Shop Talk (3 page)

“Forget it.” Bo had a sudden feeling of rising water, icy, black water. His feet went cold, then his shins. The numbness was moving up to his knees in a big time kind of hurry. He needed to get Driskell LaMont out of his life fast.

Driskell kept his attention on Bo. “I’m desperate for a job. I went to the bank today to rob it. When I saw your sister sitting there behind the glass, the lurid cover of that book hiding everything except her bat-winged eyebrows and that wine-colored hair, I couldn’t commit an act of aggression against her. I knew I didn’t have the right to rob her of her dreams just for my putrid survival.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Iris said.

Driskell ignored her. He looked up into Bo’s hazel eyes. “Please, Mr. Hare, give me a chance. I’m an excellent repairman. Let me tell you a little about my background. I think, as a small businessman, that you’ll understand. I came down here from Cranberry because I couldn’t take the toll highways anymore. I couldn’t drive to my job without paying tolls. Coming home I had to pay more tolls. Each day I resented it more and more. Another form of taxation foisted off on the citizens of this country. Taxation without representation. That’s what started our rebellion against the throne.”

Bo shook his head and tried not to listen. “I’m sorry, Mr. LaMont, I need some help but I’ve gotten used to working alone. I guess Iris and I prefer to have the shop to ourselves.”

“But that’s perfect.” Driskell rose slowly to his feet. He was not as tall as Bo and at least thirty pounds lighter. “I only work at night. I could come in after you close and repair the sets you haven’t gotten to. That way when the customers come back in the morning, you can simply hand them over.”

For a moment Bo was blinded by the vision of smiling customers lined up from his counter out the door and into Pass Road. They chatted among themselves as they swiftly approached the counter, forked over cash money, and took home their working televisions. There were no angry scowls, no threats because a part had not come in, or a set or VCR was not repairable.

Driskell sensed he was close. “I can repair microwaves and refrigerators. I can also refinish furniture and do a small amount of reupholstering. My mother ran a dress shop when I was a little boy and some of those women she sewed for were as big as sofas.” Driskell smiled. “I really love large women.”

Bo felt his wife’s gaze upon him and he looked at her. She lifted one shoulder as she lit a cigarette.

“Can you get me some references?”

“Of course.”

Driskell LaMont was a weird looking guy, Bo mused, but if he worked at night, the customers would never have to see him. With Driskell working, he and Iris could go out, maybe catch a flick on the big screen. Maybe go to the casinos, or for a walk on the beach. After ten years of owning his own business, he’d almost forgotten what the outside world was like.

“Let me look at your references,” he said carefully. “And it depends on how well you repair the skylight. I’ll call the glass shop and have them deliver the panes.”

“It’s a deal.” Driskell extended a thin, cold hand. His grasp was firm, even if his fingernails were a little long for a man.

“Come by tomorrow at noon,” Bo said, walking to the front door and pulling the key from his pocket.

“I really can’t make it up here until six o’clock.”

“But it will be dark by then.” Bo looked back at the gaping skylight.

“I know,” Driskell said. His smile was soft. “I know.”

“Lick your lips. That’s it, moist, slick, ready. That’s the look.” The short, slender man held the Nikon camera to his eye as he backed away from the tall blond who stood at the counter. She held a spring-form pan, her hands encased in paisley oven mitts. Her thin arms trembled, but her smile was radiant. She wore an aqua net apron and matching stiletto heels–and little else.

“Now prop your leg up on the counter. Good, point the toe. Great! That’s it! Tilt the pan toward the camera. Good! Lick your lips and give me that pouty look. Think peaches, Coco. Think of the juice brimming up in your mouth and getting ready to explode all down your chest. That’s it!” Lamar Kitchens snapped the shot, lowered his camera, and flopped down on the arm of Coco’s overstuffed sofa.

Coco Frappé lifted her foot off the high counter top. “Did you get a good shot of the cheesecake?” She looked at the photographer, who was winded and pale. Sickly. She wasn’t at all sure Walden was going to live through the shooting of the photos for her cookbook. If a little bit of punching a camera button could get him in such a state of huffing and puffing, the man was seriously out of shape.

