Jayden started with the story about taking Dynamite for his afternoon walk and then went right into the bit about the horsefly. “I tell you, that Tiffany has surprised me. She’s tougher than I thought she would be, and she’s got real talent with her drawing. I could almost smell that pile of crap when she sketched it with a horsefly flittering around the top of it. When we got home, they got into the insect book on the shelf in there, and the giggling started.”
“Why?” Elijah enjoyed listening to her spin on the stories.
“The female horseflies are the ones that bite, and they don’t care if it’s humans or animals. They need the blood to produce eggs. The males don’t bite,” Jayden answered.
“I knew that, but why would the girls laugh about it?” Elijah asked.
“They said it had to be a boy horsefly. A girl one would be more interested in making eggs for babies than playing around in a warm pile of stinky crap. Then they likened the horse crap to sports,” she said, “and it went from there. I was sitting in the living room listening with one ear, but I found out that they are all three sexually active, and we took their birth control pills from them when we took away their purses. They were moaning about their boyfriends having to use condoms for a whole month when they got back home.”
“They’re not old enough to . . . ,” Elijah stammered.
“Evidently they are, but Carmella said that none of them would have a boyfriend when they got home because boys didn’t wait two months to get laid,” Jayden told him.
Elijah was a seasoned veteran, so he didn’t blush, but he felt heat rising from his neck. His mind went back to his first sexual experience. He’d been seventeen and his girlfriend was a year younger. He’d taken her to a party on the beach down around Texas City.
“Thinkin’ about your first time?” Jayden asked.
“Busted!” He turned up his bottle of beer and took a long gulp, then set it back down. “But being the gentleman that I am, I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Well, I’ll just put a hand grenade in whatever thoughts you might be harboring about that first time.” She laughed. “According to my girls, most boys don’t know how to make a girl feel all warm and gooey—their words, not mine—inside. They’re slam, bam, thank you, ma’am, and on to the next girl, kind of like the old male horsefly does when he flits from one pile of horse crap to the next.”
Elijah couldn’t do anything but shake his head. “So, who is the horse crap?”
“According to them, it’s whoever their boyfriends are home screwing around with right now,” Jayden answered.
“But it’s not them, right?”
“Oh, no, they are all”—Jayden giggled—“glasses of five-hundred-dollar champagne that the boy horsefly has left behind for the skanky old crap piles.” She dissolved in laughter.
“I’m not sure I want to hear about the horses and the hair after this.” Elijah laughed with her.
“The rest is a little anticlimactic after all that.” Jayden finished off her beer. “A snake spooked Dynamite, and Ashlyn had to chase him down. She did fairly well with him, but when she was taking Thunder back from the half-mile marker, he got away from her, and it took all three of them to chase him down. They cussed and ranted about it the whole time they were in the shower. Ashlyn says that it’s a good thing she didn’t have a gun, or he would be coyote food tonight. They were all so tired that they didn’t even argue with me about the bedtime curfew.”
“And the hair story?”
Jayden told him about Ashlyn whacking off her pink streak. “Ashlyn was told she had to cut the pink or dye it. She had been tucking it up under her cap, but tonight she sawed it off with her razor and gave it to me. I’m tellin’ you, I’ve got some tough girls.”
“From what I can see, they’ve got a tough counselor,” Elijah told her.
“Thank you for that,” she said. “Now tell me about your day.”
“Well, it sure wasn’t as exciting as yours. I didn’t play dodge the horse apples or horseflies, either, but I . . .” He paused and took a deep breath.
She laid a hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”
Her gentle touch made him think of all the times Mary had patted him on the back. He probably shouldn’t say a thing, since it might spook Jayden, but he needed to talk to someone. “It’s about Mary and Henry. I’m worried about them both, but more about her. They’ve looked forward to retiring all year, and it seems like Mary is going downhill lately. I’ve noticed her grabbing her chest a few times, and I’m scared that she’s got heart trouble.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know what he’d do without her. They’ve only had each other all these years and Henry wouldn’t last six months if he lost Mary. She works too hard during the sessions . . .”
“Have you talked to Henry about it, or suggested she see a doctor?” Jayden asked.
“I have, but Henry is in denial, and Mary won’t do anything to jeopardize this retirement trip they’ve planned. It starts with a European cruise and ends with them settling into a pretty little village down on the coast near Beaumont.” Elijah covered her hand with his and squeezed gently, and then quickly moved his hand away when he realized what he’d done. “After all the girls they’ve helped, they deserve a few years together. I want them to have nothing to do but enjoy time together and play dominoes with their new neighbors.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jayden asked, concern in her voice.
“Just listening to me put it all into words helps,” he said.
She moved her hand away, stood up, and began to pace back and forth across the floor. “Starting tomorrow morning, instead of exercising with you and the girls, I’ll go help make breakfast. The girls don’t need supervising on their jobs, so I can be there for the other two meals, too. I like to cook.”
Elijah shook his head. “I can’t ask you to take on all that, plus take care of your girls.”
“You’re not asking.” She sat back down. “I’m volunteering.”
A picture of Skyler flashed through his mind. She would never offer to do so much work—not without getting paid double, and probably not even then.
