by Diane Munier
“Twenty-seven,” I say, pulling out of the bank. The market isn’t far now, down by the tracks.
“Jason and Mike….”
“They’re neighbors,” I say. Just so he knows. If I was going to…it wouldn’t be them.
“My neighbors too,” he says, but he’s looking straight ahead now. We drive the rest of the way and get there and it’s busy, the tents going up. It’s a vegetable and fruit circus.
We are out of the truck, me to the left, him to the right. We meet at the tailgate. He starts that, “I got this.”
He grabs the tent, I grab a table. He says, “Hold off I’ll be right back.”
I don’t say anything. He doesn’t have a clue where to set up. But then he does. He’s standing on my spot. “Here?” he calls.
I give him a thumbs-up and hoist the table. I’m very strong.
But I don’t make it to the site before he’s rushing to help me. And I have to admit, when someone even stronger than me lifts the burden it’s not bad. But it’s not what I know…have known. We open the awning, he pulls on one leg, me another and we snap that thing in place and have a roof over our heads in no time. Then back and forth we go, laying out things.
I don’t mean to be crabby with him, but we don’t have much time and it’s not easy to share this. But he’s a very quick learner and he likes sorting the tomatoes by color and it looks good, what he does, and I put the pies on the small table and I get the signs and he learns we sell produce and pies to benefit the no-kill shelter in town. I don’t know what I could have said that would have gotten a bigger reaction from him. We’d raised over two thousand dollars this summer, ten over six summers.
“Sarah Sullivan,” he says, flipping the bill of my cap again, then yanking some on my braid. I readjust my cap and run my hand over the braid and smile at him. I can’t not smile at him, disturbing as he is sometimes.
But I am quickly snapped out of it because the old people come first and we get busy very quickly. He asks and I tell him what to do. And I am busy too, and the two camping chairs I grabbed off of Leeanne’s porch have not seen our butts, not in those first three hours.
“Sarah you have to try this,” he is saying to me.
It’s the guy’s chicken on a stick. I think I’ve tried most of it already, but it’s all new to him, so it’s new to me as well. I am already getting stuffed. He’s probably spent more than we’ve made, well no, not possible cause we are cleaning up, but he doesn’t mind spending to have a good time. He’s like a kid here. Like he’s been let out of his cage or something, and landed here.
The music has started up. Oh, I should have brought his guitar. I text Mom again. This will force her to come. ‘Bring Spencer’s guitar,’ I type.
We’ve got a following, but there are lots of women here. Leeanne’s pies are gone except for the blackberry one Spencer set back and bought for a twenty. He is selling those. He is crying out, “Buy a pie for twenty, save a dog’s life. Save Sparky. Redeem Rover.”
And he sells out.
I take a good look at him. He’s happy about what he’s accomplished. He’s been pretty innocuous. He’s almost too accommodating. He’s not like me, not shy at all. He talks to everyone. But here I’m seeing more, watching him with people. I’m listening to him.
“Don’t tell them where you live,” I say.
He has been asked his name a few times. He tells them, says he’s new in town. He draws a lot of attention. He’s been invited out for a drink more than once, invited to play at the VFW hall, invited to ride in a bicycle club. I’ve been here my whole life and I’ve never even been invited to church! Except by Mom.
He’s really very beautiful. There, I said it. He’s…beautiful. I’m shy, and his beauty makes me more shy. But it’s not just me, or Mom and Christine and Tammy. It’s everyone.
Mom shows up, carrying Spencer’s guitar. It’s out of the case. I hope he doesn’t mind.
He’s surprised to see it, but he thanks her and strums and tunes it a little, and she stands there, in white jeans, her hands folded in front of her, eyes darting. Then he’s out in front of our table and singing about a tomato growing girl and come buy her tomatoes and save Fido.
Mom and I are watching. By ten we are sold out. He’s working for straight-up donations now.
He is doing a gig in the middle of the tables where various people come to play music. He is surrounded, two or three deep, and if he wasn’t so tall I wouldn’t be able to see the top of his head.
He comes up with quite a few songs that have something to do with a dog and he is really, really good. When he’s not singing he’s strumming and telling stories about famous characters and famous people who were really dogs. Children laugh. Mothers smile at him. Of course. But fathers smile at him, too.
Spencer has talent.
He says, “The dog you save could be your own.” He says, “Ask not what your dog-shelter can do for you, but what you can do for your dog-shelter.”
People give us money. They want to give us money. We make over three hundred dollars, our biggest day ever.
Mom stays the whole time. I realize I over-reacted when Spencer said he was coming here with Mom, I got mixed up. But now we’re fine, we’re all fine.
By twelve-thirty we are on our way home. Mom has asked Spencer if he wants to ride with her, and he says sure, but they have to follow me so he can help me unload. I want him to go with me to drop off the money at the shelter. I say, “Do you guys want to follow me and see the shelter?”
They agree.
Barb is there cleaning pens, and it’s crowded and everybody has something to say. Spencer and I walk through while Mom talks to Barb, and I show Spencer the three black lab brothers that are my favorites. They’re still young and gangly, and he almost tells me something, about a dog he had, but then he doesn’t want to tell it, and I know how that is.
