Drew turned into his half-circle drive, the radio blaring. His mind was places other than Margaritaville and wasting away. He had a mind-blowing headache. The school board was on a rampage about funding sports equipment for next year’s season; Drew said he would take a cut in pay to keep the boys in gear. The powers that be were “considering” it—but no guarantee. They had to vote on it.
The other meeting he had today ran longer than expected. The city budget for next year had been cut by twenty percent—Little League would be affected. And he’d just found out Ryan had sprained his wrist falling off his skateboard. He’d told those boys to go easy on the other sports while they were heading into play-off contention. They’d been having a marginally good season, and now this.
Cutting the motor, Drew sat in the Hummer a long moment. He didn’t feel like going to the movies. All he wanted to do was sit in the hot tub, smoke a cigar and veg out. But he’d promised Mackenzie they’d go to a movie, and he had to make a good showing of trying to be a good dad. But, damn, it was difficult.
This was harder than he’d thought.
She’d been really pushing him lately, almost intentionally, as if she was trying to get a rise out of him. He didn’t want to yell at her or anything, but he could only take so much.
He’d gotten his cell phone bill in the mail, and had a heart attack when he saw she’d text-messaged $396.00 worth of messages. Who knew that many damn people? He’d questioned her about it, but only mildly, not wanting to rock the boat. She said she hadn’t realized she’d sent that many. He suggested she just pick up the phone and dial the number after 7:00 p.m. instead. She’d replied that texting was much funner.
So Drew let it go.
Then he came home and she’d left dirty dishes all over the kitchen counter. Leftover scrambled egg on the plates, empty milk glasses, dirty pans and utensils in the sink, and the butter had been left out on top of the stove and had melted from the heat of the pilot light. He cleaned it all up, didn’t say a word, when he’d really wanted to lay into her but good and tell her he didn’t live like a pig.
He liked things neat and uncluttered. Simple. Basic. Keep it neutral. Don’t personalize. Open. Nothing closed off. It stemmed from his childhood and not wanting to feel suffocated. The way his dad changed jobs and his mom’s moods swung from hot and cold, Drew had always needed space—wide-open and with nothing in his way. He liked a clear view. Uncomplicated.
Opening the SUV’s door, he tugged in a tired breath. This movie playing in Hailey was some teen comedy, and he really wasn’t in the mood. If he’d been a drinker, he’d have had a shot to take the edge off and release the tension of the day. But those thoughts were long since gone and he’d turned to other things for self-medication.
A glass of orange juice gave him a bit of a sugar rush, and was almost just as good. He wasn’t much for drinking pop, not without rum in the Coke, so he’d all but given up soft drinks.
Drew let himself inside and was thinking about drinking the juice straight from the carton, when he paused in the entryway and gazed around. For a second, he thought he’d come into the wrong place.
“What the f—”
That last word was never uttered, fading before he even got the door closed.
The main living area was decorated with white mini holiday lights—over the windows, on top of the bookcase, by the wet bar. The two leather sofas that faced one another had throw blankets over them. He recognized both the lights and throws—they were his. The lights only went up at Christmas, and he didn’t do it himself. He paid someone. The soft yarn throws had been given to him, or maybe he’d bought them—he couldn’t remember, but he didn’t like them sitting out on the furniture. They only cluttered. As far as he could remember, he’d never used either. They’d been in the linen closet for years.
The expensive coffee table sitting between the couches had two boxes of facial tissues on it, and the focal point was his pitcher’s glove, the same glove he’d had dipped in bronze and engraved with the date he’d retired it. The glove’s pocket wasn’t that deep, but it was filled to the brim with peanut M&M’s. This was his No Hitter glove he’d earned at a team dinner. It had a place in his trophy cabinet, not on the damn coffee table.
Peanut M&Ms were his favorite, but he’d never set a bowl of them out.
On top of the fireplace mantel were rows of frames. About a dozen of them. And filled with pictures. He went over and looked. He froze. Those pictures he’d kept of Mackenzie all these years—they’d been put into the frames. Drew’s gaze went down the line of photos, pausing as he found one of Sheriff Roger Lewis and Deputy Clyde Cooper.
“What the hell?” he said aloud. He picked up the picture frame and saw the bend in the paper. He recognized it as a cutout from the town’s local travel brochure that included a brief bio on the two lawmen. Looking farther down, he found a framed portrait of Opal’s Diner from the same brochure, then one of Ada in front of Claws and Paws.
Not sure which way to go, Drew found himself headed for the kitchen. It smelled as if Lucy had been here, the aromas of chicken and garlic filling the air.
Once in the kitchen, he paused and took it all in. He wasn’t sure what to hone in on first—his highly prized, valued and autographed baseballs that were now residing in the fruit bowl as if they were a bunch of apples—or the collage of things stuck onto the front of his refrigerator with magnets.
