RATH PUSHED THROUGH the porch door into his kitchen, regretting his savagery toward Laroche, the innocent messenger. His back roared with pain, and his head smoldered with vengeful thoughts of Preacher. He took a long drink of Lagavulin straight from the bottle. He needed to talk to Rachel. To see her. Be with the only family he had. He dialed her number. Mailbox full. Damn it. Where was she? He took another pull of scotch, texted Rachel. The screen was bleary.
I’m coming to take you out for a bite so you can have something besides Ramen noodles. I Love You, Dad
Rachel always laughed at his proper grammar and correct spelling. “That’s not texting. I don’t have time to read a novel.”
Rath headed out.
The Scout’s tires barked as he gunned it out onto County Road 15. He stopped at the Gas ’n’ Go to fill up the Scout, let the pump run, and stalked inside and bought beef jerky and a tin of Copenhagen. When he came out, the Scout was still gobbling down gas.
Down the street, the sign outside the Beehive Diner was lit, as were the signs for the Buck Rub Pub and Bistro Henry, a new restaurant trying to make a go with the localvore shtick.
He recalled Madeline from the Dress Shoppe asking when the last time was that he’d bought Rachel something on a whim. He’d bought her an iPhone in August, for his own selfish reasons—the latest, greatest way for her to keep in touch. That had certainly panned out. A gift would be nice. Rath ambled down Main Street to the Dress Shoppe.
A crowd of folks paced on the darkened sidewalk outside the Universal Church, toting picket signs he couldn’t quite read. A sandwich board outside Casablanca Video read: GOING OUT OF BUSINESS (thanks Netflix!) DVD SALE OF “TITANIC” PROPORTIONS (PUN INTENDED).
Rath popped a Tic Tac in his mouth, breathed in his cupped hands to check for boozy breath as he ventured inside with what he hoped was an easygoing air.
The toe of his boot caught on the edge of the carpet and he tripped, grabbing a mannequin in a corduroy jumper to keep himself upright.
He felt eyes on him, burning, a hand at his elbow.
“You really like that jumper,” a voice said.
He stood staring at Madeline with no comeback. He had none of the rapport he’d had as a young man. No chiseled physique to bolster his confidence. He wasn’t the young man he’d once been, and he did not grieve the loss.
He was more buzzed than he thought now that he was inside a warm, well-lit place. He stared at Madeline in her corduroy jumper the pale purple of lupine, her long, rich hair swept back from her forehead and kept in place by a velvet band of a dark purple. She took his wrist in her warm hand. She smelled vaguely of violets. The woman knew how to pull together a motif. “Do you bring good news?” she said.
Rath was confused.
“About the girl?” Madeline clarified.
Rath wondered if she thought investigators updated every witness.
Madeline let go of his wrist.
“No news,” Rath said, swallowing.
“No news is good news, right?”
In this case it usually means a corpse, Rath thought. “I’m looking for something for my daughter,” he said. Had he slurred his words?
Madeline gave the bracelets on her wrist a smart jangle. “Wonderful.”
“I’d like to get something for a seventeen-year-old. Not the twenty-eight-year-old she thinks she is.”
“Daughters.” Madeline sighed.
“You have one?” He was feeling more at ease now.
“Two. From my first husband. Only husband. I make it sound like I bothered with a second.” Her eyes flicked over a rack of dresses nearby, then alighted on his face. “And, of course, I was one. A young daughter. I know the trouble we can be.”
“She’s no trouble.”
“Well, the heartache we cause whether we mean to or not.”
Yes, Rath thought, exactly.
“Your daughter, Rachel, doesn’t like dresses, correct?”
Rath was impressed Madeline had remembered Rachel’s name and her taste.
“I don’t know the last time I saw her in one,” he said. “She balked at going to her prom because of the mandatory dresses. She and her girlfriends had their own party instead of attending a dance of forced institutionalized romance.” Was he talking too much?
Madeline laughed, the sound of a bubbling brook. “I remember those days.” She escorted him through the store, inquiring about Rachel’s height and weight, eye and hair color. He told her: 5’ 3”, 115 pounds. Long black hair. Blue eyes.
Madeline asked how Rachel got across her look.
“Jeans and T-shirts,” Rath said. “She goes barefoot all she can. As a toddler, she was always yanking off her diapers, shrieking, naaay-kid. Lately, she seems fond of overalls.” He was talking too much.
“We have great jumpers,” Madeline said.
“I noticed,” Rath said, meaning the jumper on the mannequin, but as he was looking at Madeline and her jumper, she said thank you, and touched her fingers to the jumper’s strap, color rising from beneath her tanned cheeks.
“How’s this?” Madeline pulled a jumper off a rack with a flourish, spreading it on her open palm and smoothing it out with the other hand. “The straps with brass snaps and chest pocket hearken to overalls. And the wide wale is more youthful, a bit rogue.”
“I see,” he said. Though he didn’t see. His head pounded.
“If she doesn’t like it, she can return it. Or you can.”
“OK.”
“You’re easy,” Madeline said. “Wait at the counter.” She glanced at her watch.
He ambled to the counter as she dimmed the lighting to that of a romantic restaurant, then locked the door and flipped the sign in the window: CLOSED.
At the register, she folded the jumper precisely, wrapped it in tissue paper, and seated it in a box. “Would you like it gift-wrapped?” she asked.
“It’s no special occasion. Just. Because.”
“That’s a good dad,” she said. “I’ll wrap it. Just because.”
Rath handed her his credit card and driver’s license.
She considered them, looking up at his face from beneath eyelids like tulip petals, dusted with a faint purple eye shadow.
“The card’s good,” he said, nervous in the silent store. He’d not been alone in such close proximity to a striking woman in years. When he swallowed, the sound of it seemed as loud as a waterfall.