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Because I owe him.
21
Sylvia
It’s another cold, cloudy autumn afternoon. The days are growing shorter, the nights colder. Winter appears hellbent on arriving early with no regard to the tourists who are desperately seeking one last glimpse of fall foliage.
Downtown is a bustle of activity, a mismatched crowd of coats and scarves, shorts and shirtsleeves. No one knows how to dress in this weather. Tourists weave in and out of the locally-owned shops that are struggling to stay open, the restaurants, the only bar in town.
I slow as I pass the courthouse, peering in the windows, looking for Rhett. Just seems like the place an ex-con would need to go to for something, right? Where does one go to meet his probation officer?
I hang a right and pull into the small gravel parking lot of Benji’s Pool Hall, the last place I saw Rhett three days earlier. Three trucks are parked haphazardly by the front door. I slide into a spot off to the side and turn off the engine.
My plan was to go inside and ask the bartender if he had seen Rhett. Instead, I find myself staring at the dilapidated brick building, wondering what Rhett was up to the night I dropped him off. The obvious guess is that he was following up on the details Jesse supplied to us, about how the masked person with the letters had approached him there. But Rhett had made a promise to Jesse that he wouldn’t tell anyone they spoke, so what information could he glean? Who had he talked to? Had he met someone?
Two drunk cowboys stumble out the front door, leaning on each other’s beefy arms for support.
They spot me immediately, a woman alone, sitting in her doorless Jeep. Like a moth to a flame, they pivot, beelining it to me.
Shit.
I quickly start the engine and back out, my tires spitting rocks in my wake. I’ll come back later, or tomorrow, the second they open, before the drunks file in.
I look at the clock as I pull onto the road—6:07 p.m. Well, plan number one of the evening is a fail.
Feeling discouraged, I pull into the line at the liquor store, three cars deep.
Ahead of me, sits a vintage yellow Volkswagen. The back window is covered in stickers. I wonder how the driver can see through the rearview mirror. The license plate reads LIV HPY.
Live happy.
I think of my mother and wonder if she was ever—ever—happy.
A group of construction workers loiter in the accompanying lot. Recently excavated, mounds of dirt surround a group of men standing in a circle, covered in grime, wiping their sweaty foreheads. A few are smoking cigarettes, the others chugging bottles of water. Winding down for the day, I muse.
Twin backhoes sit parked in the corner of the lot. A line of little pink flags run down the middle, marking some sort of underground piping.
I see one man in the shadows, working alone, completely isolated from the rest the of the crew. He’s digging a hole while the others seem to ignore his presence. Almost mechanically, the shovel rises and falls, each stab into the earth, each scoop, identical to the last.
I squint and lean forward over the steering wheel. I recognize the brown hair, the wide shoulders, thick arms.
Rhett.
I yank the steering wheel, hit the gas, swerve out of the line and into a parking spot behind the liquor store.
I climb out of the Jeep, the cashmere sweater I’d chosen snagging on the door frame, showing a flash of midriff before settling back down.
The conversation halts between the group of construction workers.
Chin up, shoulders back, I stride across the dirt.
Rhett looks up.
Our eyes meet.
He straightens, jabs the tip of the shovel into the ground and rests his hands on top, sending me a curious, albeit tired, look.
“Well hey there,” I say as I approach, feeling the gaze of the other men on my back.
