Mrs. Million (8 page)

“What’s she going to do? Tie you up?”

Bobby’s face contracted into a pained expression. “Hell, I never understood the woman when I was living with her. I got no idea what’s on her mind.”

Nothing. Not even a letter. Jayjay peered through the open back of his Post Office box. He could see right through to the mailroom. Nobody looking. He peered through the tiny window in the brass box next to his. The guy had a couple of letters and a magazine. Jayjay pushed his arm through his open box, turned his wrist back to reach into his neighbor’s box from the rear, grabbed the magazine, and drew it back out through his own box.
People
magazine, one of his favorites. He left the Post Office feeling as though he had not wasted his time and walked back to the car wondering what he should do with the rest of his morning. It was a nice sunny day. Probably get up into the sixties. He could stop in at the Nose, have a bloody Mary, hang out for a while. Or go for a long drive in the country, watch the snow melt. He didn’t feel like going back to the professor’s house. Eating the guy’s food and drinking his wine was okay, and he didn’t mind the sex, but he didn’t want to spend a whole morning with André, have the guy fawning over him and telling long stories about people Jayjay didn’t know and worst of all wanting to go for walks. Nothing Jayjay hated worse than walking down the street with a queer. A little town like this you didn’t want people thinking you were light in the loafers. Jayjay was not inclined that way himself. He’d been with a few other older guys, and of course there was his time in jail, but he was no freehole punk and he damn sure wasn’t gay. He’d been with plenty of women, too. Whatever. No more walks with the old fag, he decided. Especially not here in Cold Rock.

That was the problem with small towns. You never knew who you were gonna run into. He might see his aunt Nadine, who would want to know where he’d disappeared to and why he hadn’t showed up for work at Souvenir Specialty Supply. Why? He could tell her why. Because gluing little cloisonné plaques with the names of the states onto the handles of miniature teaspoons, forks, and butter knives was not work, it was slow torture. He had taken the job because it was a condition of his parole that he be employed, and because his aunt Nadine had agreed to hire him, but after three weeks of gluing plaques onto flatware Jayjay had had enough. Now that he had someplace to crash other than Nadine’s back bedroom, he could see no reason to continue his employment.

Jayjay decided on the long drive, maybe head up to Grand Casino, throw a few bucks at the Indians, maybe hit a jackpot on the slots. He started the car, then noticed the gas gauge was near empty. His smile collapsed, his face contorted and reddened. He drew back a fist and punched the steering wheel hard, ten times in rapid succession, screaming, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” He locked both hands on the wheel and became motionless for several seconds, breathing shallowly, slowly bringing his features back to neutral. When he had composed himself sufficiently, he reached out and snapped off one of the knobs from the climate control panel and threw it out the window. That made him feel a little better.

Putting the car in gear, Jayjay headed up the street to the Mobil station. He pumped ten bucks into the tank, paid the guy inside, and was about to pull out when he noticed the cowboy pumping gas into an old white pickup. He was sure he’d seen the man’s face somewhere before—in the paper, or in a movie or something. Jayjay sat perfectly still, hands on the steering wheel, his eyes locked on the man in the cowboy hat, waiting for his brain to sort things out.

A few minutes before the lunch bell, Principal Grunseth tapped on the glass door of Barbaraannette’s classroom, interrupting her explanation of why the United States doesn’t have a king. He pointed at her, then at himself, then up toward the second floor, then raised his eyebrows. Barbaraannette nodded. He wanted her to come up to his office after the kids were released for lunch. He disappeared from the glass, and she returned to her explanation.

“So you see, instead of having a king, every four years all the people vote on who they want to run the country.”

Adam Berg raised his hand. “My dad says that the country is run by Jews.”

“Our country is run by many different kinds of people, Adam.”

“He says that school is turning me into a little robot. Robots are cool. My dad smokes cigarettes.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“He said that you’re as rich as a Jew now.”

Thankfully, the lunch bell rang. Barbaraannette herded her kids out into the hall and in the direction of the cafeteria, then climbed the stairs, rapped on Principal Grunseth’s door, and let herself into his office.

