Mammoth Secrets (4 page)

“Hey!” Edie frowned, her brow raised into a loop of annoyance. “That's my order!”

“Raymond.” Lilah's tone made him pause mid-dish wash. “Make another number three for her royal highness, there.”

“Funny.”

Raymond dropped two fresh patties on the sizzling grill.

Lilah headed outside but the steps were empty. The alley was vacant, but a long trailing shadow showed which way he headed. “Wait up!” She trotted down the weed-studded gravel road, passing dumpsters and brick-backed buildings.

The man secured a handbill to the light pole, covering a faded Mammoth High School car wash announcement.

“You forgot your burger.”

“I didn't forget.” He slicked a hand over thinning gray hair. “I don't need charity, ma'am. I get three squares a day for doin' my job at the carnival.”

Though he protested otherwise, she doubted the stranger had a decent meal in weeks, plus the diner could always use more business. “It's a free sample.” She shoved the white box in his hands. “Maybe you'll bring some of your friends by the diner. Everyone's welcome.”

“Much obliged.” Grasping the container, he slanted a smile. “But, I wouldn't count on it. We keep mostly to our'n.”

“We'll see about that.”

Back inside, she slid behind the desk and thwacked the lawyer's thick package on one side, the carnival announcement opposite.

From the floor, Eden's slow southern drawl offered pie with coffee to the ladies book club. Ray's grill sizzled to match his humming, the chug-slosh of the dishwasher his back beat.

Lilah wondered how to get that handbill in the front window without her grandmother raising a holy fit.

 

 

 

 

4

 

Jake's apartment was only slightly improved from his dorm room back in the day. Not where he expected to be at age thirty. He plucked picture hangers from the hardware store hooks. The storefront faced Main Street, and Scott Emerson was marching four children into the squat library building. He needed to pay quickly and go, then say hello—another plus for small town life. Jake stuffed the change into a jar on the counter for the high school basketball team.

“Thanks, Pastor. Kids appreciate it.”

Jake sauntered after the Emersons for his next greeting. He could learn to like it here.

Across the town square, by the Cherokee statue, a very pregnant Emma pointed in the face of a down-on-his luck type. By her finger in the man's startled face and his back-peddling, she was reading him the riot act. She marched into the library.

The ragged, white-haired man knelt amid a shattered fifth of whiskey.

“Hey, pal,” Jake said. He squatted and began to help. “Saw the whole thing. Sorry Mammoth gave you less than a warm welcome.”

“I'm used to it.” The homeless-looking man rolled his stooped shoulders. “Can't say I blame her, after all. Young'uns are priceless beyond measure.”

“True.” Jake glanced to the library where more trekked in for weekly story time.

The drifter swept the last of the glass splinters into a flyer.

“I'm Jake Gibb. Pastor at the church.”

“Folks call me Guthrie.” Eyes downcast, he tossed the mess into the sack. With a bitter laugh, the man stood to his full height. “Getting harder to kneel down every year that passes.”

“Depends on who—or what—you're kneeling to.”

“Amen, Preacher.” Guthrie shot a wistful look at the dissipating puddle.

Jake clapped him on the shoulder. “Have a better day, friend, and God bless.”

 

 

 

 

5

 

Lunch rush was over and Lilah's mind spun to the lawyer's packet she'd stowed in the desk days ago. She had a deadline to keep, today, or the latest deal was off. Freedom meant more than pride, didn't it? Time to just get it over with. Lilah hunted the desktop for a pen, sifted paper stacks for the packet. Menu ideas, a shopping list, the flyer from the drifter that was still not posted in the front window.

No package.

Lilah rifled through the desk drawers. She opened and slammed each shut. She stomped from the tiny office. The clock edged its way past four o'clock as her rubber soles squeaked through the kitchen and the now empty diner.

Eden stood, back to her, counting out tips from the register jar into three neat stacks.

“Where is it?” Lilah palmed the counter in between them.

“Where's what?” Eden jogged her right hip under her hand.

“Don't play me. Hand it over.” Lips clamped down choice words she'd much rather say. “I've got to sign and have it postmarked today or the deal's off.”

