Small Town Trouble (6 page)

“What was wrong with your other nose?”

Amy drank her Little King straight from the bottle, which kind of surprised me for a dentist’s wife.

“Nothing, if you like turkey beaks.” She grinned in a way that warmed me all over.

“Wait a minute. You had a great nose.”

“Thanks, but you have a lousy memory.”

She chewed her pizza and eyed me with a wicked little look that made me think she might be flirting. The new nose was certainly adorable, but it made her look a little more like Marlo Thomas than was probably a good idea. I would’ve preferred the original. The whole nose job thing had probably been the dentist’s idea. From the looks of things, I wondered if he’d suggested breast implants, too.

Luckily, talk concerning Dr. Doug Smith had been limited. She didn’t seem much more interested in the dentist than I was. I told Amy about life in Gatlinburg and the Little Pigeon Restaurant. She told me about teaching French part-time at the community college and playing lots of tennis.

Right or wrong, as things progressed, I decided that Amy was flirting a little so I plunged ahead. Why not?

“It’s fantastic to see you again, Amy. Sometimes I really miss the old days.”

Then she stopped chewing and stared at me as if I’d just admitted that I ate dog biscuits.

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“No, really.” I took a casual swig of beer. I could do casual. “Don’t you?”

“
Mon Dieu
!” She took a third slice of pizza. “I hated high school. Ugh, adolescence. Disgusting.”

I matched her slice for slice.

“But you’ll have to admit that junior high was worse.”

Like a hypnotist, I wanted to take her back, way back.

She considered this a moment, pizza sauce in the corner of her mouth, then she said, “You’re right. High school was miserable. But junior high was hell.”

“Amy,” I began, and my heart pumped a bit faster as I ventured out into the murky waters of early sexual stirrings, wondering if Amy might take my hand and wade out with me, “I think my favorite summer was the one we spent hanging around your grandpa’s farm. Remember the hayloft?”

Dum da dum dum.

Maybe I’d pushed her too far. Amy’s eyes got a little dazed, and she had a funny look on her face. She laid the pizza slice down and wiped a napkin across her mouth. I couldn’t tell if she was going to cry, throw up or just what. Ironically, Mario Lanza was singing
Because You’re Mine
again.

Apparently Grandpa Delozier’s place had been on Amy’s mind lately, too, but not for the same reason. Over another round of Little Kings Amy proceeded to tell me that there was something going on with the farm that didn’t make much sense.

The old Delozier property had been passed down to Amy and her brother, Rick Rod, years ago, and, except for occasional renters, it had been practically abandoned for years.

“There were lots of memories, but neither one of us really wanted the place,” she explained. “Real estate prices were bad so we wanted to hang on to it until things got better. Well, as you’ve no doubt noticed, things still haven’t improved much around here. I kind of put it out of mind, at least, until a few days ago.”

Amy went on to tell me that a Mr. Larry White had called and offered a very sizeable wad for the Delozier place, like about a zillion times what it was probably worth. This was starting to sound familiar.

“This is starting to sound familiar,” I said.

Then I told Amy what I knew and what I didn’t know about Larry White, whoever he was, and his recent offer on WFOG which had brought me to Fogerty in the first place.

What was this guy up to? Did he plan to buy up the whole town?

“He seems sleazy,” Amy said. “Even Rick Rod says so. But Doug thinks we’d be fools not to take the money and run.”

Part of me agreed with Dr. Smith and part of me didn’t. Another part of me wanted to feed him a box of rat poison and watch him dehydrate and turn blue.

I finished off my Little King. I had an idea. “Maybe we should go have a look around.”

Amy grinned. “Maybe we should.”

Chapter 12

We took Amy’s car, a spanking new Lexus. Sure beat the heck out of my old Toyota. Just past the United Dairy Farmers, Amy hung a left and we rolled out onto State Route 132. It wasn’t quite dark yet. I could make out the scenery, some of it familiar, some of transformed forever, like the spot where the house I’d grown up in used to sit. It was now Kroger’s with a sprawling, well-lit parking lot.

Just as the not so majestic WFOG appeared on the dusky horizon, Amy turned off the highway and we followed the winding back roads for about a half mile until we came to the Little Fogerty Creek bridge.

Amy pulled off the road at what appeared to be a well-worn make-out spot and cut the engine. Maybe she wanted to do some more work on her French kiss.

“The farm property starts here,” she said. “See the fence?”

I could make out a bramble of barbed wire running up to the bridge.

“From here the property line follows the creek.”

“I remember this place. We used to catch crawdads here.”

“You mean
you
did. Wouldn’t catch me touching those things.”

“Ah, that’s right. You were a big weenie.”

“Thanks a lot, Claypoole.”

“How do you say big weenie in French? La grand weiner?”

“I’ll have to look it up.”

We sat quietly in the car for a while and didn’t speak. The past seemed like a million years ago, the sweet childhood memories, like pieces of a candy-coated dream slipping over the edge of my pillow and floating away, soon or later to be lost forever. I was beginning to feel a little less than upbeat.

“Well,” Amy said, breaking into my melancholy. “It’s time for this grand wiener to grab a flashlight.”

She hopped out of the car and promptly retrieved one of the industrial variety from the trunk. It was probably an anniversary present from the dentist. But I was impressed. The only thing in my trunk was a dwindling case of wine.

“Let’s go, Tonto,” Amy said.

I followed her down the winding path to the creek. Amy sure could handle a flashlight. She sure had a cute butt, too.

“Makes me feel like a Girl Scout again,” Amy said, calling back over her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t know. Never made it past Brownies. Making pincushions nearly killed me.”

