Hotter than Helen (The "Bobby's Diner" Series) (21 page)

Rolling thunder skipped behind her, nearly tapping her shoulder. The electrical show had grown that close. Lightning tracers arced and flashed behind her, setting off the landscape like an enormous spotlight, bringing every living thing into view.

Peering through the hedge, the gully’s basin was muddy and wet, but a flashflood had not yet made its way that far west.

She heard a quick blip-blip of his truck’s remote unlock the doors.

“Hawthorne!” she screamed through the pouring rain as she appeared on the river side of the hedge. He stood below her at his truck down in the riverbed. He hadn’t opened the door yet. He was just standing there, looking at her. She could see his steely eyes even from the distance that separated them.

“What in hell do you want, Georgette?”

“A few answers might be nice.”

“Answers? What answers?”

“Like why, Hawthorne. Why?”

“Why do you think?”

She shrugged her shoulders, holding the flare gun in her right hand and shaking her head, then dropping her arms in a pathetic gesture.

“Cash. Why else. Money. Cash, Georgette.”

Not seeing a weapon on him, she walked closer along the edge of the river.

A huge rush of thunder slammed closer and another sheet of rain cut across the sky like a rudder, ever closer and skipping off the hardened earth skimming the ground, etching a path much the way the earth had been formed millions of years ago, like the Grand Canyon.

She looked down and noticed trickling water flow into the mud veins of the dark wet gully, cresting, overflowing and building.

“Hawthorne. You need to come up here.”

“Georgette, there’s nothing you can do.”

They were yelling, but the wind and rain and thunder consumed their voices. She wasn’t sure if he could hear her. She yelled louder. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she remembered she was holding what looked like a gun.

“No, Hawthorne. Come up here with me!”

“Georgette. It’s over with us!”

She couldn’t believe his words and dropped her hands back down. He must have thought she wanted him back. She cocked her head and then shook it. “No,” she tried to scream her words, “that’s not what I mean…” Something was crashing in the distance making it impossible to be heard.

“You were just a means to an end.”

But she heard that.

Her hand gripped the flare gun tight. Her face pinched in anger and the water began running like a shallow creek.

“No, you idiot. Come up here where it’s safe!”

But, at that second, a snapping tree fell behind her, it screamed like a whelping hound first, making Georgettte duck. Then the sound electrified, sounding like sheets of glass crashing against concrete.

She dropped to her knees, covering her head with her arms. When nothing landed on her, she figured she was safe. She was in no immediated danger of being hit by the falling tree.

But Hawthorne…

She turned and looked back.

A wall of water filling the river bed halfway up its berm, a good ten feet high or so, had snaked its way into view and was tumbling straight for his truck. She screamed. “Get out! Get out!” And pointed in the direction of the tsunami headed for him.

Seeing the water raging toward him, he turned, scrambled to the side of the gully and tried to crawl back up to higher ground.

But the rain had muddied only a thin layer of earth, leaving looser dirt beneath it, making him slide back down to the bottom of the berm again.

“Hawthorne, get out!” she screamed again, seeing the panic in his eyes.

She reached out to him and he moved forward as if to grab her hand but when he looked at the water barreling toward him, he turned and ran to the truck. He flung the door open and closed again just before the wall of water hit.

It was acrobatic, the way it lifted the truck like a toy, tumbling it up, flipping it end over end, then rolling it onto its side over and over and washing it down the river, bobbing it up, dropping it under and continuing that way, the water’s assault on the truck until it pushed Hawthorne around a bend and out of sight.

“No!” Georgette crumpled to her knees, screaming until the air in her lungs wouldn’t let her scream any longer, until her tears bleached the word No into shadows, into two ghosts of letters, until her crying took on no sound at all, until she lost her breath.

And when she breathed, she began the process all over again, slumped over her knees in the mud by the river as the water rushed by below her, stealing everything living within the crevice into its current.

38

The flare rose high. Like a lone shooting star it pierced the cloudy day as it rose higher, higher than the hotel’s roof line, higher than the old Ponderosa pine trees that surrounded the waterway.

Sounds of rushing water continued tumbling around her. Straggled, wet strands of hair covered her face. Tears intermixed with rain washed off her nose into the soggy earth next to the torrent crashing, racing, boiling past. Its reverberation, its din masked Willy’s car racing up behind her, next to her, skidding to a stop on the asphalt.

She only heard him approach, the welcome sound of a human being. He ran to her. Cupping his body over hers, Willy held Georgette tight. The warmth of his body let her know how cold the rain had made her and she shivered, finally remembering she was alive.

“Georgette. I thought I’d lost you.” His grip tightened around her. She wondered how it was possible but he managed to pull her even closer to him, there on the wet ground by the raging river. “When I saw the water coming, we were still prying open the trunk.”

“Roberta!” His words broke the stupor she had sunk into.

“Is she…” Georgette covered her mouth with one hand.

“She’ll be fine but she’s pretty beat up.”

“Oh, that’s good, Willy. That’s good.” Pushing off the ground, Willy backed away but only by inches. She brushed her pants and smeared mud across her legs and down her butt. Noticing that mud had soiled her arms up to her elbows, she said, “I need to see her.”

“Let’s go. Before they take her.”

He put out a hand to help her off the mound and she stepped down to the pavement. Pulling her hand back, she stopped. “Hawthorne …”

But Willy shushed her. He stepped back to where she had stopped and led her to the passenger door. She was shivering. “You’re cold.”

“Funny thing, I don’t feel cold. I’m just shaking like a leaf all of the sudden.”

“Yeah, George, that’s called shock. Let’s get you inside the car.”

Inside, he reached across her body and pulled the seatbelt over her, locking the harness into place with a snap. “There.” He patted her mud-caked arm. “How’s that?”

