Fry Me a Liver

by Delia Rosen

  I sighed a big, trembling sigh. “I’m sort of bushed. No pun intended. But, I mean, you’re here already if you want to look around.”

  He was still looking back. “Sure.”

  That was all he said. He swung the truck around and went back to the house. I felt a little better having spoken to him, pretty sure now that he hadn’t come to put a bomb in the trash can or something. But then, I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t either.

  He drove back, I followed, and, while I pulled into the driveway, he walked around, though it was really starting to get dark.

  “You got a patio light?” he asked.

  “Blown out,” I said. Which is why it wasn’t on. I was always in a rush in the morning and usually got home when it was dark, not the easiest way to change a light bulb that required a step stool.

  “Get a bulb,” he said. “I’ll do it for you.”

  “You really don’t—”

  “It’ll help me see,” was all he said.

  I said okay, went inside, and got the stool and bulb. The joke of this all, of course, was that I really didn’t want anything done on the lawn. Not unless I was going to sell the place, a thought that was starting to noodge me in the back of my brain. It took all of a minute and there was light.

  He hopped down and looked around. “Boy,” was all he said.

  “I know. I never had a lawn in New York.”

  “You city people,” he said. “Did you have a car?”

  “No—”

  “But you got one of those. Lawns, your home, should be just as important. It makes a statement about our pride as a homeowner, improves our mood with its beauty and aroma. This is depressing.”

  I was beginning to think the guy was sincere. I was guessing—call it a crazy Gwen Katz hunch—that mad bombers didn’t talk so passionately about foliage.

  He walked around, felt the soil, pulled up some clumps, brushed off his hands, shook his head, and paced the grounds like a prisoner on his exercise break, part shuffle, part introspection. After about five minutes he came back.

  “It’ll cost a lot to do what I have in mind, what I think needs to be done,” he said.

  “Blow everything up?” I asked.

  He looked at me strangely. “Boy, you have an odd sense of vocabulary.”

  That was an odd statement, but I understood it. “Yes, my outlook is a little weird.”

  “To finish what I was saying, every square inch of this yard needs to be turned over by hand,” he said. “You may need a lot of new soil since this stuff is dry and depleted. Not surprising since there hasn’t been a lot of rotting foliage out here to nourish it. Plus I’d have to build some areas up to control the runoff when you water and when it rains. There’s also going to be good quality seed and that’s just the basics. I’d recommend a garden, some hedges, maybe even a little fountain to add a touch of elegance, a centerpiece. Anyway, I can work something up if you’re serious. Take some photos when the light is better so I can show you what things will look like.”

  “And give me a price,” I added.

  “Of course.”

  That would be my out. I’d feel a little guilty making him do all that work, but I really couldn’t afford it with the deli down . . . though it wasn’t the worst idea in the world. Even if I decided to put Nashville in my rearview mirror, I’d still need to “doll things up,” as my aunt Rose used to say.

  Feeling silly for my concerns, I walked Gar to his truck. He hadn’t loosened up much but, as he’d said, he was an artist. He took this stuff seriously.

  “Thanks for taking the initiative on this,” I said. “Sorry I didn’t call.”

  “I’m sure you’ve been preoccupied,” he said.

  “Not with anything I’ve really wanted to do.”

  “Except to come and talk with me about landscaping.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He regarded me before he got into the truck. “How did you happen to know where I was this morning?”

  The question caught me flat-footed. “Oh. I just figured you’d be at Josephine’s place.”

  “Why? She’s not my only client.”

  “Someone mentioned you were doing work for her,” I said. “As a matter of fact it may have been Josephine—I was at her restaurant.”

  “Hmmm,” he hummed.

  “Hmmm what?”

  “That’s not very likely. She doesn’t enjoy sharing.”

  “Well, then it must have been someone else,” I said.

  “It must have been,” he said.

  “You sound suspicious.”

  “No. Just a little bit puzzled.” He smirked and got into the truck. I don’t think he knew it was Moss—how could he?—but he knew I was lying. If he cared, he didn’t let on. “By the way,” he said as he fired up his engine, “while I was looking back at your car, I could’ve sworn I saw somebody tailing you.”

  The base of my spine felt little electric eels writhing around. “Seriously?”

  “Why would I lie to you?” he asked.

  He pointed. I looked back just as a car, its lights off, was turning and leaving Bonerwood Drive.

  “You don’t suppose it could have been Josephine?” I asked.

  He actually honked out a little laugh at that.

  “Why is that funny?” I asked. “You said she’s possessive.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t say she’s crazy like that lady from the cartoon, the one who wanted to turn dogs into coats!”

  It took me a moment. “You mean Cruella De Vil? From 101 Dalmatians?”

  “I don’t know. I saw it with my daughter when she was little.”

  “You have a daughter?” I asked ridiculously—because he had just said so.

  “I do,” he told me. “She’s fourteen now and lives with her mother in Birmingham, Alabama.”

  Ordinarily I would have asked a follow-up question because it was the first really personal, human thing the man had said to me. But my eyes were still on Edmondson and my mind and lower back were still preoccupied with the idea that some unknown third party may have been out there watching me for reasons unknown.

