A Triple Scoop of I Scream (10 page)

The odd few dollars that Toni earned selling overpriced refreshments to overpaid weekend warriors helped her to keep the utilities turned on while she renovated the inn. But on fall nights like this—when the wind whipped through the cornfields and the rain slashed at her skin—she longed for the climate-controlled condo and inflated salary that she’d left behind.

She concluded that the cold was seeping into her brain when she smelt cap-gun smoke. The aroma immediately conjured up tiny tight red-paper rolls with bumps of gunpowder spaced along the surface. She remembered helping her little brother load his cap gun. She’d swing open the metal door that was disguised as a pistol barrel, centre the cap roll on the metal peg, then feed the tail end of the paper under the gun hammer—lining it up just so before fastening the latch. Her brothers would chase around the neighbourhood, ducking behind cars and houses—alternately saving the city from the bad guys and being the bad guys. She could almost hear the sharp crack of their toy guns as the metal hammers came down on the tiny dots of gunpowder. She sniffed the air and the acrid, smoky aroma took her back to the carefree Julys of her youth, and far from this dismal late-October of her adulthood.

Toni toyed with the idea of lying back in the puddle and hoping that sleep would overtake her. When her teeth began to chatter, she knew that escapism was an impossibility. And, given that the chow wagon currently was her only reliable income, she would have to get it inside—out of the rain—before the canvas top was irreparably damaged.

By the time Toni got to her feet, the tears were flowing freely. She trudged over to the wedged door, knelt down and clawed away the mud doorstop with her numbed fingers. She pulled back the door enough to make way for the pickup and wiped her hands on her sodden calico skirt. Something glowing on the ground caught her eye and she stooped down for a closer look. She immediately recognised it as her cell phone, but still patted the pocket hidden in the folds of her skirt to verify that it wasn’t there. She scooped up the last vestige of her former, high-tech life, found a clean patch of fabric and wiped off the screen. Toni felt her shoulders droop and the rain stung her skin as she watched the screen glow bright green for a moment before fading out to black. She deposited the dead phone back into her pocket and slogged to the pickup.

Toni slid into the cab, trying to ignore the muddy swipe she left on the seat. She cranked the key forward and squeezed shut her eyes at the weak groan the engine made as it fought to turn over.

“Start, you miserable bitch,” she muttered.

She pumped the gas pedal and leant forward, twisting the key in the ignition, willing the engine to fire. She cycled back the key, and then pressed it forward again. She rested her forehead on the cold, hard steering wheel.

“Please,” she whispered.

The old truck teased with a
rrrrr, rrrrr
, then seemed to take pity on her. It gave one more anaemic groan before catching. The plugs sparked and the engine finally fired, roaring to life in a cloud of gasoline-soaked exhaust.

“Thank you,” she said and the tears flowed anew.

Toni sat for a moment, shivering and defeated, slowly pumping the gas until she was sure the engine would keep cranking. Sitting back against the scarred vinyl seat, she stared through the windshield, trying to ignore the new horizontal crack. Sniffing her running nose but not bothering to wipe her tears, she gave the gas pedal two more pumps for good measure, then pivoted her numb foot to the brake. She grasped the long, utilitarian gearshift and
thunked
the transmission into drive, then eased the pickup into the carriage house and shut down the engine. She left the keys in the ignition—after all, who would bother to steal this beast?

Toni opened the cab door and slumped out. Something fluttered in the open rafters above and she hoped that it wasn’t bats. She ducked against potential dive-bombing from flying rodents as she hurried out the carriage house door. She tried to yank it shut, but the downpour had built a new barrier of earth on the inward side of the door’s swing. Defeated, Toni decided to leave the carriage house open.

She trudged out into the mire of the driveway and looked towards the lights from the inn. They were at once a beacon and a betrayal. Inside she would find dry clothes and a warm bath…and a mile-long list of deferred maintenance items.

Toni decided that the worries of leaky roofs and hazardous wiring and porous plumbing would still be there in the morning. What she needed now was to be warm and dry—and to sleep. She stepped on to the uneven slate stepping-stones that would lead her indoors. Movement in her peripheral vision caused her to pause and turn. A figure drifted through the shadows on the far side of the alley that led behind the carriage house. Toni dipped her head and squinted. His head was bent against the rain, but she could make out the brim of his flat-topped cap. The circle of light from the bare bulb above the carriage house door didn’t quite reach him, but was just close enough to glint off his brass buttons and the handle of the scabbard that hung at his hip. A pistol with a foot-long barrel was stuffed into the sash that circled his waist. The end of the sash trailed down to his right knee and was tipped with a thick tassel.

A re-enactor
, she thought. He must’ve been heading home after a day of pretending to fight a Civil War battle. Maybe he was making his way to one of the other, more respectable, inns that lined Main Street. She wondered what this guy did for a living in the real world to be able to afford such an historically correct getup. The uniform even had tears and stains to mimic the effects of war.

The man turned to face her head on, still just outside the reach of the floodlight over the carriage house door. The rain clouds covered the moon, but she could see that his skin was pale—no doubt, she thought, from long hours spent poring over legal briefs or business ledgers. Or perhaps he was one of those guys who still lived in his mother’s basement and had a social life limited only by the reach of the Internet—‘basement dwellers’ she thought they were called. Toni couldn’t make out the colour of his eyes, but in this light they seemed inky black.

She was anxious for him to step within the brighter pool of light. It made her uneasy to only see the most rudimentary features. In this light he seemed like a grainy photocopy from a black-and-white printer. Even in greyscale he was handsome. What struck her most was his moustache. He looked otherwise bedraggled, but that moustache was perfectly trimmed. It framed his lips as if his mouth were a parenthetical phrase, then followed his jaw before turning northward to blend into thick, lamb chop sideburns. His facial hair was so perfect and so utterly old fashioned that Toni wondered if it were another prop, and if so, what kind of glue must he be using for it to hold up under this downpour? If it weren’t, what employer would stand for it?

Toni was about to turn away when the pretend soldier straightened his stance and held her fast with his stare. He appeared to be exhausted and his stand-at-attention posture seemed a struggle. He touched the bill of his cap with a gentlemanly nod. Something about the gesture—the sincerity of it and its courtly nature—moved her. Toni gathered up a hank of sodden skirt in each hand, just below her hips, pulled out the fabric, and curtsied. She dipped her chin down and away, affecting the air of a proper lady. The formality of it centred her. When she straightened, the re-enactor was gone. Toni drew in a deep breath and smiled. She would look for him tomorrow at the re-enactment. With renewed strength, Toni made her way towards a hot bubble bath and dry clothes.

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About the Author

Gabrielle Holly lives in the Midwest United States with her husband and two enormous, world-class-shedding dogs. She has worked as a freelance journalist, newspaper humour columnist, stand-up comic and morning radio show host. She has a short attention span and enjoys reading, cooking, crafting, hunting for antiques, attending live theatre, watching movies, spending time outdoors, and coercing her husband into being her “research assistant.”

Email:
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Gabrielle loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at
http://www.total-e-bound.com
.

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