charging you for every one of those you order.” John jabbed his finger at the half drunk rum and coke, one of a steady stream she’d been gulping since she arrived. Nattie had been working the room, returning sporadically to John for more drinks and questions, but she’d finally settled herself at the bar and seemed to have turned her focus on John, her grand finale to the interviews, he supposed.
“Don’t tell me you’re sad Darrel’s shop went up in flames,” Nattie said.
“It’s the third time you’ve asked me the same questions in as many hours,” he said. And the first time she’d been in the pub since they’d broken off their relationship several months ago. John had given Natalie her nickname, for the way she constantly buzzed around people, not quite irritating enough for bug repellent, too springy to be swatted. But that was back when he hadn’t wanted to squash her like the pest she was. Back when he’d known no better than to assume Nattie’s loving was the best he’d get. Before he’d met Darrel.
“You want a different question?” Nattie asked. John shook his head, but she pressed on. “Because I’m not stopping until I have something to print.”
“I’ll give you something to print,” said Miss CeeCee, pushing her saggy-skinned elbow against Nattie, two drinks over her usual order and no lipstick left to smudge the rims of her Bloody Marys. “You can quote me: the blight is burned to cinders! Peace downtown is restored.”
Miss CeeCee was right, John supposed. With Darrel’s shop gone, downtown would again be virtually indistinguishable from any other old small-town downtown in North Carolina, dotted with quiet brick storefronts selling the same quaint souvenirs and necessary wares, cars parallel parked on the gray, cracking pavement.
Miss CeeCee, head of the women’s club and leader of historical preservation initiatives, had a past crammed full of contention, way back to her bra-burning days. She was always rallying against something. When Darrel’s store opened, she organized a letter-writing campaign to the state legislators and newspaper. But John had seen her sneak into Darrel’s store at least twice, furtively emerging with new bulges in her handbag.
“Do you think it can be salvaged?” Nattie asked Miss CeeCee. “The building, not the business.”
“Why would anyone want to?” Miss CeeCee waved her age-spotted fingers so close to Nattie’s face the reporter leaned back. “Didn’t match the rest of the storefronts, and just look at it now.”
John glanced out his big front window, across Main Street to the soot-stained cinderblocks of the squat building. A hole in the roof gaped as wide as the storefront’s bay window—now shattered, revealing a blackened interior that used to be filled with intriguing merchandise. John, like Darrel and a few other downtown shop owners, lived in the same building as his business. Except John’s living quarters were above his pub, and Darrel’s, a room behind his store.
“We’re finally free of that pustule!” Miss CeeCee said. “The eyesore building is now utterly impossible to save.”
“With Christ, anything is possible,” Pastor Clyde said, rearranging his lanky body on a stool on Nattie’s other side. His gangly limbs elongated in the striped shirt and black slacks, Pastor Clyde reminded John of a heron—awkward curves and unexpected bends.
Pastor Clyde had entered the pub earlier with a “Hallelujah!” that echoed off the aged brick walls. His church was within view just up the street, the white steeple scraping the boundless blue sky. After The Pleasure Chest opened, Pastor Clyde frequented John’s pub, scouting for souls drifting into temptation. He’d even organized picketers on Sunday afternoons to march in front of the store. A protest without teeth, since the downtown stores all closed on Sundays.
“Christ,” Miss CeeCee said. “Christ wouldn’t be interested in resurrecting that store. He’d have it burn in hell, along with its owner.”
John shook his head, but only Nattie noticed the gesture. Her eyes sparked—she’d found what she sought, a weakness to probe.
“Any comments, John?” she asked, too sweetly.
John hadn’t been the focus of Nattie’s professional buzzing before, and he didn’t like it now, but he knew any response would only fuel her interrogation. That was Nattie. If she smelled the slightest hint of scandal, she seized it and twisted. And when she published her article, she made sure the controversy mushroomed into such an uproar the entire town couldn’t talk about anything else for another week, until the next edition.
Pastor Clyde clasped his hands and looked up, as if seeing beyond the plaster ceiling to heaven’s gates. “I pray a wholesome store is built upon a solid rock in its place.”
John knew Pastor Clyde’s picketers. Most carried sins more damning than any they protested. But their sins—theft, physical abuse, substance addiction—were more easily hidden than Darrel’s wares. What Pastor Clyde claimed to be wicked indulgences invented by the devil himself, Darrel displayed before all the town. But John didn’t understand how sexual stimulants were immoral, especially if shared between husband and wife. The Bible didn’t forbid handcuffs or edible lingerie.
“Do I hear an Amen?” Pastor Clyde asked.
“Amen,” said Jennifer, swigging from her beer bottle. She climbed onto a bar stool next to Pastor Clyde, strands of her loose long brown hair swinging forward and sticking to moisture on the bar counter.
Jennifer owned Sweet Scoops, the ice cream store next door to The Pleasure Chest. For her, John knew, the timing of this fire was ideal. This time last spring customers had crowded Jennifer’s shop, overflowing to the sidewalk benches outside. But families hadn’t been visiting as much since Darrel’s shop opened. Jennifer set her bottle down with force, her hair still caught on the countertop. “Maybe my customers will return, now they don’t have to take their kids past a window with a light-up doo-hicky writhing around like a finger without a hand. Cheers.” She grabbed her beer again and clinked it against Pastor Clyde’s bottle of old-fashioned orange soda.
“Was your store damaged?” Nattie asked.
“Nope.”
“That’s a blessing,” Pastor Clyde said. He looked at John. “I’ll have one more, as it’s a special day.”
John popped open another orange soda and slid it across the countertop.
“Me, too,” Nattie said. “And give me a quote. Tell me what you first saw when you looked out your window at the fire.”
“Flames,” John said, though he remembered something—someone—else, a silhouette moving in the shadows beside the building.
“The question is,” Miss CeeCee said, “who had the balls to do it?” She looked around the pub. “They say an arsonist returns to the scene of the crime to admire his handiwork. I bet the arsonist is here among us.”
John agreed with Miss CeeCee. The arsonist probably sat here in his pub, drinking and smiling and proclaiming satisfaction. No more blow-up dolls mocking the town, no more mannequins in lace tatters causing fender benders, no more “What’s that, mommy?” from children as parents hurried past the window display. John felt a sudden, sharp pang above his ear—the beginnings of a migraine.
“Jo-ohn,” Nattie said, singsong. “Hel-lo-oh.”
John frowned. He wanted to tell Nattie
