Danger, Sweetheart Read online

  No.

  Don’t, Blake.

  Do not do this.

  “Actually—”

  Blake!

  He shut out the increasingly hysterical inner voice. “—I inferred, as I was the listening party; you implied. ‘Infer’ and ‘imply’ are opposites.”

  You care nothing for living. Definitive proof at long last.

  Pretending not to notice his mother’s reddening forehead, he doggedly followed the line of thought to its logical conclusion. “The speaker implies. The listener infers. I inferred.”

  “Not. Now. Blake.”

  “I’ll put the badge away,” he agreed at once. Even when Rake wasn’t there

  (Hey, grammar police! Shove that badge right up your ass!)

  he was there. And it bought him a smile, thank goodness, however brief. Time to get back on track. “During our conversations I inferred you felt overwhelmed. You implied you were plagued with problems.”

  “Stop using the past tense!” she snapped back, but the fingers that had jerked him back to the present now affectionately ruffled his neatly combed hair (fun fact: she affectionately smoothed Rake’s eternally mussed hair) before pulling away so she could resume her pace/rant. Her pant. Her race? “And the only thing I’m plagued with is sons.”

  Hands shoved wrist deep in his pockets, Blake scraped his toe along the green floral carpet, scowling down at it as he mumbled, “’M not a plague.”

  An inelegant snort was his mother’s rebuttal. He looked up to watch her pace and was disoriented—again—by the décor.

  Flowers, had been his initial thought upon entering the room. Flowers everywhere. But not in a charming meadow way. A funeral home way. Flowered carpeting (green, with sizeable pink cabbage roses). Flowered wallpaper (white tea roses over pale pink stripes). Flowered curtains (sunshine yellow background and tiebacks littered with roughly eight million daisies). His mother had been pacing back and forth so quickly, her small form darting from floral-curtained window to floral-curtained window over floral carpet, that she reminded him of an irritated hornet trapped in a vase with flowers not at all happy to be in there with her.

  “Do you know what I’m trying to accomplish here?” she asked after another minute. But she shook her head even as he opened his mouth. “No, that’s not fair. I never told you boys in so many words. I spent decades never talking about this place; I can’t put that on you two.”

  Thank God! Blake, you idiotic bastard, you just might live through this! “Then why—?”

  “I thought that when you said you were coming to help … I thought you meant help.”

  “I did help!” he protested. “You don’t have to worry about the farms anymore. They aren’t your responsibility anymore.” Why are we still discussing this? Why are you so upset when the problem was easily solved? Why am I overnighting in the world’s oddest bed-and-breakfast?

  “Yes. They. Are!” She whirled on him so quickly, Blake experienced a sympathy dizzy spell. “That’s the whole point. That’s what you don’t get.”

  Dear God. More italics talk. Not good, most emphatically not good. It forced him to say three words he loathed, words he tried never to say aloud if he could help it, a bad habit that had led to much unpleasantness: “I don’t understand.”

  “No. You don’t; that’s clear to me like it never was before. That’s on me, too. But you will, boy. I promise.”

  “All right.” Blake pitted every shred of self-control into not sounding terrified. “Enlighten me, if you please. I’m all yours. Here, I’ll…” He looked around, spotted nothing to sit on that wasn’t embroidered, topped, or near flowers, and sank into the overstuffed chair near the fireplace.

  “Now you listen like your life depends on it, Blake.” Unspoken: because it does. “What you’ve done in your Martian arrogance is … is…” His mother was trailing off in confusion (he could count the number of times that happened on both hands) and staring into space.

  “Mother?” She was too young for Alzheimer’s, he thought in a panic. Wait; was she?

  “Oh!” she gasped, slapping herself on the forehead like a gothic heroine. “I promised Roger I’d help him deworm the White Rose of York!”

  Blake stared up at her from the chair that was making a valiant effort to suck him in. If there was such a thing as flower quicksand, this chair was the physical manifestation of such an entity. “You promised who? To do what?”

