Kindle Edition
Amazon
Smashwords.com
Barnes & Noble Nook
Category:
Mainstream
ISBN-10: B005BCO170
Type: Fiction
Pages: 234
ISBN-13: 9781452478272
In a small townlike Summertown, it’s hard to do anything without just about everyone else knowing about it. Yet despite this fishbowl atmosphere, there is a secret being kept that will destroy lives and ultimately change the town forever.
Summertown is a little hamlet in Northern Arizona that accountant Jimmy Stone, a refugee from the big city of Phoenix, has called home for the last nine years. In that time, the biggest things to happen have been the day his first wife did him the favor of leaving him for another man and the day, two years later, when he married his current wife, Tara. He’s looking forward to giving his only daughter, Jessica the biggest wedding the town has ever seen, while at the same time helping Tara play matchmaker to the deputy marshal and the school principal. But the simple pleasures of living in a small vacation town will soon to be overshadowed by the airing of a shocking secret that has been kept by the family of a man everyone in town knows to avoid. By the end of the story, people will die, relationships will be ruined and the homey veneer of Summertown will be torn away to reveal the ugly prejudice that infests it.
Excerpt
I started sprinting full-out, but that only lasted about ten paces or so. A bullet hit me in mid-stride that struck with such jarring force that it felt as if my entire body had been hit. I tumbled forward, unable to catch myself as I slammed face-first onto the forest floor. It was strange; I couldn’t feel anything and I found myself thinking about that, almost dispassionately, like an outside observer would. I felt the impact on my face when I fell, but nothing else. I couldn’t move or make a sound, but other than a kind of fuzzy headache that went from the base of my skull to the top of my head, I was thinking very clearly, trying to piece together what had just happened. The gritty pain of broken teeth and a smashed nose faded to nothing, and as I became enveloped in a feeling of disembodiment, I asked myself, Is this what dying is like? Am I already dead? Then I started thinking about my daughter Jessie and how I wanted to make sure she had everything she needed. I wanted to see my yet-to-be-born grandchildren. I wanted to tell my wife I was sorry for being a fool, that I loved her; so many things left unsaid, undone.
How did I get here? I asked whoever was out there. I’m just a small-town accountant. I don’t have an enemy in the world that I know of. This wasn’t my fight. How did I get pulled into this?
Life had been so quiet and simple for so many years in Summertown that it was hard to imagine things could ever go this wrong. As my mind hovered within the limp shell that had been my body, I looked back through recent memories to piece together where the craziness started.
As I recall, it all pretty much began about five or six months ago. My only daughter, Jessica, and Tom Shirazi, the eldest son of one of my best friends, had announced that they were getting married. Tommy was a terrific young man. He and Jessie had known each other since their sophomore year of high school, when his family moved to Summertown from Glendale, but they didn’t start dating until they both went away to NAU. Before I knew it they were engaged, with the wedding planned for June, after they both graduated. So much better than how her old man did things.
I met Jessie’s mom, Corinda, during a wild, drunken vacation that turned out to be just about the biggest mistake of my life. Corinda was, in a word, eccentric; in another word, nuts. I could think of some other words, but I can’t share them in mixed company. I was rescued from this purgatory by a pudgy little guy in a white security guard uniform who stole my darling wife away from me. I sent him a card every Christmas.
I had managed to piece together the story of their romance from eyewitness accounts (it’s hard to keep secrets in the middle of a Wal-Mart parking lot) and the load of manure she shoveled up for me when she asked me for the divorce. Truth is, I didn’t hear much of what she said because I was too busy shouting “Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus!” Somewhere between that and when I ran out the front door, yelling “Free at last, free at last, praise God I’m free at last!” she got the idea and shut up.
