Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Once we were in the main part of town, Collie said, “I’ll give you the grand tour. Turn left here.”
We ended up in what was once the downtown shopping district. The buildings looked like they dated from the late eighteen-hundreds, and they’d probably been beautiful back in the day. Now they were faded and shabby. Almost all of the storefronts were dark, with big “for lease” signs in the windows.
When we were halfway down the block, he said, “Hold up here for a minute.” There wasn’t another car in sight, so I stopped in the middle of the street.
Collie pointed at a boarded up hardware store. “That was Aunt Sue’s business. She inherited it from her dad and ran it as a one-woman show. She was barely scraping by after one of those huge chain hardware stores opened in the county seat, but she wouldn’t give up on it—not until her symptoms started to get the better of her.” He tilted his head to look at the second floor. “We lived in the apartment above it.”
I looked up at the curtained windows and asked, “How long did you live there?”
“From the time I was ten until the day I moved to San Francisco.”
I couldn’t imagine that. It must have been like growing up in a ghost town.
Next, we drove to a shopping center that was about half a mile away. Collie gestured with a flourish. “I present to you the pinnacle of our culinary scene, the Chicken Bucket. And across the street is the thrift shop where I used to work.”
“Do you want to stop at either of them?”
“I really don’t.”
“Where to next?”
“I guess that’s it for the tour, so let’s go to Jeannie’s house. She probably isn’t home yet, but I want to get things ready for her.”
“How’s she getting home from the hospital?”
“Dwight is picking her up in her minivan. I offered, but she said this made more sense since it was in his garage. My theory is that they wanted to see each other again and are using this as an excuse.”
“How are we going to get in?”
“I have a key,” he said, “but it’s usually unlocked.”
He told me to turn left, and we made our way through a quiet, working class neighborhood. Some of the houses looked like they dated from the sixties or seventies, while others were a lot older.
“Jeannie’s house is up ahead on the right,” he told me. “It’s that cute yellow one with white trim.”
The house was two stories, with a porch spanning the front of it. There were toys in the yard, and a tire swing hung from a big oak tree. It looked like it had probably been built in the early nineteen-hundreds, and at some point someone had tacked on a two-car garage.
The garage door was open, and when we got closer, we saw that there was a pickup truck inside it. Collie growled like a rabid dog and launched himself out of the van before it came to a full stop.
A tall, musclebound guy with dark blond hair had just stepped into the garage, carrying a box. Collie ran up to him and yelled, “What the hell, Brad? How could you cheat on your wife, after the promises you made to her? And what about your kids? Did you even consider them when you were sneaking around being a total sleaze?” While that was happening, I threw the van into park and hurried after him.
Brad put the box in the truck bed and told him, “This is none of your business.”
“Like hell it isn’t! I love Jeannie, and I care about what happens to her. Unlike you, you piece of trash!”
“Go to hell, Collie!”
Collie shoved him and shouted, “You first!”
Brad squared his shoulders and balled up his fists. He looked like he was ready to throw a punch, even though he was twice Collie’s size. But he backed down when I appeared, gesturing at me as he snapped, “Who the hell is this?”
I glared at him and said, “I’m the man who’s going to beat some sense into you if you don’t back off.”
He gestured at Collie and exclaimed, “He came onto my property and pushed me! I wasn’t doing anything.”
“It’s not your property, it’s Jeannie’s,” Collie hissed, “and you need to get the hell out of here.”
“That’s exactly what I was doing when you showed up.” Brad slammed the tailgate and got behind the wheel. I pulled Collie back as the engine roared to life, and the truck shot out of the garage and down the driveway.
Once he was in the street, Brad threw the truck into drive and paused long enough to give us the finger. In response, Collie flipped him off with both hands. He put his whole body into it, pumping his hands up and down as he yelled, “Fuck you, Brad!”