The Secrets of Taylor Creek

by Michael Merson

  “Let me clear these dishes for you, honey,” she said as she wiped her forehead with her arm and began clearing the table.

  “Thank you.”

  “We don’t have a lunch menu because we’re so busy this time of day. You can have pretty much any cold meat sandwich or a burger from the grill. All of them come with a side of fries. We have various sodas, and of course, tea. Now, you think about what you want, and I’ll be back in a minute to get your order,” She spouted off before walking away.

  “Why, hello, Nathan!”

  Nathan looked up and saw Stormie Arrington standing next to his table, wearing a light blue summer dress, with white gloves and shoes, holding a matching purse.

  The clothes, the way she moved, the way she somehow commanded a room full of people to stop what they were doing and take notice was like that of Jacqueline Kennedy, he thought.

  “Hello Mrs. Arrington,” He said as he stood and clumsily bumped the table as he reached out to shake her hand.

  “Does your husband have a case over at the courthouse today?” He asked curiously.

  “No. I’m in Charlotte by myself today on a personal matter,” she said very directly just as she was bumped into by another patron who was rushing to an empty table.

  “Is your lady friend gonna be joinin’ you?” The waitress asked upon her return, holding a small pad of paper in one hand and a pen in the other.

  “Well, I don’t know. Um, would you like to join me for lunch, Mrs. Arrington?” He asked.

  “If it’s no bother, I’d be delighted. I’m a bit hungry, and it looks like I better take advantage of such a wonderful offer if I plan on eating today,” she said as she pulled the chair out that was directly across from him and sat down.

  “I believe you can tell her what we have for lunch today,” the waitress remarked as she pointed toward Stormie with the pen.

  “Yes, I’ll take care of it,” he responded with a slight smile.

  ***

  Charlie White was driving around Charlotte looking for Agent Emerson. He was angry with himself for losing him earlier on the road, but his old truck couldn’t keep up with the agent’s car. He stopped at a red light and took the opportunity to light a cigarette.

  Damn fool! I should’ve been closer to that son-of-a-bitch. Where’d he go? Charlie asked himself as he took a long drag off the cigarette.

  He looked all over for the agent to no avail. He figured the FBI man would be going to the FBI office, but he didn’t see his car there when he drove by.

  Charlie was trying to decide where he would go next when suddenly a car pulled up next to him. He watched and listened as the driver, a young blonde girl, sang along to the radio. The girl looked over and caught Charlie staring at her. She felt uncomfortable but smiled at him. Charlie returned the smile, bearing his crooked yellow stained teeth.

  The light turned green, and the girl turned right. Charlie thought for a moment, and after the car behind him honked their horn, he quickly whipped the steering wheel to the right. He turned down the same road as the girl and followed her.

  No sense in wasting my day looking for that FBI son-of-a-Bitch.

  Chapter 19

  Nathan quickly but happily went over the menu with his lunch guest. Stormie, after careful deliberation, decided on a burger and fries. If she told the truth, she really didn’t care about what she was going to eat. She was more focused on learning about the man she was eating it with.

  “Would you like sweet tea or just plain tea with your burger?” The waitress asked as she held her pen over the pad of paper, impatiently waiting for an answer.

  “Well, sweet, of course,” Stormie answered in a matter of fact fashion. The waitress, not particularly liking Stormie’s tone, placed her hands on her hips, and was about to say something.

  “I’ll have the same,” Nathan said, quickly recognizing the uncomfortable situation that was about to unfold.

  “Sure, honey,” the visually annoyed waitress responded as she turned, threw her hip to the side in Stormie’s direction, and slowly walked away.

  “I do believe that woman is a Yankee,” Stormie whispered as she leaned across the table toward Nathan.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “No woman that was born and raised in the South would ever ask another true Southerner if they wanted sweet tea or plain tea. Tea should always be sweet,” she said as if the topic of the sweetness of tea was common knowledge to women born south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

  Nathan discovered Stormie to be direct and without filter like himself. He also found her amusing, beautiful, and intriguing. He felt drawn to her, and he had a strong desire to know more about Stormie Arrington.

  “Now that you say that, I can’t think of any time that my own mother ever made anything but sweet tea in our home when I was growing up,” Nathan responded while looking up in the air, trying to recall the memories.

  “Well, that speaks highly of your mother, Agent Emerson.”

  “Agent Emerson?” Nathan asked.

  “Yes. A little bird told me that you, my new friend, were none other than one of J. Edgar Hoover’s boys. Actually, I believe the bird was more like a large ugly vulture. You know… the kind that you see on the highway eating three-day-old roadkill.”

  “I know the bird, Mrs. Arrington,” he responded, smiling as he believed she was describing one of the Four Horsemen, and most likely, her husband.

  “If I recall, I asked that you call me Stormie. I mean, everyone else calls me Stormie. Besides, Mrs. Arrington was my husband’s mother. Mrs. Arrington was a bit of an atrocious woman, so when I hear the words, Mrs. Arrington, I just cringe,” Stormie explained and then shivered for added effect.

