Harvestman Lodge (24 page)

“I didn’t know anything about that. We’ve never had a discussion on that subject, Melinda and I.” The sliding door opened and Eli glanced over. “Hey, Micah, take a look!”

Melinda and Nancy appeared, Nancy with the platter of steaming corn cobs in her right hand and a half-empty bottle of beer in her left. Melinda was carrying a basket of nicely browned Texas toast, and had a beer bottle of her own, nearly empty.

“Well I’ll be!” Ledford muttered just loud enough for Eli alone to hear. “I guess I shouldn’t have made assumptions!”

“What you can’t assume,” Eli said back at equally hushed volume, “is that one member of a family speaks for all the others. You can’t assume that Melinda doesn’t have a mind of her own. She’s not some ten-year-old girl waiting for daddy to tell her what to think. She’s a grown woman. She makes her own decisions and forms her own opinions.”

Micah watched as Melinda downed the last portion of her beer with obvious enjoyment. “Oh yes, she’s a grown woman, all right!” he said quietly. “And she grew up just right in every way, head to toe.”

“Hey, man, if you’re going to lustfully ogle my girl, then I’m going to stare at Nancy and think the vilest thoughts possible, and I want you to know it,” Eli joked. “And by the way, Captain Testosterone, you might want to redirect that passionate gaze to the grill and notice that chicken thigh on the corner that’s about to burn.”

Micah rescued the endangered piece of chicken in time to save the meat, but only at the price of the complete ashing of its coating of Nancy’s acclaimed barbecue sauce. He pounded the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Focus, Micah! Focus! Look at the women after the chicken is off the fire!” He looked sadly at the ash-coated chicken thigh. “I guess that one’s mine, huh?”

“
Bon appetit
, my friend.”

MICAH’S PLAN HAD BEEN TO show off his new, top-quality VCR and big color television with a showing of
American Graffiti
, a recent home video release he’d purchased on VHS over the prior weekend. Instead, the post-feast evening turned into a time of relaxed and open conversation. The Ledfords were pleased to see how comfortable their guests appeared to be in their home, and Nancy relished the praise she received for her excellent barbecue sauce.

Beer flowed along with the conversation, though Eli switched to cola because he would have to drive himself and Melinda home. For her part, Melinda proved that, whatever her father might be, she was no teetotaler. She handled her beer like a champ, and showed few obvious effects of it beyond a very slight thickening of the tongue.

Micah, on the other hand, drank enough to push himself across an unfortunate line. His eyes became bleary and he began smiling and chuckling in a goofy manner that his wife clearly did not like to see.

“No more beer for you, guzzler!” Nancy said to her spouse.

“I’ll drink to that!” Ledford said. “Eli, hand me another beer, wouldja? Y’know, so I can drink to that!”

“I can’t do it, Micah. The high court has ruled.”

“Well … I object, and move for summary judgment! And for that bottle of beer!” He rose from his recliner and reached for what he wanted, almost stumbling in the effort, but Nancy was faster and had the bottle in hand at once.

For a moment the look of anger on Micah’s face was frightening. He glared at his wife in a downright threatening way, but the expression dissolved into one of regret. “Sorry, sweetheart. I had one too many. Maybe two or three.”

She nodded, wordless.

Micah told his guests: “My grandfather was an alcoholic, and Nancy worries when I drink.”

“Only because I love you, sweety,” Nancy said.

“I love you too, babe.” All at once it looked like Micah, rendered maudlin by intoxication, might soon be blubbering and wiping tears.

Melinda Buckingham exhaled with a loud sigh. “Whatever, I need another beer,” she said, and went for one.

THE MOVIE NEVER PLAYED. Micah drank no more, and over the next couple of hours began to be more like the sober version of himself. Nancy seemed relieved and moved the beer supply back to the kitchen to lessen the temptation for her husband.

