June Bug (13 page)

Sal Heike was making small talk with me and rifling through a pile of books on organic gardening and filing for bankruptcy when the phone rang. I excused myself to answer it.

“Is this Mira James?”

“Yes, it is. What can I do for you?”

“Hi! I’m Elizabeth Tang with the
Niagara Gazette
. You called looking for information on Wilson Krupps?”

“Oh yeah. Thanks for calling me back! I’m writing an article on the Krupps family here in Battle Lake, Minnesota. I have all the info I need, but there is one discrepancy. My sources indicate Mr. Krupps disappeared sometime in the 1920s. The obituary you guys ran three weeks ago said he died. Do you know which it is?”

“Probably both. I dug up what we have on them when I got the message you called. There isn’t much, but we do have an article that ran when the Niagara County Center for the Arts was built in 1940. Although Mr. Krupps is named as a contributor for the Center, it reads, ‘He was last seen in Otter Tail County, Minnesota, in the summer of 1929. Mr. Krupps is believed dead, and Mrs. Krupps dedicates this building to the loving memory of him.’ ”

“Wow. So he might be alive?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. Mrs. Krupps was 104 when she died last month, and her husband was likely the same age as her or older when they married. If he didn’t die in Minnesota in the twenties, he’s probably died since of natural causes. Why the interest in him again?”

“Oh, it’s not him so much. I want to make sure my article on Regina is accurate before I run it. I’ll just mark him down as deceased.”

“That’s what we did in the obituary. It made the most sense.” She hesitated for a moment. “That Mrs. Krupps was quite the woman. I bet you didn’t have any trouble finding dirt on her!”

“You got that right!” I was bluffing, of course. “You guys have the same experiences with her out there?”

“Oh yes. She’s a legend around here. She was pretty high profile because of all the money she came into when she married Wilson Krupps. It was a classic rags-to-riches story. Too bad she was crazy.”

“You got that right! Kooky Krupps, that’s how they refer to her around here.”

“I believe it. That lady was as crazy as the day is long. One day she’d be at a public event as nice and normal as apple pie, and the next day she’d be calling the local radio station complaining about the government poisoning her water. I imagine a psychiatrist would have pronounced her schizophrenic, if she’d ever gone to one.”

“No doubt.”

“Send me a copy of your article when you’re done. I’d be interested in reading it.”

Great. Now I’d have to fabricate an article and send it off. “You got it. Thank you for your time, Ms. Tang. You’ve been helpful!”

“Not a problem. We writers need to stick together. Let me know if I can be of any more help.”

“Will do.” I discarded all the lies I had just told and kept the warm feeling I got at being called a writer long after we hung up. Well, I wanted to anyhow, but Kennie Rogers rumbled in and chilled the warm right out of me.

Her drugstore cologne preceded her like acid rain. As usual, her face was overly made up, but her hair extension distracted from that. She had perched a frizzy bun made out of curls two shades darker than her own hair color on the high point of her head. The hairpiece reminded me of a nesting chipmunk, but maybe that was because of the lime green Alvin and the Chipmunks beach cover-up she was wearing above her platform rainbow flip-flops. “Mira James, I do declare you know how to pick ’em! That Jason Blunt was quite the kisser. And what in the name of Dixie happened to your head?”

I felt my forehead, worried, and rubbed across my June-bug goose egg. I had in point of fact forgotten about it. “I ran into a bug.”

“Well, sweetie, you don’t have to tell the truth, but you can lie better than that. Now, about that job last night.” I reached for my purse.

“Not necessary. I couldn’t charge you for all the fun I had on Shangri-La. It wouldn’t be decent. I consider kissing a handsome man volunteer work to be conducted for the greater good of Kennie.” She pulled icy pink lipstick out of her bag and delicately applied it to her lips and their greater surroundings. “I do have a favor I need in return, though, honey.”

My stomach tensed. Why was I thinking that it’d be a lot cheaper to pay cash?

“I need you to babysit my nephew tonight.”

Whew. “I didn’t know you had any brothers or sisters.”

“Okay, if you’re going to play it that way. He’s not my nephew, he’s a friend of Gary Wohnt’s in town from Alaska. We’re supposed to show him a good time tonight, and I don’t want to entertain the dolt all night long. It seems like a fair trade, considering what I did for you last night. You in?”