“Then I’ll pay you more money,” he said.
“Nope,” Jayden told him. “I’m not doing it for money.”
Elijah wanted to hug her, as a friend, to show his gratitude, but he thought of the implications of such a thing and just nodded. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Mary reminds me of my granny. I’d do this for her in a heartbeat,” Jayden told him.
He got to his feet and picked up both empty bottles. “You’ll let me know if you think she needs a doctor. We may have to take her to the emergency room kicking and screaming, but it would be worth being on her bad side if it means keeping her with us.”
“Of course. I will, and I’ll be honest.” She smiled up at him. “Good night, Elijah.”
“Sleep tight, and don’t let the horseflies bite,” he said.
“That’s funny,” she said.
The last person who had said Elijah was funny was Matty, the morning that they all went out on the mission. Elijah had told them a joke about a couple of country boys and a mule, and Matty said that he’d be laughing about that all day. “You’re funny,” he’d said as he grabbed up his gear and walked out the door.
Elijah still wasn’t sleepy, so he sat down on the porch of his cabin and watched the clouds play hide-and-seek with the moon. Sometime around midnight he awoke with a start with a kink in his neck from falling asleep with his head propped against the back of the wooden Adirondack chair.
He groaned when he got to his feet, went inside, and saw how late it was. He’d have to be up in less than five hours and Jayden wouldn’t even be there. A part of him wished that he had kept his mouth shut concerning his fears about Mary.
“Stop it!” he scolded himself as he climbed into bed. “You’re being selfish.”
“Oh. My. Goodness. Do you already h
ave coffee brewing?” Mary asked. “What are you doing up so early, Jayden? The siren hasn’t even blown for the girls to line up for exercises.”
“My girls are showing me that they can be trusted. I’m used to getting up early, and I need something to do. Can I help?” Jayden asked.
“Only a foolish person turns down help.” Mary tossed Jayden a bibbed apron. “Henry usually helps me get things going before he milks the cows, but he’s not feeling too well this morning. I told him to sleep in another half hour and then get up and around. Tell the truth, I’m a little worried about him.”
“Oh?” Jayden slipped the apron over her head and tied the waist strings. Elijah was worried about Mary, and she was worried about Henry. Poor darlings, that had to be stressful for all of them.
“It’s probably just fear that something will happen before we retire. My daddy retired on a Friday. He and Mama had planned a little trip back to Maryland to see her sister the very next week, but Daddy died on Saturday morning. I’ve been worried that something like that will happen to one of us. We’re so close, and . . .” She wiped a tear away with the tail of her apron. “Listen to me acting like I’ve got a say-so in the day I take my last breath. Let’s talk about something else. Can you make good biscuits?”
“You bet I can,” Jayden answered. “After that happening to your dad, I can understand why you’d be worried. Does Henry need to see a doctor?”
“I don’t think so. I think he’s just needin’ to see Joe. That’s the last one of his Vietnam buddies. Ever since we bought this place, the guys all came and stayed for a week in our off-season after Christmas. There’s just Joe and Henry left now, but there used to be six of them, and their wives, if they were married, came with them. Henry’s been talking about him a lot lately and wishing he could see him more often.” Mary took a big bowl of eggs from the refrigerator. “I reckon that at seventy-five, our old bodies are just gettin’ tired of early mornings and all-day work.”
“Good Lord!” Jayden gasped. “I had no idea that you were that age. I thought you were both coming up on normal retirement age—sixty-five.”
Gramps died when he was younger than Mary, and that was only two years after they had buried Granny. Jayden’s mama said that he died of a broken heart—she’d been surprised it hadn’t happened even sooner than it did. Just thinking about the day they buried her grandfather brought a sharp pang to Jayden’s heart. She hadn’t known Mary and Henry very long, but she could see that they had the same kind of love that her grandparents had had. Like Elijah, she wanted them to have some time to enjoy life before the end.
“Thank you for that.” Mary set the eggs down and went up on tiptoe to give Jayden a hug. “And thanks for helping out. Do you think you could do this every morning? That way Henry can get on about his jobs. Even though he don’t say as much, he’s as worried about me as I am him.”
“I sure can. How about for dinner and supper, too?” Jayden asked. “I can dart in and out between meals to check on my girls.”
“That would be wonderful. We could even pay you a little extra,” Mary offered.
“That’s not a bit necessary,” Jayden said. “To me, this will be more like a vacation than a job.”
“Well, if you change your mind . . .” Mary laid a hand on her chest and took a couple of deep breaths.
“You okay?” Jayden asked.
“I’m fine. Just a little heartburn.” Mary started cracking eggs into a bowl.
Jayden could full well understand why Elijah was worried. The whole time she made biscuits, she wondered if she should tell him about Mary’s fears for Henry’s health as well. Maybe both of them should retire after this eight-week session instead of going straight into another two months with another set of girls.
“Hey, what are you doing in here?” Novalene asked as she came inside and headed toward the coffeepot. “I figured you’d be out there with Elijah and the girls.”
“I’m going to give the ladies a little rope and help Mary in the kitchen,” Jayden said.