“Don't worry, hon. You're not signing that garbage.” Eden gave her shoulder a pat and turned back to sifting bills like a Vegas dealer. “I returned it to your attorney, along with some notes. Then, we'll see.”

“You did what?” Lilah gave her sister a firm shoulder shove.

“I took a glance at that cockamamie offer while you were daydreaming. Made some notes, a counter offer.”

Lilah removed her apron, tossed it in the laundry heap. “You had no right to look through my things.”

“You need legal representation or that son of a monkey's gonna walk all over you. I thought—”

“Well, don't. Don't think. Don't go through my mail, and don't get into my business.” Lilah stormed toward the kitchen. “I got myself into this mess and I'll get myself out. I don't need help from you or anybody.” She grabbed her purse from her cubby and dug through looking for the attorney's number. Maybe she could stop the mail, or call, or—

“If I thought you'd a' listened to me, I would have discussed it with you first. But I know you better than you know yourself.”

“You don't know me at all.” Lilah found a business card amid gum wrappers, makeup dust, and sticky change. She flipped it, scanned the gold-filigreed logo of the hair salon on Melrose.
Yet another place I'll never go again.
She crumpled it and tossed it in the can.

“Well, guess what, sis.” Eden blinked back tears. “You don't know me so well, either.” She hot-stepped it out the front door, the bell ringing frantically in her wake.

Great. Lilah's hands shook as she grasped the purse in a surrogate wringing of Eden's neck. She tossed the bag aside and watched her sister's melodramatic display out the front window.

Raymond ambled over to Lilah's side, head cocked in curiosity, though he said nothing.

Eden marched to the corner mailbox and slid the door open until she could peer inside.

“Tell me, Ray.” Lilah watched her sister try, fail, and try again to wiggle her arm into the dark blue bin. “How did this switch to Eden being the wronged one?”

“That's family guilt for you.” Raymond covered his chuckle with a cough. “You might hear Eden out, though. She might even be able to help.”

Lilah blasted a laugh.

Eden help with something other than her own minutia?

“Highly unlikely.” Lilah walked outside.

Afternoon sun cast long shadows, outlines of the buildings across Main Street. Birds sang. No cars. No sign of anyone milling about. Up on the hill, the school buzzer sounded, releasing classes for the day.

Eden crouched by the lock, jiggled it with her manicured hands.

“Edie...”

“What?” Eden's voice seethed through gritted teeth. She yanked on the door, again, unsuccessful.

“You really put it in there, didn't you?”

“Yep.” She pulled the front lid down again and frowned. “Along with a couple of letters to Afghanistan. Seemed like a good idea to play lawyer for you. At least, it did at the time.”

Lilah's hands went limp at her sides. Fresh anger balled in her belly. “Why on earth would that have seemed like a good idea?”

“Well, you said you weren't signing away your rights to some two-timing, two-bit loser who still has a house in Santa Monica, a car, and a full bank account. I looked him up on the internet. He's living off of your reputation and taking all the credit.”

“But what in the–” Lilah counted to ten, eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the curse to leave her lips. She opened her eyes.

Eden deposited herself on a wooden bench, nestled next to a weary looking planter by the pharmacy door.

“What on earth makes you think you can play lawyer?”

Eden took her twin sister by the hands. “I watched everyone in town hoof it to college or get married and pregnant, and not always in that order. Fine. You left town, married the wrong guy, and I let you do it. All the while, just me, Nana, and Papaw, running things. Watching him fill and refill the salt shakers. Hearing him tell the same stories over again...he's so much worse now…” Eyes to heaven, she gathered wits and turned to face Lilah. “This time, it's my turn to do something. I'm getting my law degree over the internet. And there ain't no way I'm letting you get divorced by yourself.”

“You're in law school. Online?”

“Can't wait tables forever.” Eden squeezed her hands. “Got my bachelor's from State that'a'way. Signed up for the bar.”

“You graduated? From college?”

“Not that Nana cares.” Eden jogged her brows in a little victory dance. “Just trust me, honey. That man put you through enough grief. It's time for you to give him some in return.”