I was so not in that it was ridiculous. “I’d love to Kennie—really, really love to spend the night with you, Gary Wohnt, and some strange guy from Alaska—but I have to work tonight.”

“Sweetie, where y’all have to work tonight?” Her voice was peaches and cream and arsenic.

“Newspaper work.”

“Give me that phone.” She grabbed the handset and dialed Ron before I knew what was happening. Of course he said I didn’t have to work tonight, as long as I got my articles in before deadline.

“We’re set, darlin’. I’ll pick you up at seven. I heard at the Turtle Stew that you’re staying at Gina’s, right? Look pretty. Oh, and Ronnie said he won’t have time to get to your puzzle code until tomorrow.” And she was out the door, leaving me in her hurricane wake.

I was shocked. No, I was horrified. This turn of plans was making a turd in the tub look like pennies from heaven. I wondered if I could get Mrs. Berns to pinch-hit for me tonight, too. Sigh. I probably could, but Kennie had done me a favor last night, and I did owe her one. I’d pay the piper. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about being assaulted by Jason for the night.

Both Gina’s husband and I were still staying at the Hokum house. If I hadn’t needed a place, I imagine he would have been on the couch, but as it was, they slept in the same bed. When I returned to Gina’s and told her about my “date,” she laughed until she had hiccups. She even called Leif at work to tell him about it. I could hear him hooting over the phone from across the room. Apparently my dating woes lightened their marital strife. Gina made me swear to wake her up and tell her about the night no matter how late it went.

“Oh, this won’t be going late.”

“Oh, I don’t know. He might be your magical mystery man.”

“Ha! I don’t envision Kennie and Gary Wohnt being the garnish on my plate of love. In fact, I need to get myself repulsive and quick to keep this short and sweet. Or just short and short.”

“Want me to curl your hair?”

“No.”

“Want to borrow my blue eye shadow?”

“No.”

“Can I come spy on you?”

“No.”

“Well, then I’ll just ding around my house until you get home.”

“Fine.”

She sat next to me, facing the window looking out on the street, and we both waited in relative silence, punctuated only by her sporadic bursts of giggling. I found small comfort in the fact that my misery was distracting her from hers.

I was almost relieved when Kennie pulled up in her trademark pink two-door 1967 Plymouth Barracuda fastback with a V-8 and roaring glass packs (in case anyone wasn’t paying attention). Getting this evening done and over with was better than waiting for it to happen, because there was no way anything could be as bad as I was imagining.

“Yoo-hoo!” Kennie waved her hand out the car window and honked.

Gina pulled me up and shoved me out, giving my butt a good pinch on the way. Halfway to the car, I saw the passenger-side door of the car open and Gary Wohnt step out. He looked away from me. Another head popped out, this one gray and moist-looking. As my date turned toward me, I guessed he was about five-foot-ten, maybe fifteen years older than my twenty-nine, with a broad, pork-white face accented by large, square glasses. He was stout but not overweight, and was wearing a brand-new wife beater and shorts. Except for his jowls, he was unremarkable. Maybe this wouldn’t be heinous. At least he appeared to have teeth.

That’s when his hand came out from behind his back. He held a wrist corsage laid out in a plastic box like a body in a coffin. Gina slammed the house door shut behind me, and I could hear her laughing so hard she fell over on the other side of it.

“Hello, little lady. I’m Ody.”

“Hi, Ody.” I gestured at the pink and blue flower mound. “Is that for me?”

“I don’t see any other pretty girls around here. May I?” He slipped the carnations out of the plastic to-go case, stretched the elastic band, and offered it up to me. I let him put it on. What did I have to prove? My only concern was that it didn’t house a tracking device that would prevent me from being able to flee later.

“Thanks, Ody.”

“Thank you for—”

Kennie laid on her horn. “Save it for when she’s drunk, Ody. I’m hungry!”

I hopped in and sat behind Kennie. Ody crawled in next to me, drowning us both in the spicy-sweet smell of Old Spice. “Where’re we eating, Kennie?”

“Halverson Park for a picnic. Gary thought it would be romantic.” Kennie squeezed his knee, and I squeezed my throat to keep the bile down.

