Ain’t He Precious?

by Juliette Poe

“I totally shouldn’t have brought him here,” I tell Pap as I sip at my beer. He’s occupying the stool he always sits on at the very end of the counter, facing the length of the entire bar so he can observe. I’m on the one adjacent to it, which is reserved for me when I’m in Chesty’s.

  Pap is the name he has that signifies he’s my grandfather. It’s actually Grandpap, but it was shortened to Pap a long time ago. Everyone here in Chesty’s calls him that too. Or Gunny, because he retired as a Master Gunnery Sergeant. His hair is still thick, worn in a regulation marine cut and while mostly gray, there is still some dark black sprinkled throughout. His skin is dark and leathery looking because of his combined Lithuanian and Polish heritage, but also because he loves the outdoors and eschews sun protection. He’s rail thin and I stand an inch above him at my height of five eight, but he still has plenty of power within him. If he were to give me a hard hug, he could squeeze the breath out of me, but Pap isn’t one for overt displays of affection. He has to be in a really good mood or drunk to do so.

  I’m not sure if it’s sad or adorable that Pap is my best friend.

  Ry just stepped outside to take a call, I assume from his office back in Boston, leaving behind his barely sipped beer after I’d introduced him to Pap. I’m taking the moment to totally unload on my grandpa while I have the chance. He’s the only one in my entire family who knows the full story about Ry, me, and all the reasons I’m here in Whynot and he’s back in Boston. That only occurred one night after I tried to match shots of whiskey with him on my birthday three years ago. I was sick for two days after, and Pap learned all of my deep, painful secrets. He wields that power over me well.

  “Shouldn’t have brought him here to Chesty’s or brought him to Whynot?” he asks for clarification as he drains the last of his beer and slides the empty mug to the edge of the counter for one of the bartenders to refill. He takes a five-dollar bill from a pile of money he has sitting in front of him and puts it near the mug. Pap may own the bar, but he always pays for his beers, even on his birthday. He never likes people buying him anything, and he doesn’t do anything to cut into his bottom-line profit such as drinking beer free.

  “I shouldn’t have brought him to Chesty’s,” I clarify. “It’s a little too much since he just got into town.”

  “I think it’s a little too much you brought him to Whynot, given your history,” he says dryly.

  “It’s to help with that case,” I say pointedly.

  “You keep telling yourself that, Trixie-girl,” Pap says with a bark of a laugh. “That’s the stubborn southern in you coming out. But if you wise up and decide to let that little bit of Yankee smarts come out and play, you’ll do yourself a world of good to at least admit you two have some unfinished business.”

  “There’s no unfinished business,” I tell him soundly. “We wanted different things after law school.”

  “You wanted to live in different places,” he corrects me sagely. “You both wanted the same things. Each other.”

  “Okay,” I say dramatically as I pick up my beer and drain it. “I can’t even deal with you right now. Besides, I told Mom we’d be home in time for supper. You coming?”

  “And miss the rest of my surprise birthday party that wasn’t a surprise and wasn’t nothing more than the regulars yelling ‘surprise’ when I walked in, despite my birthday actually being tomorrow?” he asks with a cocked eyebrow. “Think I’ll stay.”

  I snort and push off my stool, standing on the bottom rung briefly as I lean across the corner of the bar to kiss Pap on his dry, whiskered cheek. “Okay. Happy birthday and I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  Pap and I go fishing together every year for his birthday. We go at other times as well, but we’ve made it a tradition to go on the morning of his birthday. After we return, there will be a big party that night for him. My mama will make his favorite foods, which now includes her fried chicken and pecan pie, two very distinct southern dishes. To be fair though, she’ll also make him halupki, another of his favorite dishes and a nod to his Polish grandmother.

  “Your mama promised me biscuits and gravy for breakfast,” he reminds me, and I have to stifle a snicker. That craving is most assuredly a sign he’s developing some southern tendencies.

  “She won’t forget,” I promise him.

  “I’ll be there at 5:30,” he also reminds me.

