Aftermath Read online

  He shook his head. “Damn, I hang around you much longer, folks are gonna start calling me Dr. Watson.”

  “Elementary, Doc. You better get those tells out of your face and voice if you want to be the next Clarence Darrow.”

  “I’d settle for being the next Clarence Thomas. The liberal version anyway.” We headed for the front door. A cold wind blew grit at us, and Tim rubbed the outside of his suit-sleeved arms.

  “Getting chilly?” I teased, immune to shivering after decades up North.

  “Yeah, they say we’re going to get some actual winter weather, maybe ten flakes of snow by tomorrow night. The town will probably shut down, just in case.” He held the restaurant door open for me, letting out warmth, the smell of fried cornmeal, and recorded mariachi music.

  I passed him, saying, “Ten flakes in Graylee means ten inches in New York, so I’m just as glad I’m down here.”

  “Me, too.”

  I smiled at that, especially touched given our recent blowup. Tim held out two fingers for the waitress, who pointed us toward a booth by the front window, a table already set with plates, napkin-wrapped flatware, and menus. The interior was lit by dim fluorescents and strings of small chili peppers that wound over the booth backs and across the walls and ceiling like a riot of red fireflies.

  Some Latino couples and solo diners ate nearby. No one got up and left in a huff as happened in town—apparently Tim wasn’t a pariah in these parts. On the other hand, I drew a few frosty looks, probably catching the flak for hard feelings they had about my dad.

  At a shadowy table for two near the kitchen door, far from the rest of us, sat the only other Caucasian patron. He was trim and maybe sixty-five, with tousled hair that showed a lot more silver than black. I guessed the flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots were worn to make him look anonymous, but the narrow, black-framed glasses gave him away. His face had sagged a bit—he now looked like the older brother of the man whose photo graced the dust jackets of twenty-plus best-sellers. I didn’t know if it was the publisher’s decision to keep using a more youthful picture of David Stark or the author’s vanity, but, to me, the contrast made him look sad and vulnerable.

  From the basket in front of him, he selected a tortilla chip and dipped it in a bowl of salsa. As he crunched it, his eyes met mine, and he nodded. The waitress, who seemed to be working the floor alone, stopped by David’s table first and exchanged a few words with him before coming over to us.

  “Hello, I’m Luz,” she said with a slight Hispanic accent. “The gentleman there offered to buy your drinks.” She looked me over as if she couldn’t believe anyone would buy me anything. I was starting to think of this as the Brady Stapleton Effect. “What do you want?”

  “Bottomless strawberry margarita for me, please,” I said, gazing at the menu so I didn’t have to meet her accusatory stare. Tim asked for the key lime version.

  Luz thanked him alone and checked on the other diners before heading past David and into the kitchen. Tim watched her go, saying, “You going to walk over now or wait a little while? Like this morning with the chief?”

  Mariachi horns blared from tinny speakers, so I had to lean forward and really concentrate to hear his low voice. I grinned at him. “Talk about deductive reasoning. You should be wearing the deerstalker hat.”

  “Seriously,” he said, “what’s the plan? Are we having dinner, or are you just going to take your free drink over there and grill the famous writer about his charitable outreach?”

  “Listen to you: all prickly one minute about coming out here with me and now huffy about being abandoned again so I can talk to another man?” I gave his ankle a playful kick. “I want to talk to you…and I also might take the opportunity to introduce myself to He Who Sits Apart.”

  “You’ll see that wherever he eats out. The owners all want to protect his privacy. If someone comes in to ask for his autograph, the staff will be all over them.” He set aside the menu. “Are you really going to try to help the people on my street?”

  “Absolutely, and if I can enlist the local celebrity to make the impact greater, I’ll do it.”

  Luz brought two margaritas in gigantic, salt-rimmed glasses on a tray, which also held a basket of chips and two bowls of salsa. She took our orders, a pork chimichanga for me and three chicken enchiladas for Tim, and departed again.

