Fit to Die (9 page)

James ignored the woman to his left as she tried to shush him. “Know what?”

Lindy’s jaw dropped. “Oh my stars, James! Every single one of his paintings sold during my mother’s winter show. He made a ton of money.”

James couldn’t believe his ears. “What’s a ton, exactly?”

Lindy inched a little closer and whispered. “Over twenty thousand dollars. My mother sold a total of fifty paintings and got top dollar for an unknown artist. Even after her commission, she was able to send your daddy a pretty nice check.” Lindy stood as Dylan kindly commanded them all to rise. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you. He should be so proud! There are, like, two dozen standing orders for future works, too.”

James began Dylan’s exercise routine in a stupor. Twenty thousand dollars!

“We’re going to burn some fat with some leg lifts, folks.” Dylan turned up the volume on his CD player and loud techno music with a chaotic rhythm reverberated throughout the room. “This song ought to get you in the mood to LIFT, and LIFT, and LIFT, and …”

James felt like his thighs were on fire. How could one of his limbs be so heavy? After ten lifts per side, he didn’t think he could raise even his foot off the floor. He felt the extra flesh on his belly, thighs, arms, and chest shaking and flailing about as if it were becoming detached from the bone. Glancing around in the mirror, he noted that everyone else’s bodies looked the same. Red faces were streaming with moisture, sweatshirts were stained with sweat, and people bent down to tie shoelaces every few minutes as an attempt to catch a prolonged breath.

“Stay hydrated, folks!” Dylan called in between jumping jacks. “Hang in there! We’re halfway done!”

“Halfway?” James panted to no one in particular. His chest was tight and he had a sharp pain in his side. Sweat dripped into his eyes and his body felt as heavy as an anchor. He didn’t think he could take another step, let alone raise his arms high above his head and wave them left and right.

“Trees in the wind!” Dylan shouted. “Wave those arms, folks!”

In the mirror, James saw Lucy behind him and off to his right. She was struggling, but still managing to weakly imitate Dylan’s moves. She caught James watching her and gave him an exaggerated eye roll accompanied by a quick smile.

Wanting to appear as capable as Lucy of grimly following through to the bitter end of Dylan’s routine, James raised his elbows slightly above his waist and tried to follow the instructor’s energetic sidestepping motions. As James held up his leaden arms and shuffled to the left like a zombie, the lights in the room seemed to gradually grow brighter. He gazed at the ceiling as the dozen tiny spotlights flared out like Christmas tree stars. The pounding beat of the music changed, too. Suddenly, James could barely hear it at all. His head filled with a pleasant feeling of emptiness and a curtain of darkness fell before his eyes.

“James!” Lucy shouted, bending over him.

James looked up at her from his vantage point on the wooden floor.

“Are you okay?” Gillian’s face appeared among the ring of faces that were encircling and gazing down upon his sweat-slicked body. “I think you need some water.”

“I agree. Let’s give him some room, folks.” Dylan waved the small group back and knelt beside James. “Y’all grab yourselves a mat and we’ll do some cool down stretches in a second. Our friend will be just fine.”

The members of the class hesitated and then gratefully positioned their mats and sank down onto them. No one even pretended to stretch. A few people even lay prone on the mats, their chests rising and falling rapidly. Lucy was the last to sit down and even after she did, she continued to stare in James’s direction, a look of concern on her flushed face.

“Did I faint?” James asked the younger man in a horrified whisper.

Dylan nodded briskly. “Don’t be embarrassed, though. You were just working really hard and you didn’t hydrate enough. Here, take some slow slips of this.”

James refused to allow Dylan to hold onto his head as he propped himself up on his right elbow and drank some tepid water.

“Better now?” Dylan asked kindly as James moved himself to a sitting position.

“I’m all right. Sorry to interrupt the class.” James slouched over to where the stack of blue floor mats were kept and pulled one to the very back of the room by the door. As Dylan led the class through their final stretches, he reiterated the importance of drinking water throughout his classes. James was completely mortified and avoided the eyes of all his friends as they attempted to meet his in the mirror. He knew they meant well, but he was too humiliated to accept their sympathy at the moment.

