse and keys in her hand.
Katie jerked in surprise when she saw Ronnie standing near the counter. “Oh, good, you’re here. You need to go around behind the counter and watch the store for a bit.”
“Why? Where’s Jess?” The kid usually covered the morning through early afternoon shift on weekends.
Katie jabbed her thumb behind h
er. “Over at the laundry building with her mom.” She grinned at Ronnie. “You missed all the excitement.”
Ronnie squeezed the bridge of her nose. If it involved a lot of yelling between Ruby and Jess, she was glad she had not been present. “What happened?”
“Sex happened.”
Ronnie did a double take, frowning as Katie walked past her toward the door. “What do you mean ‘sex happened’? Did Claire and Mac get busted down in the basement again?”
Katie turned around, her back to the screen door. “For once, Claire and Mac weren’t the busy bunny rabbits.”
“Did Natalie bring someone home last night?” She’d been having a lot of fun with that guy on the dance floor, but nothing beyond some flirting from what Ronnie remembered. Hot and heavy had not been Natalie’s game last night. Although, there was that blackout portion of the evening that Ronnie could not account for … yet.
“Nope.” Katie giggled. “It was Mom.”
Time stopped for a couple of seconds while Ronnie tried to decide if she’d heard that right. “Did you just say our mother had sex? Were there pigs flying, too?”
Another giggle burst from Katie’s lips. “Yep. And Claire walked in on Mom right in the midst of her doing the wild thing.”
Ronnie stepped backward, her butt bumping into the counter. “Sex?” She was still struggling with the concept of her mother allowing a man to come within touching distance of her nether regions.
“With Manny,” Katie whispered loud and clear.
Something in Ronnie’s skull splintered. She held onto the counter while the room spun for a second. “Our mother had sex with Manny Carrera?”
Katie covered her mouth, doing a rotten job of stifling her giggles. “Yes. You should have seen Claire’s face right after she caught them in the act.” She laughed harder, trying to talk between it all. “And now … Claire says … her eyes are … broken.”
Ronnie chuckled and then winced and then chuckled some more, confusing images flapping around in her head. Poor Claire. There was no returning from that sight, Ronnie was sure. “Is there anything else I need to know before I head back there?”
Katie sobered. “Yeah.”
“What? It can’t be worse than Mom having sex.”
“Yes and no.” Katie glanced toward the curtain. “I’m pregnant.”
Ronnie leaned toward her. “Did you just say you’re—”
“Shush.” Katie silenced her.
“Wow.” Ronnie’s head throbbed behind her right eye all of a sudden. She held her palm to her forehead. “You and Claire both, huh?”
Katie shook her head. “Claire started her period last night. I’m in this alone.” Katie’s eyes watered around the edges. “Butch doesn’t want kids.”
Still holding her hand to her forehead, Ronnie closed the distance between them and hugged her little sister with one arm. “You’re not alone, Katie. I’m here for whatever you need from me—a birth partner, a babysitter, a doting auntie, you name it.”
A sob escaped Katie’s chest. “Damned hormones keep turning me into a crybaby.”
Ronnie chuckled and pushed her sister back. “Does Mom know?”
Katie shook her head while dabbing at her eyes. “I don’t want to tell her yet.”
“Okay,” Ronnie said. “My lips are sealed.”
“Claire, Mac, and Natalie know, though.” Katie backed out through the door onto the porch. “I have to go to work. I’ll see you later today at The Shaft?” There was a hopeful note in Katie’s question.
Ronnie nodded, even though the thought of alcohol made her gag and burp up baking soda.
“Good.” Katie waved and left.
When Ronnie stepped through the curtain, she found Claire sprawled out on the couch with an ice pack covering the upper half of her face. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I broke my eyes.”
“Yeah, I heard.” A snort of laughter escaped before Ronnie could stop it.
“It’s not funny, Ronnie.” Claire lifted the ice pack off long enough to shoot her with an angry glare. “That image is branded into my brain for eternity.”
“Or until you die.”
“If I’m lucky.” Claire replaced the ice pack. “What if I can never have sex again without thinking about Manny’s bare ass or Mom’s boobs?”
Ronnie looked away, trying not to let Claire hear her laughing and failed. “I’m sorry, Claire,” she said between jags, wiping at the tears leaking from her eyes. “It’s just so damned funny.”
“No, it’s not,” Gramps said from the kitchen doorway, his face scrunched in a scowl. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the keys to Ruby’s truck. “Here.” He tossed them to Ronnie.
She frowned at them. “Am I going somewhere?”
“Yuccaville.”
What? No! Grady was there with his internal radar that seemed to pick her up every time she got near. He was the last person she wanted to run into today. “Why me?”
