Smitty looked deliberately from Coach Evans to Yasheika to Ronnie, but he waited until he was past us before he muttered, “Didn’t use to let trash into decent eating places.”
“Folks had more sense back then,” agreed a kid whose grandmother wasn’t born when the Civil Rights Act was passed. How did a person get so tough in so few years?
Joe Riddley called after them, “The judge here would love to drive any of you down to the jail who’d like a ride.”
Smitty swaggered out the door without a word, looking like he owned a sizeable chunk of the world and had his eye on the rest. Tyrone, however, stuffed his hands into the pockets of a big khaki jacket he wore winter and summer and gave our table an embarrassed look over one shoulder. Maybe he was remembering how Ridd used to stay after school to help him with geometry, or how Joe Riddley let him sweep our office and storeroom to earn spending money back when he was in elementary school.
Tyrone had been an insecure, fat little boy, but he’d been sweet and honest. I wondered how far you’d have to dig to find that child again. Certainly past the dyed black hair parted in the middle and hanging below his round chin. Past the rings of cheap beads worn close to his thick neck and past the silver rings on almost every finger. The only thing I could find in his favor right then was that he hadn’t gone as far as a piercing or a visible tattoo. Yet.
I also noticed that he stopped by the register and handed Myrtle a bill, unlike his pals.
“I don’t know what to say,” I apologized to DeWayne, “except that anybody can see they are pure white trash.”
DeWayne shook his head. “Don’t pay them any mind. They’re little kids trying to act big.”
“Not Smitty,” Ridd disagreed. “He’s dangerous.”
“Smitty, yeah. He’s one you gotta watch.”
“Mean as a snake, and no more sense,” I contributed. “I wish he’d get on his horse and ride out of town.”
None of us suspected that one of the people at Myrtle’s that day was going to ride out of town real soon. Not on a horse, but in a hearse. And it wouldn’t be Smitty Smith.
5
A deluge descended Monday about three o’clock, accompanied by lightning that scissored across the sky and thunder like somebody rolling barrels down a bowling alley. Joe Riddley was at our nursery on the edge of town, unloading sod. I was alone in the office with the scarlet macaw we inherited after a dead man turned up at Joe Riddley’s last birthday party.
2
The bird was christened Joe by his former owner, who’d been put out with Joe Riddley for sending him to jail, but we’d recently decided to prevent confusion by renaming him. Cricket chose Rainbow, for the cascade of blue, yellow, purple, white, and red feathers down his back. We’d shortened it to Bo, and I put up with the danged thing because Joe Riddley doted on him. Besides, the bird had been real helpful in making Joe Riddley walk again. Bo slept in our barn and came to work with Joe Riddley every day. He’d been left with me that afternoon because Joe Riddley had a couple of errands to run before he went to the nursery, and Bo was unreliable in nice offices. He tended to leave calling cards on people’s carpets.
Bo hated storms. As the rain thundered on our store’s tin roof, he paced the curtain rod and muttered, “Not to worry. Not to worry.” After a particularly loud crack of thunder, he flew off his perch near the window and marched up and down the floor at my feet, examining cracks for crumbs and bugs that might be hiding there.
I turned off both computers and made sure there was oil in the antique lamp on top of my desk, then sat enjoying the light and music show.
Joe Riddley and I share the same office at the back of our store that his parents and grandparents did. We use their oak rolltop desks, desk chairs, and filing cabinets, but have added computers, a fax machine, and other technology over the years. I also replaced the shade they had on the tall, thin window with a colorful valance and nice oak blinds, but we’d never felt a need to put a rug over the uneven old floor-boards or plaster over the beaded board walls. It was real homey anytime and particularly cozy that afternoon.
Bo squawked his disagreement as wind whipped the crepe myrtles beside our parking lot into a crazy dance. When we heard a crash that probably meant another brittle pine had gone to meet its Maker, he flew to my shoulder and hung on tight. Fire engines wailed in the distance. I hoped nobody’s house had been hit.
Then our lights went out. I heard a yelp of dismay from the windowless storeroom next door and Bo squawked, “Back off! Give me space!”
“It’s just Bethany,” I told him. She was working for us full-time that summer and taking inventory in our storeroom that afternoon. I didn’t want her breaking her neck, so I lit my lamp and went out like Florence Nightingale to rescue her.
