Light the Hidden Things (5 page)

It was when he did speak of himself that he turned impenetrable. The way he described his lifestyle came without apology or boast. She realized with a small start that that was quite irritating: Everything about him just
was
. Not that she cared.

When she twisted her head her hair rippled across her shoulder. She almost reached to assure it wasn’t in disarray. She checked the move, not wanting them to notice.

That irritated her further. Why should she care? Especially about Crow. Stubborn loner. His problem. Everybody had at least one. She concentrated on the Pastor. Crinkled smile lines at the corners of the eyes and mouth and the thinning hair made her think of time passing. His hands on the table showed the slightly enlarged knuckles of oncoming arthritis and the skin had a fragile-leather look. His eyes, though - that’s where you saw him best. Their calm green, like spring’s earliest welcome, were rich with the knowledge of certain renewal.

Pastor Richards interrupted Lila’s observations with a question. “So how’s your project going?”

“I’m dealing with it.”

For a moment it appeared Richards might pursue it. Instead he rose, saying, “You know I'll help any way and any time I can,” and to Crow, “Sorry to interrupt.”

Crow said, “No trouble at all, Padre.”

As soon as Pastor Richards was gone, Lila said, “What’d you think of him?”

“He’s pleasant. His line of work, it's kind of necessary. He likes you.”

Lila ignored the last. “That’s it? Aren’t you curious to know how long he’s lived here? If he’s got family? His denomination?”

“No.”

“How can you live like that? I mean, I’m not all that close to everyone, but I want to know something about them. I like to feel they’re interested in me." She paused, eyes widening, and continued as if surprised and musing about it. "That's why I'm here. In Lupine. I want to be where I belong. I have a dream, so that's who I am. You, you’re just a prickly old cocklebur.” A sly smile took her back to her original manner.

“Character assassination. What happened to pointless small talk? What's your Pastor say about broken deals?”

She made a face of mock exasperation. Crow almost laughed aloud. Lila went on, "He's the reason I'm living here, working on the store."

Crow raised his eyebrows and waited. She said, "The day after I graduated high school I left home. I got a job keeping records for a company that supplied supermarkets. You've heard of left-brain, right-brain? This was dead brain. Just for fun one day I did some ad copy for produce. Stuff like 'Our beets beat their beets" and "Maybe the other guy's cantaloupe can't but ours can." I sent it to some other employees. Next I'm telling the boss I was just playing with the computer on my lunch hour. He fired me anyhow. The next day our biggest client hired me to write more."

She stopped to sip her wine and Crow asked her, "Richards pulled you back to Lupine to do advertising?"

"You're being funny again. Pretty lame. No, Lupine came later. Long story short, I worked in advertising a few years. Moved to Atlanta. Mother never forgave me for taking off. I didn't find out Aunt Lila and Uncle Bake had passed away until Dad died - two years after them. I flew back to Seattle for the his funeral. My mother hardly spoke to me. More years passed. Then I got a phone call from the Pastor telling me she was gone."

Crow watched reminiscence carry her elsewhere. He wanted her back. He said, "You can't stop there."

Her smile was polite. "I hated my life. Losing my mother was awful, even if we weren't close anymore. I came back for the funeral. Being in Seattle again convinced me I had to do something different."

"So the Pastor helped you?"

"He saved me. How's that for melodrama? Truth, though. He told me I owned the store." She looked away.

Can he see - can he imagine - how this conversation's gotten away from me? Yes, I wanted to talk, but I never meant to spin out my life story.

What's he feeling? Interest? That lopsided grin; what's it mean?

God, what if he's just bored?

His eyes were endless. They spoke to her of too many hurts, too many wrecks. And unbreakable patience. When he spoke, his voice was soft, deeper. She heard a distant storm. "Richards told you?"

She found resolve, continued. "My mother despised Aunt Lila's lifestyle. And Bake. They willed me their place, along with a small trust from their insurance. My mother never told me. Never left me anything, either. Funny, she thought I'd end up like Aunt Lila. And I will." She tossed her head. "Pastor Richards loaned me enough to start renovating. I've never gotten far enough ahead to pay back any. I can survive on the trust money, but that's it. He says because it's such a large loan we have to keep it a secret."