The story goes, more or less like this: She had just walked out the door of the Flagstaff Wal-Mart, where she always did the grocery shopping, when she began to swoon from the heat. How she could be overheated in Flagstaff, Arizona in the month of October, under cloudy skies, I have no clue. But for the sake of the story I was given, she swooned. Enter Nerville (yes, that’s his name. Named after his mother—just kidding), the store security guard, dressed in a dingy white uniform shirt and black polyester slacks two sizes too small. Our hero saw the poor damsel wobble on her heels and begin to fall backward, so he rushed over to her and gently dropped her on the asphalt and began fanning her with the copy of Boys’ Life he had been reading. When she came to she looked up, saw his uniform (“You know I can’t resist a man in uniform,” she told me. Actually no, I didn’t. If I had, I would have dropped her off at the National Guard base long ago), and her heart was his forever. Or at least until she consummated their relationship and found out that he was somewhat under-equipped for the job. But by that time, he had already moved in with her (it took all of thirty minutes to move all of his worldly goods—two trash bags full of clothes and one alarm clock radio—from his mom’s garage, where he’d been living, to her place) and taken up residence on her couch, dressed in just his boxers, stuffing his face with Goo Goo Clusters and washing them down with Shasta root beer.
God has a way of giving us good things despite our own efforts to screw up our lives, and the one wonderful thing that came out of that twenty-year experiment in mutual torture was our Jessie. She was nothing like her mother (thank God) except in looks, which is to say she’s a beauty without that pesky habit of wanting to suck the life out of any male that happens to be in her vicinity.
Jessie and Tom both had jobs lined up in Flagstaff, which was a forty-five minute drive away in the summer, twice that in the winter, so it wasn’t too far to visit regularly. And I had gotten used to her being gone most of the year, since she moved into a dorm on campus when she transferred from community college to the university. It was just the idea that my baby wasn’t coming back home that tore me up.
Corinda was, as usual, playing up the grieving mother routine, calling my office and blubbering to my assistant, Carol, that her “baby is now a woman and she’s getting married and moving far away and how will she see her grandchildren, blah, blah, blah.” Carol was an anemically thin, gray-haired lady with the sweetest, gentlest demeanor a human being could have. Not even Corinda could get her to utter an unkind word, and that fact alone speaks volumes for her character. I, on the other hand, had no trouble thinking up unkind words, and if I didn’t know it would hurt Jessie, I’d probably be able to conjure up a few unkind actions, as well.
So when I walked into the office and found Carol on the phone, speaking soothing words of comfort, I assumed it was Corinda with her usual load of horse hockey. But this time, Carol waved me over to her desk and handed me the phone, something she knew not to do if it was my ex-wife on the other end. I took the phone reluctantly, seeing the look of sympathy on Carol’s face. When I said hello, Corinda wailed and blubbered something in Spanish. Then, through all the sniffling and bawling and more blubbering, I managed to piece together what the new disaster was: Nerville had left her. No way, I thought. This man was my hero, the one who had excised the cancerous tumor from my life. It can’t be!
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, hoping against hope. “Check the refrigerator. Check the kitchen cabinets. Are the Shasta and Goo-Goo Clusters gone?”
“I already thought of that!” she barked at me. “That was the first thing I did when I saw all of his movies gone. All of his snacks and drinks are gone. He even took the portrait we had made!” She wailed this last part so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear.
“What portrait?” I asked, which sparked another string of Spanish epithets (I always assume that when Corinda speaks to me, it’s something profane) ending with “estupido” which didn’t require a Spanish-English dictionary to translate.
“Our Magicland portrait! We had somebody take our picture when we were going into the Floating Teacup ride. It was so romantic.”
OK, I know it was a horrible thing, given the woman’s emotional state, but the thought of those two inside one of those little, cup-shaped kiddie-cars, their thighs oozing out the sides, flashing their pearly whites (all three of them in Nerville’s case) just got the better of me. I burst into laughter and couldn’t stop. Corinda screamed a fresh string of Spanish at me and then hung up in my ear.
“Oh, Jimmy, that was not kind.” Carol shook her head reprovingly. “You two may have had your differences, but she is your daughter’s mother and she needs your help.”
“My help!” I replied, defensively. “She left me, remember? She’s been perfectly happy living with the Toothless Wonder the last few years, only seeing Jessie when it was a chance to play Doting Mother in front an audience. You should have seen her at Jessie’s graduation. The only way Jessie managed to free herself from Corinda’s iron grip was to point out the honor guard at the other end of the field. The woman almost slipped on her own drool running over there.”
“Well then.” Carol paused a moment then said, “Think of who she’s going to call next. Do you think Jessie should have to worry about her mother when she has so much happening with the wedding?”
