“That's it!” Robin said cheerfully. “He's really sensitive, you know.”
Oh God, it was worse than he thought. He had a sensitive nephew. Nooo, nooo… not good. Sensitive boys made for very strange men.
“What's that?” Robin asked.
“What's what?”
“That. That sort of grunting sound you're making.”
“I'm not making any grunting sound.”
“See there? You did it again. What's the matter, haven't you ever had a devastating crush on a girl before?”
Actually, he had one so devastating at the moment he thought he might just crash and burn with it, t hank you very much. But Jake snorted at her question, leaned back, looked out the window as they taxied down the runway. That idiot kid—so what if his girl sat with another guy? It didn't mean anything. And he'd remind himself of that the next time Mr. Pompous Ass showed up at Robin's, instead of thinking how to rub the smirk off his face.
The plane lifted, the sharp ascent pushing his stomach back to his spine.
“So?” Robin asked, oblivious to the plane's laboring up the incline. “Have you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, even I have had a crush on a girl. But tell me something—were you able to get all of this out of him in one afternoon?”
“Yep. And the thing about how you don't listen to him.”
Great. Fantastic. Not only did they have time to discuss all of Cole's insecurities, they had time to discuss Uncle Jake's shortcomings, too. “I probably don't,” he admitted curtly. “Because he whines all the damn time.”
Robin clucked at him. “He's fourteen. Fourteen-year-olds whine.”
“Okay, you want to know the truth?” he asked, irked that she could have divined so much information from Cole when he could barely get him to respond. “I don't like Cole. Don't get me wrong—I love him. He's my nephew. And I would give my right arm to see him happy and to escape the life we had growing up. But I don't like him.”
Instead of gasping with shock and indignation for saying such a horrid thing about his own nephew, Robin chuckled and shook her head. “Jake, you're so funny! He's fourteen. Everyone knows that fourteen-year-olds are very hard to like. Believe me, I had two sisters who were fourteen at one time and they were impossible to like. But the difference is, I think, that they were so full of themselves they were in danger of bursting. Cole doesn't seem to know where he fits in and doesn't feel like he belongs anywhere or to anyone. I think he's kind of lost. Understandable—he said you and your mom argue about who has to take him.”
“No, we argue about who wants to take him,” Jake angrily clarified.
“See? He doesn't like himself, so he sees it all upside down. It's tough for anyone to feel unwanted, but especially for a teenager, you know.”
He knew. He looked at her in wonder. “How'd you get so smart?”
Robin shrugged, flicked an imaginary piece of lint off her jacket. “I don't know… I guess I'm just extra brilliant. Or maybe because twenty years later, I still feel that way. I really do relate to him,” she said and glanced up at Jake. “Do you think that's strange?”
“No. What I think is strange is that I am struggling to relate to him, but I don't really understand why. He's just like my brothers and I were growing up—angry, defiant, rebellious… but for some reason, I can't seem to see the world through his eyes.”
“That's because you had hope,” she said matter-of-factly and studied a cuticle as if it was the most obvious conclusion in the world. Yet the suggestion clanged like a bell in Jake. It was so plainly obvious, so simple, that he was stunned he had not realized it before. Of course Cole had no hope— he had lost his father and his mother, his grandmother was a disciplinarian, one uncle was in prison, and the other… well, the other yelled at him for the most part.
It was a thought that lodged deep in Jake's brain and his heart as their discussion turned from Cole to what Ross had been like as a kid, how Jake could see so much of his
brother in Cole. By the time Pete came on the intercom and announced they were descending toward Burdette, Robin was laughing at the tale of Jake's first date ever, and a double one at that, with Ross and the Dewley twins. He had been maybe fifteen at the time, and yes, he had been obsessed with Sara Dewley.
The plane landed on an old, pitted runway, bouncing like a rubber ball as it shuddered to a stop. Robin leaned forward again, looked out the portal window, and winced. “It's worse than I imagined.” They saw a dilapidated old metal building, and beyond that, the stacks of a smelting plant. When the plane shuddered to a stop and Pete opened the door, they were instantly assaulted by the smell of sardines or something very much like it.
“Processing plant,” Pete offered helpfully at their twin grimaces. Exchanging wary glances, Jake and Robin waited for a young man with a red baseball hat to push the stairs up to the plane.
