Gone South (34 page)

Having failed to talk Tish out of her crazy mission, George had spent the day keeping an eye on Mel. She worried him. She managed to act perky for their customers, but every time the shop emptied, she retreated into silence and gloom. He wished Tish would call, at least, but the lack of communication told him it hadn’t gone well.

It was nearly closing time when he heard a knock on the back door. He checked to be sure Mel was in the showroom and out of earshot before he opened the door, but when Tish walked in, she didn’t need to speak. Her tearful eyes said it all.

“Bad news, huh?”

She nodded. “Where is she?”

“Out front. Sit.” George pulled out the chair at the head of the ugly old worktable. “What happened?”

She sank onto the chair and looked up at him. “I thought returning the watch was the key to patching things up with her family. I even thought he would let her keep it. Now she doesn’t have the watch or the family.” She covered her face with her hands. “I guess I’m the only one who isn’t surprised.”

“You’re the only one who doesn’t know Dunc.” George reached down to give her shoulder a squeeze. “Are you ready to talk to her?”

She nodded, still hiding her face.

“I’ll get her.”

It was a matter of three minutes to lock up the shop and return to the back room with Calv and Mel. Silent and expressionless, she faced Tish and waited.

“Mel, I’m sorry,” Tish said. “Your dad took the watch, but he didn’t … well, getting it back didn’t soften his heart any.”

“He always takes things.” Mel’s eyes were dry, and her voice was soft but steady. “Like he took the car. Like he took the black jacket when it was so cold …”

“I’d feel better if you’d scream at me and tell me what a stupid idea it was.”

“It’s okay, Tish. I just want to be alone for a while.” Mel found her hoodie and walked out the back door, shutting it gently.

Silence settled upon them until Calv let out a heavy sigh. “The prodigal went to a far country and lost everything,” he said.

Tish’s face hardened. “She didn’t lose everything. She had the watch—until I made her give it back. I wish I hadn’t.”

Unperturbed by her tone, Calv kept going. “Dunc ain’t in the business of killing fatted calves. He don’t fit the father mold. Mel don’t fit the repentant prodigal mold either.”

“She’s hungry, isn’t she, just like the prodigal in the Bible,” Tish snapped.

“Yes ma’am. I’ll give you that one.” Calv widened his eyes at George as if to invite him into the discussion.

George shook his head and pursued his thoughts in silence. It was safer that way.

Instead of asking for her inheritance, Mel had swiped her older brother’s watch. And instead of asking forgiveness, she’d steadfastly maintained that she’d only taken what was hers. No wonder Dunc hadn’t given her a fancy robe or fired up the grill.

Tish glared at Calv. “I wish somebody would do something practical.”

He gave her a reproachful look. “Like what, young lady?”

“I guess punching Dunc’s lights out wouldn’t count.”

“We don’t want to do that, Miss Tish. Cross that man, and he turns into ten gallons of mean in a five-gallon bucket. It sloshes all over everybody.” Calv pulled keys from his pocket. “I gotta get off to my AA meeting before somebody draws me into some kind of altercation. Bye, y’all.” He left by the back door, his shoulders stooped.

Tish rose. “I should head back to the house too.”

“Hold on a minute,” George said. “Was Stu there?”

“I didn’t see him. It was only Dunc and me in his office. I felt like a peon, and he was the king who had the power to say ‘off with her head.’ ”

“He has that way about him.”

“I seriously considered making a run for it. With the watch.” She laughed sadly. “Farris was right. Bad company has corrupted my good morals.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. Most people would never have the courage to confront Dunc in the first place.”

“He had every right to be angry with her.” She sighed and moved toward the door. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. The Carlyle family had every
right to be angry with Nathan for stealing too, but it’s wrong to hang on to the anger forever.”

George opened the door for her, his mind teeming with troubled thoughts about Yankees and carpetbaggers, prodigals and parents and siblings. Every story had more than one side to it.

Walking out of the parts store with Calv on Sunday afternoon, George shook his head, recalling a snatch of a dream he’d had when he drifted off to sleep in church. In his dream, Tish had been preaching, and she was mad as heck about something.

Then he’d snapped out of it, waking in a church that didn’t allow lady preachers. He’d found himself wishing mightily that it did. Tish would wake up a few people.

Returning to reality, he peered into the brown paper sack and shook his head. “I can’t believe one little gizmo cost me forty bucks.”

Calv snorted. “Your shorts too tight? You’ve been grouchy all day. No, all week. Ever since Tish took the watch to Dunc.”

Had it been a week? Yes. Eight days, actually. Tish had stormed Dunc’s office on a Saturday. A week ago yesterday. Meanwhile, Stu and his family had moved back to their own house. When George told Mel, she’d said she didn’t care if they moved to the North Pole. They weren’t her family anymore.

She had worked four days over the past week. Her job skills were improving, and she’d started to master the art of making cheerful chitchat with even the most obnoxious customers. But when things got slow, she hardly said a word.

Calv squinted into the sunshine. “Speak of the devil. Two of ’em.”

Dunc and Stu ambled across the parking lot, their heads bent together,
heading toward a silver SUV parked only a few spaces away from George’s van. That was convenient.

“Good afternoon,” George said when they were too close to ignore him.

Stu mumbled some kind of greeting—he’d never responded to George’s voice mail—and Dunc nodded but didn’t speak.

George’s temper began to wake up. “May I have a word with you, Dunc?”

“Sure. Fire away.”