Lewis Grunseth held his forty extra pounds high in his abdomen, giving him the look of a man perpetually holding his breath. He had small, round eyes, an upcurved smile, and he kept his thinning hair cropped close to his skull. Grunseth was only six years older than Barbaraannette, but he had embraced middle age early on. He demanded that the students call him “sir” and that the faculty address him as “Mr. Grunseth,” even in private conversation.

Barbaraannette, who remembered him mowing their lawn when he was a teenager, had trouble with that, so she usually called him nothing at all.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the lottery winner!” said Grunseth, standing and gesturing for Barbaraannette to take a seat. “That’s quite a thing! Quite a thing.”

Barbaraannette sat down. “I’m still trying to get used to the idea,” she said.

“Quite a thing! Yes sir!” Grunseth said. “Yes sir!”

Barbaraannette realized with a start that he was nervous, like a man with bad news to relate. Her first thought was that Hilde had had a stroke, or gone for an unsupervised walk and been hit by a car.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, gripping the plastic arms of the chair. “Is it my mother?”

“Your mother? No! I just wanted to talk to you, Barbaraannette. Talk about what you’re going to do now. All that money?”

Was he going to ask her for money? Barbaraannette waited, more curious than anything.

Grunseth cleared his throat. “Ah, I assume that you, ah, won’t want to go on teaching?”

“Why would you assume that?” She hadn’t actually thought about it. Even with her lottery money she would still need something to do during the day.

“Well, ah, I mean, since you obviously don’t need the money…”

Barbaraannette waited.

Grunseth cleared his throat again and continued. “I mean…I mean, since, you know. You don’t have to work…and then of course there is the Pooh problem. I really don’t know what you were thinking about, Barbaraannette. We’ve had complaints!”

Pooh problem? Barbaraannette said, “What are you talking about?”

“Several complaints. I understand that yesterday you told your students that Pooh had won some sort of lottery?” Grunseth paused.

“Something like that,” Barbaraannette admitted.

Grunseth slapped his palm down on his desk blotter. “You can’t go around making up stories that aren’t in the texts!”

“Winnie the Pooh? That’s not a textbook.”

“For God’s sake, Barbaraannette, it’s Winnie the Pooh!”

“Tell me you’re joking, Lew,” said Barbaraannette.

Grunseth was too agitated to take offense at the familiar use of his first name. “You told them that Pooh won the lottery, for God’s sake!”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Barbaraannette asked, genuinely puzzled. “It was simply a way of introducing them to their arithmetic lesson.”

“Barbaraannette, people don’t want to think about you having all that money. It makes them feel like they don’t have enough.”

“People felt that way before I won it, Lew.”

“And now you’re using up a job that maybe somebody else needs to make ends meet. There are a lot of young teachers out there looking for work, you know.”

“Are you asking me to quit?” Barbaraannette asked.

Grunseth pursed his lips and looked down at his desk blotter. “I just think you should consider the effect you are having on other people’s lives,” he said, adjusting the position of his desk calendar.

“This isn’t about Winnie the Pooh, is it?”

“We had complaints.”

“How many, Lew?”

He shrugged. “Oh, you know.” He dragged his forefinger across his desk blotter, following impressions invisible to Barbaraannette. “The usual. George Berg, Adam’s father.”

Barbaraannette felt her face heating up. “Have you seen what that man has on his truck?”

“I…what?”

“Adam’s father. He has a bumper sicker that says ‘My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Roll Student.’ I really don’t think we should be designing our curriculum around his opinions.”

“Yes, well, you’re right of course.” He drew a figure eight on his blotter, lifted his finger. “Look, the Pooh thing is no big deal, Barbaraannette. I don’t know why I brought it up. I just thought that if you were thinking of leaving us…” He stared down at his invisible drawing with the intensity of a seer reading tea leaves. “I wanted to let you know that I’ve got someone willing to step in and take over your class.”

Barbaraannette remembered something then, a rumor she’d heard about the college. They were cutting way back on their Liberal Arts program to make room for the new veterinary school. She heard they were eliminating a dozen tenured positions. “Is your wife one of the professors getting laid off at the college, Lew?”

Lewis Grunseth’s face bloomed bright red. He slapped his palm down on his desk. “You leave Angie out of this! And don’t call me ‘Lew’!”

