Jilted

by Varina Denman

  He coughed and sputtered. “What the—”

  She sprayed him again. “Go on now. Git!”

  Suddenly I wasn’t so glad to be back at work.

  Dixie slammed the bottle on the counter and glared through the window. “Don’t pay him no mind, Lynda.”

  From where I stood at the sink, I was hidden from the dining room, but if I took a step in either direction, I would be exposed, and that man would be talking about me—even if he didn’t know I was the old lady. I felt cemented to the sink, unable to move in either direction. Maybe others in the dining room had already heard his accusation. Am I a suspect? Would they arrest me just on suspicion? I didn’t know what was reality and what was drama from the television shows I watched.

  I rinsed my hands one more time, wishing I could wash away the grime of gossip that seemed to taint me no matter what I did, and then I slapped them against my thighs to dry, trying to mask how badly they were shaking. “Another day, another difficulty.”

  “The man’s a cockroach,” Dixie growled.

  “Clearly.” Returning to my scrambled eggs, I did my best to go about my work as if nothing had happened. A lot of good it would do if I crumpled into a frazzled mess right there in front of my boss. I considered tossing the eggs and starting over with a fresh batch that hadn’t been tainted by a salt shaker, not to mention my hands, but when I remembered they would be going to the Rangers and Scouts, I changed my mind. The eggs were good enough.

  I poured the thick liquid onto the griddle and busied myself, stirring with a spatula.

  “Are they really saying I killed him?” I asked Dixie.

  “Most people are banking on suicide.” She lowered her voice almost apologetically. “But I reckon a few people around town have wondered as much.”

  Maybe Dixie had wondered as much.

  I scraped the eggs and flipped them over, but without thinking, I kept slicing and chopping until they looked more like rice than eggs.

  “Dixie?” A tentative voice called from the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. “My cinnamon rolls ready?” Pamela Sanders stood in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room.

  “Sure thing, Pam, come on back.”

  “I don’t want to bother you girls, but …” She came at me with palms outstretched, giving me a thorough hug. “Lynda, I didn’t know you were back at work. Good for you, girl.”

  I smiled. At least it felt like a smile.

  Dixie pulled the cinnamon rolls from the oven. “Say, how are things over at the Trapp Door?”

  “Couldn’t be better.” Pam stuffed herself into a corner near the dining-room doorway, settling in for a talk with her old friend. “Just got the coffee bar going yesterday, and last night I programmed the Keurig to start this morning, so when I open up at ten o’clock, the place should smell like hazelnut.” She giggled. “Corky Ledbetter and a few friends have planned a mothers’ get-together, and they asked me to pull out all the books I’ve got for preschoolers. Won’t they be surprised? Coffee and cinnamon rolls.”

  For a moment I mentally abandoned my scrambled eggs and the humid kitchen of Dixie’s Diner, where everyone might or might not have been talking about me. Instead, I was sitting on the soft couch in the back room of the Trapp Door. The scent of hazelnut coffee blended with the mustiness of the old books, and I bit into a warm cinnamon roll. I decided Pam might be onto something.

  My cell rang in my pocket. “Sorry, Dixie, I forgot to turn it off.”

  “No worries.” Dixie sounded funny, as if she could undo the weirdness of the Ranger’s comments simply by raising the pitch of her voice to a level of fake.

  I pulled my phone out to silence it but then noticed it was Velma. I glanced at Dixie.

  “Sure, hon.” She waved a pot holder. “Go right ahead.”

  Lifting the phone to my ear, I asked briskly, “Hey, what’s up, Velma?” My sister rarely called me in the mornings anymore, since Ansel stayed home now, keeping her company.

  “Can you come?” she asked quietly. “I need you to come.”

  “Um …”

  Pam’s eyebrows bunched together as she listened to my side of the conversation. She mouthed the words “Everything okay?”

  I shrugged. “I’m at the diner, but I can come by when I get off.”

  Velma didn’t answer, but Pam waved her hand and bounced a little, as if she needed to go to the bathroom.

