He came in and sat alone at a large table, putting his feet up on the chair across from him and pulling out his cellphone to send messages. Nessa gave her hair a pat to make sure it was in place and strolled over.
“Hello.” She began, but Noah didn’t hear, or pretended not to hear as he tapped out a message on his phone.
“Waiting for some friends?” she asked, a little more loudly
“Huh?” he looked up at her over the sunglasses he still hadn’t removed.
“I asked if you were waiting for some friends?”
“I am, yeah, is that okay with you?”
She didn’t like the tone in his voice. Rude and defensive.
“Yes, it’s quite alright with me. You probably don’t remember me.”
He took off his sunglasses and looked at her carefully “Am I supposed to?”
“My name is Vanessa Moore. Most folks around here just call me Nessa.”
Several of the gentlemen in the coffee shop were watching their interaction with curiosity. Nessa gathered they felt he was not giving her the respect she deserved.
“Sorry. I don’t know.” He shrugged
“That’s alright. I do know. We met once when you were a young boy here. How have you been?”
“Uh, good. Could you get me a cup of coffee?”
“Sure, just a moment.” She left and came back with two cups of coffee, cream and sugar. She set them on the table in front of him and as he looked at her strangely, she pulled the chair out from beneath his legs and took a seat.
“Hey!” he exclaimed as his feet awkwardly hit the floor.
At that point, several men stood up and one asked Nessa if she was okay. She responded “Just fine, Rodney, thank you for your concern. Go get yourself some more coffee back there. I just made a fresh pot. Mr. Bastion and I are just going to have a little chat here.”
Rodney nodded and the other men sat down. Most people turned back to their tables, but their attention hovered near the odd couple. Nessa leaned in so that she could be heard by Noah, but not the rest of the room.
“Noah Bastion, when you walked in here I was determined to give you a fair shake, but you’ve been about as respectful as a dog pissing on my flower garden. Would you like to start over?”
Noah looked at her and didn’t respond. She poured a little cream and sugar into one cup of coffee and stirred, making up her mind.
“Fine then, I’ll do the talking. I know trouble when I see it and, for the most part, it doesn’t bother me. A little trouble makes life interesting, but I hear you’ve met my granddaughter, Andrea?”
Noah cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. Nessa took a sip of coffee.
“She’s a special girl, that one, and I reckon that if she starts getting into any trouble I’ll be the first one to hear about it. And then do you know what I’m going to do?” She didn’t wait for a response. “I’m going to come looking for you.”
“What?” he laughed. “Did my brother put you up to this? Seriously, you’re like 80 years old. Look, I know he’s into her and she’s hot, I totally get it. But the girl’s going to do whatever the girl’s going to do. Maybe I should call her up right now, see if she wants to go out with me.”
Nessa chose to ignore the harsh remark about her age.
“You go on ahead and do that, she can make decisions for herself. Let me ask you one thing, though. Do you really think that she would be interested in you if she knew that you were walking around like you hadn’t a care in the world while your brother takes care of your daughter as if she were his own?”
Noah froze and Nessa knew her read from David was the right one.
“Where is the young girl’s mother anyway? Did that woman do whatever she wanted to do, too? How is that working out?”
At that, Nessa looked at her watch and stood up. “Well, I need to get back to work. It’s been very nice chatting with you. I hope you think about what I said. Let’s do this again sometime, okay?”
Nessa supposed that Noah thought she might be a little psychotic. It’s not very often a woman old enough to be your grandmother makes a vague threat against you. She had thrown out the fact of Jessica’s paternity which must have been a shock. She would have to remember to double check that information because it might certainly be useful in the future.
Later that afternoon, she called Bitsy Monroe, who was by far the biggest gossip in town. Not many things managed to get past that woman and it was due, in part, to her husband’s profession as the local law enforcement. Nessa had a long talk with her about the weather, last week’s sermon and all manner of things. Then Nessa gently led up to the reason for her call. She just wanted to know what Noah Bastion was doing this evening.
“Nessa! Are you asking me for gossip?” Bitsy was tickled pink.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it gossip exactly Bitsy. I just happen to know that he’s talked with my granddaughter and I wanted to know how he spends his time.”
Nessa didn’t think it would be prudent to tell Bitsy that she’d threatened the boy and wanted to know what his response to that sort of thing would be. She hoped it wouldn’t lead him to go looking for a date with Andy. Whatever the case, it would tell her a lot about him.
“Andy? Well, I wouldn’t imagine Andy getting mixed up with the likes of him. He hasn’t been getting himself into any trouble yet, but that motorcycle drives Bill up the wall. He’s already got it in his head that boy needs keeping an eye on, so I’ll bet he could tell you right now. Anyway, I’m sure you could talk Andy out of a summer romance considering she’s going away to school here pretty soon. She’s gotta be pretty excited about that.”
