T's Trial: A Bone Cold--Alive Novel (6 page)

“Fine, sweetie. I thought you were down with Murph.”

“Nah, he’s grumpy. Gotta write a paper or something.”

“I was taking groceries to Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Thomas.” She walked casually as possible to her bedroom, pausing to kiss him on the forehead, to kiss away the worry line. She placed the book in the top drawer of the bedroom chest, then turned to the kitchen.

The refrigerator held dismal prospects including leftover spaghetti sauce or the tail end of a chuck roast. Her mind searched for the contents of the freezer downstairs. “Need anything? I’m going to go down and help Murph.”

“Can I go to Grandpa’s?”

“Sure. Be careful.”

He ran down the steps before her, a happy little boy with beloved dog in tow, insulated, protected, beloved. That his father was dead seemingly didn’t affect him. His Grandpa had stepped in and Tib was there a lot. But, Lord, it affected her. Lyla paused half-way down the narrow staircase and leaned her head against the wall. How different things would be if Wes was still alive. Why couldn’t she be too old for these conflicted emotions?

*  *  *

“Be honest, now, ah, Sam,” Fletch emphasized the name, “Is this so bad?” T grimaced as he watched Fletch ease himself into the hot tub where T was already soaking. The bubbles rose around the older man and he smiled appreciatively. “You know, we’ve spent much higher dollar for accommodations less grand than this.” He leaned back, sighed, stretched. He reached for the iced tea pitcher. “Refill?”

“I think you’re the one needing rehab, Fletch, if you can be so lucky ducky happy in this hole.” He dangled his hands in the water, while his upper arms cooled on the edge. “I wouldn’t remember any accommodations, grand or not. I was too busy getting high.”

“Damn straight. What kind of fool am I?” Fletch feigned indignation as he refilled his glass and topped it off with another lime wedge. “I care enough about you to rescue your sorry ass from the hellhole it made for itself. I watch you dry out. Hell, boy, where do you think I was for those months? Tahiti with your brother? No. I was talking our way out of lawsuits for cancellations. I was putting off album and video deals. I was dealing with your mess!”

T interrupted. “Tell me, where did you put your cross while you were doing all this?”

Fletch sighed. “Most of the time, I parked it by yours in the poor-little-me section of the Betty Ford parking lot.” He stood up, grabbed a towel.

T thought he remembered this correctly and he was now convinced he did. Being sober was hell. You could see the hurt in people’s eyes, hear it in their voices, remember it after they were gone and you were left with your own pain. He’d seen it this afternoon in Lyla’s eyes and voice when he’d taunted her with the song long treasured, long lost. Well, she just should have taken better care of it.
Damn!
There he went again. Now, Fletch—the only reason he hadn’t had the pleasure of detoxing in a jail cell—was pissed at him. He had every right to be. T was mad at T, why shouldn’t everyone else be? “Wait, Fletch.” T straightened up, eased himself to sit on the side, his feet still in the hot water. “I’m—” God, that he would ever say these words “—sorry.”

Fletch stopped. Truly, he never thought to hear that from T. He caught a catty remark before it left his lips.

“Sit back down, Fletch.” The older man did, amazed as he listened to the hesitant words stumble out of T's mouth. “I’m,” again, T paused and searched for the words, “appreciative that you, ah, rescued me. I—” He moved his hands back and forth, at a loss, “I have no words.”

Fletch sat there dumbfounded. Eddie T had always had words, most of them profane, few profound, whether it be in his music or his conversation. Surely, he’d been sober enough at some point in their relationship that Fletch could pull that forward as a point of reference to his behavior now. He sat there and thought. No, never this sober, this sincere. “Neither do I.”

“It’s not like I’m turning over a new leaf or anything. I still don’t want to be here.” He was backpedaling. “Can we go home now?”

Something familiar. So much for sincerity. Fletch grinned. “No.”

“What about if I behave myself for two weeks, can we skip the third?”

Hope. Even a dying man could have hope. Fletch nodded. “Why not?”

T smiled for the first time in so long, Fletch had forgotten how the movement lit his face with little boy exuberance. “Just one condition.” The smile wavered, threatened to disappear. “No more baiting Lyla. She’s a nice lady, something you haven’t run into in a long time—if ever. You hear me?”

T faked a grimace. “Be Sam, not Eddie T?”

