The Queen of Sleepy Eye (24 page)

Spartacus turned his head one way and then the other. I guess he didn't like what he saw with either eye, because he lowered his head and charged. Pick was nowhere in sight. I threw
Julie of
the Wolves
at Spartacus, but the rooster dodged the book and kept coming. My only other defense was my purse. I gripped the straps and cocked my arm.

“Feather! Help!”

I swung at Spartacus and landed a blow. He stopped, stunned. I kept my eye on him while I fiddled with the latch of the chicken yard.

“Feather, are you in there? Feather!”

Spartacus shook his head, scratched the ground, and crowed at the sky, sounding the charge once more. The gate opened behind me. I slipped out and slammed it shut. Feather leaned against the gate with her forehead.

“They ate Pick for dinner last night,” she said.

A stream of tears rolled down her cheeks.

I drew her into an embrace. “I'm so sorry.”

Her tears dampened my blouse. “It's the doctor's bills,” she said between gasps. “Butter and Straw are fighting all the time. She wants him to get a job.” Feather cried harder. “Look what I've done.”

“Did you have that seizure on purpose?”

She shook her head.

“Then it's not your fault. It just happened. You wouldn't blame Frog or Mule or Lamb or baby Vernon for getting sick, would you?”

“Yes, I would.”

I would have laughed if she didn't sound so miserable. I held her by the shoulders. “When adults don't know the answer right away, they go a little crazy. You're going to have to be patient with them. They'll figure something out.”

Feather scanned the chicken yard. The hens pecked at the ground without one worry in this world. “Who will they eat next?”

* * *

I CHOSE THE pay phone in front of the Cap-N-Cork liquor store, figuring I wouldn't see too many people I knew there. With five dollars in quarters stacked in one-dollar piles, I dialed the operator.

“How long for three minutes?” I asked.

“$3.75. What number are you calling from?”

I read the number from the center of the dial.

“Please remain by the telephone after you've hung up to remit the charges.”

I inverted the egg timer and prayed, “Jesus, please let Lauren answer.” And she did. I said, “Don't talk. Just listen. I only have three minutes.”

Lauren's voice muffled. “It's Amy, Mom. I've got it.”

“Lauren, are you there?”

“Mom's baking a cake for Dad's birthday.” Not one spark of interest lit her voice.

Mrs. Brown called out a greeting.

“Okay, so you can't talk,” I said.

“That's right.”

“You read my letter.”

“Yesterday.”

“Lauren—”

“I have to wrap dad's present before he gets home.”

Mrs. Leane, one of the pew hens from Spruce Street Church stepped out of the liquor store. She flashed a furtive glance around the parking lot. “Amy, what a nice surprise,” she said with her hand over her heart. “Are you alone, dear?”

I put my hand over the receiver. “I'm making a long-distance phone call. It's awfully expensive.”

“Yes, it is expensive.” She patted her purchase, a large bottle in a paper bag. “My stomach has been acting up.”

“I hope you're feeling better soon.”

She smiled. “Thank you. That's very kind.” Finally, she shuffled off around the corner of the building.

“Lauren, are you still there? This old lady—”

“It's almost five here.”

“I'm so sorry. Burn the letter and try to forget about it, please. I was wrong, dead wrong about everything. Andy and that other guy are pigs. You can't let them decide who you are. God loves you so much. He loves you like a lion.”

The phone went silent.

“Are you there? Lauren?”

“A lion?”

“I'm not saying this very well. I've learned so much since I wrote the letter. A woman named Leoti—” The last of the sand fell to the bottom of the egg timer. “I have to go. Please promise me you'll burn the letter. Okay?”

Silence.

“Lauren?”

“I have to go.”

Falcon looked up from soldering. “It's too hot to work. Let's blow this joint.” He pulled me off the stool by the hand. “Help me unhook the tarp from the van.”

Not one leaf fluttered in the still air. My T-shirt stuck to my skin. And the studio? I'd baked brownies in cooler ovens.

