Hick - Andrea Portes [53]
“It is stupid. that’s why we play it. C’mon, you should try it. it’ll be fun.”
“Um. I dunno . . . I’m kind of supposed to be getting back.”
“Just one game. One game. I promise. it’ll be fun.”
He grabs the ice outta my hand and motions to the corner, where they’ve got their towels set up on a cooler, hiding the beer under a table with a white-and-blue umbrella and four matching white plastic chairs.
Clement takes out a chair for me and doesn’t move till I sit down. I look up at him, nervous to be treated so good. He sits across from me, smiling to his friends over his shoulder. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be some inside joke between friends, some girl you fiddled with in some cheap hotel in Utah.
Just then two older folks walk up and smile big, looking proud down at Clement and his two friends, still pretend playing in the pool. The man is on the tubbier side but he’s got an air about him, something tan and comforting, like a dad you’d see on TV, the kind that takes his sons hunting and buys his daughter a pony for her sweet sixteen. Next to him stands a woman who looks exactly like a horse.
If you took a horse and gave it tits and a blond head of hair, that would be this woman. And that’s not all. There’s something about her, something conniving and cheap, like she’s just along for the ride and hit the jackpot with Mr. Comfort. She wears a white vest, somewhere between a dress shirt and a tank top, with a pair of new-bought, too-tight jeans. I can’t believe this woman is hanging off Mr. Comfort’s elbow. If she could get this guy, with her horsemouth, then my mama, with her blond flip and steel-gray eyes, ought to be able to land a billionaire.
Clement puts his feet up on the cooler, casual.
“Luli, this is my dad, Buck.”
Mr. Comfort looks at me, tan and charming. “Nice to meet you, Luli.”
The horsemouth looks at Clement and waits for a response. Clement smiles at me like that’s that and doesn’t say a word.
“Well, Clement, aren’t you gonna introduce me?”
Clement keeps smiling at me, not looking her way.
Buck chimes in, nice and easy. He’s got a voice sweet like molasses, like some ancient medicine from where the buffalo roam. “Luli, this is my wife, Edna.”
Clement clears his throat and I just about start laughing because I cannot believe that someone who looks so much like Mr. Ed would actually be named Edna.
“It is so nice to meet you, Luli. What an unusual name.”
I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is about this woman that so clearly reeks gold-digger, gold-digger, gold-digger, but I will tell you this, I am about ninety percent sure that he met her on a flight where she was a stewardess and she bent over backwards to turn him into a mark because that’s why she became a stewardess in the first place. And I don’t know why I think this but it just hits me and all the sudden I hear myself saying, “Did you used to be a stewardess?”
And this changes the air around each individual into a different shade. Mr. Comfort smiles, amazed. Clement starts to laugh and Miss Horsemouth looks like she could just clop clop clop her way right over me, if Mr. Comfort would only let go of the reins. She checks herself, chomping at the bit, trying to play nice.
“Why, yes, how did you ever guess that?”
Clement is pretending not to laugh into his hand, keeping his head down and smiling up at me through his eyes, twinkling. Buck is smiling, benevolent, not a mean bone in his body, like some countrified Buddha.
“Oh, just a lucky guess.”
“Well, that is truly amazing. I am shocked,” Buck chimes in, leaving me wondering why I can’t have Mr. Comfort for a dad and why I got stuck with Mr. Drunk and Sometimes Speed instead.
The horse lady looks down at me, plotting her revenge.
“You live around here, Luli? Maybe outside of town. Wait a minute, are you from that trailer park across the street or are you staying right here at the motel?”
Clement freezes, fixing his eyes on the ground.
“Dad, we’re trying to play a game here, so—”
“Ooo! What kinduva game?! Can I play?” she neighs out, making