  “Velma, do you want Pam to come over and sit with Ansel for a while?” I cut my eyes toward Pam, and she gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Pam?” Velma asked. “Pam’s a sweet girl.”

  Through the doorway, I noticed the Boy Scouts crowding around one table as two of them arm-wrestled. Chairs scraped against the floor, creating a momentary ruckus. I shoved my finger in my opposite ear and lowered my head so I could hear her. “Velma, is something wrong?”

  “Ansel’s gone.” Her voice held a tinge of a whine.

  “He’s what?” Surely I hadn’t heard her right. “What do you mean he’s gone? Where did he go?”

  The noise level increased as a skinny boy outwrestled a stocky one, and then there was a quiet lull.

  “He’s dead,” Velma said.

  I pressed my fingers to my lips, and Pamela and Dixie came to stand in front of me as I swallowed a sob.

  Velma whimpered on the phone. “I don’t know what to do, Lynda.”

  A mere twenty minutes ago, I had told myself I wanted to be more brave and bold, but now I changed my mind. Velma didn’t know what to do. My sister, who had raised nine children and easily managed a farmhouse at the same time, was suddenly at a loss.

  She sounded calm but deceivingly so. “He’s just … here.”

  The room seemed to close in, darkening around the edges like an old photograph. Ansel couldn’t be dead. He had doctors’ appointments scheduled. And treatment options to consider. Home health hadn’t even scheduled a preliminary consult.

  “I’ll be right there.” I pulled my phone away from my ear and held it at arm’s length. I stood dazed before Pam and Dixie, my eyes focused on Pam’s concho belt. “She said Ansel’s just there, and she doesn’t know what to do. But of course she doesn’t know what to do. It’s a dead body … probably lying in the recliner … and it’s Ansel.”

  I couldn’t think or reason or move, but then Pam’s gentle arm went around my shoulders, pulling me into one of her side hugs, but this time, it didn’t bother me nearly as much as before. “Shh. It’s all right, Lynda. It’s natural.”

  I shivered. “It’s not natural for me. And not for Velma.”

  “I know, sweetie. Dixie and me? We’ll call nine-one-one, and the volunteer fire department will meet you there. They’ll know how to handle it. They’ll tend to Ansel, and you can take care of Velma.”

  “Okay, Pam.” I wiped wetness from my cheeks, and my gaze swept the kitchen. “I can’t leave the diner. The new girl quit.” The statement sounded absurd yet sensible at the same time.

  “I’ll help out here.” Pam’s head jerked toward Dixie, who nodded firmly and pulled her phone out of her apron.

  “But Corky’s coming to the Trapp Door,” I mumbled.

  “That’s not your worry, hon,” Pamela said. “I’ll call Corky, and she’ll call the other mothers. They’ll understand.” She squeezed my hands. “Go take care of Velma. She needs you.”

  It felt as if I had rusty gears in my brain that wouldn’t allow my thoughts to flow, but in spite of it, I knew I needed to get to Velma, and I needed to hurry. I stumbled toward the doorway, pulling at my apron, which seemed to be knotted.

  Dixie talked into her phone, telling the dispatcher that Ansel Pickett had died out at his home place. Pam walked with me toward the front door, patting me and speaking soft, soothing words. The Boy Scouts kept arm wrestling as if the world hadn’t just ended.

 
Ansel couldn’t be gone.

  My feet stopped working before I got to the door, and I turned to Pamela, hating the tears that streamed down my face. “I don’t even have a car,” I said. “Clyde dropped me off.”

  Pam thrust her keys into my hand. “You can do this, Lynda. You can.” She waved me away, wiping the tears in her own eyes. “Go, now,” she said. “Just go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Clyde couldn’t believe Ansel was dead. He had seen the body yesterday, stood by as paramedics covered it with a sheet. He had felt the stark emptiness in the house, and still he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe the timing. The Pickett family, Lynda and Ruthie in particular, were already devastated by troubles, and they didn’t need a death to deal with. They needed Ansel. Everyone had always said Velma held the family together, but now Clyde could see that Ansel himself had been the Krazy Glue. He had been Velma’s strength, and together they had formed an unbreakable unit of family love.

