Bones by the Wood (20 page)

The murmur of conversation gradually started to fill the silence that had fallen when she’d started her tirade.  Thea tried to control her breathing.  She didn’t like confrontation if she could avoid it, but she’d happily do what was needed to make sure that she and the other girls weren’t being taken advantage of.  She was feeling a little bit trembly and she didn’t want it to become obvious that she was worked up, that would be showing weakness that she couldn’t afford to advertise in front of Britney and Lucy particularly.

Thea did her best to appear relaxed as she made her way over to Josh, jamming her hands into her pockets in effort to appear nonchalant.  She’d been wrong.  Taking her frustrations out on Lucy and Britney hadn’t eased her at all.  In fact, she’d have been better off going interrupting Dizzy in whatever he was doing and finishing what he’d started, but that was too much of a minefield right now.

“Hey, bud.”  She greeted Josh as she joined him on the sofa he’d claimed.  She was pleased that her voice, at least, sounded level.

“Hey, Mama.”  He was flipping through a motorcycle magazine that he’d found somewhere.  Thea hoped it wasn’t one of the ones that had more pictures of naked women than machinery.  He shut the magazine and looked up at her.  “How come you shouted at Lucy?” 

“She wasn’t doin’ her share of the chores, bud.  When there’s a lot of us together like this, it ain’t fair to everyone else if a couple of people don’t pull their weight.”

Her boy took that in for a moment.  Then, “What’s gold plated mean?”

Oh, if the sofa could just grow teeth in a big, old, ugly mouth and swallow her the fuck up now, that would be perfect.  She’d just lost a shit load of good parenting points by having it out with those two lazy bitches in front of her son. It had been needed, but, oh great.

“Well, coverin’ somethin’ with gold, like a color, makes it look fancier than it really is, bud.” 

“Oh.”  Josh nodded.  “Okay.”  He reopened the magazine and carried on examining whatever it was he’d been absorbed in.

Thea didn’t know whether to be relieved or disturbed that he didn’t ask her anything else.

“What do you want to do today, bud?”

Josh looked at her, he looked a little disappointed.  “We’re not goin’ home?” 

“Not today, we gotta stay here.”

Josh closed his magazine again and looked up with a hopeful expression.  “Can you teach me to play pool?”

“Sure, I’ll do my best.  There’s probably a few people in here who can beat me into the ground, but I’ll show you the basics.”  Thea looked up at the sound of someone approaching.  It was Shaggy.

“Hey, Thea.  If Josh wants to, I can take him into the garage, show him around a bit.  If that’s okay with you?”

Thea was touched that any of the guys would want to take the time to keep Josh occupied, particularly so that it should be Shaggy who seemed to be taking on a lot of the entertainment duties.  She turned to her son.  “You wanna do that, bud?  Go and look at the tools and stuff with Shaggy?”

Josh’s face was alight with excitement.  “Yeah please. Can I, Mama?” 

“Sure.  Off you go.”

Josh immediately jumped up from the sofa, leaving the magazine forgotten.  She watched him trot beside Shaggy, trying to keep up with the tall man’s naturally long stride.

Looking for something to divert her own attention, Thea checked into the kitchen to make sure that Britney and Lucy were doing more than just bitching about her.  They were washing the dishes and she got scowls from both of them, but neither said anything, so she gave them the silent treatment in return.  She wasn’t going to lose any sleep over them.  She did a quick inventory of the cupboards so that she’d be ready to help Annelle when the other women returned, and then got out.  It was too small a space for three big attitudes.

She found that Dana and Easy had reappeared when she left the kitchen.  Easy was helping himself to a bottle of beer behind the bar.  Dana was flipping through the magazine that Josh had discarded.  Thea went over.

“Hey, Dana?”  The other woman looked up.  “Could you show me around?  I don’t know where anythin’s kept around here.  We’ve got visitors comin’ and I could do with knowin’ where the linen closet is and shit like that.”

Dana very much had a ‘girl next door’ look going on, but she needed to gain twenty pounds to avoid looking anorexic and didn’t seem to ever wear a bra despite having nipples that stuck out like finger tips. She flipped her mousy blonde hair over her shoulder.  “Sure thing, Thea, no problem.”

Dana took her back to the corridor that led to the dorm rooms.  One of the doors opened to reveal a fully stocked linen and utility closet.  Thea took a good look to familiarize herself with the available supplies.  When Dana shut the door, Thea nearly jumped out of her skin.  Dizzy was standing there, a broad smile on his face, waiting to pass.

Thea bit her lip.  She wasn’t about to provide a bucket of gossip fodder, not outright, anyway.  Dizzy tipped his hat to them both and winked before going on his way.  Thea glanced at Dana, but if the other woman had noticed anything out of the ordinary, she didn’t remark on it.

Dana headed back to the main room, but Thea paused for a moment.  She thought waiting around for something, anything, might actually drive her a little crazy if she had to do it for more than a couple of days.  She didn’t particularly relish enduring the scowls and sideways looks that she’d be getting from Britney and Lucy once they’d finished the dishes, either.  Instead, she delved back into the closet and pulled out a broom and a dustpan and brush.  All the floors, from the main room, through the corridor and into the kitchen and the dorm rooms, were all tiled.   In the dorm room she’d been in, Dizzy’s room, there had been a large rug to mitigate the chill, but Thea figured the tiling throughout was just a low maintenance solution.  It would be easier to keep clean given the dusty ground outside, and the best vacuum cleaner in the world would struggle to combat the drink, food and bodily fluids that would likely be spilt on everyday basis. 

