by Elise Sax
“That’s not why they’re giving you the stink eye,” Klee said, walking out of the paper’s offices. Her light cocoa skin glistened in the sunlight. She adjusted her scarf and pulled her long hair out of it. She was a beautiful, stately woman, someone I wanted to look like when I got older. My fashion was simple with shorts, jeans, and sundresses, but Klee was all about Southwest style. Natural fabrics, handwoven into stunning, colorful garments.
“They want to tell you that your toilet exploded,” she continued.
“What does that mean?”
She threw her hands up in the air. “Kablooey. You can’t flush tampons in Goodnight. Our sewer system can’t take it. It pretty much can’t take fiber, either. Have you noticed you can’t buy brown rice anywhere in town? It taxes the plumbing.”
“Okay…”
“Don’t worry. I called Faye. She’ll be right over. Don’t forget your story. Can you get it to me in an hour?”
“Sure,” I said and lost all ability to swallow. For some reason, I thought I had a few days to write the article. It didn’t dawn on me that the Gazette was a daily. “Who’s Faye?”
“She’s your handyman. She’s going to fix up this place.”
“She is? She is?”
“I figured a California woman would want an updated modern home, and you’ve been going at it like Martha Stewart on speed.”
“My bank account is slightly smaller than Martha Stewart’s.”
“It’ll all work out.”
I went into the living quarters part of the house through the courtyard with the dogs on my heels. There was a definite exploded toilet smell happening. The house was furnished with antiques, and I had thrown out most of the clutter, leaving a pleasant minimalist style. I dumped my wet clothes on the washer and emptied the contents of my purse on the dresser in my bedroom. I was peeling my driver’s license away from a credit card when Faye walked in.
She was a beautiful woman about my height and age with long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing cutoffs, a pink tank top with spaghetti straps, heavy work boots, and a utility belt.
“Well, you don’t look crazy at all,” she said and put her hand out to shake.
“Hi, I’m Matilda.”
“Oh, I know. The whole town knows. You’re the biggest news since the convenient store got supersized ices. You might be the biggest news since the UFOs back in the fifties.”
“I’m not big news. I just moved here. That’s all.”
“I’m glad you moved here,” Faye continued. “I’ve been wanting to get my hands on this place for years. Old man Chris wouldn’t let me near it. He said it had character. Yeah, right. If dirt and rat droppings were character, then, yes, there’s a whole lot of character here. This house was here when the Spaniards were in charge. It’s made of mud plaster, held together with animal blood. That ain’t no tract house in Los Angeles, you know.”
“Animal blood?”
“Yep, this dump is a real gem. A real beauty.” She looked at my bedroom with one eye closed. “You’ve cleaned it up real nice. Great start. But I guess you just realized the truth about the plumbing.”
“Can toilets really blow up?”
“Oh, honey, if Patton had toilets, he would have done that Battle of the Bulge thing in a long weekend. The plumbing here is a hundred years old.” She rubbed her hands together. “It’s a good place to start. Gut. Gut. Gut. Gonna gut everything.”
“Can’t we just do a patch job? My financial situation isn’t stellar.”
“Don’t worry about that. My husband says you’re a good woman. Responsible. So, we’ll work something out.”
“Who’s your husband?”
“Norton Perkins. You swam with him this morning.”
I gave Faye Perkins carte blanche with the house. It was the least I could do since I had fondled her husband’s breasts. I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water and doggie snacks for Abbott and Costello. The kitchen had gray walls, which were probably white at one point. There was an old-timey refrigerator and a stove that looked like Benjamin Franklin had used it. The counter space was a worn wood table with four mismatched chairs around it. Next to the kitchen was a large walk-in pantry with assorted foodstuffs, a fifty-pound bag of dog chow, and for some reason, six different coffee makers.
I grabbed a glass from the pantry and filled it under the tap. Costello stole Abbott’s doggie treat, so I tossed Abbott another one, and they followed me outside through the courtyard to the Gazette’s office.