I hated to admit it, but Carol was right. Jessie was the next person on Corinda’s list of torture victims and, worst of all, Jessie was bilingual, so she didn’t have the luxury of tuning out half of what her mother said like I could. I didn’t want her having to put up with that right now.
“Oh, all right,” I relented. “But only for Jessie. The woman hasn’t called me in two years—not that I’m complaining about that—and suddenly I’m the one that has to fix her problems?”
When the only reply I got was one of her “Now, Jimmy, you’re better than that” looks, I retreated to my office where I grudgingly picked up the phone and called Corinda. She spent only a few seconds berating me before getting to the point, which told me how upset she was.
“Oh, Jimmy,” she said plaintively. “It’s so hard being alone. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“You’ve been alone for what, three hours? And you didn’t even know it until a few minutes ago. I was alone for a year before I met Tara.”
“Hmph.” Mentioning Tara caused a sudden chill in Corinda that I could feel right through the phone. “Well,” she resumed, “I can’t be alone that long. If I lose my Nerville, I don’t know what I will do. I don’t trust myself. I can’t be alone!” She was starting in with the melodrama and I really didn’t have time for it, so I cut her off.
“Corinda, don’t worry. You’ll find someone else. In fact, I’m sure you can find someone better.” OK, that last part was redundant; what could possibly be worse than Nerville?
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, hesitating. “Do you really think I can still attract a man?”
OK, Lord. I’ll go to confession right after this one. “Sure, I do. You’re an attractive woman” to anyone who’s drunk enough “with lots of personality.” Multiple personalities is more like it. “Just relax and leave it in God’s hands.” And may He have mercy on every man you come in contact with.
She sighed, paused, and then said, “You are right, of course. I just have to go out and let myself be seen again.” In my mind I heard a gavel strike, and a judge’s voice convicting me of being an accessory to crimes against humanity.
“Absolutely.” I’m going to hell. “There are plenty of good men out there.” And if they’re smart they’ll see you coming and run for their lives. “You’re still young.” Straight to hell, no detours. “Go out and have fun.” I extricated myself while I could. “Gotta go, Corinda, I have lots of monthlies to do. Bye.” I put the phone down before she could reply, then walked to the front door.
“Has she calmed down?” Carol asked.
“Oh yeah, she’s fine,” I reassured her. “She’s getting ready to go looking for another victim.” I walked out the door before she could chide me again for my unkindness. I didn’t drink much, still don’t, but at that moment I felt like having a tall glass of British ale at Old Smokie’s Tavern up the road. When I got back it was too late to get anything done, so I sent Carol home, locked up and headed to the old homestead myself. I didn’t hear of Corinda for a couple of months or so, but when I did, it was a doozy.
Chapter Two
I had been working for about three hours straight, trying to keep up with the tall stack of tax returns on my desk that just seemed to get taller, when my eyes started going out of focus and I got a headache. So I told Carol I was going for my morning caffeine fix and walked down the road to the Little Creek Café, the coffee shop owned and run by Ken and Min Shirazi, my future in-laws.
It was a beautiful mid-April day, and although it was a little too early for the wildflowers that usually sprang up along the highway where Summertown was situated, the crystal-clear sky and the scent of pines carried on the chilly breeze was invigorating. As I walked past the storefronts that comprised the town’s business district, I thought of how the town had changed over the years.
Summertown was established in 1960 by Keith Tubman, a real estate broker, who envisioned a sprawling retirement community like the ones they had in Phoenix and Tucson, complete with a golf course and swimming pools, restaurants and a rest home. What he didn’t take into account was the obvious: extremely cold winters. Not arctic, mind you, and not the damp, bone-chilling cold of the Midwest, but much too cold to attract retirement-aged people seeking a pleasant climate to live out their sunset years in comfort and leisure. Besides the climate, a lack of healthcare facilities within twenty-five miles and a lone ambulance company ten miles away—and frequent road closures during the winter months due to severe road conditions—kept all but the hardiest from buying lots in the master planned development. From 1960 to 1971, there were only 200 year-round residents and another 300 or so summer visitors.