Thea started at the far end of the corridor.  She didn’t intrude into the dorm rooms but swept her way into the main room and swept around that room too.  She moved chairs and tables where she could, and where she couldn’t most people obligingly moved out of the way.  There was the other room, the one behind those heavy looking double doors, but they were shut.  It was only then that Thea realized that Dizzy wasn’t in the main room.  She reasoned that he was probably in that other room that they kept disappearing into.  It was different from the setup she’d seen before; it obviously occupied the addition to the building.  She thought she remembered Elvis referring to that private space as the Church or the Chapel or something religious sounding.  Thea decide not to barge in.  If they wanted it cleaned, they could ask.

Having returned the brush to its rightful place, she set some coffee to brew.  She was beyond ready for a caffeine fix.  She’d almost finished her much-needed mug of liquid energy when Josh came bouncing back in with Shaggy, looking like he’d seen Santa Claus.

“Mama, Shaggy said he’d take me for a ride on his bike.”

Thea was amused by the uncomfortable, slightly embarrassed expression on Shaggy’s heavy features.  “I said only if it was okay with your mama.”

Thea couldn’t help but giggle.  “Sure, bud.  But only around the lot.  I don’t want you goin’ out on the road,” she added, more for Shaggy’s benefit than for Josh’s.  “And don’t go buggin’ him to take you out now.  I think maybe you should take a look at your school books.  Maybe get a headstart on your classes for Monday while you’ve got the chance.”

Josh deflated, but didn’t argue.  Thea knew that he wanted to, but that he was worried she’d revoke her permission for the ride if he did.  As he set off in search of his school bag, the door to the lot opened, and Annelle, Alex, Scooby and Cage started bringing in the results of their shopping trip.  Thea made sure there was still plenty of coffee in the carafe, and then went to help.

All the girls lent a hand, except Reba who was still MIA.  Britney and Lucy made a cursory effort before reclaiming their seats.  Annelle noted their involvement, but didn’t say anything until the majority of the work was done and it was just her and Thea stacking the boxes containing the inflatable mattresses in an out-of-the-way corner.

“Who put a rocket up their asses?”

Thea knew exactly who Annelle was referring to.  “Me.  I kinda persuaded them to help with the dishes.  They hadn’t shifted off that damn sofa after you went out.”

“You havta shed blood to get them to move?”  Annelle seemed to be impressed with Thea’s success rather than angered that her own instructions had been ignored.

“No.  But there’s a good chance they’re both out for mine now.”

“Those two are more bark than bite and not even a lot of that.”

Thea was saved from debating her chances in physical combat against either Lucy or Britney by the thunderous roar of a number of bikes that signaled the arrival of their visitors from the neighboring state.  Thea and Annelle finished what they were doing in the kitchen and went to observe the new arrivals.  Neither woman was inclined to intrude on the melee in the room, which seemed to Thea to be a mass of man hugs, handshakes and back slapping.  They stayed in the doorway to the kitchen, both leaning their shoulders against the jamb.  Thea laughed to herself when she realized they looked like bookends, both standing there with their arms folded across their chests.  She glanced over to the table that Josh had been seated at, to check that he wasn’t underfoot.  He was watching what was going on rather than his books, but he was keeping to himself.

There were seven new arrivals.  One of them, bald and muscled, was as big as Shaggy and Scooby.  The clubhouse wasn’t small, but Thea was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic with three giants in it.  Another one with his head shaved smooth and equally muscled, although shorter, had a laugh that could be heard across the room.  Ferret seemed particularly enthusiastic to greet one man who had a manic air, an extensive selection of scars across his brown-fuzzed scalp and blue eyes that were about as bright as her own.  Thea didn’t catch any names, but no introductions were made to any of the women in the room, either.  It was vaguely entertaining to watch them do their alpha-biker-man thing.

One man with an impressively neat, pointed beard and well groomed moustache that shared several shades of brown and silver with the hair that waved over and behind his ears, was obviously the leader of the Louisiana group.  Dizzy was leading him out of the thick of the pack and towards their private room when he looked up and over at Thea.  He shot her a grin that she knew was just for her, and she couldn’t help her own answering smile.  The man with Dizzy looked over, openly curious and seemingly even a little surprised.

The quiet in the room seemed almost strange once they’d shut the double doors behind them.  Nut appeared to have been dispatched to collect everyone’s belongings from their bikes.  Thea took pity on him and, nudging Annelle to follow her, she went to help him decide where to put whom.  Reba appeared from who the fuck knew where, so Thea asked her to collect some linens and to start to change the beds.  Not trusting the woman, whose pupils seemed suspiciously dilated, to follow through with the task in its entirety by herself, Thea asked Myla to give Reba a hand.  After they’d finished the allocation of the sleeping arrangements, Thea planned to get started on cooking the evening meal.  Feeding this bunch was going to be a neverending task. 

Dizzy felt both relief and disappointment that there were enough empty seats around their table to accommodate the seven men from the mother charter without difficulty.  It wouldn’t be this way forever, but this latest trouble had disrupted their plans to fill the table out.  He guessed the results of this weekend would help a few of the prospective transfers make up their minds about whether they truly wanted to make the trip south or not.

Dizzy was thrown for a second or two once he was in the Chapel.  The Priests had been a single charter MC for as long as he’d been a member; he’d never witnessed this situation before.  For a moment he paused, unsure as to whether he should offer Samuel, as President of the mother charter, his seat at the head of the table.  Samuel, exhibiting the seamless ease that made him such an excellent President in Dizzy’s opinion, clapped his palm over Dizzy’s shoulder and gave him a gentle and unobtrusive push to the head of the table, before taking the seat at the foot of the table that would be facing him.  All the members of the Texas charter took their usual seats, except for Easy and Ferret, who’d swapped so that Ferret and Crash would be next to each other.