Page 10 of Starved Until Sunset

Demmy chuckled. “No, he didn’t say anything about the garland. There’s a water main break on the north side of town. They need us to help out.”

“Water main break? Sheesh.” Cody blew out a breath. “We’d better get overtime for this.”

“He said we will. It’s part of the city’s emergency repair budget or something.”

“Fancy way of saying rainy day fund.”

“Pretty much.”

“Okay, I’ll say goodbye to Grandma and come back to the house. Sounds like this is going to be messy.”

“Yeah, guess we’ll need another shower when we’re done.”

Cody smiled and lowered his voice to a deep whisper. “You’re making me feel all cheap and wanton.”

“And I know you like that.”

Relief swept through Cody that his abrupt departure from the house hadn’t seemed to cause an issue between them. “You know me so well. See you soon.”

The water had been shut off by the time Cody and Demmy arrived at the site, but evidence of the break was everywhere. Mud covered the street, and the force of the water had left cracks in the asphalt. Work lights on stands had been set up around the section of road, powered by a generator chugging and burping along in the back of a DPW pickup. Shrieky Pete was operating a jackhammer to break up the asphalt, and Cody felt more than a little uneasy at the sight. He hoped the praise music had satisfied Pete’s guardian angel. And those looking after the rest of them.

This area of homes was north of Main Street, between the downtown district and the start of farmland. Most people referred to this part of town as Orchardville because of the street names. The street they were working on was Apple, and for six blocks in either direction the names were similar: Cherry, Orange, Peach, Fig, and Pear. These roads were perpendicular to Main Street and a few were a straight shot to Route 125, the other county road that ran parallel to and a few miles north of 118.

“Well, finally,” John the Bastard said over the rattle of the jackhammer as they walked up. “You stop for a nap?”

“Yeah, I wanted to be fresh and peppy for you,” Cody said with a tight smile.

John squinted through one eye. “You should have slept longer.”

It was hard to hear over the racket of the jackhammer, but Cody could have sworn he heard Demmy laugh. Traitor.

“Where can we help, John?” Demmy said.

John gestured for them to follow him. They plodded through water and mud and bits of asphalt flung up by the jackhammer. Stopping at the back of one of the pickups, John reached in and pulled two long poles from the bed. At the top of each was an octagon-shaped double-sided sign. One side was red and stated in large white letters: STOP. The other side was orange and said in large black letters: SLOW. John passed one sign pole to each of them, then rummaged through a box until he found two bright yellow safety vests and a couple of white hard hats, all of which he passed off.

“What do we do with these?” Cody asked, taking the vest and immediately regretting it. The slick material felt damp to the touch, and he hoped like hell it was from all the water in the air and not someone’s extremely overactive sweat glands. He accepted the hard hat as well and tucked it under one arm, pretty sure they were going to need to stop at Parson’s Pharmacy for lice killer on the way home.

“Put the vest and hat on, Princess, and each of you stand at either end of this work site and coordinate letting traffic through since we have half the street blocked by our equipment.”

“Princess?” Cody said.

Demmy jumped into the fray of the conversation, obviously hoping to keep Cody from mouthing off and costing them their jobs.

“We turn the signs the same direction as each other, right?”

“You got it, genius. Keep traffic stopped at one end and moving slowly through at the other. Now get into place, I’ve got to manage this crew.”

John the Bastard stomped back toward the hole steadily being widened by Shrieky Pete.

“What, and I say this with every ounce of the amount of respect John deserves, the fuck?” Cody thumped the pole against the road and held the vest with two fingers away from his body.

“Would you rather be in the middle of it all, covered in mud and soaked with cold water while standing within striking distance of the jackhammer controlled by Shrieky Pete?”

Cody gave Demmy a long look. “No. I’d rather we weren’t called in at all.”

“But here we are.” Demmy put the vest on over his coveralls. He gave the inside of the hard hat a tentative sniff. After a sigh and slight slump of his shoulders, he placed it on his head. Holding the traffic direction sign in one hand, he stood with his back straight and smiled. “How do I look?”

“Hotter than you have any right to.”