In the end, what kept the town alive were the fishing, boating, hiking and camping opportunities in the summer at Lake Mary and Stoneman Lake and the beautiful white landscapes in the winter that inspired many visitors to break out their snow sleds and cross-country skis and take advantage of the gently sloping terrain around the town’s outskirts. What Tubman had envisioned as a Northern Arizona Sun City ended up as a tiny vacation town with only a few retirees in permanent residence. As the roads improved and surrounding towns like Payson grew, Summertown grew as well. By the time I had decided to move my family—despite the protests of my wife—to a smaller, cooler place, Summertown had 2,000 permanent residents, a small charter school with eighty-five elementary and thirty-two high school students and several businesses established along State Highway 487, or Lake Mary Road, as it was more commonly called. They even had their own marshal’s office, a two-man law enforcement agency established back in the late sixties to serve in the dual capacities of peace officers and emergency medical personnel. Then, with the modernization of the Blue Ridge Fire Station in Happy Jack a few miles south in the early nineties, the marshal’s office was free to concentrate on police work.
The only original building in the business district was the general store/contract post office owned by town mayor Pedro Mendoza, a retired mail carrier from Yuma who had dreamed of living somewhere he could enjoy seasons that actually changed. I could definitely relate to that, since I grew up in Phoenix and had wanted the same thing. The other businesses that sprouted up alongside the store were Todd Webb’s Auto Repair; Old Smokie’s Tavern, a place that was the same as it was when it was first opened back in ’78; Corinda’s little beauty parlor, established the first year we moved to Summertown and doing good business ever since, partly because she could gossip with the best of them in town, partly because she flirted with all the old men who came in for a hair cut, but mostly because I did her books—still did them, as stipulated in the divorce agreement—receiving them by email so that we would never have to see one another. My office was located at the opposite end of the street from my ex-wife’s—and yes, I did that on purpose. When I was married to her, I wanted to enjoy spending my days away from her. When we divorced it made it easier to avoid her. The Little Creek Café sat on the south side of Mendoza’s General Store, the only business in the area with an asphalt parking area to accommodate customers all year long.
Ken and I pretty much hit it off from the first day we met. He was a retired sergeant in the Air Force who spent the last five years of his career in Glendale. They had three terrific boys, the oldest of whom I was particularly partial to, since he was about to be my son-in-law. They started vacationing in Summertown a few years before he called it quits. The first visit was a week in one of our rental cabins, the second year they bought a small vacation house in the middle of town, and; the third year they started making plans to move up permanently. When they took a look at the old Summertown Café which had been closed for several years due to the death of the prior owner (no one else in town was interested in running a restaurant at the time), they took it on as a challenge and bought it, changed its name and completely remodeled it. They did good business with the folks in town, as well as the truckers, foresters and vacationers in the area since it was the easiest eatery to get to for several miles.
I walked into the café and sat down at the counter, waving at Ray, the town marshal, and Gary, his deputy. Ray had spent twenty-five years as a Maricopa County Deputy Sheriff. He retired from there with the rank of sergeant about six years ago just to come up to Summertown and take over the position held by Howard Trumbull, our first marshal, who held the position for forty years (re-elected eight times) and died in office during his ninth term. Ray had started out as his deputy before moving to the big city of Phoenix, always coming back up to visit in the summer. When he heard of Trumbull’s passing, he immediately put in for his retirement and moved up permanently. Everyone knew him and most liked him. He was of average height, broad faced with a flat nose from being broken several times during his early years at MCSO (he joked that it took him a few times to learn the same lesson: wait for backup whenever time permits—and duck), an athletic build that was beginning to get soft from age and brown eyes that took in everything they saw.
Gary was the rookie in the two-man department, a recent graduate from the police academy, aching to learn about real law enforcement. As Ray put it, Gary was an honest-to-God Boy Scout. He actually said “sir,” “ma’am” and “miss” when addressing people and rarely called Ray by his name, preferring to address him as Marshal or Chief. He was 5’10”, had a round, boyish face that belied his wrestler’s physique, and deep blue eyes that seemed to catch everything but kept looking anyway for fear of missing something. His crew-cut blonde hair gave the illusion of a halo when the mid-morning sun hit it just right. He was receiving his start-of-shift briefing from Ray, sitting at the booth Ray called his office. He had an office at Town Hall (or the Trailer, as most of us called it, a mobile office unit with a conference room and two offices inside. It sat where the community center was originally planned to be, about two blocks east of the highway, in the middle of the small housing development of about forty homes, which was the only “planned” part of the little town), but he preferred using the café for business that didn’t require using his file cabinet or computer.
