Romeo Fails

by Amy Briant

  “Watch your language,” he said mildly, one eye on his mother-in-law who was making a fresh pot of coffee down at the other end of the counter.

  “Well, what about the f-…reakin’ carnations?”

  “Officer Argyle gave her a ticket her first night in town,” he reminded her.

  “Look, this is ridiculous!” Dorsey burst out. “I can’t believe you’re even thinking this. What’s your explanation for the church sign then?”

  “I don’t know about that one,” Luke admitted. “Yet,” he added significantly.

  Meanwhile, Sarah’s words from the night before about not being able to stand religious people had come floating back into Dorsey’s brain. But Sarah had been with her and Maggie last night, her brain fought back.

  “When was the church sign vandalized?” she asked Luke.

  “After one a.m.,” he said. “I drove past it myself at one and it was fine then. I remember chuckling at the pastor’s sermon title. And I definitely would have noticed the more colorful version.”

  Sarah and Maggie had left the Bartholomew farm before ten o’clock, Dorsey knew. Plenty of time, a voice in her brain said… She shook her head, as much to ward off the unwelcome thought as to express her disagreement with Luke.

  “I still think this is crazy,” she told him. “Do you seriously think Sarah could have done any of this?”

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. “But I know she’s a stranger here. And maybe you should…exercise a little caution. You know what I mean, Dorse?”

  She looked at him, unable to decide whether she was more irritated or confused.

  “You don’t even know her, Luke,” she finally said.

  “You’re right. I don’t. And neither do you. Just take it slow, Dorsey, is all I’m saying. Be careful.”

  “I know her a lot better than you do,” she shot back. “And she’s Maggie’s cousin, for crying out loud!”

  “Look, Dorsey, I’m not at liberty to discuss every aspect of this case with you, all right? But I’ve talked to some people in Chicago and your new friend Sarah may not be as perfect as you think she is.”

  “I never said she was perfect,” Dorsey said defensively. She thought back over the things Sarah had told her. About her crazy ex-girlfriend… and getting fired… and getting her prescription filled at the pharmacy…

  “Is this about her break-up with that co-worker she was dating?” She very nearly said “her girlfriend” before remembering not to out Sarah to Luke, although she thought he’d probably figured that part out for himself already. Or maybe he had more than just suspicions—who knew what the cops in Chicago or whoever he had talked with had told him? There were more than a few Romeo Falls natives now residing in the Windy City, so he might have reached out to that grapevine as well.

  “Dorsey, all I’m saying is be careful, okay?” Luke’s tone was patient and kind. “She’s a stranger and sometimes…well, sometimes, strangers are trouble. Just watch yourself, okay, kiddo?”

  Dorsey shook her head, still trying to deny everything he was saying. Trying to ignore the suspicions he was raising in her. And ignore the voice in her head that kept bringing up things Sarah had said.

  But—not Sarah! It couldn’t be Sarah… could it?

  She looked back at Luke. He looked tired and concerned. Some of that concern was for her, she knew, but she still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She shook her head again as he stood.

  “Breakfast doesn’t cause lunch, Luke.”

  He involuntarily glanced at the remains of her own breakfast on the counter.

  “Meaning?”

  “Just because there’s someone new in town doesn’t mean she’s the one behind all of this.”

  “And yet nothing was happening before she got here.”

  Dorsey sat there, staring up at him, unable to think of any reply. He picked up his coffee and cinnamon roll and left her there to contemplate that one undeniable fact.

  * * *

  She thought about Luke’s warning as she ran her errands. It bothered her more than she wanted to admit that he was even considering Sarah as a possible suspect. His evidence, if you could even call it that, was circumstantial at best, she thought. In the end, she had to go with her gut—and her gut said Sarah was a good person. A good person she needed to set some boundaries with pronto. She decided she would call Maggie’s house when she got home, see if she could talk to Sarah then and clear the whole matter up.

  She felt better after reaching that resolution. Having visited the bank and the drugstore already that morning, she was about to turn her little pickup truck in the direction of the community center so she could do her laps in the pool. As she turned down Main, though, she remembered she wanted to pick up some sandpaper at the hardware store. A spot was open right in front of the store—right next to a cherry red Bug, as it turned out.