Barbaraannette sat back, startled by the outburst, but continued her thought. “Let me guess. Angela is your candidate for taking over my class, and you want me out of here as soon as possible. Right?”

Grunseth’s eyes bulged; he squeezed his fist so hard Barbaraannette could read the bones through his skin.

She said, “That’s going to be quite an adjustment, going from teaching Kant and Hegel to reading
The House at Pooh Corner
out loud. From the text.”

Grunseth took a deep breath. He touched his fingertips to his temples, shaking his head slowly. “There aren’t a lot of teaching positions in Cold Rock.”

“I know that.”

“Damn it, Barbaraannette, you’ve won nine million dollars! You can do anything you want! Why do you want to spend your days with a bunch of seven-year-olds?”

Barbaraannette licked her lips. She could taste blood now, and maybe that was enough. She said, “The fact is, Lew, I’m not sure that I do.”

Grunseth’s shoulders dropped. He stared at her, lips parted, eyes naked with hope.

B
OBBY QUINN STOOD WITH
one hand resting on the handle of the gas pump, his mind drifting through a maze of memories. Six years ago he had filled up at this very same Mobil station on his way out of town. He wondered what had happened to that old Jeep of his. He’d left it broke-down in Mitchell. Planned to sell it, but then he’d met a gal named Dora on her way to Denver and the easy thing to do had been to hop in her little Mazda and ride her west. Denver Dora. She’d been a stand-up comedian working the comedy club circuit. He’d about bust a gut every time she started talking. Funniest woman Bobby ever met. He’d stayed with her a month until it got cold out and he headed down toward Tucson.

The gas pump clicked off, interrupting his reverie. Bobby gave the handle another squeeze, brought the total up to twenty dollars even. Now he was back in the land of the Crockettes and about to face Barbaraannette, a former Crockette herself. A cold, loose feeling slithered over his bowels. She was going to be kinda upset with him. Bobby thought about the million bucks, and that helped a little, but he was still plenty nervous. He looked toward the office where Phlox was trying once more to call Barbaraannette. A million bucks. Who knew what Phlox would do once she got her mitts on that kind of money? Half of him was thinking she might just take off and leave him, and the other half was thinking that he might just decide to stay with Barbaraannette, see what it felt like to be a rich woman’s husband.

He climbed into the back of the pickup, unzipped his travel case, lifted out the hat box containing his El Presidente. Nothing like a fresh hat, especially an El Presidente, to make a man feel better. He removed his everyday straw hat, lifted the El Presidente from its’ nest and fitted it onto his head. There. He felt better already, knowing that he wore the finest chapeau in Cold Rock and maybe even in the whole state of Minnesota. He stood up in the back of the pickup, feeling tall.

“Well I’ll be goddamned to hell and back, look what we got here!”

Bobby twitched at the familiar voice. Hugh? He looked down at the heavyset man staring intently at him from the other side of the pumps. For a moment, Bobby felt himself relax. It wasn’t Hugh Hulke, just an older, balding guy who sounded like Hugh. Then his mind stripped away forty pounds, put some hair back on the guy’s head. The man’s lips curled back, revealing a gold-capped incisor. It was Hugh, all right.

Bobby wondered if he could jump down, get behind the wheel, get the truck started, and make it out the driveway without Hugh getting his hands around his neck. Hit the door lock with one hand while turning the key with the other. Unless Hugh had something he could bust the window with, Bobby figured he had a chance. He was about to go for it when a second voice came from behind him.

“That who I think it is?”

Rodney Gent, looking even bigger than he had six years ago, draped his oversize hands over the tailgate. That pretty much destroyed any chance Bobby had of getting into the pickup unscathed. Rodney would put his fist through the windshield as easy as punching through drywall. Bobby cast an anxious glance toward the store, hoping Phlox would read his mind and come running out, start yelling or something, give him a chance to get away.

Hugh said, “It sure does look like him, Rod Man. Only maybe even slimier. That’s you, ain’t it, Bobby? Where you been? Hiding out on your pretend dude ranch?”

Bobby took a half step back, looked over his shoulder. Both Hugh and Rodney lowered their heads and shifted positions. Back in high school the two men had played defense for the Cold Rock Chiefs. Bobby hadn’t played any football himself, but in that moment he knew how it felt to be a quarterback with no open receivers.