Klee was busy on her computer, filling out an Excel spreadsheet. Jimmy was away on assignment, and Silas was on the phone, smiling, with his feet up on his desk. I took a seat at Jimmy’s desk across from Silas, put my reporter’s notebook on the desk, and turned on the computer.
“Is that right?” Silas said. “In other words, you’re threatening a member of the press. No, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Well, I’m not threatening you, dickwad. This is a promise. I’ve got you dead to rights. I know what New Sun Petroleum is doing, Wade. I’m preparing a five-part exposé on you corrupt bastards, and my friends at the AP and the Times want a piece of it, too. Say sayonara to fracking in New Mexico, and say hello to your cellmate Bubba for ten years to life.” Silas smiled and winked at me. “And fuck you, too, Wade! And you too, Steve! I know you’re listening. You snake!”
And then he hung up and pointed at me. “The best job in the world, boss. The best job. We shine the light so the cockroaches scatter. We right the ship. We’re the moral compass. Truth, justice, and the American Way. That’s not Superman, that’s Clark Kent. That’s the First Amendment. That’s journalism.”
He turned away and started typing furiously on his computer. I looked at the flashing cursor on my monitor and wondered if I could be Clark Kent. Silas’s words hit home to me and filled me with a sense of purpose. I was part of what was right in the world. With my pool reopening story, I was helping democracy flourish. I flipped my reporter’s notebook open and tackled the lead sentence.
It took me the full hour, but I finished the three-hundred-words. I printed the story out and handed it to Silas to review before giving it to Klee to format into tomorrow morning’s paper.
“What the hell is this?” Silas demanded, skimming the piece.
“The pool article.”
“Are you kidding me? Where’s the story?”
I pointed at the paper. “There. I did what you told me. What, where, when, who, and how. I answered all the questions.”
“The pool at the Goodnight Recreation Center reopened today after a year-long refurbishment,” Silas read. “The Olympic-sized pool was re-plastered, and there’s now a child pool with a waterfall attached. The cost of the renovations was thirty thousand dollars, and it was paid for by local businessman Rocco Humphrey, co-owner of the Friends of Daisy Giraffe Home for Abused Wildlife.”
Silas threw the paper on the floor. “What the hell was that?”
“The story,” I insisted. “Who, what, where, when, and how. I did what you told me.”
“That’s not the story, boss. I heard that Sheriff Amos Goodnight was called in when Mabel Kessler threatened Norton Perkins with a cattle prod because his man boobs were indecent.”
“That’s true, but that’s not really about the reopening.”
Silas arched an eyebrow and stood up. A waterfall of crumbs fell off his shirt and rained down to the floor. “Didn’t that happen at the reopening?”
“Yes.”
“And then, didn’t you grab on to Norton’s knockers, throwing him off balance and the two of you went crashing into the pool, almost drowning you in his rack?”
“Actually, he slipped on his rubber duck.”
Silas squinted at me. “So, where’s the story? The price of pool plaster or Norton’s knockers?”
“Norton’s knockers?” I squeaked, knowing he was right. “But won’t Norton be mad about me writing about his…you know what?”
“Truth! Light! Come on,
boss. You’re in the paper business, now. You don’t give a shit about feelings anymore. All the truth that’s fit to print. That’s us. And Norton’s knockers are fit to print. Besides, he’s proud of those things. He takes his shirt off any chance he gets. So, get the words out fast.”
Klee’s head popped up. “You mean she’s not done, yet? We need to get this show on the road.”
“I’ll do it fast,” I said, breaking out into a flop sweat, and hopped back to my computer.
The second go-around was easier than the first. I thought it was interesting that the sheriff’s last name was Goodnight. Did his family found the town? There was a story there, I thought, and then I was pleased that I was already thinking in terms of stories. It was good to be a nosy parker.
“There,” I said, slapping my new article down on Silas’s desk thirty minutes later. “I put in the stuff about Sheriff Goodnight, the cattle prod, and the mammaries.”
