by Luanne Jones
“Fine. Then decide.” Jillie fluttered the pages of the two-year-old calendar on the wall. People all over Memphis kiss butt, connive, and expend outrages amounts of cash to say my brother is their contractor. He is the best in his field and willing to work for you. “If you don’t want him to take this project on, knowing full well he’ll do the best job possible with a guarantee not to go over your—and I say this with all due respect and empathy to your situation, sugar—pissant little joke of a budget, then that’s okay by me. Cozie?”
She sat on the couch with her hands clasped between her knees. “Fine by me as well.”
“Good.” Rita gave up on getting the crown off without a mirror and maybe a pair of scissors to help, and sighed. She folded herself safely into the comfy old hospital gown.
Jillie’s heels clicked for a couple steps before she stepped from the linoleum to the well-worn beige carpet.
“Thank heavens that’s settled. Now, who wants waffles?”
Cozie studied the tip of her braid like she could read the future in its ends. “It’s not quite settled, Rita.”
Rita held a second egg over the bowl, her hand frozen in mid-crack. “Why not?”
“My brother is downstairs.”
“Your…? Oh.” Gently, with the expertise of one of western Tennessee’s finest cooks, Rita dropped the egg, shell and all, into the mixing bowl.
Jillie’s brother was waiting downstairs? If only she had memorized some of the swear words scrawled on the bathroom walls down there. Maybe then she would have a full enough vocabulary to voice her honest opinion of that situation.
“He’s here to help you, Rita. If you don’t want that help, you at least owe it to him to tell him no thank you to his face.”
“Why should I have to tell…” Wild Billy. She couldn’t even say his name. “What could I possibly have to say to a man who is…”
Arrogance on wheels. Fast wheels, the faster the better. He roared through Hellon whenever it suited him, but he never stayed long enough to make a difference. When he tore out of town, he left the people who cared about him behind in his dust without a backward glance. That’s how Rita saw him, how she pretty much had always seen him. She saw it in the way he practically ignored his mother and sister to his reluctance to take responsibility for his choices. She’d told him as much once, not that he’d heard her. Or, if he had heard her, he had not stuck around long enough to acknowledge it.
Afterward, just thinking about her audacity in taking him to task made her feel…all the things she hated to feel. Even now just standing here her face grew hot and she had to battle back the emotions the memory, the very man, called up in her. Stupid, stupid, dumb, and unworthy. Not good enough—never nearly good enough.
All those things she worked so hard to keep at bay in order to retain whatever quiet dignity she could manage in her train wreck of a life washed over her again. Just thinking about him churned her doubts and fears and regrets so close to the surface she didn’t dare even look her best friends straight in the face as they talked about him.
Now those friends were suggesting she march down into Pernel’s Pig Rib Purgatory and throw Wild Billy out on his—oh, merciful heavens, it was probably still one of the top ten finest creations since the beginning of time—ass! “No.”
“No?” Cozie stole a sidelong glance at Jillie perched on the arm of the couch. “No what?”
“I can’t go down there.”
Jillie folded her arms. “Not looking like this you can’t, but…”
“Not at all! I can’t…I can’t face him at all. Don’t you understand, there’s something about him that just…” Sets my teeth on edge. Makes me want to slap his careless-with-everything-precious-in-life cocky grin into next Tuesday. Rita rejected the troublesome truth of things and settled on a more diplomatic, nonverbal explanation. She shuddered.
“I told you this was going to work!” Jillie clapped her hands together.
“What are you talking about?” Rita clutched the gold band tangled in her hair.
“After all these years, my big dope of a brother still makes her…” She sat on the arm of the sofa by Cozie, shut her eyes, sucked her breath in between her teeth, and gave a shimmy.
“No, no, not…” Rita did a passing imitation of Jillie’s rapture.
“Liar. This is Wild Billy West we’re talking about here, girl.” Cozette gave her own nature-girl-gone-downright-feral quiver. “That man puts the beef in beefcake. And coming from a lifelong vegetarian, that’s saying something!”
“No! No beefcake! Look at me!” Rita extended her arms. Her hospital gown gapped open over her knee-length sleep T and her pants drooped low enough that the hem almost covered her fuzzy pink slippers. She shook her head. The tiara pitched forward, and her hair fell into her eyes. “Is there anything about me that screams ‘bring this woman beefcake’?”
“There’s something about every woman that screams for beefcake, honey.” Cozie laughed.
“If it makes you feel any better, Billy…” Jillie held up her hand. “Uh, he goes by Will now. Apparently that’s some kind of issue with him, but don’t worry about it. Anyway, Billy isn’t built like a quarterback anymore himself.”
“More like a lineman,” Cozie said like she, who hated all forms of competitive sports, had an inkling what she was talking about. “Little more to get your hands on, but he still has the best backfield in the county, if you ask me.”
“I did not ask you! I did not ask for any of this.” This was not happening. This could not be happening.
Jillie shook back her perfect hair and smoothed her hand along her silk lapel.
Cozie picked a cocklebur off her sandal strap.
“I can’t believe this! Up until now you two have gotten along about as well as two cats in a bag.”
