Dead on the Delta (8 page)

Theresa returns with my beer in record time, proving she’s going soft and feeling my pain. I grab the chilled mug and take a long, cold swig, hoping I’ll be beyond feeling anyone’s pain before the sun sets on this miserable day.

“I don’t see how you drink real beer and don’t get fat.” Fernando shakes his head as he surveys my admittedly flat midsection. “Not to mention all that chicken skin and lard.”

“I’m a skinny fat person, what can I say?”

“So you’re covered in cellulite under those dykey clothes you wear?”

“Totally covered. It’s disgusting, but Cane loves to count my ass dimples, so … ” I shrug, keeping a straight face, doing my best to destroy Fernando’s fantasy life. He’s one of my best friends, but I know he has a crush on Cane and rather enjoys Bernadette’s blow-by-blow descriptions of his sexual prowess. “And my clothes aren’t dykey, they’re functional. Not all of us dust shiny things for a living.”

“I don’t
just
dust shiny things.” He takes a sip of his Chardonnay. “I also order wine and occasionally pour it myself when Tanner has a day off. And I have been known to wash sheets and make beds occasionally.”

“Very occasionally.”

“Very, very. Why bother when those Mexican girls are so great at getting their maid on for me?”

“Shut the hell up, Fernando.” Theresa plunks down my wings. Wow. Wings and a beer in less than ten minutes. At this rate she’s going to give McDonald’s, the only fast-food restaurant still trucking frozen patties down into the Delta, a run for their money.

“Those Mexican girls will
rule
this town in ten years,” Theresa says, pointing a tiny finger at Fern’s perfectly sloped nose. He’s had work done, but you wouldn’t be able to tell if you didn’t know him before and after. “My sisters are saving their money. They’re going to lease those two big houses next to the courthouse and open a spa and bed-and-breakfast in a few years and take
all
of your business.”

“Just what D’Ville needs. A spa,” Fernando says
dryly. “I think they’d be better off opening a strip club. At least then Amity’s crowd would have some place to go when she closes at two.”

I kick Fern under the bar, and shoot him a “shut up” look.

Amity Cooper’s new bar—a renovated warehouse filled with big-screen TVs and a stereo system that makes the entire street throb from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—is the bane of Theresa’s existence. Coop’s is three blocks away, but loud enough to disrupt business at Swallows. Theresa doesn’t get many families eating late dinner Thursday through Saturday anymore. People with young kids aren’t comfortable near the noise and the roaring SUVs and the general “gangsta” feel Amity has deliberately cultivated at her new place.

And it isn’t like Theresa or any of the other restaurant owners can complain. Amity clearly slipped a wad of cash in the mayor’s pocket to score the building. The church was after the warehouse for years to build a skating rink—Father Reginald offered a decent price and threatened the mayor with eternal damnation and was
still
refused—so there would be no help coming from that direction. The only other route for complaint was to appeal to the city council, who are in the mayor’s pocket, or the police force, and Amity’s brothers make up a third of that.

It’s kind of hard to believe Cane and Abe don’t realize their sister’s new enterprise is screwing the laid-back, homey vibe of Railroad Street, but I suppose
they have bigger things to worry about than noise control. Like policing the iron fence, or processing bite victims needing to be deported, or writing tickets for people who keep throwing perishable trash in the town’s non-perishable dump and putting our town at risk for some kind of medieval, fleas-on-rats, plague situation.

Or trying to catch a murderer.

Jesus. There’s a murderer in our town. It
has
to be someone from inside. The average tourist wouldn’t know their way around the Beauchamp mansion so well. They wouldn’t know about the hidden path that cuts through the garden to the family quarters, to the place where Grace slept.

I drown my thoughts in another deep drink of Abita Amber.

“I’m just saying I think your sisters would be hot naked,” Fernando says, his playful tone indicating he’s trying to make nice in his own obnoxious way. Maybe that’s why I like Fern so much. He’s even more offensive than I am. “Not to me, personally, but most straight men think you Swallows girls have the hottest—”

Theresa curses in Spanish, calling Fern a filthy homo who can suck her mother’s eggs—or something like that,
my
mother made me take French—and sticks her pierced tongue out before going to refill Nell and Shane’s pitcher. Looks like they’re steering clear of the whiskey tonight. Hopefully that will mean a peaceful evening for Dom and a drunk-free drunk tank down at
the station. The last thing any of the town law enforcement needs is more crap to deal with.

