Face the Music: Beyond Jackson Falls Book 1

by Laurie Breton

  Amy rolled her eyes. “Are you really that superstitious? I think we can make it through dinner and a movie without disaster striking. What’s left to happen?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, closed it as he realized it was a blessing that in spite of her education and her worldliness, Amy still lived in a false bubble of security in this small town where bad things almost never happened. He’d spent time living in dangerous places, and he’d learned the hard way that a single instant could change your life forever. Maybe even end it. He’d lived too long with that knowledge to ever let go of it.

  Directly behind that first realization came a second one: He was overreacting. Fatigue and stress had triggered mild paranoia. Sometimes, his filters didn’t work the way they should. Sometimes, he experienced a nuclear response to some tiny aggravation that required nothing more than a Band-Aid. They’d told him at the hospital that it was part of his post-traumatic stress. Pessimism, paranoia, an unfounded fear that death waited around every corner. Overcoming it would be part of his healing process. So far, it hadn’t happened. When things went wrong, as they often did, he still had a tendency to expect the worst.

  “I think I have some of that spaghetti sauce left over,” she said. “Casey’s recipe.”

  She had him at Casey’s recipe. He’d spent many a long, miserably hot night lying on a cot in a tent in the Iraqi desert, reminiscing about his aunt’s cooking. On her own, Amy was an adequate cook. But when she followed one of Casey’s recipes, what she turned out was stellar.

  He took a slow, deep breath, then another, to calm the racing of his heart. “I’ll stay,” he said. Then couldn’t risk adding, “But if the roof blows off the house while we’re sleeping, don’t come crying to me.”

  * * *

  AN EVENING BREEZE, sweetened by the scent of honeysuckle, fluttered the curtain at the open window and cooled the sweat from his body. The tinkle of wind chimes from the front porch added a Zen feeling to his post-coital languor. Physically sated, relaxed and loose-jointed, Mikey allowed his mind to drift back to the exhilarating rush of the waves on that sunny beach.

  From the other side of the bed, a soft voice said, “I like you better when you’re like this.”

  Still wool-gathering, half-asleep, he rolled onto his side. Lying in a pool of spilled moonlight, Amy Tardiff was breathtaking, all lush breasts and full hips and softly rounded little tummy. Like a Rubens painting come to life.

  “Like what?” he said.

  “Nice. I like you better when you’re nice to me.”

  Her words struck a tender spot. “I’m nice to you, Amy. When am I not nice?”

  She touched a finger to his shoulder, ran it down his arm to his wrist. “You’re a good guy, Mike. But sometimes, I think you’re only here for the sex.”

  And there it was, the dark Thing he’d felt coming earlier, the storm cloud brewing over his head. Unable to slow its implacable pace, he still recognized it immediately. “Why?” he asked. “Why would you say that?”

  “It’s how I feel. It’s a valid point. Why wouldn’t I say it?”

  “We had a good day. Why are you trying to spoil it?”

  “Come on, Mike. We had a terrible day, and you know it.”

  He froze. Then he rolled over, sat up on his side of the bed, and scrubbed his palms over his face. How could the evening have descended to this level of Hell so quickly? “Who the hell are you?” he said, looking back at her over his shoulder. “I don’t know you any more. You change personality like a squirrel crossing the street. You go left, you go right, you go left again. I’m getting whiplash, trying to keep up with you.”

  “Who’s Rachel?”

  Sharp and accurate as a whaler’s harpoon, her words found their target, piercing and embedding themselves in the tender flesh of his heart.

  Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall.

  Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall.

  He was beginning to develop that tell-tale hitch in his breathing. Hoarsely, he said, “What do you know about Rachel?”

  “Nothing,” she said, “except that you have her name tattooed on your shoulder. It’s hard to miss.”

  He’d forgotten the tattoo. Low on his shoulder, hidden from the world and his mirror, that tattoo had come about one night a few months after he came home, when he’d found himself drowning in alcohol and despair. He’d called Gunther and spilled his crazy idea. Because he was still adjusting to driving with the prosthesis, Gunth had driven him to Farmington, to an ex-con acquaintance who happened to be an unlicensed tattoo artist, and the guy had permanently embedded Rachel’s name in his flesh. She was already permanently embedded in his heart; he might as well finish the job.