“Precisely.”

“Then two weeks, not three?”

“I make no promises.” T’s mouth dropped open. “But I sure know what happens if you’re not Sam.”

Chapter Five

“L
yla, I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Lyla settled the portable phone on her shoulder and smiled to herself. These guys had to rank as the friendliest—or most lonesome—she’d had in a while. “Nah, I’ve been up a few minutes.” She deftly continued pouring coffee for the third round of fishermen and lake devotees to sit at the counter this morning. The conversation was centering on the imminent opening day of dove season. Lyla had been flipping pancakes and eggs for two hours. She didn’t usually have this job to herself, but Sally’s daughter had gone into labor with grandchild number one and nothing was keeping the new grandmother from the hospital. Lyla watched Harrison round the corner, heading for a glass of milk and a cinnamon roll. He yawned and brushed hair out of his eyes. She fixed her attention back to the phone. “What can I do for you? Surely, you haven’t eaten all those groceries!”

“Just made a dent last night. No, what I had in mind was a fishing expedition, and quite frankly, we’re inept.”

She could concoct a mental picture of Fletch, coffee poured, toast crumbs scattered, feet stretched all the way to the other side of the breakfast nook, phone cradled on his shoulder, fountain pen being slipped continually through his fingers to the table top and back again. Now why did he want to go fishing at eight in the morning? “You need me to suggest a guide?” This might be fun. Her eyes lingered on Norm, the self-proclaimed fishing guide extraordinaire.

“I thought about taking Harrison up on his offer of instruction.”

Oh, hell, Lyla thought. Something wasn’t right in Fletch’s and Sam’s relationship, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. Allowing Harrison to bike down there would thrill him, worry her, and infuriate Dub, Tib and Red. There had to be a graceful way out of this. She one-armed a stack of dishes to the sink and watched as Harrison correctly rang up three separate breakfast checks, collected the money and counted the change. “I’m short-handed this morning, Fletcher. My cook’s busy becoming a grandmother. Harrison and I are handling the store all by ourselves till my relief comes on about four. Sorry, we can’t directly help. I do have a list of guides, though.”

There was a pause. Obviously not the answer Fletcher had wanted. She heard him slowly exhale. “Then I don’t suppose you’ll have the energy to fix a well-balanced meal for that boy tonight, will you? Why not come here, let me feed you and, in return, Harrison can give us our first fishing lessons.”

“I would really feel funny being a guest at my own table.” She expertly broke two eggs with one hand and watched them scatter on the hot griddle. Two slices of wheat toast popped up as she scooted the sunny-side-up eggs onto the plate and handed them to the newest customer.

“You know, Lyla, the world is divided into two kinds of people, guests and hosts. Now, normally you are a host and I am a guest. Tonight, I’d like to reverse the roles. Seven o’clock too late?”

She smiled to herself. Strange man. Strange version of seclusion. It might be an evening to be looked forward to if that Sam character wasn’t going to be there. Well, why not? “Seven would be fine.”

“Tell Harrison to bring whatever we need for Fishing 101.”

“Okay.” She glanced over at Harrison as she switched off the phone and turned to devote her attention once more to the counter. He was in his element, collecting the money, running the cash register, drinking milk and eating the cinnamon rolls her six o’clock customer always imported from the bakery in town. Harrison could efficiently do everything but credit card sales, and that was only because she wouldn’t allow it. Most folks didn’t want to hand their card over to an eight-year-old.

“Guess where we’re having dinner?” she whispered to him as she reached for more paper napkins in the back counter.

“McDonald’s?” Expectant voice.

“Home. Mr. Fletcher invited us to dinner if you’ll show him the fishing basics.”

He grinned broadly. “Told you I’d be a guide.”

*  *  *

T stopped the jelly-laden knife halfway between the toast and the jar. “Are you kidding? I thought we were in seclusion.” He washed down the first bite with coffee.

“Well, yes, but…” Fletch uncapped his Mont Blanc, scribbled a note for himself on the ever-present legal pad, redid the cap. “I thought some company would be nice. And let’s face it, you’re just as curious about our landlady and her song as I am.”

T chewed and narrowed his eyes at Fletch across the table. “I thought she was off-limits. So are you telling me to play it straight or to kiss you?”

