Smiling, I climbed into bed and went to sleep.
On Wednesday, I was still wandering about in a daze. I’m not sure what I did all day, but everything seemed to take twice as long as usual. Ford said, “What the hell is wrong with you?” and I had enough presence of mind to say, “PMS.” I guessed correctly that that statement would make him back off. He didn’t comment on my mood again.
I didn’t show Ford the pictures I’d taken of Tessa. When they were dry, I slipped them inside a big portfolio because I wanted to show them to Russell first. After all, he and I shared a love of photography, didn’t we?
In the afternoon, I used the little digital to snap some photos of Nate in the garden. He was sweaty, had flecks of grass on his face, and he was squinting at the sun, so I was sure the pictures would be awful. While I cooked dinner, Ford ran the photos off on Russell’s little printer.
I was removing a dish of sweet potatoes from the oven (coated in brown sugar, swimming in marshmallows, the only way Ford would eat them) when he held a photo in front of my face. It was impossible to believe, but Nate was better looking on film than he was in person. He was only seventeen, but on film he looked about thirty, and he was handsome in a way that made your breath catch.
I put the potatoes on top of the stove and looked at the photo while Ford ran off more. When he had a stack of them—and each one was gorgeous—he said he’d send them to the art director at his publishing house.
But the next morning when Ford showed the photos to Nate and said he might have a modeling career ahead of him, Nate said he couldn’t leave Cole Creek. He said it as though it were an unchangeable fact, then he turned on the lawn mower and began to cut.
Standing to one side, I watched Ford turn the mower off and start talking to Nate in a fatherly way. I was too far away to hear all of it, but I caught phrases like “deciding your future” and “this is your chance” and “don’t throw this away.” Nate looked at Ford with an unreadable face, listened politely, and said, “Sorry, I can’t,” then turned on the mower again.
Ford looked at me as though to ask if I knew what was going on, but I just shrugged. I figured Nate was really saying that he couldn’t leave his grandmother. She’d raised him and she’d be alone if Nate left town. But my impression of his grandmother was that the last thing she’d want was a grandson who’d sacrificed his future for her.
I decided to let Ford handle it. He was pretty good at talking to people, so I figured he’d eventually get Nate to come around. Besides, I didn’t have time to get involved. I needed to go to the grocery to buy food for Ford—and for the picnic with Russell. He hadn’t called yet, but when he did, I wanted to be ready. I planned to take enough food that Russell and I could stay out all day long. Just the two of us. Alone in the woods.
So I left Ford to talk to Nate while I went to the grocery. When I returned hours later, the house was empty. There was an open FedEx envelope on the hall table and I figured it was “maintenance,” as Ford called it. His publishing house often sent him paperwork that he had to approve or disapprove about his books, which were all still selling after all these years.
As usual, I lugged all the groceries in by myself. After a glare at my cell phone because it still hadn’t given me a call from Russell, I put away all the groceries, then went to the sink to get myself a glass of delicious well water.
When I turned the handle, it came off in my hand, and water came shooting up, hitting me in the face. I threw open the doors below the sink and tried to turn the water off, but I couldn’t budge the rusty old knobs.
I ran out of the house shouting for Ford, but when I reached the garden, I was drawn up short by the most extraordinary sight. Ford and Tessa were standing side by side, looking at two men I’d never seen before.
One man was standing behind the old bench Nate had repaired. He was tall and ruggedly handsome in that country-and-western way that made some women swoon.
Sitting on the bench in front of him was a little man who looked like Ford—if you saw him in a fun house mirror, that is. Every one of Ford’s features was exaggerated. On this little man, Ford’s thick eyelashes were like one of those sleepy-eyed dolls. And Ford’s rather nice lips were like a nursing baby’s. And his nose! Yes, Ford’s nose was a bit unusual, but it was small enough that no one noticed it. But this man’s nose looked as though a miniature hot dog had been placed crosswise on the end of it, then smoothed out.
