by Elise Sax
“We’re closing in an hour,” Adele said, greeting us. She looked like she had just run a marathon after being released from the Hanoi Hilton.
“Are you all right?” I asked her, putting my hand on her shoulder.
“Matilda, I can’t watch another set of jaws chew. Haven’t these people heard of intermittent fasting? Don’t they ever take a break? Don’t they have food at home?”
“I’m so sorry. You’ve been through a hard time.”
“Someone’s got to open another restaurant in this town quick. I’m going to need CPR.”
“Where’s Morris?” Boone said, pointing toward the kitchen.
“That’s Jerome. He’s filling in for Morris until this calms down. Morris is preparing for the Cook-off, even though they say it might not happen now. That’s just great. Another day when people will want more food from me. Morris is still working lunch, though.”
Adele guided us to a booth by the window. She handed us menus, but she informed us that they only had waffles and BLTs left. I ordered the waffles, and Boone got a BLT. Adele left to place our orders, and for the first time since I met Boone, we were sitting alone, face to face, with nothing to distract us but ourselves.
I tried to swallow, but it was difficult, and I made a gulping noise. He was a very handsome man. I knew a little about what was considered a perfectly formed face. The distance from the hairline to the top of the nose must be equidistant to the length of the nose equidistant from the bottom of the nose to the chin. He had it all. Beautiful, perfect symmetry messed up by a thin scar that ran crooked along his chin, like the Snake River itself. His face was deeply tanned with remnants of sunburn on his forehead and nose. Obviously, he had been somewhere outside under the sun while he was away. His thick hair had been bleached by the sun, and I put my hands in my lap to stop myself from running my fingers through it.
Damned chemistry.
Damned Goodnight men.
It was hard to tear my eyes away from studying his face, but after a while, I relaxed enough to realize that he was studying me as much as I was studying him. His mouth turned up in a smile.
“So…” he began and smiled wider.
“Here’s your waters,” Adele said, putting two glasses down on our table. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”
“No. Go ahead,” I said after a moment’s pause. She sat down and took a deep breath, but the door opened, and she was up again.
“So…” Boone repeated when she was gone.
“This isn’t a date,” I interrupted. What was I saying? “I’m still married. My divorce isn’t final, so I’m not ready for a relationship.” What the hell was I saying? Why did my mouth keep moving?
“I understand. How do you know I want a relationship? Maybe I just want a meal.”
“Oh. Well…”
“Or maybe I just want to sleep with you.”
I coughed, and my face grew hot. “You…I…”
“Or maybe I find you amusing, how you fall into mysteries and work your way out of them, like a clumsy Jessica Fletcher.”
“You think I’m like Jessica Fletcher?” I asked hopefully.
“Yes. You look just like her.”
“What?”
He touched my cheek, running his thumb down my cheekbone and across my jawline. “Maybe not exactly like Jessica Fletcher.”
Our eyes locked, and warmth pooled in my lower body. I felt myself melting, and I was pretty sure that I would say yes to anything he asked.
Luckily, Adele came back with our food and sat down at the table. “Go ahead and eat,” she told us. “Don’t worry. It’s okay. I can take watching you eat. I’ve been doing it nonstop for days.”
“You really need a break,” I told her.
Nora came in and sat down with us, scooting Boone over.
“I can’t go home. I told the hubby to watch the kids,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I quit my job. I guess I’ll have to go back to the bank. I was hoping to get out from under our debts, but…you got anything to drink, Adele?”
“I’m lucky I still have water.”
My friends were down and exhausted. “I have three bottles of champagne at home,” I announced. I had been saving them for when my divorce was finalized, but my friends were worth it. “And I can get snacks from the store. You want to do a girls’ night?”
Nora and Adele brightened considerably. “That sounds wonderful,” Adele said.
Nora looked at Boone and then at me. “Hey, what’s going on here? Why is Boone wearing a suit?”
