A Rhinestone Button (10 page)

“You got yourself a new pet or something?” Steinke cradled the air in his arms. “There he is holding a duck.
Rocking it like a baby.” He laughed with Solverson and Schultz.

Liv refilled their cups and brought the pot and a cup to Job’s table. The smell of oranges about her. Her voice had been the purple of flowering heliotrope, but it was faded now, transparent. Job watched her voice, a sprinkle of lavender falling across the skin of her face as she spoke. “Why
were
you carrying a duck?” she asked.

Job grinned, talked into one shoulder. “It hit me on the back of the head. Guess it died in flight. I caught it before it hit the ground. Then I couldn’t think what to do with it.”

Liv’s laugh was still a rain of silver balls. “What are the odds? Too bad the cameras didn’t catch that. So, what can I get you?”

“Just coffee for now. I’m meeting someone.”

“Will?”

“No.”

Liv raised an eyebrow but didn’t push for more information. She carried the pot back to the counter.

Noon came and went. Job drank, stared out the window at Liv’s house up the street. An overgrown lawn filled with bird feeders and sunflowers had sprung from the seeds birds had scratched to the ground. The cheerful heads of the flowers were pointed Job’s way, following the sun.

Jerry tied his dog to the garbage can outside the door. A Samoyed and German Shepherd cross, white with a tail that curled over its back. It tried to nose its way through the door as Jerry came in. “What happened? Date stand you up?”

Job felt the room turning his way and huddled over his empty coffee cup.

Jerry took off his cowboy hat, laid it on his table, turned his chair to face Job and settled in. He called to Liv, “Hey sweetie, can a guy get some coffee around here?”

Liv poured Jerry his coffee and took the pot around. As she refilled Job’s cup she asked, “I hear right? You got a date?”

Job watched the coffee pour into his cup. “Sort of.”

“Hang on a sec.” She set the pot down behind the counter, picked up a plate and an orange and sat at Job’s table to peel it. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll leave when your date turns up. I’ll just keep you company ’til then.” She nodded at Steinke. “Keep the boys from making a scene.” She separated each section of the orange, arranged them into a flower on her plate, cut each section into three and sucked the juice from each bit before chewing. She had a cupid’s bow mouth. Job had once overheard Darren say, “Hey, Kissy Lips,” on greeting her, before slapping her butt. “So, how’d you meet this girl?” Liv asked.

Job etched a line in the checkered tablecloth with his thumb. “I haven’t met her yet.”

Crystal came over to the table. Her stiletto heels pockmarked the linoleum. She leaned over the table, so close Job could smell the cigarette on her breath. A jangle of bracelets. Pointy nails painted coral. “What’s this I hear about a date?” she whispered.

“A blind date,” said Liv.

“Somebody fix you up?”

He looked up at the wasp trap hanging over the door. “Not really.”

“What did you do?” said Crystal. “Put an ad in the personals?” She laughed, then stopped. Job felt the blush sweep across his face.

“She heard me on ‘Loveline.’ That radio show. Ed phoned in and lied. Said I was a real-estate agent. Then handed me the phone.”

Liv laughed. “That shit.”

“Oh, crap,” said Crystal. “I got to get back to the grill. Fill me in later?”

Job watched her tap back to the kitchen.

Liv ate a chunk of orange. “So I guess you don’t know what this woman looks like.”

“She sent a photo.” He pulled it from his breast pocket and watched Liv suck the juice from her fingers before taking it.

“Huh,” said Liv. “Pretty.” She ate another piece of orange. “You hear Darren and I split?”

Job hoped he looked surprised, as if he hadn’t heard. He tried to think of something to say, but found himself dumbfounded, feeling the same mild panic he felt when he tried to come up with something to write on sympathy cards.

Liv leaned over the table in the way he liked, giving him her attention in a very physical way, with her whole body turned to his. “So, did you believe that stuff you said on TV? Or were you putting those guys on?”

He turned his attention outside, to Jerry’s dog tied to the garbage can. “Oh, I don’t know.”

Jason pushed through the café door wearing jeans and a jean jacket and a striped blue T-shirt. His dirty-blond hair stood straight up from his head. He had Liv’s milky complexion, round face and wide smile, though he was lanky like his father. All arms and legs. He tripped over his own foot as he ran over to their table. “Job! Saw you on TV!”