  The bell gave its familiar jangle as she entered the store. She nodded to Shaw, who was half asleep behind the register. Duke Ellington was playing quietly in the background as she looked around for Sarah. Why would she be here? Was she looking for Dorsey? Dorsey realized her heart was racing. She told herself sternly to calm down and act like a civilized, reasonable adult—her only purpose in seeing Sarah was to cool things down between them. She told herself that, but her heart was still racing. She could hear Goodman talking to a customer around the corner, but couldn’t see who that was. Laughter in response to something Good said made her pulse jump up a notch—she recognized the voices of both Sarah and Maggie.

  She found herself heading down the paint aisle, ostensibly to get the sandpaper, but in reality to buy a little time before she had to speak to them. Since she had no idea what she was going to say, a little preparation seemed in order. Before she could assemble her scattered wits, though, all three of them came around the far corner of the aisle and headed her way.

  “Well, Dorsey, there you are,” Maggie said happily, walking toward her. “I called the house but nobody was home.”

  Goodman was behind Maggie, hovering over her like a benevolent grizzly. Sarah had stopped short in the aisle behind him when she caught sight of Dorsey. She and Dorsey exchanged a quick glance. It was like opening the oven door and getting that quick blast of heat, Dorsey thought. The mere fact of Sarah’s presence set her aflame. All her well-intentioned thoughts of breaking it off were blown away like thistle down on a hot summer wind. With an effort, she jerked her attention back to Maggie and Goodman. Good was focused on Maggie, the customer, but Maggie herself was looking rather oddly at Dorsey.

  “Dorse? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Dorsey said with a shrug and moved forward to join Maggie and Goodman where they had stopped. She realized they were back in front of the spray paint display.

  “Royal blue, you said?” Good asked Maggie. He unlocked the cabinet and selected a can. “How about this?”

  “Perfect,” Maggie said, beaming up at Good. He smiled back at her.

  “We decided to go with blue instead of red for the chairs,” Maggie explained to Dorsey.

  “Hmm? Oh. Great,” she said, trying to pay attention to Maggie while her entire body was focused on Sarah. She snuck a peek at her. The city girl was still hanging back about ten feet down the aisle, engrossed in a text message on her cell phone. She was looking good, if a bit somber, in a charcoal gray long-sleeved Henley shirt and black jeans. Dorsey loved the way her pale, slender neck looked emerging from the dark shirt. She longed to touch Sarah’s soft black spiky hair, to feel her warm body pressed up against her, just one more time…

  Goodman said jokingly to her, “You didn’t forget it’s your day off, right?”

  “Oh. No. Just needed some sandpaper.”

  “Well, take what you need,” he said generously.

  He was showing off for Maggie and Sarah, Dorsey thought wryly. Normally, he would make her pay the wholesale price for it, but she was not above taking advantage of his momentary fiscal lapse. She selected a pack f
rom the shelf opposite and put it in her backpack. Good, his arms full of blue paint cans, was shepherding Maggie past her toward the front counter. Sarah, still concentrating on her texting, drifted along behind. Dorsey walked with her to the front display window as Good took Maggie off to the register. There was an awkward ten foot square of empty space by the display window, remnant of an earlier renovation done by the Larues’ grandfather. He’d knocked down one wall, then put up another. Good mostly left the space empty these days—if nothing else, it made loading and unloading the front display window easier.

  Sarah snapped her phone closed and stuck it in her jeans pocket. “Sorry,” she said to Dorsey. “Just catching up with a friend in L.A.”

  Dorsey felt obscurely jealous, then realized how ridiculous that was. She nodded, at a loss for words now that they were face to face and alone for the moment. Just for something to do, she reached into the display window and made a miniscule adjustment to the rocking chair that was set up in there, next to a chest of drawers. Both were her work. A selection of household items was displayed on and around the furniture, reflecting the current sale. George the cat (not for sale) lazed in the rocker, enjoying the shaft of late morning sunlight that warmed the front window. He narrowed his eyes at Dorsey when she moved the chair slightly, then huffily jumped down and stalked off to a different spot.

