Chat - Archer Mayor [22]
“But how did you find the farm?” Joe asked.
Her expression brightened. “That was good, huh? I knew the accident happened near here; I figured you must live nearby, so I asked around. I felt a little like Dorothy asking directions to Oz—‘Could you tell me where the Gunthers live?’ Good thing your last name isn’t that common. The young woman at the Mobil station knew all about you. Is your brother named Leo? The paper just said he was your brother.”
Both her companions burst out laughing.
“Sorry,” Joe explained. “Leo’s pretty popular with the local ladies.”
“Especially those who are supposedly interested in cars,” his mother added.
Lyn nodded in comprehension. “She did seem to know him pretty well.”
“He’s also the local butcher,” Joe continued, “which adds to his appeal. Not,” he said quickly, catching a warning glance from across the room, “that he isn’t also a very skilled and professional guy. I don’t want him to sound like a stud or anything.”
The source of the glance explained, “The two of them have this running gag about Leo and his women. I can attest to his being more of a braggart than a practitioner. Either Joe doesn’t know or won’t admit it, but his little brother is a virtual homebody.”
“How is he doing, by the way?” Lyn asked. “The paper said you were both in serious condition.”
“Mom was in a deep sleep for a couple of days,” Joe told her. “But she woke up good as new. Leo’s pretty beaten up. He’s conscious and can talk, but he’s in the ICU. He’s getting better, though.”
This part of the conversation created an awkward silence, which prompted their hostess to push away from her tables and offer, “Anyone for tea or coffee?”
Both Lyn and Joe asked for the latter, allowing the old woman to escape to the kitchen and her own thoughts.
In her absence, the two of them remained silent, not looking at each other, groping for something to say. In Joe’s case, the inhibition was compounded by a wary curiosity struggling with his pleasure.
Lyn spoke first. “I’m sorry I barged in like I did. I didn’t really expect anyone to be here. I just sort of yielded to impulse.” She finally looked up at him. “When you opened the door, I couldn’t believe my luck, but your mom being home just makes me embarrassed. This is not when I should be here.”
“Not true,” he said candidly. “I’m sorry I was such a dope at the door. I figured I’d never see you again.”
She nodded silently, back to studying the rug.
“Not that I didn’t want to,” he added.
That brought her head up. “Really?”
He thought back to one of the few short conversations they’d shared in Gloucester, when, prompted by his observations of her at work behind the bar, she’d admitted to being at once forthright and shy with others, especially men.
“The reason we met may have been a little offbeat,” he understated, “but it left a lasting impression. A really good one.”
He was tempted to expand but resisted.
She smiled slightly, more with her eyes than with her mouth. “Yeah,” she said. “For me, too.”
SNOWGIRL: how old r u?
THUMPER: 18. U?
SNOWGIRL: 14. feel lik 100
THUMPER: im sorry. Bad day?
SNOWGIRL: bad life
THUMPER: me 2
SNOWGIRL: y?
THUMPER: sister died. Luvd her a lot
SNOWGIRL: so sorry
THUMPER: U?
SNOWGIRL: sucky mom, pissy x-bf
THUMPER: He brok up with u? Y?
SNOWGIRL: same ol, same ol
THUMPER: Guys dont get it
SNOWGIRL: u do?
THUMPER: U want a hug, he wants sex. Rite?
SNOWGIRL: ya
THUMPER: I get it.
SNOWGIRL: ur cool
Chapter 7
Steve’s Garage, unsurprisingly, wasn’t far from where Leo had his butcher shop in East Thetford. Suitably for a small village, the garage, unlike Mitch’s car-corralled, straightforward cinder-block house of wrecks, was of evolutionary design, having begun life as a small barn. That said, it still wasn’t quaint or neat. Rather, like so many of its brethren across this pragmatically minded state, it was a place where labor overruled aesthetics and where, if you needed to place an engine block temporarily in the dooryard, on top of two truck tires, you did just that.
Joe arrived