Goldenrod

by Ann McMan

  Maddie was stunned. “I see you’ve given this some thought.”

  “Not really. I’m just quick on my feet.”

  She took a moment to consider all her mother had said.

  There was another rumble of thunder—closer this time. It appeared that tonight, the storms would not pass them by. The irony of that fact was becoming hard to mistake.

  “This is a lot to take in.”

  “I know it is.”

  “Um. Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it possible that all of that was just an elaborate way for you to fess up that you’re sleeping with Byron?”

  “Maybe. Or it could have been a masterful exercise in hyperbole.”

  Maddie smiled at her. “I don’t think so.”

  Celine sighed. “You’re right. I needed to come clean. One of us needed to say it.”

  “I’m glad you told me. Although, you did bury the lede in your litany of horrors.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s always been my style.”

  “True,” Maddie agreed. “But now you’ve got an opportunity to change that.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning . . . Byron is a good man. It’s obvious he cares for you. Why not give yourself another shot at happiness?”

  “The difference in our ages . . .” Celine didn’t finish her statement.

  “What about it?” Maddie asked.

  Celine didn’t reply.

  There was a flash of light followed by a rumble of thunder. A solitary drop of rain landed on the teapot and rolled down its domed lid.

  “Mom?” Maddie leaned forward. “It does not matter. Not one bit. The only person who cares about it is you.”

  “I don’t need this complication in my life right now.”

  “Well, hell.” Maddie sat back. “Who does need the complication that relationships bring? It’s a tradeoff—like the unwelcome side effect of a medicine that can save your life. And if you’re lucky, you end up getting a hell of a lot more happiness than frustration out of the bargain.”

  Celine gazed back at her without replying. Maddie knew better than to try and press her point. Eventually, her mother shook her head and smiled.

  “Who taught you how to argue?”

  “You did.”

  “No wonder you make such a compelling case.”

  “Does that mean you agree with me?”

  “Not entirely,” Celine demurred. “But it does mean I’ll take your suggestions under advisement.”

  “I can’t ask for more than that.”

  “Good.” Her mother pushed back her chair. “It’s starting to rain. Let’s get all of this inside before we get soaked.”

  “Okay.” Maddie began collecting her food containers and silverware. “I wanted to come in and see the piano, anyway.”

  “Maddie?” Her mother laid a hand on her arm. “One other thing before we leave this topic?”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t kidding about the rest of what I said to you. I’ve known men like Gerald Watson. Don’t underestimate him, and don’t take him for granted.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And whatever else happens, do not allow him to bait you again like he did tonight.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  Celine gave her a wry smile and picked up her prized teapot.

  “Then it appears I can’t ask for more, either.”

  Chapter 6

  The roads in this part of the county were barely drivable on a good day. They were mostly a latticework of ruts, connected by prehistoric slivers of pavement.

  But today, getting from point A to point B was worse than usual. It was more like competing in a demolition derby. The ruts were all filled with water from last night’s rain—and that made it impossible to tell which ones were deep enough to do real damage to the undercarriage of a car if you hit them.

  David’s Mini bottomed out again. For about the tenth time, the top of his head slammed into the frame of the car’s cabriolet top.

  “Damn it!” He compulsively tried to fluff the hair on the crown of his head.

  It was a fool’s errand. There was no amount of product that could get his hair to stand up to this magnitude of slammage. He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror.

  If this keeps up, I’m gonna have to borrow one of Michael’s rugs . . .

  Nobody knew that Michael was losing his hair. Well. At least Michael thought nobody knew. David thought it was obvious. He had tried numerous times to tell Michael that the various crown-toppers he was using were like cheap animal pelts.

  Not that expensive animal pelts would be any more authentic . . .

  Michael kept them all discreetly organized on a shelf at the back of their closet. David thought they looked like swarthy hamsters in a police lineup.

  It was a touchy subject. One they couldn’t talk about without arguing.

  Just like this canvassing. Michael was growing impatient with how much time David was spending going door-to-door to make his case for why he was running for mayor. But he had to. As a write-in candidate, the only hope he had to stay on the ballot was to get name recognition by personally introducing himself to the voters. Assuming, of course, that he could interest anyone to vote in the upcoming primary. In an off-year election when there were no big statewide or national contests, the turnout in this area tended to be . . . low. That is, if you called nine percent participation “low.”

  He figured that all he had to do was pique the interest—or arouse the ire—of half that many people to clear the first hurdle. His approach was simple. If the average estimates were right, then one in ten people in this county were gay. And even if they weren’t, most of them either knew someone or were related to someone who was. And if that inducement fell flat, he knew they all got hairdos, sent funeral arrangements, had kids who took music lessons from his mama, or used their Groupon discounts to eat food cooked at queer-owned eateries.

  Besides, Watson was a “come here.” He wasn’t local and nobody knew his people. Whereas, David’s ancestors had been showing up on the birth and baptismal rolls at the Methodist church for more than two centuries.

  The simple truth was that, in these parts, blood was always thicker than umbrage.