  “She’s nobody,” he said brusquely, and stepped away from the bed and into the darkness beyond.

  “If she was nobody, there’d be no tattoo.”

  He fumbled on the floor for his shorts, found them, and yanked them on. “We’re not going there,” he said.

  “I have a right to know.”

  Still fumbling, he located his shirt, his pants, and with unsteady hands, pulled them on. “Stop,” he said wearily. “Just stop it.”

  “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

  “Home. Where I should’ve gone in the first place.” He shoved first one foot, then the other, into his shoes.

  “So you’re running away the minute I start asking hard questions?”

  Working at his shirt buttons, he said, “I’m leaving. There’s a difference. I’ve had enough of this.”

  She sat up, moving slowly, and draped the sheet around her. “What are you talking about?” There was something new in her voice, something that sounded like fear.

  “All this drama,” he said. “I don’t want to do it any more.”

  “Are you breaking up with me? Over a few innocent questions?” Incredulity spilled from her voice like an overfilled cup of thick, dark coffee. To him, it sounded as if she’d been doing the town cripple a favor by consorting with him, and couldn’t believe this was how he repaid the favor.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I need some time to think it over.”

  Illuminated by moonlight, her lips thinned into a narrow slash of red. “Are you going to her?” she said. “To Rachel? Is that what this is about?”

  Jesus H. Christ. Mikey straightened, gave her a last long look. “She’s dead,” he said, and left her there alone on the bed.

  * * *

  WHEN HE PARKED at the rear of Gunther’s building, the music rose up in a wave of sound. Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth. Good old protest song. Gunther’s era, Gunther’s war. The man himself perched on the back step, feet resting loosely in the gravel, a half-empty bottle of gin in his hand and an unopened envelope on the wooden step beside him.

  If he’d come here for support, he wouldn’t be getting it tonight. In fact, their roles would probably be reversed. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Gunther was as broken as he was. Together, they might possibly be superglued into a whole, functioning human, but separately, they were both shattered, their pieces random and formless, shaped by war and cast from the same mold. Seeming unsurprised to see him at such a late hour, Gunther watched, bleary-eyed, as Mikey stepped away from the bike. Gunth took a swig of gin, then lowered the bottle and, forehead screwed up into tight wrinkles, studied Mikey’s approach. “Your shirt’s buttoned all wrong,” he said.

  Mikey glanced down, hastily undid the buttons, then rebuttoned them. Silently, he sat on the step beside Gunther, reached down between them, and picked up the white envelope. Like all the others, it was neatly addressed to a Jenell Ostrom in Memphis, and in a bold, heavy script, someone had written: REFUSED. RETURN TO SENDER.

  “You know,” he said, “you could just stop writing to her.”

  “Your shoes are untied. Your goddamn shoes are untied. And where the hell are your socks?”

  He looked at his feet, surprised. The fight had happened so quickly, he hadn’t re
alized he’d left his socks behind. They were probably already gathering dust bunnies under Amy’s bed. He wondered if she’d hold them for ransom. Silently, he raised one knee, then the other, and tied his laces. Returned his feet to the patch of gravel at the foot of the steps. “You know she doesn’t want to talk to you,” he said. “Why do you keep trying?”

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “Every damn time your letter comes back, you pick up a bottle and drown yourself in it. How’s that working out for you?”

  “What the hell happened to you? You look like you just came out of the tumble dryer down at the Wash-n-Dry.”

  “Amy happened to me, that’s what.”

  “Did she?” For the first time, Gunther showed a glimmer of interest. “What bug’s she got up her ass?”

  “She’s not the one with the bug. I am. She brought up Rachel’s name. Asked about the tattoo.”

  “Oh.” That one syllable said it all. “How’d that go over?”

  “It didn’t.” A single blade of grass had poked its head through the gravel. He reached down and plucked it. “So when’d this latest letter come back?”