“Don’t change your name to Walden,” Coco said as she sprang the sides of the pan to reveal a solid, dense yellow cake, the top just slightly split. “I think Lamar Kitchens is a perfectly nice name. It was the reason I picked you out of the phone book. You know, there are about a hundred photographers listed, and it was impossible to make a decision. Since I’m doing a cookbook, I thought Kitchens was the perfect name to have on the cover.”

Coco stood at the open utensil drawer staring down into it as she talked. She was completely unaware of her elegant beauty–or the object she’d opened the drawer to retrieve.

“Do you take your coffee black?” she asked, blinking.

“Sugar. No milk.”

She put the pig-shaped sugar bowl on the counter.

“I was telling you about my book cover. You know, I can see the cover now. There’ll be something very simple, like a cherry surrounded by a few squiggles of chocolate. All on a worn cutting board, pink background, of course.” Coco reached up into the air in front of her as if she were drawing the elements of the fantasy from thin air. “Can’t you see it?
De-Lush-ous!
That’s my title. By Coco Frappé, that would be in smaller type, of course, but something feminine and very pretty. Illustrations by Kitchens. That’s much better than Walden, which sounds like a big, dumb animal with ugly teeth.”

Coffee was perking in an old fashioned, red coffeepot with the paint nicked off the side in several places. He loved the sound, the smell, the combination of light from the kitchen window, and Coco moving across the hardwood floor.

“Where’s Elsie?” he asked, wondering about the roommate she constantly talked about.

Coco looked up, dark eyes full and round and afraid. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just hope she doesn’t come home until we finish.”

“She must be a real bitch.” Walden stood up. They’d been trying to arrange the kitchen photograph for a week, but Coco’s roommate had put up all kinds of hurdles. “I didn’t think she’d let us shoot here in your place.”

“I didn’t think she would either.” Coco cast a worried look at the door as she put two big slices of cheesecake on saucers along with two cups of coffee. She picked up her fork and waited.

Walden pulled the pig sugar bowl toward him. It was odious. The pig had an expression as if it were taking a dump, but it had long, black eyelashes and bright, red lips, emphasizing the strained look of the mouth below the pink snout. “Geez.” The word slipped before he could stop it.

“I know. It’s Elsie’s. She insists that we use it.” Coco shrugged and handed him a paper towel to use for a napkin. “When I’m published, I’m going to have my own place with beautiful china and crystal. Everything is going to match.”

Walden plunged his fork into the cheesecake and managed to insert the wedge into his mouth. “Great,” he said, chewing. He took a big swallow of coffee.

Cocoa watched the half-chewed cake move down his throat. There was something sad about him. Needy. He was like a dog that had never been fed good a single time in his entire life. She pushed her untouched plate of cheesecake toward him. “Go ahead. I never eat … the stuff.”

“It’s really good.” Walden had no shyness when it came to food. Since he’d never been overweight, he was unaware of the taboos. He glanced at Coco, who was twirling her spoon in her coffee. She was one skinny broad, but she photographed well. Extremely well. And he loved her sense of kitchen costuming. The net apron was like something from a wedding
and
a whore house. The glitter shoes, a pale aqua gel embedded with tiny flakes of sparkling gold, and the ribbons in her blond hair were the final bit of perfection. It was almost a miracle that Coco could cook. Maybe the book would stand a chance of getting published. A ‘cheesecake’ cookbook wasn’t a bad idea at all.

“Would you like another?” Coco held a piece in the air. When Walden pushed the plate at her, she dropped it with a solid slap. “I think we need to do the pecan pictures next. The leaves are just coming out so green and beautiful. I could get a bag of nuts and prop them against a tree trunk. I think a burlap apron is in order. Sort of thematic.”

“Maybe you could dangle a few squirrel tails …”

“I don’t think so!” Coco gave him a stern look. “That wouldn’t be very nice to the squirrels. I don’t wear fur and you shouldn’t either.”

