Wild at Whiskey Creek

by Julie Anne Long

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Good night, Glory Hallelujah Greenleaf.” He leaped off the stage and headed out that door just as Glenn appeared and put the mop in her hand.

  “I’ll pay you overtime,” he wheedled, by way of persuasion, and really how could she resist, when he put it that way?

  Chapter 10

  Glory lay awake for much of the night, staring at the ceiling and punished herself by reviewing the highlights of her week.

  So far she’d:

  Bitten a guy and cursed his genitals

  Quit one job at which she sucked

  Gotten a new and better job at which she also sucked

  Incited a pissing contest involving classic rocks songs between a deputy sheriff and a famous actor

  Indirectly caused a riot

  Inadvertently launched the musical career of her ex-boyfriend

  Decked her ex-boyfriend

  Gotten hit on by a famous actor

  And all of these were witnessed by Eli. Who had, earlier in the week, suggested she ought to make better decisions.

  She fell asleep feeling sodden with failure, but she awoke feeling charged with penitent purpose and sprang from bed. First, she reflexively moved her tiger to a spot in her bedroom window. Where it could look out toward the highway.

  And after a very short shower—water and the energy to heat it cost money, after all—she pulled on jeans and a boring long-sleeved berry-colored t-shirt. And twisted her hair up into some sort of demure Gibson Girl–esque hairdo and secured it with a barrette.

  There! It was symbolic. Maybe reining in all that hair would help keep potential chaos at bay. And she could drive to work today, so she wouldn’t risk jostling it loose. She stared a moment longer. And then she felt too fettered and muted and she panicked, so she added a pair of dangly silver teardrop-shaped earrings that ended with a small sparkly blue stone. Quite pretty, and quite fake. That was a little better.

  It was barely past dawn and her mom was still asleep. She went to make a pot of coffee and found a sad, saggy, empty bag of beans in the freezer.

  She made a feral sound in her throat.

  There was a note in the middle of the kitchen table.

  Glo—

  Borrowed the truck to go pick up some lumber to fix the gutters. And I drank the last of the coffee. Also I used the last of the detergent. And I drank your Diet Coke.

  P.S. I left a six pack of Mickey’s big mouth in the fridge to get cold! Don’t drink them! I’ll be back for them tonight.

  P.P.S. Okay, you can drink one. ONE! Just ONE. You got that? One.

  P.P.P.S. I heard you caused a riot at the Misty Cat last night. Good one!

  P.P.P.P.S. If you love me, you’ll put any extra ten-dollar bills you might have lying around right HERE.

  Below here he’d drawn a big, currency-sized rectangle.

  P.P.P.P.P.S. Just ONE (1) !!!!!

  Your loving bro,

  John-Mark

  Glory studied the note.

  Then she slipped a pen from the little soup can pencil holder next to the telephone and carefully drew a hand with an extended middle finger in the rectangle. She added a smiley face to it so that it looked like a friendly cartoon character. She signed it.

  Xoxo Your loving sister

  She hauled her weary, shame-soaked, heart-achey but somewhat animated-by-hope butt down to the Misty Cat on foot, taking her favorite route, down along Whiskey Creek, through the pasture and over the fence, down to the dirt road. The big elm was officially wearing fall colors; and it would do its annual total striptease pretty soon, dumping piles of flame-colored leaves at its base. A few were already sprinkled around the trunk.

  She pulled her jacket tighter around her. It was a little chilly, which reminded her that they were coming up on winter soon. And winter meant heating bills.

  Or burning their furniture in the fireplace.

  Ha.

  Two interesting glimmers of potential remained, however: The possibility of playing an opening set for The Baby Owls. And the fact that a hot, if older, actor wanted to take her out to dinner and possibly do her. So she held on to those things and managed to massage her mood into something a little more optimistic.

  Which required her not to think about what Eli might have done with Bethany after they’d vanished out the door last night.

  The Misty Cat’s doors were still locked so she knocked. They were opened by a brisk, be-aproned Sherrie, her hair as bright as the fall-colored leaves in the early light.

  Sherrie and Glenn had raised four kids into respectable adults. One son was even a surgeon. They were no strangers to drama or upheaval or even bar fights.

