Hick - Andrea Portes [29]
“it’s okay, darlin, these things happen, it’s all part of the natural ebb and flow of life.”
I nod, pretending to hide my lost innocence. Really I’m thinking he’s damn good-looking for a cop. Glenda interrupts, laying on the honey.
“Are you sure you’re old enough to be a cop? You look awful young to me.”
He flushes a bit and takes off his hat, cowboy-style with a little police thrown in.
“I most assuredly am. And if I dare say, you don’t look old enough to be her mother.”
“Oh now.” She fake-swats him and tilts her head to the side, blushing like a schoolgirl.
The Mexican cop gives a look over to his partner and turns back, shaking his head. I am taken aback at seeing Glenda in action. she’s a pro, all right, and he is buying it wholesale. The ambulance pulls up to the front and a man and a woman come tumbling out, rushing to the old man, taking his pulse and stretching back his eyelids.
“Looks like there’s life in him yet.”
“No shit.” White Bread scratches his head.
Glenda and I crane in, looking for some hope, any hope, that’ll slow our too-quick drop to hell. Please God, don’t kill him. Not on our watch. Please, not today.
They start buzzing around him, flashing a light in his eyes, taking his pulse. Boy oh boy, he sure knows how to be old, this one. it’s like you could snap him in two just by looking at him. Right now they’re trying to blow life into him but he sure is taking his time.
White Bread doesn’t care, though, his eyes stay glued on Glenda and she keeps batting hers back at him. You’d think they were at the homecoming bonfire instead of standing in front of the counter with a half-dead old gummer square on the tiles between.
The ambulance paragons lift the man onto the gurney, shaking their heads and conferring.
“Looks like you best be headed straight to Campbell ER,” the Mexican cop chimes in, not sounding Mexican at all.
“That’s your best bet. Best ER in the state,” he adds, matter-of-fact.
But White Bread ain’t listening. He’s just leaning into Glenda, eyes swirling. He turns his back to the Mexican cop and whispers in, “Hey, listen, you got a phone number or something? Maybe I could call you and we could go have a drink somewhere, when I’m off duty, just talk.”
“Just talk, eh?”
Glenda gives him a sideways smile and you can feel his temperature rise inside his body.
The ambulance doors slam and the Mexican cop waves back, giving them a thumbs-up sign, TV-ready. They drive off into the distance, siren singing them off into greener pastures. The Mexican cop turns to his partner, looking none too pleased.
“Well, Mike, we better shut this place down and get a move on. Your wife might be mighty angry with you if you’re late for dinner two nights in a row.”
White Bread looks down at the floor, sure annoyed, but keeping his cool. Glenda picks all this up, mulls it around and runs with it.
“Your wife? Well, maybe I won’t be giving you my number after all, you naughty boy, leading me on like that.”
She gives White Bread a little pout. He gives his partner a look like he’s gonna take him straight out back and kick his ass right there in the brambles. Then he turns back to Glenda, giving a little shrug.
“Well, ma’am, maybe next lifetime.”
Glenda smiles back, coy and twinkling. “Maybe so.”
She grabs my hand and marches out the door. Before we round the bend she looks back and blows a kiss, can you believe it, blows a kiss, and sways her way back into the car.
I climb into the back seat, behind the bunny rabbit. Glenda shuts the door gently, picks up the keys, starts the car and drives off real slow and smooth, like some shark swimming casual away from its kill. Two miles down the blacktop she looks straight ahead and decides to speak.
“I’d say that went well.”
THIRTEEN
Somewhere between Oshkosh and Lisco the old man starts knocking. I try not to let him in, but his skinny little fingers keep wrapping themselves round the door. Glenda seems to be coming down from her drugstore triumph. Something in her starts sinking fast and her knuckles stay white on the wheel. I wonder if he