by Mindy Klasky
He started to take her hand, to get her the hell out of that back room, out of the store and down the street, because her house was a hell of a lot closer than the Hyland Motel and a shitload more comfortable too. But she shook her head, moaning a little protest. And then she pulled him closer to her, against the wall, beside the window.
She hitched at his jeans, working his buttons with steadier fingers than he could manage, and then she hooked her leg around his hip, urging him into her, and he wasn’t worried about going anywhere anymore.
8
“Look what the cat drug in,” J-Dawg hooted from the corner. “Or should I say the pussy?”
“Nice,” Finn said, collapsing on the edge of his bed. He’d had a long day, driving up and back to Pennsylvania, meeting with a librarian at the US Army War College about the First Battle of Winchester. His brain was fried. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” The question was automatic, the type of thing he’d tossed off a dozen times a day back in Afghanistan. But the words churned his belly the second they were out.
“When are you seeing my moms?” J-Dawg asked.
“Soon. I’ve been busy.” That sounded weak, even to Finn.
“The whole reason you came to Harmony Springs was to meet up with my folks. Not to chase tail. Even if it’s some mighty fine tail.” J-Dawg whistled.
Finn would have grabbed him in a half-nelson, kneed him hard in the spine to teach the guy some manners. But he wasn’t sure he could close his hands around the ghost. And he wasn’t brave enough to try. Instead, he said, “Cut it, Dawg. I’ll get to your parents tomorrow.”
“The anniversary is in ten days.”
Anniversary. That made it sound like a party. “I said I’ll see them tomorrow.”
J-Dawg leaned back in his chair, ignoring the ominous creak from its back legs. His smile was lean and hungry. This was the Dawg Finn had known for years, the man trimmed down by the Army, pruned and hardened into a fighting machine. “Mom’ll be half-way through holiday baking,” he said. “She’s hiding the fruitcake in the top of the hall closet.”
“Fruitcake sucks.”
“Not this one. It’s eighty proof.”
Finn shrugged. He could make exceptions. And J-Dawg had a point, the way he usually did. Finn grabbed his glass from beside the bathroom sink and poured himself a stiff one. “What else does your mother bake?” He didn’t really care about the answer. He just wanted Dawg to talk about something other than Lexi. Other than the promise Finn had made.
“She does those Mexican wedding cakes, the ones covered in powdered sugar. And thumbprint cookies, rolled in nuts and filled with jelly. My favorite are the peanut butter. She makes ’em with little cross marks from the fork. I could eat a couple dozen of those.”
“My sister makes them too,” Finn said. “Elizabeth.”
“What do you think they’re doing, back in Boston?”
Finn shook his head, picturing his family’s routines. “Ma’s sitting in the kitchen. She just lit her last cigarette, third pack of the day, using the burner on the stove.” He closed his eyes, and he could see the scene, as clear as if he was standing in the shabby Southie kitchen. Ma’s hair would still be pulled back in a bandana, the way she wore it when she worked at other people’s houses. Her yellow-stained fingers shook a little as she held the ciggie to her lips. Her voice was cracked and raw, salted by years of smoking.
This late at night, she’d be far gone in her catechism, repeating over and over how Finn had left her, how Dad had left her, how the last good man had been her own father, may he rest in peace.
The thing was, she was right. If Finn had stuck around Boston, found a job somewhere, handyman work, he could’ve helped Ma out. Slipped her a few bucks on payday. Reglazed the leaky kitchen windows, at least, so she didn’t spend a fortune on oil every winter.
But it had been easier to re-up in the Army. Easier to stay out of Southie, out of the line of fire from Ma’s exhausted wrath. But he could hear her monologue, all the same, cursing him, telling him all the ways he’d failed.
“Sounds like a party time, man.” J-Dawg didn’t bother to sound like he meant it.
“Beats going to my sisters’ place.” Mary and Martha shared a rowhouse now, taking potshots at each other hour after hour. Mary reigned over the downstairs, lecturing everyone about how they should dedicate their lives to the Lord, staying thrifty, brave, and clean. Or maybe that was the Boy Scouts. Whatever.
