Holly pulled the sticky notice off her front door. A package was waiting for her at the post office. She put the note in her purse and headed into town to retrieve it. As she walked through town, she noted the wedding and dress shop, the dollar store, hardware and feed, photography studio, H&R Block, all of them in and among the boarded up store fronts.
A grizzly, elderly gentleman sat on a bench just off the square. She caught an inkling of something familiar about him, the way he held his cigarette, old-fashioned style, with his hand cupped and the butt cradled between his thumb and forefinger. People only did that in the movies, she thought. Curiosity getting the better of her, she decided that bench would be a good place to have a smoke as well.
Instinctively, she checked her enormous purse. She knew her pistol was there, but double-checking was always good policy. She slid the straps back up onto her shoulder.
The man’s arms were extended along the back of the bench, as if claiming his territory. His legs formed a wide V, cowboy boots pointed upwards like sentries guarding the entrance to his space.
She saw him regard her as she approached, as if a movie camera was recording the scene.
“Mind if I join you?” She stood in front of the man, about two yards away, her head cocked to the side. She reached into her purse, shoving he pistol aside, and slid a cigarette out from the pack.
“It’s a free country.”
His eyes and his head moved slightly, but the rest of his upper body remained as posed as a statue. The sonorous voice also stirred something familiar in Holly, but it was too deep in memory to be discoverable.
Free country. Yeah, that’s what we’re supposed to think. She sat down. He retracted his arm slightly.
“Freer than any other country. How about that?”
“If you say so.”
The man crossed his legs, in that feminine way, Holly thought. His dangling foot jimmied back and forth so fast that it had to be more than a nervous tic. The onset of Parkinson’s, perhaps. He was on in years.
“Damn sight freer for a lady who is looking like you.”
Holly lit up, drew long and deep, gazed at the cloudless sky, cloudless in the sense the sky was one big bank of low, unbroken fog, the kind that might block the sunshine the entire day.
“I don’t mean to pick a fight so early in our acquaintance. We’ve barely said hello, but what makes you think looks has anything to do with anything? There’s nothing free about my part of this country. I’ve been paying every dime of my freight since I was little.”
He remained rock still except for his leg. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, lady. But what’s one to say when a lady looks like you walks up and starts yapping?”
“How about ‘hello’?” After a moment of silence, she added, “Humidity makes cigarettes taste better, don’t you think?” The man shrugged and rested a hand on his belly, rubbing it slightly as if he’d just finished a big meal.
“You live around here, or happen to like this bench?” Holly asked.
The man ignored her.
She blew perfectly formed smoke rings at a diagonal past the man and towards a burly tree, then admired them as they drifted and dissipated.
He cut his eyes over to her, like her blowing smoke rings was an act of provocation.
“I drop my wife off at the super Walmart out by the highway. I come here to walk around and sit. We do this on Saturday mornings.”
“Seems like a good routine.”
“More necessary than routine, I think. Our second car crapped out. We could not afford to replace it. I hate this American pastime called shopping. Not many places to smoke anymore, either. My wife, she’s not a smoker.”
“I’m with you. Hating to shop, I mean.”
They both paused to inhale.
“So, you a victim of this recession too?” she asked. “In some ways, I suppose. Who isn’t?”
“Oh, let’s see … bankers on Wall Street, members of Congress, government employees—”
“What about you?”
She wanted to be careful what she divulged to him. “I’m on my way to buy a few things at Saleem’s, then to the post office.” She jerked her thumb towards the square.
The man became animated. “Ayatollas in there, they’ll rob you blind.”
How long had it been since she’d heard that word, Ayatollah? Maybe back in high school, during the hostage crisis in Iran. She uncrossed her legs and stretched out in an effort to prevent the flush rising up her neck and spreading across her face. Turning towards the man, she asked, “What is an Ayatollah anyway?” the edge to her voice evident. The man seemed not to notice, or didn’t care.
“Don’t know. Something … someone I don’t like. A religious nut who hates Americans maybe?”
Holly continued to stare at the man, but his expression didn’t change. She fought the disgust rising within her as she looked at him. The squares of his dark flannel shirt, dull and faded along the edges of each square reminded her of photographs of rural America taken from an airplane, one gigantic checkerboard. And like his shirt, she assumed the man’s dislike of anyone different than him was dulled by his ignorance.
“You seem familiar, you know,” she said.
“You live long enough, lots of people look familiar.”
The old codger was really beginning to irritate Holly. “No, really, I have a good memory for faces. I just can’t place yours right now. But I will.”
With that, the man raised up and threw the stub of his cigarette under the heel of his boot, ground it out, and immediately lit up another. Figures, she thought. Non-filtered. Just like his ignorant assumptions. The man began to fidget, which pleased Holly. She’d made him uncomfortable, too. As she continued to stare at the side of his face, he grew more nervous.
“We do have something in common,” she said and watched the man sit up, pull at his shirt sleeves, and brush his hair back with his hand several times. Finally, he looked at her and stared for a long minute. Holly refused to break eye contact. Slowly, a grin spread over her face. “We both like to sit on a town bench and smoke.”
The man didn’t smile, but the relief on his face was evident.
Satisfied, Holly stood up and snuffed out her cigarette. “Well, mister, enjoy another day in paradise,” she said, then bent down and picked up the butt, and dropped it in the trashcan next to her. Then she pointed at the butt the man had left on the ground. “It’s hard enough for the people of this fair city to maintain what it has without littering, too.”
The man flicked the butt of his current cigarette on the ground, as if to defy what she said about littering, all the while not taking his eyes off her. “Have a nice day, pretty little woman.”
Men. This one wasn’t any better or worse than a million others who‘d misjudged her because of her looks. Yes, she knew there’d been a time when she’d given them plenty of reasons to misjudge her, but she wasn’t that person anymore. Probably had never been that person. God, she needed the sanity of a visit with Penndel. Maybe she’d hop in the car and head to St. Louis and surprise him. She checked her watch and headed toward through the park and toward the post office without a backward glance.
As she approached the front of the building, she admired its manicured lawn, a lush square around the flagpole, the US flag flapping in the slight breeze. It was a nice contrast to the deteriorated nature of the rest of the town square.
Inside, she handed the notice to the man at the counter.
“You got a truck?”
“Mustang,” she replied.
“Package won’t fit. Too big.”
“Can you tell me who it’s from?”
He disappeared into a back room and soon reappeared. “Maya Hammond.”
She froze. What could Maya Hammond possibly have sent her? “You okay, lady?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes, I’m okay. Just … never mind.”
“Because you went all pale there for a minute.”
“No. I’m fine. Listen, I don’t live far, do you think I could borrow a hand truck or something to get these to my place?”
The clerk looked around then leaned forward. “Okay. But don’t advertise it. Come around back, and I’ll have the package bungeed on the cart for you.”
It turned out that the package wasn’t heavy, just awkward in shape. She man-handled it through her front door, walked the hand truck back, and slipped the guy a ten spot. She hurried back home and grabbed a kitchen knife. Before she opened the box, it dawned on her. Maya’s paintings! Eight of them, it turned out, unframed, canvasses attached to light wood plank backing.
Attached to one painting at the bottom was a note:
Merry Christmas, Cheryl (I mean Holly). I don’t have room for these any longer. And since you are the only one who ever expressed any interest in them, I want you to have them. I hope you like the ones based on picnic scenes I remember with you and your father.
Holly flipped through the paintings. Nothing reminded her of her father’s picnics.