Sweet Jiminy (7 page)

Chapter 7

B
y the time
Juan Gonzales bought the building that would become Tortillas, it had stood empty for nearly thirty years. In its basement, he found furniture that he assumed was from the abandoned movie theater next door: an old ticket-taking booth, a broken counter, and five wooden chairs. The chairs didn't look like actual theater chairs to Juan, but he hadn't examined them too closely. When his wife saw them, she decided they'd look nice arranged on the front patio of the restaurant, and she commissioned him to clean them up. Juan personally didn't consider it worth the effort, but he enjoyed the perks that came with keeping Rosa happy, so he had bent to his task with a rag and bucket of soapy water.

Once the layers of dust and dirt had been cleaned away, the chairs actually did look pretty good. They were made of wood and impressively crafted. They were also each adorned with a shiny metal plate, previously unnoticeable thanks to the grime, attached to the top of the seat back. Engraved on each plate were the initials “K.S.O.” Juan assumed they were the initials of the company that had owned the theater, or made the chairs, or distributed the films. He had pointed them out to Rosa and rubbed them harder to make them shine. She'd smiled excitedly before returning inside to check on the specially made tortillas for which their new restaurant was named.

“Where'd you get those?”

Juan was pleasantly surprised to see Grady standing just at the edge of the patio. Juan admired the success of Grady's Grill and hoped his own restaurant could inspire such a loyal clientele.

“They came with the place,” Juan answered. “In the basement.”

Juan recognized the empty bottle Grady carried in his hand and wondered if he was going to be asked for his hot sauce recipe. He'd sell Grady all the sauce he wanted, but he wasn't going to reveal its secret, and he hoped that wouldn't make things awkward.

“They don't belong to you, I don't think,” Grady said.

Juan waited for him to say more. Grady became self-conscious.

“I mean, I s'pose if they came with your place, then you'd think they're yours, a'course. But those belonged to the Brayer family. I recognize them.”

Juan looked down at the chairs he'd just spent an hour and a half cleaning. Rosa had really had a vision of how these chairs were going to look outside of Tortillas. She wanted them arranged just so; he knew the way her mind worked. The same mind that had decided their daughter would be named “Penelope” and nicknamed “Pen” long before they'd even conceived. The mind that planned the menu months in advance, that obsessed over colors in flower displays, that wouldn't let anyone help her make her signature empanadas. Juan didn't want to have to tell Rosa that her chair brainstorm wasn't going to happen.

“I think the Brayers just lost track of 'em,” Grady was saying. “But those gold plates are pretty recognizable.”

Surely they weren't real gold. Was that why this was such an issue? Juan wondered. Now Rosa would be even more upset if he let them go.

“What does ‘K.S.O.' stand for?” Juan asked.

Grady straightened.

“Something someone else knows about, I guess,” he replied. “I'll tell Travis Brayer you've got his chairs. Maybe he'll be fine with you keepin' 'em, you never know.”

Juan nodded slowly. From the tone of Grady's voice he could tell that Grady believed that Travis would not be fine with Juan keeping them.

“It's just that, in this country, you can't come in and take things that rightfully belong to others, that's all,” Grady said.

Juan remained silent. Grady reddened a bit.

“Anyway, I love that sauce a yours,” he continued. “Could I get some more? I'll pay for it, a'course.”

Juan looked Grady directly in the eyes.

“I'm all out,” he lied.

Grady held Juan's gaze for a moment, then looked off at the purple sky.

“Well, let me know when you make more and have some to spare. I really do like it.”

Juan nodded.

“Sure, amigo. I'll let you know.”

 

Walton hadn't told Jiminy that he'd been in the room when Lyn had come to see the bodies of her husband and daughter on that June night in 1966. He hadn't told Jiminy much of anything, really. With Roy and Grady listening, he'd said a tiny bit about Edward, Lyn, Willa, and Henry, but there was so much more. Way too much more.

When Henry Hunt had found the bodies of Edward and Jiminy Waters two weeks after they'd gone missing, he'd brought them by the hospital to get them cleaned up. After some strong resistance, Walton had tended to them. And then Lyn had arrived.

