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“Judge Pine wants you and Red to work this out between yourselves,” Brady said when he called me in my truck on my way to work Saturday morning. Theo was still angry with me, but at least he wasn’t fuming anymore. Smoke had stopped pouring out of his ears. At least, I hoped it had.
“What does that mean? When did you talk to a judge?” I turned my radio down, muting the sound of some seriously soothing folk rock playing on the little indie FM station out of Jackson, and tapped the button on my phone to put Brady on speaker. “I didn’t know I had a judge already.”
My Chevy pickup was old as hell, so it didn’t have Bluetooth capabilities, but I bought one of those magnetic phone holders and stuck it to my dash so I wouldn’t get a ticket for breaking Wyoming’s “distracted driving” law.
“Well, you do, but not officially. I talked to the Honorary Devlin Pine last night after Red threatened again to file formal charges against you. Didn’t you get my text? And I think it means Judge Pine doesn’t wanna deal with you two. He was the judge the last time somebody took Red to court.”
“No, I didn’t see your text. Sorry. I was runnin’ late this mornin’. And who took Red to court?”
“His ex-wife. It’s been years, but Judge Pine remembers it, and not fondly.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t blame the judge or Red’s poor ex-wife. The man is absolutely insufferable.”
I waved out my window to Kari Whiteriver as she walked with her two kids down the side of the road. Barton had a park, but the seesaws had been broken for two years. The metal slide sat in direct sunlight, so it burned your butt if you slid down the thing. I still remembered my little brother, Avi, screaming as he slid down when we were teenagers. He’d worn shorts that day and got a big red burn on the backs of his thighs. The park still had a sandbox, though, and I figured that was where Kari and her kids were headed at seven in the morning. A local carpenter had built it under a big quaking aspen tree, so unlike the slide, the sandbox was nice and shaded from the warm early-morning sun.
“Since I’m a mediator for the Teton County court system, I expect he wants me to figure it out. And I’ve got a plan, but you aren’t gonna like it.”
Uh-oh. “What plan?”
“Well, we could try to talk it out first, but I got the feelin’ after my conversation with Red last night that isn’t gonna be super productive, so instead, you and he are gonna trade places.”
“Trade. Places.” I said the words, hoping they’d make better sense if I said them slowly, but it didn’t work. “What in the world does that mean?”
“It means, startin’ Monday, Red’s gonna do your job, and you’re gonna do his. For a week. Maybe if y’all get a better understandin’ of what the other’s life is like, then maybe you won’t continue to go at each other like a couple of rabid dogs.”
“You cannot be serious. You want him to do my job? The job in which he will encounter gay, lesbian, and transgender people? Poor people, homeless people? No,” I said. “Think of somethin’ else, Brady, ’cause that’s just askin’ for trouble. I can’t even imagine the things he’d say to ’em.”
“You want this guy to understand, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah. If he could just see how great some of these people are, he wouldn’t be such a jerk.”
“So,” Brady went on, “is there a better way to accomplish that? Think about it. He’ll see the things they’re up against. He’ll have to help ’em with all kinds of things. He’ll see the heartbreak they face and the difficulties. And I know you don’t wanna hear this, but I think you may have Red pegged as somethin’ he’s not. For what it’s worth.”
Yeah, right.
But he did have a point, although I had no idea how he would accomplish the task of talking Red into this cockamamie plan of his, especially ’cause Brady himself was gay and not shy about that fact. Everyone in town knew Brady and Theo were shacking up in the attic apartment right across the street from Red’s store. It wasn’t too long ago they had been the talk of town, but most people had gotten used to it by now and had adjusted.
“Besides,” he said, “Theo will be there, and I’ll ask Frank or Abey to stop by to check on things when I’m not there. Make sure nobody strangles Red.”
“Okay, but you have to talk to him about how he speaks to people. I won’t agree unless you promise me that you and Theo will talk to him before he interacts with anyone. This is supposed to be a safe place. Red’s attitude could make it unsafe real quick.”
“I promise.”
I was kind of bummed that I wouldn’t be there to see Abey in action, but grudgingly, I had to admit that Brady was right that something needed to be done about the animosity between Red and me. “But what about me? You want me to run his store? And why would Red agree to this?”
“You have retail experience, right?” he asked.
“A little, yeah.” I’d worked in fast food and had learned how to do the cash register, and I’d been the checkout girl at the bait and tackle shack in Barton for two summers after my dad died, when I took any job I could find to help my mom pay the rent. How hard could selling rude T-shirts and bear spray really be?
“And Red will agree to it because Judge Pine is threatenin’ to charge you both with contempt if you don’t.”
I sighed. Great. Just great. “Okay. I’m trustin’ you, if you really think this’ll work.”
“You still gotta pay for the window and the shirts.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”
“Okay. I’m headed over to Red’s place now. I’ll let you know what he says.”