“It’s laundry day,” he said.
“Why’s he wearing a suit with you, Matilda?” Adele asked, catching on.
“My car key fell down the rapids. Boone has been driving me.” Adele and Nora exchanged a look. “Well, he has!” I insisted.
Nora rolled her eyes, and Adele pursed her lips. I took a bite of my waffle.
“Why did you quit that job?” Adele asked Nora.
“Those witches cursed me when they caught me snooping. I’ll never use vaginal soap again.”
Boone choked on his BLT, and Nora slapped his back.
“Beware of high places, too,” I told Nora.
Nora and Adele followed us home, and we called Faye to join us. Boone closed himself up in his part of the house. I opened a bottle of champagne and popped a big bowl of popcorn. We sat at the kitchen table, and Abbott and Costello lay on the floor underneath it.
“I’m going to quit, too,” Faye announced.
“No, you’re not,” Nora told her. “You need that job. Norton needs the extra cash to get a new UFO on his store’s roof.”
“He’s got his eye on a real beauty, imported all the way from Jakarta,” Faye agreed.
“I feel responsible for you losing your job,” I said to Nora.
“Are you kidding? I quit that job. That was my decision. You’re only responsible for me getting cursed.”
She gave me a sloppy hug. She had three glasses of champagne in her, and she was feeling no pain. Adele and Faye were blotto, too.
“Maybe you can catch some of those giraffes,” Faye suggested to Nora. “Thirty giraffes would net you sixty thousand dollars. That would keep you afloat for a while.”
“Those are the wiliest giraffes on the planet. Nobody has been able to get one,” Adele said. “I hear the stories all day long every day in the diner. My eaters have tried everything to make a buck catching those giraffes.”
“How hard can it be to catch a giraffe?” Nora asked, as if she was thinking about making a few bucks that way. “They got those long bodies. Long necks. You could throw a lasso and catch one real easy. You pretty much couldn’t miss. Am I right?”
“Do you know how to lasso?” I asked.
“No, but how hard is it to learn? You got any rope, Matilda?”
“I have rope in my truck,” Faye said. “You want me to get it?”
“Sure. I could practice here. You got anything for me to lasso, Matilda? Anything really tall with a long neck?”
“Uh…” I said.
Faye got the rope and tied it into a crude lasso. “Start with the chair,” Adele suggested.
“A chair is nothing like a giraffe,” Faye said and hiccoughed. “Try and lasso me.” She put her hand up in the air. “See? My arm is like a giraffe’s neck.”
“I think giraffes are taller,” I said, uneasy at the prospect of Nora drunk lassoing anything in my house.
“They’re not taller if you’re uphill,” Faye said.
“That’s true!” Adele said. “You’re so smart, Faye.”
“Here I go,” Nora announced and swung the rope over her head in a big circle. Crash! First she broke the ceiling light. Crash! Then, she knocked the champagne bottle off the table. Crash! And finally, she sent the teapot on the stove flying into the closed window, cracking it in half.
“That was pretty good,” Faye said. “You’ve got good form. You came pretty close to my arm.”
>
“Yeah, try again,” Adele said. “You got to get to a point where it’s muscle memory.”
“Like farting?” Nora asked and raised the lasso over her head again.
“Maybe you should try it outside,” I suggested.
“It’s dark outside,” Nora said.
“Yeah, that’s for when you’re really good at it,” Adele said. “Like a ninja. Ninjas do shit in the dark.”
“Do ninjas catch giraffes?” Nora asked.
“Tons of them,” Adele said.
“Try again,” Faye said, stretching her arm high.
“Oh God,” I moaned. The dogs cowered under the table.
Nora lifted the rope up above her head and swung it around harder and faster, but with the alcohol running through her veins, she lost her balance and fell back against the cabinet. The cabinet doors swung open, and all of my salad plates fell crashing to the floor.
I would never be able to eat salad again.