  “Deworm the White Rose of York. She’s a pig,” his mother added impatiently, clearly irritated with Blake’s continual stupidity.

  Blake began to give serious thought to the theory that the train had crashed, that he was even now in a canyon somewhere with train cars piled everywhere, slowly bleeding out. All of this … whatever it was … it was just a hallucination conjured by his dying brain to divert him from the fact of his own death.

  “Mom, I don’t—”

  “To be continued!” she snapped, jabbing a bony finger in the general vicinity of his face before sweeping out the door. “We are not done!” she italicized, her voice getting farther away with every stomp. She didn’t slam the door—Shannah Tarbell would never indulge in such childish behavior, no matter how tempting—but the weight of her displeasure was much worse.

  Blake, never a fan of casual profanity (everyone does it; there are so many more interesting ways to express shock/anger/surprise/sadness; how dull), managed a, “What the fuck?” before allowing the chair to suck him the rest of the way in. If he was lucky, it would suffocate him.

  Seven

  The terms, the hideous impossible terms of his withdrawal from disgrace and reinstatement into his mother’s affections, were made horrifyingly clear over dinner that evening.

  Blake, suspecting nothing, arrived five minutes early. Used to the teeming masses of the greater Las Vegas area, he had overestimated the time to traverse from UR A Sweetheart! (God, that exclamation point unnerved him) to the (why? why?) Dipsy Diner.

  He had parked the Supertruck at one end of the neatly kept downtown area and, as he walked the streets, he began to get an inkling of what had so disturbed his mother.

  Everything was dead, or dying.

  Not the few people he saw; they were lively enough, if quiet, keeping their distance and watching him pass with wide-eyed curiosity. Small towns, he told himself, surprised he wasn’t made uneasy by the scrutiny, and strangers stand out. Is my mother a stranger to them? I think yes. I think she was even before she left the first time.

  There were many For Sale signs on lawns. There were many Going Out of Business sales advertised in windows. The few cars and trucks parked on the streets were old, though neatly kept. He didn’t see a single vehicle from the twenty-first century. That could have been a matter of personal preference but, as he took in obvious signs of a town sliding into the void, plus the lack of car dealerships, Blake doubted it.

  His phone buzzed, alerting him to a text. He plucked it off his hip and read: R U in town tonite? 3rd month-aversery of divorce let’s fuck!

  Jeanine! In Vegas and feeling sentimental; how charming. He wished she would have called instead; he found texting for sex (or to turn down sex) to be a little cold for his taste. He wasn’t Rake, dammit. He wasn’t a goddamned barbarian.

  So sorry, out of town for a few days. Congratulations again. Your ex was a fool.

  He hadn’t had a chance to put his phone away when it buzzed again. U R a sweetie!!!! Sorry to miss U LV not the same when U R not here!!!

  He sighed; he loathed text-speak (another reason why he preferred the more personal touch behind a phone call). Was it so difficult to spell out words and use appropriate punctuation?

  Sorry again. Hope to see your lovely face next time you are in town. Ciao, bella.

  And that was that, and just in time, because here was the Dipsy Diner

  (God!)

  on the corner of Main Street

  (there are main streets literally named Main Street? outside of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ameri
can fiction?)

  and Elm, across from a Realtor’s office and beside a drugstore with a For Sale sign in the windows on either side of the door. He stepped inside, rolling his eyes at the cheery ka-jang jang! of the bell hanging directly over his head

  (like a scythe, one that sounds cheerful as it separates your head from your spinal cord)

  and spotted his mother, seated in her favorite location: a booth equidistant from the kitchen and the restrooms. She nodded and waved him over and, as he couldn’t see a weapon, he crossed the room to her.

  “Mother.”

  “Blake.” She shook her head at him but found a smile. “We’ve had this talk every year since you were three.”

  “Right, too formal. Mom? Mommy. Mama. Madre. Mère?” He could remember explaining to his mother on his third birthday that only babies used “Mommy” or “Mama,” while Rake laughed and laughed in the background. Now Blake only used “Mother” ironically, except when he honestly forgot.