  “Today.” Gunther shifted position, scuffing his boots in the gravel. “It was in my mailbox when I got home tonight.”

  “I’m serious, Gunth. When are you gonna stop doing this to yourself?”

  Gunther tilted the bottle of gin and drank. Wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I gotta keep trying. She’s my little girl.”

  “Maybe it’s time to let her go. After all, that’s what she did with you.”

  He wasn’t trying to be cruel. It was the simple truth, a truth they’d discussed a dozen times, every time one of Gunther’s letters came back, like a swallow to Capistrano.

  “The last time I saw her,” Gunther said, “she was nine years old.”

  “That was a long time ago, buddy. She’s not a kid any more. Hell, she’s older than I am. I’d think by now, she’d know her own mind.”

  “I’m not ready yet.”

  Flattening the blade of grass between his palms and rolling it, he said, “Seems like there’s a lot of that going around tonight.”

  Gunther snorted. “She’ll get over it.”

  For a moment, he was confused. “Jenell?”

  “Not Jenell. Amy. Give her a day or two, and she’ll come running back. Jenell…well, that’s a whole different thing.”

  He thought it judicious to not mention the fact that he was the one who’d cut and run. Eyeing the bottle of gin, Mikey said, “You’re pickling your insides, you know. That shit will rot your gut. It’s probably already rotted it.”

  “And your point is?”

  “Maybe just the fact that if your damn daughter ever does decide to come around, it might be nice if you were still among the living when she came looking for you.”

  Above his head, a June bug flitted around the porch light, slamming its fat little body against the glass globe, over and over and over. They both watched it for a while. “Stubborn little bastard,” Gunther said.

  “Remind you of anyone?”

  “Fuck you.” Gunther held out the bottle of rotgut. “You want a drink?”

  Mikey eyed the bottle with distaste. Nasty stuff. Bottom of the barrel. Might as well be drinking rubbing alcohol. But they were brothers in arms, and if nothing else, they needed to support each other.

  “Ah, hell,” he said, “why not? It’s not like I have anything better to do tonight.”

  * * *

  TWO HOURS LATER, he poured Gunther into bed, pulled off his boots, and left him, snoring like a band saw, to sleep it off. Because his leg was aching, and he’d been drinking, and the trailer park was a half-mile away, he found a spare blanket and pillow and made up a bed for himself on Gunther’s couch.

  Before he settled down, he rummaged through the old man’s medicine cabinet until he found something that would help with the pain. Gunther always had a ready supply of prescription candy, something for every possible purpose. Mikey debated the advisability of mixing one of these bad boys with booze, but he’d only had a few drinks; it was Gunther who’d put it away like there was no tomorrow. So he popped a couple of the pills and settled in for the night.

  He awoke, surprisingly refreshed, to sunlight spilling in the windows. In the kitchen, the smell of bacon frying mingled with the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee, topped off with a spate of muttered cussing. Gunther had to be hung over six ways to Sunday, but he was up and cooking breakfast. Mikey stood, stretched his cramped and aching muscles, and thought about how great a massage would feel right about now. But he had other business to take care of first. He wandered out to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee, and snagged a strip of bacon from the paper towel Gunther had set it on to drain.

  “Get your grubby paws off,” Gunther snarled as he flipped an egg with ease. He’d been a cook in ‘Nam, and the skills he’d learned there had stood him in good stead. “You can eat when breakfast’s ready.”

  “I’ll probably just swing through Dunk’s on the way home and pick up a doughnut.”

  Gunther turned, gave him a level, steely stare, and said, “You’ll eat breakfast, and you’ll fucking like it.”

  All-righty then. It was good bacon. And free. Free was good. No point in paying for doughnuts when you had free bacon and eggs. Gunther dished out breakfast, pulled a bottle of ketchup from the fridge, and they sat on opposite sides of the table. They passed the salt and pepper shakers back and forth, then settled down to eat. Gunther ate with his head down, one hand holding his fork, the other hand rubbing idly at his temple. Every so often, he’d break off a tidbit and feed it to Spike, who sat patiently at his feet, waiting. No wonder the damn dog was so fat.

