Chapter 7
The aroma of bacon drifting down the short hallway and into her bedroom awoke Clara the next morning. She inhaled several times before she opened her eyes to be sure that she wasn’t dreaming. She threw back the covers and padded barefoot to the kitchen.
Bernie handed her a mug of steaming-hot coffee and motioned toward the table. “Want your eggs fried or scrambled?”
“Scrambled is good,” Clara said. “You didn’t have to make breakfast for me. What can I do to help?”
Bernie cracked half a dozen eggs into a bowl.
“It don’t take any more time to cook for two than for one.
Besides, I had an ulterior motive. I wanted you to wake up and go with me to Duncan today, and I figured the aroma of coffee and bacon would wake you up.
You can help by staying out of my way. Sit down and have a few sips of coffee to get your eyes open. ”
“So, you are serious about looking at a trailer today?”
“I am. The folks that have the place told me that it belonged to their parents who seldom used it. The old folks are in a nursing home now, and they are cleaning out the house and garage. It should be in good shape and will be cheaper than buying a brand-new one.”
Clara obeyed Bernie’s order and sat down at the table.
She usually just had a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast for breakfast. A full meal was a luxury that she couldn’t afford except on payday, when she treated herself to the special at a local diner—two eggs, two pieces of bacon, and a biscuit with gravy.
“All you had to do was knock on my door, or even yell my name down the hall, and I would have been here as fast as I could get awake.”
“You would have been in a horrible mood all day if I disturbed a sexy dream about Nash.” Bernie chuckled. “But if you woke up from a dream that he was making you breakfast after a night of wild passionate sex, that would put a smile on your face and make you subconsciously happy all day.”
“How did you get so smart?” Clara wasn’t about to admit that she had been dreaming about Nash.
She was still in shock that her aunt took her in so quickly, gave her a job, and seemed glad to have her live in the same apartment, but some things were personal and best kept hidden away close to the vest, so to speak.
Bernie loaded two plates, brought them to the table, and took a seat across the table from Clara.
“I don’t consider myself smart. I got through high school by the skin of my teeth.
If I have any intelligence at it, I got it by tending bar since long before you were born.
If you listen to people’s problems and stories that long, you’ll be able to read folks, too. ”
Clara picked up her fork and tried to concentrate on her food, but it didn’t work.
She kept mulling over what Bernie had said about Nash taking over her dreams. Did Bernie have the magical ability to walk right into Clara’s fantasies about a man that she could never have?
A shut bedroom door meant that someone should at least knock—even in a dream.
“When you worked with Kent, what was your…” Bernie took a sip of coffee and frowned. “I’m trying to think of what you kids say today, but it’s not coming to my mind.”
“Job description?” Clara offered.
Bernie snapped her fingers. “That’s it. What was the actual thing that you did?”
“I sat in a cubicle all day and input data, or information, into a computer,” she answered.
“Kent had, and still has, a small office where he talks to prospective clients about oil well products that the company sells. When the pandemic hit, I worked from home for a while. Those were some miserable days for sure, having to spend twenty-four seven with Kent in the same room. Then when everyone went back to the office, the company had taken a hit and had to downsize. I got a pink slip and went to work at the bar.”
“Where were you happiest?” Bernie asked.
Clara took a moment to try to figure out why her great-aunt was asking so many questions.
Was she merely making conversation, or did she have an agenda?
“I hated that cubicle so much that some mornings I actually had chest pains on the way to work, and then being homebound with Kent was even worse.”
“And when you had to leave the house to go to the bar where you worked?” Bernie asked.
“Kent got home about fifteen minutes before I left,” Clara answered.
“What does that have to do with…” Bernie started.
Clara interrupted before she could finish. “I realized this very moment that I looked forward to leaving the apartment every evening to escape being around him. By the time I got home after three most mornings, he was asleep. I usually sacked out on the sofa to keep from waking him.”
“Okay, then, but what has that got to do with how you felt when you were at the bar?” Bernie asked.
“I was very happy at the bar and around lots of people. I actually got claustrophobic in that cubicle. Then when we worked from home, I prayed that we could go back to the office so I could at least have a little distance from him,” Clara admitted.
