Me and Mom Fall for Spencer (21 page)

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Thirty-Two

Sunday morning we are not at church with
Mom. We are at the park, the same one we’d taken that nap at before. We are
here with the three dogs.
And
Cyro
.
He doesn’t know why he consented to this, he says, but he did consent. So he’s
with us.

Before we’d left home
Cyro
had insisted we put his old camper top over the bed of
my truck. So Spencer and me dug it out of his mouse-ridden shed and used eight
C-clamps to secure it to the bed of my vehicle. The Amigos rode back there and
it was a pretty great way to get around with them.

On the ride over here Spencer was in a
talkative mood. He said he had spent last winter in Oregon. He said he watched
so much television he caught up on years of programming.
All
his adult life he’d been busy.
Then he left everything and walked the
trail. When he was finished with the trail he lived in a motel and bought
notebooks so he could write a book. But there was a secondhand bookstore nearby
so he read books instead. Then he degenerated to binging on TV.

He said he would get hooked on one show
for a while, then another. He said ultimately television, even the good stuff,
does not feed one’s soul.

We have so much in common. Too much
television is like too much fast food. I pretty much love the tube, and then I
get sick of it. But about the binging, I have done that, with cooking shows,
and decorating shows, and any good show about murder. I’ve been obsessed more
than once.
 

And he has walked the trail, but I have
walked just as far doing patrol, just not all at once.

He’s left his past in a canyon, but I’ve
broken mine into bits I carried in my pocket and dropped like bird seed one
night at a time. I did feel lighter…eventually.
 
Was it like that for him?

So
Cyro
is
seated at a picnic table holding
Dusty’s
leash. I
have Lucky, of course, and Spencer has Ned. Spencer is in charge. He thinks he
is going to train the amigos. He’s so earnest I don’t comment and I hope
Cyro
lets him have this.

“No,” he’s correcting me, “babe you have
to be Alpha. You have to be in charge.”

“I was…”

“You were just suggesting. You’re too
polite. You’re re-enforcing his bad behavior.”

“What bad behavior? I said ‘good boy.’”

“You don’t need to praise him like that.
Now do the sound.”

“I don’t like that sound,” I say. I don’t
get the sound. It’s not the way Lucky and me communicate. When I make my funny
sound, my neck-sound, it’s never voluntary.

I hear
Cyro
laugh. I don’t mean to make a fool of Spencer but I don’t like the sound thing.

“Remember not to let him pull. And start
off with the foot nearest him,” Spencer adds.

I try again and Spencer has more
corrections. He is patient, and bossy and very eager. I don’t want to take this
so seriously though because Lucky and I will work it out eventually.

“No, no babe,” he’s saying. “Hold Ned
and I’ll show you.” He already has Ned trained. It took fifteen minutes. Actually
Ned has trained him. I have reasons for saying this. He’s not as successful as
he wants to believe. Ned is more open to suggestion than Lucky or Dusty. He’s
only listened because he’s intimidated by Spencer and not sure what he wants.

Spencer calls to
Cyro
.
“Now
Cyro
, you can work on lay, like I showed you,
you motion toward the ground. Can you get that low…?”

Cyro
clicks his tongue and points to the ground and Dusty lies down.

Spencer looks at me then
Cyro
.
“Holy shit, that’s good,
Cyro
.”

Cyro
snaps his fingers and makes a small upward motion and Dusty rises to a sit.
Cyro
doesn’t even pat Dusty and he sits there patiently
giving
Cyro
the deep eyes, then his paw comes onto
Cyro’s
leg and you can feel the respect.

Spencer looks at me again. “He’s a
whisperer.”

He’s true Alpha. I don’t want to say
this to Spencer, because Ned is now rolling on his back trying to get a scratch
while he twists his hind-end this way and that and flails his legs around.
And whines.

“Ned,” Spencer rebukes but Ned ignores
him. Spencer makes the sound, the click, and Ned sits and wags his tail but
he’s quickly bored so he flops onto his belly again. “No,” Spencer says and Ned
sits up.

“Now you try Sarah,” he says, sweep of
his hand.

Try what? Lucky is sitting on my foot. I
think I’ll try to get him off by moving my foot out from under him. It works.

“I think I’ll walk him around and
practice,” I tell Spencer. I am trying to escape. So I do.

“The guys will be alright back there
while we go in,” Spencer is saying later as we sit in the diner’s parking lot. The
memory of chicken dinner is strong in each of us it seems. We want that chicken
so badly we might be willing to face the crowd to get some.

“I haven’t been in there for ten years,”
Cyro
says.

“I’ll bet it hasn’t changed,” Spencer
says.

I think that’s the problem for
Cyro
, but I don’t say anything.

“Mom’s in there,” I say, not to
encourage or discourage, but the truth sets you free and I hate surprises. I
don’t see
Horny’s
car.
Or Aaron’s.

But I’m not breaking my neck to look. Spencer
is the first to open his door.
Then
Cyro
.
Spencer comes around but he stands back.
Cyro
has
made it clear he can do it. He has the leg on, and he takes a few extra
seconds, and he’s a little graceless, but he gets it done. I am the last out,
of course, and Spencer does hold the door now. It’s nice, but pointless.

So we are the Amigos walking into the
diner. Nothing happens at first. We are a strange group, but between Spencer’s
beauty and
Cyro’s
gait, we get some looks. And why am
I with the two of them? I know that’s a point of curiosity.