I give him the money to give to Barb, or I try to, but he insists I do it, and he gives another hundred of his own money, just insists, and we fight some, but he wins. I give this to Barb and she’s so happy. It is our best day and Mom tells Barb how Spencer put on a show and I leave them then and go off by myself. The dogs are going crazy, but when the new pens are built they can be thinned out better, they can live large.
Spencer has wandered off too and he’s at a pen, a girl, Golden Retriever, and of course he’s probably in love already. I tell him we can come anytime and walk some of these guys. He is all over that.
We leave in love with several of the dogs. It’s such a heart-quake to go in there.
Spencer wants to know everything about the place and I’m answering his questions. Mom says Spencer should go with me so we can get moving.
Once we’re in my truck he tells me how much he liked the market.
“Let’s do it again,” he says. “What’s the schedule?”
I tell him it is two days a week.
“It’s great in the fall. We sell pumpkins we grow on Leeanne’s family’s land. We plant them by the pond. Also good for fishing, if inclined.”
“I haven’t gone fishing since I was a kid. You keep telling me about all this great stuff I’m going to have to follow you around every minute of every day.”
I don’t know what the heck to say to that. I am very quiet because that would be too much. I have a job!
“Sarah?” he says. “I’m kidding.”
“I know,” I lie, and I say it in this insecure voice that practically squeaks. But he got me there for a minute.
When we get to Leeanne’s we have the truck unloaded in no time. She doesn’t come out and ask how we did. She will, in a couple of days and she’ll be so, so happy when she hears four hundred and twenty! I put the pie crates on the table and I know she’ll fill some of them for Wednesday morning.
Mom is back home and I pull the truck in front cause she hates when I block her in. I have to take the chair to Cyro and unload my stuff. I have to fix a plate. “You can eat with us,” I say.
&nb
sp; “I think I’m stuffed, but I have a pie. Your Mom says you’ll come over with her to look at my rooms. She says you’re a decorating team.”
“We are not,” I say. Does anyone know how much I have to do?
“She’s also invited me to church in the morning,” he says. “I haven’t been to church….”
I’m really thrown. She’s ahead of me. Maybe I’d like to ask Spencer to do things, but now I don’t have a choice. I’m so tired. I need to be alone, that’s for sure.
He helps me unload.
“Do you want me to take Cyro’s chair to him?” he says.
“Maybe Mom did,” I say. If she didn’t, I’ll take it later.
“Well…I’ll see you later,” he says.
He pulls on my braid and as he walks away he’s singing about a girl who is a dog-walking girl, and one thing, I’m giving him lots of verses.
Me and Mom Fall for Spencer
Chapter Eleven
I wheel Cyro’s chair over, get it on the porch. He’s in there. Jason is a long time at work already. Then I run home and get his food, take that back over. I can’t help but feel Spencer’s eyes on me. It’s purely imagination on my part cause I know he’s not on the porch.
It’s funny how I have to remember not to stare at Frieda’s house now. My habit all these years is looking there, always looking at it. And now I have to remind myself not to so Spencer doesn’t catch me gawking at the place.
I still have to pick my garden. I don’t know where Mom is, probably shopping or over with Christine hearing all the details about my boss.
I grab my baskets off the porch. I pretty well stripped my green beans, and that’s the most time consuming, but I’ll have to cut okra cause that’s ready every day. I’m going to make a big pot of vegetable soup, that I do know.
So I’m in my garden and there he is at the fence giving me a heart attack like usual. “Sarah?”
I look at him and he’s holding a towel. “My kitten is sick.”
I’m kneeling by the eggplant, holding my knife cause if you’ve ever tried to snap an eggplant off the plant, good luck. So I stand slow, then put my knife in the basket and dust my hands on my shorts. When I get close I can see the poor little animal is struggling for breath.
I dig for my phone and I’m already walking to the truck while I search through the numbers for the vet. I let them know we’re on our way.
We lose the kitten there, but at least they put an end to her suffering. They don’t really know why she died, there are three possibilities and they are telling us these, and Spencer is standing there stroking the little thing with the back of his finger.
Spencer gives the kitten a last pat and leaves it there on the table and we go out. He has the towel in his hand, which he shoves in the trashcan by the front desk before he pays.
We go outside, pretty quiet and get in the truck.
“I read how we put our emotions on animals,” I say. “I mean, that’s why it hits us so hard.” It doesn’t make sense. Of course we put our emotions on animals, it’s called love. I meant, we’re softer with our animals.
He laughs a little, even though he’s morose. He reaches and pulls on my braid again.
“You could get that dog,” I say, and I don’t mean to, it is a flashing passing thought and it gets out cause I’m always pimping those dogs.
He puts the braid pulling hand over his mouth for a minute and looks out the window.
After a few seconds he says, “Is there a park around here?” He speaks so softly I’m not sure he said it.
So I just start the truck.
“Sarah, is there a park around here?”
“Yes.” I back out.
“Can we go there?”
I side-eye him. I hope he’s not going to lose it cause I still have that okra and good vegetable soup takes an hour.
“Yes.”
