Jackrabbit Junction Jitters

by Ann Charles

  The smell surprised her. She’d expected stale urine with a hint of cigarette smoke, or worse. Instead, a fresh pine scent filled the air. The sound of water hitting porcelain made her squeeze her eyelids closed even tighter.

  “Butch?” she said too loud for such a small room and jumped at the sound of her own voice.

  “Jesus, woman! What are you doing in here?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m a little busy right now.”

  “You can just listen then.” She continued with her mission before he could interrupt. “I want to tell you that I’m sorry for my behavior after I smashed your pickup. I wasn’t thinking straight and kind of panicked.”

  “Kind of?” The water stopped. She heard him zip his jeans.

  Ignoring his skepticism, she swallowed the nervous fluttering in her throat. “If there’s anything else I can do to help get your pickup fixed, let me know.”

  The urinal flushed. She tried to smile, but it felt stiff on her cheeks, so she dropped it.

  “I’d offer to drive you around, but my car is out of commission, of course, and nobody in my family will allow me to drive their vehicle. So, the best I can offer is a ride on the handlebars of Ruby’s bicycle while I peddle.”

  “You can open your eyes now.”

  She peeked between her eyelashes as he turned on the faucet. He stared back at her through the mirror above the sink, an unreadable expression on his face.

  Glancing away, she tried to focus on something else. Her gaze landed on the urinals, and she felt her forehead grow warm. She turned to her right and realized she was staring at a condom machine. Her ears practically burst into flames.

  She looked down at her sandals. “Anyway, I don’t want you to—”

  The door behind her creaked opened, bumping her in the shoulder. She stepped to the side as a short, very chubby, very hairy man in a wife-beater tank top walked in.

  “Hey, Don.” Butch greeted the guy with a nod.

  “Howdy, Butch,” Don replied. When he noticed Kate standing there, his smile widened. “Good afternoon, Miss.” He touched the brim of his brown, dusty cowboy hat, then headed for a urinal.

  Zipppp.

  Kate squeezed her eyes closed again.

  The door hinges squeaked.

  “Come on, crazy lady,” Butch whispered in her ear. He grabbed her arm and dragged her into the hallway.

  Kate opened her eyes and found herself standing close enough to Butch to count his blond eyelashes. He smelled like soap and something fresh—not strong enough to be cologne.

  “Anyway,” she said, her voice higher this time.

  “Apology accepted.” Butch stepped back. “While I’m thinking about it, I need to return this to you.” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open.

  Kate looked down at his Arizona driver’s license stuffed behind clear plastic. He looked rugged in his picture, his hair combed back, his cheekbones and chin chiseled. The name “Valentine” was printed next to his picture, but his hand blocked the rest. As he dug through one of the pockets, a couple of cards slipped out and drifted to the floor.

  “Damn,” he said under his breath.

  “I’ll get them.” Happy to give her fingers something to do besides twiddling, she squatted down. One of the cards was for a video rental store, the other had Copper Snake Mining Company printed in bold letters on it.

  “Thanks.” Butch held out his hand.

  She stood and gave them to him without getting a chance to see the name on the business card.

  “Here you go.” He held out her insurance card. “You got hauled off to jail before I could return it.”

  At that moment, a hole in the floor big enough for her to disappear into would have been appreciated.

  “How’s the stolen car business treating you these days?” His grin took the sting out of his words.

  Wow! She’d forgotten how handsome he could be when he wasn’t glaring at her. She tried to think of something witty to say. “Umm, good,” was what spilled out of her mouth.

  Criminy, she was an idiot.

  His grin faltered.

  “Hey, Butch.” The guy who’d brought Kate and Claire their BLTs stood at the end of the hall. “Your lawyer’s on the phone.”

  “Thanks.” Butch turned to Kate. “Duty calls. Run into you another time.” With a goodbye nod, he strode away.

  Kate watched him go. The sight of his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs made her feel like she’d been sniffing Elmer’s glue all afternoon.

  The sound of a urinal flushing cleared the fog in her brain. Her attraction to Butch faded with the mist. She must have had too much sun today. Way too much sun.