Crow tried to ignore the weight of her emotion. "Even I can appreciate him helping someone like that. I think I could be a helper. I'd never be the one helped." He spread his hands. "No one knows where to find me."

She leaned forward, fists on the edge of the table. “Why do you insist on being lonely?”

“Lonely’s a foolish word.” The uninflected words still told Lila she’d over-stepped. As quickly as that, however, he was the one apologizing. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Lila stared past him, regretting taking their meeting in this unfortunate direction. Crow continued, “Look, we’ve had a pleasant evening. We shouldn’t wrangle over one word and spoil it.”

She struggled to organize feelings. It didn’t seem to be happening, so she just blurted her thoughts. “You know, this evening’s been educational. I think I’m beginning to understand a bunch of things that I don’t even know what they are. And don’t tell me that’s the worst grammar or logic you ever heard, ‘cause I don’t care. What I’m trying to say is, you didn’t decide to be a loner. You are, for sure, and I’m sure you have your reasons. I’m not fooled, though. You’re a person who’ll help without being asked. A good person.”

Settling back against his chair, Crow said, “I believe there was a compliment buried in there somewhere. I appreciate it.” The drawl turned the phrase into
preciate it
. He finished with, “What I can’t figure out is how you got so smart without getting old.”

She sneered broadly. “I’m old enough to know bad flattery when I hear it.”

“Well, I’m doing the best I can. I don’t get out much. No point practicing my smooth lines on Major. Dumb dog believes everything I tell him.”

Lila seized the opportunity to change the subject. “Where’d you get that thing? He looks like he’d fight a crocodile.”

“Major - His name’s Major. I guess you forgot. - would try to fight a river full of crocodiles if I told him to, or if he thought he needed to. He’d rather chase a ball. Or sleep. Folks get it all wrong. Ugly doesn’t make mean. Other way ‘round. Mean makes ugly.”

“You didn’t say where you got him. Or when.”

“Three years ago, up near Minneapolis. Man raised pit dogs.”

Her full red lips compressed into the same hard line Crow remembered from earlier in the day. They hardly moved when she said, “I thought so.”

“Whoa. Ease up. Major was just a pup. He wasn’t raised to fighting. The man who owned him came to understand he wasn’t, either.”

“He sold you the dog? Major. Your dog named Major. Excuse me.”

“He was sort of a gift.” A sudden smile spiked across Crow’s face. Lila’s wine stopped halfway to her mouth so abruptly she almost spilled. The suggestion of hidden danger about him was a warning jangle now. She told him, “The last time I saw anything like that smile it was ice forming. What happened in Minneapolis?”

“You’d be bored. Tell me about Zasu. There’s a name that makes Major look way too everyday.”

Frustration buzzed in her head like wasps. That wall again. Lila wanted to fight it and instinctively knew she couldn't. Part of her wished otherwise. She told him, “Zasu's a proud pound mutt. I went with a friend who wanted a kitten. The friend went home empty-handed but Zasu picked me.”

“Good dog.” He grinned, then, “More flattery. But dogs know who needs them.”

“People should be so lucky about needs.”

It was an innocuous statement. The effect, though, was almost disastrous. The words fell to the table like a sputtering fuse.

“How’s everything?” Martha’s words startled both of them so badly the older woman took a step backward. “What in the world did I interrupt?”

Crow's look for her was flat, empty. Martha tried to erase her question from the air with a circular hand motion. “No. I didn’t say that. What I said was, ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’ There.”

Lila answered. “We were both surprised, that’s all. We’re too stuffed with great food for good conversation. It’s your own fault.”

Martha accepted that with a look that said she appreciated a gracious lie as well as anyone, then shifted her attention to Crow. His expression softened gradually. He was a different man when he said, “Nothing to interrupt, ma’am. We were just talking about dogs.”