  We each slurped our mammoth drinks. Mine was light on the tequila, but it probably needed to be from a profitability standpoint, given the size of the glass and the promise of its bottomlessness. I knew it wasn’t PC to wonder if Luz and the kitchen staff had spit in mine, but the thought did occur to me. Surely they only would’ve done that to Dad, though, not to his innocent daughter. Pushing the slanderous image aside, I took another gulp and then dipped a warm chip and gobbled it down, pleased by the spiciness of the salsa.

  Tim was doctoring his with Texas Pete. My Guy Friday probably pissed acid and shat napalm. After dunking another chip in the five-alarm concoction, he seemed happier with the burn this time. He asked me, “Why do you want to get involved?”

  “Because I have the means, and because they’re your neighbors, people you grew up with and struggled alongside. I think about that massive house I inherited and then the kind of place you’re trying to rebuild, and it makes me feel guilty and angry.”

  “There are neighborhoods like mine all over the country, and most of them are a whole lot worse. Why not help some of those folks?”

  “You’re right, but this is personal. My father is part of the reason why you grew up the way you did, why those kids were on the street in raggedy clothes and no shoes. You said there were fifteen black families here. There are at least the same number of Latino families. But I saw only four nonwhite men working in my dad’s businesses today, and the few women there were white.” I swirled the shaved ice and sucked up more alcohol and sweetness, fueling the righteous rant building inside me. “I can’t pretend to understand my dad’s hatred, but, dammit, I can fix what he’s done.”

  Tim chewed on a couple of chips as he seemed to consider my declaration. “You can’t change the past,” he said. “You can do things differently, try to help where there’s been no help before, but what’s done is done.”

  “What has been done? And what does it have to do with you and your parents?”

  He smirked. “You’re getting ahead of your plan. I’m not nearly liquored up yet.”

  For a terrible moment, I wanted to sweep my arm across the table, sending everything crashing to the floor, and then throttle Tim until he stopped being so cryptic. Instead, I snatched up my drink, bolted out of the booth, and approached David Stark. I caught myself stomping as I left Tim behind, so I focused on gentler footfalls with more hip action, and I softened my expression: sociable rather than sociopathic.

  David looked up from a plate of Spanish rice and some kind of burrito. His expression started out as wary and a little hostile before he focused on my face. Thirty years of dealing with fans and autograph hounds had taken a toll, no doubt. At last he smiled and said in his famous baritone, “Welcome to Graylee, Ms. Wright.”

  He didn’t get to his feet the way Cade had done. I supposed I approved of this, though a part of me still had a soft spot for the police chief’s Old South manners. “Thank you for the drinks,” I said, toasting him. It occurred to me I had no idea what else to say. I never thought I’d be the starstruck type, but I found myself gawping at him. After discarding a few idiotic lines—“I’ve read all your books,” “Where do you get your wild ideas?” and other nonstarters—I settled for, “I was planning to look you up tomorrow.”

  “I’m a tough man to see without an introduction. Got myself an absolute she-wolf for a gatekeeper.” He eyed the huge, sweaty margarita I held and said, “Better sit down before that slips out of your hand and breaks your foot.” His boot poked the chair opposite him, pushing it out a few inches.


  I sat and rested the heavy glass on the table. “I just arrived yesterday, and I’m still getting the lay of the land, but everyone I meet wants to talk about you or my dad or both.”

  “I guess every small town has one or two centers of attention,” he rumbled, his pitch so deep I felt it vibrate in my chest. No wonder he narrated the audio versions of his books—it was a voice you could imagine announcing the Second Coming or, in the case of David’s novels, merely the end of the world. He said, “I’m very sorry the people of Graylee have lost their primary focus, and I’m sorry, too, for your personal loss.”

  I thanked him again and added, “Unfortunately, we weren’t close. I was born here but can’t remember the town from back then. Have you lived here all your life?”

