Installment #4
Chapter 6
6
The Eden telephone book was about the size of a lonely man’s address book. Walt was standing in the vestibule of the local cafe thumbing through the slim, paperback directory that was short-leashed by a cable to the pay telephone.
Walt’s head cocked at a severe angle to read it. Wondering who the hell is going to steal a phone book when everybody in town is probably related?
Scanning the columns of names where Geri’s should have been but was not. Occasionally he forgot himself in the columns of names until he was jerked back to reality. The grim-lipped farmers eyeballing him silently from beneath their fertilizer caps. Slack-jowled chamber of commerce-types chewing their breakfasts in tiny circles, watching him.
Closing the telephone book, checking the cover. It had a picture of a wheat field bathed in an amber sunset. He went back to his scanning.
The bell over the door ringing as someone entered the cafe but Walt did not look up.
“Not much of a plot to it but some real characters in that thing,” a woman said as she passed him, gesturing at the phone directory.
Walt looked up and saw a white-haired woman with a spry walk that contradicted her age. Watching as she hopped onto a red vinyl swivel stool at the lunch counter.
The woman not even glancing his way when Walt slid in at the counter, one swivel stool between them.
“A town this size, you probably know just about everyone in that telephone book,” Walt said. “Who’s the biggest character in it?”
The white-haired woman turning to Walt.
“Big as in fat?” she said.
“No, I was thinking big like notorious?”
“I’d say that would be Vern Mason. He’s crazy.”
“What makes you say he’s crazy?”
“Ever meet him, you’ll see.”
“What about a woman? Who’s the craziest woman in town?”
“You a traveling psychiatrist or something?” she said. “Roaming the land, rooting up any loony birds people you find?”
“No, I’m looking for a specific loony bird. She’s not really crazy. But that’s what turns the light on for most folks when you describe her. Oh her! Like that. But she’s not crazy. She’s just nuts.”
“There’s a difference?” the woman said.
“I like to think so,” Walt said.
The waitress, all plumpness and pink lipstick and blue eyeshadow, slid menus to each of them. Gracefully she poured their coffee, then left again, saying she’d be right back.
Walt perusing the menu. Considering re-starting his conversation with the white-haired woman but deciding against it.
Instead stealing a glance around the café. The place was called Hubbard’s. It had booths running along one wall and across the back wall, tables and chairs filling up the middle of the room. Red gingham curtains hung from the storefront window, barely filtering the sunlight that washed across the counter under Walt’s elbows.
He unfolded the Thoroughbred Times he’d brought along, looking over the ads in the back.
“So where you from?” the white-haired woman said. “Not from around here, talking funny like that.”
“From down around Tulsa. Do I really sound that different?”
“Tulsa? You a salesman? Don’t look like a salesman. Look like a damn cowboy, except there ain’t any real cowboys left.”
The woman’s eyes lingering for a long moment on the hole in Walt’s hat but she said nothing. Walt, unsure what else to do, nodding. Thankfully saved by the waitress returning to take their orders.
“Welcome cowboy,” she said. “Where you from?
“Amazing.
“What’s amazing? The waitress said.
“The way I talk. I don’t talk any different than you.”
Walt registering the confused look on her face.
“Nothing, nevermind. Can I get the breakfast special please?” Walt said, pointing to a chalkboard over by the register.
“How you want your eggs?”
“Over easy, please.”
“Bacon, sausage links or ham?”
“Ham, please.”
A pink, lipsticky grin exploded across the waitress’s face though she didn’t look up from her notepad.
“Darlin’ we haven’t had anyone as polite as you in here since I don’t know how long,” she said. “We get nothing but hard old coots in here.”
From somewhere behind Walt one of the men, speaking gruffly and loud enough for everyone to hear said, “I thought you liked it hard, Mildred?”
Most of the men laughed.
“Think your wife would think that’s funny, Herbert?” Mildred said.
The men laughed harder.
“Seems most folks lack for manners anymore,” she said to Walt, then to the white-haired woman “Toast and grapefruit, Dodi?”
Dodi nodded, sending Mildred off to clip their orders on a wheel of tickets spinning on the ledge of the pass-through that connected the dining area to the kitchen.
