The Saffron Malformation (43 page)

             
“Come on,” she invited as Rachel and Dusty exchanged a sympathetic glance.

             
“What?  Where?” he asked, still in shock.  He’d truly believed he’d never see her again.

             
“Arnie’s in The Tumbler,” she told them, indicating the bar Rachel and Dusty had been moving toward before Rain approached them.

             
“How do you know Arnie?” Reggie asked.

             
She smiled, a bit sly and rocked on her heels again.  “Long story, and the sort that goes down easier with a drink.”  That last part was meant for Quey and when she looked up at him again he could see the apology on her face.  He shrunk, taking part of a step backwards and swallowed hard.  He didn’t want to go to the tavern.  If he didn’t he wouldn’t have to hear what he already knew and then it wouldn’t be real, he could just exist here and cling to the fantasy of maybe.

             
Quey gathered himself and said, “Maybe a burger too.  You do, after all, still owe me a meal.”  He said it hoping it would bring about memories and maybe the nostalgia of their one night at the Dine Out would make her come around.  A silly game for little boys, but he played it nonetheless.

             
She chuckled and replied, “Quey.  I burned down your house and now I’m asking for your help.  I think I owe you a little more than a meal.”  Without pausing for a response she started to walk towards Tom’s Tumbler, or The Tumbler as the local folk referred to it, and Quey and his group followed.

             
There was nothing elegant about the bar but it wasn’t dirty.  The bar itself was dark polished wood that matched the tables along the walls.  There was a pool table, a set of dartboards, and a jukebox that was presently playing something that sounded like Led Zeppelin.  Above them dim lights burned under bright red lamp covers.  Sitting at one of the tables near the middle of the far wall was Arnie.

             
Quey sat silently watching how closely Arnie and Rain were sitting to one another.  Something in his throat was tight and his guts seemed to spin with uncertainty.  There was a part of him that wanted to come out with it.  ‘Before we go any further, are you two fucking?’  But of course he knew that already, he was just hoping at some point she’d say something like, ‘we’re just friends,’ or, ‘It’s nothing serious.’  He could sigh relief then.  In the mean time he simply watched and obsessed over their interactions.

             
Did she just touch his arm?

             
“First I’d like to thank you for coming,” Arnie began.

             
What was that look she just gave him?  What was that look he gave her?

             
“I really didn’t want to call on you but… I didn’t know where else to turn.”

             
Where is his hand?  Did she just move closer to him?

             
Finally he took a long breath and sighed, trying to push as much jealousy out with the air as possible.  “Let’s get to it,” he interrupted and Arnie stopped and waited for him to speak.  “What the fuck happened?  I mean… Arnie plus Rain… somehow— we’ll get into that later—equals the Brood burning my ranch to the ground.”

             
Rain’s face twisted into a grimace.  “Yeah, technically I did that,” she admitted.  “But I wouldn’t have,” she iterated, “If it wasn’t for the Brood.”

             
Quey held up his hand and said, “Look, I don’t care about the ranch, never planned on seeing it again anyhow, I’m just taken by a deep and pestering curiosity as to how it happens that you got it burned down.”

             
Rain and Arnie exchanged a glance and within it was decided that she would talk.  “We needed a place to hide out.  Arnie said he knew somewhere we could go.”  Quey gave the boy a look as she continued.  “I didn’t know it was your ranch, honest,” she proclaimed throwing her right hand up as if she were in court and he nodded.  He believed her.  She was his sweet little raindrop.  Arnie, however, suddenly seemed like a fucking asshole to him for no reason at all.

             
He shook the thought and chided himself for being so pubescent about this.

             
Rain was still talking.  “When I saw the barrels with the labels on them I knew and I wanted to leave right away.”  Arnie gave her a look and she squeezed his hand.  It might as well have been crushing Quey’s chest.  “We were looking into places to go, had the options narrowed and were about to leave for one of them when the Brood showed up.”  She looked down at her hands and fidgeted slightly, picking at her nails a bit.  “I’m really sorry but there were so many of them and I panicked, and you know me I don’t really think things through sometimes so I,” she hesitated before concluding, “lit a fire.”

             
Quey sighed with a nod.  “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

             
Rain peered at him, tracing the scowl on his face with her eyes, and sat silent for a long moment.  He boldly stared back at her and finally she turned to Arnie and said, “Why don’t you guys go shoot some pool or darts or something.”  Arnie’s eyes widened and he looked over at her.  “It’s okay, I want to talk to Quey free of an audience for a split.”

             
Dusty looked over at him and he nodded.  Arnie was looking at Rain with a touch of worry when Reggie stood, clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Come on.  These two don’t get this sorted we’re never getting anywhere.”

             
Rain nodded reassuringly and the boy looked over at Quey for a split before standing and following the big man across the room.  Rachel and Dusty were moving toward the end of the bar.

             
“How about we have a drink,” Rain suggested and Quey nodded.  She hollered for some shots of whatever they had that passed for whiskey and then they waited in an awkward silence for the drinks to arrive.  “Don’t look at me like that,” she almost seemed to plea.  His scowl slowly melted into something sad.

             
“Like what?” he replied.

             
“Like I stepped on your puppy.”  The shots came.  “Might as well just bring two more,” Rain told the chubby cocktail waitress, the only one working the morning shift, as she snatched up her glass and tapped his while it was still on the table in front of him and then drank.  Quey slowly lifted his glass and took the shot like an old pro.  It was bitter and burned and made him appreciate the talent Calbert T. Pickens had possessed.

