Down and Out in Bugtussle (33 page)

F
riday is a full day of subbing and I don’t know if I left my rose-colored glasses home or what, but it’s awful. I have lunch with Stacey, who tells me she’s also having a worst day ever. She invites me to go out with her tonight and I invite her to go to Ethan Allen’s so we can keep it low-key.

“It’s a pretty regular crowd,” I say.

“I went into that place one time and some big tall fellow behind the bar wouldn’t stop looking at me. Kind of freaked me out. I left and never went back.”

“Was he wearing a cowboy hat?”

“How did you know?”

“That’s Ethan Allen. He was at the party you came to at my house, remember? He was probably staring because he’s never seen anything like the full-blown glory of your spectacular hair.”

She pats her hair. “Well, not everyone can do this.”

“That’s true,” I tell her. “So what do you say? Give Ethan Allen another chance? He’s actually a very nice guy. His girlfriend, Jalena, is also pretty cool. Maybe Lilly will come with us. And I’ll invite Freddie and Cameron, too.”

“Okay,” she says. “But he better keep his eyes to himself.”

“He’s not like that at all, I promise.”

After school, I go down to D Hall to check on Cameron and I run into Lilly in the hallway.

“Hello, sunshine,” she says. “What brings you down this way?”

I point to the end of the hallway. “Ms. Becker.”

“Chloe is so proud of you for all of that,” Lilly whispers. “And so am I. It’s really nice. Very not like you.”

“Thanks, Lilly,” I say, laughing. “I see you’re back to your usual self.”

“Well, Dax is almost finished with that damned training, so he’s calling every night.”

“Good. Hey, why don’t you come to Ethan Allen’s tonight? Stacey is going and I’m going to invite Cameron. I think you would really like her.” Lilly looks skeptical. “Or maybe not. I don’t know. Just give her a chance.”

“Freddie Dublin really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

“It wasn’t him,” I say, and she raises her eyebrows at me. “Okay, it wasn’t all him.”

“Right,” she says.

“So will you go? You can go to Ethan Allen’s office if Dax calls while we’re there.”

“Sure,” she says. “Why not?”

“Great,” I say. Yee haw! I’ll be springing that garden club idea on her soon.

I knock on Cameron Becker’s door and walk into my old classroom.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I say.

“Come see what these kids are doing for the art fair,” she says. “I cannot believe how talented they are! I let them pick what they wanted to paint and, honestly, this is the best work they’ve done. I’m so proud of them.”

“They have so much personality and creativity, but they’ll just sit there, pretending not to be on their cell phones until a worthy challenge arises and then presto! They’re geniuses!”

“Look at this one.” She points to an impressive portrait of a monarch butterfly resting on a magnolia bloom. “Worst kid I’ve had all year. Couldn’t stand her and I’m sure the feeling was mutual. She wouldn’t cooperate with me on anything and was about to fail and now look. It’s like we’re best friends all of a sudden, me and that little smarty-pants.”

“She needs to start putting together a portfolio for college.”

“I know!” she says. “That’s exactly what I told her.” I follow Cameron back to her desk where she picks up the file folder. “This has been a real eye-opener,” she says. “If I’d had this at the beginning of the year, my life wouldn’t have been so horrid for the past eight months. Do you need it back?”

“Nah. Just hang on to it and pass it on if you see someone who needs it.”

“Thanks,” she says. “So, guess what.”

“What?” I say. I don’t have to guess because I know. Hatter has already called and told me all about it.

“I have a date tomorrow night.”

“Oh really. With who?”

“Oh, some guy named Drew Wills.” She giggles.

“Good for you.”

“He was so sweet. He called me and was like, ‘I wanna slow things down and show you that you can trust me.’ I cried like a baby. He came over. We made up. It was great.”

“Well, good for you,” I say. “So why aren’t y’all going out tonight?”

“Oh, his mother’s birthday is today and they’re having a party. Big family get-together. He invited me to go, but I told him I’d rather not. I’m just not ready for that. I was afraid it would hurt his feelings, but it didn’t.”