The rest of the staff bumbled toward the light like moths, so I took them all back to my office and brought out a tin of cookies from my bottom drawer. Somebody went for Cokes from the machine, and we had a party. We couldn’t talk much, though, the rain was so loud. Bo subsided to a series of low mutters on top of my desk.
We all jumped when my phone rang. “Little Bit?” Joe Riddley’s voice was accompanied by crackles and spits from the storm.
I paused for a bright flash of lightning and kettledrums of thunder, then demanded, “Are you sure it’s safe to be calling right now? I don’t want us to end our lives at opposite ends of a telephone wire.”
“I’m not going to talk long. Lightning took out a transformer, and they won’t get it fixed for hours. Go on and send folks home. You go, too.”
“How’s the sod?”
“Sodden. Be careful driving, now. I’ll see you at the house. And leave Bo—I’ll swing by and get him when the rain stops. You know he hates to get wet.”
Who doesn’t? As the staff gathered up the umbrellas they’d all thought to bring, I remembered mine was in the backseat of my car. “Grab a big plastic garbage bag for each of us,” I ordered Bethany, “and I’ll run you home.”
We cut holes for our faces and dashed through the downpour at such a pace, I collapsed into my car panting. We sat there dripping all over my upholstery like drowned possums while rain drummed on the roof and the sky flashed bright, dark, bright, dark.
Bethany looked worried. “Could we swing by the pool to see if Hollis is there? She bikes to work, and she’ll get soaked riding home.”
“She’s a lifeguard,” I pointed out. “She doesn’t mind getting wet, and she’s got a mother and an uncle to pick her up.” However, since I’m her grandmother and not her mother, I added, “We can swing by, if it will make you feel better.”
It took a while. A big pine was down in the road, so we had to make a several-block detour. When we arrived, the pool and its building were dark and empty. I edged away from the curb. “I’m sure they closed before the lightning even got close. Hollis is probably a lot drier than you are right now.”
“Could we drive by her house? She’s real scared of lightning.” Bethany spoke through chattering teeth.
“I can’t imagine Hollis being scared of anything, and she’s got Garnet and her mother home by now. Besides, you’re soaked.”
“But—” She must have realized she’d gotten to the edge of her grandmother’s indulgence, because she subsided. “Okay.” She fiddled with her stringy wet ponytail. “I’ll call her later. After Todd calls.”
“Who’s Todd?” I asked in my “grandmother-doesn’t-know-anything” voice.
She turned so pink the car temperature went up five degrees. “Oh, just a boy I’ve been seeing. A man, actually. He was at the game Saturday—a real cute blond man?”
She was obviously waiting for me to say I’d seen him, so I did. And since Martha and Ridd had tried talking sense into Bethany without results, I decided to try another tack. “Pop and I would love to meet him, honey. Why don’t you bring him down for a swim and dessert some evening?”
“Maybe . . .” The way that doubtful word hung between us, I knew she wasn’t real sure how we’d like Todd.
“We won’t bother you or anything,” I assured her. “You all can swim and then come in for cake and ice cream. Just let me know when.”
“Thanks, Me-mama.” She jumped out and ran through the rain.
To tell this story properly, I need at this point to do something a judge generally doesn’t: I need to rely on hearsay evidence, report what other people did and said when I was not present. However, all of this comes from reliable witnesses, so I can say with integrity that I am certain this is what happened on the afternoon of the storm.
Tyrone, Smitty, and a few friends hung out at Tyrone’s because his mother was working. Once the power went out and they couldn’t play video games, they passed their time plotting mischief.
Martha, Cricket, and Bethany decided to finger paint by candlelight. Cricket painted a big red heart and flowers and told his mother, “This is for Garnet.”
Ronnie dropped by DeWayne’s to tell him about the new job, but only Yasheika was at home, so he left to fetch Clarinda from our place. Clarinda, like Hollis, is nervous of lightning.
Ridd and DeWayne were on the golf course, and—being men—waited until the bottom fell out before they called off the match. Both were soaked when Ridd dropped DeWayne off. DeWayne invited him in for coffee, but Ridd felt he ought to get home and into dry clothes. DeWayne and Yasheika made coffee on his gas stove and lit candles. With nothing else to do, they talked.
