Another Kind of Eden (Holland Family Saga 3)

“Why?”

“My art classes cause too much conflict with my schedule. It’s a lie.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“What do you think? He said I was a ‘good girl’ and he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.”

I sat down at the counter. The furniture in her living room was made of leather and sanded driftwood, the rug woven with a black-and-red-and-blue Indian design. Everything about her house was immaculate. I wondered how any grown man with a teaspoon of charity or self-respect could do such harm to such a good young woman.

“Does your boss know Rueben Vickers?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’d like to talk with him.”

“My boss? Stay away from him.”

“You lost your job because of me. What’s his telephone number?”

“Right now I’m eligible for unemployment. Don’t piss him off. He’ll challenge my application. You want a beer or a soda?” She opened the icebox door and bent over and began rattling bottles and cans around. She was wearing a long-sleeve black western shirt with roses on it and a braided cloth belt and baggy blue jeans that exposed her baby fat. “Did you hear me? What do you want to drink?”

“A soda,” I said, the words tight in my throat.

She uncapped a Coca-Cola for me and a Tuborg for herself. She tilted the bottle to her mouth, the sunlight through the window sparkling inside the amber glass, the foam sliding down her throat. There was something wrong in the image, though, like a painting that contains one incongruous detail. She blew out her breath. “Shit,” she said.

“Shit, what?”

“Everything. It’s harder looking for a job than working. How’s your face feel?”

“Fine.”

“You don’t drink?”

“I used to.”

“But you don’t now?”

“Alcoholism runs in my family.”

She came around the counter and sat down next to me. “You need to get honest with me, Aaron.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re not a picker or a ranch hand. You’re on the run from the law or maybe a wife and baby or something that’s a whole lot bigger than you. That’s what I think.”

“I’m not on the run from anybody,” I said.

She drank from the bottle again. I could smell the beer on her breath. I wanted to put my mouth on hers.

“Are you married?” she said.

“No.”

“Guys with master’s degrees get it on with waitresses. They don’t marry them.”

I looked at her fingers curved around the beaded moisture on the Tuborg label. “You didn’t buy that.”

“What are you talking about?”