I Love This Bar (4 page)

   Daisy toasted a couple of blueberry pastries in the microwave and served them with the coffee. "It's hot. Give it time to cool a bit or it'll burn the hell out of your mouth."

   Chigger dipped a pastry into the coffee, blew on it, and popped a bite into her mouth. "Take more than that to burn the hell out of me, girl. You got a nice place back here."

   "Thank you," Daisy said.

   Chigger looked around at the sparsely decorated apartment. "You are definitely not a clutter person. A woman's house says a lot about the kind of person they are. You are straightforward and speak your mind. Me, I am a clutter person. I collect angels and they're everywhere, even on the ends of my ceiling fan cords. I'm one of those women who wants everything she sees. I wish I had a setup like this. Make it a lot easier to have a good time if I didn't have to wait to get Jim Bob home."

   "Ruby said I could go to the motel or get laid in a hay loft, but no men were allowed in the apartment. It made sense. By the time I get a man to a motel, I usually change my mind about sleeping with him and save myself some heartache."

   Chigger shot her a dirty look. "Are you digging at me?"

   "No, just statin' facts," Daisy said. She picked up her pastry and took a bite.

   "My hair appointments don't start until three o'clock today. Got four and won't be done until six and then I'll be right back at the Honky Tonk for the evening." Chigger sipped coffee between words.

   "How'd you get off so easy on Saturday? I figured folks would be clamoring to get their hair done for church on Sunday," Daisy said.

   "More like for partyin' on Saturday night. Actually most of my older folks get beautified on Friday. It's my busiest day. Only thing that keeps me going is knowing that when it's all done I go to the Honky Tonk."

   "Nothin' any closer than this place?" Daisy asked.

   Chigger had been coming to the beer joint for years and suddenly the day after Jarod McElroy showed up, she paid a home visit? It didn't make much sense unless she was there to stake a claim. Poor old Jim Bob Walker was about to get his heart broken.

   Chigger winked. "You tryin' to run me off, girlfriend? Damn, girl, I'm your best customer and just think of all the good lookin' men I drag in for you."

   "Seriously? Why do you drive all this distance?" Daisy asked.

   "Seriously? I live in Stephenville, darlin'. Cats don't potty in their beds. And besides, Erath County is dry. This is the closest place I can find with dancin' and hunky horny ranchers wantin' a good time."

   "What's that supposed to mean? Cats don't potty in their own beds? "

   Chigger talked with her hands and waved them around in circles before she answered. "Think about it. Cat has to find a place to potty but it ain't goin' to be in their bed or their own backyard. They'll jump the fence to go dig a hole in the neighbor's yard. In Stephenville, I'm Willa Mae Jones. I live next door to my momma and fix hair for a living in a beauty shop out behind my house. Momma thinks I've got a friend named Daisy O'Dell up here in Palo Pinto County that I spent a lot of Friday and Saturday nights with. I wouldn't cause Momma no grief for nothin'. She was forty when she had me and she's seventy-five now and getting old."

   Daisy did the math and had to swallow hard to keep from spitting coffee across the table all over Jim Bob's shirt. "You're thirty-five?"

   "I know, darlin'. Most folks wouldn't believe I'm that old. Don't you tell on me, now. It's this deal I have with Revlon. Wasn't for hair dye and good makeup I'd look every bit of my age," Chigger said with another of her famous winks.

   Daisy nodded and hoped Lucifer didn't jump up from hell and drag her into the fiery pits for agreeing with such a blatant lie. She'd figured Chigger was at least ten years older than Jim Bob's thirty-five years and maybe even kissing fifty firmly on the lips. Thirty-five! Still young enough to start a family. Now that was a scary thought. The offspring of Jim Bob and Chigger! Hellraisers for sure. She'd have to hire more than bouncers when they were legal-aged drinkers.

   "Want to know why I came to visit this morning?" Chigger said.

   "Oh, yes, I do," Daisy said.

   "You don't have to answer like that. It damn sure ain't to ask you for a job."

   "O… ka…y." Daisy dragged out the word.

