A Bad Day for Pretty

by Sophie Littlefield

  There was a long silence—so long, Stella began to wonder if Brandy had hung up on her.

  Then Brandy hiccupped delicately in her ear. “Wil ain’t a bad man,” she whispered.

  If Stella had a dollar for every time some confused female laid that line on her, she figured she could have already retired. Usually, when a woman resorted to that line, it was code for “this man of mine is so bad and such a disappointment and so far from what I dreamed of when I was a little girl that I’ve created an alternate reality in which my mind can relax and hallucinate while the rest of my self is being beat to hell.”

  But in some weird, confused way that Stella had never even imagined before meeting this woman, she kind of got it.

  Wil wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t even a mediocre man. But he also wasn’t exactly evil.

  So his idea of a good time involved relieving folks of household goods they’d just as soon hang on to—was that any worse than some of these guys running for office who were selling off influence to the highest bidder and throwing their constituents under the bus every time the political winds changed directions?

  Was he worse than men of the cloth carrying on in the pulpit on Sunday and getting their rocks off on Monday with some poor gal who had to put out to buy baby food?

  Was he worse, come to think of it, than family physicians dealing drugs out of their offices just to make a few extra bucks?

  Naw. The way Stella figured it, he wasn’t even hardly much worse than average.

  “Look here, Brandy. Your man’s gonna live, but he’s been shot a couple times. And I really don’t appreciate you all sending me in there unarmed, ’cause it put me at a distinct disadvantage when I had to save Wil’s ass and kick the doc’s.”

  Brandy made a strangled sound. “Shot?” she squeaked. “Dr. Herman done shot Wil? With what?”

  Oh, Lord in heaven. “A gun, Brandy. I guess it never occurred to your brilliant boyfriend that Dr. Herman might not like getting busted in on, huh? That he might have stored up a few precautions? Now, look, here’s what we’re gonna do. Drive that van on into the garage. Y’all come on in here and we’ll get Wil into the van. Then you’re gonna drop Noelle and him at the hospital, and you’re going to go home and get me a few things I need.”

  “No, I wanna go with Wil. I need to be with him, Stella.”

  Stella gritted her teeth. Her patience was being taxed to the limit today. “Brandy, y’all had your chance, and excuse me for sayin’ so, but you fucked it up good. Now we do it my way. Noelle goes with Wil, and that’s like my insurance, see? ’Cause if you don’t do exactly what I say, I call up my girl and tell her to let Goat in on exactly what you all done today. How you showed up at my private residence and stuck a gun in my ear. How you—”

  “Okay, okay. But I got to go be with my man as soon as I’m done with your errands. What-all do you want me to get you?”

  “Just drive that van in like I told you, girl. I’ll make you a list.”

  Stella found a pad of paper in the doc’s study that had Darvocet splashed across the top in bright curvy lettering. The irony struck her as one of the funnier notes in a mostly joyless and irritating day.

  She went back out to the hall to write her list. Wil was sitting up looking glum, most of the blood wiped off his face except for a slow-moving trickle from his shot-up ear. Dr. Herman made a sound like a stepped-on cat when he saw her and covered his family jewels with shaking hands.

  Not your finest work, she murmured to the Big Guy, no offense intended.

  And then—quick, before the ladies arrived—she added her daily dose of gratitude:

  Thank you for all the fine people who love me.

  Thank you for meaningful work.

  Thank you for saving my ass just now.

  —and, while it didn’t make the official list, Stella allowed herself a little flash of appreciation for that fine view of Goat’s backside yesterday as he clambered out of the rowboat before pulling her to shore.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  By the middle of October, all traces of the twisters had been erased. An early freeze had made short work of the impatiens and marigolds that had soldiered on through autumn, but pumpkins were shaping up on the vine and the oak trees that lined the streets of town were turning gold and the skies woke up every morning a glorious blue, which Stella figured was more than fair compensation.

  The gal from Bernina came in and showed Stella and Chrissy all the fancy things their newest sewing machine could do. Chrissy got interested enough that she quit spending every spare minute doing geek things and set to work finishing the quilt she’d begun making for Tucker before he got kidnapped. What with all the computing and sewing, she decided she’d had enough of Larry—“Stella, he just couldn’t stand to let me at the keyboard, he was always over my shoulder tellin’ me what to do and I figure I don’t much need that anymore”—and seemed content to be single.

  The Donovans brought over a tall stack of cash and a strawberry cheesecake. Stella tried to give some of the money back, but Donna said they figured she’d more than earned it, seeing as she’d had to face down another gunfight so soon after her last one, and besides with Noelle there and Chrissy doing all the background work, it was like having extra folks on the payroll. Besides, Donna had money set aside for Neb’s legal defense, which they turned out not to need—the dustup over his escape got cut short when the county commissioner stepped in to express his displeasure that the breach in the chain of command that resulted in the first jailbreak of the century in the state of Missouri had taken place on his watch.

  “Kind of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation,” Donna explained it. “They didn’t ask Neb what he was doing back home the next morning, and he ain’t gonna tell everyone what a bunch of dumb-asses they got working over there.”

  A postcard arrived from Wil and Brandy, who were lying low while they waited for Wil’s hearing on accessory charges. It featured a picture of a six-pack and a bug zapper and the caption good times in versailles, mo. On the reverse, Brandy had written “Thanks I guess and tell Goat ‘hi’ from me.” The i ’s were dotted with little hearts.