When I first saw the man sitting there, my face and hair wet, water dripping into my eyes, I thought he wasn’t real. I wanted to say crossly to Ford and Tessa that they had to take that huge statue back to the store and get a full refund.
But as I wiped water out of my eyes, the stout little creature turned his head and blinked at me.
It was then that I knew who the men were. The handsome one, the one with the face that looked as if he could write songs about his “honky-tonk life,” was called “King” in Ford’s books. As in “King Cobra.” Ford had described him well enough that I recognized him—and I remembered that he hadn’t been portrayed as a good guy.
As for the little man, he was Ford’s father. In his books, Ford called him “81462”—which was the number on his shirt in the prison where he’d been since before the hero’s birth.
The man in back, the country-and-western singer, said to me, “Is something wrong?” He had a voice that was filled with every cigarette he’d ever smoked and every smoky bar he’d ever been in. And he had an accent so thick I could hardly understand him.
“Sink,” I said, suddenly remembering that the kitchen of my beautiful house was being flooded. “The sink!” Days of lethargy left me; I was myself again. I sprinted back toward the kitchen, four people close behind me.
“You got a monkey wrench?” the younger man said to Ford as soon as all of us were in the kitchen. There was contempt in his voice: a blue-collar worker’s contempt for a white-collar worker. The water was shooting up to the ceiling and these two men were about to get into a socialist war.
The little man, 81462, grabbed a cookie sheet off the countertop and directed the spray of water out the open window over the sink. Smart, I thought. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
“Course he’s got tools. He’s a Newcombe,” Number 81462 said.
At least I think that’s what he said. I could have understood Gullah more easily than his twang.
Ford disappeared into the pantry for a moment and returned with a heavy, rusty wrench that was probably new when the house was built. I’d never seen it before and wondered where he’d found it.
Two minutes later, the water was stopped and the five of us stood there on the flooded floor, staring at each other and having no idea of what to say.
Tessa spoke first. She seemed to be fascinated with 81462, couldn’t take her eyes off him. “Praying mantis?” she asked, and I wondered what she was talking about.
81462’s eyes started twinkling in a way that made him as cute as a…Well, as cute as a garden gnome. Or a bug’s ear. Or a—
Turning slightly, he said, “Halfway down.”
I was trying to understand his dialect—it was too strong to be called an accent—when I noticed his vest for the first time. It was covered with hundreds of little enameled pins of insects. They were all about the same size and as far as I could see, there were no two alike.
“Centipede,” Tessa said, and 81462 lifted his left arm to show a centipede.
I couldn’t believe it, but out of my mouth came “Japanese beetle”—the bane of my gardening life.
When Number 81462 looked at me, smiling, I couldn’t help smiling back. He was just so cute!
“Right here.” He lifted up the tip of his vest. “Where I can see that he don’t eat nothin’ good.”
I don’t know why, but I kind of melted. Maybe it was because of all the drippy-movie hormones that Russell had released in me. “Are you two hungry?” I asked. “I just went to the grocery and—”
“They’re not staying,”
Ford said. Or, actually, grunted.
When I looked at him, his face was as hard as the steel in his truck, and his eyes were flashing angrily. But you know what I’d learned about Ford Newcombe? He had a heart made out of marshmallow cream. He complained and he bellyached about a lot of things, but his actions never fit his words. I’d seen him risk his life to save a bunch of teenagers who were strangers. And I well knew he wasn’t researching his devil story because he feared I was involved.
“Nonsense,” I said. “Of course they’re staying. They’re family.” I wanted a family more than life, and I was damned if I was going to stand aside and watch Ford throw his out because of some silly childhood arguments.
“Lightning bug,” Tessa said, ignoring the adult drama playing around her.
81462 crooked one of his short fingers at her and Tessa waded through the water on the floor to stand before the man. Bending so the upper part of his vest was right before her eyes, he reached inside, pushed something, and the tail of a lightning bug lit up.
