The Art of Crash Landing (16 page)

I
pull into the back lot of the library and find Tawny slouched against the brick wall, waiting for me with a cigarette between her lips and fury in her eyes.

“You're lucky I didn't call the cops,” she tells me, which is exactly the cue I've been waiting for.

I brush past her, saying, “Don't get your panties in a wad.”

F
or the rest of the afternoon Tawny sulks behind the circulation desk, and I read some magazines and take a nap. Things are certainly more relaxed with Fritter gone. About four o'clock a group of teenagers show up and settle in behind the computers. The arrival of the after-school crowd seems to be the lifeguard's whistle signaling the end of adult swim; a line quickly forms in front of the circulation desk. Tawny gets busy checking out books while I reshelve the ones lying on the tables. I make a quick pass through the aisles reminding anyone still browsing of the time, and before
long it's five o'clock. Once we manage to run off the last of the teenagers, we lock the doors and leave.

Tawny doesn't mention my truck borrowing again, but she does insist on today being the day we pick up the chemicals and go back to my grandmother's house and print photos. Since I suspect the only way I'll ever get her off my ass about it is to go ahead and do it, I reluctantly agree.

The idea of facing another dinner out of Tilda's freezer makes my already queasy stomach churn, so I insist on a stop by a grocery store before we go to the photography supply store. While the truck jerks along, hitting every pothole, it seems, I turn on my phone and check my messages. I'm unsurprised to see several missed calls and a dozen new text messages, all from Nick. He's given up on threats; these text messages are along the lines of
please come back home
. Anybody who didn't know better would think I was crazy to leave a guy who wanted me so badly.

My sigh must be louder than I intended, because Tawny glances at me, curious.

“Problems with the ex,” I tell her.

She nods with a world-weariness that would work better on someone who looked older than twelve.

“What kind of problems?”

“He says he wants me back.”

“And that's bad?”

I nod.

“Is he dangerous? Are you scared of him?” Tawny seems to be enjoying this.

I think of Nick and his friends in their skinny jeans and hand-rolled cigarettes and soulless irony. The answer to that question depends on your definition of
danger
. He wouldn't hurt me physically, not much anyway. The danger to me, I think, lies in how
easy it would be to do what he's asking, to be the rat jumping back on that sinking ship.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I am a little scared.”

Ten knee-bruising minutes later, we pull into the parking lot of Chandler's Food Mart. This store has seen better days; weeds sprout through cracks in the pavement and the parking lot is so littered with carts that Tawny has to work to find an empty space.

I watch a tall, nicely built man in a navy sport coat climb out of a dark sedan and walk toward the store. When he passes the truck I see that it's Father Barnes. I think about how strange Fritter is acting about my grandfather's death, and I remember the priest had claimed that my grandmother was one of his
favorite congregants
. And I notice how nicely he fills out his trousers.

“You know what?” I say. “I don't know what time Gandy Graphix closes.” I dig a scrap of paper out of my purse and start writing. “Just give this to someone who works there.”

“But—”

“Here. You go buy everything on this list, and I'll run in here and grab some food. Then you can swing back by and pick me up when you're finished.”

She looks at me, her eyes narrowed. My sudden change in plans has aroused her suspicion, but unable to find a flaw in my logic, she agrees. Almost before I can slam the door shut, she's pulling away in a cloud of blue smoke.

I hurry into the store, grab a cart, and push it past the row of tired cashiers. They have the look of prisoners of war with their thousand-mile stares and slumped shoulders. As I walk by, one after another looks past me and chirps an overly energetic greeting, yet the instant the “Good evening!” passes their lips, their faces fall back into slack misery. By the fifth mechanical greeting I'm starting to feel vaguely homicidal.

I go up and down the aisles, grabbing a few easy-to-prepare
non-cheese-based food items. And some oranges and apples to avoid rickets or scurvy or whatever you get from eating only TV dinners.

It is a delicious coincidence that I find Father Barnes in the meat section.