Walton closed his eyes at the memory. In fifty years as Fayeville's doctor, he'd seen a lot of pain. And in all of that time, nothing matched the crumpling of Lyn Waters.

She didn't make a scene, like some people did when confronted with the corpses of loved ones. She didn't pound her fists into the wall, she didn't tear at her hair or explode into paroxysms of sobs. She looked at them—one long look at her dead husband's face, one long look at her dead daughter's. Then she stared straight ahead, into a void visible only to her, and her face fell off of itself. Walton didn't know how else to describe it: As far as he could tell, whatever was alive in Lyn had poured out of her in that moment. It had streamed out of her nostrils, and her slightly parted lips, and the corners of her eyes. In a rush, it had fled.

Walton had gone cold at the sight. Henry had hurried to take Lyn in his arms, but she'd held up her hand, stopping him with a silent command. She'd looked at them both with hollow eyes, then turned and walked out of the room. From then on, Lyn had seemed no more than a shell of a human, filled only with haunted echoes of previous life.

Walton hadn't mentioned any of this to Willa's granddaughter, but that June night was seared into his memory. After Lyn left, one of Edward's brothers had come to collect the bodies. There'd been a funeral that Walton hadn't attended, but he knew where the gravesite was, and over the years, he'd found himself occasionally driving past it at night after leaving the hospital. On this night, he found himself headed there again.

He steered his car off the pavement and continued up the dirt road. At the top of the ridge, he stopped to take in the view. The lights of HushMart flickered behind him, but before him the hills rolled out as far as a person could see. By the soft glow of the nearly full moon, he could make out the inky curves of the Allehany River as it flowed around and between and against, patiently wearing down the land.

Walton climbed out of his car and walked up the slope to the huge magnolia tree, aware that the ache in his knee was worsening. He'd managed to hang onto all his original joints thus far, but he saw artificial ones in his future. He was under no illusions about being in decline.

At the start of his retirement, Walton had written several books about the history and geology of Fayeville. In one chapter about Fayeville plants, he'd actually featured the tree that was now before him. It was enormous, and the smell of its flowers could be sweetly overpowering, especially when a breeze blew down from the bluff. Amid the fallen blossoms on the ground were headstones, marking the graves of dozens buried in the magnolia's shadow. Nobody white was buried here—there was a county-maintained cemetery in town for them. This magnolia tree cemetery was more haphazard and bureaucracy-free, maintained by people nobody paid. It was where the black residents of Fayeville had been burying their dead for over two hundred years.

Walton fished a pocket flashlight out and shined it on the spot he remembered. There they were—two rough-edged stone slabs that peeked six inches above the ground. They'd risen higher forty years ago, but the gravestones were settled in and tilting now. They seemed at peace.

As a rule, Walton didn't believe in visiting people's graves. He never checked in on the final resting plots of his own friends and relatives—he preferred to remember how they'd been alive. And he considered himself extremely rational. He knew the ground only held decomposing bio-matter, not the spirits or souls of the departed. But ever since he'd watched Lyn fly out of herself and walk away, he'd felt drawn to the place where her loved ones had been laid to rest. In visiting their graves, he attempted to pay them some kind of tribute, or apology.

It wasn't until he had turned to walk back to his car that his eye caught the glint of white on the wooden cross that marked the start of the cemetery. He trained his flashlight on it and stepped closer, wincing at the pinch in his knee. The letters were big, and freshly painted, he guessed. The empty spray-paint can from HushMart was discarded nearby.

Walton exhaled slowly. There'd been a time when those letters had seemed omnipresent around Fayeville. There'd been a time when Walton had identified with them. He'd learned since then, and now the sight of the recently branded “K.S.O.” on the cross made him weary. And worried.

 

“Was I wrong to chase her off?” Bo asked.

He was tossing a football with Cole, syncing his regret to the spiraling ball. He imagined hurling his doubts away from him with each arm pump. Unfortunately, they kept slamming back into him.

“Dude, you don't want her pity,” Cole replied with a shrug.

