A Gentle Rain (29 page)

The blonde pivoted like a cobra and stared down at us. "My daddy owns everything on both sides of this street for two miles. You just go ahead and call somebody who gives a shit where I park. Oh, and in case anybody asks, fuck you."

Lily, unnerved, fumbled her milkshake. On occasion, Lily's left hand spasmed. On this occasion, it launched her cup sideways. Peach milkshake splattered the blonde's left cowgirl boot. Lily shrieked. "Oh, no. Oh, no. I didn't mean to."

I stood quickly, bringing a handful of paper napkins to the fore. A part of me was mortified at Lily's clumsiness. Even under the best of circumstances I felt threatened around slender, adorable blondes. As a teenager I had hidden in a bathroom at Buckingham Palace rather than risk being seen by Princess Diana. I held out the napkins. "We do apologize. But there's no harm done to your boots. Here you go."

The blonde's mouth drew into a glossy slit over pearly teeth that probably hid small, ventilated fangs. "Keep your spastic idiots away from me."

She turned on her high heels and walked into the salon without a backward glance.

I froze, hand still out, napkins still proffered, however insincerely. A thousand options fought for balance inside my brain. Here was the crux of reality; I wasn't the daughter of brilliant and powerful parents who commanded respect, tolerated no insults and, indeed, had projected such a near-royal air that no one ever so much as thought to call them derogatory names. I was the daughter of two gentle, easily mocked souls who now sat with downcast eyes, hurt and embarrassed.

"I'm sorry I spilled the milkshake," Lily whispered tearfully.

Mac patted her hand. "You d-d-didn't mean to." He looked up at me, or rather, in my direction, shamed and avoiding my eyes. "It's okay, K Karen. We've been called n-names b-before."

I laid the napkins down carefully, wiped my yogurt-dewed hands on my khaki skirt, and picked up the truck keys Ben had left on the table. "Mac?" I said calmly. "Precisely 'where does Ben store that towing chain?"

Ben

I heard Tami Jo Jackson screechin' even through the ice cream parlor's walls. "What in the hell?" I muttered.

"Bad words!" Joey said loudly and giggled. By the time I wheeled him outside Karen had towed the Lamborghini a good hundred feet past the end of the parking lot. Mac unhitched the chain. Tami Jo's car sat in deep, dirty, gray sand. Weeds and construction trash sprouted around its wheels.

Mac coiled my tow chain back in the truck's bed. Lily huddled behind Karen, who stood hipshot in front of Tami Jo with her arms crossed and one all-natural, earth-sandaled foot angled out to the side. Cool as a cucumber. She listened to Tami Jo Jackson spit fire without so much as blinking a blue eye.

Snakes blink more than Karen did.

"Y'all get Joey loaded up," I said to Mac and Lily.

When Tami Jo saw me, she pivoted my way with a vengeance. She called me names, insulted my manhood, insulted my taste in womenmeaning Karen-and said me and Karen were now banned from every J.T. Jackson development in north Florida. And so on and so forth, ending with a jerk of her head toward Mac, Lily and Joey. "And that includes your drooling retards."

At which point, Karen drew back a freckled arm and punched her in the mouth.

Tami Jo bounced off the Lamborghini and sat down in the dirty construction sand. She clutched a hand to her bloody lower lip. I picked Karen up as she drew back an earth sandal to kick Tami Jo in the shins, toted her to the truck, set her scrambling feet on the running board and ordered, "Git. In. Now." And she did, though not without a last glare at Tami Jo.

I drove. Everybody got stone quiet except for wheezy breathing on Joey's part, small moans of worry from Lily, and some delicate puffin' from Karen. I kept checking the rearview mirror for a police car. Towing Daddy Jackson's car was one thing. Towing Tami Jo's car then punching her in the teeth was another. My mind chewed over ways to keep Karen from gettin' arrested for assault. "B-Ben," Mac said gruffly. "W-what if that mean girl c-calls the p-police?"

Lily burst into tears. "I won't let them take Karen to jail."

"I'm not going to jail," Karen assured them urgently, patting hands and shoulders all around.

