The Jezebel Remedy (9 page)

“We'll still have the kittens to remind you of Lettie and the good old days. They'll probably despise you,” he joked. “Hiss and spit at you and plague your ankles with sharp claws.”

“Or bow when they see me.”

“Just one damn time,” Joe was saying to Harlowe Fain, “I wish I could come in here to buy my groceries and cold beer and not be pounced on by some club selling brooms or cookies or gigantic, seven-dollar candy bars. Or the fire department pushing raffle tickets for a shotgun or a curio cabinet, whatever the hell that is. Or a church group hawking tracts and begging money for the ‘youth group's missionary trip to Orlando.' Could I please, just once, walk into Food Lion and not get
pestered like I'm a tourist in Bangladesh? I swear, you have to factor in an extra five panhandle bucks for every trip to the store.”

“My favorite,” Harlowe drawled, “is the clubs what sell the damn Krispy Kremes for two dollars a box more than you can pick 'em up inside off the shelf. Why in the world they let all these people pitch camp right at the entrance is beyond me. I've mentioned it to Dudley, and he always says, ‘Corporate makes the call, not me.' Even though he's the store manager, he can't politely tell the cup shakers and crusaders to leave folks the hell alone. My wife's constantly buying chances for those baskets—‘Longburgers,' or some crap like that—they dragoon the schoolkids into hustling. Try to shame your ass if you don't come across with the cash. What a racket.”

Joe and Harlowe were leaning on shopping carts in front of the meat counter. It was near the middle of February, and several grimy mounds of snow were in the corners of the parking lot, the remnants of ferocious weather the week before. Students had missed school for three consecutive days, and the weight of the snow and ice had brought down so many power lines that most of Henry County had been without electricity the better part of a week, houses heated by kerosene and firewood, lit by candles and Coleman lanterns. Still, people were accustomed to it and made do. The Stones owned a generator that allowed them running water and an oven, and Joe kept their woodstove and fireplace hot, burning oak and poplar he'd split with an ax and a maul and stacked chest-high back in September.

“How's your son making out at Tech?” Joe asked. “What's this, his second year?”

“He's a senior,” Harlowe answered. “Hard to believe, huh?”

“Yeah, jeez, where does the time go?”

“He's doin' fine. He'll graduate on schedule, and he ain't been in no trouble that me and his mom know about. I figure that's 'bout all you can expect.” Harlowe smiled, proud. He traced his bush of a mustache, ran his thumb down one side, his index finger down the other. “He wants to get into this green-energy deal. They say there's money in it. Damn sure ain't nothin' for him here.”

“Good for him. Tell him I asked after him.”

“He remembers how you helped him with that bullshit marijuana charge over in juvenile court. A clean record means a lot to him now.”

“Glad to do it,” Joe said. “He's a great kid.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“You guys busy at work? Keeping things straight?”

“Same crap, new day.” Harlowe was the 911 director for the county. Until the plant closed, he'd been a dress-shirt-and-khakis supervisor at DuPont, drew a paycheck almost double the size of his current salary. “Of course, I have to say our traffic's down considerably since we lost your girlfriend, Miss VanSandt. She was truly a pain in the ass. Can't say I miss her. Old bitch cursed me once 'cause I wouldn't listen to her complaints on her ice cream. She was bonkers because it was out of sequence. The three-color package. Neapolitan. According to her, it was supposed to be strawberry first, then vanilla, then chocolate. Hers was different, so she figures the smart decision is to bother us. She called 911 and the sheriff's office like we was the damn morning chatterbox show on WHEE or her own private consumer hotline.”

Benny the butcher appeared and handed Joe a package of steaks. The meat was on a white Styrofoam tray, wrapped in tight plastic. “Two nice strips, my friend,” he said. “Hope you enjoy them. Send my regards to your wife.”

“Appreciate it.” Joe set his steaks in the foldout kid's seat and aimed the cart toward the beer cooler. “Well, I'm sure Lettie was a handful,” he said to Harlowe. “Probably a lot of that was just because she was alone.”

“To her credit, her last call was a doozy. She went out in a blaze. Crazy as a shithouse rat.”

“Really?”

