by Summer Wood
Wrecker reappeared. “I can’t find him.” He had shed his jacket.
“Where’d you look?” Melody was tallying: two crates of apples, an assortment of squash, spinach if it looked any good, low on citrus. Bad time of the year to buy citrus. Plenty of onions.
“In the stockroom, in the bathroom, out back by the trash bins. And I asked Sheila.”
“What’d she say?” Melody glanced at the short redheaded girl in the velvet shirt running the cash register. Sheila was a slut. It was her most likable quality. Melody suspected her of underreporting her drawer, but she had been there longer than anyone else and this gave her a kind of mystical protection. Besides, Dreyfus needed her. Everybody knew the Merc couldn’t stay afloat on the business it did; Dreyfus had a more lucrative side gig hooking up the Mattole growers with his city connections, and Sheila’s farm grew better bud than any of the others. Not even Johnny Appleseed’s forest crop could match her quality.
Wrecker shrugged. “Said he had to go. Can I have a licorice?” He preferred real candy, but the Mercantile only stocked the healthy kind.
“No. Had to go where?”
“Fix his car or something. Why not?”
Melody had lifted the phone to call in the produce order but she put it down to look at him. “What’d you have so far today? Dried apricots, popcorn, and whatever candy Al gave you? Don’t shake your head. I know he gave you candy.” She lifted the phone to her ear again but kept talking to him. “He’s in deep shit, your friend. He’s supposed to be working today.” She held the phone with her shoulder and dialed the number on the sheet. “He’s this far away from—” She held her thumb and index finger barely apart. “Hello? Yeah, hi. This is Melody? Lost Coast Mercantile? I’ve got my produce order.” She muffled the mouthpiece with one hand while she gestured to Wrecker to come closer. “What?” she said, turning her attention back to the phone. “No, nobody told me that. I know. I just don’t think— Okay. All right. Monday, then.” And she hung up the handset with a crash.
Sheila twisted her neck to look over toward them. “What?” Melody challenged. She looked down at Wrecker. “Where’s your coat?”
“Just one licorice?” he bargained.
“One, then. And find your coat. We’ll be late to meet Ruth.” She fished a dime out of her pocket and gave it to him for the candy. “Get an egg, too. Something to keep you anchored down.” She added a quarter to the dime. The Mercantile sold them hard-boiled. “Meet you in the bus. I’ve got to run next door and talk to the mechanic.”
Wrecker nodded. He walked to the checkout counter and watched Sheila dig an egg out of the glass jar for him. He gave her the licorice and the coins.
“You could get another one with the money you’ve got,” she said.
“I can only have one.”
She yawned. At the end she patted her mouth delicately with her fingers. “Just doing the math for you.”
Wrecker nodded. He walked back to the candy counter and strung another black shoelace from its mates. Already the shadows were getting long. He walked to the bus and climbed in. A moment later Melody jumped in the driver’s side and fired the engine. Wrecker brought both black strings out from the bag.
“I thought—”
“It’s okay, Deedee.” Wrecker handed her one. “I got this one for you.”
The main gate to the salvage yard was shut by the time they got there, but everyone knew that meant go around to the door in the chain link fence that flanked the office. Melody waved to the stout man who ran the yard from the desk. He never stepped out of the office until he was ready to leave for the day, but he had a photographic memory of the layout of the lot. He didn’t need to step out. He could tell you which parts were still on which vehicle in the whole sixteen-acre spread. Melody marveled at a brain like that.
“Ruth still here?” she shouted.
He didn’t look up. “Northeast corner ’66 blue Ford one ton. Close in half an hour.” The words ran together out of the side of his mouth. The first time she met him, Melody thought he spoke a foreign language. It took some experience to parse the meaning of his utterances. “Half an hour I ain’t waiting,” he warned. “I put the dogs in and I go home.”
She and Wrecker took off at a trot. The lanes were wide enough between the rows of junked cars to tow them in and out. The place smelled of engine oil and the damp rot of car seats exposed to months of rain. It didn’t help Melody to realize that half the cars she passed looked in better shape than her van. She tossed a look of longing at a black Studebaker coupe. Now, that was styling. She shook off the thought. That wasn’t styling, it was stupid. More stupid. If she ever had the chance to replace the bus she’d probably get another just like it. Only one that worked.