Robin made a careful ascent to the bottom of the stairs. The young man eyed Jake as he came down behind her. “Where y'all from?”
“ Houston ,” Jake responded while Robin straightened her clothing and glanced around.
“You the ones for Wirt?”
“Yes,” Robin said, eyeing the man. “How did you know?”
“Oh, 'cuz Girt sent someone to pick you up.” He pointed in the direction of the metal building. Jake and Robin turned their heads.
Robin gasped.
Jake instantly put an arm around her waist and muttered, “Don't panic.”
Like hell she wasn't going to panic!
The… conveyance… was an ancient pickup, which appeared to have been white at one time, but was now a fleshy color with a red fender, a silver hood, and a steel bumper. A man was sitting in the driver's seat with the door open, one leg propped on the running board, an oily baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. He spit on the tarmac, looked up, and waved lazily at Jake and Robin.
“That's Bob,” the kid said. “Girt sent him for you.”
But Robin had already moved past Bob and was paralyzed by the sight of the two salvaged captain chairs, propped up in the bed of the truck against the cab, facing backward. “Ohmigod,” she muttered, frantically wondering how in the hell she would ever get in the back of that truck, much less ride in it. There was no amount of bubble wrap in the world worth ruining her Versace suit, and Styrofoam peanuts damn sure weren't worth the humiliation. Oh no. Nononono—
“Deep breaths,” Jake reminded her.
“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “I won't ride in that. I won't get near that!”
“Come on, it's not the end of the world—”
“YES, IT IS!” she whispered, frantically grabbing his arm. “Yes yes yes it is! I can't do it! I can't! I'm wearing VER-SA-CE!”
“I am sure you can dry-clean fur sashi,” Jake said in all earnestness as he attempted to peel her fingers from their death grip of his arm.
“I am not riding in that,” she said again. “I won't do it!” She whipped around to the kid in the red baseball hat. “YO! There has to be another way into town. A taxi service? A rental car?”
“Bob don't mind taking you.”
“You don't understand,” she said, letting go of Jake's arm and marching to where the kid was standing. “I can't ride in that truck.” He looked confused. “Okay, look at that,” she said, gesturing insistently to the truck, “and look at me. Do I look like I belong in that truck?”
“Lady, you don't look like you even belong in this state!”
“That's right!” she cried, relieved. “So how else can we get into town?”
“Bob's all we got.”
Robin gaped at him, unable to absorb it, unable to see herself in the back of the pickup truck, no matter how hard she tried, not even on acid. Never. Not doing it.
“Robin, you're making a bigger deal out of this than it is.”
Oh fine. Fix-it Fred thought she was just being a big baby. What did he know? “Hey, you may be used to this, but I'm certainly not! I'm not dressed to ride around in the back of a pickup truck!”
“Before you get your panties in a wad, I'm sure ol' Bob intends for you to ride in the front with him. I'll ride in the back.”
He had to be kidding.
“It's not that big a deal,” he continued. “This isn't Houston . Sometimes you gotta go along to get along. And I'm not afraid of ruining my fur sashi.”
She wished he'd quit saying Versace like it was some sort of synthetic fiber.
Bob, a long and lanky fellow, was now walking toward them, his hands in his pockets.
“Now listen,” Jake added, wrapping his hand around Robin's wrist as the kid started to drag the stairs away from the jet, “let me offer a little piece of friendly advice. If you don't have anything nice to say about a man's truck, then just don't say anything at all. If you dis the truck, you dis the man. Got it?”
“Huh?” she asked, but Bob was upon them and Jake was already extending his hand in greeting.
“How you doing? Jake Manning. And this is Miss Lear.”
Bob took his hand, shook it vigorously. “Bob Lamke. Girt asked me to give you folks a ride into town.” He shifted his gaze to Robin. “Bob Lamke,” he said again, offering his hand.
Grease was caked beneath his fingernails; Robin quickly hid her hands, ignored Jake's dark frown, and said, “T hank s for coming to pick us up.”
“Oh…” Bob dropped his hand. “Well, if you're ready,” he said, motioning to the truck.
Robin nodded mutely. Jake slipped his hand over hers, gave her a hard squeeze, leaned over as they fell in behind Bob, and whispered, “You better step down off your little pedestal, girl.”