“Yep. She was claiming it was end-times and other nonsense. Yelling and carryin' on about Mystery Babylon and a woman in purple come to do her harm. She was positively biblical. Threatenin' to kill people. It was a real A-plus performance, even for her. I'd award it a blue ribbon, and she set a damn high standard.”

That night, Lisa met M. J. Gold at the Dutch Inn Lounge, a hotel bar that had been jerry-rigged and ventilated to accommodate smokers
after Virginia restricted indoor cigarettes. The bar was located in the top section of a huge fake windmill, and the two of them were sipping mediocre margaritas made from a jug mix and house tequila and enjoying a fresh pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights. It was Thursday, so a couple of plump, oblivious women who fancied themselves talents took turns doing karaoke tunes, both of them comically average, mangling an occasional note, screeching the refrain of “Dream On” and oversinging—eyes shut, chin quivering—the shopworn standards like “Crazy” and “Wind Beneath My Wings.” The younger of the two, whose name was Clarisse, had recorded her own CD she sold from her table and at several local convenience stores. A drunk welder with a longneck beer and his lanky brother sang “Brick House,” were much more entertaining than the women and earned cheers and applause from M.J. and Lisa.

Lisa didn't care for the lounge, but M.J. liked it because it was the only place in Henry County where she could both smoke and drink, and she still felt at ease with men who burned their names into their belt leather and didn't change out of their Red Wings and blue shirts before stopping for the cheese-sticks-and-draft special on the way home from Wimbash's Garage or the Kendall Lumberyard. There were some Main Street regulars there, too, an off-duty bailiff from general district court, an insurance agent eating a burger with his gin and tonic, a dental hygienist with blond extensions and circus breasts and a Caché top who'd been married and divorced more than once, the first go-round to a local boy with a dab of coin. The hygienist flipped her hair and stared at them. Lisa gave it straight back to her.

M.J. was subdued. She was also soon a full drink ahead of Lisa. In the last month, she'd had to fire several employees from her equipment businesses. “This shit is getting dire,” she said. “The economy's a mess.”

“Are you okay?” Lisa asked. “Moneywise, I mean?”

“Yeah, sure. We're just hunkering down and riding it out. Me, I've got years and years of profit salted away.” She hit her Marlboro and blew smoke toward the ceiling. “And we're full at the apartments. People losing their houses…”

“Maybe it'll turn around.”

“It might if we didn't have a bunch of moronic pimps managing the
government. I swear to god, Lisa, I'd rather have the mafia in charge. I would. With them, you at least get what you pay for, some degree of competency, and the shakedowns are predictable and the costs reasonable. I say let's tar and feather the whole bunch of politicians and send them home and hire a competent CEO and let her run the show for a year or two. Seriously, look at who we have in charge. That guy Harry Reid should be the substitute weekend weatherman for Channel 10, that would be about at the top of his skill level, and the Republican clown, what's his name? Boner?”

“Boehner,” Lisa corrected her.

“Yeah, that tool's an obvious sot who looks like the Grinch's tropical island cousin. And poor Barack is your brother-in-law the dentist, right down to the mommy jeans and know-it-all lectures.”

Lisa laughed. She sipped her drink, set it on a waterlogged napkin and started laughing again. “But you're not in any trouble?” she finally asked.

“Still rich. Rich enough to be erratic and not suffer because of it.”

“Good.”

As M.J. was reaching for their pack of smokes, a tall man wearing a wool blazer and dark slacks walked to their table, and his stilted, static smile and his slightly tucked chin and the casual way he dangled his beer bottle all signaled his intentions, and he stopped next to them and nodded, said hello. “I'm Paul Rourke,” he announced. “Nice to meet you.”

Lisa shook his hand, her expression noncommittal.

M.J. had worked a cigarette free from the pack, and as she raised it, he bent toward her with a blue plastic Bic and she leaned slightly sideways to meet the flame. The union was quick and precise, the Marlboro's tip burning orange in a second, the lighter extinguished, a smoke trail languishing, nowhere to go, unable to rise in the dense air. “Thanks,” she said. She also shook his hand.

“I hope I'm not bothering you ladies,” he told them. “Just thought I'd come over and meet you.”

“Where're you from?” M.J. asked.