  A scorpion crawled past Clyde’s boot as he leaned against the hood of his sedan. In the fading sunlight, he sat in the parking lot of the Tahoka High School football stadium among a sea of cars painted with festive shoe polish and window paint. But Clyde felt no excitement for the game. Even as he listened to the announcer blare details of the Panther-Bulldog showdown, he found his mind wandering.

  He nudged the scorpion with his toe, causing it to curl its tail until it resembled a ballerina holding a pistol above her head. The scorpion froze, held a threatening pose, and waited for him.

  Clyde didn’t want to be at a football game a day after watching Ansel’s body being taken away from his home and his family. He wanted to be with Lynda, holding her, sheltering her, keeping anyone else from hurting her ever again. When Velma’s kids had started arriving in town, Lynda had gone back to her own house, and Clyde wanted to go there now, but JohnScott had asked him to go to the game. Even though the assistant coaches were sure to text JohnScott the stats, the coach still wanted a closer connection to his team.

  He wants you to go because he can’t, Lynda had said softly.

  Yep.

  Clyde had mentioned that she could come, too, but she had been understandably distant. She could barely muster the strength to eat her dinner, much less get out and go to an athletic event. She wasn’t hiding this time, though. She was just tired.

  He pulled his boot away from the scorpion, giving it the same distance Lynda needed, and gradually the ballerina lowered her pistol. But she didn’t fully relax. Instead, her eight legs picked across the gravel until she lay positioned toward Clyde with her pincers lifted. If scorpions could sniff the air, then that one was doing it.

  A movement at the gate of the stadium caught Clyde’s attention, and he noticed Susan making her way toward him. She inched past the cars next to him, moving sideways, then took two long steps and stopped at his side.

  “Susan.”

  When she didn’t speak right away, Clyde felt the urge to get in his car and leave. No telling what she was up to, but whatever it was, he didn’t need it.

  “I’m sorry about Ansel,” she muttered.

  “Yeah, it’s no good.”

  “And I’m sorry about the way Neil’s been acting.”

  Clyde felt foolish. As if they were some sort of secret-service spy team meeting in a darkened alley and speaking in code. He didn’t answer.

  “He’s obsessed with keeping you away from Fawn, to the extent he’s not even thinking straight.”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s never been able to share. I’m not sure it even has anything to do with Nathan. He just doesn’t want you to have anything to do with his daughter.”

  Clyde frowned at Susan’s strappy high-heeled sandals, then ground the heel of his boot into the scorpion. “Whose daughter?”

  One of her sandals crunch-crunch-crunched the gravel. “You’re right. She’s not his daughter, but you’ve got to admit, he has a bond with her, even if it’s weak. He figures if he keeps you away from the baby, you won’t have any reason to be near Fawn.” She hesitated. “But he’s always underestimated you.”

  Clyde shifted his jaw. “He didn’t want a relationship with her until I came home.”

  “Neil never does anything without being provoked. If he doesn’t feel threatened in some way, he can’t make a decision to save his life.”

  He glanced at Susan with her too-big hair and suddenly felt a mixture of disgust and pity. How had he ever thought he loved her? It seemed so long ago, and his memories were as dark and foggy as a reflection in an antique mirror, but it was high time he made things right. “Susan, I’m sorry for the trouble I caused you back then.”

  Her hand fluttered to her throat like one of those helpless Civil War ladies in a big hoopskirt, but she shook her head as forcefully as a modern teenager. “I’m the one who should apologize. I was too weak to stand up for myself, and I did just what my father told me to do. My actions were deplorable, as were my family’s.”

  “We were both at fault, I reckon.”

  A lone trumpet from the stadium blared a few notes, and Clyde’s thoughts were momentarily overpowered by the brassy tune. Maybe his memories were overpowered, too. Twenty-two years ago, Susan hadn’t been what he thought—she was weak—but life had dealt her a hard hand, and she had grown stronger because of it.

