Maggie is sitting at the porch table, watching me with an expression I can't read and don't dare hold for too long in frontof Ruthie. I look away before my face can announce how I'm feeling to the entire Central Valley.
"Right," I say, still shaking. "I should probably get going."
"Get going where?" Ruthie says.
"The motel."
"You'll do no such thing." Ruthie waves a hand like I've suggested something obscene. "You've missed the bus so I'll run you back. I'm going right past it." She settles deeper into the bench, installing herself like a hen who's found a good nesting box. "Just give me a minute. It's been a day."
"Thank you," I say, because I've run out of excuses. I look at the bench and decide to sit opposite Maggie at the table instead.
"So," Ruthie says, "tell me about your daddy, then. Did he drive you all the way here? That's nice of him. You should have stopped by the diner, I would have given him a free coffee."
"We had some food in Bakersfield," I say. "But maybe next time?"
"You make sure he does. First coffee's always on the house for family." Ruthie takes a sip of her water and smiles at me over the rim of the glass. "And your daddy — is he a man of God?"
"No. My parents aren't religious." I clear my throat. "For me it's more of a… a recent discovery." I glance at Maggie who's looking very intently at her glass of water.
"Well, your devotion is lovely, honey. Which reminds me." Ruthie points a finger at me. "Sunday. I'll pick you up at the motel at nine-thirty. Doris is making her cinnamon ones again and I told everyone you'd be back, so —"
"Actually," Maggie says, "Sloane can't make Sunday."
Ruthie turns. "Can't?"
"No. I've asked her to switch her days around. I'm short on help on the weekends. The volunteers are mostly retired and their backs aren't what they were so I've got her working Sundays now instead of one of her weekdays," Maggie lies. "Ihope that's all right. I wouldn't keep her from church if I had any other option."
"Oh." Ruthie frowns. "I suppose The Lord understands hard work. Jesus was a carpenter after all." She nods, satisfied with this theology.
Maggie takes a slow sip of her water, smiling, and I make a sound that's meant to be agreement and comes out as something closer to a cough.
"You know what you should do," Ruthie says, leaning forward. "You should come to the bake sale. Third Sunday of the month, in the church hall. Now, I know you're working Sundays, but it doesn't start until after the service, so you'd only miss the morning. We raise money for the roof — the roof's been going since 2019. Everybody comes. You'd meet half the town. The nice half."
"Which half is that?" Maggie asks.
"The half that doesn't drink at the Watering Hole." Ruthie says this with great dignity. "Although I do enjoy the occasional glass of wine myself. For my blood pressure."
"That sounds lovely, but Maggie needs me the whole day"
"It's true," Maggie says, not missing a beat. "The animals don't know it's the Lord's day."
Ruthie's face falls. "Oh, fiddle. So you do." She shakes her head at the injustice of it. "Well, that's a crying shame. There would have been some lovely young men there. Single, hardworking, most of them churchgoing. You might have met someone." Her eyes go bright anyway. "Dennis Hurley from the choir's still single, bless him. He's got his own home and a nice truck and he helps his brother with the church accounts —" She stops. "Although. Hmm." She frowns, as though picturing Dennis and his teeth. "No. Maybe not Dennis. We'll find you someone else."
"Oh, I'm really not looking," I say. "I'm quite happy being single."
"I bet you are after that business with the one you threw the drink at."
"Yeah. That one's gone for good. He cheated."
"Good riddance, then." Ruthie shakes her head. "My Stanley, God rest him, never once cheated on me in forty-one years. Bored me, sometimes. But he never behaved out of line." Her gaze drifts off across the yard to where the goats are tearing around their new playground. "Now what in heaven's name is all that? I don't remember seeing that last time I was here."
"Sloane's father bought it," Maggie says. "That was incredibly kind of him."
Ruthie stares at the display. "Your daddy," she says, "bought the goats a playground. With his own money."
I nod. "He has a lot of it. He's in private equity."
Ruthie absorbs this, and I can see her filing it away to tell Doris, and the entire choir, and anyone who comes through the diner before noon tomorrow.
