by Rae Davies
Time to change the subject.
“So, Randy, what’s up with you and Ruthann? You looked friendly Sunday.”
Randy was apparently too engrossed in his beer bottle’s label to answer. Will tried again. “So, have you seen Ruthann since?”
“No, not really.” Randy gave Dwayne a sidelong glance. “You need to sharpen that knife?”
“It’s fine. Not worth getting up for,” Dwayne replied.
“You need something? I’ll get it.” Will stood.
“If you’re up, sure. There’s a stone on the shelf in the garage.”
Inside the garage, Will called, “Which shelf?”
“The one with all that scrap wood on it, behind the door,” Dwayne yelled.
Wedged between the door frame and the corner of the garage stood a metal shelf. Lumber of varying quality and color was piled on the two bottom shelves. At eye level rested an assortment of hand-carved items. They ranged from an oversized wooden chain with a ball that rolled back and forth carved inside one giant link, to miniature depictions of coonhounds, fishermen, and what looked suspiciously like Patsy as a child wading barefoot in a creek.
Will picked the last one up and ran his finger over the smooth surface. This took time and talent. He’d assumed Dwayne just played with whittling. He didn’t realize he was actually capable of crafting something so delicate. Will envied people who could create something so beautiful with nothing but a few raw materials, some tools, and their own hands. He held the figure a moment longer before exchanging it for one of a raccoon perched in a tree. Seeing a whet stone, he grabbed it and stepped back outside.
“Here you go.” He handed the stone to Dwayne. “This is more than just a little whittling.” Will balanced the wooden figure on his open palm.
Dwayne glanced up. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just me fooling around. Did you see Dad’s stuff?” He nodded back toward the garage.
Will walked back inside. On the other side of the space stood roughly carved raccoons, trout, and dogs. From the bark still apparent on their sides, Will guessed they were made from a single log.
“Dad uses a chainsaw for his. I like whittling better, myself; more relaxing,” Dwayne explained when Will returned from the garage.
“Do you ever sell them?”
“A few, but there’s not much market. Mainly we just make ‘em for fun.”
“You getting a table at Daisy Daze this year?” Randy asked.
“Daisy Daze is part of the fall festival,” Dwayne explained. “Some artsy types started it up about five years ago. People sell all kinds of things: homemade soap, Arkansas diamonds, baskets, that kind of stuff. A couple of times we’ve had a table.” Dwayne smiled. “A real Clark family event.”
“Is that the only place you’ve ever tried selling these?” Will stroked the small wooden figure he still held.
“Nowhere else to sell ‘em. A few people travel all summer to the different craft shows, but we don’t have time for that. Besides, once you figure in the time to make one of them,” Dwayne nodded to the figurine, “and add on the time and gas to cart the stuff all over creation, you’d be losing money. Still, we’ve got enough junk built up. It might be worth giving Daisy Daze a try again.”
Will looked at the little coon. “Can I buy one?”
Dwayne raised a brow. “You want one?”
“Yeah.” Even in the dim light, Will could see the detailed mask and tail on the tiny sculpture. “I wish I could create something like this.”
“If you got a use for it, take it. It ain’t no big deal to make another.” Dwayne lowered his head, back to his work. “Besides, I kind of like knowing people have ‘em.”
o0o
Will had to talk to Patsy. Maybe she could get through to her father. Will had called Irv Clark this morning to apologize again for blowing a hole through his Crown Vic. It had been the most exasperating five minutes of Will’s life; well, aside from about every minute he’d spent with Patsy. The man refused to be reasonable. He’d agreed to the loan of Will’s BMW, and to Will paying for repairs to the Ford, but that was it.
“There’s no need to go off half-cocked. I could probably fix the ole fellow myself—few new hoses, some spackle and paint, he’d be fit to fiddle.”
“But I shot your car...” Will began.
“Were you aiming for him?”
“Well, no.”
“Didn’t think so. You want to take a vehicle out, you’re best off shooting for the gas tank. Probably get a nice big bang to boot.” Mr. Clark paused. “No sense in buying a new car when you got a perfectly good one in the drive.”
