Just Right

by Jessie Gussman

  “Hey, Gladys,” the man said softly. “The Fancy Lady dropped her glove and you want to give it back?”

  He turned completely around. Avery felt his gaze on her, but she couldn’t lift her terrified eyes from the beast that held her captured glove.

  “How about I do it for you?” he said as he bent and plucked the glove from the Jaws of Death. “Stay,” he commanded before he strode to her. In unison, the dogs sat, watching Avery with evil eyes and polished fangs.

  “This is yours?” the man asked when he stopped in front of her, holding up the glove.

  She tore her eyes from the beasts of prey and licked her lips. “Yes.” Her voice was barely a squeak. “It is,” she said more forcefully.

  He cleared his throat.

  She imagined he was trying hard not to laugh at her.

  “Do you want to take it?” he asked slowly, waving it as he spoke.

  The bags of decorations meant to cheer Mrs. Franks made her arms ache. Transferring them to one hand, she snatched her glove. “Thank you,” she said through her teeth.

  “I’ll pass that on to Gladys,” the man said, failing to hide his smirk.

  Avery’s eyes lingered for a fraction of a second on the dark stubble of his angled jaw.

  No interest. Not on his part, since he could barely contain his derision for her. And most certainly not on hers.

  “Tell her she’ll have to find her supper somewhere else.” Avery craned her neck to meet his dark eyes before she turned and strode away.

  Gator Franks opened the back door of his mother’s house slowly. It creaked. He didn’t want to wake her if she were sleeping, as she often was before supper.

  He’d finally shaken the unsettled feeling from the unfortunate confrontation in town with the fancy woman and the light pole. The whole thing really wasn’t his fault, since little Braydon Carper, all of nine years old, had opened Gator’s pickup door to pet his dogs, accidentally letting them out. But he hadn’t been able to explain that to the woman, because it would have been too much like admitting she was right, and his experiences with his ex had taught him it was a huge mistake to admit weakness to a woman. Give them your throat and they’ll go for the jugular, rip it out, tear it to shreds, then go after your heart. Every time.

  It really didn’t matter that the woman had been as opposite from Kristen as could be. Except for the money angle. They were the exact same there.

  His toe stubbed something in the dark and he grabbed the hall table to keep from falling. His fingers bumped into something cold, which wobbled. He grabbed for it in the dark, but only succeeded in knocking it over. It hit the edge of the table before tumbling to the floor and shattering. Something glass, obviously. He hesitated, not remembering anything either on the floor or on the table early this morning when he’d left the house.

  “Gator?” his mother called from the living room where he’d probably awakened her from her nap. The treatments made her tired.

  “Yeah. It’s me. I don’t remember seeing anything here earlier when I left.”

  “Avery was here. She helped me decorate for Christmas.”

  Gator filed through his memory, but came up with a blank on anyone named Avery. He’d been living out west for ten years, but the town hadn’t changed that much. “Avery?”

  The couch squeaked as his mother moved.

  “Don’t get up, Mom. I was trying to be quiet and not wake you.”

  More squeaking indicated that his mother ignored him. “Avery Williams. She’s related to Fink or Ellie Finkenbinder somehow, and she came out from Philly or near there this summer to help with the farm. I thought she had a teaching job there, but she never went back this fall, so I guess she didn’t.” A light flipped on. So much for his mother’s nap. “She offered to decorate, and since I know that you hate the knick-knacks and what-nots and wouldn’t want to mess with them for me, I took her up on it.”

  His mother was right when she said he hated knick-knacks. And this was a big part of why. He was big and they always made him feel like an elephant in an antiques shop.

  Gator flipped the hall light on and grabbed the broom and dust pan. He knelt to sweep up the pieces of— “It looks like I killed one of the wise men.”

  “We’ll pretend Herod found that one and ordered his head chopped off.” She gave the pieces a sad look. He guessed they were expensive, but her tired eyes crinkled as she smiled at him.