The second the class ended, James hustled out of the room as fast as his numb legs would carry him and did not even bother to replace his exercise mat. He grabbed his bag of entrées on the way out and only felt like pausing to slug Ronnie. As she handed him his food, she clapped him repeatedly on his sweat-soaked back and oozed, “Don’t you have a healthy glow?” Then she winked at him flirtatiously and exclaimed, “Why Mr. Henry, I swear you look thinner already! See you Wednesday!”

James settled himself in a booth at Dolly’s Diner fifteen minutes before his scheduled meeting time with Lucy. This booth had become a favorite of James’s as the paneled walls above it were decorated with coconut shells, a grass skirt, a grouping of colorful leis, two small tiki torches, and a large poster of an azure sea bordering a strip of gleaming, pale sand with a tag line reading, Need a break? Paradise is waiting for you! James always felt agreeably transported when he ate beneath the island relics. It was as if he only needed to step into the poster in order to find respite from the long winter days living in a small town enclosed by mountains. Now that spring had come to Quincy’s Gap, James sat in the booth dreaming of a vacation in paradise, he and Lucy strolling hand in hand on the stretches of pristine sand.

“Coffee, hon?” Dolly asked, jiggling a chewed pencil between her thumb and index finger. She always carried the pencil but never used it to take an order, as her memory was flawless.

“Please.” James smiled at the busty, middle-aged proprietor and issued a quick wave to her husband, Clint, who had just emerged from his domain in the kitchen in order to refill his soda glass. Dolly placed a tiny creamer filled with half-and-half in front of James and gave him a thorough inspection as he stirred a packet of artificial sweetener into his coffee.

“You do somethin’ different with your hair, Professor?” she asked, in no hurry to move away and check on her other customers.

James absently touched a nutmeg-colored strand and then shook his head. “No, ma’am. Um, do you have skim milk, Dolly? I’ve joined that new Witness to Fitness program and I don’t think I can afford to waste any food points using half-and-half in my coffee.”

“Sure do, hon. Back in a flash.” Dolly hustled off to the kitchen and returned with another metal creamer. Putting a hand on her hip as if to signal the commencement of a casual chat, Dolly asked, “So what do you think of that Ronnie Levitt girl? She’s a cute little thang if you like your women with no meat on ’em. That girl’s a walkin’ celery stick if you ask me. But you men can see things different, can’t you?” She raised her brows as if daring James to argue and her blue- and silver-tinted lids twinkled beneath the overhead lights.

James shrugged. He didn’t dare tell Dolly how he truly felt about Ronnie or his feelings would be spread around town faster than the winter flu. “A bit too perky for me,” was all he could manage without fully giving away how irritating he found Ronnie Levitt.

Dolly frowned. She disliked terse answers. She lived and breathed for gossip and for the opportunity to play matchmaker with any of Quincy’s Gap singles. James continuously disappointed her attempts on both fronts. He had had many a meal interrupted while Dolly introduced him to one unattached female after another. Most of the time the women looked equally mortified to have been led over to his table like mares about to be given over for use on a stud farm.

Suddenly, Dolly’s sharp eyes spied a new victim approaching the front door. “Oh! Here comes Lucy Hanover. Well, I’ll be plucked and strung up like a chicken! She’s all gussied up! I wonder who she’s gotten so dolled up for?” Her large head pivoted back and forth as she examined the customers seated around her. “Hmm. Maybe it’s …” she mumbled to herself and rushed off to take up a more favorable viewing position from behind the counter.

James was relieved that he had chosen to sit with his back to the entrance. He was nervous enough as it was and didn’t need to compound his anxiety by watching out for Lucy’s arrival. He had no idea how he was going to begin to tell her how he felt. The brightness of the diner seemed to induce loud conversation, not the whispered endearments he had planned upon. And when Lucy finally slid into the opposite side of his booth, James regretted his choice of seating. He wished he had been prepared for her dramatic change in appearance from a long way off.

