One of my other jobs is to pick up the eggs every afternoon over at Miss Jessie’s farm. So after making sure the grill and the fryers are turned off, Grampa joins me in the booth across from the register and I watch while he scratches out the order on the back of a napkin. This is the same way it goes every afternoon when we close up shop, because my grampa, he’s a big believer in routine. And keeping his nose to the grindstone. And a penny saved is a penny earned. (It’s taken some hard studying, but I get the meaning of a lot of those kinds of sayings now. But there’s other ones, like-don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater- well, hell.)
“Check those eggs real carefully,” Grampa tells me, sliding the order across the table. “Every once in a while Jessie likes to take advantage of me.”
“Now you know that’s not true.” (I have recently begun to suspect that his memory, like mine, has sprung a couple of leaks. Proof: Whenever I ask him questions about the night of the crash, he answers, “Don’t seem to recall.”) “You know that Miss Jessie thinks you’re a heartthrob with cowboy good looks.”
“That right?” he says, lighting up a Lucky.
“I believe it is.”
Sliding sideways and heading back toward the kitchen, he says over his shoulder, “That old woman might want to get her peepers looked into.”
She certainly would. By you, Grampa, by you. Ya musta noticed Miss Jessie’s gorgeous molasses eyes shuttered in shaggy lashes. She bats them enough at you. And she’s not that old. Then again, him suggesting that Miss Jessie’s nearing ancient might be an example of his keen sense of humor. He knows about a million and a half of those knock-knock jokes.
“Knock knock,” he’ll say.
And then I’m supposed to say back, “Who’s there?”
“Little old lady.”
And then I’m supposed to say back, “Little old lady who?”
With his mouth puckering up like one of those apple dolls the holler folks peddle to the tourists, he’ll say, barely containing himself, “Why, I didn’t know you could yodel!”
And then I’ll say, “Me neither.” That’s right. I fall for it EVERY darn time since I don’t usually get jokes anymore, which can be dismaying beyond belief since I’ve been told that once upon a time I was a girl with a lot of snap.
“How’s next week’s top story comin’ along?” Grampa asks, pushing back through the kitchen swing doors with a bag brimming with what customers got too full to finish.
Pulling my black leather-like out from the cubby under the cash register, I follow him out the diner’s back door. The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation is small enough to carry along in my briefcase, which has everything I might need for a long day of reporting. After I break my awfully good story, when I’m QR again, and Mama’s resting in eternal slumber, I’m planning to become a famous reporter in a city with a population larger than 2,723. I am intending to relocate to Cairo. (The one with the pyramids. Not the one west of here that rhymes with hay row.) I will tread where no other investigative reporter dares to tread. Rooting out tales in that desert sand. My camera and flashlight are also in my briefcase along with the other tools of my trade. My No. 2 pencils. My very important blue spiral notebook. And my pocket dictionary-in case I remember a word, but not its meaning.
Grampa heaves the garbage bag into the rickety Dumpster that sits out back. “I asked how you’re progressin’ on that story.”
Miss Florida musta gotten picked up just a pinch ago ’cause the reclining chair under the pin oak is empty. I’m sitting down to stretch my sore legs straight when my dog scurries over, his tail ticktocking like mad. Miss Florida’s been petting on him. He smells of Palmolive and pie.
“Gib?”
A few weeks after I got home from the hospital, Grampa and me were doing exactly what we’re doing right this minute when we spotted this white wiry-haired pooch waiting on the back steps for us. He’s bigger than a bread box, but not by a lot. With a chocolate-milk-colored stain spilling down his sides. Ears like one of Santa’s helpers. Grampa said back then, “Well, what do we have here?” picked the pup up by the scruff, inspected for tags, and when he found none, said, “Ya need some responsibility, girl. This one’s a Keeper.”
“Gibby!?” Grampa shouts.
“Yeah?”
“The new story?”
I heard, I’m just stalling since I can’t remember which one that is at the moment. My mind’s too busy dwelling on dead Mr. Buster Malloy, the news of which I will keep locked behind my lips for the present time. I usually tell him what I’m up to, but this time, I don’t want Grampa to know just yet. Hovering over me like he does, he’ll try to warn me off in that no-nonsense voice of his. I know exactly what he’ll say. “It’s not safe gettin’ tangled up in a murder investigation. Best you stick to reportin’ about fishin’ contests or birthed babies.” He doesn’t understand how crucial it is that I get Quite Right again. If he did, he wouldn’t be telling me all the time that I shouldn’t set my hopes too high. But believe you me, when I finally do break this murder story, not only will a certain someone’s angelic wings bodaciously beat, but my grampa’s brow will rise in pride as well. I don’t know why, but I do know for certain that Grampa wouldn’ta spit on Mr. Buster Malloy if he was on fire. And Miss Lydia? Mr. Buster’s sister? Grampa is not fond of her either. Fact is, he finds out I been spending most of my spare time with her up at Land of a Hundred Wonders-well, let’s just say he won’t be rushing off to buy me a sack of good times anytime soon.
“Focus yourself, Gib. Ya know the story I’m talkin’ about. Miss Cheryl and Miss DeeDee? The two ladies that drive that red Corvair?”
Miss Cheryl and Miss DeeDee. Miss Cheryl and Miss DeeDee. “Oh, yeaaah.” I took a swell picture of those gals sitting in front of the pumps. “I’m workin’ on it.”
“All right then,” Grampa says, heading for the truck.
After I cozy up next to him on the bench seat, we wait until Keeper scrambles into the bed of the pickup, because second to raw eggs, he appears to enjoy fast air in his mouth. He also knows a couple of good tricks. And for some mysterious reason has got a white bandage running across the top of his head today.
“And awaaay we go,” Grampa sings, turning up the radio and tossing gravel. He’s always in a hurry like this when leaving the diner. Just like the sign on the door says, he’s GONE FISHIN’ every single day of his life, weather permitting. His daddy started him up when he was a boy in an Abilene river that ran clear and cold.
First things first. I can’t bust my gut investigating the Mr. Buster story ’til I get this other one put to bed, else I’d have to listen to Grampa go on and on about the importance of finishing off what I started. I flip open my blue spiral notebook and get back to writing.
Since Miss DeeDee is going blind with cadillacs, I believe Miss Cheryl only lets her drive on the back roads.