  Priscilla, who’d got a little time off work and didn’t need it to defend her uncle, took Wil’s case and oversaw the turning over of Dr. Herman’s taped confession to Goat. She was arguing hard to get the charges reduced to next to nothing, given how helpful the tape turned out to be—Dr. Herman was cooling his heels in the state pen up in Jeff City and the state was going for second-degree murder.

  Three weeks after the standoff at Dr. Herman’s house, Stella asked everyone over for dinner. She was making Jelloman’s favorite—barbecued ribs and corn bread—as a favor for all the house-sitting. She set the ribs to boil in beer after lunch, and cooked up a batch of barbecue sauce from a recipe Chrissy got off a website where the Johnnie Walker folks put up recipes.

  She put her face over the pot and inhaled and figured the Johnnie was just the right touch, then left it to simmer.

  An hour before the guests were due, Noelle drove up in her new Prius. The Donovans had been so thrilled with the outcome—Detective Simmons was in so much trouble for Neb’s escape that he’d received an official apology on state stationery for his unfortunate and wrongful imprisonment, which Donna had framed in a cheery red frame with a berry-dotted mat and hung in the kitchen—that they’d thrown in a bonus for Noelle, seeing as she’d got dragged into the tail end of the excitement. Combined with all the new clients she had at the salon, Noelle figured it was time for her first new car.

  After a whole lot of admiring and oohing, they left the car in the driveway and Noelle brought her makeup case inside.

  “Mama, why do you let that dog in the kitchen?” Noelle demanded. Roxy had managed to get a purchase on the corner of a bag of buns and had tugged it onto the floor, where she was happily chomping her way through it, plastic and all.

  “I’ll beat her later,” Stella promised, but Noelle bent down and gave her a huge hug.
Roxy was pretty irresistible, recently bathed and sporting a bandanna Chrissy had whipped up out of fabric that featured skulls on a green background.

  Roxy got bored when Noelle got busy beautifying her mom, and wandered into the front room to bark at squirrels out the front window. Stella was using a chunk of the Donovans’ money to fence the backyard and put in a doggy door.

  Stella asked for something a little special, and Noelle got out the curling iron and did a whole retro-’80s thing. Stella wasn’t sure she liked it, but Noelle carried on and worked up a smoky-eyed look that Stella figured made her look like the fairy godmother of Studio 54, but which Noelle swore made her look “hot for a mature woman.”

  They were folding Noelle’s laundry together when the guests started to arrive. Chrissy brought Tucker, dressed in a little camp shirt made of the same skull fabric as Roxy’s bandanna, and when the Donovans arrived, they took about a dozen pictures of the pair. Donna dragged Stella into the guest room and tugged her top this way and that and fussed with the buttons until she’d managed to get Stella’s lace-edged camisole to peek out, showing a bit more freckly cleavage than Stella was accustomed to. “All good,” Donna assured her, and dragged her back to the party.

  Jelloman arrived with a big jug of his special tea and that dialed up the energy a bit. Somebody found Stella’s party playlist, and soon Roxy was cavorting around the edges of a cluster of folks dancing while Todd sang and Tucker banged a spoon on the coffee table and howled with laughter.

  Stella, however, sipped at a can of Fresca—she was too nervous to get into the Johnnie Walker Black just yet—and tried not to look at the clock.

  She hadn’t seen Goat since Laura Cassel’s interment. She’d been standing at the back of the sad cluster of folks, listening to a pastor murmur those words from the Twenty-third Psalm that always made her think of the first funeral she ever attended, when they’d said good-bye to Uncle Horace and Stella understood for the first time that there was a kind of gone that stayed gone and went on hurting your heart your whole life, even while you found a way to go on and build a life around the hurt.

  Stella didn’t think Laura’s parents noticed her at the back of the small throng of mourners at the cemetery. It was a windy, blustery day, clouds spitting out splatters of rain occasionally, and Stella had her coat collar turned up and was holding it against her raw cheeks when someone slipped an arm around her and pulled her against his tall, strong frame. And she hadn’t fought it, she’d let Goat fold her against him and buried her face into his coat for a moment and let him shield her from the wind and the rain and the grief on the faces of a family saying good-bye to their daughter for the last time.

  It called to mind another day, another funeral, when she’d hidden in the folds of her mother’s good wool coat and cried hard as her father tossed the first handful of dirt down on top of Uncle Horace’s casket.

  But there were days for grieving and days for gratitude and days for just wading into all the goodness that the Big Guy saw fit to rain down on the world. And when there was a knock on the door, Stella was the only one to hear it because everyone else was in the kitchen filling up their plates and hollering over the music and each other’s conversation.

  Stella set her pop can down on a coaster and gave her hair a quick pat and opened the door, and there he was, Sheriff Jones in his off-hour duds, soft chamois shirt tucked into a pair of jeans so old and faded, they were frayed along the seams. He brought with him a faint scent of woodsmoke and spice and he was grinning that crooked grin where one corner of his mouth went a little bit up and the other didn’t, and Stella thought to herself how, come to think of it, he gave that particular smile only to her.

  “You fixin’ to invite me in?” he asked. “Or do you just want to bring me a plate and I’ll set out here and eat it?”

  Stella stumbled backwards into the house and Goat came right along with her, his hand under her elbow so she wouldn’t trip over the dog, who’d come bounding out to see who’d come calling.

  And when he brushed his lips against hers, she was only barely aware of Roxy pushing her snout between them, of the raucous laughter from the other room, of the night breeze blowing leaves into the room, and she closed her eyes and figured she just might as well fix this moment in her memory so she could take it out and cherish it the next time she needed to remember that all the hard times made the good ones so much sweeter.