“I know a place where we can cool off,” he said.

We drove in silence. Falcon slowed and turned onto a dirt road. Dust stuck to my skin. Falcon anticipated the ruts and potholes, steering onto the narrow shoulder. He bit his lip in concentration.

“Where does this road go?” I asked.

“To the river. There's a place where someone created a shallow pool with a dam of boulders. People from the farm bring kids down here for baths and a swim.”

A chain with a no-trespassing sign blocked the road. Falcon pressed the brake pedal to the floor. I held my breath until the van stopped. “Amelia, would you mind unhooking the chain?”

I hesitated.

“We do it all the time. No one's ever given us grief. It's cool.”

“You're sure?”

He smiled. “You're a good girl, Amelia.”

I pulled up hard on the door handle. “All right.”

Falcon pulled his shirt off and waded into the water still wearing his jeans. I followed, until the water touched my knees. He turned toward me, spread his arms, and fell backwards into the water. Wiping the water from his eyes and shivering, he sat up. “Man, that's refreshment.” His eyelashes were stars around his eyes. “Now it's your turn.”

“I'm cooler already, really.”

“It's only cold for a second.”

“I'll get my clothes wet.”

“You could take them off.”

I scowled at him.

“Then come on.”

I waded into deeper water, raised my arms, and paused.

“Blow out your nose when you hit the water,” he said.

That was too much to remember, so I pinched my nose and fell. The icy water punched my chest. I came out of the water gasping and stood, tugging at my T-shirt to keep it in place. My hair hung over my face as I waded back to shore. “You are such a liar. Cold for a second? I don't think so.”

“You weren't even in the water for a second. You have to get used to it.” He smiled that I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself smile that laced boots onto the butterflies in my stomach and infuriated me at the same time. “You're not hot anymore, are you?”

“Not in the least.”

Falcon extended his hands, and I accepted his invitation to be pulled back into the water. I leaned back into the subdued current that combed my hair away from my face as I sat up.

“Better?” he asked.

My T-shirt ballooned around me. Air glubbed to the surface when I wrapped my arms around my middle. “Yes, better. It feels good.”

Holding my face in his hands, Falcon said, “You don't look me in the eye when you talk. It drives me crazy.”

“I …”

“There you go, looking at the trees instead of me.”

Of course I looked at the trees. Trees. Sky. Sunlight winking off the water. Anything was better than the indifference or disappointment I anticipated in his face. “It's a bad habit,” I said.

I lowered my head, but Falcon lifted my face to meet his. “That's better.”

I looked down.

His long, strong fingers cradled my head. “Look me in the eye, Amelia.”

“With one eye or two?”

“Two.”

I raised my eyes to meet his.

“That's better.” His breath warmed my face. “I predict many a sorry sap will be vanquished by the cool steadiness of your eyes.”

I averted my eyes.

“Come back to me, Amelia.”

And so I did. I held his gaze, daring myself not to blink. He pulled me closer with an arm around my waist, his other on the back of my head. My heart pounded wildly. I swallowed down a cough. And then his lips were on mine, warm and abstemious, as if he tasted something unknown. A bud of warmth blossomed in my gut. He released me to slip under the water and resurface out of reach.

“We should probably get going,” he said. “I'm scheduled to cook at the farm tonight.”

Riding in the van, Falcon spoke, eyes on the road. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”

He regretted the kiss.

I didn't.

* * *

“
QUERIDA
, YOU'RE NOT eating.”

Falcon's kiss had awakened something within me I couldn't name. The taste of his lips soured my stomach for food but made me ravenous for his touch, which terrified me. What was this recklessness? I pushed macaroni and cheese around my plate, dreaming of excuses for appearing at New Morning farm long after the workday had ended. The faces of Sasha and her three cherubic children flashed before me. My face burned with shame.

“You're flushed. Do you have a fever?” Mom asked.

I blotted the sweat from my forehead and lip. “I can't seem to cool down.”