  Distracting her with multiple languages would work, but not for long. But here came the waitress with menus and their water. Excellent; his mother would never eviscerate him in front of a witness. Blake thanked the waitress and gave himself over to the luxury of enjoying a water glass his brother wouldn’t steal and drain in three noisy gulps. Meanwhile, the waitress, who was likely sixteen due to employment laws but looked a harried twelve, was bending an attentive ear to Shannah Tarbell.

  “Multitask, dear,” she was suggesting, accepting the menus. “You have to go back to the kitchen anyway, so grab dirty plates on your way. You’ve got to refill drinks for another customer; ask the new customers if they want drinks right away, since you’ll be over there anyway.”

  “Oh! That’s … yeah. D’you want drinks? I mean besides water?”

  “Mom, you’re not in charge of her training. Leave her be.” He didn’t even have to look to know he was getting The Glare. I have literally faced death and walked away unmoved. And yet I’m terrified of my mother, a petite woman in her fifties I’m almost certain I could take in a fight. If I had any sort of a life, this would probably bother me.

  “Milk, please,” his dictator-for-life mother was saying, “and more ice water.”

  “Okay. Yeah. Those are good.…” The small brunette flapped a hand at the tables behind and around them, over half of which were empty. “Thanks for being nice about it. I’m just…”

  “New, yes. You’ll get it.”

  “Hope not,” she muttered, already heading back for drinks. “Want out of this town.”

  Shannah sighed. “You and several others.” Her gaze settled back on Blake. “Which brings me to the subject of this meeting.”

  “I’m impressed you waited this long, Mom,” Blake said. “Such restraint!”

  “My first and last favor to you this evening.”

  He smiled at her fondly disgruntled tone. “Shall I take that to mean you’ll decline to pick up the check?”

  A stifled hmph was his reply; then she leaned forward to catch his gaze. Like a cobra hypnotizing a sparrow, he thought. “You get a chance to look around Sweetheart?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not a lot going on?”

  “That was my impression, yes.” Minefield. This entire conversation is a goddamned minefield.

  “This restaurant is a prime example of what’s gone wrong here.”

  “They don’t recycle?” His hip buzzed; he ignored it.

  Here came the scowl: “I’m serious, Son. What have you seen?”

  “Mom, please. I’ve been in town less than a day, and in this establishment less than three minutes, and—” His phone buzzed again; he ignored it.

  “And talked about tea for most of it, yes, but you don’t fool me, boy, and you never have. You— Why don’t you take that?”

  “It’s fine, Mom. Here, I’ll shut it off.”

  She shook her head. “Not necessary. And it might be your brother.”

  He shuddered. “Then I’ll definitely shut it off.”

  “Forget it. Listen, I know you see it and if you don’t—for God’s sake.”

  He pulled his phone, glanced at the text. Conference over; don’t have to head back till tomorrow, dinner? Kelly. Her skills as a veterinarian had creative applications in the bedroom, something he thought he would never know, much less appreciate. Alas.

  “Er—” He indicated the phone. “May I?”

  “Politely turn down one of your random lovers for sex? Yes.”

  “It could have been work related,” he replied, stung.

  “It never is with you, sweetie. And I thought you put a stop to the texting.”

  “Unfortunately, if they have my phone number they also have the ability to text. I told them my preference, but it’s not for me to dictate the terms of their communication.” Lovely to hear from you, but so sorry, I’m out of town for a few days. A pure crime; no one with legs like yours should have to wait for anything or anyone. Send. Shut off. Put away. “You were saying?”

  “I was saying you should pull your head out of Edward the Third’s bio and really look around this town.”

  “I left Edward the Fourth’s biography in my Supertruck,” he mumbled.

  “Your what? Never mind; we’ve got to stay on track. Surely you’ve noticed that it’s six o’clock on a Friday night and there aren’t more than a dozen people in the only restaurant still open on Main.”