  She headed for the patio and Claire.

  The truth hit her like a snow shovel to the head, stopping her in her tracks in front of the glass door. She stared blindly out at Mac and her sister. How could she be such an idiot?

  The clues were right in front of her like a police line-up. First, Butch’s eyes were red from being up all night. Second, he had a business card from the mining company in his wallet. Third, at this very moment, he was talking to his lawyer.

  It couldn’t be any more obvious—Butch was the one trying to steal the Lucky Monk mine away from Ruby.

  Chapter Ten

  Monday, August 16th

  “Damn, it’s hot in here.” Claire wiped her brow with her forearm. Her hands swam inside a pair of yellow rubber gloves, her sweat-ringed, “Mummy Dearest” monster T-shirt clung to her back like a baby opossum. Even the concrete felt warm under her knees.

  Ruby needed to install fans in the R.V. park’s public restrooms. After spending the last half-hour in this concrete-lined crock-pot, heatstroke was just a hallucination away.

  Afternoon sunlight glared through the window, spotlighting the drain in the center of the floor. The florescent light bulbs droned overhead as an incessant memorial to all of the dead fly carcasses littering the windowsill and dark corners.

  Sitting back on her heels, Claire frowned at the toilet with the steel “snake” coil still jammed down its porcelain throat. Thank God her nose was still only partially working.

  “Here, mi amor.” Manny squeezed into the toilet stall with her, patting dry her forehead and cheeks with a scratchy paper towel, and wiping off her chin. “You had dirt on your face.”

  “Thanks.” she blinked sweat from her lashes.

  “You sure that was dirt?” Chester’s grin was wide enough to have its own zip code.

  Claire shuddered. It was going to take two bars of soap to get her fresh and clean again, especially after spending the morning putting out fires—literally.

  Some bozo hadn’t fully doused a pit fire before hitching up and rolling out of the park. The mid-morning breeze had stoked the smoldering embers and had carried sparks to a nearby knoll covered with grass, aka kindling with roots. Luckily, Manny noticed the smoke while on binocular patrol, and Claire and Gramps were able to douse the flames before involving Yuccaville’s voluntary fire department.

  Finished playing towel boy, Manny returned to his seat next to Chester on the sink counter. “You guys still haven’t helped me figure out how to get Rebecca to notice me.”

  Chester lit a cigar, his eyes squinty, thoughtful.

  It was hard to conjure romantic ideas while splashing elbow-deep in what Chester kept referring to as “the crapper.” Claire pulled the snake from the toilet and tossed it on the floor drain.

  “I’ve tried some of my best pick-up lines on her.” Manny continued. “But she won’t give me the time of day.”

  Cigar smoke billowed around Chester’s buzz cut. “Just tell her you have less than three months to live.”

  Using the toilet paper holder to pull herself to her feet, Claire asked, “What happens when he’s still alive in four months?”

  “Simple—a case of divine intervention. It’s a goddamned miracle.” Chester waved his hands in the air holy-roller style.
<
br />   “Maybe.” Manny leaned back against the mirror, his lips pursed as if he was actually considering Chester’s suggestion. “No. Rebecca is too smart for that one.”

  Chester smirked. “For all you know, she could have the I.Q. of a dung beetle. What do you really know about this dame?”

  “She’s blonde.” Manny smiled, as if that said it all.

  “So was Crazy Carol. Her fetish for sharp knives almost left you singing in the Vienna Boys Choir.”

  Manny cringed visibly. “I still get asked about that scar.”

  “What else you got?”

  “She has a cute little tattoo of Toucan Sam on her hip, right above her tan line.”

  Claire peeled off the yellow gloves. She didn’t want to know how Manny found out about the tattoo. She had a feeling Chester’s binoculars had played a part.

  “And she seems really sweet.”

  A rusty chuckle rumbled from Chester’s chest. “So did that Flo dame. Turned out she was sweet like a Pay Day bar—half sugar and half nuts.”

  Manny’s cheeks dimpled. “I’ll never play naked leap frog again.”