“But it has a hole in it.” Will couldn’t believe he had to point this out again.
“Two, actually. Went clear through.” Patsy’s father chuckled.
“Won’t you at least take my Beamer?”
This time her father laughed out loud. “Me driving some foreign make? No offense, but that ain’t gonna happen.”
He was turning down a practically new BMW, a product of the best German engineering, to drive a Ford with two bullet holes. Will considered banging the receiver against the wall.
As if sensing Will’s mood, Mr. Clark continued, “Tell you what, we’ll keep the Beamer till the Vic is fixed. Melba can drive it to the dress shop, and I’ll take hers. She’ll get a kick out of tooling around in a hoity-toity foreign ride.”
Apparently Randy and Dwayne had already replaced all the damaged hoses and driven the Crown Vic to an auto body shop for new side panels. It would be about a week before the Ford was road-ready again. Will hung up, unsatisfied with the outcome.
He had shot the man’s car. As if that wasn’t humiliating enough, now the man wouldn’t even take proper reparation gracefully.
Will picked the phone back up and dialed Patsy. The phone rang twenty times before he gave up. Who didn’t have voice mail or at least an answering machine? Did she think it was 1979? Frustrated, he slammed the receiver down and went to throw on some shorts.
He needed a jog.
Chapter 9
Patsy swung her Jeep into a slot at Sonic and studied the menu.
“I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.” As Ruthann cranked down her window, Pugnacious jumped into her lap and positioned herself with her front end dangling out the car.
“You haven’t done anything wrong. Don’t be goofy.” Patsy leaned out the window to push the red call button. “What do you want?”
“I want him to call me. I saw his momma at church Sunday. She didn’t even look at me. Do you think he told her something bad?” Ruthann scratched the pug at the base of her curly tail.
“I mean, what do you want to eat?” Patsy pointed to the menu.
“Maybe that’s it. He probably thinks I’m fat. He saw you and Jessica in your swim suits and realized what a cow I am.”
“You are not a cow.”
“May I take your order?” a voice from the menu asked.
“Tell me what you want.”
“Nothing.” Ruthann slumped down in her seat. “Well, maybe a diet limeade.”
After placing their order, Patsy said, “You’re being ridiculous. What do you care what Randy Jensen thinks? You can do better than him.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Patsy twisted in her seat to face Ruthann. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“All you’d have to do is crook your pinkie, and he’d be licking your boots. The only reason he gave me the time of day Sunday is ‘cause everyone could see you were all wrapped up in Will.”
“First of all, I think Randy’s over me and my pinkie. Second, I was not ‘wrapped up’ in Will.”
Pugnacious snorted, and Ruthann threw her a skeptical look. “Whatever.”
“I wasn’t,” Patsy insisted.
“Sure, if you say so. Anyway, all I asked for was a few leftovers, and I can’t even get that.”
“When did you get such a low opinion of yourself? You don’t need ‘leftovers.’ There are a ton of guys w
ay better than Randy. He’s divorced with a kid, for God’s sake.”
“I like Luke,” Ruthann mumbled.
“He’s cute, but you don’t need insty family. And what about Randy’s mother? You know she’s part of the package. Nobody’s ever going to be good enough for her. You could win the Nobel Prize and cure cancer and she’d still complain you wore too much blush or that your gravy had lumps.”
“I don’t make gravy.”
Patsy couldn’t stop an eye roll. “Then you’re out for sure.”
A girl dressed in black shorts and a Sonic shirt bounced up with a tray of food. Patsy shoved Pugnacious into the back seat before passing a limeade and a Coney dog to Ruthann.
“I said I was dieting.”
Patsy kept one hand on the pug, confining her to the back seat. “Just eat it.”
Around a bite of hot dog, Ruthann asked, “Don’t you understand, Patsy? I think I love him.”
“You can’t love him.” Patsy refused to believe it. She passed Ruthann a red plastic basket filled with onion rings.
The succulent smell of fried breading wafted through the car.
“Well, I do, Patsy. I’ve tried not to, but there’s no hope for it, I love him.”