   Chigger bit her lower lip. "Truth is I saw the way that cowboy made you all hot and horny last night after he fell on top of you. Can't say as I blame you one bit either. Must have been a second there when you thought he was finishin' up a good rousting bout of sex before you come to your senses and saw that you'd both fell down together. Your eyes were flashing around like Christmas tree lights. Never saw you look like that before."

   Crimson flushed Daisy's cheeks.

   Chigger laughed and clapped her hands. "Why Daisy O'Dell, you are red as Rudolph's nose. Let's go clean up the bar and have some lunch."

   "What?" Daisy asked.

   "I know that you clean up the beer joint the next mornin'. I'll help you and then I'll buy you lunch at the Smokestack. I'm partial to their chicken fried steaks and fries. Then
you
have to go meet Momma. She sees a sweet lookin' little thing like you, she'll think I'm up here in Mingus paintin' my toenails on Friday and Saturday nights. That's what I told her and you are going to help me make her believe it."

   Daisy looked at Chigger as if she were seeing an alien straight from a little flat spaceship. Any minute now and Chigger's eyes were going to roll up in her head and antennas were going to sprout from all that thick, dyed-blond hair.

   "Okay, here's the deal. I'll even spell it out real slow so you'll understand," Chigger said each word like she was a first grader with a brand new reader. "I will leave the cowboy alone. I won't seduce him. I'll help you clean up and take you to lunch. For all that you got to meet Momma. She's been after me for more than a year to bring you around to meet her. Ruby went once and it is your turn."

   "Good God!" Daisy said.

   "Momma says He is. I reckon I'd have to change my ways to find out." Chigger resumed talking like normal. "And please call me Willa Mae when you're around Momma. She don't have any idea about my nickname."

Jarod popped open a can of biscuits, fried bacon, and eggs and made a small skillet of gravy. I'd like to tak
e
Daisy breakfast in bed this morning. Damn, I've got to
stop thinking about that woman. The Honky Tonk was
full of good lookin' women last night, so why do I keep
thinking about her? I swear, I must've jarred some
thing loose in my brain. I bet it looks like scrambled
eggs in there.

   Using a walker, Emmett shuffled to the table, complained that the biscuits were store bought, the bacon was too crisp, the eggs were overdone, and the gravy needed more salt.

   "Boy, you got to learn how things is done here if you ever want to be a rancher," Emmett said.

   
It's not Daisy who's scrambled my brains. It's a result
of beating my head against the wall because of Emmett.

   "Uncle Emmett, I know how to be a rancher. I've owned my own place in Oklahoma for more than ten years. It's paid for and making a good profit. Let me get this ranch back into top-notch running order. Your stock is barely more than culls, and the mesquite is about to take over. We could put up one of those new windmills and save a bundle in bills. We need to get the finances into the computer."

   Emmett fired up angry. "Don't you tell me how to ranch. I was doin' a fine job of it when you wasn't even a gleam in your old man's eye. And you can take those fancy ugly windmills and your computer and go to hell with both."

   Jarod bit back the words on the tip of his tongue. "I'm going to work on clearing some land today. You want to ride out and sit in the truck?"

   "Hell, no. It's hot out there. I'm stayin' in the house and watchin' television."

   "I'll be back in time to make you lunch then," Jarod said.

   "It's dinner, not lunch, and I'm not an invalid. Who the hell do you think fixed my meals before you got here?"

"You
asked
for my help," Jarod reminded him.

"Didn't realize you'd grown up to be a pain in the ass."

   When Jarod didn't answer, Emmett went on. "It wasn't my idea that you come down here and disrupt my life this summer. It was your dad's. Mavis always did like you, but I figured you was too big for your britches. You and your big ideas about improving the place. Hell, boy, it supported me and Mavis all those years. Find a good woman and settle down and it'll support you too."

   "If you don't like the arrangement I can be gone in an hour and you can leave the place to whoever you damn well please," Jarod said through clenched teeth.

   Emmett snorted. "Mavis will rest easier in her grave knowin' your family is running the place when I'm dead and gone. But you ain't goin' to take over before I'm dead. It's mine until I'm six foot under the ground and then you can plow it under and spread monkey shit on it for all I care."

   "That might be all it's good for by then," Jarod grumbled.

   Emmett glared at him. "Mavis said you was cut off the same log I was. I don't see it."

