Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [100]
“Libby hates me,” he said.
“Yeah, well,” said Barbara. “And David’s adorable.”
“He’s already taken, Barb. He has a rich girlfriend down in T.J.”
“Lewis, please. You mean I’m already taken.”
Libby didn’t have to guess that it was Lewis who kicked a porch support. A long silence followed—had they gone away?—then Lewis finally said, “You won’t miss me too much if I take the job?”
Barbara’s laugh was so long and loud, it would’ve yanked Libby from the deepest sleep. “Lewis, Lewis, Lewis. Let’s get this straight. Who’s gonna miss whom?”
ON A Monday morning, Red dropped his ’46 Ford at the Ruiz brothers’ garage, then walked up Main Street. The pickup needed its carburetor rebuilt, a job Red didn’t trust to anyone presently working in the Round Rock garage. He had considered waiting on the carburetor until Lewis came back up, but there was no way of telling if he was actually going to take the job. Convincing him to come cook at the farm was like luring a skittish animal to hand-held food. Red had been careful not to push or get his own hopes up, while making it clear that Lewis was wholly welcome. Libby didn’t understand—and Red wasn’t so sure he did, either—why he so yearned to have him back at the farm. Some people you had business with in this life, and Lewis was one of those people in Red’s. Libby felt Lewis had already fulfilled his function in bringing the two of them together. Perhaps so; and he’d also helped Red see his own shortcomings as sponsor, friend, confidant—an unpleasant but useful lesson. Still, Lewis’s return was much prayed for, a second chance to set things right and, from there, assess what business might remain.
Red walked until he came to the wood-slat bench outside his former law office, now vacant except when an accountant rented it at tax time. Red had overestimated how long it would take to hand his truck over and had fifteen minutes before Libby would pick him up on the way to her doctor’s appointment in Buchanan.
The bench was in the shade of the building, but a sharp line of sunlight inched toward him. In one of the upstairs apartments over the laundromat a woman sang in a light, clear voice: “I’ll see you, when your troubles are like mine, I’ll see you, when you haven’t got a dime, weeping like a willow, moaning like a dove….” This song and the pending sunlight made Red think of Frank. Even when they were children, Frank cared for nothing so much as a prime spot in the sun and a brand-new cigarette.
Frank now lived at the Buena Vista Rest Home in Buchanan, having run away so many times, there was no option but supervised care. Red had kept him out of such institutions for years, fearing that he’d be neglected and left to disintegrate. But Frank slid into life at the Buena Vista so smoothly it was almost a reproach. He had a reliable source of not only cigarettes and sunshine but also friendship—specifically with an elderly schizophrenic man and another large mute accident victim. Red invariably found the three parked, smoking, around a small trickling fountain in the courtyard. Orderlies called them the Terrible Three—not because they caused any trouble, but because it was so difficult to get them inside for meals or bed.
When Frank left Round Rock, some central vortex at the farm had lost its pull. If Frank, the one eternal resident, could leave, why not the other diehards? In firing John, then accepting Ernie’s notice, Red had feared Round Rock itself might be drawing to a close, especially since he never was any good at hiring people.
After Billie’s allegations, Red had called up David’s references: a Park Avenue psychologist, the director of a Manhattan recovery house, and a New Mexican M.D. with a homeopathic practice. The calls produced the usual bath of hyperbole as well as a few insights: “such a gifted practitioner” … “remarkable composure in times of crisis” … “works intensively with others without suffering burnout.” The downside? “Runs behind in his appointments” … “unstable female clients cathect with him.” Could he be trusted