“That looks good,” I say.

He jumps and almost drops the t-bone back into the display case. “Mattie! Nice to see you.” He looks down at the package in his hand. “I was thinking of making a nice steak . . .”

“For your wife?”

“No. I'm not married.” He puts the t-bone into his cart, and then glances at my lonely girl load of Coco Puffs, bread, lunchmeat, and fruit. “What are your dinner plans?” he asks.

“You're looking at 'em,” I reply, gesturing toward my pitifully bare cart. “I haven't gotten my first paycheck yet.” Which is true, but it's also true that my selections were chosen with an eye for pathos.

“Why don't you let me cook you dinner,” he says, right on cue. “You look like you could use some meat.”

Could I ever!
is what I think. “If you're sure it wouldn't be too much trouble . . .” is what I say.

“Put your groceries in.” He adds another steak to his cart and shifts all his items to one side. “You can stash them in my fridge until you go home.”

We wander companionably through the store finding items on a list he untucks and retucks into his divinely snug back pocket. His items are all grown-up boring things like laundry detergent and cornflakes—no Hostess Cupcakes or bologna or aerosol whipped cream. Pity.

When we get to the checkout, I hope he'll offer to pay for my groceries, but no such luck. He unloads his onto the belt, then places the little wooden divider stick down and unloads mine on
the other side. After he pays for his, he puts the bags into the cart and turns to wait for me.

“Go on out and get started loading,” I say. “I'll be right there.”

I watch until he's out of earshot, then I ask the cashier, “Are you going to be here awhile?”

She sighs and nods, letting her rhythmic gum smacking take the place of an actual reply.

“In a few minutes, an angry-looking teenager dressed like an extra in a vampire movie is going to come in here looking for me.”

“That will be $14.78,” she says.

I hand her a twenty. “So would you please tell her that something came up and I'll see her in the morning.”

She puts the receipt and change into my open palm. “Thank you for shopping at Chandler's. Come back soon,” she says, mechanically, before turning her attention to the next customer in line.

“So will you tell her?”

She seems surprised to see me still standing here. “Tell who?” she asks.

“The teenager.”

“The vampire?”

“Right. Tell her I need a rain check. Tell her Mattie will see her tomorrow.”

“Is it raining?”

“No. Rain check means that I need to do it later.”

“Do what later?”

“It doesn't matter. Just tell her what I said.”

“Who's Mattie?”

“Good God.” I dig in my purse and pull out a pen. On the back of my grocery receipt I scribble the message, fold it up, and hand it to the cashier.

“That's your receipt,” she says.

I scan the immediate area for a more competent-looking employee. No such luck. “Listen, just give this to her.”

“To who?” she says.

The man behind me is starting to get impatient. He nudges me gently with his shopping cart and clears his throat. Turning to the cashier he says, “To
whom
.”

Giving up, I grab my bags and leave. I can't decide if I'm relieved or sorry when I see Tawny's truck idling just outside the door.

When she sees me coming, Tawny rolls down her window. “I got everything, and by the way, the store didn't close until eight.”

“Oh, okay . . . well . . .” I see Father Barnes pushing his empty cart back in this direction. “I'm going to need a rain check,” I say.

She leans forward and looks up at the sky, then back at me. What is it with these people?

“I know it's not raining. That's not what—”

“I know what a rain check means. I just think it's a dick move to bail on me—”

“Listen, I ran into someone in the store and he invited me over to his place for dinner. So we'll need to work on those photos tomorrow night. Okay?” I pause. I'm not actually waiting for her permission, but I am trying to not come off as a total douche here. If anyone will understand this situation, a teenage girl will.

“You picked up some random dude in the grocery store? What a slutbucket.”

It seems she understands a little too well. “He's not exactly random,” I point out. She's correct about the picking up part and the dude part, but surely a man of the cloth doesn't fall into the category of
random
.

Before I can explain further, the dude in question has come over to see who I'm talking to.