  There was no conversation, just the sound of two men chewing and swallowing. Conversation at the dinner table was overrated anyway. It was more important to take care of business.

  Eventually, Gunther set down his fork, wiped his mouth on a paper napkin and said, “I do anything really stupid last night?”

  Mikey swabbed jelly on his toast. “No more than usual.”

  “Feels like my head’s about to fall off and roll around on the floor.”

  “I shouldn’t admit this, but I envy your ability to put that much away and still wake up alive the next morning.”

  “Yeah, well, envy’s one of the seven deadly sins, ain’t it? Shit.” Gunther closed his eyes, rubbed at one with the heel of his hand. “Drunkenness must be in there somewhere.”

  “Probably right between sloth and gluttony.”

  “And plagues and pestilence.”

  “I think that was something else. But I’m not exactly up on my Bible trivia. You going to eat that last piece of bacon?”

  Gunther waved it away. “Take it. I wasn’t hungry in the first place. You think I woulda put together this elegant spread if you’d gone home last night?”

  “You’re a man after my own heart.”

  “Ah, hell, I’m no hero. Just a busted-up old wreck of a man with his head screwed on crooked.”

  “But you have a way with bacon.”

  “Truth.”

  “And you’re not that old.”

  “One thing you need to learn, my friend. Old has nothing to do with birthdays. Old is something you carry up here.” He tapped at his temple. “And I’ve got me a powerful case of the olds.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way. People can change.”

  “Ain’t that simple. Look at you. You’re thirty. Just a kid. You got the rest of your life ahead of you. All the good times, the best times, are still ahead of you. Me, I’m on the downside. My best times are all behind me—”

  “You don’t know that. You can’t predict the future.”

  “I may be no Nostradamus, but I know what I’m talking about. You need to pull your head out of your ass, kid, find yourself a good woman, and get on with your life. Don’t just sit and rot, the way I’ve done.”

  “I have a good woman, remember? Or at least
I did, until last night. As I recall, that didn’t turn out very well.”

  “Amy’s a good woman. She just isn’t the right woman. You need to find the right good woman and hang onto her for all you’re worth.”

  Irritated, he said, “I’ve got one leg. One goddamn leg. I’m half a man. What woman wants to sleep next to that for the next fifty years?”

  “Half a man, my ass. Does the rest of your equipment work?”

  He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be insulted. “Of course it does,” he said. “Do you really think Amy would’ve hung around for a year if it didn’t?”

  “Then it shouldn’t matter. You find a woman that loves you, and you keep her satisfied, and it won’t matter that you’ve only got one leg. Because that missing leg isn’t who you are, or who you aren’t. It’s just a leg. You have a lot to offer a woman, if you’d just stop feeling sorry for yourself. You need to start living life again, before you end up a dried-up, bitter old sot like me.”

  “Jesus, Gunth. You’re just sunshine and roses today.”

  “I’m a realist, that’s what I am. Just calling it the way I see it. Don’t turn out like me, Mike. You got potential that I never had. You just need to figure out what to do with it.”

  * * *

  HE HEADED HOME after breakfast, took a long, steamy shower and dressed in clean clothes, then got in the truck and headed out. He didn’t bother to stop at Amy’s house; he knew exactly where he’d find her on a Sunday morning.

  Her little red Hyundai was the only car in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church. Amy directed the church choir, and she liked to get there a few minutes early so she could take out the robes, bookmark the pages in the hymnals, and have a little time to prepare before the service started.

  When he pulled up beside her, she was sitting behind the steering wheel, applying lipstick in the vanity mirror attached to the sun visor. At the sound of his truck, she glanced up, then looked away as though he didn’t exist.

  Mikey turned off the ignition, opened the creaky door, and got out. She could pretend to ignore him all she wanted, but eventually, she would have to talk to him. Eventually, she would have to get out of the car. In the meantime, he was perfectly content to lean against his driver’s door, arms crossed over his chest, and wait. There was nowhere else he needed to be.