Good Wood (6 page)

One time, I forcibly removed a baseball bat from Mason’s grip when we found her carousing on 6th Street with some shady characters that were considerably older than her. Once we got her in the car, the boys proceeded to ream her a new one and the fight got so bad that I had to drop the twins off and drive her home myself. Molly tried to flirt with me and make light of her little pub crawl, and she just about jumped from the moving car when I called her ‘jailbait. That’s about the time she stopped coming around.

A couple years later, I heard she bloodied Mac’s nose for calling her prom date ‘a punk’. Little Molly might have once resembled a future librarian, but she’d always had twice as much attitude as both of her brothers combined.

That same attitude radiated off of her in the shade of her food truck. I had to admit that the smells emanating from the truck made my mouth water, but so did Molly Hildebrandt. The way her dark hair contrasted her fair skin reminded me of Snow White. Those curves of hers were downright dangerous, and the body art and her sultry eyes were far from Disney Princess material. She bit my head off for criticizing her mobile restaurant and loving that fire in those eyes of hers, I couldn’t stop myself from razzing her about the silver hoop in her nose. When she shot back that “other piercings hurt worse”, my eyes roamed her tiny white t-shirt for the tell-tale bulge of nipple rings. Distracted by her creamy cleavage, I mumbled something lecherous just before Mason appeared to save me from breaking the “Bro Code”.

I was turning back to work when she cracked up at Francis’s reaction to her offer of a free lunch. Her laugh washed over me leaving a strange twinge in my chest. For the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about those eyes of hers and hit my thumb with a hammer for the first time in years.
Twice.

Between my night with Miss Six, running into Little Molly and my zombie-like reflection, I had decided it was time for a change. So for the next three weeks, I kept my distance from the local bars. What little judgment I had left was faltering, and I placed myself on house arrest. I watched a little TV, lifted weights, and tried to read. Tamryn called me twice to invite me out to the ranch for Sunday Brunch, but I couldn’t bring myself to go. Sometimes being in all that wide open space with her kids was therapeutic. More often, it was like salt water in an angry wound.

Each day I went to the jobsite early. Work had always given me a reason to get out of bed in the morning, whether that bed was mine or somebody else’s. Every single day, that red Wrapgasmic truck stood between me and the tasks that needed to be done. Each time I passed by, the stacked blonde ringmaster at the window would call out to me. “Hey, Joe! Aren’t you gonna come try our flavor of the day?”

I’d just wave and shake my head. Between the girl with hair like Jess’s and The Tattooed Blue-eyed Lady, I figured that keeping my distance was for my own good. It seemed like I was the
only
one not eating at the truck. Graham, my foreman, constantly raved about the food. I’d known him for years, and he’d taught me most of what I know. Graham had become like a father to me. The father I always wished I’d had, and the only person in my work life I tried to curb my attitude with. He had a strong religious streak, and I’d often had to bite my tongue when he counseled me on healing. I wasn’t ready to heal. I had no desire to heal.

Graham’s love for Molly’s food made me smile, though. He’d often said the only thing his wife could make was reservations. Based on the success of Hildebrandt's BBQ and Betty’s home cooking, Molly’s culinary abilities weren’t much of a surprise. Even so, I steered clear of the truck. It got to be a running joke. I heard from the plumbers that Molly had named a wrap after me. “The Cranky Carpenter”, for short the crew called it “The Joe”.

One day, I was eating my lunch outside on the lawn of the hotel. It wouldn’t be long before the rain became a daily issue and Texas’s version of winter set in. I’d wanted to soak up as many of the rays as I could to tide me through the cold months. The longer the nights got the worse my mood became. And the days were growing shorter. I could feel it in my bones like an old sports injury acting up. Our resident benchwarmer, Francis came up and plopped down beside me. He was gobbling down his daily free lunch from Wrapgasmic.

“Are you going to be their poster-boy, Fran?” I asked.

“Maybe.” He lifted a waifish arm and flexed it. “I should probably get to training for it.” As I bit into my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he shook his uncombed mop and frowned.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you allergic to pretty girls and good cooking?”

I’d had no answer, so I shrugged and kept chewing my mediocre lunch. I found myself telling the story to my shrink when he asked me about work. Work was all I could usually talk about with Dr. Greene. He was my third court appointed shrink. In the first three months of my mandatory therapy, I’d had two others who both cut me loose for lack of participation. The first time I met Dr. William Greene, I knew he was different. He made a casual attempt at small talk and when I shut him down, he proceeded to balance his checkbook while I waited for my hour to be up. That was roughly a year ago, and I’d been with him ever since.

At this particular appointment, Dr. Greene asked me why I was so hell bent against trying the food all of my coworkers were raving about. I told him I wasn’t sure and kicked my feet up on his desk. He sighed as always, and I stared at the clock until the long hand was on the hour. I’d moved beyond being bitter about our sessions to completely apathetic. He was better off thinking I was crazy like everyone else did versus having me shoot my mouth off and confirm it.

The following morning, Graham sent me off to the foyer of the hotel for the day. My project was sanding down the banister and stairs which I’d determined were salvageable. It was a relief to be working alone. Or so I thought.