Eli was quizzed by his hosts on the familiar old topic of the magazine project. It was a little embarrassing to have to admit it was progressing slowly, and though he told Micah and Nancy quite forthrightly that the problem was David’s foot-dragging over the writing assignments, he knew it came across as excuse-making. He, after all, was the one brought in to spearhead the blasted thing, so if it was bogging down, at whose desk did the buck have to stop?

“Eli, when I first met you and you told me what you were doing at the paper, I admired the Brechts for getting an early start on something that doesn’t even occur until next year,” Micah said. “Now, I got to admit, I’m wondering if they aren’t going to squander their advantage by moving too slow.”

“Exactly,” Eli replied, relieved to hear the Brechts, and not himself, being blamed. “It’s frustrating. I’m beginning to get embarrassed when people ask what the magazine will have in it. All I can give are vague, general answers that sound like I made them up on the spur of the moment, and I think people are beginning to wonder just what I’m doing, if anything. Sometimes I wonder myself.”

“I can tell you what you’re doing,” Nancy said. “You’re making yourself a place in a good community, overcoming the same aggravations you’ll find, in one form or another, in any workplace, and most of all building a relationship with a lovely young lady.”

Melinda actually blushed at Nancy’s words, and couldn’t squelch a subtle smile.

“You’re right, of course,” Eli said. “I have nothing to complain about, not really. And much to be thankful for.”

“So do I,” Melinda said, and it was Eli’s turn to grin.

“Awww,” said Micah, patting his hand over his heart. “Isn’t young romance sweet!”

Nancy glared at her husband. “Actually, Micah, it is. So shut up. Just shut up!”

THE NEXT DAY, IT HAPPENED without warning. Eli arrived at his office and had just gotten inside when the phone rang and David Brecht summoned him to the newspaper office. “Special staff meeting,” Brecht said. “I’m going to hand out magazine assignments.”

Unbelievable. After an inexplicably long delay, David Brecht was finally ready to pull the trigger.

Jake Lundy’s pickup was pulling into the newspaper parking lot as Eli got out of his car. “Why you here and not at Hodgepodge?” Lundy asked.

“David called, said he’s giving out magazine assignments this morning. Can you believe it’s taken him this long to get to it?”

Lundy laughed. “Son, nothing surprises me when it comes to Davy Carl. I’ll be interested in seeing how close his list is to what we came up with.”

It ended up being close indeed, scarcely changed from what they had submitted. There were three added stories that Eli recognized as adaptations of suggestions from Miz Deb’s list, refined and helpfully refocused by David. Eli particularly noticed that Miz Deb’s proposed story about the legacy of women’s civic organizations in Kincheloe County had been expanded to include men’s organizations as well. A few such groups were cited by name as examples, mostly mainstream national civic clubs, along with fraternal lodge organizations such as the Masons and Shriners. Also listed were two earlier-day organizations that no longer existed locally, including a now-defunct local “tribe” of the Improved Order of the Red Men, a group tracing itself to the Sons of Liberty and relating its name to the American Indian garb worn by those who dumped tea from British ships into Boston Harbor. Even a couple of insurance companies that used a lodge-style membership structure were referenced.

There was no mention of the Fraternal Order of Tennessee Harvestmen.

Eli raised no question about it. There would be time for that later.

RUBY WHEELER, ELI AT HER SIDE, closely studied the big election party photograph on the wall of the front hallway, then shrugged. “No point in me doing this,” she said. “I’d not know your girlfriend’s aunt if I saw her, because I never heard of her until today. Now what was her name again?”

“Dobson. Kathy Dobson. Melinda said she was a sister to her mother. Killed in a traffic accident seven years ago. Melinda said the crash was so bad it made the front page.”

Ruby was all perplexity. “It seems like I’d remember something like that if it was on the front page.”

“Yeah … and let me tell you something, just secret between you and me. You’re good at keeping confidences, I hope, because I wouldn’t want word drifting back around to Melinda that I said this.”

“Eli, when you sit at the front desk of a newspaper office as long as I have, you hear a lot of things you probably shouldn’t have heard, and you learn to keep secrets really well. Tell me whatever, and it goes no further. Trust me on that.”