  “Then Stormie, it is, but you were supposed to call me Nathan if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes, I do recall. Nathan. And you know what, you look like a Nathan.”

  “I do? What if my name was Michael?”

  “No. You’re not a Michael,” she answered as she placed her hands into her lap and looked him over with a smile.

  “Really?”

  “Really. In my experience, I’ve come to understand and recognize that there are certain things we see in others that we associate with our past when we meet someone new and hear their name for the first time.”

  “Really, please explain,” Nathan said inquisitively as he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms.

  “Well, take the name, Nick.”

  “I know a Nick,” he interrupted as he thought of his supervisor.

  “Really, well, to me, anyone named Nick is an ass simply because I knew a Nick in grade school, and he was the meanest child to ever walk the face of God’s green earth.”

  “I’d have to agree with that analogy. That’s the Nick I know to the letter. I mean the part about being a child and just mean.”

  “Now, other names like Michael, Benjamin, and Stephen are names I’ve come to associate with people like Nick. In my experience, they are either complete asses, adulterous, or self-absorbed SOBs. And, names like Nathan are for people who I’ve determined to be kind, polite, well mannered, and handsome,” she explained just as the waitress returned and placed two glasses of sweet tea on the table.

  “Thank you,” Nathan said, looking up at the waitress who smiled and then once more turned, threw her hip out toward Stormie, and walked away. Stormie watched the woman and then turned back toward Nathan and smiled in amusement.

  “Lord have mercy, I do believe her feathers are done ruffled up a bit,” she said, still smiling before lifting her glass and taking a drink.

  “Yep, Northerner,” she said as she made a sour face and put the glass back down on the table.

  “It might as well be plain tea; I don’t think there is a grain of sugar in this glass. If there is, she probably stirred it in with her old sour ass finger.”

  “Will you be able to drink it, or should we grab our pitchforks and torches?”

  “Nathan Emerson, with a com
ment like that, I might just believe that you could very well be a Michael in a Nathan disguise,” She said, laughing out loud.

  She had a wonderful laugh and a smile. It was a smile that a man could get used to seeing every day. As he sat there with her, he found himself noticing the smallest details of her hair, her eyes, her lips, and her smell. Even as she spoke, he noticed that she tilted her head upwards when she was serious but downward ever so slightly when she was not. When she flirted, she tilted her head to the side and smiled as she brushed her hair back with her hand.

  Wait, is she flirting? Wait… is she flirting with me? Am I flirting with her? Nathan asked himself.

  “Speaking of people named Michael, Stephen, and Benjamin, I do recall that your husband is a Benjamin.”

  “He most certainly is. How else could I have ever become such an expert about asses, adulterers, and self-absorbed SOBs?”

  ***

  Charlie made sure to keep 2 to 3 cars between himself and the girl as he carefully followed her for about 4 miles through downtown Charlotte. He then followed her for about another mile through some neighborhood side streets until she finally pulled into the driveway of a small blue house.

  He was sure that the girl did not see him following her, nor did she notice him drive past her and then parking a few houses down. He placed the truck in park and adjusted the rearview mirror, so he could have a better view of the girl exiting her car. He slouched down in the driver’s seat and quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching him.

  The mirror provided a perfect view for Charlie to watch the girl as she climbed out of the car and walked to the front door. The first thing he noticed about her was how white her skin was. She was tall and thin. Her revealing outfit consisted of a white low-cut V-neck T-shirt along with a red miniskirt and red shoes.

  Charlie soon allowed a fantasy to consume his thoughts, and before long, he felt himself getting excited. He couldn’t resist, and he looked around the area once more before reaching down and slowly stroking himself over his jeans.

  Charlie watched as she knocked on the front door, where she was soon greeted by another woman dressed in the same fashion. The two girls innocently embraced each other and then disappeared into the house. Charlie, still aroused, closed his eyes and sat there, rubbing himself faster as he fantasized about what the two girls were surely doing inside.

  He imagined himself going up to the front door and finding it slightly open. There, he had a view of the two women embracing each other passionately. From the door, he would stand and watch for a moment as the two women ran their hands over each other’s naked bodies.

  “Hey, you sick son-of-a-bitch! What are you doing in there?!” A man shouted from the sidewalk next to the passenger side of Charlie’s truck.

  “We got kids in this neighborhood! What’s your name?!” The man screamed and began to approach the car. The surprised Charlie quickly reached up and put the truck in drive and pulled away from the curb.

  “Fuck you!” Charlie yelled out the window as he raced away with his left arm out the driver’s side window and his middle finger in the air.

  Chapter 20

  Neither of them wanted the conversation to end. The food had arrived, and they both took their time eating it. The two even ordered a scoop of “North Carolina’s Award-Winning Home Churned Vanilla Ice-Cream.”

  “Would either of you like a dinner menu?” It was the sarcastic tone of the waitress who had grown tired of waiting on the couple that had decided not to leave her section. Nathan looked at his watch and then back to the waitress.

  “No, I think we’re done,” he said as he pulled out his wallet.