For a minute, they were eight years old with matching skinned knees and falling down socks, waiting for the principal to give them a talking to. She jogged her sister's elbow and hazarded a smile. “So. Afghanistan, huh? I thought you left your heart in Iraq.”

Eden's eyes filled.

“I'm sorry.” Lilah wished she'd kept her big mouth shut.

“No, you're right. It's like an addiction.” She lifted, dropped her shoulders. “I've got two soldiers writing me back this time. How's a girl s'posed to pick just one?” Her sister—identical underneath the makeup and hair bleach—dished about the two soldiers, a world away. She'd written every day for six months, sending pictures, letters, and care packages to each.

How anyone could juggle not one, but two budding long-distance relationships was more than Lilah could comprehend.

“So, I hurried the mail together to get your package out before you could tell me not to—and I'm now pretty sure I put Tony's letter in Eli's envelope.” Eden sniffled a sorrowful laugh.

“And one doesn't know about the other?”

“Nope,” Eden said. “And once something's been mailed, you can't break into the box. It's a federal offense.”

“So speaks the budding lawyer.” Lilah pressed in a bubble of laughter.

Together, they collapsed in a fit of girlish giggles.

“Somewhere, someone overseas is about to be very disappointed.”

“Yeah.” Eden wiped her eyes and sighed, a halfhearted laugh bubbled up again. “Someone in California, too.”

Lilah squeezed her sister's hand. All amusement vanished like the breeze, an icicle of worry skewered in its place.

 

 

 

 

6

 

Thursday. The weeks blurred by in a spring haze. Lilah's hand rake clomped into the cold earth, dark mud seeped through the gloves. A shiver ran the length of her spine that had little to do with the slow-creeping early morning light, and everything to do with the letter Eden had so cavalierly shipped off to California. Her well-meaning, well-intending sister had a heart of gold and a head full of rocks.

With each thud, the claw alternately dug up rich, red clay or upturned broken stones. Danged rocky Ozark soil.

Up the road a figure was jogging toward her. A jogger? In Mammoth? He approached from River View Drive. Good form, easy stride, arms pumping.

She considered going inside and grabbing her own running shoes. She turned her attention back to a corner of stubborn rock, slammed it with the rake's handle. The stone fractured, but the claw popped off the hand tool. “Of all the stupid–” She tossed the useless tool aside, followed by the first, second, and third rocky lumps. “Idiotic... Imbecilic...” She teetered and landed in a whoosh of breath.

“Usually people don't arrive at that opinion of me until they've known me at least a month.” Pastor Jake's voice rained down. He walked toward her in worn running shoes, black jogging shorts, a gray Cal State t-shirt, and a music player strapped to a well-formed bicep. Indeed, the new pastor of Mammoth, Arkansas's Cherokee Spring Memorial Church, could be jogging the Santa Monica strand rather than through a humid Ozark neighborhood.

“I'm a little busy.” Lilah spoke to the ground. “Something you need?”

“Nope. Just out for a run.”

“Unusual pastime for a preacher, isn't it?”

“I could quote you several lines of scripture saying otherwise, but somehow...” He picked up the handle and claw head, worked one back into the other, and handed it back. “I think you're just ribbing me.”

“You got me.” She put the rake to good use, hiding the soul-surging grin. Not just a handsome, single man right next door, but a pastor, too? That was just God being ironic. Had to be. Still in his shadow, she wiped loose bangs, rake in hand. “Can I do something for you?”

“I was just wondering.” He scratched his chin, smiling. “What is it you're so angry about?”

He stood, checked his pulse, fingertips to throat, staring at his watch while her mind reeled. So that was it. Her personal business, everyone's coffee talk, Eden's prayer chain must've finally linked to the new pastor.

“What makes you think I'm angry?”

“That's a deep hole for tomatoes. Looks like you're burying a body.”

“You got me.” Lilah stood. “I'm just turning negative energy into something more productive. Trying to, anyway.” She peeled off her gloves, brushed off her muddy knees, and set a foot to the gray-planked front steps, leaving the six-pack of plants unplanted.