“I’d offer to help, but I can’t boil water without the neighbors calling the fire truck.” Novalene laughed at her own joke. “Truth is that my idea of cooking is calling one of the two dozen numbers I have beside my phone and getting them to deliver my food. When I was teaching, I ate breakfast and lunch at school, and I picked up takeout on the way home. No wonder I’ve never been married.”
“There’s men out there who wouldn’t mind eating takeout.” Mary stuck a whisk into the bowl of eggs and began to whip them into a froth.
“Not when I was interested in marriage.” Novalene sat down in a chair and propped her feet up in a second one. “Speaking of guys, I saw Elijah on your porch last night.”
“Yep, he stopped by.” Jayden used a glass to cut the rolled-out dough into perfect circles. “We each had a beer, but don’t tattle on us.” She’d learned years ago to own up to whatever she did, even if it made the devil blush, as her grandfather used to say.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Novalene said. “So how did yesterday go for you? My girls were tattling about yours threatening to throw them in the hog lot.”
“Horseflies, horses, and hair,” Jayden told her, and then explained briefly what she meant by the statement. She told Novalene and Mary about the lock of pink hair and all the rest, including the part about the girls being sexually active.
“Sometimes I wish I’d lived in this era.” Novalene sighed. “In my day if we did it, we damn sure didn’t talk about it. I like that journal idea. Next time Elijah goes into town, I’m going to ask him to pick up some for me. Do you mind if I see if Diana wants to do the same? After all, it is your idea.”
“Not a bit,” Jayden said. “I just thought it would be good for them, and it is something they can take home. Sometimes if I’ve got a kid who needs help but can’t seem to tell me the problem, I have them write it down in a journal. I’ve started keeping one while I’m here, too. How about your day?”
“Let’s see if I can be as clever as you.” Novalene took a sip of coffee. “Cigarettes and . . .” She frowned. “Oh, hell, I can’t think of anything to go with that. I caught Lauren smoking. She’s got another demerit.”
“How did she get cigarettes past us?” Mary asked.
“Slipped a pack out of her bra and right into the new one without us catching her. She’s a sneaky little thing,” Novalene answered. “I took a page out of your playbook, Jayden. If it’s all right with you, she will be taking the slop out to the hogs every day for a week when Tiffany’s time is up.”
Jayden slid a big pan of biscuits into the commercial-size oven. “Maybe that should be the ultimate punishment for anyone who gets a demerit. Seems like they hate it worse than anything, except maybe catching horseflies right off the top of a pile of crap.”
Diana yawned as she came into the dining hall and headed straight for the coffeepot. She poured herself a cup and carried it to the table where Novalene was seated. “Good mornin’ to all y’all. I’m not fit to be around until I have my first sip, but now I can talk. How are things going in your cabins?”
“Our girls are fighting,” Novalene said.
“That may be a good thing if it makes them bond together and work as a team.” Diana blew on the top of her mug and then took a sip. “Ahhh, nothing better than the first cup in the morning.”
“So, who’s your alpha girl this year?” Novalene asked.
“Rita,” Diana answered. “She’s the one who set fire to her house because her stepfather beat on her.”
“Mine is Lauren,” Novalene said. “Hands down. But I do believe that she’s a little afraid of Tiffany over in Jayden’s Daydream cabin. She wouldn’t say a word in group counseling. Keelan admitted to having a drug business, and even bragged that she probably made more money in a week than I did in a month teaching school. Bailey is following Lauren’s example and refusing to talk about the meth business she had going.”
“All of mine,” Jayden answered, “hav
e bossy personalities, so I think it’ll depend on the day.”
“Bless your heart,” Diana said. “And I mean that in a good way. You’re going to have your hands full if they’re all smart-asses.”
“Maybe they’ll have their hands full.” Jayden cocked her head to one side. “There’s only three of them. At my regular job, I have twenty-five to thirty just like them in each class every day. I’ve just seen it all—from assault to drugs—and abuse and stealing are as common as breathing.”
“Touché.” Diana raised her cup to Jayden.
Chapter Nine
A ping on Jayden’s phone woke her before the alarm went off that Sunday morning. She sat up in bed so fast that it made her dizzy. She grabbed the phone, punched in her code, and saw that it was a text from Skyler, complete with a selfie of Skyler with Big Ben in the background. The message said that the group was on the way to the airport to fly to Rome.
Jayden’s heart stopped pounding after a couple of minutes. “Dammit, Skyler,” she muttered. “It’s too early for your bragging.”
She turned off the alarm, got out of bed, and padded across the floor to turn on the overhead light. Then she sat down on the bed and enlarged Skyler’s picture on the phone. She looked happy, but then she always did when she got what she wanted. Jayden remembered the shoebox full of photographs she’d brought to her apartment after her mother died. They could be divided into two categories. The first one was when Skyler was posing with a smile on her face. The other stack would be those that were taken when she had to have her picture taken with Jayden, and she glared at the camera.
“Family is a complicated thing,” she said as she laid the phone to the side. She wished she could snap her fingers and go back to the days when she lived with her mother and grandfather in the house on Elm Street in Boyd. Even with Skyler’s vanity, things were simpler then.
The Daydream Cabin Page 11