“No running in here,” said Liv.

Jason sat. “Can I come over and see the crop circle?”

“Sure,” said Job. “Your mom tells me you’re getting pretty good on the sax.”

Jason scuffed his runner against linoleum. “Not really.”

Liv rubbed a hand down her son’s arm. “He plays and plays, throws his music across the room when he doesn’t get it quite right. Then he gathers up the pages, starts again. He’s a perfectionist. Doesn’t get it from me.”

“So did you see any aliens or anything?” Jason asked.

Job caught Steinke watching, laughing. “No,” he said. “No aliens.”

Liv popped the last of the orange in her mouth, pushed her chair back and stood. “Looks like I better get back to work.” She waved a hand at the window. Outside Debbie Biggs stepped from a red Mustang. Job sat up straight. Felt his heart thud against his chest and his hands go moist.

“All right, Jason. Let’s leave Job alone. He’s meeting someone.”

“Can I come over to see the crop circle today?” he asked Job.

“We’ll see,” said Liv. “Job might be busy.” She winked at Job, then walked Jason up to the counter and brought him a slice of blueberry pie.

Debbie Biggs stepped through the café door and looked around the room. She had breasts big enough to garner stares, though she’d apparently done her best to conceal them by wearing a loose sweater and jacket with oversized shoulder pads. Job put his hand up to get her attention, but she’d already locked gazes with Jerry. He nodded at her and she sat at his table and stayed there. Job waited for Jerry to clear
up the mistake, but Debbie went on sitting with him. She laughed too loud and curled her hair with her finger. Jerry leaned into the table and stared deeply into her monumental breasts. He caught Job’s eye and winked.

Liv came back to Job’s table and whispered, “That’s your date, isn’t it?”

Job nodded.

“What’s she doing with Jerry? You want me to go get her?”

“No! No.”

“I imagine Jerry will tell her.” When Job said nothing, she said, “Want some pie?”

Job stabbed his blueberry pie and watched Liv carry the pot over to Jerry and Debbie. He looked down, blushing, at his half-finished pie when Liv pointed his way. Then Debbie Biggs was there, standing beside him. “Job?”

“Yes, hello,” he said, standing.

“I’m Debbie.”

He shook her hand, stepped forward to pull out her chair just as she stepped back, plunging a heel into his toe. He gasped, apologized.

“I’m the one who stepped on your toe.”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

He sat and tried to think what to say. Out the window Jerry’s dog struggled back and forth past the café window, with its tongue out and tail wagging, dragging the now-upturned garbage can to which it was tied, trying to get a scratch from Dithy Spitzer. A trail of garbage littered the sidewalk behind the can.

Debbie cleared her throat. “So, you’re a farmer?”

“Yes.” He watched Liv sashay over to Steinke’s table, carrying three plates, the soup-and-sandwich special. Tuna
sandwiches. Tomato soup. He wondered why talking with Liv was nearly effortless, like talking with Ruth. Or Crystal.

“Cow-calf operation,” he said finally. “Though I should tell you that since my brother came home, I’m living in the hired hand’s cabin. I’ve got no place to entertain. And there’s some confusion over the farm. After my father’s death the estate was never settled. Now my brother’s back home. I don’t think he really wants to farm. He’s a pastor. I could never be a pastor, standing in front of all those people and everything. Although when I was a kid I sometimes played the accordion at the community hall, for weddings and showers, that sort of thing. The accordion was my father’s idea. I wanted to play bass guitar. But then my dad didn’t allow any rock in the house.” He stopped short, having completely lost his train of thought.

“You were telling me your brother moved back home.”

“I just wanted to let you know. In case it made a difference. I’m not sure what you have in mind. I mean what your expectations are. About what I can offer.”

“I’d like a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, yes, sure. Sorry. I don’t usually talk this much. I guess I’m just—Liv? Can I get another coffee, please?”

He went up to the counter to get it, came back and sat, and found himself staring at Debbie’s breasts as she squirted creamers into her coffee.

“Implants,” said Debbie.

“What?”

“They’re not real.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay. When I had them done, I wanted men to stare. Then I found Jesus.”

Job, pawing his mind for something to say, watched as Dithy, dressed in her fluorescent vest and brandishing her water pistol, strode into the street in front of Will’s truck. Ed was in the passenger side. Will stopped so he wouldn’t run Dithy over, but drove on when she started to give him one of her lectures. She aimed her gun and sprayed his back window before he parked at Sheeler’s Auto Repair, in front of the sign that read
Cadillacs Only
in pink lettering.