The lack of necessary small talk left me bored and soon I was hopelessly examining Dr. Greene’s question. I knew I was guilty of avoiding certain restaurants and even certain routes in Austin because the memories of Jess and I were too pungent to face. Hell, I hadn’t been to Amy’s Ice Cream since that night and it’d been one of my favorite places to grab a cone. I avoided my parents, but we’d been doing that dance since I chose not to go to law school like an obedient son. I avoided the ranch Tamryn shared with her “urban cowboy” husband and their two little girls because when I saw their happy family I hated myself for my ugly thoughts. I owed Tamryn every stinkin’ thing I still had left in my life, and she deserved a far better brother than I’d been to her.

But none of that had anything to do with the food truck. It was Molly I was avoiding. When I came to this realization, I was shocked. Until she showed up at the jobsite, I hadn’t even seen her in years. So why was I avoiding her?

Because she reminds you of who you used to be.

It didn’t surprise me that it was Jess’s polite voice that echoed this truth in my head. It pissed me off, but didn’t surprise me; because Jessica had always been the level one, my voice of reason. She’d always reined me in and talked me down when I was ready to throw caution to the wind. I felt my pulse climbing as the all too familiar anger built inside me.

Anger had become an issue in my life. My patience had worn paper thin and it had caused me nothing but problems. Bar fights had become almost cliché for me and the local PD was so tired of seeing my face that I had been in real danger of going away for a long time. Yet again, Tamz had held me back from the brink and pled for clemency. So began my weekly play date with Dr. Greene. Thinking did nothing to help my anger; so, I threw myself into my work.

I picked up the pace, sanding more aggressively until sweat dripped off of me. I worked at that level until my cell phone alerted me that it was time for lunch. As I stopped to silence the alarm, my shoulder and back muscles cried out in joy.

Fuck that noise. I like who I used to be. I’m trying one of those stupid wraps today
. Putting my tools away, I headed out front. Francis saw me coming and set up a ruckus getting everyone’s attention.

“I told you her food is magical! Behold! The Cranky Carpenter approaches!” This got him a few laughs from the guys standing nearby. I flipped him off and joined the line that was halfway down the block. When I finally got up to the window, the blonde gave me a devilish grin.

“Hey there, Joe. Coffee, tea or me?” There was a derisive snort from back inside the truck. I gave her a lazy smile and motioned at the menu.

“So what’s in my name sake wrap there, beautiful?” Her smile slipped for just a second and then she batted her eyelashes at me. Hangover free, I could now see that she looked nothing at all like Jess, and I wondered why I’d ever thought so. The only thing they seemed to have in common was the hair color.

“It’s one of our most popular items. Corned beef, sauerkraut, spicy mustard with a pepper jack cheese sauce.” I had to admit, it sounded good.

“Give me two of the Cranky Carpenters then. The Strappin’ Wrap size,” I slid over a twenty. “And something cold to drink, please.” The blonde’s head looked in danger of splitting in two from smiling so hard. She called back the order and I heard a guy’s voice mumble something, but there was so much noise I couldn’t quite make out what it was.

Here’s hoping I don’t get two wraps with extra spit in them. Or worse.
Molly brought my wraps up to the window and the blonde stepped smoothly aside. Molly’s long hair hung in a ponytail over her shoulder and her black shirt featured a skull and crossbones pulled tight across her chest. The way it hugged her curves made me salivate more than the food she presented to me. And that’s saying something.

“So what happened to your one man boycott of my ‘overpriced roach coach’?” She delivered the quip in a taunting way, but her eyes showed me something else. Pain? Insecurity? I realized I’d hurt her feelings and I was floored that I actually felt shitty about it.
What the hell? Since when do I feel anything?
I paused for a moment as I gathered myself and then shrugged.

“Graham speaks pretty highly of your truck. I trust his good judgment.” Her eyes widened for a second before she slapped the two wraps down and whirled away. The blonde reappeared handing me my change and a bottle of water. I went over to sit with Graham who gave me a wry smile and nodded to my food.

“One of those is enough to kill me. I hope you don’t get sick eating two.” I laughed and tore into the first wrap. The corned beef was perfect: juicy and tender with just enough heat to bring the flavors alive. The mustard was the good stuff and gave the sandwich bite while the sauerkraut was also worlds above anything I had ever had. But what tied the whole thing together was the cheese sauce. I’d underestimated Molly. It wasn’t a roach coach she was operating. It was a crack wagon. If everything she made tasted like this, the crew would soon be too fat to function.

When I was done, I sat back and drank the bottle of water slowly. It was cold which was welcome in the heat, but I didn’t want to drink it too fast. A full stomach and an ice cold drink could spell problems. Leaning back on a pallet of tiles, I watched the line file past the window of the food truck. Occasionally, Molly would flit to the window and personally hand something out. Once in a while, one of the guys would crack a joke and I’d get to hear that laugh of hers. Like a great scotch, it’d only improved with age. I found myself sitting there longer than I ever would have before, just watching for her. Who knows how long I would have sat there if Graham hadn’t drug me back inside.

“I can’t believe you ate two of those. Too much of a good thing can be just as bad for you as too little. Come on let’s get back to work.” I stood up and walked back toward the hotel with him. At the doorway, I looked back and Molly was at the window handing a Strappin’ Wrap to Francis. Her glance slid to me and her smile faltered.

Those eyes
.

I really wanted to know what was going on behind that stare of hers. My heart rate increased just looking at her. Turning back to Graham, I tried to shove the weirdness out of my head and get back to work. Sometimes good hard manual labor can get you through anything.