The Ranger - Ace Atkins [22]
Quinn finished off the Budweiser and reached for his truck keys. “It’s good seein’ you, Anna Lee.”
“Yeah, let’s do this again in another six years.”
The Southern Star stood on the north part of the town Square between a check-cashing business and a tired old beauty shop. The idea of it, having a bar in Jericho, was such a novelty that Quinn felt a bit self-conscious ordering a beer, and even more so when the bartender, a tiny girl of less than five feet who couldn’t have been much past twenty-one, rattled off a list of what they had on tap and in bottles. Quinn ordered a Reb Ale, spotting Luke Stevens down the counter near the jukebox as the bartender cracked off the top.
“Hoped you’d see Anna Lee,” Luke said, shaking his hand.
“She said you wanted to talk.”
Luke was a little shorter than Quinn, thin, with shaggy brown hair, and wearing a dress shirt with a V—necked sweater. He’d known Luke since first grade, but he never really considered him a close buddy. There had been a time, second grade, when Luke’s dad had told Jean that it was best that the kids didn’t play together anymore. That was after a fight over some action figures and some flying fists left Luke with a black eye.
“What’re you drinking?” Luke asked.
Quinn showed him the Reb Ale and took a seat.
The silver jukebox, a real authentic one that played 45s, pumped out Charley Pride’s “Kiss an Angel Good Morning.”
“Tibbehah’s hell-raiser is back in town.”
Quinn smiled, thinking how Luke made the honor roll and might have been class president. He was the kind of teenager that the cops didn’t tail every time they saw his truck circle the Square and that wasn’t put on the prayer list at church every other week even though he hadn’t been sick.
“A real live drinking hole,” Quinn said.
“We’re big-time. Even got a coffee shop out in front of the tanning salon.”
“Is that what brought you back?”
“Nope,” Luke said. “I just love the high pay and easy work.”
Luke grinned at him, but it was a cutting grin, and it made Quinn remember Luke Stevens in high school, that attitude he’d had, knowing he’d be the one who’d get out of town before anyone else. He always figured boys like Quinn, and Wesley and Boom, would be the ones checking his oil at the filling station. But how in the world can you slight a guy who returns to take his father’s place as the only decent doctor in town, starting a medical clinic for the poor when he could be living it up in Jackson or Memphis or staying down in New Orleans, where he went to med school.
“How’s your mother?”
“Fine,” Luke said. “She and your mom have gotten to be pretty good friends, both of them widowed and all.”
“My mom isn’t widowed,” Quinn said. “She just tells people my daddy’s dead.”
“You’re joking.”
“It’s a sad fact,” Quinn said. “She’s been doing that since I was twelve.”
“What happened to him?”
“Don’t know and don’t care.”
“I remember how all the kids used to look up to him,” Luke said. “I still think about that time he brought that actress home with him and they rode in the Christmas parade. What was her name? She was on that sitcom with Burt Reynolds. She had huge tits.”
“That didn’t make for a holiday special at the Colson house.”
Luke leaned over the bar and called the short girl, the jukebox clattering and stopping, whirring and slapping on some more vinyl, this time playing Patsy Cline, “Walkin’ After Midnight,” and that steady drumbeat just kind of held Quinn there in that open space, thinking of Anna Lee out back of the football stadium, she and him buck-ass naked and kissing, hands all over each other, when the headlights of her father’s car lit up his rearview.
“Quinn?” Luke said, handing him a fresh beer. “Here you go.”
“Appreciate it.”
He patted Quinn’s back and told him how sorry he was and how much he respected his uncle. He said he’d gone quail hunting with him last year and even did a little fishing in late summer, saying he never saw any signs of depression. “But most of them hide it well. Your