The Perk (12 page)

"He is so hot."

Beck turned to the young voice behind him. A pretty
teenage girl with red hair had walked up; she was reading a magazine.

"He's going to be the next judge,"
Jodie said.

The girl looked at Jodie then at Beck; she held
up the magazine.

"I meant Teddy Bodeman. He's the sexiest
man alive."

"Well," Jodie said with a slight smile,
"Judge Hardin's kind of sexy, too, don't you think?"

Beck wasn't sure if Jodie was flirting with him
or being funny. The girl turned to Beck and looked him up and down. She shrugged.
"For an old guy." Then to Beck: "I didn't do it."

"You didn't do what?"

"Whatever you're talking to my mom
about."

"Bed-wetting."

The girl blinked hard. "Oh. Then I really
didn't do it."

Jodie said, "This is Libby, my daughter."
To Libby: "Did you shelve all the books, honey?"

"Yes, Mother."

Libby walked away, and Jodie said, "She's thirteen."

"I've got a daughter, too. And Luke over
there." He nodded at the magazine rack. "So, are y'all from
here?"

Jodie shook her head. "Austin. Janelle
and I, we were both married to lawyers in the same firm. They spent their
billable hours together, we spent our days together. Turns out they were both
screwing the same secretary." She shrugged. "But we liked being
with each other more than with our husbands anyway. So we divorced them, took
our community property and moved out here, opened this place. Books, art, and
coffee. We make money on the coffee."

Beck held up the latte. "I cut into your
profits. Why'd you pick Fredericksburg?"

"We decided it was time to leave Austin when the middle school girls formed a Rainbow Club. Figured a small town might be a
better place to raise our kids."

"What's a Rainbow Club?"

"How old is your girl?"

"Five."

"You don't want to know." She stuck
her hands in her jean pockets. "So, Judge Hardin, how long have you been
wetting the bed?"

"My daughter, Meggie. Since my wife
died."

"Sorry. J.B. mentioned about your wife,
how she emailed him, to get him ready for you and the kids. That's amazing."

"He told you?"

"Was it a secret?"

"Apparently only to me."

"Oops."

"Meggie's wetting the bed, and Luke won't
talk. You got a book that'll tell me how to raise two kids alone?"

"Maybe."

Jodie tapped on her computer, then led Beck to
the other side of the store. Fifteen minutes later, he left with a bag of
books with more on order.

"I'll see you at last harvest," Beck
said.

She waved and said, "Oh, you'll see me
before then."

"Little gal," J.B. said, "she needs a
pet."

Meggie and Luke were in bed; Beck and J.B. were
sitting on the back porch. J.B. was reading the same newspaper as the night
before; Beck was reading a book about parenting.

"A pet?"

"You know, a little animal to care
for."

"I know what a pet is, J.B. What are you
thinking, a cat?"

"A goat."

"A
goat?
"

"Thought maybe I'd take the little gal over
to the auction house, let her pick one out."

"You thinking if she had a pet to care for
she might let go of the doll?"

"I'm thinking. How'd it go with
Luke?"

"Says he hates God."

"Been there."

"I bought some books down at the bookstore,
about raising kids."

"You meet Jodie?"

"Yeah."

"Good-looking gal, ain't she?"

"Yeah."

"She's a lesbian."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope. Her and the artist upstairs,
they're the town lesbians."

"Jodie said they were partners. I thought
she meant business partners. She doesn't look like a lesbian."

"What do they look like?"

"Not like her."

"She's got a mane of red hair, don't she?
And believe me, she don't have it for nothing—she's a pistol, always down at
city hall raising hell with the Germans about something."

"A lesbian … J.B., you sure about
that?"

"Well, I never asked her straight out, but
that's what everyone says. They live in the house back of their store."

"I thought she was flirting with me."

J.B. chuckled. "You ain't her type."

"They must've created quite a stir when
they showed up."

