“You’re awesome,” Melody said and then quickly looked down at her feet.
And I am a gigantic
goober.
She needed to take a page from Raleigh’s book and learn when to keep her mouth shut.
“Melody…”
“Yes?” she asked, hoping that he wasn’t going to tell her what a great friend she was. But did friends hold hands? An image of Zellie and Claire holding hands and skipping down the hall like a couple of jackasses at school two years ago popped into her head.
“Melody, I’d really…” he curled his lips into his mouth and pressed them together, thinking. “I…” he sighed. “Do you think you could have your sister drive me to my car tomorrow? Roger says I should be good to go by then.” He looked away from her. “It’s still parked in the lot at the head of the trail.”
“Oh, sure. Yeah. I’ll ask her.” Melody tried to slide her hand from his, but he held tight.
“That’s totally not what I wanted to ask you.” Raleigh laughed nervously. He turned to her and brought his other hand up to her face. “I, uh, wanted to ask you if I could kiss you, but my lips are chappy and gross and we’ve only known each other a day and that seems ridiculous, but then again a lot of things in our lives are ridiculous, so…” He leaned in, licking his lips.
They aren’t that chapped. Okay, they are, but who the hell cares? Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!!
The screen door creaked open behind them and they pulled away from each other. Melody whipped around to find Zellie and Roger standing there.
“Sorry for the interruption, boy and girl, but it’s time for my patient to rest and get another bag of saline into his body,” Roger said, stepping forward and offering Raleigh a hand up. “Don’t worry kid, I’ve got some lip balm that will do wonders. You’ll get another chance.”
“Yeah, we better get going, Mel.” Zellie gave her a remorseful look and mouthed “sorry.”
Melody stood up and pretended to brush dirt from the front of her shorts.
So this was what mortification felt like?
She was not a fan. “Okay. I’ll be in the car,” she said shortly. “See you tomorrow, Raleigh.”
“See you. It was nice talking to you.” Raleigh grabbed the edge of the screen door and followed Roger inside.
“Mel, I really am sorryî-
“Remember when I said that I was going to talk about it one time and one time only?” Melody put her bare feet up on the dashboard.
“Yup.”
“Okay then.” She took out her cell phone and dialed Claire.
“Yo,” Claire answered.
“How are the t-shirt sales going?”
“Ugh. It’s dumb. I’m just sitting here in the heat under a stupid tent and passing them out. I don’t even get to handle any monies. A child could do this job.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Avery interjected, taking the phone away from Claire. “Hey, honey.”
“It’s Melody, you dork, not Zellie.”
“Oops, sorry Mel. Honey retraction.”
“
Anyways,
” Melody drew out, “I do have an actual question for Claire.”
“I’ll give the phone back to her. See you guys at the picnic.”
Claire got back on the phone. “Yes?”
“The guys are coming into town tonight and-“
“Awesome! I’ve sure missed those dudes. Well, not Christopher, but Frank and Beans fer shure.”
“Yeah, me too. Like I was saying, they need a place to stay. Do you have any rooms at The Lodge?”
“Hmm. We’re all booked up, but I did get a suite for us all to stay in after the party tonight. I guess they could stay in the suite and we could bunk at the fortress of solitude, a.k.a. my house.”
“That’d be perfect. Thanks. I’ll text Ben and let him know.”
“Cool. Lemme talk to Zel for a second.”
“She’s driving.”
“Well, tell her to pull over. It’s of the highest import.”
Melody rolled her eyes. “Zellie, Claire needs to talk to you. Can you pull over?”
“Tell her I’ll just stop by and see her at The Lodge.”
“We’re coming to see you.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be the one passing out lame t-shirts to people in preppy clothing.” She ended the call.
Melody threw the phone on top of her bag and leaned her head back against the seat, hoping to get a little Raleigh play-by-play running through her mind.
“So, the boys can stay at The Lodge?” Zellie asked.
Melody fought the urge to growl at her sister. “Yes, and Raleigh helped me figure out a way to keep them stranded up there until at least tomorrow, which will buy me more time until I can come up with a long term plan. Did you find out if Roger told Aunt Hazel anything about Raleigh?”
“He didn’t. Apparently she’s not talking to him. When I asked if he’d heard from her lately he said that she was “miffed” at him for growing medical marijuana and refused to speak to him until he’d torched his crop.”