Dodi picked up her spoon, asked Walt to pass the sugar and cream.
“So color in the lines for me,” she said, stirring her coffee. “This crazy woman you’re after, she got any other defining-type deals?”
“You mean traits? Yeah, she’s a redhead. Pale. Kind of skinny.”
“A little speckled?”
“Yeah, she’s got some freckles.”
“Oh, that one,” Dodi Dodi. “She thinks she’s something, don’t she?”
Walt’s eyes grew sharp, getting somewhere now.
“This woman, she’s a friend?” Dodi said.
“Sort of.”
“I didn’t mean nothing by that.”
“Forget it,” Walt said. “She does think she’s something. Know where she lives?”
Dodi shook her head. “That I do not know, cowboy?”
“But you’re sure she lives here in Eden?”
“Oh yeah. Definitely.”
“The one you’re thinking of, she drive a red Camaro?”
“I don’t know cars,” Dodi said.
“But you’re definitely sure?”
“Pretty definitely sure we’re talking about the same redhead, yeah.”
Walt clenched his jaw. He pretended to read his menu, trying to mask and divert his frustration. He flipped from the front to the back where the side orders of onion rings and RC colas and ice cream desserts were listed. Ice cream.
“This woman,” Walt said. “The redhead? You ever seen her eating peanut butter ice cream?”
“Really there are only two things about a person that matter,” Dodi said. “Are you nice to your mother and what’s your favorite ice cream?”
Walt didn’t say anything until the old woman raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“She’s dead and chocolate chip,” Walt said.
“Everybody likes chocolate chip,” Dodi said without missing a beat. “Might not be their favorite but everybody likes it.”
“Yes ma’am. You ever seen her eating peanut butter ice cream?”
“Oh yeah. Peanut butter ice cream,” Dodi said. “Or maybe butter brickle.”
“No. No, butter brickle no good,” Walt said.
“Well, I like it.”
“No, I mean, she only eats peanut butter. The redhead.”
“Well, now damn it, I’m pretty sure I saw her eating butter brickle.”
“You sure?”
“Definitely.”
“Definitely?”
“Pretty definitely.”
“Here’s your breakfast,” Mildred said, laying the plate of eggs and ham in front of Walt and the grapefruit and toast before Dodi.
“You a horseman, sugar? Mildred said, gesturing with her chin at his Thoroughbred Times.
“Of sorts.”
“I hope you weren’t expecting horse work. Around here we got more cattle than horses and not much of them neither.”
“No ma’am, Walt said. “I’m not looking for work.
“He’s looking for a crazy woman,” Dodi said.
“All us gals are a little crazy honey,” Mildred said, winking. “But that’s what you love about us. Ain’t I right? So how long has it been?”
“Pardon?” Walt said.
“Since you last saw your friend. How long? Oooh, I bet you’re just going to lay the biggest, wettest kiss on her. Am I right?”
Walt thought about the pistol under the seat of his truck. “Something like that,” he said. “I tell you, Mildred, it has been some time since I saw her. Almost a year.”
“A year?” Dodi said.
“Now that is a shame,” Mildred said, raising an eyebrow. “How on earth could a cowgirl stay away for so long from a handsome cowboy?”
“Search me,” Walt said. “It was her idea. Things between us, I thought they were good. It did get kind of nuts toward the end. She’s high-spirited, you might say.”
“But a whole year?”
“Yep. I just found out yesterday she’s living up here.”
“So this crazy, lucky girl,” Dodi said, “she got a name?”
“Name’s Geri. With a G.”
“Honey, I know every soul in this town,” Mildred said. “There’s not a Geri with a G from where the sun comes up to where the sun goes down.”
“Oh, you know the one,” Dodi said. “Small woman. Eats all that damn butter brickle ice cream?”
“Peanut butter,” Walt said.
“You know, Mildred, the spooky one?” Dodi said.
Mildred thought it over for a moment. Walt watched the color drain from her face. He realized that for the first time since he’d walked in the café, Mildred wasn’t smiling. She leaned in close, wrinkling her nose as she spoke.
“Sugar, that girl’s dead.”