Tessa looked at it in awe for a moment, then turned to Ford. I didn’t have a mirror in the kitchen, but my guess was that she and I were wearing identical expressions. Of course they’d stay.
When he saw Tessa’s face, Ford’s marshmallow cream heart turned to liquid. Throwing up his hands in defeat, he left the kitchen.
For a moment the four of us stood there in silence, then Country-and-western said, “Ma’am, do you have a mop?”
“Sure,” I said, blinking at being called “ma’am.”
Tessa took 81462’s hand and pulled him outside, leaving Country-and-western and me alone. He took one of the two mops I got out of the closet, and from the efficient way he used it, I could tell he’d done it before. We worked in silence, with him doing most of the work.
“Noble,” he said as he wrung out the mop into the bucket.
“I beg your pardon?”
“My name is Noble.”
“Ah,” I said, thinking that that’s why Ford had named his character “King.”
“When my mother was carryin’ me she heard somethin’ that was in a book. ‘The nobles of the land were new come to God.’ Since my daddy’s name was Newcombe, she called me Noble.”
I stopped mopping. “I like that. It’s sort of a prayer.”
“I never thought of it that way, but I guess it is.” He stopped mopping for a moment to look at me. “And I take it you’re Ford’s new wife?”
I smiled at that. “No. His assistant.”
“Assistant?” Noble asked, his voice full of disbelief.
Isn’t marriage strange? I thought. In front of this man I’d snapped at Ford and ordered him around. Therefore, it was assumed we were married. So where was “love and honor” in that formula?
“Yes. His assistant,” I said firmly. “Jackie Maxwell.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Maxwell,” he said, wiping off his hand on his jeans before he held it out for me to shake.
I did the same thing and shook his hand. Now that Ford was no longer in the room, the arrogance and hostility were gone from his eyes and he seemed nice.
“So…?” I began. “You and Mr. Newcombe are…?”
“Toodles just got released from—” He looked up at me to see how my pure, easily-shocked, middle-class morals were going to take the coming revelation.
“Prison,” I said. “I know.” Truthfully, the name “Toodles” shocked me more than the idea of prison.
“Yeah, prison,” Noble said. “And the truth is, he ain’t got no home.”
Oh, dear, I thought. Ford wasn’t going to like this. His father to live with him? “And you?” I asked.
Noble shrugged in a self-deprecating way. “I take care of myself. Tumble about the country. Do odd jobs.”
“I see,” I said, wringing out my mop. “You’re dead broke so you volunteered to take, uh…Toodles to his rich son in hopes you’d get a…what? A loan? Or do you want a place to stay?”
When Noble looked up at me, I could see the “King” Ford had written about, a man who “could charm the pants off any female.”
But I was in no danger. Between liking Ford so much and living in a daydream over a handsome stranger, my psyche didn’t have room for another man.
“You sure you ain’t married to my cousin?” Noble asked.
“Double sure. So tell me what you’re after and if I like it I might help you.” I didn’t say so, but it was my opinion that Ford needed family as much as I did. To hear him talk, he despised his family. On the other hand, Ford was so deeply involved with his relatives that he’d written books about them.
I could see that Noble was debating whether or not to tell me the truth. I had a feeling that “truth” and “women” weren’t two words he thought of as belonging together.
After a while he sighed as though his decision had been made. “I need a place to live. I’ve had a little trouble at home, and, well, I ain’t exactly welcome there right now.”
I lifted my eyebrows and made a guess. “Nine months kind of trouble?”
Looking down at the floor, Noble gave a little smile. “Yes, ma’am. One of my uncles has a new wife, and she’s real young and real pretty, and reeaaaal lonely and…” Breaking off, he looked up and gave me a little what-could-I-do? kind of grin.
I thought about what he’d just revealed and wondered why I’d ever craved a family.
“Ford won’t like this,” I said.
“I understand,” Noble said, then, slowly, dramatically, he leaned his mop against the kitchen cabinet. When he turned away, his shoulders were slumped and his head was down so low he looked like a turtle retracting into its shell.