Silas picked up a red pen and went to town on my article. He ran red lines through a lot of it, moved sentences around, and changed wording. My heart broke. I had thought that I had done a good job, but now there was more red on the paper than black. But Silas surprised me. “Very good, boss,” he said when he finished. “You might become a reporter, yet. Give this to Klee.”
She took the marked-up paper from me. “You have time to work on the events calendar?” she asked me.
“Sure,” I answered, giddy that she wanted my help.
She handed me a stack of papers. “Just incorporate these into the calendar. I’ll send you the link to get into the file.”
I returned to the desk, just as a woman walked in holding a large basket, which smelled out of this world delicious. My stomach growled, even though I had eaten a huge amount of bologna.
“Hey there, Gloria,” Klee said. “Have you met our new owner, Matilda?”
Gloria was looking at Silas, but then she turned her focus to me. “The one who attacked Norton at the pool?” she asked.
“I slipped on his duck,” I explained.
Gloria offered me her hand. She was a nice looking middle-aged woman, wearing a cotton dress and flats. “I’m Gloria Corbella, the tamale lady. Homemade tamales and burritos. I come every day. Do you like tamales and burritos?”
“Sure. I love them.”
“You only think you do. You haven’t eaten real tamales and burritos. I know because you haven’t eaten mine. I’ll give you some free today and then you’ll be hooked. I’ve fed Silas every afternoon for sixteen years.”
“And I’m not dead, yet. Go figure,” Silas said, not looking up from his story.
She gave me a tamale and a burrito, and I took a bite of the tamale. She was right. It was the best I’d ever tasted.
I was going to get so fat in Goodnight.
Writing the Gazette’s calendar led to calling the printer, which led to picking up printing paper, which led to going back to the store to pick up highlighters, which led to listening to Silas lecture Jimmy for a good thirty minutes about “digging deep” and not taking “guff” from the “corporate vampires.” Jimmy did a lot of eye rolling and mentioned once again how he was destined for greater things, like The Washington Post.
I didn’t blame Jimmy for wanting greater things in his life, but he was an irritating pinhead about it.
By the time I helped Klee lock up the office, it was dark out, and I was completely exhausted. “You did pretty well,” Klee told me, as she put her keys back in her purse. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? For what?”
“Everything I said about you behind your back. See you tomorrow morning.”
I walked with her, with Abbott and Costello on my heels, through the courtyard and to the gate and watched her drive away in her Cadillac. For a moment, I wondered what the salary was for a managing editor of a tiny local paper, but I was more interested in taking a hot bath and going to bed. Just the walk to the gate had me gasping for oxygen. The altitude sickness was getting worse, not better.
Closing the gate, I walked through the courtyard to the right where the living quarters were. As far as I could tell, the left and the back wings of the house had been left to fall apart and for storage and probably flat out trash. At some point, I would get to that part of the house, but it was going to be a doozy of a job to get it livable. Because the home was historical and had great views of the forest and the town below, I figured I could maybe bring in renters or use some of the space for income potential. I had to do something to bring in money. My solvency was running out, and my husband was forcing me to rack up lawyer bills.
Inside the living quarters, the lights were already on. The smell of the exploding toilet was gone, so I assumed Faye had fixed it. If she left already, she hadn’t asked for money, which was a good sign. I walked through the dining room to the living room and went back into the courtyard to walk to my bedroom door. The house was very much an inside-outside lifestyle, which I liked.
My bed had a metal frame, and there was a chest of drawers on one wall. Two walls were all windows, which gave me gorgeous views of the sunrise every morning, but now it was just black. I let my clothes drop to the floor and padded to the bathroom. I was never more grateful for hot water. I was going to soak in it for hours.
When I walked into the bathroom, I screamed.
“Hey, can’t a man have some privacy?”
Silas was lounging in my bathtub. Steam was rising, along with cigar smoke, as he inhaled sharply on his gnawed-on stogie. Luckily, Silas was taking a bubble bath, and the bubbles covered his private bits, but that didn’t change the fact that he was naked in my bathtub. Come to think of it, I was naked, too. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself.