“Because your mother is still drunk, Claire has work to do on the new restroom, and I can’t drive yet.”
“Fine.” But with the way her stomach felt, crawling behind a wheel was not the wisest move. The motion of the car might make everything come up in spite of the handful of antacids she had chewed for breakfast. She stood up and pocketed the keys. “Let me grab some coffee first.”
“There’s none left.”
“What happened to it?”
“Your mother dropped the pot. The glass shattered and the coffee spilled all over the kitchen floor.” He turned Ronnie around and pushed her toward the green curtain. He stuffed a wad of cash in her hand. “We need a whole new coffee pot along with more coffee. The stuff Ruby has in the General Store isn’t good enough for your mother.”
“Yet she has no problem with tequila, whipped cream, refried beans, and horny old men,” Claire said from the couch, then groaned and covered her mouth.
Gramps frowned at Claire, then he pulled a few more bills from his wallet and handed them to Ronnie. “Buy me a case of shells for my shotgun while you’re at it.” He stuffed his wallet in his back pocket. “I’m gonna fill Carrera’s ass full of buckshot for sleeping with my daughter.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ronnie was standing in line to pay at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Yuccaville when she finally got to meet the infamous Mindy Lou Harrison.
The twenty-something platinum blonde with dark roots had pulled out her wallet and set it on the little check writing counter while she dug through it for money.
Ronnie was flipping through the latest glad rag about a scandal involving some distant member of the Royal family, mostly minding her own business, when she heard, “Well, damn, I must have left the rest of my cash in my other shorts. Can I come back later and pay what’s left?”
That lured Ronnie’s nose out of the magazine. She glanced from the frowning cashier to the bottle of whiskey, two packs of cigarettes, and two candy bars waiting to be bagged.
“Sure, hon,” the cashier said, tucking some strands of gray hair back up in her bun. “I’ll just set it to the side here until you get back.”
Ronnie smirked at the makings for a fun, private party for two. All that was missing was the box of condoms. Oh wait, there they were on the other side of the whiskey. Well then, let the fiesta begin.
“I meant I’d take it with me and bring you the cash later.”
“Let me get this straight, hon,” the cashier said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You want me to let you walk on out the door with this and trust that you’ll come back with the money later?”
“You know I’m good for it. My uncle is the County Sheriff.”
That’s when Ronnie’s gaze had swung to the brassy blonde’s face, noting the cherry red lipstick, long swishy eyelashes, and smoky eye shadow. So this was Grady’s niece. She vaguely recognized her from the bar a few nights back. She couldn’t see much resemblance to Grady, but maybe if Mindy Lou would quit dying her hair, the gene
tics would show through. Ronnie’s focus dropped to Mindy Lou’s hands. Sure as sunshine in the desert, there on her left ring finger was Ronnie’s wedding set.
“I know who your uncle is, Mindy Lou.” The cashier shook her head, disgust loud and clear in her sneer. “But I’m not gonna risk losing my job for you to go get your rocks off with some loser. If you want this stuff, I need to see cash or a check or a bank card.” She snickered. “Or your uncle and his wallet.”
Mindy Lou’s face flared bright red, matching her cherry red lips. Ronnie’s heart went out to her. She knew the burn of humiliation well. The way it started high in the cheeks and then burrowed deeper and deeper, smoldering clear to the core. Had she not known Mindy Lou’s history, she would have been snickering along with the clerk. But thanks to Grady cluing her in last night, she wanted to see Mindy Lou fight her way out of the depths of self-loathing. She wanted to help her somehow. Guide her out of that cesspool of insecurities and self-doubts.
“I’ll cover the rest,” Ronnie said, and pulled out one of the twenty dollar bills Gramps had given her. She handed it to the cashier, who frowned from the bill to Ronnie, then shrugged and grabbed it.
“It’s your lucky day, Mindy Lou.”
Ronnie’s gaze drifted down to Mindy Lou’s fingers again as she tried to zip her wallet around a receipt caught in the teeth. She had wondered how it would feel to see her wedding set on another woman’s finger. Wondered if she would feel sad or angry, if she would want to yank it off the other woman and run away while mumbling to herself about getting her “precious” back.
In the end, empathy weighed down her heart. Ronnie knew how Mindy Lou went about getting that wedding set from the greasy pawn shop guy and then wore it when she was with Jess’s dad. Figuring Mindy Lou was about to go out and score a drunken afternoon-delight session with yet another loser, something other than the self-confidence she so needed, Ronnie wanted to shelter the young woman. She considered ways of taking her away from the prying, judging eyes in this rinky dink town.
“Nice ring,” Ronnie said.