“Be a gentleman. Do not overtly tip our hand one way or the other.”

“Tall order for me.”

“But simple. I thought we’d start your reintroduction into society with small, baby steps. Like simple table manners.” T had just wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Fletch handed him a paper napkin. “Surely, that’s not too much to ask.”

T went to the sink to wash. “Gee, and in return, I get to learn to fish? Gosh darn it, Grampa, I haven’t had this much fun in, why, I can’t remember when.”

“Try since your first joint.” Fletch slid out from the table. “That would have been when—in your crib?”

“Don’t go insulting my upbringing. I was at least ten.”

“Good Lord.” Fletch put his hands on his hips and surveyed the kitchen. “How does a ten-year-old start something like that? Why?”

T shrugged. “Maybe we were twelve.”

Fletch narrowed his eyes, expected to be answered.

“Okay, okay. Bad influences? Minimal home life? Just go down the list and check off what makes a boy have a sense of belonging. I found mine with a set of folks not favored by an etiquette book. By the time we got to my grandmother’s on a permanent basis, I was already well down the road to Hell and past the exit marked redemption. All I had to call my own was music.”

“Why didn’t C get involved like you?”

“I’m impressed. I thought you might want to know where my fighting, divorced parents were all that time. C, well, I guess you could say he was always more taken with the opposite sex than with drugs. Not that I don’t like women…”

“Your love of women is the reason we’re here.”

“But music and drugs outranked them in my formative years.”

Fletch was clearing the table. “Since you’re not going to volunteer to help in any way, let me make some suggestions.”

“Structure. Right, I need structure.”

Fletch disregarded the sarcasm. “Go compose. I can see your fingers twitching to get at that piano. Just remember that by seven o’clock, you’ve got to become a prince and leave these toadyish ways behind.”

*  *  *

“Welcome.”

T opened the front door as Fletch placed the last plate on the table. Fletch watched him as Lyla and Harrison entered, caught sight of the dog curling onto the porch. She smiled broadly at them both and started toward Fletch, which was a good thing, he thought, as T was trying as inconspicuously as possible to adjust himself. What was it that made her attractive now? The transformation from housekeeper to dinner guest? The chignon which had already lost a few strands? The brightly printed sundress? The delicate perfume which followed her? The red hibiscus tucked behind her ear? Whatever it was, he was feeling it also.

Harrison was talking to T. “Mama stopped at Grandma’s and took it off her favorite plant. I think she ought to wear one all the time.”

Fletch glanced back over at T, watched him deliberately stifle a grin, make himself somber, never take his eyes from her. Well, the drugs had been eliminated from his life. Guess that meant women moved up a notch.

He switched his attention to her. “This is really a treat for us, Fletcher. A hard day at the office and then someone to cook dinner. You’d think I had a wife.”

“We’re glad you could come.” He took her hand in his, gave it a little squeeze. Harrison was all eyes. Fletch turned his attention to him. “You did bring the bait, didn’t you?”

“In the Jeep. Got minnows and earthworms and artificial. Need to teach you about them all.”

Fletch clasped his hands together in front of himself, as if the idea of touching anything that would squiggle appalled him. Just the right effect, he thought, to counter T, since the latter was in great danger of losing his ‘men only’ status. His eyes hadn’t left Lyla. “Perhaps Sam would entertain you from the piano while I make a few last minute arrangements in the kitchen, starting with drinks. Iced tea, coffee, water?”

“Water for Harrison. I’ll have iced tea.”

He turned to the kitchen. “I’d like tea, Fletch,” T called to the retreating back. “Lime, lots of ice. You know how I like it.”

Damn him.
Fletch shook his head as the swinging door closed behind him. He thought they’d had this all straightened out. T had spent the day trashing the living room and piano area. He’d alternated between listening to symphonies with the headsets on, mock conducting with great enthusiasm, and figuratively tearing up the keyboard with insane renditions of hymns. He was, as he tersely told Fletch about three in the afternoon, getting all the meanness out of his system, so he could behave that night. At the moment, good behavior seemed like a remote possibility.

In the living room, Lyla watched Sam move to the piano and make a great production of opening it to reveal the keys, flouncing imaginary tails over the bench. He poised his hands over the keyboard, then paused. “If sir and madam would please take a seat, I’ll entertain you with keyboard calisthenics.”