“Well, that is great because tonight you can go out with Lilly and Stacey and me, and we can invite Freddie, speaking of whom, I haven’t seen him in a day or two.”

“He’s on the coast.”

“Doing what?”

“Job interviews.”

“What? No way.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t love it here. Wants to be down closer to home and closer to New Orleans. He loves New Orleans. Plus, he has a friend in New Orleans who came up here for a visit and didn’t love it either and now he won’t come back.”

“That’s so sad, but I don’t want him to leave!”

“I know. Me, either.”

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll talk to him when he gets back. So I’ll see you tonight? Ethan Allen’s around nine o’clock?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Awesome.”

I go home, take Buster Loo for a walk, then piddle around in
the yard until dark. I dig up and separate some monkey grass, leaving the daylilies to divide in the fall because I read that they might not bloom if divided in the spring and I don’t want that. After filling in several gaps, I have enough monkey grass left over to fill up two five-gallon buckets.

“I’ll take that to Lilly’s tomorrow,” I tell Buster Loo. “Plant it around those god-awful shrubs of hers.”

I walk around the yard and inspect the flower beds. Even after all that thinning out and rearranging, I still have a few gaps. I decide to go buy more flowers. And while I’m at it, I’ll get some flowers for Lilly, too.

*   *   *

I get to Ethan Allen’s at five minutes after nine and find Stacey Dewberry sitting at the bar next to Jalena.

“This girl is crazy!” Jalena explains when I join them. “She’s been telling me all kinds of stuff.”

“I do not doubt that,” I say.

Ethan Allen walks up and leans on the bar. Jalena winks at him and says, “And I have hollered laughing when she told me about this weirdo staring at her.”

“Didn’t know I was creepy until a minute ago,” Ethan Allen says. He looks a little embarrassed, so I decide not to pick on him about that. Lilly comes in a few minutes later and then Cameron Becker comes in shortly after that. The two of them turn every head in the place, male and female.

“I feel like everyone is staring at me,” Cameron says, taking a seat at the bar.

“Well, it’s because they are,” Stacey says. She looks at me. “Why
do people do that so much around here? Just stare at you. Don’t even try to hide it.”

“It’s worse than this in some other parts of the state, trust me,” Lilly says.

I introduce Cameron to Jalena, and it’s fairly obvious that Cameron is excited to be hanging out with the girls.

“I don’t even remember the last time I had a Girls Night Out,” Jalena says. “I guess it was when we were back in Florida and that wasn’t Girls Night Out—it was Girls Night In.”

“We need to crank that tradition back up,” I say.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Ethan Allen says. “That wouldn’t be good for business.”

“Yeah, right,” Lilly says. She waves a hand around the crowded bar. “You’re just struggling along here, aren’t you?”

“What’s Girls Night In?” Stacey asks. “That sounds kind of dull.”

I explain it, but Stacey doesn’t look interested. “I like to belly up to a bar, myself,” she says, then turns around on her bar stool and does just that.

We drink and dance and have a large time hanging out and acting silly. Cameron Becker can’t turn around without someone hitting on her, so she goes back to her bar stool and stays there. She’s soon joined by Lilly, who is equally uninterested in flirting and foolishness. I lose Stacey Dewberry on the dance floor and when I find her later, she’s cutting some serious rug with a man sporting a king-sized mullet. When things start to wind down, Ethan Allen joins Jalena and me on the dance floor. Eventually, we all end up back at the bar. Except the mullet man, who Stacey tells us had to go outside and smoke.

“You need a karaoke machine,” Stacey says when Ethan Allen pours her a fourth Southern Comfort Special.

“I had one one time,” he tells her. “Turns out a lot of people want to sing who can’t and it got to where it was running more people off than bringin’ them in. Ended up selling it at a yard sale.”

“Aw, man,” Stacey says. “I could really break it down to some Lynyrd Skynyrd right now.”

“We’ve got ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Free Bird’ on the jukebox over there,” Ethan Allen tells her.

