with old Leo, really. He was eternally just there, easy to count on and ready to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted to do it. Solid.
“What I find lacking,” Waylon said to the setting sun in its progress toward the other side of the world, rehearsing a line for Marsue, “is, I don’t know . . . .” He paused for effect for a moment and then delivered the rest of her statement. “An element of surprise. I need to be made to think that there’s a possibility of the new, the unexpected, in my life.” The brakelights on the car just ahead came on, and Waylon slowed in response.
“The unanticipated,” he went on, “the sudden, a, a. . . .” The car ahead sped up and began pulling away, and Waylon let the space between the vehicles grow wider.
“What I’m talking here, in a word, is strange prick,” he said, ending Marsue’s dialogue for her and pushing the Chevrolet on toward home.
When he arrived, three cars were in the driveway, his father’s two and a Toyota he didn’t recognize, and the lights were on in the house in every room he could see from the curb. Walking through the garage to take the styrofoam cooler to the backyard and empty the melted ice off the grouper, Waylon could see through the door to the kitchen that his father was working away at something on the counter.
“I’m home,” he yelled, “and I got something to show you.”
By the time he got the slurry of ice and bloody water emptied and the fish laid back down in the cooler, he could hear the high-pitched whine of a blender coming from the kitchen and he knew what was occupying Charlie McPhee’s attention on the counter. He’s really getting into the culinary, Waylon thought. Next thing he’ll be whipping up a full meal, including meat and vegetables, maybe even a beverage and silverware on the table.
Holding the cooler to one side to be sure none of the remaining water would drip through the widening crack at the bottom, Waylon opened the door to the kitchen and stepped inside. Charlie McPhee was pouring a creamy concoction from the blender into a glass next to one already filled nearly to the top.
“Want to see my surprise?’ Waylon said and then saw a silver-haired woman sitting poised on the edge of a kitchen chair as she watched with her lips slightly parted and her chin thrust forward to monitor Charlie’s operations with the blender.
“Do be careful, love,” she said, a thing Waylon’s mother had never called his father as far as he knew, but maybe it was just British and meant nothing. “We’ll want every drop.”
“You want to see mine?” Charlie said, setting the blender down and picking up the two glasses of pink froth and ice. “Waylon, this lady is Mrs. Hazel Boles, and Hazel, that good-looking young fellow in the door is my little boy.”
“Don’t say little,” Waylon said. “I’m still growing.”
“I do detect the resemblance,” the woman said, turning just her head toward Waylon and maintaining her posture otherwise. “He has the nose and something of you about the eyes and brow.”
“Why, hello, Mrs. Boles,” Waylon said. “I’d offer to shake hands, but I’ve got fish juice all over mine.”
“Is that fresh?” Charlie said, presenting Hazel with one of the glasses. “What kind is it?”
“Grouper,” Waylon said. “And like the TV ad says, it slept in the Gulf last night. In fact, it took a nap there this morning.”
“Where’d you get fresh grouper?” Charlie said, walking over to peer into the cooler. “Your ice box is busted on this near side.”
“At the getting place. I caught it,” Waylon said. “Twenty miles out from Sabine Pass on a charter boat. What’re you folks drinking?”
“Piña coladas,” Charlie said in a proud tone. “It’s a tropical drink I read about on a rum label. You make it in a blender.”
“I trust it’s not too strong,” Hazel said and lifted her glass for a sip at the drink. “To the contrary. There’s a lovely sweet taste to it.”
“The kind that’ll sneak up on you,” Waylon said and headed with the grouper for the sink. “Like a velvet hammer to the head.”
“Oh, I hope not,” Hazel said, taking a bigger sip which left a thin line of white across her upper lip. “I do always dread the settling up the morning after.”
Waylon found a relatively sharp knife in the drawer next to the sink and lifted the two fish out of the cooler and began looking for a cutting board. “See the eyes on this grouper, Dad,” he said and held up the larger of the two for inspection. “Clear as glass.”
“Is that a good sign, I hope?” Hazel asked and gestured toward Charlie with her free hand. “A serviette, please, love.”
“Means they’re fresh,” Charlie said and fetched two paper napkins from a cabinet to Hazel. “Cloudy eyes means they’re old.”
“Always a telltale sign,” Hazel said, dabbing at her lips with one of the napkins. “Fish, fowl, or human, I’m afraid. Do fix a drink for your son.”
“I’ll just have a beer later,” Waylon said, beginning to work on the first grouper. “I want to get these babies on the grill first.”
“Are we invited to dinner then?” Hazel asked, nearing the bottom of her second piña colada.
“Unless you and Dad have other plans,” Waylon said, slicing the first filet from the fish on the cutting board. “You certainly are.”
“We did,” his father said, “up to now. But hey, go with the flow.”
Waylon paused in the cut he was making just below the gill of the larger grouper and looked back over his shoulder toward Charlie McPhee who was pouring the last of the mixture from the blender into his and Hazel’s glasses.
“That was the very same philosophy of this grouper,” he said and turned back to widen his first cut. “It’s probably tattooed somewhere on him if you look close enough.”
Later around the table in the dining room, Charlie McPhee pointed out to Waylon how Hazel Boles used her knife and fork and explained that it was the English way to eat.
“See how she does?” he said. “Fork in her left hand, upside down, and knife in her right to push stuff onto the fork. Eat some of those peas and then a bite of grouper for him, Hazel.”
“Charlie, dear,” Hazel said after finishing the bite in her mouth, “eating one’s dinner is not supposed to be a demonstration.”
“I know, I know. I just think it’s real skillful the way you handle that fork upside down and backwards. I’ve tried, and I know it’s not a picnic. Not everybody can do it.”
“She’s right, Dad,” Waylon said. “Knowing somebody’s watching you do something’s real stressful. I’ll just keep looking at my own plate, but I’ll sneak a peek at Hazel when she’s not noticing.”
“You are the soul of courtesy, Waylon,” Hazel said and tapped the back of his hand with the tips of her fingers. The way the touch felt reminded Waylon of something, but he couldn’t figure out just what. A turkey feather, maybe, or the soft part of a cat’s paw?
“You’ve