“I don't believe we've met,” he says to Tawny. “I'm Father Barnes.”

“I know who you are,” she replies.

“And you're Fritter's niece, right?”

Tawny corrects him. “Great-great-niece.”

“She's not that great,” I mutter.

“I invited Mattie over for dinner. Would you like to join us?”

I can see the smile forming in Tawny's eyes. Oh how she would like to fuck with me here. Thankfully, either her grudging respect for the girl-code of not horning in on dates, or her reluctance to spend the evening with a slutbucket and her random dude kicks in. She shakes her head, and charmingly replies, “I'd rather vomit blood.”

Father Barnes tells Tawny it was a pleasure to meet her, which I find impossible to believe, and then takes the bags from my arms and starts walking out to his car.

I lean toward the truck and say, “Thanks. So, are you picking me up in the morning?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “No, I think I'm going to need a rain check.”

With that, she puts the truck in gear, pulling away with a squeal. I watch with grudging admiration as she manages to hit no fewer than seven carts on her way to the exit.

F
ather Barnes has the groceries stowed in the trunk by the time I get to his car.

I climb in and shut the door. “Sorry about that.”

“She's a nice kid.”

I look at him, expecting to see some trace of sarcasm, but there is none.

Once he pulls out of the parking lot and into traffic—hitting exactly zero shopping carts, I might add—I say, “Well, thank you for this, I'm looking forward to a home-cooked meal.”

“I'm looking forward to the company.”

On the car stereo Tammy Wynette exhorts me to
stand by my man
, which, as much as I am enjoying sitting by this one, is decidedly not in line with my taste in music.

“Can I change the channel?” I ask.

“It's a CD.” He reaches past me and opens the glove box. “Pick out another one.”

I pull out a zippered CD case, but unfortunately, it's slim pickens inside, and I say this not only because the choices are bad, which they are, but because there actually
is
a Slim Pickens CD inside. There's also Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and John Denver.

“Did you buy this car used?” Surely there's an old lady in Arkansas who's missing her CD collection.

“No. Why do you ask?”

I sigh. “No reason.” I exchange Tammy for Patsy and turn the volume down.

After a couple of turns I realize we're driving almost exactly the same route Tawny and I just took from the library to the grocery store.

“So you live downtown?”

He nods. “Just a couple blocks from the church.”

Father Barnes goes on to explain that the church owns not just the parsonage, but several other houses in the neighborhood, which it rents to low-income families and church employees. And then he continues to discuss church real-estate holdings in more detail than I would have believed possible. Patsy Cline is singing about how crazy she is, and I can empathize. Father Barnes is still talking. And talking. He mentions that Karleen Meeker and her husband live across the street from the parsonage, and that's mildly interesting, I suppose, since I've at least met the woman, but when he starts naming off everybody else who lives on his street, I reach
over and turn up the volume on the stereo until he gets the hint. I know that Queeg's aphorisms, a source of pleasure to him, can be a source of irritation to me, but there are times when nothing else will do.
Don't judge a book by its cover
has never been more apt. Father Barnes looks like a romance novel, but I'm afraid he belongs in the Reference section.

Before we get downtown, he pulls into a crowded parking lot and turns off the car. “This will just take a minute. Want to come in?”

I look up at the sign for Bill's Bottle Shop and tell him I'd rather wait in the car. He leaves the keys in the ignition so I can listen to the music, but I turn it off as soon as he shuts his door.

Father Barnes disappears into the store right as another man exits. I watch as people go in with empty arms, come out cradling brown paper bags.
Expectation is the root of all heartache,
Queeg has told me time and time again, and I know he's right. But I keep forgetting.

When I was a kid I spent a fair amount of time sitting in liquor store parking lots, and now here I am again. What do I expect to happen tonight? Do I actually believe Father Barnes knows something important about my grandmother? Of course not. This has nothing to do with that, and everything do with the melancholy emptiness I start to feel whenever things get too quiet. Or maybe I'm getting hungry. I reach over and turn on the music.