             
The waitress returned and set the bottle on the table.  “Round here, folks look like they need to get a bit deeper in the bottle we just eyeball it, if that’s alright with you.”  Quey nodded and the waitress walked away.  Before he took the shot he hadn’t really wanted a drink, but now he had a taste for it and even though what he was drinking was mud water compared to what he had in the back of the truck it would do the trick.  He filled both their glasses again.  This time he tapped hers while it was still on the table and drank.  She nodded and followed suit.

             
“Arnie?” he finally asked, as if it filled him with distaste.  She laughed slightly and in a way that suggested it wasn’t funny to her but exciting.  “I thought you never went to the same place twice,” he added.

             
“Ahh,” she threw her head back then raised her finger and said, “No.  I said I never go to the same place twice on purpose.”  She flared her fingers and Quey smiled.  He’d almost forgotten what a cartoon she could be.  “Arnie was an accident.”

             
“What happened?” his voice asked hollowly.  It was the same one he might use if he were speaking his peace before his final breath.

             
She looked over at him and smiled.  It was beautiful because it was completely genuine, brought on by a perfect memory that she held dear.  He wanted her more than he ever had and it hurt, in his racing heart and the guts twisting below.  “He crashed my van,” she told him and he laughed.

             
“He… crashed your van.”

             
She nodded, rocking in her chair then played the piano on the table’s surface briefly as she replied, “Yup.”  She sat forward, leaning her elbows on the table and began, “See I was staying in this cheap roadside motel-”

             
“Another?” Quey asked, reaching for the bottle.

             
She nodded and slid her glass over.  “He was in the room next to mine and we got to talking,” she continued.  Her eyes drifted toward the bottle and the filling of their glasses.  She couldn’t quite look at him when she said, “I thought he was going to be like anyone else, you know.  A little bit of fun for a little bit of while,” she shrugged, “then on to our own ways.”

             
He nodded as he slid her glass to her and replied, “Yeah.  I know.”

             
She looked at him solemnly for a moment and sucked on her lips.  “I’m really sorry,” she said.  “I didn’t mean to-”

             
Quey held up his hand.  “Don’t much feel like takin’ a stroll down that road,” he said.  “Time might come we do but this isn’t it.”

             
She nodded.  “Just one thing?”

             
He nodded for her to go ahead.

             
She sighed heavily.  “I really didn’t know it was your house, and when I found out…” she trailed off, looking down at her shot with her own touch of sadness.  “I felt dirty.  Because I really did…” she trailed off then gripped her hair and tugged at it with a grunt of frustration.

             
He smiled at her a bit and started to reach for her hand, then stopped.  Their eyes met and something passed between them.  ‘Please don’t,’ her expression said.  It was a plea.  She was asking him to just let her go and he knew if he wanted to he could take her hand, she would let him.  She would also allow him to find her later and if he leaned in to kiss her she would say no but she would not protest, she would not push him away.  If he wanted he could complicate everything and put her at the middle of a choice she was begging him not to force her to make.  He swallowed hard, and he could almost feel his pride slide down the back of his throat.  He nodded to her, heart racing, head spinning, and in the end his hand lifted his shot to his lips instead of reaching for hers.

             
“You were saying about the two of you meeting.”  His voice sounded shallow to him, and probably to her as well but it was something both of them chose to ignore.

             
“When it came time for me to leave he asked me to stay, but I told him I don’t do that.  He said he’d come with me and I told him I don’t do that either.”  She shrugged, “So he offered to move my van closer.  I had a lot of stuff and I’m not good at backing it up.  He said he could get it right to the door so I let him try.  He got in and drove into a tree.”

             
Quey chuckled and shook his head.  “I thought about shooting your tire.”

             
She looked at him smiling, part of her wishing he hadn’t said that while another regretted he hadn’t done just that on the morning she’d left him standing in the Dine Out parking lot just over half a year ago.

             
Rain looked over at Arnie, sitting with the others, talking quietly, probably telling them the same story she was telling Quey and smiled.  “I was furious at first,” she continued.  “I yelled at him.  I hit him,” her head shook once and she looked back at Quey.  “He just stood there taking it and when I’d gotten it all out he looked at me and said, ‘So I guess you’ll be staying then.’”

             
A laugh and a nod.

             
“That’s when I realized,” Rain went on.  “Guys have asked me to stay.  They’ve begged me not to go.  They’ve made ridiculous offers, hell one even proposed we get married but… no one ever just made me stay.”

             
Quey saw happiness radiating from her and he knew if he pressed things he’d be the asshole.  She was right, he’d had his chance to make her stay and he’d passed on it.  He could have shot out her tire and taken her into his truck but he hadn’t.  He’d let her go.  ‘And what if he had made her stay?’ he wondered.  If he had she might have been with him at Fen Quada and he would have killed them all to protect her.  Of course if he had it might have detoured them and they might not have had a chance to go to Fen Quada at all.  But then what would have happened with Dusty, Rachel and Reggie?

             
These thoughts were prickling in the back of his mind and he knew it was a dangerous game to play, the game of maybe.  As the whiskey burned the back of his throat he let it cleanse him of such thought, and he let it take his inclination toward trying to win Rain from Arnie too.  It didn’t die or go away, as the tight pain running through his torso making him want to punch something constantly reminded him, it just gave up.  He knew what it meant.  As much as he wanted her, he’d never have her.  He’d never be with her again, feeling her softness against him, tasting the excitement of her lips.  It was like tearing a piece of himself away but he did it and moved along.