  Sarah laughed at his reaction. “What a diva he is!” she said to Dorsey.

  Ira had been lurking in one of the half-open drawers of the dresser, which featured a beguiling display of smoke detectors and nine volt batteries. His head popped out when he heard George thump to the floor. He watched as the larger cat slowly walked the length of the display window, rubbing his side against the foot high back wall. Sensing that George’s mood was even fouler than usual, Ira prudently returned to the depths of the drawer. The big gray came to a stop in front of where Sarah was standing and stared up at her malevolently.

  “I wouldn’t try to pet him,” Dorsey warned in case Sarah was considering it. “He might let you pick him up, but then he’d just scratch the shit out of you. He’s done it to me more than once.”

  “And he’s your cat!” Sarah exclaimed.

  “Oh, no. The cats are Goodman’s. They were his idea—you know, small town, cute kitties in the hardware store window? He thought they would add flavor or atmosphere or something. Local color. Like the swing music playing all the time.”

  “You don’t like them?” Sarah asked.

  Dorsey shrugged. “His store, his cats. Doesn’t make any difference to me. It’s funny, though—the only person besides Good that George tolerates is Maggie, believe it or not.”

  “Oh, well, everybody loves Maggie,” said Sarah, as if stating the obvious. “And trust me—I have no intention of petting him. I’ve already suffered one animal attack this week and that was more than enough.”

  She pulled up the sleeve of her shirt to show Dorsey a raw-looking scratch on her pale forearm. “That damn Carmichael,” she explained. “We should have had the vet clip his nails when he had him the other night. He was chewing on the remote under the sofa the other day and I made the mistake of trying to retrieve it. The little shit.”

  “Ouch,” said Dorsey, sympathetically.

  Sarah glanced back in the display window. “You know, I love that dresser—there’s one kind of like it in my room at Maggie’s.”

  “I know,” Dorsey replied. “I made it.”

  “What? For real? You made those beautiful dressers?” Sarah exclaimed. She sounded more impressed than disbelieving.

  “Well, I guess ‘rebuilt’ would be a better word.”

  Dorsey gestured toward a small hand-lettered card in the corner of the display window: Re-imagined Furniture by Dorsey Larue.

  Sarah said, “Wow. I mean, I knew you were a carpenter, but this—this is amazing, Dorsey. Amazing and beautiful. You are really talented.”

  Dorsey felt a little embarrassed by this unexpected onslaught of compliments. But also extremely pleased that this woman she found so attractive, so compelling—so goddamn hot—liked her furniture, which was really just an extension of her. The two of them exchanged a long, wordless look which was charged with possibility. A small part of Dorsey’s mind tried to remind her this was exactly the road she had vowed not to go down again. Confused by her mixture of feelings, she broke off the look and stared blindly out the front window. Thankfully, Maggie had completed her transaction and was coming back to them with a bag full of clanking paint cans, followed by Good. Luke’s warning suddenly resurfaced in Dorsey’s mind, bringing a question to mind with it.

  “Did you return the red paint?” she asked Maggie curiously.

  “No, I’m sure I’ll use it for something eventually,” Maggie said. She was an avid arts-and-crafter. “Now, what are you up to this afternoon? Do you want to go shopping with us in Grover? We’re going to the new mall over there.”

  Shopping had never interested Dorsey, much to Maggie’s dismay, who considered it a higher calling. She never gave up hope, though, that her friend might magically transform into a fashionista one day.

  “No, thanks, Mags, I’m going swimming.”

  “Oh, sure, be healthy,” Maggie said, kidding. She sighed. “I know I should exercise more like you two do.”

  “You look fine, Maggie.”

  Dorsey had been expecting Sarah to say the words but, surprisingly, they came from Goodman. All three of the women turned to look up at him as he made this unexpected contribution to the conversation. Maggie blushed becomingly.