She had clearly just had her hair done for her thick, caramel locks were neatly sheared and angled into an attractive bob that framed her soft chin perfectly. She wore a shade of pale red lipstick and a kind of dusky, frosted shadow that made her cornflower-blue eyes larger and more luminous than ever. Her indigo blouse had a deep neckline and she wore a silver cross on a long chain that dangled flirtatiously above her generous cleavage. A faint waft of floral scent floated across the table and James had a pleasing sensation of breathing in a cluster of dew-covered wildflowers.

Before James could speak, Dolly hurried over to the booth as fast as her two rubber-shoed feet would allow, the ends of her apron strings trailing out behind her plump bottom like a kite’s tail. “Lucy, darlin’! Don’t you just look a picture! Isn’t she stunnin’, Professor?”

James nodded dumbly. He cast a shy grin in Lucy’s direction and then began to carefully study the surface of his coffee cup as if he were an augur.

Dolly’s eyes shifted eagerly from Lucy to James as she took Lucy’s order for coffee. “I’ll just leave you two alone,” she whispered conspiratorially after placing a cup and saucer delicately on the table.

Lucy watched her move off and then giggled. “Dolly is somethin’ else, isn’t she? She’s probably got every booth bugged so she can catch up on all the latest news.”

James laughed in agreement and immediately felt the tension drain from his clenched shoulders. “But she is right about you. You do look … great,” he stammered.

“Thanks. The sheriff sent me to Waynesboro this morning to pick up the specialist’s report on the Polar Pagoda fire. Our only fax machine is busted again. So I decided to visit a friend of mine who just opened up a beauty shop there before headin’ back. I could have returned with a purple mohawk and the guys in the office would never have noticed! They’re all obsessed with the upcoming Law Enforcement Bowling Tournament!” she snorted.

“Who’s the specialist?”

“A fire investigator sent out by the company insuring Willy’s business. Chief Lawrence met him at the scene after we had gone. I guess the two of them collaborated in order to figure out what happened.”

“A fire investigator,” James said thoughtfully. “Wow. Did you get to read any of his report?” James asked, his curiosity distracting him from the personal topic that he had meant to discuss.

“Of course! I read the whole thing while Cindi was workin’ on my hair.” Lucy gave James a tender look. “You know I can’t resist knowing as much as those chauvinistic deputies I have to work for.”

“Oh, it won’t be too long now before you’re working right alongside them, Lucy.”

Lucy’s smile lit up her face. “It’s nice to have your confidence in me, James. You are so sweet.” She reached across and brushed his hand with her fingertips. James felt his heart quicken in his chest. “Anyway, both this investigator and Chief Lawrence ruled that the fire was a case of arson!” Lucy’s eyes danced with excitement.

James took a sip of coffee and grimaced at the thin, foreign taste of skim milk where his thick and creamy half-and-half should be. “Was it caused by some kind of negligence on Pete’s part? Can you tell?”

“Negligence is strongly implied in the report. Looks like whiskey was spilled all over the back of the shop, especially around the cardboard boxes where the T-shirts were kept. Somehow this specialist could follow the trail of the fire and discover its source. Pretty cool, huh? There were also several cigarette butts, Pall Mall Lights I think, in the same area. So I guess Pete was just hanging out, drinking and smoking his whole shift long. Guess he didn’t get too many customers that night or someone would have noticed he was drunk.”

“Everyone in town was at the Brunswick Stew Dinner. That’s why he had so little business.” James paused and frowned. “But I always remember Pete as a chewing tobacco man. Have you ever seen him smoke?”

“No, but who knows what the man did in private?” Lucy shrugged. “It seems strange to me that so much whiskey was spilled, though. I can’t see Pete accidentally knocking over a perfectly good bottle of booze, you know? Still, there’s a medical examiner who specializes in burned … um … cadavers coming all the way from Richmond to examine the body.”