  “We call that ‘the crack of dawn’,” I tell him with a smirk. And then, just to piss him off, I say, “You’re a southerner now—learn how to speak our language.”

  Pap harrumphs, gives me an evil glare that I’d suggest such a thing, and turns his head away from me to watch one of the TV’s mounted behind the bar. He’s got it tuned into a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game, and I’ve been effectively dismissed.

  Gah, I love that crusty, wise-ass Yankee bastard. We just get each other.

  I walk out of Chesty’s, waving goodbye to several of the regulars. Who would have thought when Pap moved here twenty years ago that a bar would thrive in our little town? Where Pap is from, there’s a bar and a catholic church on every block. In the south, we have plenty of churches, but not so many bars in small towns.

  What makes it even crazier is that Pap is a retired marine who served twice in Vietnam and was a drill instructor. The manners and social graces that were required for his life as a marine—which I imagine were little to none—are still non-existent today even though he’s been retired from the military for forty years or so. But for whatever strange reasons, the good southern folk of Whynot, North Carolina took to the wise-cracking Yankee marine drill instructor who’d just as soon cut out hearts as he would smile most times, and Chesty’s has become a profitable establishment.

  Sadly, I have no clue what will happen to this place when Pap passes on. Tomorrow is his eighty-first birthday. While he’s in really good shape, he’s also well… really damn old. I can’t take over as I have way too much on my plate as it is. No way Mama or Daddy can, what with running the farm. And my siblings are all pursuing their own careers. None of us aspire to be a bar owner, so when that sad day comes that we lose Pap, this town will lose Chesty’s as well.

  As always when I think about losing Pap or Chesty’s or even some part of this town, I get sad and nostalgic and my nose stings a little as I walk out the bar door, but I blink the tears back. I’m generally not a crier.

  I find Ry standing to the right of the door with his phone still up to his ear and his suit jacket draped over his opposite elbow. He’s leaning up against the exterior brick wall to Chesty’s to take advantage of the small sliver of shade that’s thrown over the sidewalk from the long, rectangular awning above.

  In fourteen years—the three I was with Ry and the eleven we’ve been apart—I’ve never found another man as handsome. How could I with his movie-star good looks, thick dark hair, and piercing blue eyes? Let’s not forget his body… the one that still looks to be in ridiculously amazing shape. But outside of his panty-melting looks… I’ve never found another man who even measured up to him in personality. Not to his intelligence, his judgment, his wit, and his kindness. The way he listened to me, handled my bad moods, and let me cry on his shoulder when I’d give in to the rarity of tears. He was the absolute perfect package.

  Still is from what I can tell, and that hot, bubbling ball of regret that’s curled up in my stomach over the years starts to froth and foam.

  Ry raises his arm that’s holding his suit jacket slightly to hold up his index finger, silently letting me know he needs a few more minutes. He pushes off the wall and turns his back on me, walking a few paces away. I tuck my hands in my pockets and wait patiently, because while I might not look the part right now, I get the need to handle office matters and the privacy that has to come with it.

  But if Ry really needs privacy, he sure doesn’t lower his voice, because I can hear every word he’s saying. And I can’t help but be interested by it.

  “Leslie… it’s really not my problem,” he says in a
slightly frustrated growl. He pauses for a few minutes, listening to whatever Leslie is saying on the other end. I’m imagining perhaps another attorney at his firm who has run into a problem on a case or something. But that notion is blown out of the water when he says, “I moved out over two months ago. It’s your apartment. If the shower head is leaking, I’m really sure it’s not my problem.”

  My spine stiffens as I lean my body involuntarily to the right, tilting my head so my ear is pointed right at Ry. I don’t want to miss anything else.

  Ry takes in a deep breath and lets it out. It was something I always admired about him. Even when he started to get really pissed about something, he could always level himself out. He was a master at handling things calmly, even in the face of nasty circumstances. His voice lowers as he chastises this Leslie woman, but I’m surprised by the gentleness in his tone now. “Les, seriously… just because I happened to have installed the showerhead does not mean I’m the one who has to fix it now. You know this. I’m really sorry you’re having a bad day, but you should call a plumber, okay?”