“What can we say? I was visiting Jillie’s mama the other day, and we crossed paths and got to talking about you.”
“And found out we didn’t dislike each other nearly as much as we thought we would.”
“We both care so much about you, Rita. We figured somewhere that meant we had some common ground, and we decided to try to find it.”
“And sticking your grubby fingers in the big pie of my life is what you came up with?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Cozie threw one hand up.
“I know. Our first attempt and we got it abso-freaking-lutely perfect.” Jillie slapped a high five on Cozette’s much larger palm like they’d played on the same team all their lives.
“Perfect? A perfect disaster!” Rita grabbed up the mixing bowl and hugged it to her chest. “I do not want to be set up with your brother, Jillie.”
“It’s not a setup,” Jillie protested.
“It’s not like we expect you two to actually…” Cozie waggled her eyebrows and lowered her voice. “…date.”
“Oh, that makes it so much better. You’re not setting up your brother, you’re pimping him.”
Jillie crossed her legs and arms tighter than chains on a miser’s money box. “Oh, hell, Rita, not everything is about sex!”
“Yeah, but the really good stuff is.” Cozie put her chin in her hand and sighed.
If looks could kill, Jillie and Rita would be arguing over where to hide the corpse of the only woman in the room with a bona fide love life.
“Besides, don’t kid yourself, ladies, this is about sex.” Standing up, Cozette dominated the room.
Jillie leaned in.
Rita swallowed, hard. She held her breath and waited.
“This is about passion. It’s about tension and longing and looking for something more.” Cozie spread her arms out.
“Yes,” Jillie whispered.
The older woman drew her fingers into fists and shut her eyes, smiling. “It’s about tearing everything down that doesn’t work any longer, about getting tired and sweaty and when it’s done, about producing something worthwhile.”
Rita had to admit it sounded promising whether they were ta
lking fornication or construction.
“This is about rebirth and bursting through to the next level.”
“Bursting?” The only bursting Rita understood was bursting her bubble, and she didn’t need that. “Look, ladies, I don’t want…”
Cozie raised her hands like an artist describing a mystic vision. “It’s about a six-foot-one shot of testosterone poured into a pair of butt-grabbing jeans.”
Okay, maybe she’d let her friend finish that thought.
“About having a tightly muscled but loosely moraled man, capable of building you a house or rocking your world, standing by to inspire you while you do the work of putting your life back together.”
“You almost had me up until my world rocked.” Rita sighed. “That and putting my life back together…no.”
“Ah, Rita, you’re as stubborn as Billy himself, and that is not a compliment.” Jillie jiggled her foot.
“Rita, it’s time.” Cozie reached out. “I know how much it smarts that Pernel swapped your home and security for a few low-cut sequined gowns, a second-rate Dolly Parton wig, and way too much flashy makeup, but you have got to move on now.”
Rita planted her feet firmly.
“C’mon, Rita.” Cozette snapped her fingers like a pinched-cheeked schoolmarm. “Don’t you see how a summer in the presence of a certain wild man could refurbish the Palace and mend your battered ego?”
“Why do you always have to be the one helping people, Rita? Why can’t you just let someone else do the helping for a change?” Jillie stood up to steal a glance at the stairway door. “If it matters, this will be good for Billy, too. Did you ever think of that?”
“Yeah, sure. Like he needs yet another woman lusting after him.”
“Oh, please!” She rolled her eyes and fluffed her red curls. “If this had just been about lust, I’d have gone and hired a rippled twentysomething blond Adonis with sawdust for brains. Then I could have ogled him right alongside you all summer long.”
“This isn’t about you getting laid, Rita. It’s about you laying down your defenses and feeling alive again.” Cozie motioned toward the door.
Still clutching her mixing bowl, Rita lifted her face heavenward. “Why me, Lord?”
“Because we care about you, Rita. And we believe that somewhere in that woman who has become so careful that she has practically ceased to exist, somewhere under the heartache and the disappointment and the longing to inch her way along the edges of life, is your mother’s daughter.”
“Oh, no. No-ooo,” Rita groaned, her eyes closed. “I am not my mother. I have worked all my life to not be like my mother. Why does everybody keep insisting that somewhere, someway, somehow, someday I am suddenly going find my inner Tammy and transform everything in my life?”
“Because we know you can,” Cozie said softly.
“Damn it, y’all,” Rita murmured. Suddenly the mixing bowl felt like it carried the weight of her lifelong frustration in it. Sighing, she plunked it down—right on top of the carton of eggs.
“Go get your brother.” Cozie snapped her fingers, and Jillie headed off down the stairway. “I’ll try to get Rita into some outfit that looks a little less like she got it from the escaped-lunatic collection.”
First one and then a second broken egg oozed from the carton under the bowl, then began the slow, inevitable slide toward the short-legged side of the table. Sunny yellow goo dripped onto Rita’s fuzzy pink house shoe while she fixed her eyes on her remaining friend. “I am so glad you two have worked out your differences enough to talk this over.”
“Why is that, hon?”
“Because I’m no longer speaking to either of you.”
“Good.” Cozie folded her arms, tipped her head until her silver-laced black bangs swept to one side, and grinned. “Because if we can get you to shut up long enough, it will be much easier to pull this whole thing off.”