Walden smiled. “You got an orchard in mind?”

Coco paused, her coffee cup forgotten halfway to her lips. “You pick the place, Walden. I’m just no good at making decisions.”

“River Road. Let’s make it six o’clock. Just as the sun peeks over the horizon.”

Coco nodded. “The light will be perfect.” She glanced at her wall clock. “Oh, my goodness. I was supposed to meet my friend, Dallas, at the mall before dinner.” She clumped her coffee cup on the counter and stood. “I have to change. I can’t be late for WOMB.”

“Miss, miss, is this the
only
book you have featuring talking dinosaurs?”

Jazz Dixon grasped the top shelf as the woman below her shook the ladder she was standing on.

“My little boy wants the one where the dinosaur shoots smoke and fire when he talks.” The woman shook the ladder harder, her voice petulant.

Jazz clung to the shelf for dear life but forced herself to show no fear. “Move away from the ladder,” she said in a low, deadly voice. “Move away from the ladder now.” She’d heard police officers use that same tone on TV. It was very effective. The chubby woman in the bright-pink spandex running pants and dirty white aerobic shoes moved back two feet. She clutched her snot-nosed kid by the hand. They both looked up at her with awe, and fear. Jazz felt a rush of satisfaction.

“Librarians aren’t supposed to be mean,” the woman said, a note of accusation creeping into her voice.

“Are you aware that there’s a literacy requirement at this library?” Jazz arched her carefully penciled eyebrows in a manner that she knew was intimidating. She’d learned it from her ex-husband, the cheap bastard. She felt a flush of anger climb her fair skin at the thought of him. He’d taken so much from her. Everything. Even her dreams. She slammed the book she was holding onto the shelf and started down the ladder with a speed that made the chubby woman gasp as she pulled her child in front of her, a human shield.

“You want talking dinosaurs, go to the movies.” Jazz jumped the last two steps and landed on the floor beside the woman. She narrowed her brown eyes. “You want entertainment, park your rump in front of the television. This is a library. This is a place where you come to appreciate language, to learn, to whisper!” She hissed the last word. “Now get out before I permanently revoke your library card!”

The woman backed away, holding her little boy by the shoulders. “I’m going to report you. I’m going right over and tell your boss.”

Jazz paced toward her with long, sliding steps. “I am the boss, you stupid twit. Report me to me? That’s an excellent idea. I think I’ll give myself a pay raise.”

The woman turned and fled, running down the maze of neatly shelved books. Jazz watched her go with satisfaction. In all probability that was the only time those ugly, dirty shoes had actually been worn for running. What gave people the idea that they had a right to come into a library and heap abuse on librarians?

She looked up at the top shelf where the old, dusty book on the clans of Scotland remained. Why had she even thought about looking at it? All of that was behind her. Gone. No, not gone. Stolen. Stolen by her ex. All of her notes, her genealogy work, the painstaking piecing together of
his
family tree,
his
past,
his
history. All of that work she’d done as she’d begun to weave the strands of fact and fiction, past and present, into the greatest Scottish novel ever written! A book grown out of her love for a man who could lay claim to a burnished coat of arms and a family past that was both savage and glorious. Somewhere in the recitation of his family genetic traits, Mac MacKissock had forgotten to mention lying, cheating, boozing, and stealing—the majority of his personal habits.

Damn Mac MacKissock. He’d stolen her heart, her car, her savings, and the manuscript of her nearly finished historical. He’d trampled her emotions and her dreams beneath his shipyard boots. Damn his blue-eyed soul to the deepest pits of sulfur-belching hell.

“Mrs. Dixon?”

Jazz looked up to see the young assistant librarian standing awkwardly at the edge of the aisle. “There’s a police officer to see you. He’s outside.”

“I’ll take care of it.” She straightened her back and marched through the library and out into the hot pink and bruised mauve April evening where the woman stood, one fat hip cocked obscenely, as she complained to the police officer.