She looked down at Wrecker, gliding effortlessly beside her while she puffed and strained. Maybe she should get a station wagon. Didn’t mothers drive station wagons? Maybe that was the trick to it all. Get the station wagon and there, in the operator’s manual, were all the little tips that made you successful not just as a driver but as a proper carpooler, as a fully accepted hostess and caretaker of other mothers’ children, as a just disciplinarian, as a sympathetic listener, as a solver of problems (mathematical and otherwise), as a pillar of the community and an unshakeable source of confidence and protection for her own child’s growing self-esteem—
All right. So that was a lot to ask of a car.
She looked down at the kid again. Good stride. Quirky sense of humor. Ten fingers ten toes. Deeply, unreasonably adored. That thing this afternoon—
So not everything could be anticipated. Not everything could be warded off. Not everything—oh, God! Where was the justice in this?
She crossed her fingers. She caught his eye and he smiled.
They found Ruth just where the desk man had said she’d be. They found her boots, anyway. The rest of her was banging away under the chassis of the blue Ford.
“Hey, girl,” Melody said. “You almost done? They’re closing in”—she lifted Wrecker’s wrist to check his watch—“in twenty minutes.”
Ruth’s voice was muffled by the truck body. “You bring that number?”
“Got it right here.” Melody reached into her pocket for the scrap with the information Ruth needed. The farm truck was down again. Ruthie had hitched a ride to the junkyard and called Melody at the Mercantile to ask for a ride home and to bring her a part number and a price from the book at the Napa counter. It would come in handy, Ruthie told her, when it came time to pay. The desk man was a genius, everybody knew it, but he was as tight as a man could get and stay in business.
Slowly, incrementally, Ruth started to work her way out from under the truck. Each movement radiated pain. Melody watched the legs of her grease-streaked jeans emerge first, then the broad belt with the fist-sized buckle that encircled her wide waist, then the faded plaid of her flannel shirt. Ruth’s head arrived last, round and watch-capped. She grinned at Wrecker. “Hey, you little fart. Bring me anything good to eat?”
Like a magic trick, Wrecker pulled the egg, unbroken, from his pocket and held it like a diamond in the light. It glowed golden in the last rays of the sun.
Ruth guffawed. She still lay on her back. Melody knew it would be a lengthy process to get her unkinked and ambulatory. “You eat it,” Ruth said. “I eat one more egg I’ll turn into a chicken.” They were all sick of them. Johnny Appleseed’s hens laid the cheapest packets of protein they could access and there was some discussion at the farm over whether they would sprout wings or feathers first.
“Br-br-br-br-BAWK,” Wrecker crowed. He cracked the shell and slipped the whole egg in his mouth. It made Melody shudder.
“You get the part?”
“I got it.” Ruth handed Melody a cruddy lump of metal. “Wasn’t easy.”
“Think it’ll work?”
“Damn well better,” she grumbled. “After all this. Help me with my tools.” She reached back under the truck for wrenches, for drifts, for a ball-peen hammer
, and Melody took them as she passed them out, put them in their slots in the canvas tool wrap.
“Where’s this go?” Melody held up a small sledge and Ruthie gestured to the bucket. “Wrecker saved me from a speeding ticket.”
“How’d he do that?”
Melody flushed and looked up. The boy was several vehicles away, climbing onto the running board of an old pickup. She watched him for a minute and turned back to Ruth. “I’m an asshole.” She pulled her jacket tighter around her.
The older woman struggled onto an elbow. She wore a streak of grease across her face like war paint. “Well, I won’t argue with you about that. What happened?”
“Damn cop.” Melody shook her head. “Pulled me over at the bottom on Thompson Creek Hill. A cop there, on the Mattole Road. Can you believe it?”
“Your lucky day.”
“Something like that.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “So I’m talking to him, and when I glance over at Wrecker he looks like he’s going to throw up. I told the cop I needed to go ahead and get Wrecker to his school, that it was an emergency.”