Patsy stared at her friend. Nothing was going the way it was supposed to. Ruthann wasn’t supposed to be with Randy. Pugnacious wasn’t supposed to go coon hunting. And Patsy wasn’t supposed to want Will. No one wanted to stay on the proper path. They were all shooting off on their own. Somewhere along the way Patsy had lost control of everyone, including herself.
Ruthann took a slurp of limeade. She even managed to make that sound forlorn.
Patsy sighed. Ruthann was her best friend. She might not understand her choice, but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t support her. “Don’t worry about it. If you want him, we’ll figure something out. Randy’s slow, but he’s not completely dimwitted. We’ll get him to come around.”
“Really? You think so?” Ruthann sat up in her seat.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll talk to Dwayne or something. Now have an onion ring.”
Ruthann grabbed a handful of rings and began munching away.”Thanks, Patsy. I knew you’d understand. Being in love is rough, isn’t it?”
Rougher than sandpaper on a sunburn.
A red Volkswagen bug pulled into the space across from them. Pugnacious broke free, nabbed an onion ring, and dove back onto the back seat.
“Look, Jessica got her new car. Ooh, and she got vanity plates too, SWTHRT. That’s cute. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah, cute. Must have taken her months to come up with that one. Just plain TART would’ve been more accurate.” Patsy shook a ketchup package, slapping it against her palm.
“You are mean.” Ruthann stuck her arm out her window and waved at the other vehicle. Jessica wiggled pink-tipped fingers back. “Why are you so prickly around her? She’s never done anything to you.”
Pugnacious reappeared, flat nose twitching. Patsy tore off a hunk of bun and handed it to her. She didn’t feel like picking at old wounds.
“The question is, why do you ooze all over her? She’s not any better than we are, you know.”
“I never said she was.” Ruthann grabbed another onion ring.
“You never said it, but you think it. You’ve thought it since the first grade. Remember, she brought that Cabbage Patch Kid to school. She was bragging and showing off, and you lapped it all up. Ever since then you’ve acted like we should be grateful for any little scrap of attention she drops our way.” Patsy clamped her teeth onto the corner of the ketchup package and ripped it open.
Ruthann blinked at her.
Patsy squished ketchup into the red basket and looked up. “What? Why are you staring at me?”
“You’re jealous.”
Jealous. How could Ruthann think such a thing? Maybe Patsy should tell her the truth. She glanced back at the gleaming bug and something tightened in her stomach, something still tender after five years.
“That is ridiculous. There is not one thing that...” Patsy jutted her head toward Jessica’s new car. “...Over-rated cheerleader has that I want. I can’t believe you would say that.”
“How about that?”
Patsy followed Ruthann’s gaze. Jessica popped out of her bug to greet a sparsely dressed Will Barnes. His red running shorts covered more than a fig leaf, but didn’t leave much more to the imagination. Rivulets of sweat ran down his chest. Another stream weaved its way through the coarse hair on his muscled legs while he bounced in place talking to the sweetheart of Daisy Creek.
Jessica preened as usual, running both hands down her hips. Her body language made an otherwise conservative business suit look as sexy as a peek-a-boo teddy. She flipped her fingers through her hair, tossing it back over her shoulder.
“They look pretty friendly, don’t you think?” Ruthann asked.
“I’m just hoping she doesn’t start humping his leg like a bitch in heat.”
“Patsy.” Ruthann’s eyes were round in horror.
“What? I didn’t call her a bitch. At least, not just then.”
“Uh huh.” Ruthann held two onion rings up to her eyes in imitation of glasses. “I wish I could read lips. I’d sure like to know what they’re talking about.”
Patsy had wondered the same thing, not that it was any of her business. Will could do what he wanted. That one little kiss by the river didn’t mean anything, and neither did the subtle touches during the coon hunt, not to Will. From her experience, those things were only important to women, not men, and not to Patsy. She was too smart for that. She had lived and learned. She just wished Will would pick somebody besides Jessica.