“What are you doing?”
“Gee, boss, I thought you were an intelligent woman. I’m taking a bath. Men do that after a hard day’s work.”
First of all, I had doubted Silas ever washed himself, and second, I never imagined he took a bubble bath. And lastly, “Why the hell are you taking a bath in my bathtub?”
He leaned his head all the back with his eyes closed and puffed heavily on his cigar. “I don’t have a bathtub in my place. I had an arrangement with Chris to use his. Haven’t you noticed that I’ve taken a bath here every night since you arrived?”
“No!” I yelled and then slapped my forehead. “No wonder the ring around the tub keeps coming back.”
I would have argued with him, but I didn’t have enough oxygen in my lungs. Since Silas didn’t seem in a hurry to get out of my tub, I fed the dogs and made myself a cup of tea and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I sat in the kitchen eating my sandwich in my towel and longed for a television. I probably didn’t have enough money to fix exploding plumbing and buy a TV, but I so needed to binge-watch something. I could have even gone for an infomercial.
As I took a sip of my tea, there was a sound in the courtyard. The dogs froze. So did I. “It’s probably just Silas,” I said, but I could hear him still splashing water in the tub. “Or a serial killer,” I added. The dogs’ tails dropped low between their hind legs. “Nothing to worry about,” I said, holding up the butter knife I had used to make the sandwich. “I’m an empowered single dog-mother. A businesswoman.”
I stood up and willed my knees to stop knocking. There was another noise from the courtyard, and Abbott and Costello ducked behind me. “So much for guard dogs,” I croaked. “It’s probably just a cat. Or a bear. Or a serial killer.” Damn it. I kept going back to that one.
“Fine. I’ll go and see. It’s probably the wind. Or a serial killer.” Dammit.
I walked into the courtyard, and the dogs stayed behind in the kitchen. Sure enough, there was a young woman standing barefoot on the adobe bricks. She was just barely a young woman. She was mostly a child at the age where she could probably legally get a credit card, but she still slept in a canopy bed with a pink bed ruffle. She was blond and pretty, but she was a mess, as if she had wandered through a sea of brambles to get
to me. She was wearing men’s pajama pants that were too big for her, and a t-shirt from the Goodnight UFOs shop that was two sizes too small for her.
“Hello?” I said like a question. “May I help you? Are you lost?”
She blinked a few times, finally settling on my face after looking around for my voice in the darkness. “I want to go home. Or to Los Angeles. I was on my way to Los Angeles.”
She spoke with a thick Southern accent. She was slim. No, skinny. She was skinny, like she was hungry.
“Are you hungry? Would you like a sandwich?”
She perked up. “I’m so hungry. He won’t let me eat much. And it’s so cold.” She hugged herself. It wasn’t cold at all. It was a hot summer night. “I’m trying to escape. I guess I have,” she said looking around, again.
Even though it was hot, a chill ran up my back. “Escape from what? From who?”
She shushed me and lowered her voice. “He’s strong. He likes to hurt me. He…”
She stopped, as if she heard her attacker coming. I braced myself for impact and raised my butter knife up in the air for protection. But nobody came.
“I…” she started and then she disappeared.
I mean, she disappeared. She wasn’t there anymore. I looked at my butter knife, wondering if there had been something fishy in my Skippy that was making me see things.
“Hello? Hello? Girl?” I called, walking to the place where she had been standing. There was nothing and no one. “Girl? Girl?” I continued to call.
I backed away, facing the lights in my kitchen, trying to find her. “Girl?” I called. There was a boom behind me, and I jumped three feet in the air.
I screamed.
“Sonofabitch,” I heard someone say in a low, gruff voice. I whipped around to see a tall man. I screamed, again. “Sonofabitch,” he repeated. “Can you keep it down?”
He took a couple steps in my direction, and that’s when I realized how big he really was. Tall, muscles, lots of man wearing nothing but boxer shorts, and he was coming right at me. What was it with naked men, lately? I was being attacked left and right by naked torsos.
