True Grit Page 13

"Sometimes being overrun is a good thing."

  Xenia and Bob ate lunch together, despite the flood of paperwork. Since the scene had been processed and the shooter was dead, the scene was released. A highly intelligent Tamlyn earmarked some of the donation money coming in, to cover all the overtime for the police, firefighters, paramedics, and public-space cleanup after the shooting, including removing cement stained with blood. Essentially, because that wouldn't pressure-wash out. The rest went to the victims. At nearly half a million each, no one would be hurting. Francine and Omar's insurance kicked in, and a little bit of the donations went to them to cover anything insurance wouldn't cover. The boarded-up bloody windows were replaced by bulletproof glass, donated by a "concerned citizen." The booths, counter seating, and the counter itself, were all replaced.

  The lottery raised a small fortune, even with disclosing that the diner was the site of a mass shooting. Tallee Fith, a forty-year-old fry cook and ex-cocktail waitress, along with her twenty-two-year-old daughter Kema, and her daughter's six-year-old child Dee won the lottery to buy the property.

  Xenia went to meet them. "Do you understand what happened here?" Xenia asked. Tallee was short, African-American, and wide-eyed, with red lipstick and an even redder top. She wore black jeans.

  Tallee was looking at a mockup of the menu, one that had most of the previous food on it, with the relatively minor additions of collard greens and cornbread as sides.

  "Horrible thing," she said. "But folks still need to eat good food. And I know how to make good food. Been talking to the previous staff. Some wanna come back, some don't. Got applications, half-out the back door. People need jobs, and I can pay."

  "How?" asked Xenia, curious.

  "My ex-husband. He married me young, divorced me, but then Benny came around again, a changed man. I saved my money, sent my daughter to school, even with her having a baby young, like me. Her young man done run off, too. Idiot. Anyway, I got a business degree, and so did Kema. Did it at home, on the computer I bought her."

  "And Benny?" asked Xenia, caught up in the story.

  "Idiot up and died on me. Had two, real-good years, though. Was real-good to all three of us. Left us insurance. I couldn't both buy the diner and pay salaries for the first few months, though. Not without going so into debt I couldn't make it work, especially with some people being too traumatized to come back in here." Tallee looked at Xenia. "Weren't you here?"

  "Right there," said Xenia, pointing at the booth near the kitchen pass-through; the one with a wall partially blocking the window. "Only reason I'm alive is that wall there. Checked it out; had six bullet holes."

  "Well, I'll be," said Kema, who was rolling silverware.

  Her daughter was working on a laptop, singing to herself, at a nearby booth. Mother and daughter both had cinnamon skin, warm caramel eyes, and eldritch faces, long and lean, nothing like Tallee's round face and curves.

  "Musta been terrible, Sheriff."

  "Stove's working," said Tallee. "Business license is in order, if you want to see it. Health inspection's already done. Food's just going to go to waste if no one eats it." She looked at Kema. "Wanna open early, girl? Was gonna do it tomorrow, but tonight's good enough."

  "What about the rest of the staff?" asked Xenia.

  "That would be us," said Francine, with Omar, coming out from the kitchen. They hugged Xenia. "We couldn't just leave," explained Francine. "We want to kinda train these newcomers on how to do it, keep it going." She put on her apron, and took out a pencil and paper. "You want to do it, or should I?" she asked Tallee.

  Tallee took the pencil and paper. "What'll it be?"

  Xenia sat down on the stool as Kema hopped to the window, and turned the Closed sign around to Open.

  "One scrambled egg with a little cheddar. And grits, home fries, and a chocolate milk."

  "Coming right up," said Tallee. She put the order on the spindle and dinged the bell. "One egg number one," she said, and Omar smiled as he walked into the kitchen and put on his apron. Kema rushed to give Xenia a placemat and silverware. She started setting up the counter.

  The door jangled, and Bob walked in. "You eating without me, wife?" he said. He walked over to her and kissed her. Dee giggled. "You must be Dee," said Bob. "I'm Bob, and this is my wife Xenia."

  "Warrior princess," said Dee, and smiled a gap-toothed smile.

  "Yes, she is," said Bob. He looked at Tallee. "Tallee, isn't it? I'll have a pecan waffle, side of bacon; crispy, and some of that chocolate milk you just poured for my wife."

