Heartwood (Billy Bob Holland 2)

“I don’t want to go here, Jeff,” Esmeralda said.

“Why not?” he said.

“We dressed up to go to a beer joint? I’m hungry. I don’t want to drink on an empty stomach,” she said.

“You’re not dressed up,” he said.

She looked at the side of his face. She placed one hand on top of his.

“What’s wrong, hon?” she said.

“Nothing. Will you stop pawing me while I’m driving?” Then he forced a grin on his mouth. “I just want to get a drink. I got fired from my job last night. The tables at the club are crowded till eight o’clock. We can get some nachos. Bight, Lucas?”

But Lucas didn’t answer.

They drank two rounds of vodka Collins, gazing at the river, the smoke from a barbecue pit attended by bikers and their girlfriends drifting across the table. Jeff kept pulling on his earlobe, biting his lip, glancing irritably at the bikers and their girls, almost as though he wanted to provoke them.

“Okay, okay, we’re going. Give it a rest,” he said to Esmeralda, even though she had said nothing to him.

When they pulled into the country club’s driveway and stopped in front of the columned porch, Jeff got out of the car and took the parking ticket from the valet as though he were in a trance. He walked through the glass doors ahead of Esmeralda and Lucas, letting the edge of the door slide off his fingertips behind him. It was almost nine o’clock and the dining room should have been empty, the waiters gathering up silverware and soiled tablecloths and dropping wilted flowers into plastic bags. But instead the chandeliers filled the room with gold fire; carnations and roses floated in crystal bowls on the tables; and a throng of forty people was in the midst of a wedding rehearsal dinner.

One of the guests at the rehearsal dinner was Rita Summers, Jeff’s ex-girlfriend. Her hair was as gold as the chandelier above her head, her blue eyes as intense as a hawk’s. She took a cigarette without asking from an older woman’s case and lighted it and blew smoke at an upward angle out of the side of her mouth. Jeff led Esmeralda and Lucas to a table in the corner and seated himself so his back was to the wedding party.

“This is a right nice place,” Lucas said.

“Right nice? Yeah, that says it. That really says it. Right nice,” Jeff said, as if his statement held a cryptic profundity that no one else understood.

“That girl over there, the one staring at us. She’s the one who told me her food tasted like dog turds,” Esmeralda said.

“She’s nearsighted. She’s got a bug up her ass. Who cares what her problem is? Just don’t look at her,” Jeff said. “Did you hear me? Look at the menu.”

“Jeff, this ain’t turning out too cool,” Lucas said.

“Tell me about it,” Jeff said, and snapped his fingers at a waiter. “Andre, bring three T-bones out here, three schooners, three tossed salads. Shrimp cocktails for them, none for me. I’ll take a Jack and Coke now.”

“Very good, Mr. Deitrich,” the waiter said, and bowed slightly without ever looking at Lucas or Esmeralda. Jeff pulled the menu out of Esmeralda’s hands and gave it to the waiter.

“Wow, what a take-charge guy,” Esmeralda said.

“At this time of night, in this particular club, you either order steak or you eat warmed-up leftovers. I know that, you don’t. So I was saving everybody time,” Jeff said.

“I think I need to find the ladies’ room. You know, in case I have to throw up later,” Esmeralda said.

“You want to explore? It’s a club. Can’t you just …”

“What?” she said.

“Quit turning everything into a problem. Let’s just eat dinner and get out of here. Oh, forget it,” Jeff said, and flipped a tiny silver spoon in the air and let it bounce on the tablecloth.

But before Esmeralda could get up from her chair, Rita Summers walked across the carpet and stood by their table, smoking her cigarette.

“Congratulations on your marriage, Jeff. I wish I’d had some preparation. I would have sent a gift. I really would,” she said. She had a peach complexion and shadows pooled in the folds of her blue satin dress and there was a shine on the tops of her breasts.

“Yeah, thanks for dropping

by,” Jeff said, one arm hooked over the back of his chair, his eyes gazing out the French doors at the underwater lights glowing off the swimming pool’s surface.

Rita took a puff off her cigarette and left lipstick on the tip. “I guess you’ve worked out all your little sexual problems. I’m so happy when the right people meet,” she said.