“This heat, it will kill us all. Russell opened boxes of fans and set them around the store, but they only pushed the hot air around. He says August is monsoon season, whatever that means.”

“The rainy season,” I said, slipping macaroni noodles onto the tines of the fork.

“There isn't a cloud in the sky.”

“In order for precipitation to occur, cool air must meet—”

“Yes, well, I think you better get in the shower. You smell like a dead fish. I can't believe you swam in the river alone. You could have drowned.” Mom pushed away from the table. “Mrs. Clancy says this
kind of weather always brings business. I believe it. This heat sucks the life right out of me.”

Mom wore her hair curled softly at her shoulders and pulled away from her face with a headband—no teasing of her hair to spectacular heights or scent trail of White Rain in her wake. She wore a red and white gingham blouse tucked into a flared navy skirt with red espadrilles.

“What are you dressed for?” I asked.

“Dressed for?” She smoothed her skirt. “The skirt isn't too short, is it?”

She looked like Schoolteacher Barbie. “It's a new look for you. It's nice. Are you going somewhere?”

“Mr. Moberly and I are going to the movies. He'll be by to pick me up in twenty minutes. I can answer the phone for you, if you get in the shower and don't dilly-dally.”

“So are you and Mr. Moberly dating?”

“What? Me and Charles? Absolutely not. He's just a friend. I promised no men until we got to California, and I meant it. Bruce was a huge mistake. Now, go take a shower.”

I stood under the spray of water, remembering the way Falcon cradled the back of my head and the strength of his arm around my waist. I touched my fingers to my lips and they parted, just as they had at his insistence. Mom knocked at the door.

“What's taking you so long?”

“I'll be right out,” I said, pouring Prell into my hand and working up lather in my hair. “I'm almost done.”

My hair was still wet when a call came in. “This is Nurse Laurie Anne from Alpenglow Rest Home. We need a pick-up. Mr. Kiddoo in room three-oh-nine has expired. His family has been notified and
his personal affects cataloged and packed. He's ready for you.” The line went silent.

“Hello?”

Laurie Anne sniffed into the phone. “I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but I … I'm so sorry. It's just that Mr. Kiddoo was a favorite of mine. He wrote poems for my daughter. If I told him a story about Cindy's kitten, he wrote a poem about Fluffy. In fact, he wrote poems about her selling Girl Scout cookies door to door and how she gave the cookies away because people said they couldn't afford them. That was during the strike, you know. Why, he wrote a poem about her new tennis shoes, for goodness' sake, and the first time she jumped into the deep end of the pool.” She blew her nose. “Excuse me. This is terribly difficult. I don't know how I'm going to tell Cindy. She loved that old man.”

For all of the Scriptures I'd memorized and Bible studies I'd attended, not one word of comfort came to mind. I finally told her how sorry I was and that H would be there in a jiff to pick up Mr. Kiddoo. That seemed to satisfy her.

“Thank you. Thank you for listening. It's just that the other aides haven't been here long enough to know Mr. Kiddoo like I do … did.”

H was all business when I called. “Sure thing. I'll leave right now.” He came to the funeral home and backed the hearse out of the garage without coming to the kitchen door as he usually had. Watching the headlights back down the driveway created an ache under my heart.

You've got to be kidding. You're just a little frazzled is all. Your
mother left the house looking like Barbie, and the best-looking guy in
Clearwater County just kissed you. Stay calm!

Calm? Me?

The silence of the drive home from the river with Falcon had
crushed me. I saw without seeing, reliving the kiss and the suddenness of Falcon's retreat, caught in a swirl of heat and cold that rattled my bones. I needed a diversion, so I counted off the minutes on the clock, trying to estimate when H would return to the funeral home with Mr. Kiddoo. If he stopped to chat with Laurie Anne for just a minute, I had more than enough time to bake a batch of brownies.