“You kids need a refill?” Dolly asked, appearing in front of James and Lucy like a magician and causing them both to start, sloshing coffee into their saucers. “I’ve also got these low-fat almond cookies for you to nibble on. Got some Italian name. Clint’s been experimenting with some healthy sweets to add to the dessert menu. Lemme know what you think.” She poured more steaming coffee into their cups, checked the level of milk in the creamer, and stood hovering over them for a good five seconds.

James picked up one of the two biscotti and took a bite, figuring that Dolly was going to stand there until he did. The crunchy almond flavor was a pleasant accompaniment to the coffee. “These are good, Dolly. Clint’s got a winner. He can serve them to all the folks on our diet.”

“Well, I hope we don’t have to change our whole menu on account of this Ronnie person. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with some good ole Southern cookin’ once a day. My Grammy lived to be over a hundred and she ate fried chicken with biscuits and gravy every single day of her life!”

“No one could run you out of business,” Lucy assured the flustered proprietress. “There’s no diet in this world that could keep me from your meatloaf or blackberry pie.”

Dolly smiled, pacified, and went to refill the coffees of her other patrons.

“And speaking of our diet,” Lucy turned back to James, “we are all saving our baked ziti to eat at Gillian’s house this Sunday. We figured we’d still make a salad and a dessert and eat together even though we’re just heating up a frozen dinner.”

“I’m glad.” James dusted biscotti crumbs from the table and onto the floor. “I’d hate our dinners to end just because we all joined Witness to Fitness.” He hesitated and then decided that there had been enough small talk and it was now time to come to the point with Lucy. “Besides, I especially look forward to seeing you—”

“Professor Henry! How lucky to have run into you!” Murphy Alistair popped up in front of them and dropped a notebook onto the surface of their table with a decisive thwack. “I called you at the library but you had already left. I’m dying to get the scoop on your first Witness to Fitness class.” She looked expectantly from James to Lucy. “Oh. Am I interrupting? I can just sit down at another booth until you’re ready to talk, James.” She made a slow move to recollect her notebook.

“That’s okay,” Lucy said with what James recognized as false sweetness. She eyed Murphy’s form-fitting blouse and ironed jeans with barely concealed envy. “I see Carter Peabody’s just come in. I think I’ll go say hello.” She gathered her purse and left some money for the coffee as James struggled to find his tongue. “See you,” she said to James, her face clearly reflecting her disappointment in him and scooted out of the booth.

James opened and closed his mouth like a frog searching for flies. He knew he should send Murphy away and tell Lucy what he had come here to say to her, but the sudden presence of another woman, especially one with such a forceful personality as Murphy, had thrown him completely off balance. Before he could even say goodbye, Murphy had taken Lucy’s place in the booth and Lucy had greeted Carter loudly as he settled onto a stool at the diner’s counter. Carter looked slightly taken aback by Lucy’s effusiveness, but then he issued a brief, yet sincere smile that momentarily transformed his plain features into a warm and handsome visage that any woman would enjoy gazing upon. James scowled as he watched them.

“So.” Murphy uncapped a ballpoint pen and turned to a fresh sheet of paper in her notebook. “How was your first class?”

James answered Murphy’s questions as succinctly as possible, hoping to give her the information she needed and then reclaim his alone time with Lucy. He praised Dylan’s teaching abilities and described some of the more difficult portions of the workout without mentioning his own collapse. Murphy scribbled away and nodded vigorously, encouraging James to share even mundane details such as the music used and what outfits most of the dieters wore to class. As James spoke, he continuously cast sidelong looks in Lucy’s direction where, to his dismay, he saw her order a fresh cup of coffee. It looked at though she was telling Carter an animated tale as she gesticulated dramatically and laughed noisily. Carter seemed quietly amused and James couldn’t help but wonder if Lucy was putting on a show to get his attention as he sat talking to Murphy. If so, she was entirely successful.