  “I had noticed that,” he admitted.

  “Which is why what you did was such an unholy disaster.”

  “Let’s be clear. I paid off mortgages so you had less on your plate. I did not kill a chicken, make a pentagram with its blood, then try to call up the Beast. Not that I would, even if I could. The Beast is also my brother, because Rake is terrible.” His took a gulp from his water glass, already annoyed and rattled beyond belief. “But please continue explaining the unholy disaster I brought about through love of my mother. Specifics, please.”

  She rolled her eyes. “God, the guilt. All right. Specifically, these people don’t need money; they need their property. Specifically, duh. Right? Is that what the kids say?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Why would I have called you if money was the solution? You boys have always been generous; you could have challenged the trust anytime after you turned eighteen, then twenty-one, then twenty-five, but you never did.”

  “And never would. You deserved every penny, then and now.” A rare moment of agreement between the twins. Of course their mother should keep enjoying their inheritance, even after the twins were of age. It hadn’t been a matter for debate.

  “You’re nearly thirty and could have fought to exclude me—I’m only a Tarbell by shotgun marriage—but you never did.” Her tone softened and she reached across the table to touch his hand. “For which I was, am, will be grateful, always. But for God’s sake, boy, did it never occur to either of you that if I’d wanted that solution I would have paid them off myself?”

  “It did,” he acknowledged, giving her fingers a slight squeeze before she withdrew her hand. “But Rake reminded me, because he is awful, that your stubborn streak, which mercifully passed me by, was likely to prevent you from throwing in the towel, as they say. Isn’t that what the kids say? Always remember, Mom: Rake is terrible and should have been destroyed long ago. In a way, this is entirely his fault.” Blake was vague on the details but remained convinced.

  “Spare the shit.” Blake blinked; his mother rarely indulged in epithets. “Listen: Money won’t fix this. The bank doesn’t need it and the townspeople won’t take anything perceived as charity. Some of the families have been here longer than North Dakota has been a state.”

  “It’s been a state less than one hundred thirty years. That’s, what? Three generations?” In Las Vegas terms, an eternity. In Roman terms, a sneeze.

  His mother chose to ignore math. “Some of them would literally rather die than give up their land, d’you understand? You’ve got no idea the things they’ve don
e to hold off foreclosure. The sacrifices they made because to them it was worth it; they knew it was to secure their children’s future.”

  Blake was beginning to see the problem and didn’t like any of it: the actual problem and his part in the actual problem, which made another problem, which was a hideous offshoot of the original problem.

  “You giving money to the bank holding their lien literally made their worst nightmare come true.”

  Mother never confuses “literally” and “figuratively”; ergo, I really have made nightmares come true. What will be required? Amends? Likely. But what sort? An offer of a cashier’s check will not be welcome. What can I give her—and Sweetheart—that would signify remorse, and also help? And why am I pondering? She’ll have a solution; she always does. She wouldn’t have summoned me if she didn’t have this figured out. So now I am terrified.

  “Three generations would be considered ‘new guy in town’ by anyone on the other side of the planet.”

  She groaned and rubbed her temples. “No ‘Europe is ancient and wondrous and America is as a truck-stop restroom in comparison’ crap, please.”

  “But when one puts the Sweetheart dilemma against radiometric dating, it’s not long, and there are lots of places to live. I drove through several in my Supertruck.”

  “Your what?”

  He ignored the dumbfounded query. “If this particular patch of planet Earth is no longer habitable, for whatever reason, they can find another one.” Blake, native of a city of transients, had never understood the emotional response some people had to specific pieces of land. “It’s not a matter of sentiment; it’s a matter of logistics. Land is the one thing the planet will never make more of, so all parts are equally precious. So what does it matter? You always told us that home is where you hang your hat.”

  His mother was staring at him and Blake braced himself for angry hair ruffling, finger-pointing, shouting, or perhaps a gentle punch to his solar plexus. But she didn’t speak, didn’t move, and long seconds passed before she managed, “This is all my fault.”