by Glenn Rolfe
…..
“James,” Mrs. H said.
Heat flushed his cheeks again.
“Alison called just before you guys came down. She wants you to give her a call after breakfast.”
“Okay, thanks,” he said.
“Ma, what are you feeding us?”
The boys sat down at the table. James sat next to Carrie who was eating a bagel with cream cheese.
“You boys will have to fend for yourselves. I should get out to my garden and soak it down. It’s already eight-five degrees outside this morning. It’s supposed to be a scorcher.”
“Awesome,” Kevin said. “Does that mean I don’t have to mow the lawn today?”
“Yes, but if it cools off this evening you can get it done then. There’s cereal over on the counter there, or Eggo’s in the freezer. James, Eric, you boys help yourselves.”
“Thanks, Mrs. H,” Eric said. He hopped up and went straight for the Captain Crunch.
“I see my brother and Eric are still alive,” Carrie said. She wiped the cream cheese from the corner of her mouth with a piece of paper towel and reached for his hand under the table.
“What?” James said, before recalling the last thing he’d said to her before racing back upstairs. “Yeah, well, I never considered myself the killing kind, at least not until Wet Dreams woke me up.”
Kevin and Eric cracked up. Carrie placed a fist over her mouth and tried to hold back her reaction but burst out with the greatest laugh James had ever heard. He broke down and joined them.
“Talk about your all-time backfires,” Kevin said. He was still laughing as he plopped two Eggo’s in the toaster.
Chapter Sixteen
Jason Betts’s grandmother ran the bed and breakfast on Hyatt Street. Alison was still steaming after the shitty way Richie had acted last night. There was no way in hell she was sleeping at the trailer tonight. He could just sit there and deal with the consequences. If he felt bad sitting on his own, good. She’d had enough of his bizarre behavior.
She pulled into the driveway to find Jason’s black Dodge pick-up parked on the lawn.
A flutter ran through her stomach.
I’m here because of Richie not Jason, she told herself.
And she believed it, at least she told herself she did.
The yellow curtains in the window next to the door drew back. Edna Betts, with her spectacles and gray hair, peered out. The old woman smiled and waved. Alison killed the engine as the curtain fell into place and the door opened.
“Well, hello, Alison. What brings you to my place of business?”
Edna was a regular at the pharmacy. Alison filled most of the woman’s prescriptions. She loved being blessed with Edna’s company on a weekly basis. She was always so warm and engaging. Her eyes might belong to a woman in her seventies, but they sparkled with a youthful vigor. Her shine was something Alison adored.
Climbing the porch steps of the cozy two-story house, Alison stopped at the open screen door. “Well, Edna, I’m afraid I might be needing a room for a few nights.”
Edna’s eyes softened, her lips curled down. The look struck Alison like a bullet in the heart. Her high wall of defense caved releasing the hurt she’d sworn to ignore.
She hung her head and bit her bottom lip.
“Oh, dear,” Edna said. “Come right in. You come right on inside.”
Alison wiped away tears as she stepped into the warm kitchen.
Edna apparently didn’t believe in air conditioning. Two tall, oscillating fans held positions at either end of the room. A large, round table with a flowered table cloth sat in the middle of the spacious breakfast area.
“Have a seat right here, dear. Let me fix you a cup of tea.”
“Thank you.”
Edna, all five-foot-two of her, reached up into the cupboard over a toaster oven and hauled out a box of Lipton tea. “Now, you don’t have to tell me anything, but I see the red eyes and the spot there on your lip.”
Alison reached up and touched the place Richie’s teeth had collided with her mouth. Edna picked up two blue-striped mugs from a mug holder next to the sink, placed two of the tea bags in the cups, and filled each with the black kettle from the stove.
“I know what it looks like,” the old woman said as she lifted the tea cups. “And if it is, you’re more than welcome to take up the room I have opened on the second floor. Use it as long as you need, pay me what you can.” The little woman carried the two steaming mugs to the table. “Sugar, cream?”
“Yes, please.”
Alison watched her float on slippered feet back to the counter with the toaster oven and return with a ceramic bowl filled with sugar and a silver saucer of cream. Edna took the seat across from her and stirred in a teaspoon of sugar to her own cup.
“Gran?”
Alison’s gaze lifted to find Jason in the doorway by the hall, dressed in a Pearl Jam t-shirt and cargo shorts. The look suited him just fine.
“Alison? Is everything all right?” he said as he pulled the elastic from his wrist and drew his long dirty-blond curls into a ponytail.
“Now, she’s my guest. You just mind your own p’s and q’s.”
“It’s okay, Edna,” she said. “Looks like I’m going to be one of your roommates for a couple days.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “Did…did Richie do that to you?”
“Jason,” Edna scolded him, slapping his arm.
“Ow,” he said.
“Now that’s quite enough, Jason,” Edna said. “I don’t want you prying into my guest’s business. What did you need?”
After a moment of looking her over, his warm blue eyes taking in her shame, he said, “I actually just needed to know if Dalton was home right now, so I could get in there to fix his window.”