  Sherrie was a balm, the very personification of equanimity. “You had quite the lively night last night, didn’t you, Glory hon? Let’s see if we can have a more soothing, or at least less eventful, day. Why don’t you follow me around a bit and you can pick up, well, let’s call ’em little nuances of service.” She paused to peer critically at Glory. “You look like you could use a cup of coffee.”

  “John-Mark drank the last of ours.”

  “Young men that age are like termites. They’ll eat and drink you out of house and home if you let ’em. Go pour yourself a cup. I have a few little things to take care of in the office and then I’ll bring our order pads out and we’ll unlock the doors and let in the madding crowd. Tomorrow I’ll have you do the morning prep,” she said brightly, as though Glory was in store for a treat.

  Sherrie vanished into the back of the restaurant, where a little windowless lockable room served as an office.

  Glory liked the Misty Cat first thing in the morning. The slight damp brought out its wonderfully old smell, redolent with history, and the dusty tree-filtered light threw pine branch patterns on the floor. The blinds were all the way open, a nod to the fact that that brutal summer heat was already ebbing. She poured herself a cup of coffee and watched Giorgio fire up the shining grill, set up little bins of diced ham and peppers and mushrooms and various cheeses, and inventory his various supplies and utensils, making rattling and clanking and jingling sounds.

  “Morning, Sprinklers,” she finally said to him.

  “Great set last night,” he said.

  She was shocked. Given that he rationed words like a miser. No one really knew what Giorgio’s daily word quota was.

  “Gosh! Um, thanks.”

  “I meant Mick’s.”

  “Ha,” she amended blackly.

  He hid a small smile and continued with his setup.

  She sipped at her coffee, then spotted the counter stool Mick had almost beaned Eli with. It was old and plump and upholstered in red vinyl. On impulse and instinct, she thumped it with her fist, and it yielded a surprisingly satisfying sound. Boy, it would have done some damage if Mick had managed to connect, though Eli’s skull was pretty thick.

  She thought about Eli and the sweet, golden-haired Bethany trailing him out the door last night. And like exhaust from a car, what emerged were the first few lines of Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way.” And she accompanied herself on the stool because she freaking loved how the drums came into that song.

  Before she realized it, she was rounding on the second verse and really jamming on the red vinyl with her hands.

  So it was a moment or two before she realized that the noises from the grill had stopped.

  She looked up.

  Giorgio was glaring at her in blackest amazement.

  He held her gaze for a moment. Just to let his censure settle in.

  “Don’t,” he pronounced tautly, enunciating every letter. He was clearly incredulous he would have to say that at all.

  She obeyed. There really was no question who the more valuable employee was.

  Sherrie returned with their order pads, a damp towel, and a broom and assigned Glory the task of giving the floor one last sweep and the tables one last wipe. This was part of “morning prep.”

  Glory caught a glimpse of her puffy ha
irdo and martyred expression in the reflection of the table she was cleaning and almost laughed. She looked a bit like Cinderella. Which perversely cheered her up. Because in the end, even when her dress was in tatters and she’d lost one of her completely impractical shoes, even Cinderella caught a break. And after the week she’d had, she was due for one, she figured.

  “It’s pornography!” Carlotta Kilgore was incensed.

  “Wellll . . .” Eli said. “I’m not sure I’d call it that, precisely.”

  Revenge is what he would call it. For walking a beagle in the wrong place, over and over. And he’d also call it hilarious. But he wasn’t going to say that.

  His eyes were burning with the sheer unnatural effort it took to hold back the laughter. But it was his job to be sympathetic and impartial, and damned if he wasn’t good at his job.

  “That woman knew we were having the press out today to Elysian Acres. The paper came around to photograph our displays this morning. Do you know how many photos they took of this? Around a hundred before you got here! The shame!”

  Eli had shooed the “press,” a couple of giggling college interns with the Hellcat Canyon Chronicle snapping photos with their phones, away from the crime scene. But he supposed it didn’t hurt to have a lot of documentation. So he took his own photos, just to be sure.

  He might even make one of them his screen saver.

