Something Fierce (34 page)

“I did. I mean, I’m still working on it. Sort of.”

“Do you drink wine?”

“Yeah. Why?”

She tucked the folded box under one arm and began breaking down the other one. “Good wine should be shared. Don’t you think?”

“I suppose so.”

“I got a nice bottle breathing in the back and no one to share it with.” In that moment, he saw the girl from high school—quiet, pretty Jenny McClain—peering around what suddenly seemed like a façade, a strange, tough barrier between her and the rest of the world. “I was about to have a glass. If you want to have one with me, that’d be alright. On the house, of course.”

He had to laugh. “Sure. Why not.”

She pointed at his face. “See that. You’re feeling better already.”

“I am?”

“Better than you’d be if you started pouring whiskey down your throat.” She went into the back and returned with two wine glasses and a green bottle with no label. “This is a Cab Franc.” She poured a small amount in two glasses and slid one in front of him like a crystal chess piece. “Tell me what you get in the nose.”

This was something he never imagined doing at Mike’s Place. It almost seemed wrong, like lighting up a blunt outside an MA meeting. He put his nose in the glass and took a whiff. “Nice,” he said. “Cherry?”

She smiled for the first time since he’d walked in. “What else?”

He swirled the wine and smelled again. “A little raspberry too.” He took a sip. It was good. “Bold. Spicy. I like it.” He picked up the label-less bottle. “Is this local?”

“As local as you can get. About four miles from here on Mount Airy Road.”

He hadn’t been in that neck of the woods for a long time. He remembered there being a small church out that way. A rundown farm. A couple of houses. “Where at on Mount Airy?”

“My barn.” She carefully filled both glasses. “I bought the old Adler farm about nine years ago. Planted some grapes.”

“You made this?”

“I did.”

He lifted his glass. “To a job well done.” They tapped and drank. “How many grapes did you plant?”

“Enough to supply a small winery.”

“A winery?” he said. “In Cherry Run, Pennsylvania?” He grinned at the image, letting it float there for a moment. “For real?”

“Nah. Just a dream.”

“Why not make it happen?”

“We tried. That’s why we bought the farm and planted the vineyard. But life kept getting in the way. My husband got laid off. That was hard with three kids. Then he had to go and die on me. A single mom with two kids at home and another one in college doesn’t have the time or money for long shots and pipe dreams. I sell off the grapes every year. Keep enough so I can monkey around a little. What’s your book called? The one you’re writing.”

“I don’t know yet.”

“How long you been working on it?”

“Too long.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Life keeps getting in the way.”

They finished their wine. She refilled their glasses. “What’s it about?”

“This small town kid goes to Hollywood to write movies and star in them. After years of struggling in LA, he gets what he thinks is his big break. He doesn’t realize he’s working with a bunch of bottom feeders until it’s too late. He’s on location in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a cast and crew who are out of their ever-loving minds. Madness and mayhem ensue.”

“Sounds depressing.”

“Great. It’s a comedy. The truth is I haven’t written a word on it in over a year.”

“How come?”

“I keep getting distracted, I guess.” Is that what Kerri was? A distraction? A beautiful lie? Or was she a punishment? Self-punishment for being unable to make his life turn out the way he thought it should have? “Being a comedy, everything works out in the end. The good are rewarded, the bad punished, hard work pays off, dreams come true, lessons are learned, and love conquers all. Life is good. Except, I haven’t been able to write that because somewhere along the way, I’m afraid I stopped believing it.”

She nodded like she understood. “Well, at least you got your title.”

“I do?”

“
Bottom Feeders
.”

He considered this. Not bad. “I like it. Thanks.”

She shrugged. “Your words.” She held her wine up to the light, tipping the glass this way and that. “Maybe it’s a black comedy. You know, funny but…kind of dark.”

He imagined
Bottom Feeders
written across a book cover. “Could be.” He thought of some of the screwball characters he’d fashioned out of his experiences in Los Angeles. For the first time in a long time, he missed writing about them and found himself wondering what they were up to.

It was the kind of day Janet Hardy couldn’t argue with and Seth knew it. The sky was too blue, the sun was too bright, the air too fresh. Her favorite televangelists and reality shows didn’t have a chance. Even the sensational murder trial only hours away from a verdict on Court TV was no match for this day and Seth’s suggestion of a ride through the country. “You drive,” he said, tossing the keys to his mother as they approached his SUV.