Martha said, “Mary Calhoun was telling me her boy leaned against your pickup and your dog sort of rose up out of nowhere and stared out the window at him. Didn’t make a sound. Just stared. Scared the boy spitless.”

Crow protested. “You see a pickup with out of state plates and hear there’s a big dog in it and you decide it’s all mine.”

“I deduce. Like Sherlock Holmes.” Martha struck a quick pose, then, “When Eddie - the Calhoun boy - said there was a Marine Corps decal in the window, I knew it had to be you. Neck as stiff as a railroad tie. You retired?”

Another voice, familiar, said “Who’s retired?”

Lila looked up to see Pastor Richards rejoining them.

Martha said, “This gentleman, I believe. Marine Corps.”

Before Crow could speak Lila interjected, “You were a Marine? You never said. I didn’t see any decal.”

Crow told Lila, “It never came up. Decal’s on the rear window. Would have been hard for you to see.” Turning to Martha, he said, “Yes. Retired Marine.” Then it was the Pastor’s turn. Crow told him, “A few years ago.” Then he was back to Martha, “If there’s ever a Busybody Olympics, you’re a cinch for gold.”

Martha said, “And put up with all that publicity? Pooh. For some of us, just knowing you’re the best is enough.”

Pastor Richards said, “Sir, you don’t look old enough to be retired from anything, much less something as strenuous as military service.”

“Lots of fresh air and exercise, Padre.”

“I’m a pastor, sir, not a priest.”

Crow said, “And I'm enlisted, not an officer. No sirs, please. Padre's an old habit. The men who taught me called our chaplains Padre. Sorry.”

“You served your twenty?”

“Plus two.”

Lila said, “His name’s Carter Crow. He prefers to be called Crow.”

Martha said, “Well, I’ve got to go scare more customers. I’m glad you enjoyed your dinner. Wasn’t it delicious? I don’t know how I do it, really.”

The Pastor watched her go, chuckling, telling Crow, “The worst part of it is, she’s as good as she thinks she is. Hard to take sometimes.”

Lila said, “And just when you think you can’t stand another minute of her, she does something so sweet you want to hug her to pieces.”

Crow’s wince made it clear how he felt about that. Lila couldn’t resist grinning to make him know she’d caught him out.

Pastor Richards spoke to Lila, serious now. “I ran into Van outside. That’s why I’m back. He said he dropped by Bake’s earlier. Told me you two talked. Lawton’s name came up. Van also said you’re still turning him down.” Richards shot a quick glance at Crow and added, “Van’s a contractor and developer. Wants Lila to sell him Bake’s old place.”

Clasping the Pastor’s hand, she said, “You’re a friend. Lawton’s a... unpleasant.” She explained to Crow, “Edward Lawton’s the local banker. He thinks me and my restoration project are losers. I’m going around him, going to a different bank in the city.” She shifted in her chair, took back her hand. She said, “Crow’s interested in fishing. Any suggestions?”

Richards clearly disapproved of being shunted off the original subject. Nevertheless, hope crept into his question for Crow. “Fly fisherman?”

“I try. Mostly I just enjoy the experience. The fish usually win.”

The Pastor beamed. “That’s me; I try. ‘Let us search and try our ways, and turn again unto the Lord.’ Lamentations. Almost too appropriate.”

Lila said, “Don’t let him kid you. He knows every fish in the Fortymile and Lake Connolly.”

The Pastor laughed. “I get one once in a while. The power of prayer, you know..”

Crow said, “Uh-huh. Occasionally. Prayer. I admire the way you use the language, Padre, but I don’t think I’ll play poker with you.”

The Pastor faced Lila and burlesqued shock. “You heard that? Poker? The man’s psychic. Uncovered both my major vices.” Turning back to Crow, he said, “If you’re willing to tag along with an old man I can show you some interesting water tomorrow.”

Lila braced for Crow’s refusal, hoping it wouldn’t be too curt. He said, “That’s generous, Padre. I’ll take you up on it.”

Lila goggled at him.

Richards said, “Good. But promise to at least try to quit calling me Padre. It makes me wonder if my collar got turned around.”