Joey sighed. "I think I'm givin' up ice cream," he said.

Ben

I punched the sheriff's number and put my phone to one ear. "Elton? Ben."

"Howdy, Ben."

"Glen's not gonna be any help this tune."

"Nope, Ben, I don't `spect so. Let's just hope I don't get a call from the Jacksons. So far, so good."

"I don't want Karen Johnson in jail. If there're charges, you let me know ahead of time. I'll get the bail money together before I bring her i n."

"Ben, considerin' how she sliced the Pollo brothers back in the spring, I'd just as soon not put her in a cell. She might scare the other prisoners."

"Thank you, Elton."

"Ben?"

"Yeah?'

"Leave the towing chain at home from now on."

Kara

I wished Ben would simply yell at me and get it over with. He barely spoke to me that entire evening. Joey, Lily and Mac, convinced that I'd escaped criminal charges since the sheriff hadn't come to arrest me by suppertime, happily regaled the other hands with the story of my theatrics. But Ben just sat there, hardly eating from my platters of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and macaroni with three cheeses-my culinary mea culpa. He looked not only tired and grim, but miserable.

I shoved my fruit salad and shrimp stir- fry around my plate with listless shame. Mother and Dad had preached non-violence, a philosophy with which I had always agreed, and yet since arriving in Florida I had knifed a Pollo brother, attempted to assault Glen Tolbert via horse attack, and now had punched Tami Jo Jackson.

After dinner I sat at the kitchen table jotting down the weekly shopping list, my right hand twinging and aching, covered with small bandages over two knuckles. Ben walked out of his office bedroom. I tensed. He lounged by the kitchen silk with a glass of water in one hand, the thin gray material of his aged jogging pants as intimate on his thighs as ever, a faded Florida Seminoles t-shirt molded to his torso. He came from a Seminole Indian heritage but had no bone to pick with sports mascots.

After some effort at ignoring him, I looked up grimly and said, "Please. Just state your case and be done with it. I was foolish and reckless and could have caused you a great deal of trouble and embarrassment. I ruined Joey's visit to the ice cream salon. I should have battled Tami Jo Jackson with my pithy vocabulary, not a tow chain and a fist. Yes. You're absolutely right. And I apologize. I don't believe in violence except in self-defense, and so, no, I can't justify striking the oh-so-endearing Ms. Tami Jo Jackson, although it would please me greatly to pummel her and everyone with her casually cruel mindset to a bloody pulp and then feed their carcasses to wild boars. However, I believe in the rule of law, and thus..."

He moved so fast I didn't have time to react. He simply leaned down, took my bruised hand, and kissed it lightly. Then he kissed me on the forehead, and then, on the mouth. Once, twice, three times. Lightly. I kissed him back. We heard Miriam's footsteps leaving Joey's room. He straightened. "You fight for what's right. I'm proud to know you. I ain't lettin' you go to jail. Let's just hope Tami Jo forgets the whole thing. But don't you worry."

He headed for Joey's room, leaving me sitting there in a universe of tingling surprise. Miriam sidled into the kitchen. "So," she whispered. "Is he pissed?"

"Hardly," was all I managed to say.

Ben

I talked to Sheriff Arnold the next morning. He was laughing. "Ben, Tami Jo Jackson's got a suspended license. She could get in trouble for admittin' she was anywhere near a car." Just as I was heaving a sigh of relief, he added, "But you better watch your back. Her daddy is hoppin' mad. I think he's out to get you."

"Bring it on," I said.

Big talk.

I hoped he was wrong.

Chapter 16

Kara

"Aw shit," Miriam said, peering out the open front door. "There's Tom D. Dooley talking to Ben. Looks like trouble."

I looked up from my kneeling position next to the living room's aged couch. I held a toilet brush in one hand and the fireplace poker in the other. Lily stood nearby, armed with a broom. We had been attempting to shoo a small raccoon outside. Apparently, he'd slipped in during the night to help himself to Rhubarb's dry food, then gotten cornered and decided to hide beneath the couch.