I hailed Min, Ken’s wife, and got a “hold on to your horse” order back. Like many immigrants, Min didn’t always get the American idioms right, but we got the gist and didn’t correct her that often. She and Ken had been married twenty-three years, almost exactly nine months before Tom was born, to hear Min tell it. Ken tells it a little more bluntly, “I knocked her up on our honeymoon.” Of course, he doesn’t dare say this in front of Min. They met in church, when Ken was still an airman stationed in South Korea. One year later, they were married. She had the tact of a New York cab driver, but at forty-one she still had a face like a China doll, even though the rest of her had filled out horizontally a bit since I first met her. This didn’t deter Ken from showing his affections at virtually any time of day, no matter who was watching. I asked him once if he realized that he may be putting some of his customers off with his roving hands. He said he couldn’t help it. He’d been hinting for years that she needed to gain some weight, and now that she had, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. It got to be embarrassing sometimes, especially for Gary, who was unusually, even comically, shy when it came to women.
“You want kimchi?” Min offered, knowing it pained me just to hear the name of the dish that caused me such gastrointestinal agony. It was her specialty, which I had made the grave mistake of trying the first day they opened for business. It ruined my ability to taste anything for two days.
“No I don’t, thank you very much,” I replied firmly, which was my expected response. “But maybe I can get some to go. I need to refinish my desk and that stuff would make a great stripping compound.” That got a chuckle out of her. “Just some coffee right now, thanks. I’m trying to relax.”
“Coffee is not good for relaxing. You know that,” she chided. “Tara keeps telling you to not drink coffee. Why don’t you do what she say?”
“Because I like coffee,” I said stubbornly. “And it’s your job to give me what I want to have and to charge me for it, not to tell me to obey my wife.”
“I teach Tara how to make you obey,” she said, with an evil grin. I knew how she’d do it, too.
Last year, Min asked Ken if he minded letting her parents come visit for a couple of weeks. When he flatly refused, he received “hands-off treatment”: he couldn’t come within two feet of his wife without hearing her say “don’t touch me!” She slept on the couch for four nights until he relented, and he whined about it the whole time. She and Tara must be related somehow; they both have the same sadistic sense of humor.
“Are you sure you’re not really North Korean?” I asked, knowing I was taking a chance.
Min stepped back, stared at me with flashing eyes. Uh-oh, I went too far. I was going to have to watch my back for a while. When I saw Ken walk in from the kitchen, I asked him to pour me some coffee, just as a precaution. A tall, slim second-generation Iranian-American, Ken was always smiling and joking with people. He took the long route, first brushing by his wife, sneaking gropes that earned him a slap from Min. Gary was trying not to notice, but by the color of his face I could tell he knew what was going on.
“Ken, do you really have to play grab-ass with your wife all the time?” I asked.
“Hey, I told you before,” he replied, “I got a license.”
Gary excused himself and went out, mumbling something about crosswalk duty at the school. Ken chuckled as he watched the deputy go out. He enjoyed embarrassing the kid for some reason.
Ray came over to the counter and sat down next to me. “When are you going to lay off my deputy?” he chided.
“I gotta have my fun with him while I can, Ray,” Ken explained. “The day’s going to come when he realizes that half the girls in this region want to eat him alive—”
“And not just the young girls,” his wife broke in, winking at me.
“Are you referring to anybody in particular?” I asked suspiciously.
“Oh, I’ve noticed lately,” she said offhandedly, “that a certain lady you know been coming in here around the time Gary’s having his morning coffee.” She leaned over and added conspiratorially, “She’s been wearing a lot of dresses lately. The kind that button down the front and show a lot.”
“Oh, God,” I muttered. Corinda was chasing Gary. “She’s old enough to be his mother, for Pete’s sake.”
Ken looked at me quizzically. “How is it you didn’t know about it?”
“For the last couple of years we’ve made a point of avoiding each other.”