  So, he made his house calls, and he spent ninety-nine percent of each visit catching up on how his mama was doing now that she was retired—and whether or not he thought that new maximum security prison they were building out at Danby would bring all kinds of undesirables into the area like they said. Of course, David was never really sure who “they” were—but he did a fair amount of speculating anyway.

  He only had one stop left to make today—at Celine’s. He needed to drop off the next few chapters of the book they were working on. More Tales of Rolf and Tobi: Two Hot Farm Boys at a Biergarten promised to be an even bigger seller than their first foray in the burgeoning German slash fic genre. Michael thought he was crazy to keep working on the anthology, but David insisted the books were entirely too specific to show up on anybody’s radar in Jericho.

  He hit another mud-filled pothole, sending a wave of muck up the driver’s side of his car. This damn mud factor was another thing. Already his car looked like it had a bad case of scorbutus. He’d learned all about the pernicious skin disease from a Nat Geo special on Civil War prisons . . .

  Someone was walking along the roadside up ahead. He slowed his car to a crawl so he wouldn’t risk splashing them with muck as he passed. When he drew closer, he recognized the young woman. He stopped and called out to her.

  “Hey, Dorothy. Where’re you headed?”

  She seemed startled but not wary. She walked over toward his car. She was carrying a tied-up Food City bag.

  “Hey, Mr. Jenkins. Today is bookmobile day.” She held up the plastic bag. “I got off the school bus over here so I could wait for it.”

  “Where does it stop?”

  “Up at the crossroads.” She pointed ahead, in the dir
ection she’d been walking.

  “What time does it get there?”

  She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Some time around four.”

  He looked at his watch. “That’s more than an hour from now.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind waiting.”

  David didn’t like the idea of the girl being alone out here on a desolate road for that long. Another thought occurred to him.

  “How will you get home from here?”

  “Walk.”

  “Walk? Dorothy. That’s gotta be more than five miles.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that far. I take a shortcut across the river.”

  “There’s no bridge around here,” he began. Then he realized what she meant. “You mean you take a shortcut through the river?”

  She nodded.

  Dorothy intended to wade across the river? After more than two inches of rain?

  There was no way he was letting that happen.

  “Couldn’t your father come and pick you up?”

  Her eyes widened and she took a step back from the car. “No. I mean, no—he’s too busy. He won’t have time to come. Please don’t tell him, Mr. Jenkins. I don’t want to bother him at work.”

  “Hey.” David held up a hand to ease her agitation. “Don’t worry, Dorothy. I won’t call him. But I tell you what—how about you ride along with me? I have to drop something off at Dr. Heller’s house, then I can bring you back to the bookmobile.”

  She seemed reluctant to accept.

  “Look,” David continued. “I think Henry’s gonna be there having a piano lesson. I bet he’d wanna go with you to get some new books. I can drop you both off.”

  He was careful not to mention that he’d also wait around afterward, and drive each of them home.

  “A piano lesson?” she asked.

  David smiled at her. “Yeah. His gramma just got her big piano moved back here from California. If I know Henry, he’s not very happy about it.” He reached across the front seat and opened the passenger door. “Come on. Hop in. I know she’d like to meet you.”

  She hesitated only a few seconds before acquiescing and joining him inside the car. She took care to secure her bag full of books on the floorboard between her feet before putting on her seatbelt.

  David continued his careful progress along the rutted road.

  “I thought school was already out?”

  “We have three more days,” she replied.

  “Why’s it so late this year?”

  “We have to make up for snow days.”

  They rode along in silence for another quarter mile.

  “You know,” he observed. “I think we’d make better time if we just drove up through the ditch.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dorothy pointed out. “Not unless your car floats.”

  David looked over at her. Her expression gave nothing away.

  “Did you just make a joke?” he teased. “I don’t want to be hasty, but it sure sounded like a joke.”

  “Was it funny?” she asked him.

  “It was, actually.”

  “It was a joke,” she said.

  “This from the woman who wades across the river and calls it a shortcut?”

  “It is a shortcut.”

  “Do you float?”

  “I can if I have to,” she explained.

  “Well. This hunk of metal does not float.”

  “Then it should stay out of the ditch.”

  David laughed.

  “You know, Dorothy? I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

  She didn’t reply but he could tell by her posture that she was more relaxed. For one thing, she loosened the vice-like grip her feet had on her bag of books.

  “What’s that thing?”

  He was surprised by her question. She was pointing at the storage well between their seats.

  “You mean this?” David picked up the short, metal instrument and handed it to her. “It’s a swanee whistle.”

  “A what?” Dorothy turned it over in her hands.

  “An old-fashioned slide whistle. But this one’s a pitch pipe.”

  “What’s a pitch pipe?”

  “Blow into it.” David nodded at the whistle. “Give it a try.”

  Dorothy timidly blew into it. The sound it emitted was a thin, tinny hiss.

  “No,” David corrected. “Really blow into it.”

  She tried it again. This time, an earsplitting, perfect C rang out.

