at the table. “Well, you know I do respect Pru’s judgment. On top of that, you don’t like animals. The man who gets tucked in by me has to be crazy about my pets, too.”
“Aw, ain’t nobody on earth ‘cept you could find those critters lovable, Frankie.”
With a shrug and a smile, she collected several longnecked beer bottles and added them to the empties on her tray. “They may not all be as pretty as Lassie or hold a conversation like Mr. Ed, but they’re better company than the two-legged critters I’ve gone out with. Stayed around longer, too,” she added with a wink. “Now except for Howie, who’s going to have coffee or else have his keys taken, what’ll it be, boys?”
A few requested a repeat of their last order, and she returned to the bar and called her list to Benny. As the owner of The Two-Step Club reached into the cooler for the beers, Frankie dropped the empty cans and bottles in their proper recycling drums.
When she’d started working here fourteen months ago, the routine was to toss everything into the industrial garbage receptacle out back. She convinced everyone to separate aluminum from glass. Once a week Benny loaded the barrels into her truck, and she took them to the recycling plant in the next town. Once a month the proceeds were split between owner and employees.
“Sure has been slow since those timber-company fellas moved up the road,” Benny muttered, adding a bourbon and water to her tray.
Frankie wrinkled her nose, as much for the cigarette-buttfilled ashtrays she dumped as for his observation. Just because her boss didn’t have people stacked three-deep at the bar, he acted as if he had one foot in bankruptcy court. For her part, she didn’t miss the timber people’s tips.
“Be glad they left while there are still some trees around,” she told him, thinking about the mess they’d left behind. She had to pass several of their so-called “cleared sites” on her way to and from work, and they more accurately resembled the aftereffects of a forest fire—or worse.
The skinny man’s sailor’s cap nearly fell off as he threw back his head and groaned to the ceiling. In the background the jukebox switched from a mournful country-andwestern ballad to a bawdy rock-and-roll tune. “Could we skip the environmentalist lecture for once?” He had to all but shout to be heard above the pulsating music. “You wouldn’t have so much time to stand on a soapbox if you got yourself a life!”
His declaration was nothing new, but it still didn’t bother her. “I have a life.”
“You live m an aluminum hot-dog wrapper, you collect garbage, and you commune with terrorist reptiles, rude birds, and neurotic flea-breeding strays.”
She eyed him mildly. “To each his own. Do I criticize your customers?”
“Never you mind them. They pay my taxes. What you’re doing isn’t normal. Look at you. You’re young, kinda cute in a short sort of way.”
“How many times do I have to tell you that five-five isn’t short, it’s average.”
“Sure, sure, and to a penguin you’re a giant. Well, you’d be five-six if you didn’t have that mop weighing you down.”
As he added the mug of draft beer to the rest, Frankie blew her thick, shaggy bangs out of her eyes, and gave him a benign look. “Now don’t let your insecurities get the best of you. I heard all about your disorder on one of those talk shows last week.”
“I have a disorder?”
With tongue in cheek, she swept up her tray. “In a manner of speaking. You’re one of those people who find the easiest way to ignore your own shortcomings is to point out someone else’s.”
“Who gets to ignore ‘em? Me? Ha!” The retired chief petty officer’s finger shook as he pointed at her. “I have news for you, Miss Mouth. Estelle keeps a list of my shortcomings on the refrigerator! Disorder, nothing. You’re looking at a persecuted man.”
With a playful “Aw,” Frankie left to deliver the drinks. She performed an abbreviated rendition of the Lambada to maneuver between the tables, secretly admitting to herself that she really didn’t mind Benny’s nagging. In fact she’d now been in Slocum Springs longer than she’d stayed anywhere since inheriting the Silver Duck from her grandfather five years ago. If Benny had been anything less than a sweetheart, she would have been long gone by now.
Nevertheless, his comments did linger in her mind, and it was what she was thinking about as she left the club an hour later. While driving home she concluded that regardless of how patiently she’d tried, she hadn’t yet succeeded in making people appreciate, or at least respect, her philosophy of life.
“Tough cookies,” she announced, tired of the subject.
She was twenty-seven years old, for pity’s sake. If her ideas didn’t come close to what the rest of the world practiced—
“Aaah!”
She hit the brakes, and hoped Petunia had enough left in her to respond. In the last second, she closed her eyes, convinced she was about to flatten the naked man standing in the middle of the road with her ancient truck.
Either the purple pickup’s brakes were in better shape than she’d believed, or she owed her guardian angel another debt of gratitude. In any case, Petunia squealed to a halt—inches away from the streaker.
Frankie stared at him. He blinked back at her.
“Well, now…what do we have here?”
This couldn’t be an April Fools’ prank, because it was months late. It couldn’t be a Halloween prank because it was months too early. The guy wasn’t wearing some sort of a costume, either; he was honestly naked—save for the handful of cottonwood and oak leaves he held unsteadily in front of his privates.
“Glory be.” This wasn’t some joke one of her mischievous customers had decided to pull on her. A person would deserve an Academy Award to fake that look of shock and fear.
Oh, yes, he was real, and that kept her from bursting into relieved, giddy laughter. Still, he did look funny in a bizarre, incredible sort of way. And how ironic that on the very evening Benny had lectured her again about her love life, she should get this dubious… offering.
As he hesitantly rounded to her side of the car, she rolled down her window. “Um…Adam, I presume?”
“You know me?”
Oh, brother. Maybe you jumped to one too many conclusions, Jonesy.
“That was a joke,” she told him. When he made no response, she decided he might simply be slow. “The leaves and all?” She gestured to his minute ensemble.
His blue eyes remained blank. “Can you help me?”
“I really don’t think-”
It was as he began looking around that she had a clear view of the other side of his face and spotted the blood streaking down his right temple. With a gasp, Frankie downshifted and secured her emergency brake. Careful not to knock him off-balance, she nudged him out of the way with her door, and eased out of the truck. Now that she was closer, she could see that he was shaking like a paint mixing machine, which left him none too steady on his feet.
“Holy