“You ought to go on the stage,” I said to his back. “I haven’t seen such bad acting since I was in the fourth grade. Okay, what can you do to earn your keep?”
When he turned around to look at me, I saw what I was sure was the real Noble. Gone was the slump; he was standing up straight and proud.
“I could put this rat trap of a house back together,” he said. Also gone was his meek attitude—and so was half his accent. “In one stint in the poky I worked in the bakery.”
I wasn’t going to be so uncool as to say, “And what did you do to get put into jail?” I decided to test him. I said, “Tell me how to make a croissant.”
With a little smile he described—accurately—how to make a croissant with the butter between the layers.
I hated to be redundant even in my own mind, but all I could think was, Ford isn’t going to like this.
“Look,” I said after a while, “you rummage around, find what you need, and start baking. The richer and more gooey the things you make, the better. This plan calls for some sweetening-up of the boss.”
And exchange of information, I thought. If there was anything Ford liked better than high-fat food, it was information. I knew he was aware that I’d been withholding info from him lately, so if I wanted to coax him into letting Noble and…uh, Toodles, stay, I was going to have to bargain.
As I went up the stairs to Ford’s office—where I was sure he was hiding—I thought of the absurdity of it all. I was going to have to reveal private information about myself in an attempt to get Ford to allow his own family to live with him. It didn’t make sense.
But as I reached his door, I thought, Who are you kidding? I was dying to tell somebody about Russell. And since Ford was becoming the best friend I ever had, he was the one I wanted to tell. And I didn’t agree with Russell that Ford would tell Dessie. It had been days since his date with her and, as far as I knew, there’d been no contact between them since then. And, yes, I did push the button on the phone that shows all the incoming calls for the last month. Not one from Ms. Mason.
Lifting my hand, I knocked.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ford
I wanted to tell them to get out. I wanted to tell Noble that I’d never liked him, that he’d always been my enemy, and that I was done with that part of my life, so he could g
et into his rusted-out old Chrysler and leave. I wanted to tell my father to get out, too. He was nothing to me.
But I couldn’t do it. Even though I knew what they wanted from me, I still couldn’t kick them out.
I could tell myself I was being heroic in allowing them to stay, but the truth was, I was curious about my father, and I…well, I had kind of missed Noble. Maybe it was because I was getting older, or because I no longer had Pat’s family as mine, but in the last couple of years I’d been thinking of visiting my relatives again. Then I would remember that, “You won’t remember this…” crap and cancel the plans I’d been making.
So now here was this man I’d only seen in pictures and the cousin I’d spent my childhood being tortured by, and I knew they needed a place to stay. No one had told me my father was going to be released years before the end of his sentence (Good behavior? Got a Ph.D. in entomology?) but Noble’s eldest daughter had e-mailed me about what her father had done. Vanessa had been furious and ready to disown her father, but, to tell the truth, the story had made me laugh. Uncle Zeb had married some girl a third his age, then left the poor thing to cry in loneliness. Vanessa told me her dad had just been released from the local hoosegow where he’d been thrown for thirty days for threatening to shoot some man’s eternally-barking dog. Noble might not have received jail if he hadn’t been caught inside the man’s alarmed fence, loaded shotgun aimed. Worse, Noble’d had to be wrestled to the ground to keep him from shooting the dog after the sheriff arrived. He said that if he was going to be sent to jail anyway, he wanted it to be for an actual crime, not for something he’d just thought about doing.
So, anyway, Noble had been in jail for thirty days, and presumably celibate during that time, then he’d been confronted with a nubile and extremely neglected young wife. Vanessa was saying she never wanted to see her father again, but it all didn’t seem too bad to me.
It was my guess that Noble had found out that my father was being released from prison, kept the knowledge to himself, and on his way out of town, had picked the old man up. So now they were here, two ex-cons, with no job, no cash, and no place to stay.