“I wasn’t sure if it was because I wasn’t working near Kent where he could watch my every movement and criticize me if I even spoke to a male coworker, or that I wasn’t shoved into a cubicle, or if it was that he stayed on me constantly to produce more work when we were working from home. ”
Bernie finished off her food and took her plate to the sink. “That means you are a people person, and the bar was a perfect fit for you. Too bad the place in Amarillo went out of business, but I’m glad that door closed so that the one to my place could open for you.”
“Thank you, Aunt Bernie,” Clara said. “That means a lot to me. And thanks for making me realize what makes me happy.”
“Once you figure that out, it don’t matter if you dig ditches or are the president of the USA. You are a success, because your job makes you happy,” Bernie told her. “Finish up your breakfast and get dressed. We’re burnin’ daylight,” she said, chuckling.
“Granny says that when she wants us to hustle,” Clara said.
“It comes from an old John Wayne movie called The Cowboys.” Bernie smiled. “Watching that was one of the few good memories I have of me and Hershal. We have to cherish those times.”
“Amen to that, because there aren’t many of them,” Clara agreed.
***
Not even a wispy white cloud had taken up residence in the clear blue sky when Bernie and Clara started out for Duncan.
When they first drove away from the parking lot, Pepper had been all excited and looking out the side window, but by the time they reached the end of town, he had curled up in Clara’s lap with a paw over his nose.
Bernie had wanted to know if Clara was in the bartending business as a stopover to something better, or if she was truly happiest when she was in the middle of people.
She really hadn’t wanted to hear any more about Mr. S.O.B.
Kent that morning when she asked her great-niece about what made her happy.
But it does seem that every bit of information I get from the conversations with Clara makes me understand her better, even if it involves that sorry sucker, Bernie thought as she drove west toward Duncan.
“You sure are quiet,” Clara finally said when they reached the outskirts of town.
“I was wondering if somewhere in our past, maybe more than a hundred years ago, if there was an ancestor who didn’t care what other people thought of their choices in life, and if maybe you and I got some of their genes,” Bernie admitted.
“And then my mind jumped to that sorry sucker you lived with. I would like to squeeze that fool’s neck until his eyes popped out of his head and rolled around on the floor like marbles. ”
“I like that visual.” Clara giggled. “If there were genes that were that independent, I’m afraid that they got watered down a lot when it got to me.”
“Not from what I’ve seen,” Bernie disagreed.
Clara shifted positions and Pepper growled at her. “Hush and go back to sleep.”
The dog actually sighed and closed his eyes.
“If anyone got a healthy dose of sassy DNA from our ancestors, that would be you,” Clara said.
“I’ve got this soft spot in my heart that wants to please people.
I always wanted to be like Myra—all rainbows and unicorns.
I tried really hard to follow her example, but no matter how hard I worked at it, I couldn’t pull it off. ”
“You’ll get over that attitude.” Bernie remembered all those years when she and her twin were growing up, and how badly she wanted to make her mother smile like Vernie Sue did.
“One day you will wake up and figure out that you have to be true to yourself first and foremost. It’s a tough job in the beginning, but it gets easier with age. ”
“I hope so,” Clara whispered.
“Turn left at the next stop sign,” the GPS lady’s voice said.
“Ever wish that the powers that be would use a sexy man’s voice instead of that tinny-sounding woman?” Bernie chuckled.
“If that happened, we would deliberately make mistakes”—Clara grinned—“because we’d want him to talk to us, even if all he said was, ‘Reroute, reroute,’ or maybe, ‘Make a U-turn at the next intersection.’”
Bernie made the turn. “Yep, for sure. I hope this trailer is what I want so I don’t have to run all over the country trying to find one.”
“According to Granny, ‘What will be, will be,’” Clara quoted.
Bernie stopped at a house with a huge garage sale going on. “And the rest of the story is: what won’t be, might be anyway.”
Clara unfastened her seat belt, attached Pepper’s leash to his collar, and opened the door. “Is that the trailer over there beside the house?” She set him on the ground, and he promptly hiked his leg on the front tire.