  "On it, Sheriff," said Tallee, and put the order in the window, and dinged the bell. "Pecan number three, side crispy bacon," she said to Omar.

  Cynthia Bell from the bank came in. "I was mighty hungry. Good to see you're open. Sheriffs," she said, nodding at them.

  "Cynthia," said Bob, "how are things at the bank?"

  "Good," she said. "We suddenly have a lot of money to manage and pay out." Cynthia sat down at the counter. "BLT and fries, and a cola."

  "Coming right up," said Tallee, and put the order up, and rang the bell.

  "How are things in town, Sheriff?" asked Cynthia.

  "Well," said Bob, "the paperwork's been ugly, and it's giving me a fat... um, behind." Xenia and Cynthia chortled, and laughed harder when Dee gave out a belly laugh. "Nothing gets by that one," said Bob. "We'll have to remember that little pitchers have big ears."

  "How are things on the out-of-town part?" asked Cynthia.

  "The usual, except for the mound of leftover paperwork," said Xenia. "It would give me a big behind, too, but I just take it with me on the highway. Do it at the rest stops I inspect."

  One by one, people came in. Jasper, the dishwasher with Tourette's, gave an expletive-laden hello, and rushed to the back to begin running the industrial dishwasher. "Don't you repeat anything Jasper says," said Bob to Dee. "He's got a medical condition, and can't help what he says."

  "Mama already told me," said Dee, giggling.

  "Did you clock in?" Tallee asked Jasper.

  "Fuck up yum yes," said Jasper, amid the clinking of silverware.

  Bob and Xenia tried to hold back. Cynthia burst out with, "Nice weather we're having today," before all three dissolved into helpless laughter.

  "What's so damn funny?" asked Trader, the guy who ran the gift shop. His real name was Jaime, but since he'd gotten beaten up for having that name as a kid, he had kept his nickname and held onto it like glue.

  "Not much," said Bob. "Except for the lady who answered the door in nothing at all. Said she was sky-clad for a ritual. Her neighbors called about smoke. Turned out it was incense."

  Trader smiled. He turned to Tallee. "Who the hell are you?" he asked.

  "Tallee," she said. "Who the hell are you?"

  "Trader," he said. "Woman, I am hungrier than a bear in spring."

  "Came to the right place," she said. "What'll it be?"

  "Reuben sandwich piled high, double order of fries, keep the coffee coming, and two slices of the key lime pie I see, in that there pie case."

  "Just give him a carafe of coffee," said Xenia, sipping her milk. "Man will go through the whole thing. Heavy drinker of the coffee bean."

  They all got their food, and fell upon it like wolves. One by one, people straggled in, tourists wearing turquoise with loud voices, and townspeople coming in, out of curiosity or actual hunger. Francine took one half of the diner, and Kema the other. Tallee took the counter and used the cash register.

  Kim, the other cook, came in, dressed in her cook's whites. "Now, why did my son Herve tell me you were open, and you didn't call me?"

  "Sorry," bellowed Omar, from the back. "Got too busy to call."

  Kim snorted. "What's the sense in that?"

  By the time Xenia and Bob left, the place was packed, and people immediately took their seats at the counter. They paid and left.

  They both got around the building into the little alley with the dumpster before they held out their hands to each other. The
y were both shaking uncontrollably. "Well," said Xenia, "that went easier than I thought."

  "I had trouble eating," said Bob. "Damn near expected gunfire."

  "Be easier the next time," said Xenia.

  "Dinner's on the other side of town," said Bob.

  "Agreed," said Xenia. "Pulled pork sandwiches at Vern's Barbecue?"

  "You know it," said Bob. They hugged, kissed, and smiled sadly at the memorial at their feet. It had been moved around the corner, with pictures, candles, notes, and stuffed animals. "Too much senseless death," said Bob.

  "If I could raise the dead, I'd pull up Baby Avery and plug him again, this time in the face," said Xenia.

  "Amen to that," said Bob. They got in their cars, and went back to their ass-numbing paperwork catchup.

  Tamlyn found them at the barbecue place that night after work. "Thank goodness I guessed right. If it were me, I'd eat dinner as far away from the diner as possible after going back in today." She sat down and ordered herself a pulled pork sandwich, with corn, cinnamon apples, cornbread with honey butter, and a Coke.

