Graveyard Games (10 page)

Now nothing seemed to matter anymore. Not
even the suspension, the investigation, the fact that her job was
hanging by a thread.

Not anymore.

Quit! She told the voice, but the thought
remained, just like the blinking light on her cell. The message was
from Jack. She took her phone out of her pocket, flipping it open
and pressing buttons. His voice came out of the speaker.

“
Dusty…I keep trying you.
I called your house four times. Would you please pick up the phone?
I don’t want…I don’t want to have to tell you this in a message.
Dusty…listen…I’m sorry. I did everything I could. I
told
you to fly
back,
defend
yourself. I tried…but…well, they…they decided to let you
go…That’s it, kid. Your career’s over. I’m sorry. You were one of
the good ones…”

She flipped the phone closed again, trying
to shake off his words as she got out of the car, not bothering
with the lock. She walked up the wooden stairs, avoiding the gaping
hole on the third that was always getting a promise from someone
about repair, and went into the house.

"Dad?" She hung up her coat in the closet in
the kitchen. She was getting ready to do battle. "Julia?" She toed
off her shoes. The bag she’d carried in from Cougar’s rested on the
kitchen table.

"In here," her father
called from the living room. She took a deep breath, crossed her
fingers, and kissed them.
We used to do
that when we were kids, remember when—

She quickly cut it off, and her
after-thought was that she was getting damned good with those
mind-scissors. She headed in the direction of his voice.

Stopping in the doorway,
she saw her father sitting in the armchair—
Papa bear’s chair. Remember—
SNIP
The thought was gone. Her father was reading the paper. Her
stepmother was on the couch, legs curled under her, reading glasses
propped precariously on her pert nose, reading a Nicholas Sparks
novel.

"I have something to discuss with you."
Dusty sat in a chair across from them—it was a neutral zone. She
waited for her father to fold the paper and Julia to mark her place
in her book, letting her reading glasses fall to hang on a thin
silver chain around her neck.

I’ve been fired." Dusty said it out loud for
the first time, trying not to hear the quaver in her own voice. "I
won’t be going back to Chicago."

"What?" Julia cried.

"I’d like to stay here," Dusty continued.
"For a while."

"What?!" Her stepmother was much louder this
time. "I'm not hearing right. I can’t be."

"Julia—"

"Jay, talk to your daughter," Julia cried,
her eyes wide.

Her father sat up tall in his chair. "Dusty,
what in the hell happened?"

"I was fired,” she repeated flatly.

"We’re not deaf!" Julia’s mouth drew in
tight and then she spoke again. “Don’t be a smart ass!”

It was Dusty's turn to stare with an open
mouth. She had never heard Julia use profanity. Ever.

"
Why
did you get fired, Dusty?" Her
father asked the obvious, trying, as always, to mediate.

“
It’s a long story.” She
swallowed hard, wondering just how she was going to explain
it.

"Then you better start talking," Julia
snapped.

“
It was a set up.
Retaliation…” Dusty began, wondering if this was how every criminal
in jail who actually hadn’t committed a crime felt when he
professed his innocence. She didn’t know how to go on, how to let
them down, how to disappoint them in a way that wouldn’t hurt so
much. She looked at her father. He was watching her, but she
couldn’t read his expression. She couldn’t stop the memory of his
arms around her in the middle of the night, his voice choked with
emotion, telling her that everything was going to be okay. Do you
cry? She wondered, looking back at him. Do you?

She took a deep breath and launched into the
whole story, telling it from beginning to end, including the
horribly embarrassing truth about being taken in by Stephen, the
video, everything. When she was done, the silence was deafening,
but she couldn’t look at them. She couldn’t face their pain any
more than she could face her own.

“
So what are you going to
do now?” her father finally asked.

“
I don’t know.” She
sighed, shaking her head. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to stay
here for a while untiI I figure that out…”

“
Jay, this is ridiculous,”
Julia protested, turning to her husband. “These aren’t children,
they’re grownups! First Nick, now Dusty…”

“
Julia, stop.” Her father
held up his hand. “Dusty, you’re welcome to stay.”