  Goodman had flushed a little himself, but stuck to his guns. “Well, I mean it,” he said somewhat defensively. “I think a woman looks good with a little flesh on her bones…I mean, uh…er…” Goodman suddenly seemed to recall an urgent task awaiting him down aisle two (Electrical/Lighting) and walked off without another word.

  Maggie looked shocked, but pleased. Sarah, laughing, squeezed her arm and said, “I think someone’s got an admirer, Mags.”

  Dorsey thought her older brother must be losing his mind—first, the free sandpaper, now this. She looked over at Shaw behind the register to see what his reaction was, if any. He was on his feet, looking out toward Main through the window. Dorsey turned to see what had caught his eye. Dr. Melba Porter was out there, examining the contents of their display window like an anthropologist studying the relics of a lost tribe of the Amazon. Feeling Dorsey’s gaze on her, she looked up, saw the three of them standing there and seemed to make up her mind to come in.

  Dorsey had met the woman, of course, but hadn’t really gotten to know her in the six months or so since she’d come to town. She got what little medical care she needed in Grover because the previous town doctor in Romeo Falls had been a homophobic old asshole who kept trying to cure her of her gayness via pamphlets and various Dire Warnings. Shaw too, got his allergy shots in Grover since the same irascible practitioner had refused to see him anymore after Shaw broke up with his granddaughter in high school.

  Dr. Melba was sort of attractive, in a sturdy, intense, humorless kind of way. In her early thirties, she was dark-haired, robust and serious in both her demeanor and attire. Dorsey had seen her ‘power-walking’ along the side of the highway in all kinds of weather, another big-city predilection that only emphasized her outsider status to the natives. Her inability to make small talk (or dislike of its inefficiency) was not winning over her new neighbors, but since she was the only doctor in town, her practice had a more or less captive audience. Dorsey suspected she might just be shy, an unforgivable sin in Romeo Falls. Maggie, who was her patient and who could always be counted on to see the good in people, said she seemed very smart. Dorsey had not always found that to be a given with doctors, but took Maggie’s word for it. Perhaps, she thought, Dr. Melba was one of those people who are so smart that they’re tongue-tied with all the information crowding their brains, forever finding themselves three or four steps ahead of the rest of us and doomed to eternally wait for those who will
never catch up.

  The bell did its thing as she came in. The good doctor headed straight for Maggie. “How’s your mother, Mary Margaret?” she said peremptorily.

  “She’s fine, Doctor. Resting at home. Thank you again for all your help last night,” Maggie told her.

  Having settled that, the doctor nodded brusquely and then turned to Dorsey. “How much for the rocking chair?” she asked.

  “Oh, um, gosh—I don’t know,” Dorsey said, completely surprised. She had sold so little of the furniture she had given up expecting anyone to take an interest. She didn’t even bother to put price tags on her pieces. Goodman was really just indulging her by letting her put a few things in the window. Besides, he had to stack the smoke detectors on something.

  “It’s for sale, isn’t it?” Melba persisted.

  “Well, yeah—” Dorsey started, but the doctor interrupted when her answer was too slow in coming.

  “What’s the price then?” she said, somewhere on the scale between eager and impatient. “You made it, right?”

  “Yeah, but it’s just a hobby,” Dorsey tried to explain.

  “Just a hobby?” Dr. Melba was fired up. “Are you kidding me? People in Chicago would go crazy for this stuff. I’ve got a friend who runs a design store there. This is exactly the kind of unique piece she’s always looking for. Do you mind if I send her a picture?” Melba was already whipping out her cell phone.

  “Well, okay, sure,” Dorsey said, a bit taken aback by the speed at which the doctor was moving. Melba was aiming her phone and taking shots of both the rocker and the dresser. Dorsey looked over at Maggie blankly. Her best friend was beaming, clearly thrilled by this recognition of Dorsey’s talent which she’d always loyally supported.

  Sarah said inquiringly, “Haven’t you sold your stuff before? I mean, it’s wonderful—I would think people would be flocking to buy it.”

  Dorsey snorted. “Not in this town.”

  “Why not?” Sarah asked.

  Dorsey gave her a look that spoke volumes, but just a one-word answer. “Cooties.”