I made a stab at friendliness. “So, Chief Wohnt, since you’re off duty, I guess I can call you Gary?”

The Chief glared holes through the windshield. He wasn’t returning Kennie’s affection, either. The two of them never acted like they were dating when they were in public, though the whole town assumed they were a couple because they were always together. I wondered if Chief Wohnt would let his guard down tonight.

And speaking of chiefs, I was happy to be spending the first part of the night at the feet of Chief Wenonga, my favorite twenty-three-foot-tall fiberglass Indian. The effigy had been erected at Halverson Park in 1979 as a way to “honor” the original settlers of Battle Lake, the Ojibwe Indians. The real Chief Wenonga was the Ojibwe leader who had given Battle Lake its name over a hundred and fifty years ago. This fiberglass Chief Wenonga was a tall girl’s wet dream. He was dark and steely-eyed in an alpha male kind of way, with a washboard stomach and a nice package.

I had been having adult dreams starring Chief Wenonga for a few weeks now. I suppose Freud would attribute this attraction to unattainable fiberglass men to having lost my father in my teens, but for me, it was all about hope. Some people longed for Brad Pitt. I had Chief Wenonga. It’s only crazy if you tell someone else.

Ody hadn’t said two words since Kennie had scolded him outside Gina’s, and that was fine by me. Kennie parked the car, and we all piled out at the Halverson parking lot and filed to the lone picnic table and rusty swing set near Chief Wenonga’s base. I winked up at him. He pretended he didn’t see me. It was our game.

“Hope you like smoked fish!” Ody smiled and straddled a bench as Kennie unloaded the picnic basket. “Brought it all the way from Alaska!”

I liked smoked fish about as well as I liked smoked toes, but I could do the small-talk game. I was actually a little curious about what sort of person would be friends with Gary Wohnt. “What do you do in Alaska?”

Ody’s pale face grew serious. “I’m a peace officer, just like my good friend and fellow rascal, Gary Wohnt. I do God’s work in God’s country.”

“What do you do for fun?”

“That’s where it gets interesting.” He shifted his weight so he could lean toward me, his hands up like the goalposts on a football field. “I’m one of those guys who likes to live for the moment, see?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah. Some people say, ‘This is my life. What am I going to do with it?’ I say, ‘This is fishing season. What kind of bait do I need?’ ” Ody laughed, and Gary Wohnt nodded approvingly. I felt empty as a pocket. I was not with my people.

“I have to pee.” I rose and walked over to the public bathrooms, wondering if I could “accidentally” trip and break my itchy wrist corsage. My jean shorts and white T-shirt simply did not do it justice. Inside the bathroom stall, I dropped my bottoms and balanced over the toilet seat perched on top of a hole in the ground. The salty, pungent odor of outhouse and darkness closed in on me, and I held the carnations close to my nose to cover the smell.

I peed, listening to my tinkling echo in the pit. I dreamed of having to throw up so I could stay in the outhouse longer. Straight across from me, someone had scrawled, “I screwed your mother!” Down and to the left, someone else had written, “Go home dad. You’re drunk!” I did a little more recreational reading before I stood.

I reluctantly walked around the interior cement divider to the wall mirror. It looked wavy and hand-pounded, like polished steel, and I couldn’t see myself very well because the only light was coming through a square opening toward the ceiling. I squirted out some hand sanitizer from the dispenser and finally decided I couldn’t hide out in there any longer. On my way out, I passed a large scrawl that read, “No matter how good she looks, some other guy is sick and tired of putting up with her crap.” I crossed it out with a pen tied to the wall and wrote, “I think, therefore I am single.” Not one of my wittier moments, but at least I had made a mark.

Actually, I had always wondered who had the energy to write on bathroom walls. Now I knew. It was people on bad dates. I steeled myself and stepped out into the lowering sun. Where I stood now, with Chief Wenonga and the terrible trio behind me, I could see the full brilliance of West Battle Lake. The sun was on the far side, sliding toward the water, and sailboats and fishing crafts glided across the lake. I could hear the faraway sounds of children swimming and splashing in the water, though I wasn’t close enough to see them.

