Twice in a Lifetime (4 page)

“I didn’t lose
fair
,” Caleb explained. “You cheated me.”

“How do you figure?”

“You knew I was trying to pass you,” he argued, spittle flying from his mouth, “so you smashed into my car to keep me from winning.”

Drake shook his head; this was hardly the first time he’d had to listen to a driver make baseless accusations to cover up his shortcomings. Caleb’s Chrysler was first-rate, not long off the assembly line, cherry red with white trim, a far prettier sight than the Plymouth. But Drake knew that it was what was under the hood, as well as who was behind the wheel, that really mattered. Caleb had come up short, and since it would’ve been hard to put the blame on himself or his car, he pointed his finger at Drake.

“You hit me first.”

“Bullshit,” the other man spat.

“Come on, now,” Drake replied, trying to calm things down before they got out of hand. “Losing is never easy, but—”

Caleb interrupted by pushing his chest, hard, forcing Drake back a step.

“You callin’ me a liar?” the bully demanded.

“All I’m saying is that—”

Another shove came, but this time Drake held his ground, which only served to infuriate Caleb further. Glancing over, Drake saw that Amos had stood up from the rear of their car, a wrench in his hand; if it came to it, the mechanic would be there to back him up. He also noticed that Caleb’s buddies had all moved closer, as if they could sense what was coming, drawn to it like moths to a flame.

“Cheaters don’t deserve no money,” Caleb announced as his hand tightened into a fist and a sneer worsened his already rough features. He was nearly trembling with anger. “The only thing you got comin’ is a beating.”

Drake could have laughed; what sort of fool announced what he was going to do before he even threw the first punch?

He ducked nimbly, Caleb’s fist sailing harmlessly over his head; if it
had
landed, there was little doubt that he would have been knocked cold. Unfortunately for Caleb, the bigger man was now completely exposed. Quick as a flash, Drake pivoted on his front foot and drove his fist as hard as he could into his opponent’s stomach. Caleb collapsed in a heap, rolling over onto his side, holding his midsection as he gasped for air.

The fight was over before it had even really begun.

Drake walked over to where Garrett and the other men stood in stunned disbelief. While before they had been gaining confidence with every loud, threatening word Caleb uttered, now all their faith had vanished; they resembled mutts cowering in the face of a new alpha dog in the yard.

“My money,” Drake said, holding out his hand.

Quick as a flash, Garrett dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills that he then jammed into Drake’s palm.

“Much obliged,” Drake said with a wink.

He got into the Plymouth—Amos was already in the passenger’s seat—and turned the key in the ignition. All the while, he watched the men in the rearview mirror. Caleb tried to get to his feet but failed, crashing back down into the dirt, while everyone else stood around, impotent.

“Nothing with you is easy,” Amos said. “Always got to be a show.”

Drake laughed. “And you had the best seat in the house.”

With that, they drove off toward the next forgettable town and the next opponent willing to bet he was faster.

E
VEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
, I still can’t quite wrap my head ’round the fact that I got me the same name as the fella on this here coin.”

Clara smiled. Ben Franklin stood on the other side of her teller window at the Sunset Bank and Trust, holding a new half-dollar between his fingers, raising it so the late morning sunlight caught the silver, making it shine.

“Every time I march on in here and plop down my coins,” he said, waving at the pile Clara was busy counting, “there he is, starin’ back.”

“If you want, I could flip them over.”

“Nah,” Ben replied with a grin. “Makes me feel like I’m famous.”

And in some ways he was. For decades, Ben Franklin’s family had raised pigs on their land south of town. An enormous man in both size and spirit, Ben also had a booming voice that could be heard a block away. His overalls, which strained to hold his girth, were often covered in pig manure, creating a smell so potent that plenty of folks, when they understood he was coming their way, quickly headed in the opposite direction.