  "Won't you join us?" said Xenia in a saccharine-sweet voice.

  Tamlyn snorted. "Was going to ask if you had a flashback or something, but you just get snippy when riled." Bob smiled beatifically, then ate a rib. "And you get quiet," said Tamlyn, "before you explode like a volcano."

  Xenia and Bob both made explosion noises and threw their hands out. Tamlyn laughed. “We’re alright,” said Bob.

  "So, how's the downtown sheriff thing going?"

  "Finally," said Bob, "caught up on the paperwork today." Both Xenia and Tamlyn mimed shock.

  Xenia pointed a fry at him. "You've got a better admin than I do. Patty is shocking, even though she wasn't there at the diner when it happened. Jumpy as."

  "It's not because of the diner shooting," said Tamlyn. "Her boyfriend Iggy's been drinking too much. From what I can tell, he's just obnoxious, not abusive. But, that's a fine line."

  "I'll talk to her," said Xenia.

  "How's the little one?" asked Tamlyn.

  "The one at the restaurant is super-cute. I expect she'll be at school tomorrow, so sightings from now on may be rare," said Xenia. "Mine is fine. Heard a fast heartbeat two days ago."

  "Excellent," said Tamlyn. Her food arrived. "Let's eat up." And so, they did.

  When they got home, Bob and Xenia shed their leathers and boots. "I want to lay on the floor," she said, as she shuffled to the gun locker to lock up her gun and badge.

  Bob smiled. "If we get enough clothes off, we can sleep here. In front of the fire."

  She stared at the cold hearth. "What fire?" she asked, stripping out of her uniform. She threw it on the back of a chair.

  "The one I'm going to make."

  Bob knelt, and put in the junk mail kindling, the kind without any plastic windows on the envelope, on the bottom. He then made a neat pile with the logs, and lit the fire. Xenia randomly threw blankets and pillows on the floor, then lurched to the bathroom. She washed her face and hands, and then lurched back. Bob made a nest out of the blankets and pillows by pulling out the couch cushions, then piling on their sleeping bags, then adding the pillows and blankets.

  Xenia fell gratefully onto the nest. "Thanks, Robin," she said. He smiled at being called a bird and peeled out of his own uniform, and hung it on a chair.

  He locked up the gun and badge, hung up his equipment belt, and stripped down to his long underwear, his erection obvious.

  Xenia looked down at him, then smiled sadly. "Sorry love, but I'm about to sleep sitting up."

  He smiled. "Maybe tomorrow." They got under the covers and the first sleeping bag, and Bob held his wife close. "I'm sure we did have to go to the diner. Just to put it behind us. But it was wonderful, and it sucked rocks at the same time." He kissed her head.

  "I had to go," she explained. "It's just a building, and Baby Avery is dead."

  "His dad is a wreck," said Bob.

  "I notice that his mother's supposed friends titter over her loss, like birds talking about another bird; but no tears. I wonder why that is?"

  Bob sighed. "I desperately hope that when I buy it, there will be actual tears, not gossip. How fucking sad."

  "Control is a great way to drive everyone away from you screaming," said Xenia. "You've got to take control of your life, and make things easier for yourself. But, other people are not robots or puzzle pieces. They don't fit into molds or become your puppets."

  Bob grimaced. "Puppet people are so weak that they don't have the ability to fight a controller. I think Marcel Avery started out as puppet of his mother, and was unwilling to accept when other people didn't respond like puppets to him. Like the way people responded to his mother. He expected the world to be the powerful and powerless, and when he felt powerless, he tried to find power in those stupid video games."

  "Power," said Xenia, "is getting people to do what you want, but that involves working in their best interest, to help them. He could never see that aspect of it. He thought power was control, without doing anything to benefit the people around you."

  "Enlightened self-interest," said Bob. "Makes the world go ‘round." He kissed his wife.

  "So, it was your enlightened self-interest that got me this little nest?" asked Xenia.

  "Well, yes," he said. "I get cuddling. Cuddling is good." He kissed her; long, low and sweet.

  Xenia felt it in her bones, melting the cold and exhaustion. The ass-numbing paperwork so boring she had to blast music to stay awake to fill it out. The accident she'd been called out to was unfortunately caused by a woman texting. It killed her only daughter. The house fire was so far away from anything that the house was consumed before the firefighters could put it out.