He stopped at the stainless doors, gazing at everything. There was a grocery list with several items listed:
Kleenex
Lip Gloss
Fun
There were cutouts from magazines on the refrigerator along with household things. Pictures of dogs, cats, an Armani suit taken from the pages of GQ, a seascape, a perfume bottle, a Hummer ad. Then there were pizza coupons, a grocery checkout receipt, the schedule for the Wood Ridge Little League, a picture that he’d never seen of Mackenzie—of her sitting on the back porch with her elbows on her knees, smiling.
He slowly pulled it off the fridge and studied her features, swallowing tightly.
Glancing over his shoulder, he wondered where she was. Had she done this? And why?
The countertop was filled with more stuff. A large chunk of white granite rock. He had a ton of those rocks on his property; he’d paid dearly to get most of them excavated when he’d put in his hot tub. There was writing on the rock. He checked it out.
“This rock was picked by Mackenzie Taylor.”
Then she had dated it.
Leaning closer, Drew found an old photograph of himself as a boy, standing out in the baseball field of Alhambra. He wore his peewee outfit, a bat resting on his slender shoulders. He stood with a cocky tilt to his hips. Hell, he must have been all of eight.
Unbidden, a smile curved his mouth.
The picture frame that housed it had rows of elbow macaroni glued around the perimeter.
Where had she found this black-and-white photograph taken with his dad’s old camera? Drew wouldn’t know, unless it had been shoved into the very first baseball rule book he’d been given. That might have been it. He kept that book, among others, in his trophy case, never revisiting the pages.
Another box of tissue was over by the toaster—the toaster that he kept in a utility drawer. He only took it out when he needed it, not wanting crumbs on the counter. He noticed the blender, the mixer, the cutting board and napkin holder were now all in plain view.
What was up with the flowery boxes of Kleenex?
Turning back to the baseballs, he got more than a little torqued up to see them in that fruit bowl. His blood pressure rose, his pulse thudding in his ears, and he was reminded of his headache. Those were signed official balls and not to be messed with. Each had its own plastic case and stand. They were priceless. And to be thrown in a bowl like this—
“Mackenzie?” he called out, stymied by the changes. “Mackenzie, are you home?”
He told himself not to get pissed, not to let the frustration of the day
erupt to where he felt himself losing control. But looking around this house, at the stuff that had been moved and put out of place, he wasn’t happy about it.
“Mackenzie?”
He walked down the hallway toward her room and knocked on the closed door. When she didn’t answer, he opened it.
She sat on the bed, her iPod earbuds in place. Looking up, she raised her brows as if to ask: What?
He motioned for her to pull the plug on her music. She slowly removed the earpieces, wet her lips and waited.
“What in the hell happened to the house?” he asked, damning himself for using profanity. But he was really trying his best to keep it together here. “It’s all screwed up.”
“I made a few changes. I noticed you don’t keep a lot of your personal things out.”
“Yes, I do,” he countered sharply, then gritted his teeth.
He remained rooted in the doorway, gazing at his daughter as if she were a stranger. The idea hit him full-blown and hard: he realized she was a stranger. She’d been here for two months and he didn’t know her any better today than he had when he picked her up at the airport.
“No, you don’t. You keep stuff hidden away, put on a shelf or inside a cabinet, and you don’t use it. I thought you might like the house this way.”
“I don’t need a picture of Roger Lewis on my mantel.”
“He’s your friend. So is Opal and everyone in town. They all like you—I thought you might want to remind yourself you have friends who’d like to come over for a party, maybe.”
Roger Lewis and Clyde Cooper over here for a party? Off-duty, those two guys sat around eating beer nuts and bullshitting about lame things. Why in the hell would he want their pictures up, much less have them over?
He had no response, didn’t know what exactly to say. Wasn’t it obvious he preferred it one way? If he’d wanted the things out, he would have put them out. But he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so he let it go. He simply didn’t have an answer right at this time, and so he stalled.
He asked, “What’s with all the Kleenex?”
Her response was spoken so softly, he almost thought he didn’t hear her correctly. “In case you have to cry.”
A long moment passed before he said, “I don’t cry.”
Mackenzie’s chin lowered, her mouth a thin line as she looked at her iPod and scrolled through the pictures. She ignored him.
The seconds ticked off, slowly and hard. One, two, three, four. Then ten, fifteen. He’d never known just how long a second measured out until now.
“Are you mad at me?” she finally asked, her hazel eyes lifting to his and locking on to his face. Waiting. Wondering.
He was royally torqued, but he wouldn’t let her know that. “It’s not that I’m mad…I just like my house a certain way. But I’ll take care of it. I can put the stuff away.”
“Get out,” she snapped, and his brows shot up.
“Mackenzie?”
She scrambled off the bed, went to the door and took it by its edge. Her cheeks grew red, her breath came out in a whoosh and she flicked her hair from her shoulders. “Get out of my room! I’m calling Aunt Lynette. I want to go home. I hate it here. I hate you!”