She surprised herself by catching them and was unsure about driving. “Why me?”

“Why not?” He’d written on the novel all morning, had in fact, been writing every morning for a week now and was in a very good mood.

She peered through the window. “It’s a stick.”

“Yeah.” Seth got in the passenger’s side. “You can drive a stick. You’re the one that taught me.” He shut the door.

Still a little wary, she got behind the wheel. “Your dad and I both taught you.”

“It was mostly you. I doubt I went out with Dad twice. He was working crazy hours back then. Remember?”

She thought a moment and nodded that she did. “I haven’t driven a stick in a dog’s age.”

“Then it’s about time to knock the rust off, wouldn’t you say?” She didn’t say but did find the levers to adjust the seat and did so. He added, “It’ll come right back to you.”

“Well, it better.” She pushed the clutch and started the engine, put the vehicle in gear, took it out and put it back in again. “You got good insurance?”

“Pretty good.”

“Well, alright then.” The SUV leaped forward and stalled. “Good grief.”

She started the engine and gave it another go. They jerked ahead again but didn’t stall this time. There was a bit too much hesitation between gear changes but by the time she was in high gear, Seth could see her instincts returning. When they pulled in to the gas station on Main Street ten minutes later, she was looking pretty sure of herself.

Inside, they loaded up on coffee and Little Debbie cakes. At the register, there was a small display of CDs marked “Golden Oldies.” There was Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers. Flipping through them, Seth remembered his mom driving him, Tina, and baby Gail to his grandparents’ house, as common a childhood ritual as the Sunday walks and drives. She always whipped over the roads and around the turns at high speeds, egged on by her kids and these songs—‘oldies’ even then—blaring over the tape player. “Who’s your favorite?”

“Oh my,” she said, lifting her glasses to her forehead, studying the selections and putting the glasses back in place. “I couldn’t pick. They’re all great.”

“Well, if you had enough money to buy one today, what would it be?”

She considered them again. “Jerry Lee.”

Seth plucked
The Killer’s Greatest Hits
from the rack and added it to the order. Fiddling with the cellophane encasing the CD on the way out of the gas station, he said, “I figure we’ll head in the direction of Grandma and Grandpa’s old place. And then—”

“Go wherever the road takes us,” Janet said, getting into the SUV.

“I thought Elvis was your favorite.”

“Yeah.” Janet pulled out of the parking lot smoothly. “He was but Jerry was a close second. I liked him because he was dangerous. You could hear it in the way he played and sang. Listening to it made me feel dangerous too.”

“Why did you want to feel dangerous?”

“I don’t know. I was scared a lot when I was a young girl. Anxious, I suppose they’d call it now days. When I was feeling dangerous, I was too tough to be afraid.”

She must have been feeling a little dangerous now because she was no longer driving cautiously. The longer she drove, the faster she drove. Watching the countryside whiz by to the sound of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” Seth was six years old again, and his mom was his buddy, his world. He was almost shocked when he turned to see a senior citizen, hunched forward in the seat, hands on the wheel at ten and two. But he had to smile because not all that much had changed, not really, not the important things. She was still his mom. His buddy.

As they drove past an audience of cows, Seth pointed to the left turn ahead. “Let’s take Wildcat Hollow.”

“Looks like a mess back there,” she said, stopping at the road but not yet turning on to it. “Your truck will be filthy.”

“It’ll wash.”

They drove back and he was thinking about the last time they were on this road. He was sure his mom was too but neither said anything. There was only the spray and clink of gravel-filled mud splattering inside the wheel wells as they drove in silence past the pond. Janet stopped about fifty yards from the hill he’d found her stuck on back in January. It was in worse shape now than it was then, rutted with tractor tracks and cased in mud.

“Oh geez. What do you think?” his mom asked.

“I think it looks pretty bad.”

“Could this thing make it?”

“It’s possible with the four-wheel drive kicked in, but I wouldn’t guarantee it.”

“We should probably turn around,” Janet said.

“Yeah. That’d be the safest bet.”