   "Me either. I think the tree they cut your sorry ass out of was the meanest one in the forest."

   "And the one they got your sorry ass from was the know-it-all tree. Get on out of here and fight the mesquite. When you are eighty years old you'll find out you don't know jack shit, boy."

   Jarod changed the subject. "You think you're strong enough to wash these dishes?"

   "I could out work you if I had a mind to. Get on out of here and pull up some of those mesquite trees you think are such a nuisance. I'll do the damn dishes and make my own dinner. Probably do both better than you can," Emmett growled.

   "How about taking a shower?"

   "Don't need one. Had one three days ago and I ain't done enough work to sweat," Emmett said. "Where'd you go last night?"

   "For a ride."

   "I'm thinkin' I might want to go for one tonight so don't be makin' any plans to go by yourself. There's a beer joint about fifteen miles up north of here me and Mavis used to go to once in a while. We liked to shoot a little pool and have a beer. You can drive me up there tonight," Emmett said.

   Jarod did not want to see Daisy again. Didn't want to think about her or the sexy dream he'd had concerning her just before he awoke that morning. If he was going to stop thinking about her, he had to stay away from her.

   Emmett raised his voice. "You hear me?"

   "I heard you. I'll stop in plenty of time to take a shower and drive you up to the Honky Tonk, but I'm not taking you smelling like an old boar hog. You want to go out tonight, you'd best be cleanin' up and shavin' today."

   "Never said where we were goin'. Means that's where you were last night. How'd you like Miz Daisy? She's a fine lady, ain't she? Like her just as well as I did Miz Ruby, only Ruby was a wilder sort."

   Jarod could scarcely believe his ears. Emmett McElroy had just said five sentences without cussing or ranting about something. He'd actually paid Daisy a compliment. But then if Emmett said Daisy was a fine lady then it meant the Alzheimer's was getting worse. Daisy was a barmaid. Period. End of story.

   He put a package of cheese crackers and an apple in a brown bag, made himself a gallon-sized cooler of iced sweet tea, and headed out the back door without another word. His mother had warned him that he'd have his hands full with Uncle Emmett. Jarod hadn't known that "hands full" was the understatement of time since the first day of creation.

   He slapped the steering wheel of his truck when he was inside. Damn it all, anyway, how was he supposed to get that woman out of his mind if he had to see her again? To admit that he didn't want to go would just cause Emmett to set his mind even more. The only thing to do was go and sit in the back corner until the old fellow was ready to go home, and pretend he had a wonderful time. If Emmett ever thought for one second that he was miserable, he'd insist on Jarod taking him to the Honky Tonk every single night.

   "Shoot me graveyard dead if I ever get Alzheimer's," Jarod said aloud as he started the engine of his truck.

Daisy backed her car—a vintage 1976 completely remodeled baby blue Ford Maverick with seats upholstered as close to the original fabric as she could find— out of the garage behind the Honky Tonk and followed Chigger south toward the Smokestack.

   She pulled in the parking lot beside Chigger's truck.

   "I'm starvin' to death. You'd think all that breakfast Jim Bob brought me would be enough to last a week instead of just a few hours. But then last night was a busy night," Chigger said as they walked side-by-side into the restaurant. "I found out how much I liked sex when I was fifteen. How about you?"

   "I don't kiss and tell," Daisy said.

   "Well, bless your little southern heart. How's a girl supposed to know without tastin' the goods if her friends don't tell her whether or not it's a good place to eat?" Chigger asked.

   "Guess she has to pay the price for the buffet and try out the food for herself," Daisy said as the cool air hit them inside the restaurant.

   The restaurant had started more than thirty years before in Thurber's old drugstore, but it burned in the early nineties. The owners then rebuilt it in the north end of the old Texas & Pacific Mercantile building. The place was made with original Thurber bricks in the late 1800s and had sold everything from cribs to coffins to the company miners back when Thurber was a flourishing town. The restaurant got its name from the 128-foot tall power plant smokestack that once provided Thurber with electricity. Memorabilia of the days when Thurber was a booming town decorated the walls. An old upright piano graced one corner. An oak freezer that required ice blocks sat beside the doors into the kitchen. T-shirts in every color were stacked up in a glass case with the Smokehouse logo on them.