“But for real, Miss Lee.” Fern lowers his voice as he leans closer. “We need to have a
tête-à-tête
.”

“Okay. Can I eat while we head-to-head?”

“What?”

“
Tête-à-tête
. It means head-to-head.” I take a bite of spicy, blue-cheesy goodness and sigh. So good. Buffalo wings are all the proof I need that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Benjamin Franklin once said the same about beer. Because he was a wise, wise man … and buffalo wings hadn’t been invented yet.

“I’m not getting anywhere near your head.” Fernando curls his upper lip. “It looks like you have bugs living in that straw. A deep conditioning treatment should be in your immediate future.”

“Okay,” I say, skipping the usual smart-ass banter. Fern’s heart isn’t in it. I can tell. There’s something in his eyes, something … spooked that I didn’t notice before. “So what’s up your skirt?”

“You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full. It’s gross.”

“You shouldn’t look at my mouth if you don’t like seeing what I’m eating.”

“And hearing it. Could you smack louder?” He turns to twirl the stem of his wineglass. “I can’t believe you’re dating the hottest piece of ass in town. You must be as filthy in bed as you are out of it.”

“Really?” I throw my naked wing bone back to my plate. “Is this what you wanted to talk about?
My disgusting eating and living habits?” There’s hurt in my tone. He’s getting to me. I usually have rhino skin when it comes to Fern—I know he doesn’t mean ninety percent of the crap that comes out of his mouth—but tonight I’m feeling fragile. A strange wetness lingers at the edge of my lashes when I turn to grab my beer.

The wing sauce must be spicier than usual.

I slam my empty beer down and swipe the back of my hand across my nose. Runny. “Could you hand me a napkin?”

“Of course. Yeah. Here, take the whole thing.” Fernando stammers, fumbling one of the tightly packed napkins from the metal dispenser between us. “Nards, girl. I’m sorry.” Fernando wraps his arm around me and hugs me to his side, not even flinching when a bit of hot wing sauce transfers itself from my fingers to his forearm.

“It’s okay. It’s just been a rough day.”

“I know. I heard. We all heard. We promised not to talk to you about it.”

“Good idea. Let’s stick to that plan.”

“Okay, then let’s talk about something else upsetting.”

“Do we have to?” I reach for another wing.

“Well, Theresa didn’t want me to tell you.” Fernando pauses, making sure that Theresa is still in the back rustling up food.

“So maybe you shouldn’t tell me.” I’m not really in the mood for more bad news.

“I think you need to know this particular bit of nasty.” He drops his voice further, playing up the drama. “Amity Cooper was in here about twenty minutes ago looking for the ‘redheaded slut.’”

“How do you know she was talking about me? Patrick’s a redhead and I hear he’s a real whore when he’s loaded.”

I know Amity doesn’t care for me. The hateful glares across the supper table on Sundays tipped me off even before she cornered me at the grocery and threatened me with the wrong end of a loaf of garlic bread. She’d actually poked me in the chest and warned me not to “fuck with Cane.” I assumed she meant metaphorically, but maybe she was being literal and the rumor of my afternoon tryst with her brother has pushed her to the edge.

But whatever. She could tumble over that edge and lose her crappy weave on the way down for all I care. “Meh. Sticks and stones.”

“No, seriously,” Fernando says. “I think she’s out for white-girl blood. I’ve never seen her so pissed. She was out of her mind.”

Hunh. Odd. Amity isn’t usually the type to make a public scene. Even the garlic bread incident was conducted in a quiet, otherwise abandoned corner of the Piggly Wiggly in appropriately hushed tones. “Did she say why she was so angry?”

“No, and none of us were about to ask.” Fernando shakes his head, real fear in his eyes. “Her claws were all the way out and jewel-tipped.”

“Weird.” It
is
weird. I wonder what I did?

“I was just glad you weren’t here. She could totally take you in a bitch fight.” Fernando steals a piece of my celery, carefully wiping off a lingering bit of sauce with a napkin. “You should talk to Cane about her, asap. She needs to realize she can’t mess you up just because she’s related to half the policemen in town.”

