The new lawyer was a nice guy. He showed up on time to the appointment at the bank. The loan officer seemed ok. She outlined her plans to rent the apartments and to put the apartments up for sale and hoped the bank would help her do that. She made it clear she was firing Edward. That was in the letter, in writing. The bank guy acted surprised but didn’t say a word. The new lawyer even offered to meet with Edward to make sure all the records were handed over properly and that he understood he was being dismissed. Daydee was happy not to have to confront him. He would have dismissed her. The loan guy at the bank told her that they would review the particulars and get back to her by the end of the week. There wasn’t much else to do.
She went to shop for shotgun shells at the Walmart and went home.
She parked out front, but was worried that the tagger might come back. She wasn’t sure what she could do. She couldn’t stay up all night and watch. She might get hit any time. A week from now. She thought about trying to park the truck a few blocks away, but it was a small town and it was an old truck. Everyone knew it was hers.
She had bought a few other things at the store and was in her bathroom putting in a new shower curtain and rugs when the door bell rang and made her jump. She came out. It was Susan, the minister’s wife. She invited her in and immediately began picking up the living room. She was still sleeping on the couch and she hadn’t done dishes in a day or so. She apologized to the woman and offered her some lemonade. They sat down to visit. Why did she know this was what was done?
“So, I thought I’d just come by to see how you were doing,” Susan told her.
“I’m doing ok. I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. This estate thing is a mess.”
“How’s the morning sickness?”
“Getting worse,” Daydee laughed. “You would think that it would help you lose a couple of pounds, but I’m gaining.”
“Soda crackers and chamomile tea seems to work the best.”
“I have the crackers.”
“You have to just ignore Mrs. Burton, she’s Mrs. Prim and Proper around town.”
“Did she say something to you? I had just come to check on everything. I thought the service would be over.”
“She says something to everyone. The town knows to ignore her. If you aren’t sure about someone, give me ring. I can steer you the right direction.”
“Thanks, I’ll remember that.” Daydee wasn’t sure she wanted advice from this busybody.
“So, I know it’s none of business, but is the father-to-be in the picture?”
Daydee wanted to tell her it was none of her business. But this was all new ground. She needed everyone in town to think she was on the up and up. She also realized that by telling this woman, the entire town would know. Did she lie?
“Not right now. If you promise not to tell a soul, I’ll tell you what is going on.”
Susan nodded.
“Well, he’s in prison in Louisiana. He doesn’t know he’s a father to be. He was a printer by profession, did fancy fine art prints. He and a couple of buddies decided they could make some extra money by robbing a bookie in the French Quarter. This is a man that never broke a law his whole life.” That wasn’t exactly true, but she knew to play the wronged woman. “Anyway, I was going to write him when I was sure. I guess I’m sure now. He’ll be out in a year and a half. It was his first offence ever.”
“You poor thing.”
Daydee shrugged at her.
“This is your first?”
“Yep,” Daydee said.
“Well, I’m here to help.”
“Thanks so much.” Daydee thought she’d go for broke. “Is there a tagger in town that folks are aware of?”
“A tagger?”
“Someone that goes around spray paints things at night. Like gang members or young punk types.”
“Not that I know of.”
Daydee proceeded to tell her the story, without mentioning the word that was written.
“I’d call the sheriff right now and let him know.”
“The police in New Orleans don’t seem to care, unless they stumble across the guy in the act and then they would arrest him.”
“The sheriff might even know who it is.”
“All right, I’ll call.
She had one more thing on her mind.
“You know, everyone has noticed you don’t have a wedding ring.”
“ I took it off and threw it at him when they came to arrest him. I searched high and low and never found it. It stupid, I know. You can let everybody know I have a license to prove it. You want to see it?”
Susan laughed.
Daydee was sure she did want to see it, but now all she could do was shake her head. They were having fun. Susan now thought she had the inside scoop. The whole thing was a lie. She and John had never lived together and had never married. It did happen that way to a working girl she knew in the quarter, though.
“Would you mind if a bunch of us throw you a baby shower? We haven’t had any new moms to play with in about a year. I’ll do it all. All you have to do is show up.”
Daydee told her ok, but she was nervous. What was she supposed to talk about with a party of other women?
“There will be games and things to do?” She suddenly felt like a little girl being invited to a birthday party. Nothing she ever got when she was little. They were white trash. They didn’t get invited into other people’s homes. And her parents were strange.
“It’s all very silly. But you get things you’ll need for the baby. And guidance.”
Guidance seemed to be the scary part.
The Sheriff did drive over after she called. He was what she had expected somehow. Short, in his fifties, balding, overweight with a belly hanging over his belt. Rumpled shirt. He looked at the traces of the paint across her front door and examined the side of her truck. Wrote down her information. He had probably been Sheriff there for twenty years. This was something she would have never done in New Orleans. They were the enemy. You had to lay it out for them to get off. The worst were the young bible cops that thought they were helping society by getting you off the street. This guy was harmless and not very bright really.
“Can’t say when we had this kind of problem here. Usually it’s just the boys from the high school just before graduation.”
“What should I be doing?”