  “I’ll let you know about the lawn in a few days,” Gar said.

  I shot him a look that bordered on startled. In just a second or two, I’d forgotten he was there.

  “Yes—I’d appreciate that. And thanks for coming out. Sorry I was so—I don’t know. Whatever I was.”

  He gave me another of his slightly critical looks and drove away. I watched him go with a trace of regret. The brake lights threw a blood red color on the street and then it was dark. And quiet. And lonely. I briefly considered driving out again and seeing if I could find whoever may have been watching me—but that didn’t seem to make any sense. I had no idea who to look for or which way to go. The joke about this all was that I had set out to trap someone who was probably innocent—and, in so doing, found out that someone else was probably watching me.

  I got my stuff from the car, the tools that I was going to employ to become an ace detective, not one of which I had actually used. Feeling stupid on top of everything else, I went back inside. I turned off the outside light—it was nice to have it back—but I didn’t bother turning on any inside lights. Instead, I pulled a kitchen chair to the dark window near the front door and sat looking at the street. I couldn’t see very far, but I would certainly be able to see if anyone came back.

  Now that Gar was gone, they might. If they did, I wanted to see them.

  I kept the cell phone on my lap, plugged in so the battery wouldn’t plotz, Detective Bean’s number under my thumb. My heart had slowed, but not by that much. I ignored the cats, who were twining round and round at my feet precisely because they felt ignored. My eyes adjusted to the dark, my ears filtered out the familiar noises of the neighborhood: the occasional dog and airplane, the elderly Camerons next door who sat outside on warmish nights like this, the cars whose music and motors were familiar to me. I wanted whoever had been here to come back. I wante
d someone to blame, a focus for the turmoil I felt.

  At some point I fell asleep. I woke shortly after ten p.m. according to that device-of-all-trades, the DVR, and as my eyes came to life, I looked outside and saw something that brought me awake:

  There was a car parked out front.

  Chapter 20

  I’m not what the hyperventilating media would call a “gun nut,” but right then I wished I owned a firearm.

  I turned from the window and started to punch 911. I didn’t think it was a good idea to call Detective Bean at this hour. I wanted to retain her goodwill. I had my finger on the last “1” when I heard a door slam.

  Someone wanting to do me harm probably would shut the door softly. For that matter, they probably would not pull up in front of the house. I canceled the call and decided to wait. It was only about five seconds but it felt a lot longer. Even though I was expecting someone, I gasped and started when the bell rang.

  I had to clear my throat in order to speak; my heart was hitting that hard and high in my chest.

  “Who’s there?” I yelled.

  “It’s Raylene,” said the voice.

  My world changed there and then. Fear gave way to relief and an overriding sadness was replaced with hope. I knew she had signed with that dirtbag attorney Dickson, but even if she was here to explain why, I wanted to see a familiar, maybe-friendly face. I went to the door, unlocked it, saw my senior waitperson standing there—in civvies—and smiled at her. Her expression was blank when I opened the door; it twisted into something resembling a smile as she gave a little “hi” motion with her hand and walked in.

  “It’s really good to see you,” I told her. Then I asked, suddenly concerned, “Is there news?”

  “No,” she said. “Nothing new with A.J. and Thom. Which is a good thing, I guess.”

  I nodded and shut the door. She took a few small steps in. We stood facing one another, she in the center of the room, me with my back to the door. The cats emerged from wherever they had been hiding to wind round and round her legs. She bent to pet them.

  “How are you?” I asked, just to break the strained silence.

  “Been better,” she replied.

  “I guess all of us have been,” I said. “Do you want anything? Tea? Beer?”

  “No thanks. Just stopped and had a boilermaker on the way over. That’s enough.”

  “You had to tank up to face me?” I asked. There was no sense pussyfooting, even with pussies at her feet.

  “I had to do it to face myself,” she answered. “That’s why I sat out there at the top of the street, just working up the courage to come here.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “To tell you that I can’t do it.”

  “Can’t do what?”

  “The lawsuit. You do know about that, right?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well, I can’t be part of it,” she said. “I can’t. I was thinking about it all day, ashamed that I had even agreed to let that man represent me. Not even me,” she laughed mirthlessly. “He said he was representing ‘my interests,’ whatever those are.”

  “Collecting vintage Barbie dolls,” I teased.

  “Yeah, that’s not what he was doing . . . though with the money he thought we’d get, I probably could’ve bought a really, really mint Barbie Penthouse on eBay,” she smiled. The smile faded quickly. “I know the legal stuff isn’t against you, really. And I know that whatever money we might get wouldn’t come from your bank account, either. But it’s wrong.”

  “You don’t know what it means to hear you say that.”

  “I sorta do,” she said. “It means that if I can get the others to see it that way, we can work on rebuilding the deli instead of building walls between us.”

  “True, but it means a lot more than that,” I said. “You know there was nothing I, we, anyone could have done to foresee this, to prevent it. We still don’t even know who did it and why. How do you intercept something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that I know this would’ve broke your uncle’s heart and I know it’s probably doing the same to you. I had to come here before I went to see the others. I didn’t want you to spend the night thinking about it, because I know that’s exactly what you would’ve done.”