Mary knew exactly what was best for everyone in the world. If Finn stayed long enough for her to wind down about how he should go to church every Sunday, she’d start in on how he needed to complete the paperwork he’d ignored—the VA forms and the GI bill papers and the job placement opportunities God intended for him.
“She’s got a point, dude.”
Finn wasn’t filling out those forms. Benefits were meant for good guys, for the soldiers who’d made a difference. The guys who’d died. Which was a pretty shitty joke because ghosts like J-Dawg couldn’t collect.
Mary could pray for Finn all she wanted, but he wasn’t going to change. So he said, “She’s like a dog with a bone. Give her an hour, and she’d drive me upstairs to spend the rest of the day with Martha.” His middle sister was living in the two upstairs rooms, crammed in there with her four kids, now that Jason had run out on them. She’d be running ragged, getting presents wrapped for Christmas Day, leaving hints about Santa and reindeer and singing snowmen and all that crap. If she thought about Finn at all, she’d tell the boys their uncle Tom was a brave man, a good man.
Good thing he wasn’t there to tell them about going door to door in some desert shithole, rounding up insurgents.
“You’re right,” J-Dawg said. “They don’t want to know about that crap. And you don’t want to tell them. Makes it real to say that shit out loud.”
“They’re the reason we were over there, Dawg. They’re what we fought to protect.”
But Finn didn’t really believe that. He’d joined the Army because it gave order to his life, told him where to be and when, and he was good at that.
The world had passed him by while he’d been overseas. His little sister Elizabeth had taken a receptionist job with a law firm in downtown Boston. Lizzie had grown up, started dating, had a different boyfriend every few months. Paul wasn’t a kid anymore either. He’d gone from sweeping up at O’Grady’s to tending bar, pulling beers for men like their father.
If Lizzie and Paul ever thought of him, they probably pitied him. Thought he was the sad one, far away from family, stranded without friends.
“Sucks to be you, man,” J-Dawg said.
And the Dawg was right. Finn was a fuck-up, a sinner, a hero, a totally lost cause. His entire family had moved on with their lives while he was gone. They didn’t miss him, anymore than they missed an old TV show that had gone off the air. They might lift a toast to him on Christmas Day, but not one of them needed him. Not one of them knew who he really was.
That should be fine. He was a changed man too. He’d seen things, thought things, done things he could never undo.
Finn growled and poured himself another double. He thought about going back to The Christmas Cat, about starting in on the First Battle of Winchester. But it was too far to walk, and it would be just his luck to get pulled over in a speed trap when he was sure to bomb a breath test.
He could call Lexi. Ask her what she was wearing. Try to talk her into taking it off.
“Go for it, dude.”
He flipped off J-Dawg and put down his phone. Now it felt dirty to think about Lexi, and not in a good way. He couldn’t bother her anyway. They’d both said they needed to get a good night’s sleep.
He tossed back the whiskey and stripped down to his shorts. Got into bed and turned out the light. Closed his eyes so he couldn’t see J-Dawg in the corner. But there was nothing he could do to block out the sound of the ghost’s soft laugh. It was a long time before he fell asleep, and when he did, he dreamed of Parwan Pro
vince.
The rain sheeted down as Lexi looked out the window of The Christmas Cat. The weather clearly had it in for her. This front had been stalled over the Shenandoah Valley for the past four days, raining out the entire weekend before Christmas. Saturday and Sunday should have been Lexi’s two biggest sales days of the year. Instead, she had reduced herself to scribbling notes, making mad calculations, trying over and over again to predict how much money the store might see once Finn’s Civil War room was finished.
If Finn’s Civil War room ever was finished.
In the past week, Lexi’s swaggering, confident soldier had become a perfectionist. He had a vision inside his head, a detailed record of the local battlefields, and he’d stop at nothing to make those images real. Just fifteen minutes ago, he’d cut out, saying he needed to stop by the library on Main Street before it closed.