“Camp-outs were the best part,” Amy said.

“I’ll bet.” Camping out in the woods with Amy sounded great indeed. “Maybe I should’ve stuck with it.”

We poked around the creek bed, not having any idea what we were looking for other than crawdads. After we’d had enough of that, we sat down on the mossy bank. We were quiet again for a while listening to the slow ramble of the water as it made its trip over the large, flat stones and discarded tires. Onward it flowed to WFOG and wherever it went after that. The crickets made their happy racket and the moon came up over the hill.

Amy reached in her purse and took out a cigarette.

“Doug would kill me if he knew I smoked,” she said, and lit up with a Bic. “But he doesn’t.” She grinned. “Want one?”

“No,” I said, “but I’ll join you.”

I took a Nat Sherman out of my shirt pocket.

“A cigar?”

“Guess I’m a slave to fashion.”

“Yeah, right,” Amy said, rolling her eyes.

I bit off the end and spit it into the weeds. She looked impressed. She handed me the Bic. I flicked and the cigar began to catch.

“Mmm,” she said, “I love the smell of a cigar.”

Maybe things were looking up after all.

I got a nice even burn going and together we smoked peacefully, gazing up at Mr. Moon and taking in the sweet, grassy scents and summer soundtrack of rural Fogerty. Things went on like this for a good long time. Then Amy said, “You were smart to get out of Fogerty, Kim.”

“So were you.”

Amy snorted. “Moving across town doesn’t really count.”

The way she said it made me feel sad again. It made me want to pack up the Lexus and drive off into the sunset with her, except the sun had probably already set in more ways than one for both of us.

I tried to cheer her up.

“It’s not like I took off for Morocco. Gatlinburg is a small town in its own way.”

She lit another cigarette and looked up at the stars. “At least it’s hundreds of miles away from here. I’d like to come visit some time,” she said. She turned to me and smiled. The smile was a beautiful, lingering smile, full of longing and dreams that hadn’t come true.

“Any time,” I said, meaning it. In another story, this would have been the perfect moment for a kiss. But in this story Amy was Mrs. Smith and she was, no doubt, straighter than Cupid’s mighty arrow. In this story it was the absolute right time for me to get up and go look for crawdads. I grabbed up a rusty can that had beached itself in a tangle of roots. Then Nat Sherman and I prowled around for crustaceans or the Loch Ness monster, whichever came first.

“You know, Amy, with a little salt and lemon, crawdads make a tasty appetizer.”

“Remind me never to eat at your place.”

Amy leaned back against the bank and watched me poke around. “Can I ask a personal question?” she said.

“If I can ask one after you.”

I had a good idea what was coming, I just wasn’t sure where it was going.

“You’re gay, right?” she said.

I let the water run through the holes in the can and drain back into the creek. “Yep, and you’re not, right?”

Amy just smiled. I don’t know exactly how, but I knew that she was thinking back on our youthful experiments in the hayloft.

“Are you, involved?”

Involved was a great word for it. “Yeah, sort of.”

“I’ll bet she’s gorgeous.”

“In the right light.”

“She treats you well?”

“Occasionally.”

Amy smoked her cigarette down, then put it out.

“What’s her name?”

“Her name’s Nancy.”

“Nancy, huh? What does Nancy do for a living?”

“She’s, uh, a social worker.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I probably could of just gone ahead and told Amy the truth. She wouldn’t have believed it any way. Sometimes I didn’t believe it myself.

“Hey, Kim?”

I was hoping we were through with the Nancy line of questioning. “Yeah?” I said, with a bit of trepidation.

“That sure was a really great summer.” She didn’t have to remind me just which summer she was referring to. I held out my hand to help her to her feet. Amy’s eyes were a dreamy, heated, green Olympic-size swimming pool and I had just taken a swan dive with no degree of difficulty into the deep end.
 

“Yeah, it sure was.”

Hell, on most nights this would be plenty for a girl to go on. But that night I was wearing my better judgment hat, so I just held her for a moment. It kind of surprised me that I still had a hat to put on.

Chapter 13

At the top of the creek trail Amy and I paused to catch our breath. Amy shined the flashlight up the road. It cut a beam about three miles wide. I’d have to put one of those babies on next year’s Christmas list.

“The farmhouse is just around the corner,” she said.

I’d remembered. “Any current residents?”

“Just the rats.”

“Well, then, shall we?”

Amy wrinkled up her cute, altered nose and stared off in the direction of the old Delozier place. “Why not?” I could think of a whole bunch of reasons why not, starting with the rats, but I wasn’t going to be a big weenie and bring them up. Neither was Amy.

We left the car parked where it was. Amy led with way with her monster flashlight and, like real Girl Scouts minus our sit-upons and knapsacks, a-wanderin’ we went.

The house was a creaky, collapsing wreck. It looked like the
Psycho
house, only worse. The front porch was busy with the process of caving in, so we went around back. Amy had a key, but there was no need for it. The back door was swinging on one weathered hinge.

The Delozier place had never been much to look at, but things had fallen into a sad state. There’s something seriously unattractive about rampant decay. Amy hadn’t been kidding about the rodents. I could hear them romping through what was left of the walls. It sounded like there was a rat soccer match going on.
 

“I hope Larry White was planning on doing a little remodeling,” I said.

Cautiously, we made our way through the old house, batting away cobwebs, sidestepping the gaping holes in the floorboard and piles of shattered glass. There were beer cans and fast-food trash strewn in the corners, probably left by kids screwing around, but even the garbage looked old.