“Dayton. I'm here on business.” He was still standing, closer to M.J. than to Lisa.

“What business?” M.J. wanted to know.

“Wholesale lumber. Bassett Furniture's a customer.”

“Used to be nothing but furniture plants here,” M.J. said. “Pretty slim pickings nowadays.”

Rourke shrugged. “I hear you.” He switched his beer from one hand to the other but didn't drink. “Mind if I ask your names?”

“I'm Lisa, Lisa Stone.” She was pleasant. Paul Rourke seemed nice enough, and she could tell M.J. wasn't aggravated by his being there.

“I'm M. J. Gold. From Raleigh.”

Rourke slanted his head, touched his chin. “The business lady? Heavy equipment, right?”

“Yep.” M.J. poked around in her margarita with a thin red stir stick, jabbing ice toward the bottom of her glass.

“I read a piece on you not long ago. In one of the trade magazines. ‘Everything Turns to Gold,' it was called. Or something like that.”

“I remember it. It was a nice article.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you.” Rourke's tone had changed, and his words were rushed, clipped. He took an awkward half-step away from the women, probably wasn't aware he'd done it. He transferred the bottle again, then swallowed some beer. “I was going to offer to buy you a drink, but I might be out of my depth with you ladies.”

“Not at all,” M.J. told him. “I appreciate the courtesy. My friend Lisa's married, so don't waste the money on her. Tell you what—why don't you send me another margarita, and your next beer will be on us.”

Rourke seemed relieved. “Sounds fair.”

Lisa noticed the three companions at his table, watching bug-eyed, grinning, one of them elbowing the other. She recognized Joel Hammond, a vice president at Bassett. She'd represented his first wife in their divorce. He was now on number four.

“I take it you're single?” M.J. said.

“Divorced about a year. Married for sixteen. It's a new world for me, I can promise you that much. Still gettin' the hang of it.”

“Ah. Well, you're a nice-looking man. Very charming. I doubt you'll be on the market too long. Makes me wish I weren't dating someone.” She took an elaborately engraved case from her purse, then stood and handed Rourke a calling card. “My contact information and my
telephone number. Like I said, I have a steady boyfriend, but it was nice of you to make the effort to come over and visit us.” She sat again. “And if you ever need any equipment or radio advertising, let me know.”

“Yeah, I sure will.” He dug his wallet from his hip pocket and handed her his card. It was dog-eared at both top corners. “I'll order your drink. Lisa's too. Even though she's married.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Lisa echoed.

“Okay, then. Great. Pleased to meet you.” He returned to his table and huddled and talked with the three men there, and they all did a poor job of attempting to appear casual and less than fascinated.

“Paul Rourke seems like a good egg,” M.J. said.

“True, I suppose, but why'd you give him your phone number?”

“Hell, Lisa, it's my business phone. It's not like I sit in the lobby at the reception desk and answer the calls myself. Plus, how hard is it to find my numbers? And why not, huh? Nice guy, not creepy. Not pushy. Why be a bitch because he thought we were attractive enough to hit on? Good for him, I say. And I didn't want to castrate him in front of his buddies, now did I?”

“He did have a pleasant vibe.” Lisa glanced at Rourke's table, then at the karaoke machine. A spotlight was trained on the small stage. A row of colored bulbs was also burning, the reds, yellows and blues mingling with the smoke and blending the hues near the machine. A man was playing a video trivia game at the bar. “Still, it must be sad to live on the road like that, traveling and selling and drinking with people—especially shit-heels like Joel Hammond—you're kind of acquainted with in hopes of moving a few more units or hitting your quota.”

“Well, not necessarily, and I should know, shouldn't I? You sure are grim and pessimistic recently. I'd rather think he just landed a big sale and is enjoying free drinks on a corporate expense account. Chatting up pretty girls like us.” A waitress brought two margaritas, and they raised them in Rourke's direction. He replied by lifting his beer. “I tell you what's sad: Some laid-off banker or fired teacher at a mall kiosk, pushing miracle cleaner or nail buffers or log-home kits or cell-phone
accessories or time-share deeds. A kiosk, not even a real store, mind you, just an aisle shanty.
That's
down in the heels. I can't even look at them. I hate it for 'em. Hurts.”