She switched the banjo case to the other hand and walked into the feed store. It was warm inside and smelled nutty, like cooked oatmeal. Before she could glance around, Mel walked out of a back room behind the counter, holding a sheaf of papers. Her head was down when she asked, “May I help you?”
She glanced up before Rett could answer.
“Oh!” Mel said. Her face didn’t look mad or sad, just surprised.
Rett hesitated a moment, thinking, well, Mister God, maybe this is your answer? Was it just an accident she picked this street to walk down? Or was it just some big cosmic joke? Whatever it was, right now, this woman Mel was her only hope.
“Actually,” Rett said. “I kind of do need your help.” She paused, then reluctantly added, “Please?”
SEVENTEEN
Love Mercy
I’m here to see Rett.” The man’s low, melodious voice sounded like water gliding over smooth river stones.
Love peered at him through the screen door. Though she had never been the kind of woman who looked at every man she met as a potential source of romance, she also wasn’t blind to the charms of the opposite sex. There was no doubt that this young man with the thick auburn hair who stood at the bottom of her porch steps was a fine-looking specimen. Yes, this man with the smoldering dark eyes and long, thick sideburns straight out of the seventies definitely exuded pheromones or whatever it was that drew good women to bad men like ants to sugar water.
She narrowed her eyes, not a bit fooled by nature’s peacock display. This man had also broken the hearts of not one, but two of her granddaughters and she was ready to let this child molester have the full brunt of her anger.
Dale came up to the second porch step, causing Ace to throw his bullet-shaped body against the screen door. The man backed down, startled by Ace’s deep bark. When he looked closer and saw Ace’s size, he gave a relaxed chortle.
“All bark—” he started.
“Plenty of bite,” Love snapped. “Stay where you are, young man.”
“Ma’am,” he said, his sexy voice taking on a little steel. “I don’t mean to bother you, but, like I said, I’m here to see Rett, not you.”
“I don’t know where she is.” She tried not to imagine this experienced male’s voice whispering silky promises to both Rett and Patsy.
“She’s got my banjo, and I want it back.”
She pushed Ace gently aside with her foot and stepped out on the front porch, cradling Cy’s shotgun in her arms.
“Whoa, now,” the man said, holding up his hands and backing down the steps. “No need for that.” He nervously touched the side of his shiny dark hair, combed in an Elvis-like rockabilly pompadour that reminded Love of the backwoods Kentucky boys at Redwater High who drove two-tone Chevys and ran ’shine for their daddies.
“I don’t know where she is,” Love said. “And I don’t have your banjo. Now get yourself gone right now.”
He hesitated, not certain if she was serious.
“I’m from Redwater, Kentucky, son,” she said, exaggerating her drawl. “We don’t cotton to older men taking advantage of young girls.”
His eyes darted from side to side like a panicked bull.
She couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit sorry for him. She had been the mother of a young man. She knew that they were often brash, unthinking and way too ruled by hormones. Look at how her Tommy had just up and left his whole life behind because he’d fallen in love and lust.
Still and all, her son married the girl. He took responsibility for his actions. This man had wantonly used two young girls, her granddaughters . She wasn’t about to let some vague motherly feelings let him off the hook.
“Rett is not here, and neither is your . . . the banjo,” she repeated.
“You got it right the first time. It’s my banjo.”
“I told you she’s not here.”
“She’s in town. I just talked to her. I won’t leave without my banjo.”
They glared at each other in a stalemate. She knew that legally he was completely in the right. But all she could think of was that she had to protect Rett, help her resolve this situation, though she didn’t have a clue how. When in doubt, stall for time had always been Love’s philosophy. Then hightail it to someone who knew more than you did about the subject in question.
Using her sweetest cajoling tone, Love said, “Look, Dale. Rett is real hurt and angry, and from what I understand, has a mighty good right to be. I know that takin’ your instrument wasn’t the wisest thing she could’ve done, but try to see her point of view.” She drew out the try, using a long a—traah. She paused. Should she bring up Patsy’s pregnancy? No, best keep things as calm as possible, at least until she found Rett and talked her into giving this boy back his instrument. The situation with Patsy could be dealt with later.
“I’ll go to the police,” he said, his cheeks flushing pink.
She readjusted the shotgun in her arms, causing him to flinch. But he held his ground. She was tempted to smack his shoulder and tell him to grow up. Instead, she inhaled deeply and said, “There is no need to go to the police. Let me find her. I’m sure I can talk her into givin’ you the banjo, and everyone can walk away . . .” She almost said happy, but that certainly wasn’t an emotion that was likely going to result from any of this. “Satisfied. Just give me a little time.”
His chest filled with air, reminding her of one of those lizards who tried to make themselves look bigger to intimidate an enemy.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll give you three hours before I go to the cops. I’m staying at the Holiday Inn Express in San Celina.”
“I may need a little more time,” she said. “Come back at six p.m. That gives me . . .” She looked at her watch. It was eleven twenty-five. “A little more than six hours. After all the trouble you’ve caused, you can surely give me six hours to straighten things out.”