“
Well, I want her to pay
rent,” her stepmother mumbled, arms crossed as she sat back in her
chair.

“
That’s fine,” Dusty
replied, waving Julia’s comment away.

“
No,” her father sighed.
“You don’t—”

“
No, I want to,” Dusty
insisted, glancing at her father. She didn’t look directly at
Julia, but she could feel the heat of her gaze. “I’ll find a
way.”

Her father’s eyes were sad, and she could
barely stand the weight of the disappointment in them. “I’m so
sorry this happened, Dusty…”

She nodded, feeling a lump in her throat.
“So am I.”

“
It’s been a hell of a
year.” Her father sighed as he picked up his paper. Julia sighed as
well as she propped her glasses back on her nose and removed her
bookmark.

The subject was clearly closed.

Dusty sat there for a moment, wondering at
their reaction. She had expected the disappointment, but she’d also
expected anger, questions, protestations. Instead, there was almost
nothing. Just this silence.

They don't care
anymore,
she realized, and the thought
hurt.
Nick’s gone, and I’m all they have
left…and I’m just not enough to get excited about.

She trimmed the rest of those thoughts
neatly with her mind-scissors and her only after-thought was that
she’d think about it later—a modern day Scarlett O'Hara.

* * * *

The Starlite was much smaller than it looked
from outside. There was a bar along one wall, backed by single,
triangular shaped mirrors. Like any bar, the place was filled with
tables for patronage, with several pool tables at the other end.
The usual Strohs and Budweiser decorative mirrors hung on the
walls, and lamps hung low above the pool tables. An old Wurlitzer
jukebox stood in one corner gathering dust and was often frequented
by Grady, Lee Williams’ cat.

Dusty stepped inside and was instantly
nostalgic and missing Nick. She hadn’t been in here often—a handful
of times, really, because this was her brother’s haunt and he hated
her tagging after him—but it was a place that, for her, was
completely and utterly Nick.

"If you miss one of those stalls, I'm going
to hang you up by your ears, Sam!"

A laugh.

Dusty whirled toward the direction of the
voice.

"Well, hey there.” Lee Williams stepped out
of the shadows and into the dim light of the bar. “What can I do
for you?"

" I...” Dusty hesitated. Lee was a big man,
formidable, with a round face and mustache. “I saw your sign out
there."

Lee raised his eyebrows, pulling his
ponytail over his shoulder. Dusty found it ironic that forty or
fifty years ago, he might have been kicked out of the same kind of
establishment he now owned just for the length of his hair.

"You did, huh?" Lee hitched his pants up,
but his large belly, mostly accumulated from consuming too much of
what he sold, still hung over his belt.

"Yes." She sat on one of the red upholstered
bar stools. “I'd like to apply for the cocktail waitress
position."

"You would?" His eyes flicked over her in
the low light. She nodded again. "Well, I tell you, I ain't—" He
paused and moved closer to her, squinting a little. "You're Nick
Chandler's sister, ain'tcha?"

Again, she nodded.

He let out a low whistle. "Yeah. Resemblance
is amazing." He leaned his elbows on the bar and looked at her.
"Ever waitressed before?"

"No," she admitted, wondering just how she
was going to handle the work history questions. That was, if he
didn’t already know she’d been fired from her job in Chicago. Hell,
the whole town probably knew already. "But I learn fast."

He laughed. "That's good." His eyes crinkled
at the corners. "You any good at counting? Taking orders? Handling
money?"

She nodded, brightening. "I worked as a
cashier at Cougar's General Store a few summers. I can make change
in my head, no problem.”

He rubbed his chin, his brown eyes sharp and
calculating as he looked at her. "For the life of me, I can't
figure out why you're applying for this job. You know, the library
over on Essex is looking for people to shelve books. I think that
would suit you."

"Do I look like the bookish type?" Dusty
asked, surprised, tilting her eyes up at him.

He smiled. "Not exactly bookish, but you're
not quite bar material, either."