"That's a fact. Every goat rancher in the
county without a wife all of a sudden got real interested in reading. Jodie
had to beat 'em off with a stick, even Janelle got suitors. Course, goat
ranchers mostly want a cook, so Jodie being good-looking was considered a
bonus, like a two-fer sale. Once word got around they were lesbians, goat
ranchers gave up reading just as fast."

"Why'd you tell her about Annie?"

" 'Cause Jodie's the only person I had to talk to about
anything."

"The prodigal son?"

J.B. looked up from the newspaper. "She
said that?"

"Yeah, she did."

J.B. shook his head. "You'd think a
lesbian could keep a secret better than that."

"J.B., why would a lesbian be better at keeping
… never mind. Was there really an African art gallery here?"

"Yep. When I heard about it, I drove
downtown just to shake the man's hand. Figured anyone with a good enough sense
of humor to open an African art gallery in the middle of Texas had to be a man
worth knowing. He was."

J.B.'s eyes dropped to the paper, but he said,
"Course, he didn't have a lick of business sense—who the hell was gonna
buy that stuff here?" He was shaking his head until he whistled. "For
sale: John Deere bulldozer, six-way hydraulic blade, rear ripper, limb risers,
side brush guards …"

"All he needed to do was put an ad in the
paper and you would've bought his stuff."

"Whose stuff?"

"The African art."

"What would I do with African art?"

"What are you gonna do with a
bulldozer?"

"That's the thing, Beck, you don't know until you got
one."

"J.B., why does it take you a whole week to
read one newspaper?"

" 'Cause it only comes out once a week. That's
why they call it a 'weekly,' Beck. If it was a daily, I'd read it in one
day."

"J.B., that doesn't make a damn bit of
sense."

But his father had already moved on to the next
ad.

"The hell's a 'personal climber'? Someone
climbs up and gets stuff down for you?"

"Exercise equipment. Like a StairMaster."

"The hell's a StairMaster?"

"It's a stair-climbing machine. Like I
used to run the stands at the stadium."

"You climb stairs but don't go
anywhere?"

"Like a stationary bike."

"You ride a bike and don't go anywhere?"

"You get in shape."

"In case you need to climb real stairs or
ride a real bike?"

Beck knew this conversation was going the same
place someone went on a StairMaster or stationary bike: absolutely nowhere.
So he changed the subject.

"Ran into Aubrey today, over at the stadium.
Said his daughter was murdered."

"Aw, hell." J.B. sighed.
"Didn't want to hit you with that your first day back. Figured on telling
you before you saw him. Didn't figure on you seeing him today."

"To lose your daughter like that …
might drive a man to drinking. He was hitting it pretty hard at the stadium."

"That's the word."

"What do you know about her?"

"His daughter? Just what I read in the
paper. Pretty girl, got in trouble with drugs, ended up in that ditch. Then that
no-count wife of his divorced him."

"He said she lives in Austin."

"Figures."

"Why?"

"There's money in Austin."

"And?"

"I always figured her for money. That
she'd find some one day."

"He hired me as his lawyer, to look into
her case."

"That a paying job?"

"He offered. I refused."

"You do a lot of free work in Chicago?"

Beck chuckled. "Free isn't part of the
rate structure at a corporate law firm."

"Figure you owe him?"

"Maybe."

J.B. grunted.

Beck said, "And he said something that made
me think."

"What's that?"

"Said he didn't know why his daughter ended
up in a ditch. Said to find out what happened to his girl so mine wouldn't.
Made me think maybe the answers I'm looking for aren't in these parenting books.
Maybe they're in that ditch."

"May be. So what are you gonna do?"

Beck shrugged. "All I can do is ask around."

"When you're the judge, you can do more
than ask."

"Which reminds me, J.B., Aubrey said word's
all over town that I'm running. So exactly how many people did you tell?"

J.B. scratched his chin. "Well, I might've
mentioned something about that over at the post office."

"That the only place?"

"Might've said something at the barber shop."

"Unh-huh. And you didn't stop over at the
hardware store and mention it to all the regulars there, did you?"