She shouldn’t complain. He’d taken time to kiss her goodbye, making it clear he could still focus on something other than grainy black and white photographs. Lexi touched a finger to her still-swollen lips.
She’d offered to get his book from Heather at Yoga Night, but Finn had shaken his head. She suspected the library wasn’t his only stop. He was heading to the liquor store, too. Jack Daniels seemed as vital to his creative process as the photographs he was collecting.
Who was she, to be so judgmental? She was ready to lock up and head over to Namastyle, where a glass of cheap wine already had her name on it. A glass of cheap wine, a fistful of chocolate, and some of the best friends a girl could ask for. And man, did she need them. At least to tell her she wasn’t nuts for trusting her heart to a hard-drinking, war-obsessed bad boy.
Who knew how to curl her toes in bed.
Who’d come to town to do a hero’s job, meeting with the Dawsons and telling them how Jon had died.
Who’d stuck around after that grim job because he’d promised, because he’d sworn to work off his debt, because he was a man of his word.
Tammy was sitting on a yoga mat in the middle of the beauty salon, her legs folded into the lotus pose, her fingers curled into A-OK circles on top of her knees. The hairdresser’s face looked perfectly serene, as if she had successfully shifted her consciousness to a higher plane of being.
Lexi eased the door closed behind her, but Tammy’s eyes were open by the time she turned around. “Wine’s on the table,” the hairdresser said, gesturing toward the yoga studio in the next room.
Lexi could glimpse half a dozen green bottles and an actual corkscrew. “Real wine!” she said. “No box!”
Tammy unfolded from her pretzel pose. “Emily Barton dropped it by earlier today.”
Emily currently owned the knitting store on Main Street, but she’d managed a high-end wine boutique before that. She must be emptying out some of her stash.
Tammy watched as Lexi poured herself a generous glass. “Trouble in paradise?” the stylist asked.
“I’m that easy to read?”
Tammy shrugged. “You missed Yoga Night last week. We talked about you.”
Lexi almost choked on her wine. “You’re not supposed to say that!”
“My second husband always said, ‘Truth is a friend to all men.”
“He’s the one who worked for the IRS?”
“Just think of how many audits could be avoided by people telling the truth.” Tammy poured a glass of wine for herself. “So, what’s the problem? Your beau won’t drink from your vermilion lotus petals?”
This time, Lexi did choke. Tammy was at her worst when she spouted off the tantric tricks she’d learned from Husband Number One. “Um, we’re doing just fine in that department.”
“Then you don’t want to kiss his ivory pillar?”
“Seriously, Tammy. Our vermilion and ivory are in great shape.”
Tammy’s smile was a picture of bliss. “If you ever want some coaching, we could do some guided meditation. I know seven different asanas that will activate better blood flow to your—”
Lexi was spared more yogic birds and bees by the arrival of the rest of the crowd. Anne led the charge, chatting with her sister Emily. Another dozen women straggled in. Lots of folks must feel the need to take a break as holiday planning reached its fevered peak.
Greetings were exchanged and Solo cups distributed before Lexi found herself pinned on the dissection board. “So?” Anne asked, drawing the attention of every eye in the room.
“So what?” Lexi countered.
Tammy sighed beatifically and announced to the group: “We’ve already established that oral stimulation isn’t a problem.”
This time, Lexi didn’t blush. Instead, she yielded to the inevitable. “Finn and I are fine,” she said. “Or we were, until this week. He’s a little…obsessed with the project he’s working on. Things got weird after he went up to Pennsylvania last Tuesday. I didn’t hear from him all day.”
Heather held up her hand. “Guilty,” she said. “I told him the US Army War College has great special collections. The head librarian located some soldiers’ diaries that have never been transferred to microforms.”
Tammy acknowledged the confession with a majestic smile, but she pushed Lexi, “Finn made it home by bedtime?”
Lexi had eaten cereal for dinner that night, frosted flakes that had turned her milk to syrup. She’d spooned it down like medicine before putting her bowl on the floor for Lucky to lick clean. And she’d gone to bed alone, desperately wanting to phone Finn, to seduce him with the power of her voice, to hear desire whisper over the phone line.
