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She leaned against my legs, then immediately made a grossed-out sound. “Ewwww,” she squealed. “You’re all sweaty and sandy.”
I laughed and gestured toward the ocean. “Salt. Breeze. Sand.”
She stood up and gestured toward the pier down the road. “You want to walk down there and get some lunch? I found a really quaint little taco place down there when I had to use their parking lot to turn around in eight thousand times earlier. So many times, actually, that the owner offered to turn it around for me.”
“Did you take him up on the offer?” I asked her, laughter tinging my voice.
“Obviously.” She rolled her eyes. “Since it’s here now, and not still in their parking lot.”
I laughed as we walked down the road toward this ‘quaint’ little place.
It turned out to be a great little hole-in-the-wall walk-up taco bar.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a man that was the owner, either. It was this short, tiny little brunette with her mass of dark brown, curly hair piled so high on her head that it had to be hurting her scalp.
She smiled at my wife the moment she saw her. “RV girl. Are you back for more?”
She gestured down the beach. “I made it down the beach. Thankfully. Thank you for turning it around for me. I swear I’ll never get the hang of it.”
“Well”—she turned her attention to me—“that’s what I said. Then I met my husband. He taught me how to do it all. Drive a stick shift. Back a trailer. Hook up the tractor to the brush cutter.” She looked sad for a few seconds then said, “Then he passed away, and I’ve been alone. And I realized that he was teaching me how to live by myself long before I knew that he was going to leave me.”
That sounded like a long story.
One that I was sure if Dutch stayed where she was for much longer office-wise, she would have the entire story out of the woman that looked way too young to have already lost a husband.
“Now, what can I get you? Today’s special is barbacoa tacos with a chili-lime sauce.” She gestured toward the grill that was sizzling as we spoke. “There’s also queso in the crock pot for now. But if you don’t hurry, that’ll sell out before you make your decision.” She gestured toward her phone. “This online ordering app was the best and the worst thing to ever happen to me.”
We ordered some of everything that there was on the menu, which, admittedly, wasn’t a lot.
In the end, we got eight tacos, guacamole, queso, and fresh tortilla chips that we watched her cook.
When we sat down with our meal, Dutch inhaled four of the tacos before I’d gone through two.
“Wow,” I said. “Did you not eat this morning?”
She licked the sour cream off of her lip before saying, “I didn’t. You know I didn’t. But when I’m on my period, I become a human garbage disposal. I literally eat everything and anything there is to eat. It’s nuts.”
After making a mental note to find her some food on my way home, maybe that place that served the warm cookies that I’d passed on the way here, I finished the rest of the tacos that she didn’t like, or didn’t want, and then a quarter of the queso and guacamole.
I was so happy with everything that I allowed myself to forget about the shit that was swirling around me. At least until there was a phone call from my child’s school.
I groaned as I said, “Hello?”
“Mr. Westfield, this is the principal at Accident West High. Do you have a few moments to talk?” the principal of the school asked carefully.
Since there was no one else around just yet, I put the phone on speaker and allowed Dutch to listen in.
“What can I help you with?” I asked carefully.
“This is about Lauren’s school attendance. We noticed that she wasn’t in class today,” she said.
I looked at Dutch. “I thought my wife explained everything? That she was taking a few weeks off from school.”
“Well, yes,” the principal agreed hurriedly. “But we’ve had four students, two of which are related to you, call in and request this in the last week. And we are investigating why. Did something happen that would require her to be at home for two weeks? Did something happen at the school that I need to address? This is highly unusual, and we would like to make sure that we keep on top of things for other students.”
Dutch looked at me with her brows raised as if to say, ‘how much do you want to say’ but chose to stay silent and allow me to put my foot into it.
“We’ve had a disagreement with the sheriff, and it was brought to our attention that the sheriff’s sister, Annalise Graydon, also works at your school. We would like to make sure that whatever beef the sheriff has with me, that extends to my family, doesn’t happen at school as well. As to why any other students decided to withdraw, I don’t know. But I do know that’s why Bowie and Lolo will be staying at home until we can figure out what’s going on with the sheriff,” I explained.