"Out, out, damned spot!" I saidwith Shakespearean command, then whacked the couch with the poker. The raccoon bolted across the floor's faded Navajo rug and out the front door. Lily gaped at me. "How'd you luiow he's named 'Spot?"'

"A lucky guess."

I tossed my weapons and hurried to the door. Ben stood in the yard, arms crossed, head down, listening to a fervent-looking older man who gestured broadly. We couldn't hear his words, but he was clearly agitated. "Who's Tom Dooley?" I asked Miriam.

"He ova-is the land on the other side of the marsh. Property Ben's always hoping to buy. And it's `Tom D. Dooley.' Call him `Tom D.' He hates it when people sing that old song to him. `Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley.' So he uses his middle initial." She huffed. "Shit. Tom D. holds his cards close to his chest. Don't talk to many folks. He trusts Ben to keep things to himself, or he wouldn't be here talkie' to Ben, either. I'll have trouble gettin' the skinny on this."

"Does Tom D. like sweetened iced tea?"

"Everybody likes sweet iced tea. This is the South, honey."

I grabbed a pitcher of tea and a glass of ice from the kitchen. "Then I'll offer him a libation. That's the hospitable thing to do."

Miriam put a hand to her heart. "You sneaky little thing. I'm so proud."

Ben, his face dark, continued to stand with his arms crossed, listening without a word as Tom D. Dooley, under the spell of my natural charm and sweet iced tea, told me that J.T. Jackson Development Corporation had just offered him double the appraised value of his acreage.

"I got two thousand acres, half i1 pasture and the back half-the part that adjoins Ben's land-in wild woods and marsh. Ben's the only man fool enough to want to buy it from me, and I've always wanted to sell it to him, but I can't turn down this kind of money from Jackson. The taxes on the land are eatin' me up. My wife's got her heart set on moving to North Carolina to be near her elderly parents. I hate to sell to outsiders, but what am I gonna do?"

Ben said grimly, "I know you're in a hard place, but if Jackson gets hold of that land he'll bulldoze everything on it, just to spite me. Tom D., you got live oaks on that land even older than mine. Between your woods and mine, we got the best big cat and black bear habitat left in this part of Florida."

"I know, Ben, I know. Just tell me you can make me some ki nda decent offer. Anything. I'll work with you on a deal. I swear."

Ben shook his head. Frustration and anger clouded his face. "Man, I just can't swing it. Not this year."

"Ben, I'm sorry. But I can't wait another year. I'm gonna have to sell."

"I have an idea," I said. While both men looked at me curiously, I set the iced tea pitcher aside, wiped my dewy hands on my shorts, and worked to keep my expression pensive. As if I weren't confident of the outcome. "There's an organization called Save Green America. Using donations, they buy large tracks of pristine land. It's held in trust. Permanent green space. It can never be developed."

Tom D. frowned. "You're tellil' me some tree-hugging group might buy my land?"

"They'd buy the ecologically pristine woodland and marsh. The money you'd get would be quite substantial. You and your wife could afford to retire without a worry and move to North Carolina while holding onto the front half-the pasture and farm land-until Ben can buy that from you."

"Missy, if the tree-huggers offer me a deal like that, I'll take it."

I looked at Ben carefully. "What do you think? You wouldn't own the woodland, the way you hoped, but it would always be protected, and that's the important thing, isn't it?"

The guarded hope on his face was my reward. He took the entire pitcher of sweet iced tea, raised it as if toasting me, and said, "What do I think? I think you're worth your weight in sweet tea."

I grinned. "Indeed."

Ben

I'll be damned if it didn't work out. And quick. Tom D. made a deal with Save Green America. One of their donors put up two million dollars to buy the thousand acres of woods and marsh bordering my property. That land would be protected forever. Yeah, `forever' might not be forever, but it was good enough for me.

"You did it," I told Karen. "Some people know how to work the system, and you're one of `em."

"No, we did it. The system doesn't always win, Ben. See? Sometimes the system can be your best friend."

"Naw. I won't go that far. But I'll admit that sometimes it ain't your worst enemy. Okay?"