“Holy cow!” Nora yelled and tried to right herself, flinging the rope forward, like it was a whip. It landed with a loud crack! on Faye’s face, and she screamed and flew backward into the pantry, where she took down the coffee, bread, a pound of sugar, and all of my spices. The dogs went running into the pantry after her in hopes of finding stuff on the floor to eat.
Nora, Adele, and I checked on Faye. “I guess it’s harder to lasso than I thought,” Adele said. “Maybe you have the wrong kind of rope.”
“I got the nylon kind in my truck,” Faye said, brightly, as we helped her up.
An hour later, my three friends were asleep. Nora and Faye were zonked out on my bed, and Adele was on the couch. Of course, I was wide awake as usual, which was good because I had a lot of cleaning up to do.
I was duct taping a coffeemaker that Nora’s rope had knocked to the floor on her third lasso try when the house phone rang. I ran to answer it before it could wake up my friends.
“Hello?”
“You bitch,” the voice on the other end sneered.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I froze and hugged myself with my free arm. I did hear him. I knew the voice, but I didn’t know how he was calling me. Especially how he was calling me in the middle of the night. I had a restraining order against him, and the prison didn’t allow phone calls at night, as far as I knew.
“What do you want, Rockwell?” It was my husband. The husband I wanted to be my ex-husband. Had he broken out of prison? I put my hands against the window and tried to see out, but it was pitch black outside.
“You’ll never get a divorce. You’re trying to ruin my life.”
“You’re crazy! You’re loony tunes! You’re in jail for life. You’re never getting out.”
“I want my inheritance, Matilda. It’s mine. You’re not going to divorce me.”
Rockwell’s inheritance was contingent on staying married for five years. But why was he still so obsessed with his inheritance when he would never have a chance to spend it?
“I’m hanging up, Rockwell. You can’t stop the divorce, no matter how much you try.”
“Oh, yeah? You think I can’t reach you over there in New Mexico? You think I don’t have eyes on you right this second?”
Icy dread crept up my body like a virus taking over my system. “I don’t believe you,” I lied.
“Oh, yeah? I know you have two dogs now. You want them to stay healthy? It would be easy to slip them something and watch them go bye-bye.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I said, fighting back tears. I had grown close to my adopted dogs, and I couldn’t bear the idea of them getting hurt or worse.
“No divorce, Matilda. Call your lawyer. Or else.”
The line went dead. I looked at the receiver for a moment, like I expected Rockwell to climb out of it. I was gripped with fear, sure that he had escaped and sure that my life was in danger. I hung up the phone as quietly as I could. Tip-toeing into my bedroom, I got the crowbar I kept next to my bed and crept outside to look around and make sure that my ex-husband wasn’t lying in wait for me or my dogs.
I held the crowbar like I was batting cleanup at the World Series. Trying to drum up courage was hard because if I was totally honest with myself, I was scared shitless of my ex-husband.
There was no moon out tonight, but there were plenty of stars, and I could make out the courtyard without turning on the lights. The dogs were still fast asleep inside, and so I was all alone.
“You can do this,” I told myself. “Just check the perimeter.” I walked around the courtyard, finding nothing. “See? He’s in San Quentin. Nobody escapes from San Quentin.”
Feeling slightly less frightened, I walked gingerly out of the gate and went left to circle the house. Out of nowhere, strong hands gripped my shoulders. It was him! He did escape! I swung wildly with the crowbar and made contact.
I hope I killed you, you son of a bitch.
Chapter 11
“Sonofabitch!”
Uh-oh. I recognized that voice. “Boone?” I asked. Oops.
“I think you broke my arm,” he croaked, like he couldn’t believe the words were coming out of his mouth.
“I’m sure I didn’t break your arm.”
“I’m sure it’s not supposed to hang at this angle. In fact, it’s not supposed to hang at any angle. It’s my forearm!”