  “Most of it, with some ill-advised sidetracks to Chicago, New York, LA, and London.” He shook his head. “It’s been like one of my books, but with marriages getting killed off instead of wives.” I expected a misogynistic remark about his exes to follow, because he’d set it up so well, but instead David said, “Fine women, every one of them—they had no idea what they were signing up for.”

  I didn’t know if he intended to reel me in, but the comment made him appear mysterious, maybe even tragically cursed. With our age difference added in, I could feel my old habits come to life as an antidote to my worst fears. My body settled into its favorite posture: leaning forward to show interest, arms crossed under my breasts for added lift, mouth slightly open as if breathless with excitement. I heard myself murmur, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Certainly.” His free hand swept through his hair in an attempt to comb it into shape, and he canted toward me as well, a well-practiced partner who recognized the invitation to dance.

  It was just as Cade had said: we act and then we try to rationalize that action. What the hell was I doing? I hadn’t come over intending to seduce or to get sucked in. Sure, I was frustrated with Tim’s stubborn moodiness, uncertain about the spark between me and Cade, and uneasy about my father’s impact on the town and my ability to make things better. And, yes, those damned Horsewomen were galloping across my battered heart. However, I reminded myself, I’d had a plan when I sauntered over. And becoming another notch on the bedpost of Mr. Maybe You’ve Been Laid by Him was not it.

  I ducked my head and drank some margarita. A drastic change in the conversation was needed. To undo the message I was projecting, I slumped back in the chair, re-crossed my arms so they covered my chest, and said coldly, “When you look around at the place you’ve lived most of your life, what do you see?”

  David narrowed his eyes. The spell clearly broken, he no longer looked at me as if I were dessert. Now I had become a nuisance. He said, “It’s a town—hell, a village really—just like any other. Mostly good, decent people, some bad. In general, folks have an okay life.”

  “Lots of people getting by, some not so much?”

  “I s’pose. What are you driving at?”

  “Look, my ideas aren’t even half-baked yet, but I was hoping to talk to you about some charitable projects we could collaborate on.”

  Frowning, David dug into his burrito and ate a hunk of it. The rudeness seemed intentional, as if to repay me for my mixed messages. He swallowed, pointed his fork at me, and shook it, as if wagging a finger. “Helluva thing,” he growled, “telling somebody else how to spend his money.”

  I wasn’t about to back down, but I also didn’t want to piss him off. Giving him a genial smile, I persevered. “Like I said, I’m just spit-balling here. But I think we can do some good.”

  “What I think is your dinner companion is getting peeved that you left him to talk to another guy.”

  I didn’t bother to glance over my shoulder. “Poor Tim’s used to it by now. I know this isn’t the right time or place, but can you tell me when and where it would be right?”

  “What’s right, Ms. Wright, is for you to dig into that steaming meal Luz just put on your table, and let me get back to mine. I was just being neighborly, buying y’all some drinks. It wasn’t a come on or even an invitation to chat.” He began to eat again, staring down at his food, dismissing me.

  I gave it one last try. “Who do you like in the city council election next year?” He paused in his chewing, so I pressed ahead. “I understand you’ve had quite a losing streak, but you might find me to be more progressive than my father. I’m not saying the influence I inherited is for sale, but maybe I can be…persuaded.”

  The fork started to wag again, but then David set it beside his plate. He looked at me with renewed interest, but now I was an intellectual puzzle to solve rather than a sexual conquest.

  He withdrew his wallet. I expected him to toss some money on the table, but instead he handed me a white, triple-thick business card that bore only four words: David Stark, Admit One. He said, “You’ll recall what I said about the she-wolf and the introduction. That’ll get you past my gatekeeper. Timothy can tell you where I live. Be there at 10:15 tomorrow morning—it’s when I usually take a break from writing, depending on how the work is going.”

  I fingered a corner of the heavy paper, amused by the paradox it implied. “The only way to get this introduction to meet with you is by…meeting with you?”

  “Controlling access is the key to maintaining a sane life for the likes of us, living in high cotton. You let in every sumbitch off the street, you’ll never have any time for yourself.”