So he’s flipping my braid around kind of slow, and I have to remember not to run off the road. The park is about five miles, on the other side of town. It’s where they shoot the fireworks. It borders the lake and it’s very pretty there.
“You know what I’d like to do?” he says when I turn the truck off and we’re sitting there in the parking lot, the pavilion in front of us with a few picnic tables, and the water beyond that and then the big backdrop of trees, one of which is starting to change into yellow.
I’m afraid to say anything else. I hope he isn’t planning to drown himself.
“Let’s you and me take a nap, right here. You got a blanket in here?”
“A smelly one behind the seat,” I say, not that we’ll be using it anytime soon cause this sounds fishy.
He laughs. “I’d like to put that smelly blanket by the water and lay there while you tell me everything you can think of about yourself. I think I could drift off like that. Could you?”
My life story would put anyone to sleep. But not really.
All I can think about is the okra, but I don’t really care about the okra, but it’s all I can afford to think about right now.
He smiles but his eyes are so sad. “How about it?”
“I…,” I can’t look at him so I stare out the windshield. Me telling my story is making me more nervous than lying on the blanket.
“I don’t know. I’m not telling my story.”
“C’mon,” he says, and he’s already getting out then trying to lean the seat forward and like a duffle-pud I lean in to the steering wheel and let him yank that blanket out.
He’s already got it under his arm and he’s walking toward the water, looking back at me every now and then and nodding for me to follow.
Crap. I get out and slam the door and shove my hands in my pockets and walk after.
At the water he spreads the blanket and sits heavily and pats beside him for me to sit also. He’s untying his shoes. I’m keeping mine on. I sit.
Here we are side by side. We look at the water in silence. It’s so beautiful I’m kind of proud for him to see it, where he lives, where I do.
After a while he lays back with a big sigh, his hands pillow his head. I think, here goes, and I do the same, hands on my stomach though. The clouds are beautiful too, and he asks what I see and I can clearly see Homer Simpson, but he just can’t catch it, but he’s laughing at least.
Then he starts it. “You’ve lived here all your life….”
“Yes.”
“Went to kindergarten here….”
“District Two, all the way.”
“Graduated eighth grade.”
“No. I mean yes. But homeschooled.”
He looks at me. “You’re kidding.”
I look at him. My God, close like this, lying like this. I look back at Homer.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I say.
“I don’t. Officially. But unofficially…yes.”
“That sounds like Mom.”
“Speaking of Marie…I can’t see her homeschooling.”
I laugh. “Merle schooled me.” I look at Spencer to get his reaction.
“What?” he lifts his head a little.
“Sleepy yet?”
He laughs some more. “You’re waking me up.”
“He’s a retired teacher…even back then. She hired Merle, but he wouldn’t take pay. He said it was too much fun. He’s such a sweet liar. I did my work on-line and he over-saw. Marie just told off the school system and made the big dramatic announcement she was taking her kid out…at the schoolboard meeting with the newspaper guy there of course.”
“That’s fantastic,” he says. “I’m impressed.”
We stare at each other for a minute. I don’t know why we are smiling.
“High school?” he says.
“Merle.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
“College?”
“State college over in Carterville and as many on-line classes as possible. I learn best that way.” I bat my lashes.
“Damn.”
�
��You?”
He looks away. “Um college, yeah. Didn’t learn a thing.”
“What did you go for?”
“Oh…psychology then political science. Useless.”
“Too bad. I was business and marketing.”
“Not Agronomy?”
“Hardly. Might have been interesting though.” My God I am making small talk. Two big white gulls fly overhead.
“Fantastic,” he says. Then, “Favorite movie.”
“There’s this one about four brothers killed in World War II.” I name off a half a dozen more movies, all of them made in the forties.
“You realize this isn’t a common list for a girl your age.”
“I’m not a girl my age. Or common. I’m not common.”
He lifts up on his elbow.
I swallow all crackily.
“You, Sarah Sullivan, are not common,” he says, and he has his cheek scrunched on his shoulder, and a smile that reaches the sadness in his eyes even if it doesn’t obliterate it.
I have to look away.
He lies back down. I put my arm over my eyes so he’ll know I am done talking.
“Tell me about Frieda’s murder,” he says.
“You know you’ve Googled it,” I say back. I’m mad he just leapt there.
“I haven’t.” He’s on his elbow again. “Sarah I haven’t.”
I lick my lips like I taste the words that I won’t speak.
He taps my nose, and it’s barely visible because I haven’t taken down my arm.
“A week ago I didn’t know you,” I say.
A crow calls and I imagine it gliding over the water.
“I don’t know how I stood it…not knowing you.” Then he lies back down, and I can breathe.
I go into that state that is almost sleeping but you can still hear. And the whole time I feel him beside me.
Many times in my bed at night I’ve tried to imagine sharing that space with a lover. I am so deeply practicing this feeling of someone…it just seems impossible…yet here I am…I can feel him, the weight of him, the mass of him, so close.
The sound of people talking wakens me, and I look and see Spencer is not disturbed. I can look at him for just a minute, and I do, his face turned toward me, his body rolled my way, and he is not touching me, but we are close.