He narrowed his eyes, trying to look dangerous. “No way. I—”
She matched his look with one of her own. “Exactly how old was Rett and Patsy when you started . . .” She didn’t know what they called it these days—hooking up? Doing the horizontal hula? She shook her head. “I don’t know what the laws in Tennessee are, but here in California, the legal system takes a dim view of adults who take sexual advantage of minors.”
His smooth face changed from anger to panic in a millisecond. “Patsy was eighteen! I swear . . .”
She almost laughed at how easy he was to fool. Then she quickly sobered. It was a situation where one of her granddaughters was pregnant and the other was brokenhearted and guilty of grand theft . . . banjo. Nothing funny about either of those things. Well, the grand theft banjo part might be someday.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and checked the time. “I’ll be back at six p.m. My banjo better be here, or else.” Before she could say another word, he turned around and headed down the walkway to the rental car parked on the street. The car spewed a puff of white smoke when he drove away.
It was now eleven forty. She had a little more than six hours to figure out how to save her crazy-in-love granddaughter’s hide. She looked up and down the street, wondering where Rett could have gone. She sighed and went inside to fetch her car keys. Morro Bay wasn’t that big, and she knew this town as well as she did her own front teeth. Rett couldn’t have made it far on foot, and she barely knew anyone in town. Someone had to have seen her in the last half hour. Why hadn’t Love thought to write down her cell phone number? Then again, Rett probably wouldn’t have answered.
After driving around for ten minutes, she pulled over and decided to call for reinforcements. Then she would need some legal advice. Her first call was to Magnolia.
“Oh, Lord, I wish I had a picture of that. You totin’ a shotgun to the door.” Magnolia’s laugh echoed through the phone. “We could hang it in the café next to the cash register. Scare the deadbeats into paying their tabs.”
“Well, it wasn’t loaded,” Love said. “But he di
dn’t know that.”
“I’ll find that girl within the hour or I’ll give up my claim to bein’ a true cracker. Well, half cracker.”
“Thank you, Magnolia,” Love said. “You’re a peach, not a cracker. I’m heading over to Clint’s office to see what he can advise me about the legal mess Rett might be in for taking this young man’s property.”
Magnolia’s deep chuckle rang through the phone lines. “Well, butter my lips and call me a square of corn bread, you’re finding out the joys of havin’ a family pretty darn quick.”
For a split second, Love was annoyed at her friend. “You don’t have to sound so happy about my problems.”
Magnolia’s voice was instantly contrite. “Oh, Love, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you. You’ve been to the moon and back with me and my girls. Remember when Cheyenne dyed her hair that horrible shade of purple? For heaven’s sake, her head looked like a grape snow cone. I was about ready to hold her down, shave it all off and lock her in the basement—if I had one. You made me laugh, told me if that was the worst thing she ever did, I was lucky. It was just hair, you said. Then when Jade went and started dating her college professor? That nut job with the two ex-wives and scraggly goatee? He looked like Satan come to life. You said to keep my mouth shut and act like it didn’t bother me one bit, that Jade was a smart girl, and she’d find out on her own he was a loser. And she did. All I’m sayin’ is, you’ll figure this out and everything will be okay . . . eventually. That’s just part of bein’ a family, havin’ crazy times like this. I promise, when all the wash has gone through the cycle and is dried and put away, you’ll be glad you went through this. It’s a bonding experience. Hold on a minute.”
Her voice moved away from the phone, and Love heard her take money, ring it up in the cash register and wish the person a grand day. “I’m back. I’m sorry if I was bein’ flippant. All I’m sayin’ is that this is just what family does. They drive you nuts, and then you forgive them. Trust me, you’ll eventually pay Rett back by drivin’ her nuts. You’ve kind of forgotten that’s what family’s about.”
Love’s annoyance flew out the window. “I know you’re right. I guess I was just hoping that Rett and I could have a few nice times before we dove into an emotional quagmire like this.”
“This emotional quagmire is why she showed up on your doorstep,” Magnolia said. “It’s really a blessing when you think about it. Maybe she would have never come lookin’ for you if she’d been totally happy with her life.”
Love contemplated her words. “It’s weird to be thankful for something like what has happened with Rett and Patsy, but you’re right; if it hadn’t happened, there’s no telling if I’d ever have seen the girls again.”
“So, just deal with this and wait for the good times that are surely coming. Now, go on and talk to Clint. It’s always good to know your legal options. I’ll get to working on finding our little sneak thief, bless her crooked little heart.”
“I’ll have my cell phone on. Ring me the minute you find her.”
“You got it, baby doll.”
Clint Lawhead’s office was down on the Embarcadero over a longtime Morro Bay gift shop, the Missing Shell. The owner of the shell shop, Belle Lebovitz, was seventy-five years old. She moved to California from Brooklyn in 1957, the same year the Dodgers came to Los Angeles. She’d married the man who started the gift shop that specialized in all types of seashells and seashell bric-a-brac. He died in a boating accident seven months after their wedding. She never remarried and never went back East.
“I’m a Dodgers fan,” she’d tell people who asked why she never returned to Brooklyn despite the fact that all her family lived there. “When they go back, so will I.” When Clint rented the upstairs offices from her when he started the magazine, she became his unofficial receptionist.
