Gone South (30 page)

“He hasn’t always,” George said. “The night she went missing, he cried.”

Sensing that she was about to hear quite a tale, Tish lowered herself to a crouch. “Mel went missing? When?”

“She was about eight or nine, I guess. Hated school. Decided she was big enough to make it on her own, so she packed some things in a little bag and took off walking. She was missing for hours. Half the town was out searching. An old cop, Rivera, found her and brought her back. It turned out she’d heard me and Stu calling her name but she wouldn’t come out. She knew we would take her home and Dunc would give her a whipping.”

“She went with the policeman, though?”

“Rivera had grandkids, so he knew how to handle a stubborn little girl.” George gave her a mischievous smile. “It probably had something to do with letting her operate his lights and siren. But when he brought her back, she wouldn’t go to Dunc. Rivera handed her to Stu instead, and that’s when he started crying.”

“At least we know he has a heart. Or he used to, anyway.”

“I’ll work on him,” George said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Let me know if you get anywhere. Good night.”

“Good night, and brace yourself. I’m about to fire up the monster.”

Tish laughed at the excitement shining in his eyes. “Thanks for the warning. Won’t it scare Daisy, though?”

“No, she’s used to it.”

She’d nearly reached the camellias before he started the engine, but the roar of it still made her jump. She turned around. “Now that’s a car that makes a statement!” she yelled, knowing he couldn’t hear her.

He gunned it, drowning out everything else, but she knew he was laughing.

Maybe, just maybe, she could learn to like fast cars again.

George never bought himself a cup of coffee if he was within a few miles of his own coffeemaker, but he’d made an exception this time because Stu had always liked the Starbucks wannabe on Main—especially on Wednesdays when they had their specials.

Sure enough, there he was. Wearing his usual half-asleep expression, Stu huddled at a tiny table in the rear. Coffee in his left hand, he picked at a keyboard with his right. The tables around him were empty, as if the other customers had decided to avoid his gloom. Everybody else stayed at the front of the shop where the sun shone in and the barista kept everybody smiling.

After claiming his own coffee, George approached. “Well, look who’s here. Good morning, Stu.”

Surrounded by a clutter of papers and sticky notes, Stu looked up, over the frames of reading glasses. “Morning, George. Sit. Sit.” He took off his glasses and made motions as if to shut his laptop.

George signaled to him to stop. “I don’t want to interrupt what you’re doing. Not for long, anyway.” He took the other chair. “How’s the kitchen remodel coming along?”

“Slowly. I wish I hadn’t agreed to camp out at my folks’ house.”

“A little too crowded?”

“That too, but the real problem is that Janice knows we won’t do this twice, so she’s slow to decide about her color choices and so on. If we were
home, living without a functioning kitchen, she’d make up her mind a little faster.”

George nodded, imagining Stu’s wife agonizing over the color of her countertops while her twenty-year-old sister-in-law relied on charity from a virtual stranger. But that was a topic to be broached sideways, so to speak, a little later.

“Did you hear the Nelsons sold to a Letitia McComb?”

“That’s old news, George. I hear she’s a typical loudmouth northerner.”

“I’ll have to argue with that. I like her.”

“You’ve met her?”

“I have.” George finally tried his coffee. It burned his tongue.

“How’s business?” Stu asked.

“Not bad. It’s a little harder to turn a profit these days when anybody can go online and find out if great-grandma’s china is worth five bucks or five hundred. The Internet has come a long way since you and I played on your parents’ PC. But I’m doing well with my specialty items.”

“Still restoring old cash registers?”

“Yes. I sold a beautiful 1912 NCR last week.”

“For how much?”

George smiled. “Plenty. I earned it too. It can take months to track down replacement parts, and months more to put all those fiddly little parts back together so everything works. In some ways, it’s more challenging than restoring a car, but don’t try to tell Calv that.”

Stu’s eyes glinted with good humor. “It must be fun to set your own prices. Run your own show, so to speak.”

“It is.” With a flash of pity for anyone who had to work under Dunc’s thumb, George tried his coffee again, more cautiously. “How’s everything at the dealership?”

“Good, except I didn’t go to college just so I could sell cars for a living.” Stu gave a rueful smile to his laptop, maybe wishing he’d pursued graphic arts like
he’d talked about in high school. “On the other hand, it’s nice to know the dealership will be mine someday.”

“You’ll cut Mel right out of it, eh?”

Stu’s eyes went to the other end of the room. “She’s never been part of it.”

“She’s still part of the family, though, isn’t she?”

A long silence ensued. While Stu played with his sticky notes, George worried that he’d crossed the line. They’d been buddies from Little League through their college years, but that didn’t give him the right to butt in to the Hamiltons’ business.

“Look,” Stu burst out. “Have you forgotten that she helps herself to whatever she wants? The gold watch that was supposed to go to me, for instance.”

“Even if she took the watch, she’s still your sister. It might mean the world to her if you’d stop by and see her.”

“I don’t know where to find her.”

“I do.”

