“Yes, in the end, I guess, that was true. But I believed he was interested in me. And I was lonely.”
“You didn’t have no one else telling you he was suspicious?”
“One man,” I said. “Smith. Our…foreman, I guess.” Smith and his relationship to Mom and to me and the land kind of defied description. “He warned me that Hoyt was bad news.”
“Smart man.”
“You remind me of him. Of Smith.”
Ben looked up, startled at that. “Well, that’s a mistake. I’m not smart, or I wouldn’t be put out to pasture here.”
“Still,” I said, smiling at Ben. “You two are a lot alike.”
“I guess I’m supposed to take that as a compliment?”
“Yep.” Smith had been the best man I knew, despite the rumors about him. Despite…what I’d done to him.
“Fine.” Oh, Ben was so crusty, it made me laugh.
The jalape?os popped in the grease.
“You stay away from that fuckwit Phil,” he said. “In the double-wide by the laundry. He’s bad business. He’d hurt you and not think twice about it.”
“He was here last night, nearly ruined his son’s birthday party, but Joan stepped in,” I said. “Our neighbor—”
“Oh, I know Joan. And that crazy bitch would do something so stupid.”
I bristled at the name and Ben’s tone. “I thought it was pretty courageous.”
Ben’s eyes lifted to the bruises around my neck and then quickly away.
“Sometimes I miss Maria more than I can stand,” he said. “I wake up at night so lonely it’s like someone chopped off my leg. And then I remember how shitty we were together. How we hurt each other over and over. How much I fucked up, and I think it’s probably better this way. Better to be alone.”
I’d had that same thought just the other day, but somehow it was lonelier when he said it.
He wasn’t a dangerous sociopath. He was a lonely old man trying to re-create something from happier days.
“Thanks for the zucchini flower,” I said. “And for listening, I guess.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll save you some cornbread.”
After my shower I lay down on my bed, the cell phone in my hand. But somehow I couldn’t quite turn it on.
I’d had dessert for breakfast. I’d gone skinny-dipping.
I’d expected anticipation and lust and the throb between my legs and the tightness of my skin.
But somehow the world seemed like it was just too heavy a place right now. All the hard edges were out tonight and I felt each one of them.
I turned the phone on and a text message appeared from earlier in the day.
Dylan: I’m really hoping you found yourself some pie for breakfast…
I smiled, and despite the melancholy, something dark ignited low in my body.
Annie: I did. Well, cake. And I went skinny-dipping this afternoon.
I didn’t expect him to write back right away, but within a minute his answer appeared on the screen.
Dylan: You gonna call me?
Annie: It was kind of a weird day…and night.
Dylan: Call me.
There really wasn’t any question. We were doing this his way. And my way left me alone in my bed and sad. His way I got to call him and maybe…maybe come against my hand.
I called him.
“Layla?” Oh, his voice. His voice just killed me. Part drawl, part growl.
“Hi.”
“You all right?”
I took a deep breath, trying to keep the strange comfort of his worry at arm’s length. “I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
“It’s a long story…”
“You got something else to do?” he asked.
“No.”
“Me neither. Might as well tell me.”
I flung an arm out across the bed. Night was falling outside the trailer. I could hear the sounds of the kids on the other side of the rhododendron playing at the swing set. Someone somewhere was grilling hamburgers.
“This…is just kind of a sad place, is all. Sad people.”
“And you’re feeling sad?”
“Not very sexy, is it?” I said with a little laugh. “How about I call you—”