But not Clara. For almost ten years now, she had waited on him at the bank; he was there most every day. Whenever the Franklin family made a transaction, butchering a hog or selling eggs from the chickens they raised on the side, Ben brought whatever money they earned down to the bank the next morning; stood bright, cheerful, and fragrant in Clara’s line; and made a deposit. While others wrinkled their noses, Clara enjoyed his company, odor and all. Today, only one day removed from the anniversary of Joe’s death, that company was especially welcome.

“Sometimes I wonder what that old cuss woulda thought of me,” Ben said, still staring at the coin. “Reckon we woulda got along?”

“No doubt in my mind,” Clara answered with a smile. “As smart of a man as he was, I bet you would have taught him a thing or two.”

“Signin’ the Declaration of Independence, sailin’ off to France, and discoverin’ ’lectricity—why, ain’t none of that holds a candle to raisin’ hogs!” he declared before bursting into laughter at his own joke.

Even though she’d heard this gag, or at least one like it, dozens of times, Clara couldn’t help but join in.

It was at times like this that Clara felt grateful for her job. In the beginning, her reason for working at the bank had been to help the war effort; most of Sunset’s men had gone into the service, leaving behind jobs in desperate need of being filled. But it hadn’t taken long for her to fall in love with it. She soon knew everyone in town. People who were happy or sad, rich or poor, young or old. She knew about births and deaths, who was to be married, as well as which couples’ relationships were in trouble.

But that familiarity cut both ways.

When Joe had been killed, all of Sunset knew. To make matters worse, in the weeks and months after, her heart aching, struggling with her grief, Clara had had to face her friends, neighbors, the whole town as they stood before her and offered their condolences. Everyone meant well, but it still brought back the agony of her loss again and again. The same was true for her mother’s health and Tommy’s rebelliousness; though no one ever came out and said anything, it was obvious that they knew all the same. Still, it wasn’t as if she could quit to save herself the shame and scrutiny; her family desperately needed the money her job provided. Besides, there was plenty to enjoy, particularly people like Ben Franklin.

She had just said her good-byes to the pig farmer when Agnes Durant, one of her fellow tellers, approached and said, “Eddie wants to see you in his office.”

Clara’s stomach knotted. Unfortunately, she had bigger problems at the bank than the occasional smell of manure.

Clara stood outside Eddie Fuller’s office, waiting for a sign to enter. The bank president sat behind his enormous desk, talking on the telephone. Through the open door, she caught snippets of conversation that were occasionally punctuated by nervous-sounding titters of laughter.

Eddie’s father, Theodore, had been the founder of the Sunset Bank and Trust and one of the most respected men in town. Theo had run things both profitably and fairly, believing that business agreements should be honorable for all parties. His son was but a pale shadow of the man. Theo had brought Eddie into the family business hoping that with some experience he might come out of his shell, might lose some of the awkwardness that handicapped him. But no matter how much his father coaxed him along, no matter how many chances he was given, Eddie hadn’t changed much. Eventually relegated to a corner desk, he had sat silently, like a piece of furniture, waiting for another opportunity.

Then, two months ago, Theo had unexpectedly died.

A few days after his father’s casket had been lowered into the ground, Eddie had installed himself in the bank president’s office; Clara had watched him stand silently in the middle of the room, a box in his hands, looking completely lost. Whatever hopes people had that Eddie would seize his father’s mantle were quickly dashed. Longstanding customers grumbled about Eddie’s incompetence. Desperately trying to right a listing ship, undoubtedly feeling his authority threatened, he had fired Roy Washington, an employee for nearly twenty years. Through it all, he flashed his trademark weak smile.

Glancing up at her, Eddie cupped his hand over the receiver and motioned for Clara to enter. She went inside and sat down as he resumed talking.

“It’s like I’ve been telling you, Fred,” Eddie began, pausing to glance at Clara. “Things are changing around here. You can either get on board this speeding train now, while there’s still time, or you can watch from the depot as we rocket down the tracks without you.”