“He’s out fishing at the lake,” she said. “Said he’d be back around two.”
“Great. I picked up the new window yesterday. I’ll go get it and get to work.”
“Good. About time you earned your keep around here.”
He leaned over her, kissed her on the top of the head, and smiled at Alison. “Yes, Gran. Bye Alison. I’ll be around if you need to talk or anything, okay? I mean it.”
“Go on now, git,” Edna said. “She knows where to find you.”
“Thanks, Jason,” she said, feeling a little better.
She loved the play between the two. It was like watching an old family friendly rerun on late night TV. She waved to him as he disappeared out the front door. The entertaining back and forth from the two of them delivered a welcomed reprieve from her current plight. She sipped her tea and thought of the rage in Richie’s eyes this morning.
The bitter pill swallowed her moment of serenity.
She didn’t know what was going on. Tough times effect people differently. She hoped she was overreacting, but in the pit of her stomach, she had a bad feeling about this one.
…..
Richie stared in the bathroom mirror. Dark eyes, glazed and bloodshot, stared back. He felt free. Free from the goddamn weight of this world. Things were different now. He was different.
His new friends had made him a promise. There was much work to do to prepare his side of the bargain. The deal was nothing compared to this liberation. And, if all went well, Alison and James could join him. If not, well, they’d both be in for one hell of a surprise.
He left the bathroom and went to the kitchen to fetch his beer.
Two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon sat silent and cold. His throat suddenly burned like the hot sands of Old Orchard Beach in late August. He glanced to his right. Sunlight poured through the open window accompanied by more stifling, record-setting heat.
Summer of hell.
The thought made him smile.
He’d meant to buy a new A/C, because as soon as he’d fixed it for a day or so, it quit again. Alison had been after him to get a cheap one, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Summer would be done in a matter of weeks
, so they could just suck it up and sweat their way through the next few days. It wouldn’t matter after that.
He wondered when Alison would be back.
If she would be back.
She could be replaced, James however…
There was a knock at the door.
“Yo, anybody home?”
His cousin Montrose walked in, beers in hand.
“Dude,” he said, covering his eyes with his free hand. “What the fuck? Put some clothes on.”
In all his new-found glory, it seemed he’d forgotten to get dressed.
…..
Alison walked out of the comfy room Edna had given her, and heard Jason swearing to himself down the hall. She found him shaking his hand and kissing his thumb at the room at the end of the corridor.
“You okay in here?”
“Oh, hey, yeah, I’m just fighting with this new window. How are you? How’d you like the room?”
“I’m...okay. The room’s very nice.”
“It’s across the hall from mine.”
“Good to know. You never know when I might need saving again.”
“Right. So, do you want to talk about Richie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Never mind, I shouldn’t–” he gritted his teeth. “Gran would kill me.”
She laughed. “Your gran is pretty tough.”
“That she is, that she is, but damn if it doesn’t just endear her more to my heart, ya know?”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Alison looked around the room. This one belonged to Dalton Pinkham. He was a crabby man in his early sixties or so. Came into the pharmacy every other day with some new ailment or another demanding remedy for them. He was from somewhere down south, Louisiana or Arkansas.
“What happened?” she said.
Jason looked confused.
“The window?” she clarified.
“Oh. One of the kids next door hit a baseball through it. Good kids, just a crazy shot, I guess.”
She stared at him as he gazed out the window. The brightness beaming through the glass cast his eyes in magical light. His hair in that same old ponytail.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing. You ever been told you look a little like Matthew–”
“McConaughey, yeah. I get that quite a bit.”
“Must not hurt you with the ladies?”
“I do okay.” He smiled and picked up the power drill from the hope chest at the end of Dalton’s bed.
Alison felt a pull toward him, and said, “I should get going.”
Jason drilled in a screw and then looked over to her. “Where you headin’?”
“I didn’t bring any clothes. I was going to head over to Target in Augusta and grab a few things.”
“Did you even get any sleep yet?” he asked.
“I tried, but my head’s been humming all morning.”
“Well,” he said, rising. “I’m all done here. You feel like some company? I’m pretty good at telling jokes.”
“Yeah, that would be fine. Then if my all-nighter catches up with me at least I have someone with me to keep me from driving off the road.”
“Exactly. I need to just drop these off in the shed out back. I’ll meet you at your car?”
“Okay.” Alison turned and smiled.
By the time she got outside, Jason was already sitting in the passenger seat.
She managed to keep the topics light on the half hour drive into Augusta. She confessed to loving Matthew McConaughey in A Time to Kill, which Jason said was his favorite of the few he’d seen with the star. She blushed when she told him her real favorite was Magic Mike, to which Jason revealed he held a soft spot in his heart for the movie, Showgirls.
“I have a few things to pick up, too,” he said. “Meet you back up here in fifteen?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Okay, see you in a few.”