Whatever. She was not going to start making deals in the bed of an old pickup truck, no matter how natural that might seem to Handy Andy.
Surprisingly, Bob's truck was not nearly as filthy as Robin had imagined—-Jake was right; it appeared Bob took great care of it. On the inside, there were two different captain chairs with a large console between them, which, judging by the look of it, had been modified in someone's backyard. From Bob's rearview mirror hung a Christmas tree odor eater, and on the dash, a bobble-head New Orleans Saints football player smiled at her. The seat was actually clean, and Jake complimented an openly proud Bob on his redo of the bed before jumping effortlessly over the side and settling into the captain chair directly behind Robin.
Bob pumped the gas a couple of times, then started the
thing up. “Girt asked me to drive you through town,” he shouted over the muffler-less engine. “We'll take a little tour of the plant after we're through this afternoon.”
“Through? Through with what?”
Bob looked at her in surprise. “She didn't tell you? Saturday's bowling day!”
No, it wasn't a cruel joke the universe was playing on her; she wasn't even hallucinating—she was, apparently, alive and well and standing in the middle of a bowling alley. This, of course, after the scenic route through town, which included a drive-by of the smelting plant, the new Super Wal-Mart, and the town square, where Christmas decorations still hung. “They save money that way,” Bob informed her.
But the Rock-n-Bowl was the town's crowning glory. The moment Bob opened the tinted glass doors, a rush of stale air smelling like smoke and popcorn permeated her brain; and the sound of balls and pins so loud she could hardly hear Bob tell her to get her shoes. It took a moment for that to sink in, the hilarious notion that he actually expected her to bowl. She started to shake her head, but felt Jake's hand on the small of her back and he pushed her forward, to the counter.
“Tell them what size,” he said gruffly. “Remember, when in Rome …”
Rome , hell! Too stunned to even think, Robin muttered her shoe size. The man put a pair of red-and-purple bowling shoes on the counter, then red- and-green ones for Jake, which he promptly picked up. “And smile. Sop looking so damned horrified.”
But she was horrified. She had expected to breeze into town, have a short but intense discussion with Eldagirt— who had yet to make an appearance, by the way—and be home in time for cocktails with Cecilia in River Oaks. Not once, astonishingly enough, had the thought of bowling crossed her mind. Worse, Jake seemed completely unfazed
by it, and much, much worse, looked as if he was actually excited by the prospect.
He nudged her with his elbow to follow Bob. “Lookit, you're going to piss everyone off if you keep looking so miserable,” he muttered low.
What about her? What if she was a little pissed off about this sudden turn of events?
“Now come on, Robin. This is Burdette and it is a Saturday,” he reminded her.
“You cannot be serious,” she whispered hotly as they descended into the lane area. “You cannot possibly think that it is all right to do business like this!”
“Why not? Its just one step removed from doing business on the golf course.”
Ahead of them, Bob stopped at a plastic picnic table bolted to the floor. Around it, three women were seated.
“It is eons away from doing business on a golf course! At least that is civilized!” Robin said testily and stopped behind Bob, plastering a smile on her face. The three women, all in plus sizes, gave Robin a cool once-over as Bob explained she was the person Girt was expecting. But their eyeballs pretty much bulged two Tom-and-Jerry feet out of their sockets when Bob introduced Jake.
“Ladies,” Jake said with a smile, “I hope you don't mind if we crash your game.”
“Honey, you can crash whatever you want,” one said, and they all laughed.
Bob lackadaisically motioned to the women. 'This is Sylvia and Sue, and that's Reba."
“As in McIntyre,” Reba said, putting a pudgy hand to her hair.
“Pleasure to meet you. I'm Jake, and this is Robin.”
Not one of them took their eyes from Jake. Sue dragged long on a cigarette she held between two sausage-like fingers, eyeballing him up and down. “Are you gonna bowl?”
“If you don't mind letting a hack join.”
“We don't mind!” Sue and Reba chimed at the exact same time.
“Where's Girt?” Bob asked.
Sylvia barely spared him a glance. “Running late. David's not feeling well today, I guess. But she said to get started without her.”
“Y'all better go on ahead. I imagine Girt's gonna need some help,” Bob said and turned and walked away, leaving Robin and Jake with the three Humpty-Dumptys.