“Nice.” Melody giggled. “Is he going to torch it in the name of freaky geriatric love?”
“Oh, no. He said he was standing firm on this issue and that he had permits to grow and Hazie ought to let him win an argument once a decade.”
“Sounds like Roger’s a little miffed himself.”
“Sounds like.”
Melody stayed in the car while Zellie ran over to the t-shirt stand at the edge of the parking lot to talk to Claire and Avery. She watched as Zellie nodded to Claire and then gave Avery a kiss. Her sister was so comfortable with her friend and boyfriend, something she’d never felt herself even when she’d had a whole posse of friends. Well, they hadn’t really been friends, more like followers. People to laugh at her stupid jokes and tell her how pretty she was.
What a bunch of bullshit.
Melody’s stomach twisted as Daniel walked over to Zellie and handed her a piece of paper. More Zellie head-shaking. What could be on that paper? Did Daniel remember? Was he going to tell? She slipped her feet into her flip flops and was about to open the car door when her sister waved goodbye to everyone and walked back toward her.
Zellie smiled as she got into the car, handing the paper to Melody. She quickly unfolded it and saw that it was Daniel’s phone number.
Her sister giggled. “He introduced himself to me and asked if you’d ever mentioned him.”
Melody exhaled. “He doesn’t remember.”
“Nope. He doesn’t remember. Looks like something finally went our way.”
“Thank God. Maybe it’s a good omen for the rewind.”
Zellie started up the car. “Speaking of which, we’ve got to hurry. I need to put my sundress on and you’ve got to grab the potato salad.”
“Rosedell, ho!”
“I thought I told you not to call me that.”
Chapter Thirteen
I opened my eyes and stepped out of Dad’s car onto the blacktop of the church parking lot.
“Any new info?” Melody asked.
“Nope.” My glimpse and my vision had matched up again and had ended at the same point.
Melody reached into the front seat, grabbed the bowl of potato salad and handed it to me. “Let’s get the show on the road.”
Everything played out as I had seen. The potato salad on the table, Dad tugging up the back of my dress, Mrs. Carlton asking me to get the spoons. As I exited the church into the parking lot and fell into step next to Dory and Cybil Knapp, I glanced over at Melody standing next to Dad’s car. She held a disposable cell phone to her ear. I felt better knowing that Dory Knapp would be behind bars within the hour.
“Happy Fourth of July,” I said.
“Happy Fourth,” Dory replied, reaching down and adjusting her mother’s sun hat. My skin crawled watching her touch Mrs. Knapp.
“Ouch!” I commented, pointing at the bruise.
Dory adjusted the hat quickly. “Yes, Mother sometimes forgets where she is. She took a nasty tumble down the cellar stairs a few days ago thinking she was walking into the bathroom.”
Or, you pushed her.
We came to the edge of the yard. I waited a few seconds while Dory struggled to get the chair up the little hill.
“Here, let me help,” I said finally, trying to keep my feelings in check. If I hadn’t needed to get to the end of this to meet Christopher’s mom I swear I would’ve slapped Dory a good one across the back of the head with a metal spoon. I got in front of the wheelchair. “Can I set these on your lap for a second?” I asked Mrs. Knapp. She squinted her eyes at me.
“She probably doesn’t understand what you’re saying. Go ahead and set em there, she won’t know the difference.”
I tucked the spoons in between her folded hands and her belly. Grabbing onto both arms of the chair, I pulled on it while Dory pushed. With one great heave we got the chair up the little hill and onto the part of the yard that was easier to navigate. I reached for the spoons.
Mrs. Knapp clasped onto my wrist and held tight. I looked at her hand on me and longed to give her a sign that her abuse was almost over.
“Mother, let Zellie go.” When she didn’t comply, Dory got in her face and spoke loudly. “Mother. That’s Zellie, the pastor’s daughter. Let her be.”
I squatted down in front of the old woman and met her gaze. “Everything okay, Mrs. Knapp? You remember me? I visited you with my mom sometimes. You’re at the church picnic with your daughter Dory.”
She dug her nails deeper into my wrist, her eyes going from blank to terror. She shimmied her right knee until the light blanket that had been covering it fell away. My gaze went to Mrs. Knapp’s swollen and bruised leg poking out underneath the hem of her skirt.