There was a light breeze keeping the buzzing mosquitoes to a minimum, and the temperature was still in the eighties but dropping. It would be a beautiful night. I was going to go back, eat my food, make polite small talk, and walk back to Gina’s. This wasn’t so bad. I could do this.

“Hey, Mira,” Kennie called, waving her jangly-braceleted arm at me. “Y’all come over here and tell us if this looks infected to you!”

I shuffled over and dutifully examined the scabby scratch on Ody’s knee. When I told him I thought salve and a Band-Aid would take care of it, he looked relieved and adjusted his glasses. “I had a partner who lost part of a leg to a scratch gone bad. Right below his knee. I swore that was never going to happen to me.”

“It’s good to have dreams, Ody.” If there were such a thing as date indemnity, I would be considered uninsurable. Actually, my date with the transsexual professor had been one of my better encounters. On the other end of the scale was my night out with the regular from Perfume River, the Vietnamese restaurant I had worked at in the Cities. He was from China, studying neurology at the U of M. We used to make small talk through his broken English and my lunch rushes.

One night he came in with a single yellow rose and laid it on the front counter with a note that said, “You go with me out?” I was so flattered by the attention that I agreed, despite his greasy hair and ill-fitting pants. For our date, we saw
Cyrano de Bergerac
at the college theater and ate burgers at Annie’s in Dinkytown. I talked, and he smiled and nodded, his eyes never leaving my face.

I let him walk me back to my apartment, and at the end of the night, he kissed the palm of my hand. There was no sexual attraction, and our language differences put the kibosh on intellectual attraction, so I wrote it off as a nice night with a friend. He had different ideas. He started by having a dozen roses and a red and black negligee delivered to the restaurant. Apparently, “Do me” was not a common Chinese phrase expressing interest in another’s delightful conversational ability, as I had thought on our date.

When I thanked him but explained I wasn’t interested, he had size-seven brown suede calf boots sent to the restaurant, including a note asking for my social security number so he could always find me. The gifts grew more bizarre, until finally, on my day off, he stopped by the restaurant with an envelope stuffed with twenty-dollar bills. He told my coworker he would never bother me again because he was returning to his country, and would I please to buy myself something to heal my heart? I spent the money on books.

At least with Ody, I was pretty sure I knew what I was getting. The four of us sat down to a meal of smoked salmon (which looked raw and tasted like salty fish with lighter fluid poured over it), Easy Cheese, crackers, and Boone’s Farm strawberry wine.

“It’s not Boone’s
Farm
, honey, it’s
Boone’s
Farm. It’s all in how you say it,” Kennie told me as she poured the sweet wine. For dessert, we ate Oreo cookies, which was so far the high point of the evening. Fortunately, no one talked as we ate. Once the cheese can was empty and the fish was just bones, the men sat back and began sucking leftovers out of their teeth.

Ody undid the top button of his Wrangler shorts to get a little more breathing room. “I caught that fish myself, Mira. I’m real good with fish.”

Maybe the
Boone’s
Farm was getting to me, but I swear that was some sort of lewd remark. “I don’t like fishing, and I don’t really like fish, to tell you the truth. They’re too wet. I like dry food, like chips and bread.”

This sparked some indignation in Ody, and he launched into a lecture about the benefits of eating God’s creatures fresh from their habitat. I tuned him out and looked around for an escape. I saw it in the form of Jed limping slightly down the road past the park. He must have been on his way back to the Last Resort, and he had someone with him.

“Hey, Jed!” I waved him over desperately before I realized he was walking with Johnny Leeson. I pulled my hand back like it was holding a ripcord and clamped my mouth shut. Of course this would be the one time Jed was actually paying attention in his life. Belatedly, I remembered that the last time I had seen Jed was right after I stunned him and his bongo-playing compadre in the woods near Shangri-La.

He loped over, with Johnny following casually behind him. “Hey, Mira. You on a double date?” He was wearing a Def Leppard T-shirt over torn jeans, and he had a red bandana holding back his brown curls. Johnny wore a bright white T-shirt, which matched his smile and set off his nut-brown skin. The shirt hugged his broad shoulders and just skimmed the second snap of his button-fly Levi’s, nicely showcasing his narrow hips. He smelled clean, like fresh laundry and newly cut grass.