  “Nathan, I’d be very pleased if you would allow me to pay for our lunch. After all, it was I who intruded on you,” Stormie explained as she opened her purse and began to take out her own wallet.

  “There is no way that I’d ever allow you to buy lunch,” he explained and handed the waitress a ten-dollar bill.

  “Nathan Emerson, I demand that you allow me to buy lunch.”

  “No. I could not allow that. My mother surely would turn over in her grave if I allowed a beautiful woman, such as yourself, to pay for lunch.”

  “Well, thank-you for the compliment, and with that, I’ll allow you to buy my lunch, but only if you promise to allow me to return the courtesy in the very near future.”

  “Agreed.”

  The two of them walked out of the restaurant around three o’clock. Nathan asked Stormie where she had parked, and she pointed to the new red convertible down the street. She then slipped on a pair of white gloves and placed her purse on her arm.

  “I’ll walk you to your car if you would like.”

  “That would be nice, thank you.”

  The couple started up the street at a slow meandering pace. Stormie pretended to be interested in the merchandise on display in the windows of the stores that lined the sidewalk as she occasionally stopped to look inside.

  Nathan didn’t believe that she was interested in a new television or portable radio that was being advertised in the windows. He thought she was more interested in looking for a way to extend their time together, just like he was doing. That’s what he hoped she was doing anyway.

  Wait. What am I doing? What am I thinking? She’s a married woman!

  “This is a really nice car,” Nathan said as he admired the new Corvette.

  “I imagine that on hot days like this, you just put the top down and enjoy the ride down the interstate as the wind whips all around you.”

  “You know Nathan, I think I’d like to do that, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to get the top down. Do you know how to get the top down?” She asked flirtatiously as she smiled and then opened the car door.

  “I think together we can figure it out. Why don’t you get in the driver’s seat, and I’ll get in the passenger seat, and we’ll see if we can get it down,” he suggested.

  Stormie agreed and quickly sat down in the seat. She then reached over and unlocked the passenger door for him. Once inside and sitting next to her, he caught the scent of her perfume again. He thought it was a plethora of carnations and honey. For a moment, he took it all in.

  “Did you hear me?” Stormie asked.

  “What?” He asked. He knew she had said something about the car, but his mind was preoccupied with other thoughts.

  “I said, I just got the car the other day, and the salesman wasn’t very helpful in explaining how things worked,” she lied.

  She had the top down when she arrived in Charlotte hours ago and put it up when she went into the divorce attorney’s office. She had learned early on in life that men enjoyed helping women who they believed were helpless.

  “I was in Mississippi a while ago, and another agent owned a convertible. I borrowed it one night and he showed me how to put the top down,” Nathan explained as he reached up and pulled hard on the lever where the windshield and roof met on the passenger side.

  “Oh, I see mine here,” she said as she reached up and tried to pull the lever down without any success.

  “Sometimes in a new car, the levers need to be broken in a little bit before they’re easier to use,” he explained as he reached across her body with his right arm and balanced himself on her seat with his left.

  The lever was stuck, and it was harder to get it to release than the one on the passenger’s side of the car. Nathan pulled hard and suddenly and without warning the lever released, and Nathan fell on to the surprised Stormie. His right hand resting on her left breast, Nathan was visually embarrassed. He quickly removed his hand and sat back in the passenger seat awkwardly.

  “What’s your next move?”

  “What?” He asked, uncomfortably.

  “The next move in getting my top down,” She said, smiling and continuing to flirt. She was enjoying his embarrassment.

  “Oh, yes! There should be a lever that you can hold down under the dash. It should be just above your left knee,” She
used her left hand and pretended to find it for the first time.

  The sound of the hydraulics and the warmth from the sun soon found the couple. A much-needed cool breeze blew across Nathan.

  “This is gonna be a wonderful drive home,” Stormie declared.

  “Maybe your husband can help you get it back up when you get back home,” he said, and soon regretted mentioning her husband as her smile quickly disappeared.

  “Nathan, do you think we can keep our lunch date between the two of us?” She embarrassedly asked while looking into his blue eyes.

  “I don’t see why we have to share our delightful lunch date with anyone else. I don’t mean to be secretive, but I…” She started to say but quickly stopped and looked away.

  “There is nothin’ to explain, I understand completely. I enjoyed havin’ lunch with you today,” he said awkwardly as he opened the passenger door and quickly got out of the car.

  He stood there on the sidewalk waiting for her to pull away, but she just sat there in the driver’s seat with both hands on the steering wheel looking down the road.

  “Is something wrong?” He asked as he leaned forward and placed both hands on the passenger door.

  At first, she didn’t say anything, nor did she take her eyes off the road in front of her. “Stormie...” He started just as she turned and placed her hand over his.

  “Nathan, I don’t think that we’ve done anything wrong today or that we should be ashamed of anything. I also don’t think we need to hide it from anyone. It’s just that my husband, Ben, doesn’t know that I came to Charlotte today,” she told him as she retrieved a facial tissue from her purse to dry the corners of her eyes. Nathan placed his right hand over her left and squeezed it a bit. He gave her a moment to collect herself.