  A woman lost her livelihood and her home at the same time, and didn't have homeowner's insurance to get it all back. The little black mutt she saved from a coyote, and gave to Tina Trevion, who had just lost her ancient Golden. Then there was the drunken rancher who flipped his truck twice, and decided to walk himself to the hospital in the middle of the night. He'd been lucky that a college student (with a huge project to complete) had left to get supplies at an all-night Wal-Mart. He had found the man by the side of the road, half-dead from internal injuries. The rancher survived; the student got a writeup in the paper for being a hero. Overshadowed by the mass shooting, but a writeup nonetheless.

  Bob found her tight shoulders and dug into them. She held up a hand, sat up, took off her shirt and bra, flipped over, and let him do his work. The man had amazing hands, digging in the right places, a light touch in others. She thought she would fall asleep, but he was obviously aroused, and sex was the ultimate rail against the darkness. Making love, she thought. The ultimate fuck-you to Baby Avery and all the twisted fucks like him. If you can still love, then you can make yourself as far away from being like him as you can get.

  She felt Bob work his way down to her ass, and she moved back into his hands, sure that she needed him as much as he needed her. He responded; his touch moving from healing to sexual. He wrapped his arms around her and cradled her breasts in his hands. He caressed them as he kissed the back of her neck. She responded as she always did, with a clawing, aching need. She turned her face, received his kiss on her lips, sweet as mesquite honey. She turned, and he kissed and sucked her breasts, making her cry out with pleasure. He slid his fingers down, gently caressing the soft thatch of her hair. He touched her button, pressing down on it, making her arch her back.

  "Found the right place," he said, breathing a kiss into her mouth.

  "Damn right," she said, kissing him back.

  They both peeled out of their long and regular underwear. He slid into her, his voice gentle, whispering his love into her ears while he kissed her neck. She clenched on him, making him groan into her mouth. She wrapped her legs around him and grabbed his ass, and he plunged into her, again and again. She screamed as she came, deafening him, as he rode the wave, crashing into her with the force of
his climax. He slid out, got a wet wipe, and cleaned them both up, then got up to dispose of the trash. He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He brought back cherry water, and they drank, rinsing out their mouths. He slid under the covers, and held her by firelight.

  "Bob," said Xenia, her sleepy head on his shoulder as he ran his finger up and down her spine.

  "What, babe?" he asked.

  "I think we did pretty well during the mass shooting. I also think that my Valkyrie sisters helped us out a lot."

  "Fuck yes and absolutely," said Bob.

  "And, it shouldn't be an every-time thing, but only when the need is great."

  "What? Calling the Valkyries?" asked Bob.

  "Exactly."

  "Can't think of anyone else I'd rather have watching my back." "Exactly," said Xenia.

  "Unofficial first responders," said Bob.

  "Won't work every time, but it could help."

  He laughed. "I was gonna say, we need to get them trained, but in what? Lots of them are ex-military. They would be welcomed on any scene."

  "Hmm," she said.

  Bob stroked her hair. "Sleep, love. We've got a warm fire and, shockingly, two days off. Let's spend tomorrow in our nest."

  She made a noise that sounded like "Uumf."

  "I'll take that as a yes," he said. He kissed her hair again, held her close, and slid into sleep.

  In the morning, he cooked bacon and eggs and baked biscuits out of a can, and made little sandwiches. He poured the orange juice, and got out the trays they used for snuggling in bed. He fed them both, and then they fell asleep in each other's arms again, after a long, slow bout of making love. The kind where they looked into each other's eyes as she rode him. He cleaned them both up with a wet wipe, and was snoring into her hair before she had time to close her own eyes.

  They awoke hours later, the sky a dull gray past the blinds. "Gonna snow soon," said Bob.

  "Let it," said Xenia.

  They made love again, so slowly it was like standing still, then a little movement, then still again. This time, Xenia cleaned them up, and brought out clean, regular, long underwear after a wet wipe sponge bath. She grabbed her cell phone, ignored her messages, and used the app to send for pizza with bacon and black olives. They ate on the trays by the fire, and Bob fed it with logs to keep it going as they gorged on pizza.