But they continued to sit there looking at the hill, listening to the opening piano riff of “What’d I Say.”

“Jerry Lee wouldn’t turn around,” Seth said.

“No, I’m sure he wouldn’t. He was a nut though.”

“Yeah, I read that somewhere. I say we go for it.”

“You sure?” Seth nodded that he was. “You want to switch places?”

“Nah. I like our odds with you behind the wheel. Especially if you’re feeling dangerous.”

Janet grinned. She took a deep breath and let it out. Then she turned the music up and gunned it.

They slashed through two small puddles and slammed over a ravine at the foot of the hill, throwing both of them forward and then back into the seats as she instinctively down-shifted and pushed the accelerator to the floor. “Oh dear!” she shouted.

“Don’t back off, Mom!”

The hill was steeper than it looked. They slid sideways. A wave of thick, brown mud splashed over the hood and across the windshield. “Oh dear,” she cried again as they straightened out, bouncing up the hill, engine growling, tires spinning, The Killer pounding the piano over the speakers.

“Stay with it!”

Three quarters of the way up the hill, the vehicle banked to the left. It appeared they were not going to make it when the two front tires grabbed on to a solid piece of ground, throwing them forward in one mighty leap that seemed to launch them into the wide, blue sky. The Ford crested the top of the hill slamming and bouncing all over the road as they rambled down the other side. Janet hit the brakes jolting them to a sudden stop. They turned to each other. Janet’s glasses had been knocked askew. Her face was blank, her hands still gripping the wheel. As if it had been timed, “What’d I Say” came to its big finish. Without a word or change of expression, she thrust a fist triumphantly into the air and they both burst into laughter.

“That was pretty impressive there, Ma.”

She shut down the engine and laid her hand over her chest. “My old heart is just a racing! I’ll tell you,” she said, straightening out her glasses, proud, excited, “when we started spinning and going sideways I said to myself, ‘No sir! Not again. Not today! We’re going up this dang hill and that is all there is to it!’”

“And here we are. I think it’s safe to say you knocked the rust off.”

“You bet I did!” She looked at the mud splattered hood and windshield. “Oh, my, your truck is a hog’s mess.”

“I don’t care. It was worth it. That was fun.”

“I always loved the view from up here,” she said, looking at the landscape that opened beneath them. “When we was little me and Rita used to come up here and eat apples from that tree over there. We’d look down from up here and I’d pretend I was a painter and this was my picture.” She pointed out the sights as she talked about them. “I’d paint that clump of pine trees there and then those wide, open fields. Put in that barn. Them old woods. The creek winding through.”

They were quiet for a while, sitting there taking it all in, listening to the engine tick. “It’s been good being back here,” Seth said.

“Good having you. We sure wouldn’t mind if you moved back to stay.”

“It’s funny. Even though I couldn’t wait to get out of here as a kid, I always thought I’d do that. I figured by the time I was an old man of forty, I’d move back with my beautiful wife and a couple kids. I’d be a rich and famous writer, of course. But man, I barely had time to turn around and that first forty years was gone.”

“I hate to tell you but the next twenty-five goes even faster.”

“Well, then I definitely got to keep moving. There’s an awful lot to see and do yet. A lot of books to write.”

“Does that mean I won’t be getting any grandbabies?”

“Not at all. There’s no telling who I might meet or what could happen on my next adventure.”

“I hate to see you take off, but it sure is nice to hear you talking like that again.” She laid her hand on her son’s forearm. “I don’t want you worrying about me. I mean it. Everything is going to be okay. It will work out.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I really do.”

“I want to believe that.”

“Then do it. Believe it and it will be true.”

He looked at the picture before them again. Then he asked, “Is that Mount Airy Road way up there,” he pointed, “as far as you can see?”

Janet said that it was. Seth was pretty sure he could see Jenny’s vineyard. He’d been meaning to stop in at Mike’s Place and thank her. Their conversation last week was what prompted him to start writing again. He’d gone back to his room that evening and before going to bed, he’d typed out the title she’d suggested. He’d gone to sleep thinking about bringing the book back to life. The next morning, he’d gone straight to the laptop without even thinking about it. The characters were right where he’d left them. He’d written every morning since and was going to keep on writing until the book was done.