“Okay. I checked the file of accident stories. I didn’t find anything at all about a Kathy Dobson, or a big traffic accident at the time Melinda said it happened. Nothing in obits, either.”

Ruby’s perplexity deepened. “Eli, no offense to you, but I think you must have heard wrong whatever she said.”

“The thing is, I’m certain I didn’t. I know what she said.”

“Eli, my family has known the Dobson family for years. There was never a ‘Kathy’ among them.”

“Same family? The one who Ben Buckingham married into?”

“Same one. Ben married Dorothy Dobson. Wonderful lady, don’t you think?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course.” Eli wasn’t about to admit he had yet to meet Melinda’s parents.

“Everyone who has known the Dobsons say it about killed Dot’s father when Ben married Dot and hauled her off to Knoxville. Ben was in Bible college there for a few years, thinking of becoming a preacher, then he lost his calling, I guess, and went to a technical school to learn about video and cameras and all that. When they came back here, they brought baby Melinda with them.”

“Melinda was born in Knoxville? Really? She told me she was from Tylerville, and Jake Lundy described her as a Tylerville girl. He says they’re the best girls to be found.”

Ruby smiled. “Well, he’s surely right! We local gals are the cream of the crop!”

“Knowing that I come from Knox County, why wouldn’t Melinda have let me know she came from there too?”

“She may not realize she wasn’t born in Kincheloe, since she would have been too young to have made any memories of Knox County,” Ruby said. “Truthfully, it doesn’t matter much where she was born, because it was here she was raised since she was a tiny little thing. This is the only town she’s ever known.”

“Pretty much everybody knows where they were born, Ruby.”

Ruby paused to weigh her next words before she said them. “Eli, it sounds like maybe your girl isn’t playing everything straight with you, for some reason. I hope you don’t mind me saying that. I just don’t want as good a young man as you getting into a situation where somebody plays around with your feelings. You’re too nice for that.”

It was an unexpected and somewhat intrusive bit of mother-henning from a woman Eli knew only superficially. He wasn’t comfortable with it, and it showed.

“I’m sorry, Eli … I can tell from your look I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of my business, and I ask your pardon.”

“It’s … don’t worry about it, Ruby. No big thing. You’re just looking out for me as a friend.”

“Yes … but pushing my nose into your personal business is no way to do it. I’m bad for that, even though I mean well. I’m sure there’s a good reason for anything Melinda hasn’t been up-front about. Or maybe it’s all just misunderstanding or bad communication. Things can be said the wrong way or heard the wrong way. It happens all the time.”

Eli smiled. Ruby was right about having been nosy, but she was so obviously good-hearted that it was impossible to be angry with her.

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “We crossed some wires somewhere and I heard her wrong on a thing or two.”

“That’s right. That’s all. She’s a good girl from a good family, and you’re lucky to be with her. Maybe someday you can turn her from a Buckingham into a Scudder.”

“Whoa! Slow down there, Miss Ruby! We’re still early into this thing, and it’s way too early to be talking, or even thinking, about that! Talk about short courtships!”

“But you do, I bet. Think about it, I mean.”

“Things come to mind from time to time.”

Ruby chuckled and patted his shoulder cheerfully. “You’re a good boy, Eli. If I ever have a daughter, I hope she finds a nice fellow like you.”

“I am pretty great, now that I think about it.”

“You are. Finer than talcum.”

“Thank you, Ruby. You’re not so bad yourself.”

She grinned and playfully patted her hair again. “If you ever decide you’re looking for an older woman … “

“I’ll keep you at the top of the list.”

“I’m holding you to it.”

The phone at the reception desk rang and she darted off to answer it, rescuing Eli from a conversation that was growing silly and awkward.

It was a conversation, though, that had forced him to face the fact that Melinda apparently didn’t trust him enough to be fully honest with him. The awareness felt something like a stomach ache.