The door was slammed in his face before he could say another word.
Twenty-Three
“Pull over, Spin! You assured me you remembered how to drive a car!” Jacquie grabbed on to the dash of the Jaguar as Spin took a sharp corner, tire rubber burning.
The hundred-and-three-year-old woman sat in the driver’s seat, spindly and tall, her gnarled fingers gripping the steering wheel. “I do remember.”
“It doesn’t seem like it!”
Spin signaled for a right turn, but made a left onto Cherry Hill and onto the highway toward Timberline. “It’s like sex. Once you do it, you never forget how.”
Brows arched, Jacquie asked, “When was the last time you had sex?”
“About fifty years ago.”
“Holy shit.”
Jacquie hadn’t intended to let Spin drive her car, but Spin had been really under the weather lately, so she’d wanted to pick the old girl up and let her do something fun. They’d had to miss the big Fourth of July celebration. When Jacquie went to get her, Spin had been in bed, not feeling too well. They’d had to take her to the hospital for tests. Her age was definitely setting in and she’d been deteriorating. Although the physicians weren’t allowed to tell details, they alluded to the fact that Spin probably wouldn’t last until Christmas. That very thought caused a stab of fear in Jacquie.
What was she going to do without Spin?
The woman had snuck into her life and filled her world with a presence Jacquie never could have anticipated. Spin was full of B.S. and stories and humor. If it hadn’t been for her DUI, Jacquie would never have met Spin. In a roundabout way, she had Drew to thank for it. If he hadn’t stood her up on her birthday, she wouldn’t have gotten plastered.
Sometimes life worked out weird.
Spin inadvertently crossed the double yellow line, squinting through the car’s low windshield. She almost wiped out another car.
In the side mirror, Jacquie caught a glimpse of Raul Nunez’s Caddie swerving before gaining control.
“Spin, I think you should pull over so I can drive now.”
“I want to take you to me and Wally’s fishing spot. It’s not that much farther out of town. We’re almost there.”
While she didn’t want to deflate Spin’s balloon of rebellion, Jacquie couldn’t help saying, “You probably don’t remember the turnoff.”
“I most certainly do. It’s mile marker 4, right by that old yellow pine that has the funny branches.”
Jacquie couldn’t recall any funny pine trees.
Since Spin was determined, all Jacquie could say was, “Just go slow.” Then she got out her cigarettes, lit one and put a slight crack in the window to vent the smoke.
Thank God they’d reached the highway and there wasn’t any real traffic. Every once in a while, a camper or RV passed, or a minivan. Local campers. The area surrounding the Red Duck city limits was filled with vacationers.
The town’s population had swelled in recent months, and that was good for Jacquie’s business. People who had money got the bug to buy a vacation home, or even relocate. The odd thing was, lately Jacquie just hadn’t had a good game. She usually thrived in July and August, was like a bitch in heat going after clients and closing deal after deal.
Lately, she’d been finding excuses to leave the office more and go spend the day with Spin.
Spin slowed the car, easing off the accelerator. “There it is! I told you.”
Funny…Jacquie had never noticed the broad tree with odd-shaped upper branches, as if it had been struck by lightning. “Well, where’s the road?”
“Right here.” A small cutoff was tucked into the sage, and a dirt road loomed ahead.
“Hell. We can’t take my car on that rutted road. We’ll bottom out.” Jacquie pulled in a deep drag, chewing on her fingernail.
“No, we won’t.” With amazing dexterity, Spin navigated the tires carefully over the compacted earth, its talc raising in a rooster tail behind the Jaguar and coating its glossy paint. Jacquie would have to take it to the car wash when they got back to town.
Not too far in, Spin turned right to a spot that was hidden by a growth of sumac. Jacquie wasn’t real up-to-date on the local flora, but she did recognize poison oak and a few of the basic Idaho plants. She’d never have guessed this place was here.
Jacquie was a hotel woman. Give her a turn-down service on a set of high-thread-count sheets, and a chocolate on her pillow. She didn’t do the camping thing. No shower, no way. Bugs, no thanks. Fishing, never tried it. Even growing up in Cheyenne, there’d been a slice of civilization that she’d found quite comfy.
Spin cut the large engine, but forgot to put the gear column in Park. The car died in Drive. Jacquie reached over and fixed it while Spin got out of the car, oblivious t
o her mistake. It was like she had to be here, had to see the old fishing grounds.
Getting out of the Jag herself, Jacquie was glad she’d slipped into a pair of flats today. Normally she wore heels to give shape to her long legs. Today she’d worn low mules and white capris with a black top.
“Be sure to remember where the turnoff is, Jacquie. I want you to be able to show Morris where this is.”
“Yeah, sure, Spin. I’ll show Morris.” Jacquie merely placated Spin.
“Did I tell you Morris is a lawyer?”
“You mentioned it.”
“And that he’s my great-nephew?”
“You mentioned that, too.”
Stef Ann Holm Page 26