“He let you go?” Ruth was sitting up by now.
Melody nodded. “I got to the school and Wrecker went berserk.” She glanced at Ruth. “I didn’t realize it until then.”
“The cop.” Melody’s face twisted in a thin smile and Ruth shook her head, looked down at the dirt. “Poor kid must have freaked,” Ruth murmured. “Probably hasn’t been that close to a cop since they picked him up under the bridge, all those years ago.” She rubbed her hand across her face and the grease smeared onto her chin. “Sweet mother of God. If I could just wash all that—”
“Dream on.”
Ruthie glanced at her sharply. “Oh. You giving up now?”
“Shut up, Ruth.” Melody scowled and bunched her shirt cuffs into her fists. “I’m just saying. Those first three years? I thought we’d gotten past that. I thought that was over.”
“So we quit on him?”
“You know that’s not—”
“Well then, what?” Ruth struggled to her feet.
“Christ, Ruth!” Melody’s voice rose into a yelp. “Back off.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and shook her head to fend off tears. “It’s just hard.” Harder than anything she’d ever done, already. Hard enough before Willow went and told that woman, that Lisa Fay, where to find him. What if she got out early? Wasn’t anybody else as scared they’d lose him? She dropped her volume, tried to even out her voice. “It’s a hard time, now. That’s all I’m saying.”
But Ruth wouldn’t budge. “Hard for him?” Her voice was sharper than Melody had ever heard it. “Or hard for you?”
Melody felt it like the sting of a slap, and stalked away.
Wrecker was standing on the hood of the old pickup when he saw Melody storm off. He watched her back and then he slid down the left fender and walked over to Ruth.
“Where’s Deedee going?”
Ruth wiped her hands on the rag she kept in her back pocket. She looked down at the boy and shrugged. “Taking the long way, I guess,” she said. “We’ll meet her at the gate. I’ve got to pay for this part before the Desk Man closes shop. Go on and grab that bucket and come with me.” Wrecker hesitated and Ruthie laid her hand on the back of his neck. “Leave her be,” she said. “She’s just getting some air. Aren’t you cold? Where’s your jacket?”
Wrecker flushed. His jacket. He looked up at her. “I’m not cold.”
“Left it at the Merc? Fair enough, then. Get it tomorrow.”
They walked together past the rows of cars. Wrecker peered down each intersection.
Ruthie said, “She’s coming.”
They could see the office ahead. The Desk Man was standing outside with someone else. It could be Melody. But they got closer and saw that it wasn’t. It was a man.
“Uh-oh,” Ruth said. “Better hurry.” But she couldn’t go a lot faster than she already was. Faster for her meant a determined look on her face and a more exaggerated limp. When they got closer the other man came toward them. He reached to take the U-joint and tool roll from her hands. He was a young man with a friendly, almost goofy smile.
“DF Al!” Wrecker exclaimed.
“Hey, buddy!” He clocked the boy on the shoulder. “You out fixing your ride?”
“Where’s Deedee?”
“Lady,” the Desk Man grumbled. “I’m closed up.”
“Not for me you’re not,” Ruth warned. “Let’s talk about price.”
“I said I’m closed.”
“You quoted me six bucks over new. Forget that! I’ll give you half.”
“Did you see her?”
DF Al looked at Wrecker. “Is this your aunt?”
“Give me twenty bucks and get out of here. You’re wasting my time.”
“Al. She go out already?”
Ruth wasn’t happy, Wrecker could tell from the red on her cheeks. But she pulled a crumpled bill from her pocket and handed it to the man. “This doesn’t work, I’m bringing it back.”
“I’m late,” he grumbled. “Past closing.” He gestured toward his truck or the setting sun, it wasn’t clear. “Go on, now. I’m letting out the dogs.”
Wrecker said loudly, “Where’s Deedee?”
They all turned to look at him.