Job patted his back pocket for a hanky. When he didn’t find one, he used a paper napkin to give his nose a discreet blow. Then he noticed the whistle that rattled from his nose, a sound just like the one that issued from the red toy whistle on the cowboy hat his father had given him one Christmas. He’d blown that red whistle all Christmas Day, conjuring a blue bowl that was suspended in mid-air in front of him, as if he’d come across the half shell of a robin’s egg caught in a spider’s web. Until Abe yanked the ball from the whistle so it would never trill again. Now here was that same sound, coming from his nose, bringing with it an image more vibrant than any sound had produced since he’d seen Will kiss Ed, since the duck hit him on the back of the head.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth and whistled from his nose, watching through the blue eggshell as Dithy confronted Will. Her hands up, water pistol waving in the air, pointing back at the street. Ed, with his massive arms folded over his chest, watching from the other side of the truck, grinning.

Job pushed a fork into his pie, left it there. Tried not to stare at Debbie’s breasts but couldn’t look her in the eye. He settled on her right earring, a large square of metal with a round of pearl-coloured plastic glued to it. He groped for
words, came up empty. Whistled through his nose because the robin’s eggshell brought on a feeling of calm.

Debbie squinted at him. “Maybe I should go.”

“No! I was going to ask if you wanted to go to our revival here, tomorrow night. Pastor Divine’s leading a healing service.”

“Pastor Jack Divine? Of Divine Ministries?”

“He’s a friend of my brother’s.” A half lie.

Debbie placed a moist hand on Job’s arm, stroked as she might comfort a poodle. Shook her head. “This just isn’t going to work. I sensed immediately we weren’t soulmates. And this man over here?” She pointed a red fingernail at Jerry. “I knew, as soon as I walked in the door, he was the one God led me here to meet. I mean, you’re beautiful and all, but God has led me to want more. God wants me to have things. He wants me to have a large house and a new car. Can you give me the things God wants for me?”

Job shook his head. But then neither could Jerry.

Liv brought the coffee pot to the table, poured.

“You see how it is,” said Debbie. “But I want to thank you. If you hadn’t phoned into ‘Loveline,’ I wouldn’t have come here, and I wouldn’t have met Jerry.” She gave Jerry a little wave. He waved back.

“God sure moves in mysterious ways, don’t he?” said Liv. “You want pie or anything?”

“No, I’ve got to go,” said Debbie. “Jerry’s taking me out to his cabin at Pigeon Lake.” She stood.

Jerry made his way over to the table. “Hey, aren’t you that crop-circle guy?” he said, grinning. “Saw you on the news last night, Job.”

“You were on the news?” said Debbie, sitting again.

“Yeah, he’s got this crop circle in his field.” He laid a hand on Debbie’s arm, helped her up. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

Liv with her hand on one hip. “That’s a buck for the coffee.”

“Oh, I thought Job—”

“I mean for you and Jerry here.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’ll take care of that,” said Jerry. He followed Liv to the checkout.

Debbie smiled, looked at the toes of her pumps. “Yes. So. Thanks again.”

Job kept his eyes on the plastic plant in the macramé hanger. He wouldn’t look at Stinky or the other boys on the church board. “It was nothing.”

“I guess we’re going. Ciao!”

Job slumped into his chair and watched them leave. He tried to conjure the blue robin’s egg, but his nose whistle was gone. A snuff box made a circle in the back pocket of Jerry’s jeans as he untied his dog from the garbage can. He led Debbie and the dog off to his truck, leaving the garbage strewn across the sidewalk.

Liv sat across from Job. “She was quite the, ah, woman. And Jerry was quite an ass, eh? Stealing your date like that?”

“I guess.”

“Why’d you let him get away with that?” When Job said nothing, she said, “Turn the other cheek and all that?”

Job drank his coffee and watched Jason pick up the last of his pie and carry it over to their table. The boy sat and ate with blueberry-tinted lips. Job wondered at the colour of his own. Had he talked to Debbie with bits of blueberry
stuck between his teeth? He pushed his cup away and fished in his pocket for change.

“It’s on the house,” said Liv. “Anyone who can endure that little scene deserves it.”