Love poked her head inside the store. Belle was perched on her rickety wooden stool behind the cash register, keeping one eye on her black-and-white television and the other on the three preteen girls picking through some buckets of neon-colored sand dollars.
“Hey, Belle,” Love said. “The judge in?”
Belle slid off her stool and shrank four inches. She was barely four ten, though she claimed five feet. Her head of white hair was tinted a soft conch shell pink. “Where else does he have to go? How’s things with the new grandmonster?” Her black eyes sparkled. “She give back that stolen banjo yet?”
Love wasn’t a bit surprised that Belle knew the story. That was one of the things about being part of a small town you learned to live with. Since she’d always lived in one, here and in Kentucky, she couldn’t even imagine having privacy. “I’m working on it. I need to ask Clint about the legal ramifications.”
Belle laughed, a sharp goose honk. “That’s the real reason I never went back to Brooklyn. Family’s best taken once a year, like a flu shot. A quick poke, a little fever and you’re set until next year.”
Love smiled and didn’t answer. Belle had the exact opposite view of family than Magnolia. Magnolia would have her whole family live on a big old compound, all within shouting distance, something her two girls complained about frequently. Love suspected her own comfort zone resided somewhere in between these two extremes.
“Tell Clint he’s late with the rent,” Belle said. “Tell him I’m thinking about talking to my lawyer.” She goose honked again.
“You bet,” she said, smiling. It was a joke that Belle said every time Love came to see Clint. “Let me know if you see my granddaughter.”
“I’m on the case,” she said, turning her eyes back on her three young customers. “Hey, girlies, if you ain’t going to buy, quit fondling the shells.”
Love walked around to the side of the building and up the wooden steps. She could have gone up to his office without checking with Belle, but the older woman loved being asked. That too was one of the things about living in a small town. Everyone put up with everyone else’s eccentricities. It made a person slow down, whether they wanted to or not. There’s an idea for a column, she thought. The things that slow us down in life—good and bad. She could take a photo of something to do with a stop sign. Stop signs were great to photograph, the more beat up, the better.
She walked into the small foyer that held a metal secretary desk. It was tidy as a doctor’s exam room. Clint actually had five part-time employees, but none of them worked on Saturday.
“Clint?” she called out. His office door was closed, but through the pebbled glass door she could see the lights were on.
“Come on in,” he called out.
He came around the wide oak executive desk when she opened the door. As always, his smile was genuine, and she started to feel herself relax. He was the kind of person who, the minute he walked in the room, made things feel calmer, like someone sprinkled the air with magical peace dust. She wondered if it was his years as a judge that gave him that sort of psychic power.
“It’s good to see you, Love,” he said, gesturing to a padded visitor’s chair. “How’s Rett feeling?”
“Fine,” she said, taking a seat. “Physically, anyway. It might have just been a bit of travel fatigue. She seemed to get over it quick enough.”
He took the other visitor’s chair, scooting it around so they faced each other. His silver-streaked hair needed a trim, something that he said he never seemed to find time to do now that he was retired. His face, tanned and lined, had the look of someone who enjoyed the sun and didn’t use sunscreen as much as he should. It made his light gray eyes look almost spooky, like the eerie, all-seeing eyes of an Australian shepherd. Love could imagine what power that gaze had on anyone standing before his bench. Final judgment eyes, Magnolia called them.
“Ah, the resilience of youth,” Clint said, his eyes slitting with humor. “My own little whirlwind of mayhem went back home this morning. My potato chips are safe for the time being.”
Love smiled. “Admit it. You miss him like crazy. He’s a sweet boy, Clint.”
“No thanks to me,” he said lightly, grinning at her. “His mother was a saint.”
Then it suddenly hit her. Garth’s payment for his home visit. “Oh, Clint, I’m so sorry. I forgot to make Garth his cupcakes.”
“No problem,” he said. “He and I both knew you were a little distracted. We’ll take a rain check. Trust me, he’ll be back. Now, what can I do for you?”
“It is about Rett. She’s . . .” She felt her neck start to get warm. For some reason, this was starting to be embarrassing. The thought of spilling her family’s messy background in front of this man she admired and liked made her feel like running out the door. “This is a little embarrassing . . .”
Clint leaned over and took her hand, placing his on top of it the same way Rocky did when he wanted to comfort one of his flock. “Love, this is your old pal, Clint. Nothing you tell me can shock me or make me think any less of you.”
“I’m not so sure about that. But I need some advice quick. My granddaughter has . . .” She almost said borrowed. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, she stole a young man’s banjo. A man who she had a relationship with, and they had a quarrel . . .” Oh, well, in for a penny. “They broke up because he was also having a relationship with my oldest granddaughter, Patsy, who is now pregnant. Patsy, that is, not Rett. Rett took this boy’s—man’s—banjo and hitchhiked here from Knoxville. He followed her and wants it back. He’s threatening to go to the police. She took off before he came to my house, and I managed to convince him to wait until six this evening before doing that. Right now, I don’t know exactly where she is. Magnolia’s tracking her down. I’m afraid my granddaughter will go to jail, and I don’t know what to do.”
Love Mercy Page 17