  The irony, on the other hand, was almost too much. Because the last thing he’d done last night was answer a call about a riot. And it was kind of the first thing he was doing today, too, in the crisp cool of the early morning, here at Elysian Acres.

  Well, it was more on the order of an orgy than a riot.

  “If it’s any consolation, Mrs. Kilgore, I’m pretty sure the Hellcat Canyon Chronicle can’t legally publish photos of . . . of this kind of activity.”

  “This kind of activity” was a bit like Caligula, re-imagined by Disney.

  Some of her gnome statues appeared to be humping the rabbit statues. The deer statues were humping each other. Another gnome was tipped over on its back, an empty bottle of Jägermeister next to its upraised hand. Another gnome was flat on its back at the feet of the cheerful lady gnome who was doing a cancan. He was clearly getting an up-skirt peek. On Carlotta’s stone bench, a boy gnome’s face was propped against a girl gnome’s crotch. The girl gnome was grinning broadly up at the sky. Near the front stoop, the little kneeling lady gnome had her face pressed against the groin of the bearded gnome whose hands were triumphantly resting on his hips.

  “I understand why you’re upset, but they all seem to be . . . um . . . intact.”

  Even if they’re not virgins anymore, he was so, so tempted to say.

  “And it’s difficult to prove consent or lack thereof,” he added. “Seeing as how they’re statues.”

  She glared at him.

  “They all appear to be enjoying themselves. They’re all smiling, anyway. Except the rabbits. Though it’s often hard to tell what rabbits are thinking, in general.”

  “You think this is funny, Eli!”

  He surrendered to his, slightly ornery, bordering on anarchic mood. “Hell yeah, I think it’s funny.”

  “Eli!” she was reproachful.

  “C’mon, Mrs. Kilgore. Where do you think baby gnome statues come from? One reckless night at a gnome party just like this one.”

  He was lucky the corner of her mouth twitched at that one and her eyes lit up.

  He was going to lose it in a minute.

  Last night he’d said good-bye to Bethany after the Misty Cat melee rather abruptly once he got out the door of the Misty Cat, but then, he had a legitimate excuse: squad cars filled with unruly drunks to be processed down at the station. Not to mention a head full of unruly thoughts.

  And now two moments from last night replayed in his head, like jammed slides in a projector. Glory pulling her hand from him. Glory reaching out to take Franco Francone’s card. Glory pulling her hand from him. Glory reaching out to take Franco Francone’s card. Like that. Kachunk. Kachunk. Kachunk. Kachunk.

  It was getting harder and harder to think of Kismet as bullshit when he’d been interrupted yet again when he happened to be touching Glory. And just when he’d been so close to melting that wall between them.

  Fucking Franco Francone.

  “You can get fingerprints off the statues, can’t you?” Mrs. Kilgore was gazing up at him.

  “I’m afraid you might be confusing Hellcat Canyon with CSI: NY, Mrs. Kilgore. And I have a hunch they’re all covered in each other’s fingerprints. That was some gnome party.”

  She snorted at that. “Nevertheless, this means war.”

  Eli sighed. That was all he needed. The War of the Mobile Estates. He could see it now: the mobility scooter cavalry, infantry swinging walking sticks with tennis balls on the bottoms, a front line of briskly fit grandmas shot-putting brownies and oatmeal cookies, backed up by a few columns of the world’s gassiest grandpas.

  Hell, maybe he’d get another commendation for intervening in that.

  Maybe he could avoid it altogether if he became undersheriff and moved from Hellcat Canyon.

  The irony here was that he knew how to fight—dirty, clean, martial arts, you name it. He could tackle like a tank and shoot the hearts out of targets; he knew how to deftly, methodically grill a suspect to yield up sordid truths or soothe a frightened burglary victim. But none of that was a match for a stubborn Glory Greenleaf. It wasn’t enough to be himself anymore, because that’s who she was mad at. And with her, he didn’t know what else to be.

  She wasn’t the only one who was hurt and angry. But he was the only one getting shut out.

  And that, frankly, was making him even angrier. And the quagmire of emotions he felt about the whole thing, the ones he never could seem to transmute into the right words, had now cranked up to something past a simmer.

