Cass paused again. In the background, Robert could hear Brianna arguing with her mother. It had something to do with spending too much time on the phone. Robert rolled his eyes. "Someone ought to tell that woman to get a life," he muttered.
"What?" Cass asked, confused.
"Nothing. So what do you think? Should one of us call her up and ask her if she's all right?"
"One of us?"
"Okay, you. You're her best friend. She'd talk with you. She probably wouldn't tell me if her socks were on fire."
"She might, though, if yours were."
"Big yuck."
He heard the phone being passed again. "Hello? Who is this, please?"
It was Brianna's mother talking. Robert recognized the nasal whine laced with suspicion. "Hello, Mrs. Brown," he answered, trying to sound cheerful. "It's Robert Heppler."
"Robert, don't you have something better to do than call up girls?"
Matter of fact, yes, Robert thought. But he would never admit it to her. "Hmmm, well, I had a question and I was hoping Brianna or Cass could help me with it."
"What sort of question?" Mrs. Brown snapped. "Something a mother shouldn't hear?"
"Mother!" Robert heard Brianna gasp in Jhe background, which gave him a certain sense of satisfaction.
A huge fight broke out, with shouting and screaming, and even the muffling of the receiver by someone's hand couldn't hide what was happening. Robert took the phone away from his ear and looked at it with helpless resignation.
Then Cass came back on the line. "Time to say good night, Robert. We'll see you at the park tomorrow."
Robert sighed. "Okay. Tell Brianna I'm sorry."
"I will."
"Parents are a load sometimes."
"Keep that in mind for when you're one. I'll have a talk with Nest, okay?"
"Okay." Robert hesitated. "Tell her I went back out this evening to see how her tree was coming along. Tell her it looks worse than before. Maybe she should call someone."
There was renewed shrieking. "Good–bye, Robert."
The phone went dead.
Jared Scott came down from his room for a snack to find his mother and George Paulsen drinking beer in front of the television. The other kids were asleep, all of them crammed into a tiny pair of hot, airless bedrooms. Jared had been reading about Stanley and Livingstone, using a tiny night–light that his mother had given him for Christmas. He liked reading stories about exploring faraway places. He thought that this was something he would like to do one day, visit strange lands, see who lived there. He saw the light from the television as he made the bend in the stairs and knew his mother and George were still up, so he crept the rest of the way on cat's paws and was turning in to the kitchen when George called to him. "Hey, kid, what are you doing?"
He turned back reluctantly, trying not to look at either of them. His mother had been dozing, a Bud Light gripped in her hand. She looked around in a daze at the sound of George's voice. At thirty–two, she was slender still, but beginning to thicken about the waist. Her long dark hair was lank and uncombed, her skin pale, and her eyes dull and lifeless. She had been pretty once, but she looked old and worn–out now, even to Jared. She had five children, all of them by different men. Most of the fathers had long since moved on; Enid was only sure of two of them.
"Jared, why aren't you asleep?" she asked, blinking doubtfully.
"I asked you a question," George pressed him. He was a short, thickset man with dark features and a balding head. He worked part–time at a garage as a mechanic and there was always grease on his hands and clothing.
"I was getting something to eat," Jared answered, keeping his tone of voice neutral. George had hit him several times just for sounding smart–mouthed. George liked hitting him.
"You get what you need, sweetie," his mother said. "Let him be, George."
George belched loudly. "That's your trouble, Enid–you baby him." Jared hurried into the kitchen, George's voice trailing after him. "He needs a firm hand, don't you see? My father would have beat me black and blue if I'd come down from my room after hours. Not to mention thinking about getting something else to eat. You ate your dinner at the table and that was it until breakfast."
His voice was rough–edged and belligerent; it was the same voice he always used around Enid Scott and her children. Jared rummaged through the refrigerator for an apple, then headed back toward the stairs.
"Hey!" George's voice stopped him cold. "Just hold on a minute. What do you have there?"
"An apple." Jared held it up for him to see. "That all?" Jared nodded.
"I don't want to catch you drinking any beer around here, kid. You want to do that with your friends, away from home, fine. But not here. You got that?"
Jared felt a flush creep into his cheeks. "I don't drink beer." George Paulsen's chin jerked up. "Don't get smart with me!" "George, he can't!" His mother glanced hurriedly at Jared. "He can't drink alcohol of any kind. You know that. His medication doesn't mix with alcohol."
"Hell, you think for one minute that would stop him, Enid? You think it would stop any kid?" George drank from his own can, draining the last of its contents. "Medication, hell! Just another word for drugs. Kids do drugs and drink beer everywhere. Always have, always will. And you think your kid won't? Where'd you check your brain at, anyway? Christ almighty! You better let me do the thinking around here, okay? You just stick to cooking the meals and doing the laundry." He
gave her a long look and shook his head. "Change the channel; I want to watch Leno. You can do that, can't you?"
Enid Scott looked down at her hands and didn't say anything. After a moment she picked up the remote and began to flick through the channels. Jared stared at her, stone–faced. He wanted her to tell George to get out of their house and stay out, but he knew she would never do that, that she couldn't make herself. He stood there feeling foolish, watching his mother be humiliated.
"Get on upstairs and stay there," George told him finally, waving him off with one hand. "Take your goddamn apple and get out of here. And don't be coming down here and bothering us again!"
Jared turned away, biting at his lip. Why did his mother stay with him? Sure, he gave her money and bought her stuff, and sometimes he was even halfway nice. But mostly he was bad–tempered and mean–spirited. Mostly he just hung out and mooched off them and found ways to make their lives miserable.
"You remember one thing, buster!" George called after him. "You don't ever get smart with me. You hear? Not ever!"
He kept going, not looking back, until he reached the top of the stairs, then stood breathing heavily in the hallway outside his room, rage and frustration boiling through him. He listened to the guttural sound of George Paulsen's voice, then to the silence that followed. His fists clenched. After a moment, tears flooded his eyes, and he stood crying silently in the dark.
Saturday night at Scrubby's was wild and raucous, the crowd standing three–deep at the bar, all the booths and tables filled, the dance floor packed, and the jukebox blaring. Boots were stomping, hands clapping, and voices lifting in song with Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, Travis Tritt, Wynonna Judd, and several dozen more of country–and–western's favorite sons and daughters. The mingled smells of sweat and cologne and beer permeated the air and smoke hung over everything in a hazy shroud, but at least the air–conditioning was keeping the heat at bay and no one seemed to mind. The workweek was done, the long awaited Fourth of July weekend was under way, and all was right with the world.
Seated in the small, two–person booth crammed into a niche between the storeroom door and the back wall, Derry Howe sat talking to Junior Elway, oblivious of all of it. He was telling Junior what he was going to do, how he had worked it all out the night before. He was explaining to Junior why it would take two of them, that Junior had to be a part of it. He was burning with the heat of his conviction; he was on fire with the certainty that when it was all said and done, the union could dictate its own terms to high–and–mighty MidCon. But his patience with Junior, who had the attention span of a gnat, was wearing thin. He hunched forward over the narrow table, trying to keep his voice down in case anyone should think to listen in, trying as well to keep Junior's mind on the business at hand instead of on Wanda Applegate, seated up at the bar, whom he'd been looking to hit on for the past two hours. Over and over he kept drawing Junior's eyes away from Wanda and back to him. Each time the eyes stayed focused for, oh, maybe thirty seconds before they wandered off again like cats in heat.