  Wincing away the images in her head, Claire tossed the gloves onto the floor next to her toolbox. “Why don’t you just start with, ‘Hello, my name is Manny’?”

  Both men scoffed at her.

  She chuckled at their twin horrified expressions. “What’s wrong with introducing yourself?”

  “That’s what you do when you join Alcoholics Anonymous.” Chester adjusted himself in front of her as if she were just one of the boys.

  She really needed to make some new friends.

  “Asking a lady out takes more finesse,” Manny explained.

  Claire bit back a smile. Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd had more finesse than these two circus clowns.

  “I know!” Chester took his cigar out of his mouth. “Ask her if she was on a rerun of Baywatch last week. That always makes the ladies smile.”

  “Hey, that’s not bad.” Manny nodded.

  “And if that gets your foot in the door.” A grin split Chester’s face. “Ask if she collects birds, because she sure has a nice set of hooters.”

  Manny’s laugh bounced off the concrete walls.

  Washing her hands in the sink, Claire groaned. “Chester, I’m amazed you found one woman to marry you, let alone three.”

  “What can I say? Women want a taste of America’s Most Wanted.” Chester slid off the counter, shuffled over to the stall, and frowned at the toilet. “So, did you fix the latrine?”

  Claire dried her hands on a paper towel. “No. The clog is too deep for the snake. And there isn’t an access panel or cleanout anywhere around here, so I’m going to have to remove the whole damned toilet.”

  On the upside, now she had an excuse to go to Yuccaville. Never mind that Creekside Hardware and Supply had plenty of wax toilet rings.

  Her fingers itched to hit the keyboard at the county library and pin down the age of Joe’s cache of artifacts. She’d worry about where the pieces had come from in due time—there were only so many plates she could spin at once.

  Manny scooted off the counter as Claire closed her toolbox. “Let me know when Act II of Much Ado About Toilets starts.” He held out her cap. “I’ll bring beer and pretzels.”

  Slipping on her hat, she said, “Listen, I know Mac told you two to keep an eye on me, but how much trouble can I get into fixing a clogged toilet?”

  “Who cares?” Manny’s waggled his bushy eyebrows. “We just like watching a woman get all sweaty and dirty.”

  “Claire.” Kate breezed in through the propped open door.

  With her hair styled in a sleek chignon, her skin lightly tanned, her lips glossed, and her white tank top and pink mini-skirt freshly ironed, Kate looked like she’d just finished shooting a L’Oréal commercial.

  Claire felt like she’d been coughed up by a cat.

  She lifted her toolbox. “What?”

  “Buck called.”

  A cricket chirped in Claire’s brain. “Buck who?”

  “Buck. As in Buck’s Auto Oasis.”

  A second cricket joined the first. Claire blinked.

  Kate sighed as if she were trying to explain logarithm rules to a couple of stoners. “The mechanic working on my car.”

  Her sister must have been painting her nails with the windows closed again, because this was the first Claire had heard of Buck.

  “Anyway, I need you to drive me to Yuccaville.”

  “No.” Claire had a hot date with the library computer today. She scooped up her gloves and the snake.

  “Gramps said you have to.”

  “Fine, but we’re stopping by the library for an hour or two, and I don’t want to hear any complaining.”

  “Is it air conditioned?”

  Claire nodded.

  “Okay with me, but …” Kate suddenly found the paint peeling off the doorjamb extremely interesting.

  “But what?”

  “Mom’s coming, too.”

  * * *

  “Kathryn, did you hear a single word I just said?” Deborah waved her manicured pink nails in front of Kate’s face.

  Pushing all conspiratorial thoughts about Butch from the forefront of her mind, Kate dragged her gaze from the hypnotic white paint lining the shoulder of the road.

  Ruby’s old pickup bounced along, the tires thumping rhythmically over the veins of tar patches crisscrossing the asphalt. Warm air filled with the scent of hot tar and baked earth blew in through Kate’s open window, tearing at her chignon, whistling in her ears.

  According to the mile marker, they were five miles out from Jackrabbit Junction. A storm raged in the east. Dark clouds converged over the mountain range that rimmed the valley, the peaks tinted purple with shadows.