H stood at the kitchen door, backlit from the light over the garage door. It had only been two weeks since the day he'd dropped me off at New Morning farm. His shoulders were square and hard, his stomach flat, his waist as narrow as a hornet. He bent over a clipboard, filling in blanks and noting the time he had retrieved Mr. Kiddoo.

“I just took some brownies out of the oven,” I said.

H patted his hard stomach and shrugged. “Training. Sorry.”

Was his voice deeper?
“I could fix you a meatloaf sandwich.”

“That would be good, but just the meatloaf. No bread.”

H leaned against the kitchen counter while I sliced thick slabs of meatloaf onto a plate. “It would only take a minute to warm this up.”

H crossed his arms over his chest. His biceps bulged under his T-shirt and a taunt rope of muscle bulked his forearms. His neck was thicker, his face thinner. Reddish sideburns reached his earlobe.

“Sure,” he said.

I arranged the slabs in a frying pan and adjusted the heat. “Would you like a glass of milk?”

“Skim?”

Yuck.
“We drink two percent.”

“That'll do.”

Evidently, building muscle had robbed blood flow from the part of H's brain that formed sentences. There was only one way to test my
hypothesis. I sat the plate of meatloaf on the table before him. “Tell me about your training.”

He opened his mouth wide for a hunk of meatloaf, chewed briefly, and swallowed. “Feeling good.”

Such a simplistic answer did little to soften my desire to run to Falcon, which would be an incredibly stupid thing to do in light of how he had dismissed me, and did I have to mention Sasha? I pressed H for more information. “I saw you running past the Henry Orchard the other day. How far are you running?”

“Five miles in the morning. Five miles at night.”

“Wow!” Maybe he would get chatty if I padded his ego. “You look great. I've never seen a more amazing transformation. You must be feeling good about your chances to make the team. Tell me about the try-out process.”

H lowered his head and covered his mouth for a belch of appreciation. “That was good.”

A full sentence!
But anyone could throw together a pronoun and a linking verb.
Come on, H, make an effort.
“I've missed talking to you.”

His head snapped up.

“The windows for the church are almost done,” I said. “I never thanked you for the ride to New Morning. You were right. It is a different place, but people exaggerate. I've gotten to know some of the women and found out why they came to Cordial. They have the same concerns as we do about pollution and the economy; they just choose to deal with the threats by becoming self-sufficient. They work really hard. Heck, they even make their own soap.” And to spark a conversational fire in H, I said, “I admire them.”

“Are you one of them?”

“What if I was?”

“You'd be a fool. Why would anyone want to make their own soap? And they're self-sufficient all right. They drive themselves down to social services to pick up their food stamps. Just last week, Dad caught a hippie stealing a cook stove. The guy had it tucked under his arm and walked out the door. Did he think my dad was blind or something? And I'm sick to death of smelling that patch-a-hooly juice, as if that could cover their B.O.”

“It's
patchouli
oil.”

“That stuff stinks. I know that much.” H popped the last hunk of meatloaf into his mouth. “What bugs me most is how they hate America, but where else in this old world would they have the freedom to be such idiots? Wait until they face a winter in their cute little teepees. They'll pack up real fast then.”

“Not all the hippies are the same. You know Feather and her family. They—”

“I guess you haven't heard.”

“What?”

“Feather's in the Clearwater Hospital. She had another seizure.”

“Will you take me?”

“What about Mr. Kiddoo? Shouldn't you call Mr. Moberly or something?”

“I'll leave him a note.”

H frowned.

“He's at the movies with my mother.”

“No kidding? That's sort of weird.”

* * *

AT THE HOSPITAL, Butter slept in a plastic chair, leaning against Feather's bed. Vernon slept in an infant seat at her feet, pursing out his little lips as if nursing in his dreams. I was backing out of the
room when Butter's eyes popped open. The fluorescent lights of the hall mottled Butter's skin with purple blotches around her eyes. She pulled me to her bosom, squeezing me tight enough to force the air out of my lungs.