Clara struggled to keep from frowning. Eddie’s bragging sounded ridiculous to her ears. She wondered whether anyone was even on the other end of the line; it’d be just like Eddie to make another misguided attempt at impressing her.

For years, ever since she had started working at the bank, Clara had understood that Eddie fancied her. It had begun with long, lingering looks as she stood behind her teller window; these had been easy enough to ignore, but soon after, he had become bolder, telling her jokes without a sliver of humor, inappropriately complimenting her on her clothes, her hair, noticing even when she changed her shade of lipstick. Though Clara certainly never encouraged his advances, she was wary of turning him away too brusquely for fear of losing a desperately needed job. One day, a couple of years back, Theo had caught Eddie dithering on as Clara stood silently beside him and called his son into his office; Eddie must have gotten a stern talking-to because he hadn’t said a word to her for months, though he’d still spent most of his days staring at her from his desk.

“Listen here,” Eddie continued. “Now that I’m in charge, if there’s something you want done, I’m your man.”

Looking at Eddie, Clara wondered what any woman could possibly find attractive about him. He was short and pudgy; the rolls of his neck mushroomed up over the top of his stiffly starched shirt. His eyes were wide and always wet. His sparse hair was combed across his head, making his oncoming baldness all the more obvious. His chin was weak, almost nonexistent, as if it had fallen off by accident. Worst of all, his lips were always dry and cracked, an ugly feature made worse when his tongue, fat and pink, darted out to wet them.

His personality was equally unappealing. Though he was around Clara’s age, he seemed younger, more innocent, sheltered. Simply put, he didn’t know how to interact with others. He laughed loudly at his own jokes, interrupted conversations, and forgot names, dates, and important figures. Unlike his father, whose willingness to listen made him a pillar of Sunset’s business community, Eddie was distracted, often staring blankly at the person across from him as if he hadn’t been paying attention.

“That sounds great! Together, we’ll both make loads of money!” Eddie boasted before wrapping up his conversation.

With the phone back in its cradle, Clara sat quietly and expectantly, but to her surprise Eddie didn’t say a word. While she hated the sound of his high, nasal voice, she found the deepening silence to be equally uncomfortable.

With a show of fanfare, Eddie opened a silver box on the corner of his desk and took out a cigar. He cut the end, put it in his mouth, snapped his lighter to life, lit it, and inhaled a deep drag. Almost instantly he coughed, a harsh bark that shattered whatever illusion he was trying to create. Embarrassed for him, Clara offered a weak smile. Undeterred, Eddie came around to the front of the desk. He sat on a corner and his pants, a tighter fit than they should have been, hiked up awkwardly at the crotch. Disgusted, Clara looked away.

“You don’t like me much, do you?” he asked.

Momentarily taken off guard, Clara wasn’t sure how to answer; she knew that the truth probably wouldn’t do her any good. Finally, she settled on “I haven’t always enjoyed the attention you’ve given me.”

Eddie nodded as if he understood. “For a while, I blamed myself for the misunderstanding between us,” he explained solemnly. “But the more time passed, the more I realized that it was actually my father’s fault.” Sneering, he added, “That old blowhard kept us apart.”

“He…he was a good man…” Clara stammered.

“No, he wasn’t,” Eddie disagreed, pausing to give his dry lips a long lick. “Nothing I ever did was good enough for him. Every suggestion I made to strengthen this bank was rejected. Whenever I wanted to speak with someone about making us all richer, he told me to be quiet. It was always ‘Do as I say,’” he explained sarcastically. “Well, now he’s gone and I’m in charge. From here on out, things are going to be different.”

If Clara hadn’t been in such dire financial straits, if her family’s survival hadn’t hinged on her job, she would have wondered if the smart move wasn’t to follow Roy Washington out the door. Eddie was delusional. Theo had built the Sunset Bank and Trust into something special; now his incompetent son was going to knock it all to the ground. In the days, months, and years to come, it would surely ruin him, as well as the lives of many others in Sunset. But no matter how badly Clara wanted to tell him how wrong he was, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“He was wrong to interfere,” Eddie reasoned.