Cole had been Bo's best friend since they'd met in Little League as five-year-olds. Whereas Bo had always been talkative and bright, Cole was a man of few words, many of which were “dude.” Still, the two of them understood each other perfectly.

“Yeah, I don't need this, you know?” Bo said. “I should just stick to my plan—lay low, save money, get ready for med school, get out of here.”

Bo waited for Cole to agree with him.

“But she is something,” Bo sighed.

Jiminy had been an unexpected distraction. Her hesitancy intrigued him. Her flashes of assertiveness unnerved him. And kissing her had been a revelation. Bo wanted to kiss her again, and the thought that he might not be able to made him frantic.

“Damn,” he said quietly to himself.

He knew that in this town there were plenty of reasons to think twice about pursuing her. Of all people, Cole knew this, too. Cole had fought many fights over his friendship with Bo.

“Dude,” Cole said, as he caught and held the ball.

Bo stared at him, wondering if there would be more.

“Go get her.”

Bo broke into a grin. They knew this place. They were of this place. But they were young.

 

Jiminy was reading outside, scratching a mosquito bite with one hand and swinging her free-hanging leg back and forth so that it made a pendulum shadow against the smooth stone patio. She looked up when Bo's truck pulled into the driveway, grateful that if a person kept her ears open, the gravel made it impossible for anyone to sneak up.

“Hey,” she said, as she half-closed her book.

She started to smile but held herself back, letting only the edges of it creep into her voice. She wasn't sure whether she and Bo were liking each other or not. She'd been confused by their last encounter.

“What are your thoughts on Dairy Queen?” he asked.

She closed her book all the way.

 

“This is the only thing cows are good for,” Jiminy said as she licked her chocolate-dipped vanilla cone. “And hamburgers. And cheese. In that order.”

They were sitting at a picnic table in the grass between the road and the Dairy Queen parking lot.

“Have you always been scared of them?” Bo asked between bites of his caramel sundae.

Jiminy nodded.

“They're evil,” she whispered.

“They're dumb,” Bo offered.

“That's the worst kind of evil,” Jiminy replied.

“That's debatable,” Bo countered with a grin. “Evil geniuses are no picnic.”

“Fair point,” Jiminy conceded.

It was a hot day and their ice cream was melting fast. Jiminy's hand was already covered in sticky melted sugar.

“Hang on, I'm gonna grab some napkins,” she said as she jumped up and crossed the parking lot.

She'd just made it inside the Dairy Queen doorway when she ran into Suze Connors, who was wearing a midriff halter top and looking even more pregnant than before—something Jiminy wouldn't have thought possible.

“Jiminy!” Suze yipped affectionately. “Ma, look who it is! I told you Jiminy was in town.”

Suze's mother was a damp, solidly built woman who looked Jiminy up and down with a lazy flicker of her eyelids. These languid lids were the most active part of a round, clammy face. When she smiled, her teeth came out as slowly as a snail from its shell.

“Howya doin'?” she asked.

“I'm fine, thank you,” Jiminy said. “You're about to get another grandbaby, I see.”

She'd never used the word “grandbaby” in her life, but it seemed to fit with this place and these circumstances. Mrs. Connors nodded.

“Any minute now,” she said. “And then it'll just take another minute for Suze to get pregnant again.”

“Oh, Mama, it will not,” Suze replied, rolling her eyes at Jiminy.

Jiminy smiled sympathetically, unsure of whether she meant it for Suze or for Suze's mother. Suze had always been perfectly nice to her, and she seemed to still be a kind woman. There was no reason she shouldn't reproduce as much as she liked.

“I thought you would have had it by now,” Jiminy said lamely.

“Maybe a milkshake'll jar it loose,” Suze answered good-naturedly. “Are you here alone?”

It was a reasonable question. Jiminy had shown up at the pool alone; perhaps she was moping all around Fayeville looking for company.

“No, I'm with someone, actually,” Jiminy answered. “He's outside.”

She motioned toward the door.

“Oooh, a date?” Suze trilled.

Jiminy paused. She shrugged nonchalantly, but couldn't help her smile, much as she knew she should. The rogue smile was all it took.