  “True enough,” I admitted. “Can I ask what got you to that point?”

  “Spending the money in my head,” she said. “I asked myself if that’s who I really am. I mean, if money was so important, I could sell this gorgeous body of mine, right?”

  “To a certain clientele,” I suggested.

  “The kind who appreciate a vintage wine,” she laughed. “I hear ya. Thing is, I’m not about money. I have enough to do everything I want to do. I love our little coop, I love our farmer, and I love our mama hen—Thom, I mean. And Thom? She’d never go along with this. That would set us against you and against her. We’d never recover from that. And for what? Stuff to put on my shelf?”

  I went over and embraced her. She hugged me back. We stood there for a minute or more. I felt her warm tears on my neck and I held her tighter.

  “I have to confess something,” I said into her ear.

  “I hope it’s not something that’s gonna make me feel like I just did something very stupid,” she said.

  “No,” I assured her. “Until you did this, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to rebuild. Now, nothing’s going to stop me.”

  We gripped each other tighter and I sniffed back my own little wave of emotion. The cats mewed—with jealousy or with approval, I did not know. Or care. This was one of those moments that, whenever the night was cold or the horizon was bleak, would warm me to the soles of my feet.

  I whispered my thanks and then, without another word, with just a tight grin to hold back tears and relief in her eyes, she turned and left.

  I sat for a while on the sofa, thinking about the courage Raylene had shown, when I suddenly remembered what I’d promised her. That the deli would return.

  “Okay,” I said to myself. “You’ve made that commitment. Now what?”

  The strange thing was—and this was something I had done for my entire life—I didn’t hit a pause button and reconsider. I didn’t ask myself, “Pitzel, is that really what you want?” I had made a promise to someone I’d known not even two years and now I intended to honor that promise.

  Is this the way it’s supposed to work? I wondered. Life. My life. Shouldn’t I decide what’s best for me and then let everyone else try and fit their lives into that? That was what most people did. But Raylene hadn’t done that, I told myself. She had just taken the tougher, less convenient road, turning down easy money for the chance to go back to work.

  The phone rang. The landline. Only my staff had that. I grabbed the call in the kitchen.

  It was Newt.

  “Please don’t hang up,” he said. “Please.”

  “I won’t,” I assured him.

  “Boss, I messed up, I know it. And I’m not asking you to give me a pass on that. Oh, and I am sorry I’m calling so late. But I wanted you to know that I got a text from Raylene saying she just was talking to you about the lawsuit and I’m totally onboard with her. That dude Dickson—I told him what I did with Benjamin and he told me that had nothing to do with this thing. He said I could still get money. I know you’re not going to believe this, but money had nothing to do with me helping him. I—Jesus, I just didn’t want to be a short-order cook anymore. He had a way out. And I honestly don’t know if I want to be a cook when you reopen, which Raylene said you want to do. All I know is I don’t want you to hate me. Going with Dickson—”

  He ended abruptly. I thought he was going to say more and I hadn’t formulated a response.

  “Boss?”

  “I’m here,” I said. My voice was flat. No, more than that. It was unforgiving.

  This was not a teenager I was talking to. It was a man. A young man, a provincial man, but a man. A man who had made a dumb decision and
abetted industrial espionage. Now he was looking for absolution. I didn’t know if he had actually snubbed Dickson or if, based on my response, he’d go back to him. I hated the fact that I trusted Newt so little because of what he’d done.

  But what if it had been a stupid, spur-of-the-moment mistake?

  Didn’t I come down here on an impulse? I asked myself. Didn’t I run from my former husband, from my career, from my hometown—all because I needed a life preserver, any life preserver?

  And I had a decade on Newt. The guy could be truly repentant. And while I had a right to be angry, was it smart to stay angry? What I said and did now was going to ripple through both our lives.

  “Please say something,” he said. “Even if it’s to tell me—”

  “Welcome back,” I said.

  I heard a small intake of air, like someone sucking a hit of helium from a balloon. Which was an appropriate metaphor, since Newt’s voice was higher when he swore from relief and thanked me.

  “Don’t thank me,” I said. “Just learn this much: when you have a problem, take it to your friends. Take it to the people who care about you, not people who want to use you.”

  “I’m shaking,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this.”

  “Like how?”

  “So scared,” he said. “Somebody tried to sell me a swamp and I came really close to trying to build a future on it. My granpaw did that in Louisiana but there was a market for alligator skins then.”

  It wasn’t an entirely successful analogy, but I wasn’t going to dispute it then and there. Especially because my cell phone was ringing.

  “How about I call you in a day or two and we all get together?” I said. “I’ve got someone on the cell.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said. “And thank you. Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” I said—not as enthusiastically as him, but enough to leave the door open to continue repairing the relationship.

  I took the incoming call. I had thought it might be A.J. Two or Luke or Dani also backing out of the suit. It was none of the above. It was Detective Bean.

  “I know it’s very late, Gwen, but I’m still at work. You got a second?” she asked.