“Okay, you’ve had time to look around the place.” Jillie breezed in from the kitchen, not looking one bit guilty over abandoning him in this deserted diner for the last fifteen minutes. “Be honest. Got any ideas about brightening up the place?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“A gallon of gas and a lighted match.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not all that bad.” Jillie threw open the curtains on the front window. A piece of the fabric tore loose in her hand.
Will tried to take in all of the old barbecue restaurant with one broad, unrelenting look. Instead, he found himself squinting, trying not to look too closely at the splotches on the yellow-papered walls. He really didn’t want to know if they were cheap beer and barbecue or bug guts and bloodstains.
“Okay, it’s bad. But you can fix it, can’t you, Billy?”
“Will.” He slipped his dark glasses back on. A callus on his thumb snagged on the lapel of his black jacket as he dipped two fingers into his breast pocket. He tugged free one of his business cards and flicked it at his baby sister.
She let it fall to the floor. The gray paper blended with the pocked linoleum, making the embossed message stand out all the more: WILLIAM WEST, CUSTOM CARPENTER.
She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe I’ll use the name most of Hellon knows you by…”
“Don’t. I mean it.”
“Wild Billy.” She narrowed her eyes at him like a cat perched just out of reach while licking the last bit of stolen cream off her paws.
He swore but kept his jaw tight enough to deprive her of the satisfaction of hearing just how foul a word she’d provoked from him. Wild Billy West. The name dredged up more bad feelings in him than this place had greasy spoons. “You wanted my opinion of this place, and I gave it. Torch the sucker.”
Jillie stepped between him and the front door. “Don’t be so mean about this…” Her lips went thin “…Will.”
Then she did one of those damn prissy woman things, flipping back her gaudy red curls like a princess who’d just ordered some poor jerk’s head—or worse—cut off.
“How’d you get your hair that color?” He tugged on a strand just like they were nine and five years old again. “I recall you being born with a head full of coal black hair, just like everyone on Mama’s side of the family.”
“So I was born with Mama’s family coloring and the West family nose.” She touched her made-to-order features and gave him a going-over that she clearly thought as scathing.
Will adjusted his sunglasses. He turned his head, knowing it put both his nose—which by West family standards was unimpressive—and the waves of black, shaggy hair in unashamed profile.
Jillie folded her arms. “I was also born naked and shoeless but I certainly didn’t see any reason to stay that way either, not when God created so many avenues to correct it.”
“Yeah, Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue. Aren’t you so proud to have something to show for tearing through your trust fund?”
“There’s plenty left.” She gave that same backhanded wave their mother gave when she wanted them to leave her alone.
“What are you doing with your life, girl? Don’t you have any goals, ambitions, a desire to make something more of yourself?” He would not attest to it in court, but he thought he saw her lower lip tremble.
Then she jerked her shoulders up straight and went full-blown bored-with-the-likes-of-you debutante on him. “I do things with my life. I support my charities. I travel. Just this spring I took a college extension course. One night a week over in the church basement.”
“It boggles the mind. A course in what?”
“Art appreciation.”
“Ah, yes. Now it makes sense. Something practical you can apply in your day-to-day life here in Hellon.” He looked out the door, not seeing anything in particular. “Where you have the chance to appreciate such fine works of art as the advertising mural on the Feed and Seed Store or the concrete slab where the cannon used to stand in front of the VFW. Let me see, what else could you appreciate around here?”
“Paul says…”
“My…” Her hesitation said more than any words ever could. “Professor.”
“I see. So it was Paul appreciation got you into that church basement.”
“He’s a married man, and I don’t have to tell you another thing. I brought you here to discuss you, not me.”
“Looking around here I’d say you’ve done your job. I’m about as disgusted as I can get this early in the morning.”
“Would you for one minute stop being such a Billygoat and shut up and listen to me?”
“Why should I listen to you, Jillie? What could you possibly have learned in that class, or in your travels? What could you have bought in some overpriced store or learned by living far too long in our mother’s house that applies to me?”
“I’m not here to tell you a damn thing, you big jerk. I’m here to ask you for a big favor.”
“Then you’ve wasted your breath.” The greasy floor eased the way for him to turn on his heel without so much as ruffling his hair or his jacket. “Nobody asks me for anything, baby sister.”
“Will, you don’t…”
“I do not let myself be held hostage to owing favors or put myself in a situation where I have to produce what is asked of me in order to win anyone’s approval or satisfy someone else’s idea of what I should be, do, say, or give.”
“Don’t you do that in your work all the time?”
“My work is precise. There are standards. There is an objective result. Things can be measured, and if they are not up to snuff, there is a clear, understandable reason why. Favors, little sister, are never like that. Favors always come with some deeper expectation than most people are able to meet.”
“Honestly, Will. You are making a bigger deal of this than needs be. If you would just let me explain what I want from you and why I’m asking now…”
“I know why you’re asking now.” He touched his dark glasses and looked out at the road. “You saw the opportunity to use my annual guilt trip to Hellon to twist me around your finger until you got your way. Mama would be so proud.”