That was too pitiful to admit to anyone. So she said, “He was back in the shop on Wednesday.”
Anne asked, “Did he apologize for being out of touch?”
“Not really.” But Lexi wasn’t being fair. Finn had missed her. He’d told her as much when he admired her new boots. He’d shown her, not bothering with words, when he dragged her into the back room, when he stripped off those boots, when he worked his thumbs into the arch of her foot, up her calves to her thighs…
Anne’s eyes glinted as she raised her wine in a toast. “You owe us all the dirty details.”
Lexi shook her head, purposely keeping her voice light. “Not this time, ladies.”
Because if she told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, she’d have to talk about the hollows under Finn’s eyes, bruised-looking circles that came from a lot more than driving up to Carlisle and back. If she told them what had happened on Wednesday, then she’d have to tell them about Thursday, about how Finn had lost his patience and thrown an Exacto knife across the room when a piece of Styrofoam snapped under the unexpected weight of a model gun carriage. And she’d have to tell them about how he’d insisted on rebuilding the foam butte, working at the shop till three in the morning, Jack Daniels by his side the entire time, even though she was there too, curled up in the armchair, finally dozing off when she couldn’t lure Finn from the table.
Olivia Park slipped her perfect hair behind her ear. “At least Chris is down in DC. He’d have a fit if he knew Finn had moved in so soon.”
“Finn hasn’t moved in,” Lexi said.
“Oh.” Olivia was suddenly fascinated by a tiny loop of yarn on the sleeve of her sweater.
“Why did you think Finn had moved in with me?” Lexi pressed.
“I must have gotten the dates wrong,” Olivia said, flashing an emergency request to Heather. The librarian, though, only shrugged. She wasn’t going to be any help.
“What dates?” Lexi asked.
Olivia’s misery took the form of talking too much. “Marge swung by school this morning to drop off all her loose ends from knitting. It’s the last thing she does every year, before she and Hank hit the road for Arizona. She says it’s too hot down there for anyone to knit. She says the kids can use the yarn for art projects, and this year we’re going to make coiled portraits of their favorite characters from books…” At last, Olivia wound down.
Lexi said, “Marge and Hank don’t go to Arizona until
the first of January.”
Olivia sent another pleading look to her girlfriend, but Heather only offered a tiny shake of her head. Olivia was on her own. “They decided to leave early,” she finally said. “With the rain. And things being so slow. With only Finn staying there…”
Heather finally took pity on Olivia, on Lexi, on them all. “He probably got another room, in Winchester.”
In Winchester. An hour away. Finn wouldn’t take a room in Winchester; that would cut into his time working in the back room. Besides, there wasn’t a place in Winchester he could afford, not for any length of time.
What the hell was Finn doing? And why hadn’t he said anything to Lexi about his change in plans?
She took a sip of wine. It tasted sour, though, clogging the back of her throat with oak. “Yeah,” she said, because the room was suspiciously quiet. “He must have taken a room over there.”
The Yoga Night women weren’t idiots. They knew when it was time to change the subject. Before long, Emily Barton was regaling them with stories about American Dollar, about the battle she was waging to keep Main Street shopping alive. Olivia babbled about the Christmas pageant, about the songs her students were preparing to sing at the Fête in four short days. Anne chimed in, reporting that the Police Department had come to her to order their roast pig at the last minute; their usual source had fallen through. Tammy couldn’t let the Police Department be mentioned without reporting that she’d taken Chief Carter to bed on Saturday.
“Ewww!” Anne exclaimed. “He has tufts of hair growing out of his ears!”
“My fourth husband always said, ‘Hair’s a sign of healthy testosterone levels.’ And the more testosterone, the more stamina…” Tammy rolled her hips, and they all laughed.
It was after nine when Anne finally said, “Well, tomorrow’s bread won’t bake itself.”
Everyone else took their cues, gathering their belongings, pulling on coats, exchanging hugs and good wishes for the coming week. Anne didn’t say anything to Lexi until they were halfway to Adams Street. Then she said, “Don’t do it.”