Stu picked up a pad of bright blue sticky notes, pulled one off, and folded it in half. “I’m glad somebody knows where she is, at least.”

“But you don’t care to know?”

He drew the folded rectangle of blue paper between rows of keys on his laptop. “This is a great way to get lint out of keyboards. Sticky side out.”

“That’s terrific, Stuart. I’m thrilled. Now see if you can dig deep in your heart, if you have one, and scrape up some brotherly love for Mel.”

He looked up. “It’s not my fault that she blows up her bridges behind her. My folks are fresh out of patience with her. Dad told me she came home, mouthed off, tried to swipe a couple of things—”

“When? What kind of things?”

“He didn’t give me the details.” Stu ran the sticky note between another two rows. “Look, you know she’d be a bad influence on Nick and Jamie. Isn’t that enough reason to draw the line?”

Remembering Tish’s suspicion about drugs in the sleeping bag and Nick’s obvious loyalty to Mel, George couldn’t argue with that part. “Even if you don’t want her around the boys, you could go see her. Your schedule’s flexible. If you’re afraid to cross your dad, you can sneak out to see her sometime when he’s at the dealership.”

The taunt made a muscle tighten in Stu’s jaw. “I’m not afraid of him … but I don’t want to get on his bad side either. You have no idea what it’s like to deal with a difficult parent. To walk on eggshells all the time.”

“Sure, but try to see it from Mel’s perspective. She’s back in town after a two-year absence, and her big brother hasn’t even tried to see her. Don’t you want to know where she’s working? Where she’s staying?”

Keeping his eyes on the laptop, Stu shrugged. “Sure.”

George checked his watch. Mel would show up at the shop in about fifteen minutes, so he had to run. He picked up his coffee, stood, and decided there was no reason to keep his voice down. Let the whole town know.

“I hired Mel. She’s working in my shop.”

Stu’s head jerked up. Squinting and blinking, he focused on George’s shirt, not his face. “Do tell.”

“And she’s staying with a very fine person named Letitia McComb.”

Stu rubbed his eyes like a man waking from a long nap. “She what?”

“You heard me. Do with it what you will. Have a great day, Stu.” George headed toward the door, noticing with great satisfaction that several of the shop’s customers were staring at him over their overpriced coffees. Their ears must have been burning hotter than his tongue.

Another Wednesday had rolled around, but even if Stu had hit the coffee place again for the specials, George hadn’t. He’d missed his chance, and the day was over. Dark had come early with the rain. He’d already sent Mel home, locked up, and closed out the register. He dimmed the main lights, leaving his merchandise in an artificial twilight, and pondered his plans for the evening.

The storm was a mean one, and it had settled in to stay awhile. Fat raindrops spanked the sidewalk so hard that it sounded like hail. He and Calv had decided they wouldn’t work on the car tonight. It just seemed like a good night to stay home.

He tucked the dog into his jacket, took her out the back door, and ran up the stairs. He was soaking wet by the time they got inside, but he’d spared Daisy the worst of it. She was indignant anyway, shaking herself violently. After he’d fed her, he stood by the window to the balcony and watched the rain.

Ever since he’d seen Stu, he’d been waiting for Mel to say that her brother had called or stopped by. But a week had passed and she’d said nothing about it.

What did he have to lose? The friendship wasn’t exactly flourishing anyway.

George called the number but reached voice mail. “Stu, it’s George,” he said. “Get off your duff and do something before you lose your sister. She’s not
working tomorrow so you can’t use her work schedule as an excuse. If you don’t want her around your boys, then keep her away from them, but you’re no longer at a young and impressionable age so I don’t think she’s a bad influence on you.”

He ended the call. It was an abrupt way to end the message, but he didn’t care.

With Daisy’s crunching noises as the backdrop for his thoughts, he booted up his computer so he could research his hunch about Mel. He didn’t have much to go on. Just the atrocious spelling on her job application. The way she’d always loathed school. The problem she’d had in making change for customers.

He typed the words into the search engine: learning disabilities.

Mel’s stomach growled. This wasn’t the way she’d pictured her day off, but she couldn’t think of a polite way to tell Tish it was time for lunch.

For three hours, they’d worked around the house. They’d oiled creaky hinges, unpacked one box of kitchen stuff, and then they’d hung blinds, then curtains, and then pictures, including that ugly old portrait. She didn’t know why Tish would even want it anymore.

Tish set her pink plastic toolbox on the coffee table and turned her head slowly as if she were trying to get the panoramic view of the living room. “A woman isn’t fully dressed without her accessories, and a house is never fully dressed without her window treatments.”

Mel tried to act enthusiastic. “Yeah, they’re pretty.” But curtains and blinds just felt like walls between her and the outdoors. They made her feel trapped.

At least Tish had opened the slats so they didn’t block the view completely. Not that the view was anything special. Just Mrs. Nair’s house.

Tish took a pen and scratched out a couple of lines in her tiny notebook. “It feels great to have so many items crossed off my to-do list. Thanks for your help, Mel.”