“Good. Thanks, Willy.” She didn’t quite get why he needed to strap her in, they were only driving around the hotel, but she let him. He needed to help her, so she let him.

“I’ll kick on the heater. That will help too. I’m sure the EMTs have some thermal blankets.”

“Oh Lord, Willy. I’m fine.” But as the words came out, her body did a double-step on shivering. “Good gravy. What’s happening to me?”

“Like I said, Georgie.” He flipped the gear into drive. “It’s called shock.”

39

Roberta sat on the bumper of an ambulance. A second ambulance had just carted Tanner into it, closed the doors and had rushed off with its lights blaring and sirens howling.

One of the EMTs, a big man, a young Pakistani who looked a lot like a doctor, kept busy checking Roberta’s vitals. The other, a blonde, slight young woman with a running weight of no more than one hundred pounds (what Georgette could tell from her puny size), covered Roberta with a thermal wrap. It shone like a silver cape around her shoulders.

Willy’s car had barely come to a stop when Georgette unbuckled her belt and opened the door. Willy rolled his eyes, stopping short and abruptly for her to exit safely.

Georgette, in a full pace, ran to Roberta.

When Roberta saw Georgette coming, she smiled. “George!” She stood and limped, hobbling her way over to Georgette.

When Georgette reached her, she grabbed her hard and held her tight. “Roberta.” Her voice shattered.

“George.” Roberta hid her beaten and swollen face in Georgette’s neck.

She felt Roberta’s body tighten, then relax as she cried openly.

“It’s okay. You’re safe now.” Roberta buried her head against Georgette’s shoulder and moaned a low, sad sound that reminded Georgette of a dying fawn, a bleak sound.

“I kept praying, you know, George, to God. Praying hard, like never before.” She paused, breathing in short, choppy breaths and continued. “Then I heard them. You know, the ancients, George. They whispered to me.” Georgette clutched her harder. “At my blackest moment, I heard them calling to me, calling my name.” Her next words quivered out in a whisper. “I swear.”

“Shh. Shh.”

The two women stood there in the parking lot together while Willy and the EMTs watched on. Car radios scratched on and off in the background, sending messages to anyone who might be listening, but no one was. Red and white lights whipped around in a constant spin, alternating in color on top of Roberta’s ambulance. It was almost like someone muted the volume on a commercial while everyone waited for action to resume.

Roberta sniffled first, pulling back and bringing her sleeve up to wipe her nose. “I need a tissue,” she whispered to Georgette, smiling meekly.

“She needs a tissue.” Georgette turned and spoke.

Roberta’s nose was bleeding inside and out. Her left eye had swelled to a mere slit where her eyelashes met. The hematoma caused her eye to puff out. It looked raw and pink around a gash over her eyebrow. Her lips had gashes from the upper to the lower that were blue from bruising.

Someone draped one of the shiny silver thermal blankets over Georgette’s shoulders. She hardly noticed. They appeared like a caped team standing there together.

“She needs a tissue!” Georgette yelled again, looking around the others at the scene. Everyone jumped to life again, running around and looking in places where they thought they might find tissue. It was Willy, however, who walked up behind them and offered his handkerchief. She took it and wiped, forgetting about the tear on the end of her nose. Roberta winced and daubed lightly after that. “Thank you, Willy.”

Georgette turned back to Roberta and chuckled silently to her. “You probably could have whatever you want if you asked right now.”

“You know what I really want?” Her right eye got moist along the inside rim of her lower lid and her left eye seeped out tears.

“What’s that, honey?” Georgette pulled Roberta’s hands up together in hers.

“Some of your Folgers.” Her shoulders made tiny jerks as she started to cry. “I kept thinking…”

“Shh, it’s okay.”

“… I kept thinking, if I get out of this alive, I would love to sit and have some of Georgette’s coffee with her.”

“Like I said, anything, sweetie. Anything you want you got.” She pulled Roberta back into a hug. “You know what sounds better than my coffee, Rob?” She pulled out of the clutch again. “Hmm.” As Roberta wiped at the tears in her eyes, Georgette noticed how her hands were shaking and how bruises covered her knuckles too.

“That cruise.” Georgette let go and lead Roberta back to the bumper for her to sit down. As they walked, she continued, “What do you say, we both take that cruise together.”

“Sounds wonderful. I wonder if Rick would mind.”

“He can come too. My treat. We’ll have a ball. Anyway, we could all use a break.”

“Where is he, George? Does Rick know about any of this? Is he still in Laughlin?”

“I don’t know, honey.” She looked at Willy. “Do you know?”

“We’ll contact him as soon as we get statements from you and Tanner.”

She had somehow forgotten about Tanner. Hearing his name made Georgette growl, “Tanner. I’d nearly forgotten. S’easy how a person can sidestep a piece of crap like him.”

Roberta reached out with her hand, grabbing Georgette’s arm. “What happened to Hawthorne?”

Georgette looked down. A sudden lump in her throat caused her to whisper. “He…” She shook her head, turning away toward the road, away from their faces.

“They were going to kill me, George.”

“I know.” She turned back. “I know. It just seems so surreal. Like we stepped off a cliff and are still falling. I just can’t believe any of it.”

“We have to get the mayor to the hospital. That nose looks bad,” the male EMT ordered, his nametag read “SHANN.”

Georgette turned her head so he couldn’t see her tears, nodding for them to take Roberta. “Willy, can you take me to the hospital too?”

“Anything, Georgie. Anything for you.”

Looking up at him, she smiled. Then, turning to Roberta, she winked tears from her eyes, making a joke. “Anything? Well, aren’t I special?” The male EMT helped Roberta up by the elbow and guided her into the back of the ambulance. “I’ll be right behind you,” Georgette reassured her.