Old-timers gathered each morning at the hardware
store to drink coffee and gossip in German. With only a weekly newspaper in
town, you got the daily news at the hardware store along with hammers and nails.

"Well, now that you mention it …"

"J.B., now everyone in town is talking
about me running."

J.B. furrowed his brow and turned to his son.

"And that's a problem because … ?"

Beck didn't answer, so J.B. went back to the
classifieds. Beck was trying to think why that was a problem, when J.B. said,
"The hell's a 'futon'?"

Beck turned off the late news. He walked to the kids'
bedrooms and checked on them; both were sound asleep. He knew J.B. would be
asleep; he had always hit the sack at ten sharp. Beck went outside and walked
down the caliche road; the light from the full moon reflecting off the crushed
white rock provided ample light. He felt like he had all those times when he
had snuck out to meet Mary Jo, except hormones weren't driving him out tonight.

He had to know what Annie had told his father.

He entered the back door of the winery—there was
no need to lock doors in the country—and found the light switch. He climbed
the stairs and entered J.B.'s office. He turned the light on and sat in J.B.'s
chair.

He stared at the computer.

After a long moment, he reached over and turned
it on. When it had loaded and the homepage had come up, he clicked on the email
icon. No need for door locks or passwords in the country.

He clicked on Inbox.
A string of emails filled the screen. Annie had died on January 17th. Beck scrolled down
the list until he came to emails dated back in January. He slowly clicked down
until he saw it:
Annie Hardin.
He slid the cursor over that entry. He
clicked. An email came up on the screen.

 
My dearest J.B.,

It's late and I'm lying in bed.
Beck's asleep in the chair next to me, holding my hand, his head on the bed. I
always told him I would love him until the day I died. I did.

Julie is typing this for me on
the laptop. J.B., this will be my last email. When I close my eyes, I won't
open them again. I'm trying not to close them, but I'm so tired. I feel life
leaving me. It's my birthday. I'm 37.

When I practiced law, I wrote
wills. My clients worried so much about giving away their possessions.
Meggie and Luke, they were my only possessions in life. They prove I was
here. Tell them I love them.

They will come to you this
summer. Beck will try to do everything himself that long, then he'll accept
the fact that he needs help. He'll take the children and go home to Texas. That's where he belongs.

When the time is right, tell
Beck I want to be there with them. I want to be buried on the land he loves.
I want those bluebonnets on my grave.

Closing my eyes now. I always
wondered if there really is a God. Now I'm going to find out. I'll let you
know. I love you, J.B. Hardin.

(Mr. Hardin: I'm Julie, the
hospice nurse. Annie passed at 3:12
A.M.
She was a very brave woman. She was
also right about Beck. He will need help. He's never accepted that she would
actually die. Now I've got to wake him and tell him.)

When the nurse had woken Beck that day, he was
still holding Annie's hand or she was still holding his; but she was gone.

Beck now exited the email program, turned off the
computer and the lights, and walked outside and down to the river. He sat on
the same flat rock he had sat on so many nights after his mother had died and just
as he had cried then he cried now—for his dead wife, for his children, and for
himself.

Beck Hardin was on his knees in the
girls' department at the Wal-Mart. It was three weeks later, and he was
shopping for school clothes for Luke and Meggie. It was also his first time
inside a Wal-Mart. There hadn't been one in Fredericksburg when he had lived
here, and Annie had always done all the shopping for the kids. But since his
only client was a nonpaying one, he had decided against paying tourist prices
on Main Street; instead, he had brought the kids to the Wal-Mart, where the locals
shopped.

"We like this," Meggie said.

She was holding the doll in one hand and a pair
of overall shorts in the other. First day of school was only a few weeks off,
and Beck didn't have a clue how to buy clothes for kids.

"That looks too big."

"What size do we wear?"

"I don't know. Just try some stuff on and
we'll find out."

"Call J.B. He'll know."

Even the kids had taken to calling their
grandfather J.B.

To his daughter, he said, "We don't need to
call J.B. We can figure this out on our own." To himself, he said,
"I hope."