I see Pearlie’s hair right off, and
Merle.
Leeanne
.
Mom is here. She’s with A. R., or possibly J.
R..
Are you kidding me? Guess she went for him. For all I
know he’s been to church too. He might even be converted by now. She’ll surely
boink
him for that.

She sees
us,
well we’re hard to miss for reasons already stated. And
Cyro
knew about the whole town once. I don’t wave to her. But she knows I see
her…and him.

There is one empty table beside Merle
and Pearlie and
Leeanne
. Merle is already asking the
girl to move it against theirs and make a longer table so we can sit together.

We follow the girl and there’s some
chair scraping and then we sit. We say hellos. Spencer shakes Merle’s hand. It’s
such a funny custom, the handshake. It’s a man thing, a, ‘I won’t steal your
woman thing,’ not that Spencer has ever given Pearlie the vibes, but he’s
inherited this custom, and he complies.

Cyro
has beads of sweat on his forehead.

“You alright man?” Spencer asks.

“Fine,”
Cyro
says, but the bloodlessness makes his dark skin pale.

We order for three and
Cyro
gets black coffee. The others have already ordered.

“Merle’s sister’s husband looked just
like Clark Gable,” Pearlie tells me. “Only black, of course.”

A black Clark Gable?
I guess it is possible, but
Leeanne
kicks me under
the table for old times and we smile at Pearlie. She’s eying up Spencer. Well
who can blame her in that blue shirt with the rolled sleeves and that longish
hair and that face? I have to stare at my plate a minute.

Then
Leeanne
kicks me again, and I glare at her. She does it again I’m going to let her have
it.

Cyro
looks around a little but not so much. A man comes up to him, engages him in
talk.
Then another.
Cyro
is
bragging on Jason going into the military. But all
Cyro
really knows is he moved out to live with some girl. He doesn’t say that, just
says Jason’s in the military.

He introduces Spencer and they say they
know me, knew me when I was little.
Knew Dad.
Know
Mom. Yeah I’ve seen them both.

Our food comes quick and we’re left
alone.

Cyro
seems more relaxed, and Spencer’s leg is against mine. He serves me everything.
He holds some of it on the spoon, raises his brows and I nod and he puts some
on my plate, then his own. Merle does the same for Pearlie.
Leeanne
smirks when she notices and shakes her head. Sue me.

“You
gonna
feed her too?”
Cyro
asks,
eyes on his plate.

Leeanne
loves this. Over-laughs--and there is such a thing.

“If she wants me to,” Spencer says
grinning at me, just no shame.

I smirk back but I know I’m red.

I can’t think of too much more than Mom
eating with the creeper.

Then Mom comes over. “Well, glad to see
you’re up and around.” She says this to
Cyro
.
Maybe to me.
 

Spencer greets her, “Morning Marie.”

“You met our new neighbor?” she asks
sweetly gesturing toward their table on the other side of the room thank God.
Creeper isn’t there—call
of duty I guess.

“Yeah,” I say and Spencer says.
Cyro
keeps eating.

“He sure is interested in you,” she
tells Spencer. “Asks how long I’ve known you. What I know about you.”

“Me?” Spencer says before poking a fork
full of mashed potatoes in his mouth. He lays the fork down, works his napkin
over his lips.

“Nice to see you about,” Mom says to
Cyro
.

He barely looks at her. “What’s nice
about it?”

“Day was…you were the life of the
party.”

Cyro
side-eyes her.
“Got me mixed with someone else,” he
says.

“Oh no,” she says. Of course there are
plenty in here that notice Mom and
Cyro
in close
proximity with their flaming history. But there’s nothing these days between
these two.
Too much of nothing.

So she waves her fingers and meets
Creeper in the middle of the room and they walk back to their table, thank God.
If she’d have brought him over to us I wasn’t sticking around for it.

“He asks about you?” I say to Spencer
and everyone is listening, waiting for Spencer’s reply.

“Maybe he’s homosexual,” Pearlie says,
and
Leeanne’s
face goes in to her napkin while her
shoulders shake.

Spencer looks at me quickly and smiles. Then
to Pearlie he says, “Why Miss Pearlie, my heart belongs to Sarah Sullivan.” He
grabs my hand then and lifts it and kisses my knuckles right there in front of
God and chicken.

So he has declared himself—come out of
the closet, so to speak, and the closet…is mine.

Merle sputters as he’s getting a drink
of his water.
Leeanne
looks up from her napkin, a
smile on her face as she looks at Merle. Like me, she loves Merle’s subdued
reactions to everything Pearlie says and does, but
Leeanne’s
smile quickly melts. “Merle?” she says.

Merle’s face has reddened, and he pulls
at his neat bow tie.

“What’s the matter?”
Leeanne
says, and all eyes are on Merle. Then Merle
face
plants in his mashed potatoes and Pearlie’s mouth drops open. But it’s
Leeanne
who screams Merle’s name.

Cyro
calls for an ambulance, and everyone is on their feet. Some of the main
occupations around here have to do with some form of health care, and one of
the local EMT’s is already on her phone. She and others have Merle stretched
out on the floor and they are checking for breath sounds and starting CPR.

I go to
Leeanne
right away. She’s nearly hysterical. Pearlie doesn’t know what hit her, and Spencer
is with her telling Pearlie they will help Merle.

“But he was drinking his water,” Pearlie
says.

“They know how to help him Miss
Pearlie,” Spencer says, shielding Pearlie from the growing crowd.