A polo-shirted server bebopped up to the pair, carrying a tray with a round plastic bowl and a drink. Jessica reached in her car for her wallet, paid the girl, and snatched a paper napkin off the tray. Turning back to Will, she delicately blotted his face with the napkin. Will made some kind of reply that Patsy assumed was something along the lines of “Thanks, want to come over to my place and really work up a sweat?” and jogged off. Jessica folded the sweaty napkin lengthwise and used it to wave at Ruthann and Patsy.
Patsy looked down to see Pugnacious swallow the last bit of her chili dog. Damn. Her life sucked. On the bright side, maybe Jessica would choke on a lettuce leaf.
o0o
Geez, it was hot. Will placed his palms on the rough bricks of the Quick Trip building and extended his leg behind him. He was out of shape. It had been at least a month since he’d really worked out. Today’s run was going to do him in. He should have asked Jessica for a ride home, but he couldn’t. To be perfectly honest, she was a little scary.
He’d stopped at Sonic intending to get a cup of ice, but Jessica had popped out of her heart-on-wheels and blocked his path. In their five-minute conversation, she’d licked her lips more than a third-rate porn star in a sixty-minute flick. And the bit with the napkin. It was almost like she was performing for someone. He’d had just one thought—escape.
He dug into his pocket for the money he’d stashed there earlier. If he was going to have to jog back to his house, he definitely needed some water.
A few minutes later, he reluctantly left the air-conditioned comfort of the Quick Trip and walked back into the heat. It was like hitting a wall. As people kept saying, it wasn’t the heat, it was the humidity. Like breathing underwater.
He really should have asked Jessica for a ride. He’d be leaning against that cool white upholstery right now, air conditioning blowing through his hair and Jessica sucking the soul from his body.
He could walk.
A familiar bark alerted him before twenty pounds of wriggling dog wove around his feet and sent him plunging to the pavement.
“Pugnacious, get back in the Jeep.” A windblown Patsy jogged from the gas pump toward Will. “Are you okay?” She bent over him. The sun bled through her short hair like some kind of new-age aura, or a scene from an old painting of an angel.
Pats
y the angel; that was an image he hadn’t considered before.
He opened his mouth to assure her he was fine, but his words were blocked by a flat, snorting nose. He snapped his mouth shut. When Pugnacious continued her assault, he clamped both eyes closed too.
“Oh, Will. I didn’t realize it was you.” Was that concern in Patsy’s voice?
He risked squeezing one eye open to peer up at her. Pugnacious promptly shoved her nose at the exposed iris.
“Pugnacious. Get off him.” Patsy grabbed the pug’s collar and tugged her off his face. “Are you okay? I don’t know what comes over her sometimes. She has the manners of a…”
“Dog?” Will stood up.
“Yeah, I guess.” Her top was of some kind of filmy material, and cut-off jeans hitched up above her thighs. Not an angel, not unless she was sent to tempt him. Maybe a fairy, come to play a trick on him, to lure him away from his path and into trouble.
She bent over to pick up Pugnacious. The sun played the same trick through her shirt that it had with her hair, and her shorts lodged a little higher on her legs. Will’s mouth went dry. He took a swig from the water bottle. Trickster fairy or rewarding angel, she was definitely temptation.
Tucked into Patsy’s arms, the pug seemed content to just grin at him. “Anyway, I’m sorry. Are you sure you’re okay?” Patsy asked.
Was he okay? He was feeling a little light-headed and confused. Probably dehydrated. He slammed down the last of his water. It would be a long run home, and it was hot, not to mention humid. Plus, Patsy did look very contrite, and he did need to talk to her.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine. Let me just...” He took a step and quickly hopped back in what, he hoped, appeared to be pain.
“Did you twist your ankle? Pugnacious, look what you did.” Patsy gave the little dog a slight shake. The pug snorted at him with a complete lack of repentance.
“It’s no big deal, really. I’ll just walk it off.” Will took another half step before hopping again. Yeah, there was a twinge.
“At least let me give you a ride home.” Patsy gestured toward her Jeep, which sat at a gas pump. “I just have to pay for my fill-up. Here.” She shoved the snorting, grinning pug into his arms.
