Thistle Down

Six

DICK CHECKED THE CALLER ID before answering his phone on the second ring while he sipped cold lemonade in the kitchen. A foreign code preceded the long line of numbers.

“Hi, Mom,” he said brightly.

“How did you know it was me, sweetie?” Mom’s breathy voice came clearly over the thousands of miles of cell phone signals.

“Caller ID, Mom. What’s up?” As if he didn’t know.

“Oh, just checking up on you kids. What’s Dusty doing? Did she get a call from my college roommate’s son?”

“Actually, Mom, we’re going on a double date tonight.” Dick bit his lip, hoping his all-too-perceptive mother wouldn’t catch the lie.

“Why, that’s wonderful, Dick. I hope she likes Ted Summerfield.”

Nothing about Dick; all she ever asked about was his reclusive sister as if she were still a teenager, just venturing back into reality after chemo-induced isolation. Heavy sadness settled on his shoulders. He wondered briefly if maybe Dusty truly was only an adolescent emotionally. She’d never grown beyond the restricted life appropriate to a twelve year old.

“Dusty and I are meeting Chase and a new girl at the Old Mill tonight. Just pizza and beer and maybe some dancing. We’ll be home early. I haven’t heard anything about a Ted Summerfield.”

“Oh, well. I guess he hasn’t had a chance to call her yet. I trust Chase. You keep an eye on your sister, though. Make sure she orders the vegetarian pizza with whole wheat crust and organic soy cheese…”

“Yes, Mom.” The Dusty special, the cooks called it. He scratched his fingernails over the receiver. “Um, Mom, I’m losing you. Cell phones, you know. They aren’t really reliable over this kind of distance.” Though he could hear her perfectly well, and he ran his business entirely from his phone.

“Of course, dear. Just needed to check on you and Dusty. We are having a wonderful time. Saw two plays yesterday. I’ll send a postcard.” She spoke over-loud, spitting her consonants as if she recited lines from a stage without microphones. “See you in three weeks. Bye, sweetie.” She made kissy noises and rang off.

Dick closed the phone and rested his forehead against the long farm kitchen table. Nothing ever changed. Dusty was still Mom’s sick baby, and he was her wayward son charged with his sister’s care.

What did he have to do to make a life of his own? Mentally, he added up his savings account and investments. Next month, he’d have enough money for a down payment on his own house. Moving back home for the summer had helped a lot. He’d wasted a lot of money these last five years on rent and expensive but insignificant dates.

He’d buy a house and move into it just as soon as his parents returned from England. There were a lot of good buys out there now with foreclosures and short sales. He couldn’t leave Dusty alone before then.

That new house would be awfully empty without someone to share it with. He closed his eyes trying to picture his ideal house and roommate. Thistle was the only one he could think of.

“Too bad Joe couldn’t make it tonight,” Thistle said blithely to Dick and Dusty as they entered the Old Mill Bar and Grill. She scuffed her new leather sandals through the sawdust and peanut shells littering the floor.

Dick preened a bit at how well he’d chosen clothing for her. He’d taken his time, compared prices and quality, looking for just the right color combinations and simple styles he thought a Pixie might wear. All the while he stayed pretty close to the budget Dusty had given him. He’d hardly made a dent in his checking account.

“No Pixie would ever let her den get so dirty. Doesn’t anyone ever sweep this place?” Thistle wrinkled her elegantly narrow nose at the smells of spilled beer, salty peanuts, and too many people packed together.

“That’s called ambiance,” Dick replied for his sister. “Joe’s a nice guy, but he’d be a fifth wheel tonight.” He held the swinging door open for his sister and her friend. His friend, too, he hoped. Damn, she smelled good. Nothing like lavender soap and shampoo to set his senses ringing.

“Actually the sawdust hearkens back to the days when the saloons had dirt floors,” Dusty said. She looked more confident talking about history than approaching a crowd of strangers. “The earth was dampened and packed as solid as baked clay. The sawdust helped absorb spills-especially blood from bar fights.”

Thistle’s eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Do you want to go home, Dusty?” Dick asked softly.

“No, she does not!” Thistle insisted. “I spent almost an hour getting her ready and persuading you to bring us.” She grabbed Dusty’s arm and nearly dragged her into the dim bar.

Dick opened his mouth to protest. Thistle shot him a glance that froze the words in his throat. They felt like a solid and jagged lump pressing against his voice box. He couldn’t breathe around it.

He coughed and coughed again, trying to dislodge it.

Thistle slapped his back in a time-honored attempt to free him of the spasm.

“Are you okay?” She sounded genuinely concerned.

He forgot any kind of protest in the warmth of her concern. And the obstruction dissolved.

“Chase is already here,” Dusty said. She pressed backward against the wall beside the bar, observing the crowd.

“Good. He’ll have ordered beer,” Dick said, his voice still a little wobbly.

“And so is Phelma Jo.” Dusty turned to leave.

Thistle blocked her exit. “If you leave, she wins.”

“She always wins.”

“She doesn’t have to.” Thistle put one hand against Dusty’s back and the other in the crook of Dick’s elbow and marched them both over to where Chase had claimed a large table at the edge of the dance floor. His pale blond hair reflected the light from an overhead chandelier made of deer antlers and bulbs shaped like candle flames.