"I want this job," she said firmly. "If I
didn't think I could handle it, I wouldn't be applying for it."

"I don't know." He straightened up and
pulled on one side of his mustache. "This job isn't all you have
rolling around in that pretty head of yours, is it?"

"What makes you think that?”

“
Oh I don’t know…” Lee
smiled. “Call it an intuition?”

“
Do you question everyone
who comes looking for a job like this?”

"Askin’ why do you want to work here?" Lee
conceded. "I’m pretty sure that’s a legitimate job interview
question."

She looked away from his
dark eyes.
To lie or not to lie, and by
the way, why
are
you here, Dusty?

SNIP

She told him the first thought that came
into her head, and consoled herself that it was at least part of
the truth.

"You knew my brother?" Dusty asked. "Well,
then you know what happened to him. He spent a lot of time here. I
guess this is one way of being closer to him. And besides, my
stepmother insists on me paying rent if I stay with them. So I need
a job, and you’re hiring."

"Okay," he said, scrutinizing her. "You're
not telling the truth—at least not all of it. If you don't want to
come clean with me, well, that's up to you, but I warn you, this is
a real job."

Lee moved so he was in front of her, arms
crossed. "You listen good, because I'm only going to say this once.
You have to be able to make change and add pretty damn quick in
your head. You'll be taking orders out there on the floor and I'll
be back behind the bar. Job starts at four-thirty and we don't get
busy until six, but closing is two a.m. That's nine or ten hours,
most of them on your feet. Pay is minimum wage plus tips. I wasn't
kidding about having to be good at adding in your head, because
you'll be responsible for all of the money you take in off the
floor. If there's any missing, it comes out of your own pocket. You
got that?"

"Yeah," Dusty said, watching him light a
Winston. The smoke made a momentary screen between them.

He frowned at her and then sighed. "I gotta
tell you, you’re the finest piece of ass I've seen in here in
ages."

She stared at him and he chuckled. "Even if
you weren't as good-looking as you are, you'd get the usual hassle
out there." He nodded toward the empty tables. "But with your
looks, you may have more than a bit of trouble. You know what a bar
clientele is like?"

She nodded, trying not to smile and remind
him what she’d done for a living just a few short weeks ago, but he
continued. "They ain't particular about their language or manners
here. I don't stand for no fighting, and I take care of things when
they get out of hand, but a little bragging and a lot of drinking
don't hurt us none. They're just words. You get my meaning?"

Again, she nodded.

"Okay." He set his cigarette in an ashtray,
a replica of a Buffalo nickel. "So if you get this job, you won't
be running to me every time you hear a little profanity, or get a
few obscenities thrown at you along with a hand groping your ass
every now and then, right?"

"Right." She’d worked for a year in vice—the
thought that this guy believed she might have any problems handling
herself in some rural backwoods bar made her want to laugh, but she
bit back all of the sarcastic replies on the tip of her tongue.

"That's about it. Are you still interested?"
he asked, his mouth set in a stern line.

"I still want the job," she said firmly. "I
don't scare off that easy."

A ghost of a smile flickered over his
features and then he sighed, looking at her as she stood up. "Well,
you'll fill the outfit real nice." Then he did smile. "Write out
this application." He pulled a piece of paper from under the bar
and handed her a pen. She started to write and he watched her.

"Well, Dusty," he said when she handed him
the completed application. “I'll call and let you know."

"You do that," she said, and left him still
smiling.

* * * *

Her life had not been so carefree since
grade school. Dusty's days vacillated between watching the soaps
and game shows on T.V. and spending time out in the cemetery. She
didn’t leave the house much otherwise and she and Julia avoided
each other during the day. Sometimes Dusty escaped outside and took
long walks when her programs were over.

Now Dusty sat on the steps of the front
porch, a tall glass of Kool-Aid beside her, feet braced against the
railing, her back against the opposite railing. She was waiting for
her father to come home. She hadn’t done that since she was in
grade school either, but she had done it every night for a week.
Dusty glanced at the sky, visible above the foliage across the
road. It was growing darker, the sun snuggling behind the
trees.