Sara Meg had few customers that afternoon, so she spent most of it getting ready for a summer sale. She didn’t even notice the storm until water streamed from the gutter outside her plate-glass window. Since she’d left her umbrella at home and had parked nearly a block away, she decided to stay and keep marking down prices as long as her flashlight batteries held out.
Hollis got off work before the storm arrived, because the pool manager shut down at the first flickers of lightning. She biked the mile home, praying she wouldn’t be struck before she got there. As she rounded the corner near their house, she saw a car she recognized pull out of their drive and head in the other direction. She stared, puzzled. Garnet usually practiced the piano all afternoon.
When she got inside, she heard the shower running. She ran upstairs and stuck her nose in the bathroom door. “You better get out. It’s lightning.”
Behind the curtain of the old claw-foot tub, Garnet shrieked in surprise. “When did you get home?”
“I just did. Get out of the tub. You could get killed.” Hollis had a mental file of stories about people who had been killed by lightning in their cars, on the street, and in bathtubs.
“Then get out of here. I’m ready to dry.” Garnet was as modest as a Puritan—wore long sleeves, long skirts, and never let anybody, even her sister, see her naked.
Hollis backed out of the bathroom and went to her room to play music to drown out the storm. When she discovered that Garnet had taken several of her CDs without asking, she stomped down to Garnet’s room to retrieve them. At the door, she stopped, astonished. Garnet’s bed, usually as pristine as a nun’s, was rumpled and bedraggled.
Hollis didn’t understand. She refused to believe what common sense told her could be true, but ripples of doubt chased fear up her spine. Hollis generally challenged what she did not believe, so she pounded down the hall, flung open the bathroom door, and demanded, “What’s going on here? Your bed’s a mess. And why are you taking a shower at this time of day? You even washed your hair. You just washed it this morning.”
Garnet clutched the towel around her. Her hair hung down her back like long red tails. “I was taking a nap and it got all messy.” She turned around so Hollis couldn’t see her face, but Hollis got one glimpse in the mirror. It was enough.
She stared at Garnet’s naked back, as lovely as the rest of her, and shock went through her like an electric jolt. “I saw the car drive away,” she said in a menacing voice.
Garnet shrugged. “So?” After a little pause, she added, “Maybe somebody rang the bell while the water was running and I didn’t hear. Now get out of here, you hear me?”
“Garnet?” Hollis grabbed her shoulder. “You aren’t”—she stopped; Hollis had always believed that saying bad things could make them come true—“in some kind of trouble?” she finished lamely.
Garnet jerked away. “Of course not. So don’t you go worrying Mama.”
Worrying their mother was something both girls tried to avoid. Uncle Buddy was like a broken record sometimes, warning them that their mother already had enough on her shoulders, just paying bills.
Hollis clumped downstairs and headed to the refrigerator for yogurt and carrot sticks. She settled herself at the table and tried not to picture Garnet—the very idea made her shiver. Not Garnet! In many ways Hollis was still young for her age. At that moment, she refused to grow up. Then thunder clattered overhead and lightning flashed outside the window, so close she felt she could reach out and touch it. Hollis cringed, laid her head down on the table, covered it with both arms, and moaned.
She heard Garnet start drying her hair. The pleasant hum of the dryer drew her back upstairs. She wished Garnet would talk to her. How long had it been since they really talked? She thought wistfully of how they used to sit and sing along with the radio when they were little. Before Daddy died. Before Garnet went so far away.
Sadly, Hollis returned to her own room. The big old house was always dim. Now it grew steadily gloomier as dark clouds came down around it. She turned on the lights and music and wondered if Bethany could come over. She reached for the phone, then remembered you could get killed talking on a telephone if it were hit by lightning.
Trapped with her fears, Hollis jumped at another flash outside her window. She hurried to close the blinds, turned up her music to drown out the thunder, and started polishing her nails.
With one enormous crash, both lights and music disappeared. Hollis trembled in the darkness, waving her hands to dry her nails and watching in terror the flashes around the edges of the blinds. Sara Meg had bought cheap, precut blinds, and these old windows weren’t standard widths. Which finger of fire would hit the roof, burn down the house, strike her dead?