I squinted through the darkness. Boone was lying on the ground, holding his arm to his chest. He was wearing boxer briefs and nothing more.
“Why did you sneak up on me?” I demanded. “You sneak up on a woman at night, you should expect to get your arm broken with a crowbar.”
“Ha! I told you it was broken! Is that what you hit me with? A crowbar? Are you psychotic?”
“I use it for protection. Would you have rather I shot you with a gun? I don’t believe in guns.”
“You don’t believe they exist, or you draw the line at maiming your renters, not shooting them?”
“What were you doing, sneaking up on me half-naked in the middle of the night?” I demanded.
“You woke me up with your skulking around. I was sleeping, and I put on boxers before I came out. You know, with you and the portal of hell and all, I thought you might need some help. What’re you doing out here?”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek and tried to think up a reasonable explanation, but all I could think of was the fact that he slept in the buff. “I was checking the perimeter,” I said, finally.
“Why? Are you Rambo?”
“I thought my soon-to-be ex-husband might have escaped from San Quentin and was stalking me.” Boone rocked his head side to side, as if he was weighing something. “What? What is it?”
“No. Nothing.”
“What? Just spit it out. You think I’m crazy or have opened another portal to hell. Just tell me.”
“It’s nothing, really. It’s just that I was thinking that imagining your ex-husband was stalking you was a step up from talking to dead people.”
“Very funny,” I said. I swung the crowbar onto my shoulder. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”
“Hold on. Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“I’ll check the rest of the perimeter when the sun comes up,” I said.
“No, not that, Mother Teresa. You broke my arm. You have to take me to the hospital.”
“Oh. That.”
I helped him up, and we went toward his part of the house so that he could get dressed. He opened his door, and I paused on the threshold. “Aren’t you coming in?” he asked.
“You’re letting me in?”
“I need help to get dressed. You’re probably not aware of this because I’m a studly manly man, but my arm is broken. It hurts like a motherfucker. At least one big bone in my arm is broken and poking my skin. If I had slightly less testosterone running through my body, I would cry like a baby. Already, I’m fantasizing about morphine in a really big and disturbing way. So, yes, I need help getting dressed.”
Wow, for some
one in a lot of pain, he sure could talk. “So just to be clear, you’re letting me in?” I asked.
“Just get in here and zip my goddamned pants for me.”
I stepped inside. It was a disaster area, not at all inhabitable. There were rocks everywhere. Shelves and shelves of them and a long table in the middle of the room covered with them. “What the hell?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. It’s messy, but not dirty. All this goes with the job.”
I followed him into his small bedroom. “What job?”
“Why are you so interested in what I do for a living?”
“You make a living?”
He gestured with his head. “I have clean jeans in the basket there.”
I helped him put on his jeans, and he tucked part of a shirt in his back pocket because it was too difficult to put it on. He tossed me the keys to his truck.
“I need to put my crowbar away and get my purse,” I said.
“The purse thing, again? You don’t have a cell phone anymore. Ditto the keys. Why do you need your purse?”
“My driver’s license is in there. It got wet, but it’s still a driver’s license. Be quiet when we go in. The girls are sleeping.”
Sweat was beading on his forehead and his upper lip, and I could tell that he was in a lot of pain, but his arm looked fine to me. We walked into my kitchen, and I got my purse.
“What the hell happened here?” Boone asked, looking at the damage that Nora had done with her lasso.
“Nora’s going to try and make money capturing giraffes.”
“There was a giraffe in here?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you in the emergency room. What a waste of time. Your arm isn’t broken.”
“Matilda, my arm is broken.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Your arm isn’t broken. I’ll bet you a million dollars that your arm isn’t broken.”
“You’re sure it’s broken?” I asked the doctor, as he put a cast on Boone’s arm while Boone sat up in bed.
The doctor nodded. “Spiral fracture. Real nasty. I almost threw up. I’ll be glad when this puppy is fully cast and I don’t have to look at it.”