“‘Sweet Home Alabama’! That’s my song! Because, you know, I’m from Alabama.” She looks at me. “Did I ever tell you that I’m madly in love with Kid Rock?”

What? “No, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Yeah, you know he did a song about ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’ A song about a song. He’s a genius. I love him so much.”

“I like that song, too,” Cameron says.

“You know, I saw Kid Rock at a concert down in Orange Beach a few years back,” Stacey says. “He jumped up on top of his piano and all I could think about was, ‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be a piano with bumper stickers and Kid Rock all over me right now.’” She starts digging in her purse.

I glance over at Jalena, who whispers, “She is great!” I look around and don’t see Lilly.

“She’s back in the office,” Ethan Allen says. “Phone call.”

“Good for her.”

S
aturday morning I wake up without a headache because I only drank three beers instead of getting hammered like I usually do. I roll out of bed, take a quick shower, and throw on some old shorts and a T-shirt.

“Buster Loo,” I say, and he peeps out from under the covers. “I know this is earlier than we usually get up on Saturday, but come on, I’ve got us a little adventure planned for today.” He jumps out of bed and starts stretching on the rug. Then he rolls over on his back and looks at me. “You can do it, little man. C’mon.” I take off down the hallway and that gets him in gear because Buster Loo doesn’t care where you’re going—if you’re going in a hurry, he’s ready to move. He passes me in the kitchen and hops out the doggie door. I brew half a pot of coffee and pour it into a big to-go cup. I get Buster Loo’s leash and walk out onto the back porch. When he finishes his doggie business, we get in the car and go to the nursery.

“You back for another tree?” the gentleman asks when he sees me poking around his greenhouse.

“No, sir, not today,” I tell him. “This morning I’m looking for some flowers.” We talk while we walk around his impressive spread of plants and I find myself captivated by his interest in and knowledge of all things green. I tell him that I need flowers to fill in some gaps in a fully matured yard and then some for a bed I’ll be starting from scratch. We discuss shade versus sun, annual versus perennial, so forth and so on. He knows just what I need for each project, helps me find the colors I want, then helps me load the containers into the back of my car where I still have the newspaper from earlier in the week.

“I’m giving you a discount for buying so much,” he says. “But you’ll have to come in and let me find my calculator.” I follow him into his office where he sits down behind a big wooden desk covered with papers. He pulls a pen out from under a stack of papers. “I need to get this mess organized,” he says. “Where is my receipt book?” It takes him a minute to find it and, in the process, he uncovers an old, dusty nameplate. I stare at the name spelled out on the triangular block of wood.

“Here it is,” he says. “Tell me your name again, sweetheart.”

“Ace,” I say. “Ace Jones.” He stops writing and looks at me. I look at the nameplate.
MELVIN EMERSON
. He puts down his pen and his eyes get cloudy.

“I thought you looked familiar,” he says. “You’re Essie Jones’s granddaughter.” It’s not a question.

“I am,” I say. My chest tightens up as we sit and look at each other for a minute. Finally, he gets up and comes around to where I’m standing on the other side of his desk. He sticks out a hand. “I’m
Melvin Emerson, but everyone calls me M.” I shake his hand and I don’t know what I want to do more—run out of there screaming or give him a big, sappy hug. “It is so nice to meet you. I thought a lot of Essie. She was very special to me.” He keeps shaking my hand.

“Thank you,” I say.

“You played basketball when you were in high school. You were good.” Again, statements, not questions.

Yeah, and you were snaking my grandma while I was at basketball camp!
I think, but don’t dare say. Gramma Jones wouldn’t be too proud of me for spouting off something like that. “Yes, that’s me. But that was a long time ago.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that long ago at all,” he says. “I’m sorry, but you can’t pay me a dime for those flowers.”

“Oh, no,” I protest. “I can’t do that. At least let me pay you what they cost.”

“Heh, heh, heh, you’re just like her. A little on the stubborn side.” For some odd reason, I feel like squalling. “Okay,” he says. “You can pay me what they cost.”