Bitsy Monroe talked on for several more minutes flitting from topic to topic without any contribution from Nessa, but finally wound her way back to the subject at hand and promised to call Nessa back with the details in the morning. As an afterthought, she added that she could use a little help setting up for the DAR meeting at the senior center the next day. Nessa graciously agreed to do so; she understood that information always had a price.
The next day, before breakfast – which for Nessa was coffee and a Danish from the store - Bitsy informed her that Noah had spent a long time at the gym working out and then went home for a bit, changed and rode off on his motorcycle out of town. Bill hadn’t followed him. What that told Nessa was that she had gotten to him, but he wasn’t completely in self-destructive territory.
She would have to make a long distance call for the other information she needed. The former security manager from The Club in Los Angeles was in his 90s, but still kicking. He said he didn’t do investigative work anymore, but would make a few calls for Nessa. He only asked the questions he needed answers to and skipped the pleasantries. He hadn’t changed in 50 years.
7
At the end of June, Andrea started talking about the 4th of July party. For the last 5 years, they had mostly made lemonade and a few picnic foods and camped out as a family on the lawn of Andy’s house because she said she was too old to go to the town square for the fireworks display. This year she wanted to make a big to-do of it. She seemed excited to try out her new skills in the kitchen and Nessa knew who she had to thank for that so she figured it was high time she did so.
The conversation with Rosalie Merchant went differently than she expected. There was no hint of judgment in her voice. Rosalie seemed genuinely pleased to be invited. Having her grandchildren and great-granddaughter at home had done wonders for her disposition, it seemed. Nessa promised to make some of her famous kickin’ iced tea and Mrs. Merchant promised to make a mess of peach cobbler.
For good measure, Nessa invited a few other ladies that she knew would come and a few others that she knew wouldn’t but would appreciate being asked. Then she figured she’d better let Josephine know that there was going to be a party at her house.
“I know mom; Andy already told me that she invited Old Lady Merchant’s boys over here. Kate will definitely come and I’m sure a few othe
rs from her class are going to be here too.”
“I’ve also invited Mrs. Merchant and a few other ladies.”
“Ugh, mom. Old Lady Merchant is coming to my house? Is Trixie coming too?”
“She’s already left town. She didn’t stay long.”
“Well she’s got some nerve coming to town and acting like we’re buddies after the things she used to say about me in high school. What a hypocrite! To be so high and mighty and then go and run away and do who knows what.”
“I’m surprised at you dear. That is all water under the bridge and you are an adult now. Can’t you let that go?”
“I did let it go, but you know Andy comes home and starts talking about that David kid. I mean he seems like a nice boy, but he’s already got a daughter and he’s just a kid himself. Andy’s such a good girl and I want her to have a simple life with a boyfriend that doesn’t come with extra baggage.”
“She’s talking about David? What about Noah?”
“Noah comes up every once in a while. She thinks he’s “hot”, but I’m pretty sure those feelings are too shallow to go anywhere. On the other hand, every other day I hear about what David said and did. David this and David that… I reminded her that David can’t date casually anymore, he’s got a daughter to think about.”
“What did she say?”
“She got embarrassed and told me that she wasn’t into David – I don’t even know what that means.”
“She was saying she’s not interested in him.”
“Is that what that means?”
“Well, it’s not what that means, but that’s what she was telling you. At any rate, as far as David’s concerned, you should not judge a book by its cover. I think that particular book may have a surprise ending.”
“You are so cryptic sometimes, mom. I’m not even going to worry about it. Pretty soon she’s going to be out there across the country without any supervision and I guess I just have to have faith that we’ve raised her well enough to look out for herself.”
“You have. She’s a fantastic young woman and she’s really coming into her own.”
“She is? You know, she’s so innocent. We did that; I mean I did that. I didn’t take her on weekend trips to New York or wherever to let her see what the world is like. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t even seen an R rated movie yet. What if she is completely deer-in-headlights out there?”
“She won’t be. You were fine at school, and not just because you had been on trips or because you were somehow more street-savvy than she is. You were fine because you are smart and so is she. And she has seen an R rated movie, by the way.”
“Hopefully it was a horror movie and she’s figured out that when the bad guy is after you, you don’t split up and search in different directions.”
“Or have sex.”
“Oh, please don’t make me think about that. I’m about to have a panic attack as it is. So what were you calling me about anyway? Oh yes, we’re having a party. The whole neighborhood is coming. I’ll break out the plasticware.”
“You’ll be fine, dear. Take a deep breath.”