“That’s her! That’s her!” The woman pointed at Jazz. “She threatened me and my baby, and all because we wanted more books with talking dinosaurs.”

The cop eyed Jazz, taking in her upswept beehive. He hadn’t seen a do like that since he was a junior in high school, and the woman was too young to have been part of the original bee-hive movement. The yellow sheath dress followed the lines of her figure. Nice. The matching daisy earbobs were kind of classy.

Jazz looked through her eyelashes at the policeman. “Officer, this woman clearly has a problem with authority.”

The woman’s mouth opened, slack. She looked at her little boy, who looked up at her.

“You’d better beat it, lady.” The cop lowered his jaw to his chest and looked her dead in the eyes. “I can see who the trouble maker is here. Move along, or I’ll take you to jail.”

The woman snatched up her boy’s hand and turned, dragging him behind her without a word.

“Thank you, officer,” Jazz said. Her smile was cool, professional. “You wouldn’t believe the types that come into the library these days. No respect for books. None for language. It’s depressing.”

“Well give her a free bed in the Biloxi ladies’ wing if she gives you any more trouble, Ms …”

“Dixon.” She liked the sound of her new name. It was a writer’s name. Perfect for her new book and her new life. Not a musty old historical name like Helen MacKissock–a shiny new name to go with a book that exposed the brutality of men and the suffering of the women who bravely loved them. “Jazz Dixon.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had dinner with a librarian with a musical name. Would you like to go out tonight? I was thinking of some sautéed soft-shell crabs, a few cold beers.” He smiled.

Jazz liked his teeth. They weren’t perfect, a little crooked and yellow. A real man’s teeth. And there was the hint of a beard at his jawline. Her eyes slid to his chest to see if she could detect body hair. She hated a man without body hair. The slick, nubile chest of some fair-skinned men made her feel as if she were doing something illegal.

“Say about seven o’clock. I could pick you up?” He waited for her answer.

Jazz looked at her wristwatch. It was nearly six o’clock. Wednesday was the evening the library stayed open late, and the sun was just beginning to set. The soft dusk of Mississippi spring was giving the entire street a fading, pinkish-gold glow. There was time—hell’s bells, it was Wednesday night. Writers of Mississippi Books met at six-thirty, sharp.

“I’m sorry, officer, I have a meeting tonight.”

“Yeah, my ex-wife used to go to those AA meetings.” He nodded knowingly.

“Not AA, W-O-M-B.”

“Womb?” His gaze dropped to her belly.

“Womb,” Jazz repeated, a tad impatiently. “It’s a perfectly legitimate word. It means …”

“Maybe another time.” The officer tipped his hat. “I’d better get back on my beat.”

“Another time,” Jazz called as he walked away. Once inside, she jotted down the officer’s last name, O’Neill. It had been right on the nametag on his uniform. She wasn’t a trained observer for nothing. He might call again and ask her out, and she wanted to be able to use his name.

“Wrap it, please. It’s a present, from me to me.”

The sales clerk smiled as she took the swan-shaped bottle of perfume and returned it to the box. The accumulated purchases of the woman standing before her would result in a hefty commission, and the day was still young. Dallas Dior had plastic to burn. “It’s exquisite, Ms. Dior. Shall I put it on your account?”

“Mmmm.” Dallas had already turned her attention to a vivid shade of dark brick lipstick. “May I see that, please?”

“In the gold or blue case?” The clerk was reaching for the gold before she even finished asking the question. The woman who stood before her always bought the best of everything, from the lace-topped French hose to her hair spray. Only the best, always the best. Dallas was a shopping legend all over the Gulf Coast. Her husband, Robert Beaudreaux, was a doctor, but not the kind who saw patients. Whatever he did for the flyboys out at Keesler Air Force Base, it was enough to provide his eccentric wife with a plush lifestyle and uncountable discretionary funds.

“I’ll take the lipstick, and while I’m here, I might as well look at those cute gold earrings. The moon and stars. Those will look fine with the new dress I bought at La Belle Petites.”