  It was also starting to feel a little like gamesmanship.

  Still, being played was marginally better than the notion that she might be ambivalent. That she might need to flip a mental coin between the humble deputy who’d slammed her beloved brother to the floor and hauled him off in handcuffs and the hot, too-slick-for-his-own-good actor, who might just be the conduit to superstardom and the end of open mic nights at the Misty Cat.

  He scowled at that grinning stone gnome with his hands on his hips. The one who appeared to be getting a blow job. At the moment, he envied that gnome for being made out of stone. And for the other thing, too.

  “I have a granddaughter, too, you know,” Mrs. Kilgore added, suddenly, competitively. “She’s very pretty.”

  Eli stifled a sigh. He was completely unsurprised that everyone knew his business.

  Quick as a wink, Mrs. Kilgore swiped a photo up on her phone and pointed it at him.

  Carlotta Kilgore’s granddaughter looked a lot like her—pretty, sultry with masses of wavy brown hair. She was pouting to show off her new lipstick, if Eli had to guess at the story behind the photo. Which was iridescent and red. She was doing one of those sideways peace signs, and what was the deal with those? Whatever happened to just letting your face speak for itself?

  One granddaughter at a time was about all he could handle, at the moment, thank you very much.

  “Thank you for sharing. You must be very proud of her,” he said gently.

  Mrs. Kilgore glowed. That would be how he’d halt the advancing armies of elders in its tracks: he’d flatter all their grandchildren, and then they would melt into puddles.

  “I have to get a move on, Mrs. Kilgore, but I’ll write up this incident and I’ll make sure the Hellcat Canyon Chronicle quotes me on the fact that even whimsical vandalism is a crime. And, um . . . gang . . . warfare is in particular frowned upon by law enforcement officials.”

  He hiked a brow and fixed her with a good shot of his steely-gray gaze to make sure Mrs. Kilgore and her sprinkling beagle understood this.

  “Okay, Eli,” she said, humbly. “Thank you.” />
  He got back in his cruiser. And when he shut the door behind him, it was a little too quiet in there. His thoughts were not his friends these days. And when he was still, that ever-present tightness in his gut made itself known.

  And then suddenly a text chimed in.

  It was from Bethany.

  Hey Eli! I wondered if you’d like to go with me to see The Baby Owls at the Misty Cat , if you’re free?

  She’d included an emoji of a bird and a cat.

  Hs smiled faintly. It was breezy. Like Bethany.

  There was no way Glory wouldn’t be at that show.

  Then again, there was probably no way Francone wouldn’t be there, either.

  And there was really no reason why he should deny himself the company of a pretty woman, or an acoustic show by a band he liked. It was time to get re-acquainted with his resolve.

  He texted back:

  I’d love to, thanks.

  Glory trailed Sherrie for most of the breakfast shift, watching how she made everyone feel like a beloved member of the Misty Cat Family, how she deftly extricated herself from conversations with her customers in order to make sure everyone got quick service but didn’t feel slighted, how she timed the delivery of food orders, and Glory knew she was watching a master. She thought she did a pretty good job of pretending to be fascinated, but she doubted Sherrie was entirely fooled.

  Sherrie finally set Glory loose to take tables on her own at the beginning of the lunch rush, which proved mostly uneventful. She knew about half the people she waited on but she’d never kissed, worked for, or insulted any of them, either inadvertently or otherwise, so by about two o’clock she was about ready to exhale in relief as she waited on her final customer.

  He was an older guy, and her tired eyes rather enjoyed the contrasts of him: silver hair brushed backward off his forehead, bright blue eyes, a suspiciously even golden tan and a coral-colored collared shirt sporting a little logo of a guy on the back of a horse swinging a mallet over his head, which reminded her incongruously of Giorgio wielding his spatula at the grill. The shirt was in fact perilously close to pink, a color no man she knew personally would be caught dead in, but which pro golfers and wealthy car dealers and the like could pull off. He’d added a slim gold chain to his neck. She was always kind of touched when men decided on a piece of jewelry. Did he think his outfit wasn’t complete without it? Or did he just like shiny things?