“This town has all of four or five streets in it,” he argued. “You have to work to avoid seeing someone.”
“You know Corinda. Wouldn’t you?”
“You got a point.”
“Ray,” I turned and addressed the marshal, “you had better watch out for Gary. I have a bad feeling about this. Corinda won’t stop chasing him until she either has him or he has to arrest her for assaulting an officer.”
“Or statutory rape,” Ken threw in, smirking.
********
Chapter Three
A couple of weeks after it was revealed that Gary had been marked as open game by Corinda Stone he was at the school crosswalk, waving to the kids as they walked by. He really enjoyed this part of his job and the kids liked him. He was just about to get into the department’s Crown Vic when he heard a call from behind him that made him perspire. Please God, he prayed, make Mrs. Stone go away.
Corinda was strutting like she was on a fashion show catwalk, wearing a zebra-print halter-top dress that stopped at mid-thigh. It emphasized the areas she wanted noticed, which were generally pretty hard to miss no matter what she wore. Her black, shoulder-length hair was blowing in the breeze, and the sound of her black and white pumps could be heard down the block tapping to the tempo of some Latin Salsa number that was likely playing in her head. She was clearly feeling good about herself, and she had good reason to. She had worked for months trying to drop the weight she had gained living with that little tub of lard she had attached herself to. She couldn’t believe she fell for him. Oh, well. That was over now. She was going hunting today, and she wasn’t giving up until she got her trophy.
Gary could feel himself start to blush just thinking about how she was probably dressed.
“Hello, Deputy Gary.” She opened the exchange, smiling brightly, waving to him with her fingers in a flirty gesture. She was still far enough away that he was able to get the door of the car open and stand with it between them.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Stone,” he answered, smiling politely. This woman scared him, but he was determined not to let on. He had no idea that it was written all over his face. “How are you today?”
“Oh, I’m feeling terrific!” she said, punctuating the last word by thrusting her hip and throwing her arms in the air in an over-the-top effort at sexiness.
To anyone else it would have been painfully embarrassing, but Gary was too busy trying not to embarrass himself to notice. He was trying to think of something he could use to excuse himself and get away from this woman, but she was distracting him too much.
“Like my dress?” she asked, posing.
I love that dress, he thought. Oh please God, get me out of here before something happens!
“Uh, yes ma’am. It’s very becoming,” he stammered. He looked down just long enough to acknowledge that she was wearing a dress and then, with great effort, he looked back up at her face.
“Have you been running?” she asked innocently. “You’re breathing is a little heavy.”
This made him turn even redder than he already was.
Just then Gina Albright, the school principal, walked over. She, too had designs on the deputy, but she was much closer to his age and had never been married. She was slim and athletic, had short blonde hair, a rather plainish, sort-of-pretty face and wore a pantsuit that gave no hint of femininity. She had been watching him through the window of her office like she always did at the end of the day, trying to think up an excuse to go out and talk to him. She wasn’t old-fashioned by any stretch, she just didn’t want to look like a fool.
All through college she had been involved in one relationship or another, but they all ended the same way, with her heart broken by some selfish jerk that just used her until she began to have feelings for him, then dumped her for someone else. So when she graduated, she looked for the smallest, most out-of-the-way spot she could find to start her career. She saw an opening at a small charter school in the tiny forest village of Summertown and applied. Her academic record so impressed the little school’s board that she was hired after only her first interview. Two years after starting, the town took ownership of the school and fired the ineffective principal who worked for the charter company. When no one else at the school showed interest in the position, Gina applied for, and got it.
And then one day, a hunky young cop, fresh out of cop school, shows up to guard the crosswalk, and her heart starts doing flip-flops. She tried to talk herself out of it, but seeing how he treated everyone so respectfully and how all the kids loved him broke down her defenses. In the end, she admitted to herself that she was smitten but refused to let anyone else know how she felt. And now she was running out to get him before that hungry barracuda ate him for lunch.
“Hey, Gary,” Gina began…then she drew a blank. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. Wait, she thought, I know.
“Hi, Corinda. How are you?” Gina greeted the woman. “How’s Nerville?” she smiled with her mouth but sneered with her eyes.
Corinda froze imperceptibly for a fraction of a second. She knew you couldn’t sneeze in this place without everyone hearing it.