“She won’t ‘mess me up.’ Her mother would kill her for being that tacky.” I wave at Theresa as she exits the kitchen with a tray full of cheeseburgers and cheesier, gravier fries, giving her the universal sign for “bring more beer.” “She’s not nearly as tough as she likes people to think.”

“No, she’s not, but she’s crazy. She really is, Lee, you need to listen to me.” Fernando grabs my wrist, squeezing hard enough to make me wince before letting go. “Some guy got knifed last night at Coop’s,” he says, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder, as if the knife-wielder might be lurking in wait behind the poker machine. “They kept it quiet and off the police scanner, but there’s gang shit going down at that club. You can talk ‘town reclamation’ all you want, but this place is starting to get skankier than a—”

“Ease up.” I refuse to let him finish his no-doubt colorful simile. “I moved here right after the mutations, and I heard people talk about what it was like before. Donaldsonville was post-apocalyptic before a single terrorist set off a bomb in a chemical plant.”

Fern sighs, and does another spooked scan of the bar. “Maybe so, but—”

“We came together and made this town something better,” I say, genuinely irritated with him for the second time in one day. “It’s Mayberry around here compared to those last few years before the mutations. So give it a break.”

He stares at me for a beat before smiling and snatching me up in another hug. I stiffen at the unexpected display. “We love you too, slut.”

I shrug him off with an eye roll. “I just like it here. I like the people. Even Amity. We were cool before Cane.”

“Well, she’s certainly not cool with you now,” he says. “Stay away from her, Lee. I’m serious. She wants to rip your face off.”

“Maybe she’ll like me more in a few days.” Or weeks, or however long it takes for me to get up the ovaries to break up with her brother.

Fern gasps. “You’re not! Are you? Right now? You can’t, not when he’s so in love with you that it sickens people walking down the street to see you together.”

I squirm. “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.” The bell above the door tinkles again, and I turn to look over my shoulder. I intend to make certain it isn’t Amity coming to gut me, then maybe do a quick check on Gimpy to ensure he’s still asleep. But when I see who’s stepped into Swallows I forget I have a woman out for my blood, or a cat, or a huge smear of wing sauce on my chin.

The smell of him hits first, a smell so achingly
familiar I would know who it belonged to if I were blind. It’s sage and soap and a hint of clove cigarette, topped with the spice of that gross green shampoo he loves, the one we’d called Martian Spooge and squirted all over the shower making alien-orgasm sounds one of many nights we had a few too many. It’s mint gum and the hint of the garlic-laden something he ate for lunch. It’s cotton and sunscreen and cherry Chapstick, because he’s allergic to synthetics, sunburns easily, and prides himself on having girly-soft lips that he knows exactly what to do with.

It’s just … Hitch. It’s him. It
really
is.

Something horrible I’ve forgotten I know how to feel fists around my chest, crushing my ribs. I forget how to breathe, how to think, how to move my napkin to my open mouth to wipe the mess away. All I can do is stare, and watch his cool blue eyes register a slight surprise as he recognizes the girl at the bar and then … nothing.

Nothing.
Seeing me doesn’t affect him. He doesn’t feel the weight of everything that was once between us pressing down on his face, smothering the life out of him. He doesn’t feel regret and loss and misery slamming into his gut, followed closely by a flash flood of memories of the way it feels to hold my hand, to run down the street giggling and gasping for breath after we let the neighbor’s annoying yapping dogs out of their kennel, to slip all the knots free on my bikini and coax me, naked, into the dark water of the pond behind his house.

He doesn’t remember that he loved me. That he should
still
love me.

Because he
should.
If it was ever real, it should still be real. Love doesn’t stop just because you start hating someone. I still love my mother so much it makes me hate her even more every time I think about her. Seeing, remembering—it should hurt Hitch like that. It should hurt him the way it hurts me.

I
t feels like my skin’s
been turned inside out and every secret, pathetic part of me is grotesquely exposed, a hot sloppy mess of organs and shame. What a lame-ass I am. What a dumped-so-long-ago-it-shouldn’t-matter-but-for-some-stupid-reason-it-does lame-ass.

I recover fairly quickly—jaw closing, fingers spasming around the napkin Fern places in my hand—but I know Hitch has seen it. My weakness. He’s seen that I still love and hurt and regret. He knows that I’m the big loser in the game of love.