George stopped a few feet from them and put his hands on his hips, the paper bag probably detracting from what he’d hoped would be a gunslinger stance. “Why do you act like Mel isn’t part of the family anymore?”

“If she wants to play by the rules, I’ll let her back in the game.”

Calv dropped a heavy hand on George’s shoulder. “This ain’t goin’ anywhere good,” he said quietly. “Leave it.”

Still feeling Calv’s crushing grip, George moved closer to Dunc. “I understand you’re shutting her out even after she’s tried to make amends.”

“I told her already that I want an apology, but the little coward couldn’t even face me in person. She had to send Letitia McComb, of all people, to apologize for her. To do her dirty work.” Dunc shook his finger in George’s face. “Keep that woman out of my hair, Zorbas.”

George laughed. “I don’t try to tell Tish what to do. But what’s the big idea? You used to say you wouldn’t welcome Mel home until she’d returned the watch. Now she’s still not welcome after she’s returned it?”

Stu’s head jerked up. “She did? She never sold it?”

“She had it all this time,” George said. “She gave it back, via Tish.”

A storm stirred in Stu’s eyes, usually so drowsy. “It was supposed to be my watch. When did this happen, Dad?”

“Over a week ago,” George put in quickly.

Stu stared at his father. “Dad? You somehow forgot to tell me?”

“Relax,” Dunc said. “I would’ve given it to you.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure you would.”

Stu hit a remote to unlock his vehicle, and both Hamiltons climbed in. He reversed the vehicle so quickly that neither of them could have buckled up yet. Exiting the lot, he cornered that big SUV as hard as if it were the Firebird he’d driven in high school.

Calv let out a low whistle. “Somethin’ tells me Stu and his old man are having a highly entertaining discussion about the ownership of that watch.”

“I hope Stu’s giving him an earful.”

Calv laughed softly. “Has Stu ever given anybody an earful?”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

But the real problem was that Stu, like his old man, seemed to value the watch more highly than he valued Mel.

It was a typical bad-news Monday. None of Tish’s job leads had panned out lately. Trying to put a positive spin on it, she remembered her dad’s favorite quotation from Thomas Edison: “I have not failed, not once. I’ve discovered ten thousand ways that don’t work.” But she wasn’t sure her dad had the wording exactly right, and Edison had been talking about inventions, anyway. Not job hunting.

“I have not failed, not once,” she told Mel, sitting behind her at the kitchen table. “I’ve just discovered a whole mess o’ jobs that won’t work for me.”

“You’re almost starting to sound like a southerner,” Mel said. “Pretty soon you’ll start saying ‘y’all’ instead of ‘you guys.’ ”

Tish forced a laugh. “Maybe, but I refuse to say ‘all y’all’ or ‘who-all.’ ”

Mel didn’t answer, fortunately, because Tish couldn’t have come up with another quip.

On top of everything else, now she’d burned the grilled cheese. She wanted to cry, but with Mel setting such a fine example of maturity and fortitude in spite of her family’s issues, minor issues needed to remain that. Minor.

Tish swallowed hard, manufactured a smile, and turned from the stove with the plates in her hands. “Sorry.” She slid Mel’s plate across the table with the least burnt sandwich and kept the blacker one for herself. “It won’t hurt my feelings if you want to scrape the burnt part into the trash.”

“No, it’s fine. I like things crispy.” Mel gave her a thoughtful look. “You had a bad day, huh?”

A terrible day. “I’m never late for anything, not even a dentist appointment. Never. I always allow myself plenty of time, but everything went wrong. I was five minutes late.”

“Five minutes? That’s not bad.”

“For an interview, it’s terrible. Then I was flustered and I botched the interview. The woman pretended to love me, but I could see right through it.”

“Yeah. I wish people would be honest. If they love you, they should show it. If they don’t love you, they should show that too, instead of faking the love.” Mel nibbled at the darkest corner of her sandwich. “Yum. Toasty.”

Tish smiled. “I think you’re faking your love for that burnt sandwich.”

“No, I’m not faking it. I like burnt popcorn too. I’m weird that way.”

Tish took a brave bite of her sandwich and wanted to spit it out. It was far beyond toasty, but she made herself eat it.

Out at the garage, Calv revved up the Chevelle’s engine. “Sounds like a NASCAR garage out there,” she said. “Calv has been working on that thing all day.”

“Yeah, George is taking it to some kind of car show over the weekend, and Calv wants to make sure it won’t fall apart on him.”

“I heard about that,” Tish said.

It made no sense, the way her throat closed up as if she were about to start crying. They weren’t even talking about her job hunt anyway. They were talking about a stupid car.

“Don’t be sad,” Mel said gently. “I’m sorry about your interview, but
something will come up. Hey, you should do some networking, you know? Join some clubs or something. A singles group or a dance class or whatever. Maybe you’ll connect with somebody who’s looking to hire somebody, and you’ll have some fun too.”

Tish breathed deeply and collected herself. “That’s not a bad plan, as long as it isn’t expensive. There must be a community college around here somewhere. Sometimes they offer interesting classes, cheap.”

“There’s one in Muldro. I checked it out after high school, but then I went to Florida instead.”

“You could still look into it.”

“Except I don’t have a way to get to Muldro. Not yet, anyway, but at least I have a job. That’s a start.”

“It’s definitely a start.”

“There’s even bingo,” Mel said suddenly. “For networking, I mean. At the VFW hall. My grandpa used to go.”

Tish smiled at the idea of networking for jobs among bingo-playing senior citizens. “Your grandpa had enough money to own a classic Corvette, but he’d play bingo at the VFW hall?”