Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [26]
I followed him into the living room, not knowing exactly how to answer. The room was empty. A brown paper grocery sack with writing on it was propped on the pine coffee table.
Rita and I walked downtown to get dinner. See you later. Sam.
I let out my breath in a long sigh. Confrontation temporarily averted. Though normally not a procrastinator, I was thankful this male butting of heads was delayed. The thought of Gabe’s eighteen-year-old son spending a cozy evening with my twenty-two-year-old I-never-met-a-man-I-couldn’t-help-but-seduce cousin Rita was not my fondest wish, but I had to trust Sam. His virtue was certainly the least of my problems at this point.
Gabe set the note down without commenting.
“Why don’t you take a hot shower, and I’ll fix dinner,” I coaxed him. “Everything will look better once you’ve eaten.”
He grunted what I assumed to be an agreement and pulled his polo shirt over his head. As he showered I whipped up a chicken, wild rice, and mushroom casserole. It was on the table thirty minutes later when he came into the kitchen, wet-haired and subdued. After resisting my attempts at light conversation, I left him to his silence and turned my thoughts to how I was going to organize the sleeping arrangements in our two-bedroom house. Then I moved on to worrying about the upcoming festival. The storytellers would start arriving on Thursday, and though I was certain I’d anticipated every problem or potential problem, I mentally went over everything one more time, looking for breaks in the fence.
“Good dinner. Thanks,” Gabe said, standing up. “Leave the dishes, and I’ll do them tomorrow before my run. I think I’m going to watch TV in bed. You want to lock up?”
“Sure. I’ve still got my opening speech for the festival to work on. I’ll stay up until the kids come home.” I gave him a teasing smile.
His face sobered. “I guess you should give him a key. I don’t want either of us having to wait up every night just so we can lock up after him.”
“Good idea,” I said, feeling more optimistic. Though his voice sounded chilly, at least he wasn’t suggesting we lock Sam out. Of course, that still didn’t take care of the problem of Rita. There was no way I was giving her a key to my house—I’d been down that potholed road before when I first moved into this house and she’d lived with me for a few months at the urging of my family and against my better judgment. Skeeter, before he acquired the position of Rita’s next of kin, had been a surprise guest one morning when I staggered into my kitchen wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of Jack’s hunting socks. A very short T-shirt. My cousin-in-law, who bears a striking resemblance to the country singer Dwight Yoakam, saw more of me the first minute we met than Gabe saw until our wedding night.
I dug out the spare key from a kitchen drawer and set it on the coffee table. Then I settled down on the sofa, pillows propped behind my head, and picked up the file containing my half-finished speech. Television music filtered through the closed bedroom door. I could make out the cheery opening score of The Rockford Files, one of Gabe’s favorite programs. He watched the reruns on cable whenever he could, even though he’d seen all the episodes a dozen times. Their familiarity and the good-natured personality of Jim Rockford never failed to relax him.
I turned back to the blank tablet in front of me and chewed on the tip of my pencil. When it was decided we’d put on this festival, Elvia, as usual, provided me with more than enough literature on the art and practice of storytelling. Though I’d seen the occasional puppet show at San Celina’s Thursday-night farmers’ market downtown and heard various children’s-book authors read their works at Blind Harry’s Bookstore, I had never seen a professional storyteller until I accompanied Constance and Jillian to a storytelling festival in Santa Barbara eight months ago. The scope and beauty of this art form had charmed me. And like most folk