behind her and began to add up their bills. “Nah, I’ll be working all day.”
“Do they pay you overtime for that?”
“Yeah, they are...in a way. I get all of Saturday and Sunday off.”
“Going out with your boyfriend?”
She smiled again, anticipating the direction of the conversation.
“Nah. I broke up with him after Christmas.”
“Then maybe you could go out with me…or my friend here,”
Taylor continued.
Scotty glowed.
“That depends,” she said, ignoring Scotty. “What did you have in mind?”
“How about a movie?”
“What kinda movie?”
“A bad movie.”
She laughed. “I’m not seeing no bad movies!”
“Bad movies are best.”
“Oh yeah? How come?”
“If it’s a bad movie, you won’t mind me distracting you through the best parts.” He beamed at her.
“I don’t think so.” She tore his bill from her pad and put it on the table in front of him.
Taylor picked up the bill and reached for some money. “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at seven. Here or at your house?”
She leaned towards him, whispering softly. “Here. Wait out front.”
“That’s the spirit.” He winked and slid out of the booth, Scotty following his lead.
Outside, Scotty walked slowly, chewing his nail, thinking. “That was smooth,” he said. “But how the hell did you do that?”
“You just have to be confident,” Taylor said and waited for Scotty to get in the car and unlock the passenger door.
“I have bad luck with women,” Scotty said as Taylor slid into his seat.“Besides, I don’t get to meet too many good-looking women once the summer starts up. There’s the waitress there, but she likes you.
There’s Voracci’s wife, and he’s got her. And there’s the Mennonite girls at the winery, but I’d have to go to church…”
“Ever meet his wife?” Taylor asked.
“Whose wife?”
“Voracci’s wife. What’s she like?”
“Ginny?” he said. “She’s pretty. Not a model. Younger than you, older than me, I’d say. Nice tits. Nice legs.”
Taylor forced a smile at Scotty’s attempt to describe her.
“Brown hair. Big brown eyes,” Scotty continued. “Canadian, not Italian. She wears dresses and jeans, I guess. She never comes out.
When she comes out, she never goes far, ’less Voracci’s with her.”
“But have you seen her lately?” Taylor asked.
Scotty shook his head. “Nope. She won’t talk to the workers either. She comes out for the company picnic every July. Other than that she stays in the house. I think she travels a lot too. She’s nice to look at, but I heard she’s really stuck up. A real bitch.”
“No kidding,” said Taylor. “That shouldn’t surprise me.”
“Me neither. The pretty ones usually are.”
“That’s one hell of an attitude,” said Taylor. “I can’t imagine why you’re on your own.”
Scotty shrugged and made the car thunder down the darkened highway.
“You should go into town more often,” Taylor shouted over the wind. “Or go to the beach. There are lots of girls there.”
“Yeah, right. Those girls aren’t interested in anyone like us.
They’re looking for college guys.”
“I’m serious. Just shave, get a haircut, and you won’t have a problem at all.”
“That your secret, Taylor?”
Taylor shrugged. “I guess.”
“Then why don’t you shave?” Scotty laughed. It had been a joke.
As a reflex, Taylor touched his chin. He was surprised when his fingers felt three or four day’s growth on his face. “Guess that’s not my secret.”
“So how did you know?”
“What?”
“That she wanted to go out with you when she said she didn’t.”
Taylor laughed and flashed Scotty the bill. On the top, she had written: “You’re bad!” and included her phone number.
Scotty dropped his head and shoulders in surrender. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Taylor laughed, and crumpling the piece of paper, let it stream out the window and into the night.
“You bastard,” laughed Scotty. “I’d have called!”
“She didn’t give it to you.”
“So you should call!” Scotty shouted.
“Why?” asked Taylor. “I know where she works. She’s at Beck’s more than she’s home anyway.”
“Still...” Scotty began until “Highway to Hell” came on the radio, and he lost his train of thought.
“We go back to work in eight hours,” said Taylor. “Just get me home.”
Randy Caines was not a drinker of coffee. He liked tea—black and sweet. As he pressed the back of a spoon against a bloated teabag, he watched with pointed attention as the dark brown fluid leeched into the stained saucer. He squeezed honey, thick and yellow, generously into his cup as he stirred it around. Then, as his thick fingers held the cord of the dangling teabag, he lifted the saucer, tipped it, and watched the bitter remains drizzle into his cup.
Caines ran his portion of the Tanglewood empire from an old steel school-teacher’s desk in the corner of the shipping platform, just outside Michael Voracci’s private office.
His desk was covered with scattered papers, crumpled Kleenex, invoices, shipping documents and a couple of twenty-year-old copies of Swank and Hustler magazines. In the centre of this were