  He listens for a few seconds, and I see his shoulders relax. “Okay, fine. I get it. I know it’s tough. But babe… you got to move on.”

  Very interesting.

  He ends the conversation with, “I’ll call you next week and check in. Bye.”

  That’s even more interesting. He still has some type of relationship with her if he’s still checking in.

  Ry turns back to me and shoves his phone in his pocket. “Sorry about that. I’m ready to go back in.”

  “We have to go or we’ll be late for dinner,” I tell him.

  “But my beer,” he says.

  “Already been dumped. My mama’s expecting us,” I tell him.

  “Mama?” he asks with confusion.

  “Yes, the woman who birthed me. She’s expecting us for dinner.”

  “Does she have beer?” he asks with a cocked eyebrow. “Because this day hasn’t been what I expected, and I’d really love to have another beer.”

  I grin at him. “Beer, whiskey, sweet tea, Pepsi—because no self-respecting North Carolinian would drink Coke products since Pepsi was invented here—and I think we even have some peach moonshine too.”

  Ry grimaces at the mention of peach moonshine, and it’s just as well. If he drank three fingers of that shit, he’d be running around the farm buck naked and howling at the moon.

  “So, dinner at your parents’ house, and then you’ll take me to my hotel?” he asks curiously. And I get it. He’s accomplished nothing on the case he flew in to discuss, and I’ve thrown him for several loops today. He’s looking for some control.

  “Dinner at my parents, yes, but you’ll be staying there too,” I tell him.

  “What?” he exclaims and holds his hands out. “No way in hell, Trixie. Totally awkward. I want my own hotel room.”

  I laugh and sweep my arm around the town square. “Do you see a hotel around here?”

  “A bed-and-breakfast then?” he throws out. “I thought those were standard in small southern towns.”

  I nod. “That would be Millie’s, but it closed down a few months ago because of termites. It’s being torn apart and rebuilt.”

  “I’ll drive back to Raleigh then and get a hotel,” he says stubbornly.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I ask him, “Seriously, Ry… what do you have against good ol’ southern hospitality? My mama already has a room made up for you.”

  “Because it’s weird and I don’t know her,” he grumbles, and then throws out. “Why can’t I just stay at your place?”

  I roll my eyes. “Because that is my place. I live there too.”

  “You live with your parents?” he asks in total shock and disbelief.

  Shrugging, I defend my lameness. “It’s a really big farmhouse. We hardly see each other.”

  “You’re thirty-five, Trix,” he says with a smirk. “It’s seriously time to get your own place.”

  “Shut up,” I grumble. “I’ve not had any reason to.”

  “You’ve lived there since you moved back?” His right eyebrow is cocked high with curiosity.

  “Yeah,” I mumble, having to force myself not to let my head drop in just a tiny bit of shame.

  “Fine,” he says in quick capitulation, and this surprises me. “I’m only here for two days anyway. I can suffer with good ol’ southern hospitality.”

  His sudden turnabout has me grinning, and I can’t resist joking with him. “Awesome. And maybe we’ll get drunk tonight, and then you can sneak in my room.”

  Ry blinks at me, his eyes wide and round. He always got my humor. We used to laugh ourselves silly, usually at my instigation. Ry’s been here for only a few hours, and my compulsion is to kid around with him. But he seems to be having a bit of a harder time adjusting, and it’s freaking adorable.

  I grin bigger. “Just kidding. Sounds like you have enough girl problems back home. So tonight, we’ll get drunk and you can tell me all about Leslie. That was her name, right?”

  He nods, still blinking at me.

  “Okay, I’m done joshin’ you, Ry,” I tell him with a laugh as I step into him. “We’ll have a nice dinner, you can have a beer, and then we’ll sit out on the porch because it will be a lovely evening and we’ll talk about the case, okay? Tomorrow, we can start working on the details, you can decide if you want to help me, and then you can fly back to Boston and your big-city life.”

  He blinks some more before finally nodding.