  David jumped and hit his head on the convertible top. Again.

  “See?” He looked in the mirror and fluffed his hair. “That gauge on the end changes the pitch when you blow into the whistle. That way you can use it to tune different musical instruments—or make sure you’re singing in the right key. Which, by the way, the choir at First Methodist Church could definitely use.”

  “Is that why you carry it around—so you can fix bad singing?”

  “No, but that’s an interesting concept.” He warmed to the idea. “I could be the next great superhero, and save the tone-deaf multitudes from having to sit through excruciatingly bad cantatas.”

  “Superheroes wear special outfits.”

  “Honey,” David waved a hand, “that would be the least of my problems. Unlike most men, I happen to look fabulous in Spandex.” He thought about it. “What I would need, though, is a great name. You know? An alter-ego.”

  “How about Calliope?”

  “Calliope?” He looked at her. “You mean like those obnoxious steam organs?”

  “No. Like the Greek goddess of poetry.”

  “Goddess?” David asked.

  “Oh.” Dorothy immediately seemed embarrassed. “Sorry . . .”

  “No, no. I’m good with the whole goddess idea. I’m just not sure about the name. It’s a tad too . . . carnivalish. Don’t you think?”

  “What about Orpheus? He was Calliope’s son.”

  “What’s with you and all the Greek mythology references?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I like it. I read some books about it.”

  “Is that what’s in there?” David pointed at her grocery bag full of library books.

  “No. I have books about it at home.”

  “I thought that topic seemed a tad dense for Roma Jean’s bookmobile.” He pondered Dorothy’s suggestion. “So. Orpheus, you said?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t think so . . . it sounds too much like . . . orifice. I’d never live it down.”

  Dorothy smiled.

  David thought it was remarkable how much a simple action like smiling could alter her appearance. She really was a pretty girl, with her shiny blond hair and green eyes. She looked almost like a younger version of Syd—except for the weariness and resignation that bound her up like an ill-fitting garment.

  He knew from personal experience what that was like, and he tended to recognize it in other people right away. And he didn’t have to wonder much about where it came from; his own father had been a lot like Dorothy’s.

  He also knew if he asked her any questions about it, she’d be as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Just as he’d been at her age, whenever anyone asked him about his home life.

  Honor among thieves.They all abided by the unspoken pact of silence.

  He took the turnoff for Celine’s. The lane leading up to her house was an immediate improvement over the county road. It was obvious that Bert and Sonny had been after it with the grader.

  “You’re gonna love this place,” he said.

  He parked the car and turned off the engine. “We need to bring that pitch pipe along with us. It’s for Celine.”

  Dorothy handed it to him. “Does she use it to tune her piano?”

  “No. I think she’s giving it to Buddy.”

  “Buddy? Why?”

  “Well.” David retrieved a file folder from the back seat and opened the car door. “It turns out that Buddy likes music.”

 
; They walked together toward the house. David could hear a halting and jumbled sequence of notes forming a disjointed refrain from The New World Symphony. Apparently, Henry was grinding his way through volume one of Alfred’s Piano Book for Beginners.

  Celine was such a traditionalist . . .

  The back door was open but David knocked loudly on it anyway.

  “Anybody home?” he called out.

  The music abruptly stopped and he could hear the pounding of small feet. Henry raced around the corner and made a beeline for them.

  “Uncle David! Dorothy!” Henry hurled himself at David. “Gramma C. told me you were coming.”

  “Hi ya, Sport.” David hugged him. “Dorothy is gonna go with you to the bookmobile. I thought I’d give you both a ride.” He waved at Celine, who entered the kitchen at a more sedate pace. “That is, as soon as your piano lesson is over.”

  “It’s over,” Henry insisted. “Isn’t it over, Gramma C.?”

  Celine sighed and looked at David. “How many notes did you hear?”

  “About eleven, give or take.”

  “I guess that counts.” She smiled at Dorothy. “Hello, Dorothy. It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Hi, Dr. Heller.” Dorothy looked around the big kitchen. “Your house is really pretty.”

  “Show her the piano, Gramma C.,” Henry insisted. “She wants to take lessons.” He looked at Dorothy. “Don’t you, Dorothy?”

  “Well . . .” Dorothy seemed embarrassed by Henry’s suggestion.

  “You and Miss Freemantle are always talking about how ladies play the piano,” he continued.

  “That’s just in books.” Dorothy gave Celine an apologetic look. “Miss Freemantle was telling me about Pride and Prejudice.”

  “One of my favorite books.” Celine nodded. “Although Elizabeth Bennet enjoyed playing the piano about as much as Henry does.”

  “See, Henry?” David nudged him. “You’re in good company.”

  Henry looked confused. “Who is Liz Beth Bendit?”

  “She’s the heroine in one of those hallmarks of so-called great literature that nobody’s ever read—right Celine?” David batted his eyes at her. “Unlike this little gem we’re working on.” He held up the file folder that was fat with pages of untranslated German erotica.