Melody reclined with the Studebaker seat pushed all the way back and her legs stretched out in front of her, her ankles crossed and her arms folded across her chest. The sun was a lump of red in the rearview mirror. She had quit crying and was just listening to the breath whistle in and out through her nose. The sound was oddly comforting. She knew she should be getting back but felt that she had discovered a pristine, unrecycled pocket of calm that couldn’t last, and that it would be sinful to turn her back on it. She gave it six breaths. She gave it ten and then opened the car door and got out.
Ambling up the lane was a thin man with a shuffling walk, a dark apostrophe that resolved, as he got closer, into DF Al.
“You,” she said.
He stopped a few yards from her and shifted his weight from foot to foot. He reached a hand to scratch the back of his neck and then ran it over the beard growth on his chin. “I guess so.”
She laughed. It surprised her and she put her hand to her mouth. She had been exposed, as—as what?
He didn’t seem to care. He just stood there and let the evening air spill over him.
“You know what I’d like, Al?” Melody felt emotion swell again in her throat and had to talk just to keep it from spilling out. “For a little while? I’d like everything just to stop. Just for a bit. So I could stand here and smoke a joint with you.” Her voice wobbled, but she kept going. “We could talk about nothing. Bullshit. Whatever.” She took a deep breath and leaned back against the car door. “Then I’d like to smoke another one. And then—” She glanced at him and almost said it. Because it was true, he looked good, standing there like that. And the truth hurt.
It had been so goddamned long.
He didn’t look embarrassed. He just nodded, his head gently bobbing, his body moving slowly forward with each dip of his chin until he stood close enough for one more nod to bring the rough scratch of his beard gently onto the crown of her head. His arms had somehow taken up positions around hers to circle her rib cage. He kept his body close but tilted his chin back and to the side to gaze at her. “Aw,” he said. She watched him smile and then he leaned forward and let his breath ruffle the whorls of her ear. “I gave up weed a long time ago.”
Melody felt a sob disguised as a warble of laughter escape.
Al shuffled into the opening it made and reached beside her to unlatch the back door. He made a formal gesture with his hand, but his eyes, warm behind the black-framed glasses, held her steady as Melody let herself sink onto the horsehair bench. Her heart was bruised and her confidence torn to ribbons, but when Al squeezed in beside her, bumping a bony knee against her hip and releasing a cloud of dust from the seatback, she could feel it sta
rt to mend. As long as he kept doing that. And that. As long as he didn’t stop with any of that.
It was nearly dark when they made their way back to join the others. The Desk Man was agitated in a damped-down, church-whispering way. “Don’t come back,” he said, but not to anybody in particular. He led the dogs, two sleepy Dobermans who stretched and yawned and slobbered on Wrecker’s hand, out of the office. He released them into the yard and then herded everyone outside the gate. “Don’t you come back,” he muttered again, and got in his truck and revved the engine and drove away.
“Ruthie,” Melody said. She felt as though someone had scraped away the top layer of her skin and left everything internal—blood vessels, organs, emotions—horrendously exposed. “This is DF Al.”
Ruth looked from her face to his and down to take in Wrecker. The boy was watching Melody carefully. Ruthie reached for his hand and pulled him closer to her, but he wouldn’t be drawn in. It wasn’t an angry resistance; he was simply magnetized in a different direction. “Right,” she said. She turned her gaze back to Melody. “What’s the DF part?”
Melody flushed. She had come up with many derogatory tags. She had not been discreet about it, either. She winced and offered, “Damn Fine?”
Wrecker kept watching her. He said, his voice soft, “Deedee’s Friend.”
The man stepped forward. He took Ruth’s hand in both of his and shook it. “Douglas Franklin Albert Rice,” he said. “And the pleasure is all mine.”
CHAPTER SIX
Lisa Fay woke in the harsh half-light that doubled for night in prison. They dimmed the lights on the cellblock after ten, but real dark was as distant a memory as the feel of rain on her face or grass under her bare feet. Was that grass at her feet? Lisa Fay jerked her knees close to her chest and scanned the room. Delfine’s bunk was empty. That would be Delfine, reaching out her spidery hand to stroke the sole of her foot. Delfine had nightmares; she woke up in the night convinced she was dead and had to lay a hand on something living to disprove the notion. “Quit it,” Lisa Fay muttered roughly. “Get away from me.”