  He shrugged. “Looks more like he planted dynamite under the camel’s saddle.”

  “If you toss the pieces in the can, it’ll get rid of the evidence and the cause of death will be whatever we make it.”

  “I’m sorry. I was trying to sneak in and not wake you. I didn’t know you’d decorated.” As he stood holding the pieces in the dustpan, he realized that he’d tripped on the most grotesque snowman he’d ever seen. “Is that thing made out of burlap?” Lights wrapped around the dumpy brown body, sort of like a droopy hangman’s nose, and a shiny orange plastic carrot stuck out from its face. It brought to mind an ugly Christmas sweater, only in 3D and sitting in his house.

  “I bought that at the elementary school’s annual holiday sale. The lady I bought it from said her third-grader made it herself.”

  “I believe it,” Gator said. If it’d been him, he’d never had admitted his child made something that hideous. “Are you sure it was meant to be a Christmas decoration?” The lights might have been sort of an indication, but if he’d had to guess, he would have said it was some new-fangled way to scare mice and rats. Or possibly some type of anti-theft device. His lips twitched as he thought of the fancy lady going up the light pole. If his elderly hunting dogs had scared her that badly, that hideous looking burlap creature would have her high-stepping it to the nearest jail cell and locking herself inside.

  His mother tugged her bathrobe tie tighter around her waist and gave the burlap snowman a warm glance. “There was something about the snowman that made me feel like I’d met a kindred spirit.”

  Guilt tightened Gator’s throat. He didn’t love his mother less because she’d lost a breast and all of her hair, and she’d not complained. Not to him, anyway. But he could see, now that she’d mentioned it, how she might feel like she had something in common with the ugly snowman.

  He couldn’t give her back her breast, or her hair, and his heart hurt for the pain she couldn’t talk to him about.

  He set the dustpan on the table and bent over, wrapping his arms around his mother, feeling the unfamiliar frailness, swallowing against the fear that the disease would continue to eat at her until there was nothing left.

  “I think you’re beautiful, Mom.” He managed to get it out without choking. Hopefully, she couldn’t tell that her thirty-two-year-old son was trying not to burrow into her arms and sob. “And I think your snowman is beautiful too. On the inside.”

  His mother laughed, as he’d hoped she would.

  She patted his back. “Come on. Avery left us some tofu salad.”

  He didn’t groan. Honest.

  With a sigh his mother said, “I hate the stuff, but it’s supposed to be good for me.”

  Because of that, he could shove it down his throat too. And try to be thankful for Avery, who decorated with the knick-knacks his mother loved and made her tofu salad because it was good for her. “I’ll pretend it’s steak.”

  How hard could it be?

  Chapter Two

  This is fun, Avery said to herself. This is really fun. I actually really enjoy this.

  She was a liar. And not a very good one.

  After using her shoulder to push the Finkenbinder’s barn door closed, she hefted her tuba up. Normal people did not get up before dawn and go outside in sub-freezing temperatures to practice their tuba away from sane people, just so they didn’t wake said sane people up.

  No one had ever accused Avery of being normal.

  If she was going to beat out all the men who played the tuba and get that position in the Washington D.C. Eveningtide Orchestr
a, she had to be way better than normal. After all, what good was a tubist who didn’t have a chair in an orchestra? It’s what she’d practiced all her life for. And it’s how she proved that her dad walking out on her and her mother didn’t really matter. He said she talked too much, had too much “hot air.” Well, she had taken what he considered a fault, her “hot air,” and made a successful career out of it. Of course, it was only successful if she were employed. Which she would be, once she aced her audition, which she would do since she was going to practice harder than anyone. No matter the cold or dark or the fact that she had to do it outside so she didn’t wake the Finkenbinders or their children.

  Thankfully, she could practice her tuba with gloves on.