  “Since my wedding day,” she said, “I’ve learned a lot about my husband.” Her unblinking eyes became two black olives floating in cups of milk. “He was raised in a stiff environment, and I’m not sure he knows how to be civil.” She flinched. “I mean … most people don’t know him, really. Underneath all the pain.”

  “Pain?”

  “I think he feels enormous guilt.”

  “You think or you know?”

  She flicked her wrist. “After years of counseling to deal with my own guilt, I think I recognize the symptoms.”

  Clyde lowered his gaze to the gravel.

  “Think about it,” she said. “You and I made one mistake when we were young, and it changed our lives forever.” She glared at him. “How is Neil any different? He made one decision when he was young, and every other bad decision he’s made since then was connected to the first one. All because guilt can influence a person’s choices and corrode his mind.”

  Clyde wasn’t sure he liked where her train of thought was leading, but he didn’t say as much.

  “And of course his mistakes have affected you and me,” she said.

  “And Fawn and Nathan.”

  “And JohnScott and Lynda and Ruthie, and the list goes on, but back when he was twenty-one?” Susan shook her head. “He had no way of knowing the chain of events he was setting in place—the domino effect. When he took my father’s money and let them send you to prison, he felt more guilt than one person can bear. Trust me.”

  “Are you saying he has no choice now?”

  “No,” she said swiftly. “I’m just saying I understand, and … I’m scared for him, Clyde.”

  He squinted at her, wondering.

  “He’s not been himself lately.” She looked over her shoulder. “I think he may be in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Clyde wouldn’t doubt it if she told him Neil was guilty of tax evasion or embezzlement or some other white-collar crime his lawyers could cover up for him.

  “It’s probably nothing, really. He just seems nervous and sort of paranoid.” Her thin shoulders lifted and fell helplessly. “Sometimes I think he’s having a breakdown.”

  Clyde peered down at the dead curls of the scorpion, so small and helpless now, but he could think of nothing to say to Susan. She had ignored him for two years, and he had avoided her right back. Now her openness and determination caught him off guard. “You understand him.” Clyde nodded. “And you stay.”

  “I stay?”

  She sounded surprised
, but she shouldn’t have been. She stayed. She cared. She understood Neil.

  “I love him.” Her confession whooshed from her lips like a quickly deflating balloon, but as she continued, the airflow got slower and slower until it petered down to a near whisper. “I couldn’t tell you why or how or even when, but I love him.” She bowed her head. “Sure, there have been times I almost left. Times when I should have for Fawn’s sake. Back then I stayed out of fear or obligation or piety. But now? Now I simply stay.”

  “I’m glad for you.” Maybe. “Is that why you came over here?”

  “No.” She peered at the top row of bleachers, to the flags of the Bulldog band. She studied them as though they might blow away in a windstorm, and then she shivered. “Clyde”—her voice was scratchy and faltering—“I heard something up in the stands.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s a troop of Boy Scouts up there. They’ve been working with the Rangers out at the lake.” She lowered her voice. “They found the rest of those bones at Picnic Hollow.”

  Clyde shifted, gripping the edge of the hood. “Picnic Hollow? We were just out there.” His eyes were trained on Susan, but his mind was racing with thoughts of Lynda. He had to get back to Trapp before she heard this from someone else, but something occurred to him. “So it’s not Hoby. That’s way too far from the truck site.” Relief eased his mind. Relief that Lynda wouldn’t have to deal with another visit from Hector, wouldn’t have to wait for the results of DNA tests, wouldn’t have to be the center of any more of the craziness. But then he faltered. This meant she was still married. He pushed away from the car, shoving the thought from his mind. That didn’t matter right now. He dug in his pocket for his keys.

  “No, Clyde.” Susan’s hair-sprayed fuzz quivered as she shook her head. “The Rangers are still running tests to see if it’s him.”

  He blinked, trying to make sense of what she was saying. “So these bones don’t go with the others? These are out of the truck?”

  “They go together,” she snapped. “They found everything except the thigh and pelvic bone.”