As they moved toward him, the noise from the jukebox playing country tunes, the clack of pool balls hitting each other, and dozens of people trying to talk over each other slammed into Dick like a wall. Off to the left, Judge John Pepperidge presided at a large round table with a birthday cake in the center. Judge Johnny’s oldest nephew blew out the twenty-one candles. Then the chant was begun by the bartender, and was picked up and echoed by every patron: “No ties, no ties. No ties.”

The nephew looked up, a little perplexed. Judge Johnny took the opportunity to produce a pair of large shears from the shadows beneath the table. With one deft movement he cut the young man’s tie off just above the knot and brandished it above his head like a trophy. The crowd burst into a round of applause. The bartender came out from behind his barrier, bowed to the birthday boy, took the severed tie from the judge’s hands and promptly nailed it to the wall behind them, one of hundreds.

Tommy Ledbetter, otherwise known as “Digger” snapped photos of the whole proceedings.

Thistle cast him a puzzled look. “A rite of passage,” Dick explained.

“Oh. Oh!” Her eyes lit with understanding and mischief.

“We have something similar in Pixie, the younglings have to prove their ability to fly the full length of the waterfall from bottom to top before they are considered adults and ready to mate.”

He burned with jealousy at the idea of her mating with anyone else, human or Pixie.

At that moment he realized that he had never doubted her story. Thistle was a Pixie stripped of her wings. She was the girl he’d fallen in love with when he was fourteen, the girl he’d held as a standard that no other woman could measure up to.

And she had to return to Pixie.

Chase noticed Phelma Jo showing off her new boyfriend as they made the circuit of the room. Where had she found him? Not locally. Chase made of point of recognizing faces around town. Part of his job. With the downturn in the economy, fewer people moved here from Portland, thirty miles north. Newcomers were rare. And he should recognize his contemporaries who’d moved back to town to live with their parents.

So where had this guy come from? Maybe Phelma Jo bought him for the night. Something about the too ready smile and too white teeth of the stranger made the fine hairs on Chase’s nape stand straight up.

Phelma Jo and her escort stopped to exchange greetings with Big Mike, the mechanic who owned the car care center at the south end of Main St, and Jim Butler, his landlord, before they wandered into the back room. Mike and Jim shook hands, sealing some kind of deal. Digger snapped a photo of that, too. Neither one would be able to renege on whatever they agreed upon tonight. That’s how business got done in this town.

Not parading a trophy boy around the bar.

Chase couldn’t see PJ and her newest acquisition from his vantage point. He’d chosen this table because he could see the entire room from here. But not the back room. Not much ever happened back there. Three pool tables filled most of the available space. Players barely had room between them to maneuver their cues without putting out the eye of an opponent or clonking a neighbor in the back of the head.

Thinking only of gaining a line of sight into the room, Chase grabbed Dusty’s hand before she could completely settle in the chair next to him. “Let’s dance,” he ordered and set her on her feet with his hands on her waist.

“But… but…”

The jukebox thundered out a quick two-step. He raised his right knee and began clomping around. He whipped his head about, making sure he circled the dance floor. Just as he got the back room in full view, Phelma Jo and her trophy emerged and took seats on the opposite side of the dance floor from the table Chase had claimed. The stranger seemed to steer Phelma Jo on a broad circuit so that they never came close to the table where Dick and Thistle sat.

With a quick shift of direction that left him half dizzy, and Dusty stumbling in his arms, Chase side-stepped back the way they’d come.

Right in front of Phelma Jo, he twirled Dusty under his arm and reclaimed her just as the music tweetered to a halt.

Not knowing what else to do, he looked down at Dusty.

“That was-exhilarating,” she said somewhat breathlessly.

“Yeah.” A smile crept up on his face. “Want to go again?”

The next tune turned into a lovelorn ballad set to a waltz. Waltzes were good. Easy to dance to. A good excuse to draw his partner close within the circle of his arms.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Dick and that Thistle woman flitting about the floor. Dick guided her masterfully through the dance. She glided gracefully but didn’t seem to actually follow his steps.

“I didn’t know Dick could dance,” he muttered.

“Mom taught us both the basics when we were in grade school,” Dusty said. Her gaze caught the graceful couple and stayed there. “No proper and polite education is complete without ballroom dancing.”

Chase made a mental note to run a full background check on Thistle Down. He had her fingerprints. The rest should be easy.

“I’d like to dance,” Phelma Jo said quietly to her escort.

“Sorry. I don’t dance,” he replied.

“You’re my assistant now. I like to dance. I suggest you learn. Quick.”

“Trouble in paradise already,” Chase muttered. He had a clue to the man’s identity. He could mine the gossip mill tomorrow. Then he whisked Dusty across the floor.

He took a moment to look at her, feel the warmth of her back where he held her, appreciate the slight flush on her upturned face. Her eyes shone with an excitement he hadn’t seen there for a long time. Not since she got sick.

He wanted to see that glow of happiness more often. He wanted to be the one to help her grow into her self-confidence so she could look beyond her fears.