Dory jerked her mother’s chair and I fell back on my butt, catching myself with my hands so that I didn’t bang my tailbone up too badly. Dory dragged the wheelchair onto the blacktop, sending the spoons clattering to the ground.
And now for some good ol’ slander...
“Don’t you say a word, Zellie Wells,” she hissed at me, her voice low. “Everyone knows you’re a slut and a liar.”
I pretended to be shocked. What a bitch.
Dory wheeled around and took off across the parking lot, jostling the blanket from her mother’s lap. It slid to the ground, getting wrapped up in the foot rests.
“Damn it!” Dory cursed, hauling back and kicking at the chair. It lurched forward, the blanket coming loose.
I looked behind me and saw Dad and Avery running toward me. Three...two...one.
“Stop! I said stop!”
Dory reached her car, which was parked on the edge of the lot by the street, and took her keys from her pocket. She pushed her mother’s wheelchair as hard as she could into the street and jumped into her car.
I ran toward the street with my arms outstretched and grabbed hold of the handlebars as Dory drove over the sidewalk and clunked into the road. The motorcyclist whipped around the corner, driving directly into Dory’s path and swerving to avoid her. My hand shot out as fireworks went off behind me; Melody had timed her diversion perfectly. I rewound the motorcycle back two feet with one hand while I pulled Mrs. Knapp’s chair out of the way with the other. The sirens from a police car blared and it stopped sideways in the street, blocking Dory’s exit. I dropped my hand down, allowing the motorcyclist to proceed forward. The bike jerked to the side, but the driver righted it and avoided crashing into the car.
“Oh, dear Lord!” Mrs. Knapp said. Melody came running up and wheeled her out of the street.
The motorcyclist slowed and turned around. She stopped right next to me and flipped up the visor on her helmet. “Good girl.” She winked. Stripping off the driving glove she was wearing, she held her bare right hand out to me. I took it.
An expanse of blue sky, wispy white clouds smeared across it. Rust colored foothills. The desert, boulders and brush blending into marshland at the edge of a body of water. A cow fence. A gravel service road. Up to the left a teepee and a wooden sign that is too far away for me to read.
She squeezed my hand and then let go. “Tell Christopher that I love him and I’ll see him soon.” She smiled. “I’ve gotta get this body to the hospital before it gives out on me. I may have been a bit more adventurous with it than it was used to.” She flipped her visor down and sped away.
All around me, chaos erupted. The police pulled Dory from her car and handcuffed her. An ambulance passed Christopher’s mom coming from the other end of the street. Dad was standing next to Mrs. Knapp now, comforting her. He caught my eye and gave me a look I hadn’t seen in a long time. Pride.
Melody had somehow talked Avery into doing crowd control. They waved everyone back toward the food. Avery was holding the spent fireworks in his hand, assuring people that there wasn’t any gunfire.
Officer Crawford from the day before approached me. “Hello, Miss Wells. I’m Officer Crawford. I need to get a statement from you.”
We walked over and stood in the driveway next to the ambulance.
“How did you know my name?” I asked, glancing over at Mrs. Knapp as the paramedics tended to her.
Crawford chuckled. “Dory is cussing you something awful.”
“Oh well.” I shrugged.
“I don’t suppose it was you that made the anonymous call to the police?”
“Nope, I just saw Dory push her mom into the street and went after her.”
He pulled his notebook out of his pocket. “Tell me everything that happened.”
After Dory had been taken to jail and Mrs. Knapp took an ambulance to the hospital, the congregation had simmered down enough to eat. Everyone sat around the long plastic tables the women’s bible study group had set up on the lawn and talked about what surely was the most exciting church picnic
ever
.
Melody, Avery, Mom and I sat at the end of a table together. I tried not to let all the people whispering and staring at me get under my skin. I accomplished this by focusing my efforts on the three large scoops of potato salad I’d dished out onto my plate. What can I say? I’m a fan.
“I thought you could use another one of these,” Dad said, setting an icy bottle of water in front of me next to the other two I’d already downed. The new assistant pastor and his wife, an attractive brunette couple in their late twenties, hovered behind him.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“That was really heroic what you did today.” The pastor stepped around Dad and offered his hand to me. “Dave Dodson.”