“Well, just keep at look out. Try to get a license number. I’ll have the night car pass by here a bit. That will probably scare them off.”
“Thanks,” she shook his hand and he held it for a moment too long.
“So, you back for good?”
“Looks like it,” she said.
“Jack says you visited the church. You like it?”
“It was nice.”
“Don’t know that we ever had a McIntire come to services.”
“Well, there’s always a first time.”
“That there is. Nice to meet you.”
Andy Griffith was still alive, she thought as she waved at him as he left.
So she went back early in the morning two days later. She purposely dressed in jeans and the flannel shirt she now loved . She was ready for anything. Even bought herself a pair of tennis shoes for walking around in the high grass. She had heard stories about dealings with crazy people. She left her jewelry at home. Getting the spray paint off her truck that night had cracked a couple of her nails so she had to trim those back. Her hair was under a bandana. She didn’t want anything for him to be able to grab. Not that he ever had grabbed her, if it was really her father. She half-expected to get there and find no trace and then realize that she had just dreamed it. She had probably just dreamed his aged face on to an old bum’s and then scared herself. She parked by the office and walked over slowly. She didn’t want to scare him off if he was there. She wanted time for a reality check.
It was an overcast day, with thick clouds that looked like they might rain later. The grass was high and wet back here, away from the cemetery’s golf course lawn. Jack did take good care of it. Maybe she should confront him about that conversation behind the diner? Somehow, she knew he would just lie. She came back to the spot by the trees where he had been. There was a crumpled down spot all right. Someone had been camping out here. There was no trace of the shopping cart. There was a an empty potato chip bag. Nothing else. She stooped to pick it up and folded it and stuck it in her hip pocket to throw away later.
There was a trail that led off in the grass. She followed it. It was wide and wandered down across a meadow and toward a fence and another grove of trees. This seemed a little impossible to push a shopping cart all this way. Especially for a little old man. The fence had been torn down in one spot ahead and there stood the cart. She didn’t see its owner. She walked up slowly. No sign of him. She looked all around. Should she wait for him? He might be gone for hours or days. The cart did look like it was left here for safekeeping. You couldn’t see it unless you were almost on top of it.
“Sos, youse come explorating?” a voice asked.
She didn’t see him.
“Where are you?”
“That’s for youse to know.”
He was sitting in a tree branch above her. It was dark up there. She couldn’t see him well enough to decide anything.
“You hungry?” she asked.
“You have poison,” he told her.
“Not me. I was going to bring you lunch. You want to come down and have lunch with me?”
“You can have it. Right there.”
“I have to go get it. You be here when I come back?”
“No.”
“You like McDonald’s?”
“He had a cow.”
“And hamburgers.”
“No.”
“You can come up to the office and meet me there when I come back.”
“No.”
“You used to like strawberry milkshakes, you still do?”
“No.”
She headed back across the field, trying to remember if she saw a McDonald’s some place. There had to be one. She went back to her truck. The walk seemed longer now and uphill. This was stupid. He was obviously crazy. And she felt like she was kidding herself. Her father was in the ground. She drove toward the main highway, figuring there had to be one out at the edge of town, maybe next to the Wal-Mart somewhere. She found it and drove through. How long had it been since she ate this stuff? No one in the French Quarter ever bothered. There was so much cheap food to be had everywhere that was better than this. She wished that she was sitting in Ruby Red’s right now, with her heels in the peanut shells on the floor and a real hamburger that you have to take home the half you couldn’t eat. That world was much saner than this one. All that was expected there was a smile and a nod to some poor snook’s sad life.
When she got back, he was sitting on the front step of the office. God. It was her father. He was looking past the truck somewhere. He couldn’t look at her when she climbed out of the truck.
“He was such a porcupine that he was porcupining all the time and they had to give a haircut, snip snip snip.”
She started over to bring him his bag, and he jumped up. So she stopped. She held out the bag and inched a little closer and sat it down on walkway between them and then she backed off. She didn’t want to scare him off. He ran and grabbed it and took it back to the front step and pulled everything out and began stuffing his mouth. He dropped fries on the step and quickly grabbed them to stuff in his mouth. The lid and straw were discarded and he drank it up, with some dribbling down his chin. Tears were running down his cheeks. Daydee sat down on the walkway and pulled out her hamburger.
“So,” she said. “How you been?”
He was nodding his head to the tree. It looked like he would have to finish eating before he could talk.
“I was in New Orleans all these years,” she told him. “Mama died. That was the reason I came back.”
He was licking the inside of the cup and then looking through the bag for any crumb left. She got and offering her French fries approached him again. She felt this was like trying to get close to a squirrel or a wild bird. He reached out his hand and accepted the fries. He really smelled bad. She retreated back to her original spot and sat down again.
“You’re really very crazy, aren’t you?”
“They snipped snipped and his pants fell down!” He laughed.
“I wonder how long you’ve been here.”
“When hell freezes over!”
“I don’t suppose I could talk you into a bath and a bed?”
“Deedee knows lots of stuff. Lots of stuff. It came out of her bear!”
He jumped up and ran off back across the cemetery.
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