Alison strolled over to the woman’s clothing section and shuffled past the business women’s attire and gravitated to the more youthful, fun clothes. Just because she was thirty, it didn’t mean she had to stop wearing t-shirts and skirts. She held a cute blue and white striped skirt against her thighs and wondered what Jason would think. She put the skirt over her arm and grabbed a t-shirt with “Life’s a Beach” lamely scrawled across the front. She didn’t care that it was corny, she could use more corny in her life.
Jason wasn’t by the registers yet, so she ventured back to the electronics department. Men couldn’t seem to resist the gravity attached to televisions and tech toys. In her experience, its lure was second only to sex. Sure enough, Jason stood with a larger salesman with a fat caterpillar moustache holding a fancy new cell phone.
“Hey Alison, sorry. I was looking for a reason not to buy a new phone. Care to save me some money?” Jason said.
“What do you have for a phone now?”
He reached into his shorts and pulled out a flip phone that looked like it might have been cool circa 2005. “That’s what you’ve been texting me on? Ah, an upgrade might be well past due.”
“The lady has spoken,” the salesman said.
“Hey, you were supposed to just say save your money you have a phone already.”
“I think my dad has a phone just like yours,” she said.
“Okay, that’s it,” Jason said, turning back to the mustached salesman. “I’ll take it.”
“Alison?”
Alison turned. Richie stood with his cousin, Montrose.
“Richie,” she said.
“What are you doing?” he said, looking from her to Jason.
“I was just picking up some things.”
“Jason,” Richie said.
“Rich.”
Richie reached out and took her wrist. “We need to talk.”
She pulled it back.
“I’m going to be staying at Edna’s Bed and Breakfast for a few nights. I think we could both use a couple days to think about what happened this morning.”
“Yeah?” he said. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“You staying at Edna’s with Jason?”
“Richie,” she said.
“What is it Jason? You trying to fuck my girl?”
Jason held up his hands in surrender. “Whoa, Rich, what the hell? I would never–”
The salesman backed away and desperately looked for another customer to assist.
“Yeah, like you wouldn’t if you got the chance.”
“Richie,” Alison said.
“You know what? Do what you want. You think there’s something wrong with me suddenly, like you can go out and find someone better. You go ahead. Be a fucking tramp like Samantha.”
“Rich, come on, man,” Jason pleaded, stepping forward. “She’s just staying at Edna’s. She’s not staying with me.”
Richie looked away before coming back with a wide punch that connected with Jason’s right eye.
His cousin grabbed Richie from behind and pulled him back. “Come on, bro. Let’s go chill out. You don’t need this shit.”
“There’s more where that came from, pretty boy,” Richie said. “You hear me?”
Jason’s jaw tightened. Alison could tell the bigger man was holding back.
Montrose managed to get Richie turned around and headed toward the front of the store.
“Jason, I’m so sorry,” Alison said, tears in her eyes.
“No, it’s not your fault.” Jason rubbed the red spot next to his eye. “How long has he been acting like this?”
“I don’t know. It’s only recently.”
“Did he hit you this morning?”
“No, he bumped into me. He got right in my face though. I thought…” she let it drop. “Can we just go?”
“Of course. Let’s get you back to Gran’s. You need to rest.”
She was grateful that she hadn’t broken down right then and there. She was too exhausted to fall apart. Instead she walked with Jason to the registers and h
oped that Montrose had gotten Richie out of the store without further incident. Maybe his cousin could get to the bottom of his issues.
The fact stared her in the face: there was something wrong with Richie.
Chapter Seventeen
“I’ve gotta call Alison,” James said.
“Okay.” Carrie gave him a peck on the cheek. “I’m going to get dressed. I promised Denise I’d hang out with her today.”
James’s heart sank. He knew they couldn’t spend every day together, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Hey, can we come swim in Denise’s pool later?” Kevin said. He was sitting Indian-style on the floor in front of the box fan.
“We’re going with her aunt to Augusta, but she is having a pool party tonight which she might have told me to invite you guys to.”
“Yes,” Kevin said, giving a fist pump.
Carrie was halfway up the stairs already when she stopped and turned to James. “Call me just before you guys start to melt.”
“Will do.” James watched her leave and then turned to the guys. “So, what do we do today?”
“I don’t know why, but I feel like doing something badass today,” Kevin said.
“Like what?” Eric was upside down leaning his ass against the living room wall next to the TV.
“Well, seeing’s how Jamey Boy had his thrill yesterday beating up bullies, I feel like we missed out on the action.”
“What are you getting at, Kevin?” James said.
“I say we head downtown and look for your buddies.”
James didn’t look for fights, and he wasn’t anxious to meet up with Hank again. “No, dude. Not gonna happen. Something else.”
Eric’s ass slid down the wall. He sat up and looked over at them with a rare twinkle in his eyes. “Kevin, does your brother’s dirt bike still work?”
“Yes,” James said, spinning back to Kevin. “come on, man, tell me it does.”
“I don’t know guys,” Kevin said. He rose from his perch before the fan and tried on Eric’s worry-wart look. This was also a rarity. “My brother doesn’t want me touching his stuff. He hates me enough as it is.”