“Oh, didn’t you hear?” she replied, “We broke up two months ago.” As if you didn’t know that, she thought.
“Really.” Gina feigned surprise, then twisted the knife, “But you two seemed so—suited for each other.”
“Not really,” Corinda said, an edge in her voice.
Gary looked like a rabbit caught in a trap. He’d bolt if given the chance, and Gina couldn’t afford that, since it took all of her courage to come out here at all.
She turned to him and said, “Are you available for a few minutes? I’d like to talk to you about maybe giving a talk at assembly next week.”
“Sure, absolutely,” Gary responded enthusiastically. He hated talking in front of groups, but right now he needed an excuse to get out of there.
“Have a nice day, Corinda,” Gina called over her shoulder.
Corinda fumed as she watched them walk away together toward the front office.
Tara and Gina were talking a few days later in Gina’s office during lunch break. Gina, usually the kind of person to put on a show of strength and confidence, had asked Tara for help with a personal problem.
“Corinda,” Tara prompted before Gina could mention the woman’s name. “I hear she’s chasing your man.”
“He’s not ‘my man’—Jeez, does everybody know? Is it that obvious?” she was mortified.
“No, I don’t think everybody knows; I’m sure Gary doesn’t. But the rest of the town does, yes—and maybe part of Payson,” Tara replied with a twinkle in her eye. “Everyone knows not to bother coming to your office to talk to you after school because all you do is stare out your window at Gary.”
“Oh God…” How embarrassing. After a moment she looked up and shrugged. “I finally got up the nerve to talk to him alone, and all I did was ask him to present at the next school assembly.”
“I thought we were done with assemblies for the year.”
“Not anymore.”
“Oh, Gina.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Gina threw up her hands in frustration. “Start dressing like a hooker, like Corinda? I don’t want anyone who just wants me for my looks.”
“Gina, nobody can see your looks,” Tara said gently. “You’ve been hiding them.”
“Look. This isn’t some TV movie where you dress me up and he suddenly sees that I’m a girl.”
“No,” Tara replied, “but if you don’t start acting like you want to attract a man’s attention, you won’t. It’s as simple as that. I learned that lesson long ago.”
Gina sat and stewed. She hated the idea of dressing up to get a guy. Why couldn’t he just be interested in her without her having to work at it? She was embarrassed even asking Tara for advice. But she was not going to let him go with someone else.
“All right,” she grudgingly relented at last. “But only enough to get his attention. I’m not going to put on a get-up like I saw on Corinda. If it takes that to get a guy, then he’s not worth it.”
“I agree with you there,” Tara nodded.
Britney Muir came into the Little Creek Café and sat on a stool at the counter. She had to wiggle onto it a little because she was only 5’1” and was just a bit overweight, just short of what some would call pudgy. There was a smile on her pretty young face and she bounced to the music playing on the old juke box in the corner of the restaurant, her long, light brown ponytail swinging to and fro, and her big brown eyes sparkled.
“Hi, Mrs. Shirazi,” she greeted Min cheerily.
“Hello, sweetie,” Min said, smiling. “”You come to see Jhoon?”
“Uh-huh,” the girl nodded to the beat of the music. “Is he here yet?”
“He’s in back. I’ll get him.”
As the older woman went through the doors to the kitchen, the front door of the restaurant opened and Don Muir, Britney’s father, walked in. He was in his early forties, but looked a good ten years older from driving a truck most of his adult life. He was around 5’8”,-eight, stocky with thick arms from years of heavy lifting. His hair, or what was left of it, was reddish gray. His eyes, which were a cold blue, looked even colder right now as he strode angrily to the counter.
He grabbed Britney by the arm and growled, “Why weren’t you home when I came in? You know I only get two days off every two weeks and I expect you home when I’m there.”
Britney went from happy teenage girl to terrified little mouse in an instant.
“Mom said I could come here,” she whined in a little girl’s voice.
“Well, I didn’t. And I’m the one decides about where you go!” He punctuated his words by yanking her around the room as he dragged her to the door. “Now, get going before I rap you right in the mouth!”
“Hey!” The unmistakable voice of Marshal Ray Brandt cracked like a whip and made Muir stop just inside the door. “You get your hands off her right now!”