  “Kathryn!”

  “What?” Kate looked at her mother, who sat between Claire and her.

  “I asked when Porter was picking you up this evening.”

  Crap! Amidst all her plotting on how to catch Butch red-handed, she’d forgotten all about her dinner date with Porter.

  She checked her watch. “He’s probably waiting for me at Ruby’s as we speak.”

  “I told you we should have left the library a half-hour earlier,” Deborah said to Claire, who drove with white-knuckled intensity. “At least we wouldn’t have been kicked out then. I still can’t get over the way you shoved that poor old lady off the computer. I’ve never been so mortified.”

  Claire nailed Deborah with a sideways glare. “She was hogging the one computer with an Internet connection.”

  Kate smiled to herself, remembering the look of shock on her sister’s face when Ma Kettle had told Claire to shove her time limit up her ass and spin on it.

  “Like I told that bully of a librarian,” Claire continued, “The old bat’s time had been up for twenty minutes. And I didn’t shove her. I guided her firmly by the arm. She faked that stumbling bit.”

  “You’re just lucky she hit you with her purse instead of her cane.” Deborah touched the bruise on Claire’s cheekbone.

  “Would you stop touching it!” Claire winced away from Deborah’s fingertips. “I thought we all agreed not to talk until we got back to the R.V. park.”

  She cranked up the radio volume. Willie Nelson sang about a good-hearted woman falling for a guy who liked to party a little too much.

  Kate grimaced. That seemed to be the story of her life.

  Deborah turned down the volume. “I never agreed to anything. You ordered us not to talk, which was very rude considering that I bought you two very nice dresses this afternoon. Of course, they aren’t Christian Dior or Donna Karan, but what can you expect for such a ragamuffin town?”

  Kate chuckled under her breath at the memory of Claire standing in front of the dressing room mirror while Deborah and the sales lady fluttered around her like Cinderella’s seamstress birds.

  “The cherry jubilee dress and the matching straw hat covered with fake fruit is my all-time favor
ite,” Kate said.

  “You look so pretty in that one.” Deborah clapped.

  “I’m not wearing that dress, Mother.”

  “You are, too. Stop being such a fuss-budget about this.”

  “It makes me look like Carmen Miranda wrapped in a tablecloth.” Claire’s lips thinned. “Mac is going to laugh his ass off when he sees me in it.”

  “Well, if that’s true, then he obviously got his fashion sense from his aunt. That woman would wear burlap for the Queen’s visit. Have you seen the dress she plans to wear for her wedding? It’s pale yellow, for heaven’s sake. That alone is reason enough for getting this wedding called off.”

  A muscle in Claire’s jaw twitched.

  “Mother,” Kate warned.

  “And if that isn’t bad enough, you should see the dress Jessica pick—”

  Claire boosted the radio volume again, drowning out Deborah with Willie Nelson.

  Deborah frowned, reaching for the volume, but Claire kept her fingers clamped on the knob and shot Deborah a glare hot enough to fuse the pearls in her chandelier earrings.

  Neither of them could hear Kate’s laughter over the twangy guitar riffs blaring from the speakers.

  As the barbed-wire fence posts passed, Kate shifted in her seat. The back of her thighs were damp where her skin touched the vinyl-covered cushions, her skirt undoubtedly seat-wrinkled beyond repair for tonight’s date.

  She sighed, homesick for her Volvo with its air conditioning and plush leather seats. But judging from Buck the Mechanic’s grim predictions, she had another week at least before she’d be reunited with her baby.

  Claire slowed the pickup as they approached the road to Ruby’s place.

  Kate stared out the window at The Shaft.

  Was Butch inside planning his next move? She needed to talk to Claire about what she’d found out yesterday, drill her sister with some questions about the bartender’s personal life. But Claire’s friendship with Butch made Kate hesitate.

  After Mac had left last night, Jessica had glued herself to Claire’s side. Between the Euchre tournament and crowded sleeping arrangements, Kate hadn’t been able to catch her sister alone. If only Porter weren’t at Ruby’s waiting for her, she could take a walk with Claire and test the water.