  “What if you don’t like being alone?”

  He snorted. “Then get used to not getting anything done. You start throwing money around, it’s for damn sure they’ll be lining up for miles with their hands out.”

  “But there has to be a way to help people without making them dependent.”

  “In the morning. Right now, you best attend to your meal and Timothy over there. Your date looks like he’s ready to bolt.”

  “He’s my friend, not my date. I only just got here—you think I’d pick up a guy that fast?”

  He gave me a look through those narrow, iconic glasses that was pure judgment and sentencing, as if I were a character in his current manuscript and he’d just decided my fate. “I think you do whatever you have to, relentlessly, to get what you really want. Have a good evening, Ms. Wright.”

  Dismissed, I retreated to my seat opposite Tim, setting down my drink between us. My first reaction to David’s comment was that he didn’t know me at all. I’d never thought of myself as a go-getter, someone so driven that I’d do whatever it took to achieve a goal. Maybe I had it wrong, though. Looking back at my career and student days, and the way I acted around men, there had always been an element of ambition—and obsession. Unfortunately, that same obsessiveness also had driven away Andy and my other boyfriends before him. How amazing that David could peg me so quickly and explain me to myself.

  As I stared past Tim, sliding my fingertips over the thick edges of the Admit One card, he said in his near-whisper, “You look like this woman who got saved in my church one time.” He didn’t sound peeved, only relieved I’d come back. And more than a little tipsy. “She was just sittin’ there beside me,” he continued, “listenin’ to the preacher, and—just like that!—she was struck by this…epiphany, I guess they calls it. Like a angel done whispered in her ear and made it all real.”

  It did indeed feel like a revelation. I shook my head in wonder. “He’s a complex man. Part angel, part devil maybe. He was rude to me, but he also gave me this amazing gift.”

  “That card you playin’ with?”

  I tucked it into my purse. “No, the card gets me in to see him tomorrow morning. The gift was much more personal.”

  He’d been waiting, food untouched, until I returned, but I noticed Luz had freshened his key lime margarita at least once. After a deep drink, he said, “You gonna make me gesh? I mean, ‘guess’?”

  “No, I’m gonna make you eat. Seriously, you need som
e solids—it sounds like you’ve been trying to find the bottom of that glass.”

  “Jess hastenin-in’…hastenin’…your plan.” His eyes seemed a little shiny, as if he were about to cry.

  “Fork in hand, Tim. I’m starving.” The fried shell of the chimichanga crackled as I cut into it, and steaming aromas of cooked pork and molten cheese bathed my face. I waited until Tim had started in on his chicken enchiladas and then began to pollute my body in a most delicious way.

  We ate in silence, other than making sounds of pleasure. Halfway through the meal, David paid his bill and left. He gave me a polite nod in passing but nothing more, and didn’t wait for my reaction. The other diners watched him go, obviously aware of who he was. As the front door closed behind him, I overheard conversations in Spanish rise around us, probably of the “if I had his money” variety.

  After Luz swung by to check on us, making a point of not looking at me as she spoke, I asked Tim whether he felt better. He said, “I never said I didn’t, uh, not feel good.”

  “Well, you still sound pretty drunk. I’ll drive us back.” I braced for outrage, but he seemed to appreciate the permission to get hammered. He pushed his keys across the table to me, warm from his pants pocket, and slugged down more margarita.

  Between mouthfuls, I warned him, “You’re going to feel like crap in the morning.”

  He pronounced his words very carefully, as if walking a tightrope of letters. “That assumes I don’t feel like crap normally.”

  Though I was dying to explore that confession and find some way to make things better, I said, “Eat, and I’ll quit the third degree. No more questions tonight, promise.”

  “I has a question for you,” he said, still a man swaying on a wire. “What if you find out something bad about your daddy, something that’ll make it awkwe…hard…for you to show your face in town? Will you pack up n’ go?”

  “Never,” I said. “I’ll just have to show everyone I’m different from him.”