8
Nessa got a complete report on Jessica’s parents early on the 4th of July. The mother was listed as Holly Lewis who was currently living in Arizona with her older sister and their cousin. She bounced around at part time and temporary jobs, but hadn’t gotten into any trouble since she’d turned 18. According to the MVD Holly had gotten a license, but there was no car registered in her name. Her credit report revealed very little activity other than an application for a student loan with a community college near her home. Holly’s parents died in a car accident two years before Jessica was born and her sister, who was a few years older, became her legal guardian. Jessica’s father was listed as Noah Bastion, whose current address was listed as Orange, California. He had a minor-in-possession charge about six months before Jessica’s birth, a theft charge and a handful of moving violations. He had no formal credit history, but the investigator uncovered a number of unsettled gambling debts. Noah liked to bet on sports, it seemed. The rest of the information on Noah was what Nessa already knew from rumors around town.
Nessa was proud that her instincts had proven right. She thought to herself that you may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but the old tricks worked just fine. She imagined that Holly and her sister were a mess after their parents’ death and Holly found Noah charming. She’d seen it happen to a girl at the club named Cassie. Cassie had been an honor roll student, but when her mother died leaving nothing and no one to take care of her, Cassie started dancing. A good looking man took an interest in her and said the right things, promised the world. When Cassie turned up pregnant, the man disappeared. Nessa tracked him down and found out he was married with children. She had a long talk with Cassie about her future. Cassie decided to give up the baby for adoption so Nessa only made sure that the baby’s father handled the medical expenses and enough extra money so that Cassie wouldn’t have to work during the pregnancy and could go back to school and find an office job somewhere. That man had the means to take care of a situation he created and enough sense to know better. Noah, on the other hand, was a punk kid who hadn’t even grown up himself yet.
If Nessa knew one thing, it was that sometimes bad things happened to good people – and those people might make some bad decisions because of it. Knowing what she knew, Nessa had no choice but to do something about the whole mess. It was the right thing to do.
The barbecue started out like any other lazy afternoon, except Nessa indulged a little early in her special iced tea while she was making a batch for the other ladies. She didn’t bother to knock on Josephine’s door; she just went in through the living room and grabbed some glasses and ice out of the kitchen. Mrs. Merchant was there shortly with Jessica. They parked themselves in rockers out on the front porch to watch the sun go down and talk about nothing in particular. Jessica went to explore Andy’s room with her, but couldn’t help noticing that she looked different wearing glasses today on the way inside. Nessa giggled. She’d heard the story of the salsa already from Josephine. She could remember so clearly when Andy had been Jessica’s age – even when Josephine had been that young. Time was a freight train, Mrs. Merchant agreed.
“How have you been enjoying having your family staying with you, Rosalie?”
“It’s just wonderful. I haven’t felt so alive in ages. That little one wears me out sometimes, though. She never stops talking at home. So many questions! She’s a smart little one.”
“Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I suppose.”
“Hmph. If she’s lucky, it’ll start rolling on downhill from her tree.”
“Are you referring to her mother?”
“Of course. What kind of girl gets herself into trouble and then just leaves her baby?”
“It takes two to tango. Have you ever even met the girl?”
“Don’t care to.” Mrs. Merchant folded her arms in front of her chest in the universal sign of not really wanting to talk about something. Nessa thought it might be best to change the subject. She didn’t want to get into a fight about the relative merits of girls who get into trouble versus the boys that get them there.
She offered up a glass of iced tea and Mrs. Merchant pulled out three containers of peach cobbler. There was enough to feed the neighborhood.
“So how’s Andy doing with your cooking lessons?”
“She’s quick as a whip. You’d never know that when we got started she didn’t know how to make something as simple as mashed potatoes.”
“That apple didn’t fall far from the tree either, I couldn’t cook to save my life and neither can Josephine.”
“I know dear, but you’ve got other talents.”
Again Nessa thought she might be getting into tricky territory. She started talking about the weather because that seemed like a pretty safe subject. They saw Noah go by on his motorcycle. Rosalie lifted her hand to wave, but Noah never looked in thei
r direction. He was headed to the square, where people must have started to gather.
Andy came outside and started showing some smaller children how to make shapes with their sparklers. It was getting to be dusk outside and the fireworks would start soon. David showed up and waved to the older ladies then made a beeline for Andy. Vanessa regarded him carefully. What makes a man put his life on hold to pretend to be a father to his brother’s daughter? Nessa considered that he perhaps felt guilty, but that didn’t feel right. He was a quiet, but responsible boy when she first met him. A chaotic home life had probably left him feeling like a kid in grownup clothes. He felt responsible for Noah and was doing the right thing by not letting this girl suffer from two parents who were too immature to raise her. Nessa had a feeling that Holly was working on that, though.
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