  I wonder with a tinge of regret if I’ve inadvertently broken him.

  CHAPTER 4

  Ryland

  I feel like I’m in the twilight zone.

  Except it’s the Whynot zone and it feels more sinister.

  No, not sinister.

  Just very discombobulating.

  Trixie insisted I put my luggage in her car so she could drive me to her parents’ house. I was worried about leaving my rental parked where it was because the meter would expire. I didn’t have but one more quarter on me. Trixie didn’t have any change, so I suggested going into Chesty’s to get some.

  She simply said, “No worries.”

  She then pulled her phone out of her pocket, called someone, and said, “Andy… it’s Trixie. There’s a silver Pontiac parked in front of Chesty’s. Do me a favor and don’t ticket it.”

  And that was that.

  Trixie filled me in on her family’s farm as we drove there. I’d remembered most of it, because there wasn’t much I didn’t know about Trixie when we were together.

  Well, except the fact that she had alternate plans to the ones we’d been making to share our lives together, but whatever.

  Mainer Farms sits about two miles outside the town’s limits. It’s been in the Mainer family—that would be Trixie’s mother’s family—for eight generations. They even have the original deed to the land from the king of England. They’ve farmed through the years—tobacco, corn, and soybeans—but Trixie told me in the last decade, they also started a small cattle operation. Their property is roughly three hundred acres, but they lease out seventy-five percent of it now and only actively farm the remaining portion. Trixie’s parents, Catherine and Gerry, run the farm themselves along with their youngest son, Colt, and two other part-time employees.

  What has always been utterly fascinating to me was the story of her mother and father. Catherine Mainer, an eighth-generation southern farmer, falling in love with a Yankee marine she met at a USO dance at the end of the Vietnam-war era. He was stationed on the east coast of North Carolina, and Catherine had gone there with a bunch of girlfriends for some dancing and fun. I’ve never met Trixie’s parents, because, like I said, I was never invited here when we were together, but she doesn’t wax poetic about it being love at first sight or anything.

  In fact, their relationship was passionately volatile. Mostly, it had to do with the fact that she was a southern lady, gently raised in a farming community. Gerry Mancinkus was a miniature Pap M
ancinkus, becoming a career marine, also a drill instructor, and not the most romantic of men. Add on to that he was a brash Yankee with no filter—just like Pap—and he could be downright off-putting at times.

  I remember a story she told me once that had my jaw dropping open in stunned shock.

  Soon after Catherine and Gerry married, he pulled his second tour of duty on the drill field in Parris Island, South Carolina. Trixie had told me they were stressful days as the Vietnam War was winding down. Troops were still being put through boot camp and shipped off. Gerry was working sixteen-hour days and his patience wasn’t the greatest to begin with.

  As the story goes, Gerry came home one night frustrated, exhausted, and hungry. Catherine, who was a young newlywed and not really liking the fact that she never got to see her new husband as well as the fact she was a living in a strange new place with no friends, lit into him as soon as he stepped foot in the door.

  Gerry supposedly listened to Catherine for thirty seconds at the most, and then just turned around and walked right back out the door, slamming it behind him. This pissed Catherine off greatly. She paced their small living room, which had nothing but a recliner fit into one corner, a tiny loveseat, and a miniscule coffee table, and waited for him to come back.

  She’d heard his car pull up about thirty minutes later and was waiting for him, having come to a stop standing right in front of his recliner. She was boiling mad, or so Trixie recounted, and when he walked in that door, she pointed a finger at him. With great flourish and dramatic tone, she’d said, “If you ever—”

  That’s as far as she got.

  Gerry pulled out a pistol from his back waistband, pointed it at her, and pulled the trigger three times. Trixie was giggling at this point as she told me the story, but I was horrified that she was laughing about her dad shooting her mom.

  She even had tears in her eyes as she gasped, “My mom said it seemed like three feet of flames shot out of that barrel as he fired off the three rounds.”

  For the first time, I thought perhaps mental illness might run in Trixie’s family and just maybe I should be worried.