Muir had recovered from his surprise and, ignoring Brandt for the moment, pulled Britney close and whispered to her menacingly, “Get yourself out that door and run home. Don’t you stop running until you get in the door, do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied weakly.
“Go!” He barked.
Ray Brandt and Gary Callan watched through the window of their booth as Britney sprinted across the parking lot. Gary’s jaw was clenched shut in anger; he was forcing himself to remain silent as Ray got up to face Muir.
“You got somethin’ to say to me, cop?” Muir said, scornfully.
“Yes, I do,” the marshal nodded calmly. “If I ever see you manhandling that girl again—or hear that you have—I’ll arrest you and hit you with every charge I can make stick.”
“I’ll do what I see fit with my daughter, pig!”
“If you do, you will go to jail,” Ray said flatly. “You seem to forget that she is now an adult, and as such, your rights regarding her are very limited.”
“She’d never file charges against me,” he sneered. “I’m her father.”
“I’ve got news for you, pal,” Ray began in a condescending manner calculated to irritate the trucker. “In this state, she doesn’t have to press charges. All I need is reason to believe you’ve been abusing her, and I can arrest you on charges of domestic violence. Then, I can court order her to be examined by a doctor and then, with all the evidence I’d collect from that, I could put you away for a long time.” He turned his head toward Gary and asked, “How long, exactly, Deputy?”
“Five years minimum, I think, Chief, and a maximum of twelve with at least three before he’d be eligible for parole, as I understand the statute.”
Muir simmered a moment in silence, staring a hole through the marshal. Then he turned toward the door. “Just keep your nose out of my family’s business,” he growled as he stomped out.
Ray turned to Gary and with raised eyebrows said, “Five years, minimum? That sounds a little steep.”
“Yeah, well, you were already bluffing with that whole ‘arresting on suspicion’ thing,” he shrugged, “so I figured I’d embellish a little, too.”
“Sounded good,” Ray nodded approvingly. “Hopefully, it’ll keep him away from Britney.” He watched through the window as Muir’s semi-tractor pulled out onto the road. “I have a sick feeling about him. I hope to God I’m wrong, but my gut says I’m not.”
“What?” Gary asked.
“I can’t say. Not here.”
“What can’t you say, Marshal?” Jhoon asked from across the café. He had just entered the room as Don Muir was pushing Britney through the door. “What happened to Britney? Is she going to be OK?”
“I think so, son,” Ray tried to assure him. “I think we put a little of the fear of God into him.”
“I doubt that man fears God,” Min remarked. “He’s a fool. What does the Bible say about fools, Jhoon?”
“That in their heart they say that there is no God and that they’re corrupt and vile. That’s pretty accurate, all right.” It was obvious to the others that he was just barely keeping his anger in check.
“Yes it is,” his mother replied, running a comforting hand over Jhoon’s shoulder. “But be careful not to let your anger with him turn you into a fool, too. Proverbs 14 says, ‘A wise man fears the Lord and shuns evil, but a fool is hotheaded and reckless.’ So control your anger, son, and let the marshal take care of it, for Britney’s sake.”
“All right,” he said after a moment of deliberation. He looked down at the floor and sighed. “I just don’t want her hurt. I can’t stand knowing she has to go home with that guy.”
“I know,” Ray said sympathetically. “Neither can I. But until she decides to leave, we can’t do anything about it.”
“She’s an adult,” Gary said. “What keeps her there? Surely she knows she can legally leave anytime she wants.”
“Right now, she has no car and no job,” Jhoon replied. “That man would just hunt her down and drag her right back—probably beat her, too.”
Yes, Ray thought to himself, there is something very, very wrong about this whole thing.
Britney had run the whole way, just as her stepfather had commanded. She was panting so hard her ribs hurt, her legs ached and were so drained of strength that she almost tripped over the threshold when she entered the house. Nonetheless, she ran to her room and locked herself in. She knew what was going to happen next. She couldn’t escape it. All she could do when it started was ball herself up and protect her head and face. Then, when the worst part came, she would think about Jhoon. No matter how bad it got, she knew she could make it through if she just kept thinking about Jhoon.
********
|