  She looked over at the pink sky, then back at the house. Not quite far enough away. The tuba was rather loud, and the Finkenbinders had been kind enough to allow her to stay at their home while she pieced her life back together. The least she could do was keep her tuba in the barn and make sure she was far, far away from the house when she started practicing at this ungodly hour of the morning.

  It was pretty out, with the sunrise reflecting on the pond. And she wouldn’t notice the cold once she started playing. Like all her other problems, the cold seemed to fade away once she got into her music. She might have started taking lessons because her dad had said that she might as well put her lungs to good use, but she’d kept playing because she loved it. Kept playing until she was good enough to be the first woman tubist of the Philadelphia Waterfront Orchestra. No small feat, thank you, and a position she’d held until she lost it last spring. To a man. Drat their bigger lung capacity and the automatic stigma that came from being a female tubist that, oh, say a violinist or harpist did not have to deal with.

  But there was an opportunity in Washington D.C., and she was going to get her chair back, just in a different orchestra.

  She glanced back at the house again and decided she was far enough away. She had her stand and music tossed in a small bag over her shoulder, but she could get started on a few pieces from memory. Shifting her tuba, she brought it to her lips and puffed into the mouthpiece a few times to warm it up.

  Taking a deep breath, she launched into the O Madonna warm-up that she almost always started her practice sessions with. No need for music, and since it was broad and expansive, she could really get into it. The piece never failed to get her in the mood to practice and work hard.

  Before she’d made it through two measures, a flock of birds, ducks maybe, startled by her playing, flapped and flew from the direction of the pond. The unexpected motion made her miss a note, but she’d played the song enough that she picked right back up with barely a hitch and sailed smoothly into the meat of the piece.

  As always, the music pulled her in, surrounding her, filling her, chasing away the worries and concerns clouding her mind, and pouring peace and joy into her soul. Practice was work, no mistake, but there was something uplifting about playing an instrument with competent skill.

  She was almost at the end of O Madonna when two shadows came streaking around the far side of the pond toward her. Wolves. Her heart tried to escape out the back of her throat. She’d never heard of any around these parts, but she hadn’t been in “these parts” very long.

  In eighth grade, she’d read half of a Louis L’Amour book. The only western she’d ever picked up in her life. As she struggled to lift her tuba off, she tried frantically to remember if the book had mentioned wolves and whether or not they could swim.

  She couldn’t outrun them.

  She might or might not be able to beat them to death with her tuba.

  If they didn’t swim, the pond was definitely the best option since there were no trees or light poles handy.

  Tossing her tuba down, and praying the wolves didn’t eat it either, since it represented more money than most people paid for a small car, she careened down the hill and crashed into the pond.

  She realized right away what she had failed to take into consideration a few seconds ago: it was December and she was quite likely going to die from hypothermia. She just as quickly decided that hypothermia was preferable to being mauled to death. Probably.

  The wolves had almost come around the edge of the pond, but Avery couldn’t quite make herself duck under the water. Too cold. She did, however, manage to make her almost numb legs carry her in until the water was up to her chest.

  Stopping at the spot where she had splashed in, the wolves stood and barked at her, which triggered a memory. Maybe from the Louis L’Amour book, maybe not, but she thought she remembered that wolves didn’t bark.

  The first rays of cold December sun were coming over the horizon when she turned and squinted at the two animals. Did she recognize them? Same evil eyes. Same polished fangs. Same hungry look.

  Gladys and her wicked twin, for sure. And, wouldn’t you know it, the same booted mountain man striding along behind. Only now he had a gun slung over his shoulder and the look on his face wasn’t benign humor. He looked mad.

  Her chest burned. She was the one standing in freezing cold water to escape being eaten alive by his ill-bred, unmannered canines. She was obviously the one who should be angry. She narrowed her eyes.

  At his command, the dogs stopped barking, but paced along the water’s edge, both looking ready to jump in any time.

  She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “This is the second time your dogs have—”

  As she started speaking the man stopped so fast his boots skidded. “You?” he asked incredulously, interrupting her tirade.

