Potter Springs (21 page)

“I hope so.”

“Must be tough.” Concern turned her ever-present smile downward. She placed her hand on his arm.

“Yeah.” He rattled the ice.

“So difficult. I know.”

“’S not so bad.”

“I know what that’s like. Even though it’s been over a year for me. Still, it’s hard when they leave.” She sighed, the top
stretching against her curves.

“Amanda’s coming back.” He tore his gaze back to the table.

“Of course she is.” Leaving the couch, Courtney bent in front of the stereo. Phil Collins sang through mediocre speakers.

She returned to his side and they sat, listening to the music. Mark sank deeper into the cushions, tilting his head back,
the velour soft on his neck. He thought of simple pleasures. Rock-lite. A cold drink. Sitting next to someone on a couch.
An attractive someone.

Courtney brightened. “It’s good to have friends, though.”

“Friends.” He nodded. Gomer Pyle for a boss and the Wicked Witch for a secretary. Dale the Watchdog sniffing around his heels,
ready to steal his job.

Got no wife. Got no friends.

Maybe she wants a friend like you,
Amanda had said.

Maybe so, he agreed to himself, and polished off his cocktail.

“I’m so glad you came over,” Courtney said. “This is nice.”

“Nice,” he repeated, his voice soft.

“Just so you know”-her eyes sparkled at him, pearl teeth caught the swell of her lip-“I’m here for you.” Her breath smelled
of sweet cherries and whiskey.

She went to take his glass. “You done with this?”

“Not yet.” He stopped her wrist, and held it.
Maybe I want a friend like her.

A charge pulled him, drew him in. A slow motion frame inching forward. The light caught the gold on his ring finger, wrapped
around her hand, shimmering like a faded dream.

“
ARE YOU
INSANE?
Back
off !”
Amanda tapped her brakes like an SOS pattern. On Houston’s deadly I-45 interchange, she resorted to red-light communication
with the eighteen-wheeler on her tail.

The behemoth bellowed its displeasure in a long, low moan. Amanda had long since turned the radio off to better calm her nerves
in the traffic. She hated Phil Collins anyway.

She wondered if she had made a mistake. After packing in a fury, she wrote a note to her parents and left within an hour of
Dale’s phone call. Downstairs, she slipped out to the driveway with her bag over her shoulder. The engine started with a faithful
hum and she backed into the overcast night.

Now, on the freeway, the truck behind her finally whipped around and passed on the left. It cut into her lane, not six inches
between their bumpers.

Driving blind behind the gigantic box-on-wheels, she concentrated on not hitting the orange barrels on either side of the
van. Her skills were rusty from puttering around Potter’s lazy streets. Stop signs there outnumbered traffic lights a hundred
to one, and the only freeway was on the outskirts of town, for coming or going.

Still, if she didn’t ding the van, maybe Steve Boyd would take it back after all.

Entertaining that hope, she forgot to double-check the scrambled interchange, as if she could see anything beyond the silver
metal of the truck.

Much later, in the darkness, she spotted her mistake.
HIGHWAY
59, read the sign.
That’s right. But wait.
Her worn-out eyes had played tricks on her, tired as they were. That cost her a few more miles.

South, the next marker confirmed. She wasn’t headed toward Potter at all. Through a slight of the road, aided by confusion
and abetted by emotion, she was speeding in the wrong direction.

She found herself driving in the middle of the night on Houston’s busy southbound route.

The road to Mexico.

S
tars spread high and bright over a blackened sky in down-town Potter Springs. The courthouse, a ghoulish presence with stone
made green by the streetlamps, oversaw the proceedings of the square. Activities that were, at this late hour, nonexistent.

Mark paused at the northern corner, waiting absurdly for the walk sign. Next to him, a banged up Pinto crawled to a stop.
The window rolled down, releasing the dead, sweet odor of marijuana and heavy metal riffs played at full volume.

Mark recognized the tune. “Welcome to the Jungle.”

“Sweet, fancy Moses!” High-pitched snickers came from inside. “That you, Pastor Mark?”

“Hi, Benny.” Standing alone, wearing Fall Festival attire in the starkness of the intersection, Mark saw no point in denying
the charge.

“Whatcha doin’ downtown in the middle of the night?” Lake-view’s junior janitor asked. “Wearing … that?”

“Just taking a little walk.” Mark’s Moses wig and beard dangled from his grasp like a boneless rat, twisting in the wind.

“Wanna ride?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Come on, dude, it’s getting cold,” the shotgun passenger said to Benny. “Roll the window up.” The youth, in a black T-shirt
adorned with gigantic lips, looked at Mark through red-rimmed eyes.

“Chill,” Benny said. “I can’t leave him here, he’s my boss.” He turned to Mark. “This is Hoover.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mark offered.

“Whatever,” said Hoover.

“Get in the back,” Benny told his friend.

“Unh-unh.”

“Get in the back! Dude, he’s got a skirt on, okay?”

Clearly resisting the demotion, Hoover emerged and arranged himself in the backseat.

Seeing that Benny wasn’t going anywhere unless Mark availed himself of this unwelcome hospitality, he slid into the car and
let the smoke waft around him.

“What’s on you?” Benny asked, staring at Mark’s wet robes.

“Dr Pepper. I spilled it.”

“Try not to get the seats wet, okay?” Benny threw the car in gear and they roared toward Mesquite Street, drowning in the
angry melody of Guns N’ Roses.

The roses,
Mark thought. He’d knocked them over.

While the car drove to the rhythm of eighties metal bands, Mark pushed away questions as to how Benny knew his exact address.
He didn’t want to know. Instead, he relived the latest debacle of his life.

