“Possibly,” I said.
“Okay, here’s the number.” I heard Dad pushing some buttons on the phone, then, “Yeah, hi, it’s Arlen Walker? Mr. Trench handled everything when I bought Denny’s Cabins…. That’s right, yeah…. I was wondering, could I make an appointment with him, soon as possible?…Tomorrow would be fine, sure…. That’s perfect, thank you so much.”
He hung up. “Tomorrow at ten-thirty!”
“That’s great, Dad. I’ll drive you in.”
“You’ll come in, too, won’t you? To talk to the lawyer with me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“This is very good. Maybe I can get rid of those bastards once and for all, the whole goddamn lot of them! Then, once the house is empty, I’ll get it cleaned up. We’ll have to rent a Dumpster, throw out all that crap up there, the rusting appliances, that old rusty bed, Jesus I can’t believe the way they’ve let the place—”
There was a knock at the back door. I walked the two steps over and swung it wide.
It was Timmy Wickens.
Dad was still shouting. “Those sons of bitches will just have to look—”
“Dad!” I shouted.
“Huh?”
“Mr. Wickens is here.”
Wickens, in black boots, work pants, and a padded hunting vest, his bald head gleaming, smiled. “I wanted to have a word with Mr. Walker.”
“Sure,” I said. Dad was already hobbling out of the study. “Won’t you step inside?” I said to Wickens, who accepted the invitation.
“Mr. Walker?” Wickens said as Dad made his way to the door. “How’s your ankle?”
“Oh, you know, it smarts a bit,” Dad said. “I’m sorry to hear about your trouble. That young man.”
Wickens nodded. “Tragic,” he said. “Just tragic. Can’t ever remember something like that happening up here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “How’s your daughter doing?”
There was a glint in Wickens’s eye, like maybe I’d crossed some line, daring to ask a question about her.
“She’s good,” he said. “She’s going to be just fine. May’s a strong girl. So you’re Mr. Walker’s son, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m staying with Dad a few days, helping him out till his ankle gets a bit stronger.”
“He’s taken over cabin three,” Dad said. “Making himself right at home.”
“What I was wondering,” Timmy Wickens said to Dad, “Charlene and I, that’s my wife,” he looked at me when he said it, “we were wondering could you join us for dinner tonight? The two of you.”
I looked at Dad.
“I know it’s short notice and all,” Timmy said, “but we’d be much obliged if the two of you joined us for dinner. Our misfortune kind of turned your life upside down, too, and we’d like to make it right.”
Dad appeared stunned. “Zachary, are we, are we doing something tonight?”
I shrugged. “Not that I know of.”
Dad’s eyes widened. “I, I guess, I don’t think we’ve got anything on for tonight.”
Wickens smiled. “That’s great, then. Why don’t you stroll up around six-thirty or so?”
“That sounds great, Timmy,” Dad said. “Isn’t that great, son?”
I nodded. “Sounds terrific.”
“Settled then,” said Wickens, turning and heading back out the door.
Once I had it closed behind him, Dad and I stared at each other for several seconds without speaking.
“Sarah,” I finally said, “would tell me, in social situations like this, that we should take some kind of hostess gift.”
“Okay,” Dad said. “Got any ideas?”
“I was thinking, a case of Alpo. We give the dogs something to eat, maybe they won’t eat us.”
10
IT WAS TIME to set other problems aside temporarily and start tackling the chores at Denny’s Cabins. Helping out around the place was, after all, the initial reason for my decision to hang in, although other things that threatened to keep me here longer seemed to be growing exponentially.
“This is dump day,” Dad informed me.
“Shit,” I said. “I forgot to get you a card.”
“Do you want to help, or do you just want to be a smartass?” Dad asked. It was, I had to admit, a tough question. I believed it was possible, with some effort, to do both. I had been pissed at him ever since Timmy Wickens’s visit for not being creative enough to come up with an excuse to get us out of dinner with people we were trying to find a way to evict.
“You could have said something,” he said accusingly.
“He was inviting you,” I said. “I was just an afterthought.”
We bickered about that for a while, got nowhere, finally decided to move on. “Tell me what needs to be done around here,” I said, which had brought us to the exciting news that it was dump day.
But there was more. “Once you do a run to the dump, there’s grass to cut, fish guts to bury, we need to make sure we’ve got worms, there’s—”
“See if we’ve got worms?”
“Night crawlers, bait, for crying out loud. I keep ’em in a fridge out in the shed.”