Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [52]
THE BILLS dropped Libby off at her trailer in the early afternoon, just in time for her parents’ inevitable holiday phone call.
Evelyn and Francis Pollack still lived in Montrose, California, in the same house where Libby had grown up, but they were hardly ever home. For the last six years, they had traveled incessantly, as if her father’s retirement had unleashed a profound, compulsive restlessness. They called Libby faithfully, once a month and on holidays. Today, they were in British Columbia at an Elderhostel.
“Are you doing anything fun today?” her mother asked.
Libby had learned to divulge few personal details. Since she’d married Stockton, not much had met with Evelyn’s approval, including—paradoxically—the divorce. “Just taking it easy.”
“I wish you lived some place where you knew more people.”
“I have friends here.”
“Yes …” Libby could tell her mother was fighting to mince words, swallow her opinions. The struggle was brief. “I would so love to see you around people of your own caliber. And in a job worthy of your talent. I think of all those hours of practicing, all those lessons….”
Libby now heard her father murmuring in the background. Without warning or transition, he took over the receiver. “How’s my girl?”
“Fine, Dad.”
“Glad to hear it. Need anything from British Columbia? They make mighty good marmalade up here. I’ll send you a jar.”
“Sure, Dad. Thanks.”
After hanging up, Libby dragged herself to her small vegetable garden, pulled listlessly at weeds, ate a few ripe Early Girl tomatoes. It got too hot to stay in the sun, so she took a long cool bath and a short, nervous nap. Why was she still living in this valley?
Billie and the Bills picked her up at dusk. They drove to the Rito Town Park and set up lawn chairs between two other families. Billie served fried chicken and potato salad and covertly poured white wine into Dixie cups. Cherry bombs and M-80’s exploded around them. A mariachi band played in the parking lot. Sparklers swirled in the falling darkness like tiny, short-lived galaxies.
Libby saw Lewis in the assembled Round Rock contingent in the picnic area reserved for larger groups. She liked the way he moved among them, watchful, keeping an eye on everybody, sure of himself. She heard a gust of his laugh. He crouched next to a long-haired teenager, flung an arm over his shoulder, and talked until the kid cracked up.
Libby had never gone out with a man who did low-paying, service-oriented work. She’d always preferred the grand achiever, the ungainly ego, the high-performance, Stocktonesque characters. Everything she was not. Could selflessness be sexy?
Fireworks rose up over the trees in spidery arcs of light. Ash drifted onto her lap. Dogs howled. From the hills, coyotes answered with a wild, laughing bark that made Libby’s skin prickle.
Something touched her arm and she squawked, even as she looked into Lewis’s bright eyes.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.
“I can’t help it. I already feel like I’m in a war zone.”
As if to illustrate this statement, a great volley of booms erupted. When the noise died down, Lewis waved to the Fitzgeralds. “Hey, Billie,” he said.
“Hey, Lewis. Not read any good books lately?”
“Dozens. And you?”
“The Complete Works of Everybody.”
“And what’s come clearer?”
“Since we last met?” Billie tipped her head. “Oh, I do keep hearing what a great cook you are.”
“I love the small-town life,” said Lewis. “You make one pan of lasagna and suddenly you’re Paul damn Bocuse.”
Libby couldn’t help noticing Billie’s easy way with Lewis, while she herself was tongue-tied, not to mention abashed by her Dixie cup of wine. When Lewis stepped forward to shake Old Bill’s hand, she tucked the cup under her chair.
“I’m here with the Round Rockers.” Now, he was talking to her again. “Our big field trip. No casualties so far. Nobody carried off by booze or wild women. Yet.” He gave the back of her chair a shake. She did want to heave him up, sling him over her shoulders, and haul him home. Lines of white light reached into the sky.