Reaching for Courtney in his lonely fog, reflexes dulled by whiskey and misuse, he had tipped his empty drink. The ice cubes
scattered slippery as bugs and he chased them with slow fingers. Fingers that accidentally unsettled the fake arrangement.
Dumped it to the shag carpet, where it bounced and the stems came out like emaciated legs, the heavy rose heads upside down
and dusty.

In the process, he managed to upend Courtney’s full soda, which splashed an ugly brown swoosh on her tank top. And then she
shrieked about her couch, and don’t step on the flowers, and that’s Gran’s vase.

The sight, the sounds, cleared the haze away. The wrongness of the moment penetrated his being. This time, he embraced it.
“I better go,” he told her, and slipped out the door. He remembered in the parking lot that he had no car, but he didn’t glance
backward.

Night air sobered him quicker than the icy liquid on his lap, and the wind whipped the folds of his costume. He walked the
streets, shuffling in sandals that rubbed his ankles like tangled ropes.
The sin that so easily entangles,
as Paul would say. He waited for a message, a thunderbolt to zap him from the recesses of the sky for even thinking about
what he’d almost done.

Instead, he got a couple of stoned teenagers in a Pinto and an uncomfortable yet speedy ride home.

On Mesquite Street, Mark was deposited without ceremony on his driveway. “See you t’morrow,” Benny said. The strains of “Paradise
City” shadowed along with the Pinto’s blue smoke as it screamed down the lane.

The house condemned Mark with emptiness, dark and quiet. He went directly to the machine. No messages. On caller ID he saw
a call that came through at 10:45 from Ben Thompson. Amanda.

She actually called. I wasn’t here. She called, and I wasn’t here.

He checked the clock. 12:38. Too late to wake her. Maybe just plain too late.

He stumbled to the bedroom where he lay facedown on his pillow with his arms flung wide, still in the dampened costume, too
tired to change.

THE NEXT DAY
, the cold sun touched the plains with the barest warmth and brushed Lakeview’s sloped roof. Near the entrance, Dale Ochs
ground his cigarette in the sand tower ashtray. Mark swept past him.

“Morning.” Dale fell into step alongside him. “You look beat. Long night?”

“Nope.” Mark strode on.

“I’m doing the receipts for the carnival today.” Dale struggled to keep up, burgundy tassels dancing on the tips of his pointed
loafers. “Have you got them?”

“In my office.”

“Good. I’ll follow you there.”

They passed Benny in the hall, who ignored Dale completely and gave Mark a faint chin nod. “Hey, dude.”

“Hey.” A silent agreement between men. Men who had bonded in the darkest hour through one of life’s most unbreakable pacts.
A midnight ride, no questions asked, no stories told. It would not be discussed again.

Maybe Mark had a friend after all.

“Good morning, Ms. Hodges,” he said to Letty.

“Is it?” Seated at her desk, she licked an envelope, her pale tongue long and skinny against the fold.

Mark shuddered inwardly. “I hope so.”

In his office, Mark handed Dale the packet with leftover tickets and exchange logs, along with a zippered pouch full of the
evening’s take.

“Why didn’t you make a night deposit?” Dale ran a hand over Mark’s shelves, as if testing them for strength.

“Had other things to do. It was safe here.”

“Other things. Oh, that’s right.” Dale checked his fingers for dust, then rubbed them against each other. “Helping our lovely
Ms. Williams. Does the Camaro ride as fast as it looks?”

Mark’s blood slowed as it pounded in his ears, full of bass and fear. “She had some boxes.”

“Of course. Nice of you, all those boxes. What a friend.”

I could use a friend like you.

“Did you need anything else?”

“This should do.” Dale lifted the small pile. “When I update our prayer lists, I’ll make sure to give you a copy.”

“Thanks.” Mark clicked on his computer, a not-so-subtle dismissal. It warmed up with various growls and clicks, the ancient
beast coming to life.

“Oh, and congratulations on your father-in-law.” Dale paused in the doorway.

“Sorry?”

“His improving health. I spoke to Amanda last night.” Dale’s smile was the stuff of nightmares. “She says he’s doing much,
much better.” His tiny shoes tapped down the hall again, and Mark detected a pattern of joy in the rhythm.

Dale talked to Amanda. Last night. And Amanda tried to call. Didn’t leave a message.

What had Dale told her? What had he seen?

Mark imagined the deacon pressed against Courtney’s balcony window, beak nose squashed against the glass. Long enough to know
nothing happened? Or had he been there at all?

He checked his watch, Mandy should be up by now. He’d have to face her sometime. Explain what happened. No telling what venom
Dale had spewed.

No need to panic. He’d clear everything up with a simple phone call.

He posted the In Conference sign and shut the paneled door. Saying a quick prayer, he set his gut and dialed.

“Thompson residence.” Katy’s cool alto answered the phone.

“Hello. This is Mark.” He never knew how to address her. Mother wasn’t right, Mrs. Thompson too formal. Katy, maybe. Dragonlady,
his favorite, clearly unacceptable.

“Hello, Mark.” She sounded disappointed. “Mandy make it back all right? I was waiting to phone, hoping she would sleep in.”

Mandy… make it back?
The words skipped around his head like errant pinballs. He couldn’t get them in the right order.
Back. Mandy. Mandy isn’t back.
“She’s not in Houston?”

“Of course not. She left last night.”

Stale coffee from his I
MY WIFE
mug wafted up at him. A gift from Amanda when they got engaged, he drank from the souvenir every morning. Hand washed it
before leaving so he could use it the next day.