Unsure of what he was talking about, Clara asked, “With what?”

“Us,” he answered, pointing at her with his index finger, himself with his thumb, and wiggling his hand back and forth.

Clara could only stare as the sickening feeling in her stomach grew stronger.

“If he’d have stayed out of it, you would’ve fallen for me by now, like Juliet for Romeo,” Eddie continued, punctuating his claims with a strange snort of laughter. “If he hadn’t banished me to that damned corner desk, I’d bet every damned cent this bank has that you’d feel the same for me as I do you.”

“I…I don’t…” she muttered, her head swimming.

“I love you,” he proclaimed; hearing it so bluntly horrified her.

“Eddie, I can’t…I don’t…”

He licked his lips, then asked, “Do you want to be happy?
Truly
happy?”

Still stunned, Clara nodded; her thoughts raced as she tried to come up with a way to reject Eddie without offending him. “Of…of course I do, but…”

Eddie went behind his desk. Piles of paper were spread across his blotter; he shuffled through them until he found the one he wanted.

“It says here that you and your late husband,” he read, pausing to give Clara another awkward smile, “borrowed the money for your house back in ’37.”

“That sounds about right…”

Clara remembered those days well; she and Joe had been married the summer before and wanted a place of their own. Unfortunately, money was hard to come by. Her mother, having long struggled to make ends meet after her husband’s death, had nothing to spare. Joe’s parents were even worse off. Instead, they’d taken out a loan from Theo Fuller to build a roof over their heads; by the time the house was finished, they owed the bank a pretty penny. But all their plans for repaying what they’d borrowed had ended with Joe’s death. Now, though money was tighter than ever, Clara had diligently kept up the payments, refusing to default, which made Eddie’s words all the more mysterious.

“From the look of these numbers,” he said, peering at her over the top of the paper, “it seems you still owe plenty.”

“I do, but…but I’ve always paid on time,” she replied.

“What if I told you that I could make this debt of yours disappear,” he said, letting go of the paper, which fell back into the pile on his desk.

“I…I don’t understand…”

Eddie leaned forward onto his elbows, licked his lips, flashed his goofy smile, and then said, “Marry me.”

Clara recoiled, flinching as if someone was about to strike her; it embarrassed her to have reacted that way, but she couldn’t help herself. She waited for Eddie to laugh, to confess that he was joking with her, but he just stared expectantly, as if waiting for an answer. His delusion frightened her.

“Eddie, you’ve got the wrong—”

“As Mrs. Edward Fuller, you’d want for nothing,” he interrupted. “Everyone in town would smile as you walked by, acknowledging you as the beautiful, important woman you’d be. After the wedding, you, your son, even your mother would all move into my home.” Eddie’s eyes were aglow with excitement for the fantasy he’d woven out of his imagination. “It would be perfect,” he proclaimed.

Clara took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

Incredibly, there was a teeny-tiny part of her that found Eddie’s offer alluring. If she became his wife, her financial troubles would be over. Poring over her ledgers, trying to find the money to pay for clothes, groceries, the electric bill, or her mother’s trips to the doctor would be a thing of the past. It wasn’t that she wanted to be rich, just not so poor.

But Clara knew that marriage was about
far
more than money. She and Joe had never been well off, scrimping and saving for a few luxuries—a washing machine and a new icebox—but the love they shared more than made up for whatever was lacking in their bank account. Every passing year brought them new riches: the house was one, the pickup truck another, and on the day Tommy was born, Clara felt like the wealthiest woman alive. It was love, not dollar bills, that paid for their life together. To marry Eddie just for his money would have been an insult to Joe’s memory, and
that
she would not do.