  “Yes.” Her teeth had started chattering in earnest, and her feet and legs had gone from cold to painful. “It’s me. This is the second time your wild animals have required me to run for my life.”

  “You,” he said again as though he couldn’t believe it. “You’re the one that was making all the unholy noise. I had everything set up for duck hunting, which took me hours, and you scared them all away.”

  “I’m glad I could save a life,” Avery mumbled. For some reason her tongue wasn’t working very well. At least her legs and feet had gone numb.

  “Oh, crap.” The man walked to the edge of the pond. “Get out of there. Now. Before you can’t.”

  Take your dogs and leave first was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t get her mouth to work. The second time in two days, which was some sort of record for her. If she were still on speaking terms with her dad, she would have made a note to mention it to him.

  “Come on, Fancy Lady. I have no idea what you are doing here, at this hour, making that horrible racket, but you can’t stay in the water. The dogs didn’t bite you yesterday, and I already fed them two small kids and a teenager this morning, so they’re not hungry.”

  By this time, Avery had stopped shivering, which was nice because she could grit her teeth. Later, when she wasn’t so tired, she would decide for sure whether she would associate with someone who might, or might not, be feeding his dog humans. Her eyes wanted to drift shut. She could sleep standing in the water.

  “Frig.” The man shrugged off his gun. “Open your eyes, Fancy Lady.”

  She managed to keep her eyes cracked slightly as he bent down and unlaced his boots. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. She could lie on the water and float away. How nice that would be. That irritable man could go blow. His dogs could turn into cuddly, long-haired Persian kittens. Maybe she’d give them a bowl of warm milk. Very warm milk.

  He splashed into the pond, toward her, his dogs beside him. She wanted to turn and run away. To get away from the dogs and away from the big mountain man, but her body wasn’t cooperating. If only she could take a nap. If she could rest for a few minutes, she’d be able to run from the dogs again.

  The confounded Fancy Woman didn’t have the sense God gave a goose. Or a duck, for that matter.

  Swooping her up right as she closed her eyes completely and started to sink into the water, Gator turned and strode with confidence out of the frigid pond
and toward Fink and Ellie Finkenbinder’s old farmhouse. They probably wouldn’t be up this early on a Saturday, but having grown up beside Ellie, he knew they wouldn’t mind a bit opening up their house to someone in need. It might not even be locked.

  Gator tried to shrug off his annoyance that the fancy woman had scared his ducks away. It wasn’t exactly easy to go duck hunting. He’d gotten up before dawn and been down by the pond for over two hours in this freezing weather. If it hadn’t been extreme stupidity on her part, he’d not be so upset. But seriously? What kind of woman walks around in the dark, making a ridiculous racket on some kind of overgrown trumpet, then, for no reason whatsoever, walks straight into a pond that could only have been a few degrees above freezing?

  Not one with a brain.

  She was smaller than she seemed. He hurried his already fast walk. He might be irritated, but he didn’t want her to die. “And if you do die, I’m not really going to feed you to my dogs.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she slurred. Her lips were blue, her face pale. The eyes that had spit fire and sass last night were closed. Dark lashes rested on porcelain skin.

  He grunted. Even suffering from hypothermia, she wouldn’t be silenced. But her eyes hadn’t opened.

  “I should call 911,” he said to himself as much as to her. In order to do that, he’d have to go back to his duck blind to get to his phone.

  “No insurance,” she whispered.

  That gave him pause. Yesterday, he’d judged her as privileged by her clothing. Today, she wore the same fancy coat and what looked like expensive jeans and boots. He had to admit, everything he knew about fashion he’d learned from his ex-wife. He tucked that mystery away for another time.

  He could commiserate with the no insurance. He’d actually been formulating a plan to try to pay his mother’s astronomically high deductibles and co-insurance, and Fink was the man he needed to talk to. His idea hadn’t exactly been to barge into Fink’s house just after dawn on Saturday morning, but…