Chapter 6 - Watching Bear’s Bull Run
Chapter 6
Watching Bear’s Bull Run
Noah O’Brien was so bored on Wednesday he decided to sweep the bookshop. Since he’d opened at nine, people had wandered in one at a time. Most of them just wanted coffee and to complain about the weather. The cloudy October day made it seem late in the afternoon.
Noah tried to look busy so he didn’t have to talk about the weather on repeat the rest of the day.
The coffee was almost gone when Cora Lee Buchanan rushed in. Noah didn’t have to look at a clock. He knew it was her lunch hour.
Cora Lee was Bear’s youngest and seemed more just out of high school than late into her twenties. She was quiet, a first-grade teacher, and shy. In three years, he couldn’t remember her looking directly at him. She also lived on the second floor, two apartments down, but he never heard music or a TV. She was one of the few people he could say mirrored his own quietness, and that was a great quality in a neighbor. No one had ever rented the place between them. Now and then he thought that they were living together upstairs and no one noticed, not even them.
On Wednesday when Bear’s offspring came in, Noah usually listened to the oldest of Bear’s daughters, Katherine, complain about her life or at least one of her ex-husbands. No matter how she started her woes, she ended with her father’s shortcomings. He worked too much. He never gave her enough money to make her dreams come true. Her father’s shop smelled like oil, paint, and dust. After giving up on him cleaning the place years ago, Katherine simply refused to go into Bear’s Fix-It Shop.
So, Noah had to suffer her company every Wednesday. The only blessing to soften the blow was he got to see Cora Lee as well. She was reserved and patient; now and then she’d laugh at something her big sister said. Like when Katherine argued that if there was a ghost in the bookshop, he’d be watching Katherine because not even a spirit would notice Noah or Cora.
Kat would always whine that Bear must have figured out fast that the girls picked him up for lunch every first Wednesday to ask for something. Katherine usually hugged her father, air kissed his cheek, then began with, “We’ve got a great deal to talk about, Father. After all, it is Wednesday.”
When Bear finally did come in to take them to lunch, he never listened to Katherine complain, and Noah had noticed Bear hugged his youngest longer. She was closer to his heart.
Katherine was between husbands and seemed to come home to whine. Which, according to gossip, meant she was milking her dad for money to buy a condo in Aspen. She claimed she’d put the place in Bear’s name and would live there only until she remarried.
“I don’t want a ski lodge to keep up with when I do find my rich skier,” she exclaimed last month. “I hate snow, but for some reason unmarried men buy in Aspen.” Then she’d smiled that smile she’d perfected when she was Homecoming Queen. “It won’t cost you anything, Father. You can sell it and make enough to pay for my next wedding.”
Bear always offered the empty apartment upstairs, and Katherine would turn it down saying something about only moles would live up there. Then silently all the Buchanans would stand and walk across the street to the café. The girls never looked hungry, and Bear always looked trapped.
The only problem with this routine was Bear seemed to forget it was Wednesday, and his memory loss now became Noah’s problem. Katherine was like a scratched record that kept playing her father’s shortcomings while the girls waited next door at the bookshop for Bear to come out of, in Kat’s words, the smelly, greasy, dusty repair shop. Noah watched every Wednesday’s dance but was always glad when it was over.
Usually, once Bear checked his phone, locked up, and taped a faded sign to the door that said simply GONE, then he’d walk into Noah’s place and act like he was surprised to see his daughters.
Today, as always, Katherine did all the talking until Cora wandered off to examine the new children’s books Noah ordered every month for her. With her sister gone, Katherine turned her frustration toward Noah. “Mr. O’Brien, are you telling me you don’t have any idea where my father is?”
“Not a clue, Miss Buchanan.” Noah tried to look busy.
“You do know it is Wednesday, Mr. O’Brien?”
“I do.”
“Did you mention that to my father? How hard could it be to yell at him when he walks by your door? Just say, Morning, Bear. Nice Wednesday.”
“Can’t do that.”
Kat looked like she might cuss. “Why not?”
He glanced at the windows. “It’s rainy and cloudy today.” Doing his best to sound uninterested rather than sarcastic.
She rolled her eyes as if she’d just noticed she’d been talking to a rabbit.
Noah had had enough. “Sorry, Miss Buchanan, but I didn’t see Bear-tracking in the lease when I signed on to rent this place.” He fought down a laugh. “But I’ll check the terms.”
He held a random flyer close to his face as if it was the lease document and pretended to read, “Let me see: Open every day but Sunday. Pay on the first. Keep up with Bear. Remind said Bear what day it is every Wednesday.”
She gave him a look that could only mean Go to hell.
When Noah glanced over at Cora Lee, the younger sister silently lowered her head out of sight as if she’d already heard mortars flying in. He would swear he’d seen the flash of a grin though.
He poured the last of the coffee in a cup and walked around the counter. He calmly sauntered to the children’s section of the store. Cora Lee didn’t look up but she handed him three books and took the coffee.
“I wish I could help, but I don’t know where your father is. Bear doesn’t report to me, and I get the idea he wouldn’t thank me for taking on the job.”
The greenest eyes he’d ever seen finally looked at him. “I understand, Mr. O’Brien. My pop marches to his own beat.”
Katherine’s voice butted in loud enough to wake the ghosts on the third floor. “My name is not Buchanan, Mr. O’Brien. I gave away that name for greener pastures and a few others about ten years ago. I don’t believe in looking back in life. I’m about to start dating David Henry Weatherly, so I probably will be Mrs. Weatherly, if my father will take the time to talk to me. I want to be settled in Aspen by spring and married by fall, so I won’t have to deal with snow.” She had to brag. That Homecoming Queen smile came out. “Of course, David has four homes. Once we marry, we will travel each season, living in New York in spring. Quebec in summer. Europe in fall. Florida in winter. I plan to make him understand that we’ll have no need for Aspen.”
Noah couldn’t care less where Bear Buchanan was, but he clearly understood why he wasn’t here. Katherine was still talking but Noah gave up on listening. He’d learned three weeks ago that if he did butt in on Katherine’s rattling, she’d just rewind and say the same thing all over again.
Cora Lee brought her half-empty cup back and told her sister that she had to get back to school. She patted the three picture books on the counter. “I’ll pick these up before you close.”
Noah nodded toward Katherine and murmured to Cora Lee, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Cora Lee’s green eyes met his for the second time today.
She let out a tiny laugh only Noah could hear. “I can’t take her to school. Not allowed. Last time she visited my class, she told the kids that being the school queen made her royalty, and that was more important than the principal.”
“Well, everyone knows that’s true.” He winked at Cora Lee. She turned away but she was smiling.
Three older women wearing floppy rain hats and rain-slickers rushed in as if Noah was having a sale.
“My, oh, my,” the first one said, “I can’t believe it’s Katherine Buchanan back in town. Honey, you look better every time I see you. I can’t understand why one of the men in town didn’t snap you up before you went to college. One semester and you had a ring.”
Another lady noticed Cora. “Morning, Miss Buchanan. My granddaughter loves your class.”
Before Cora could answer, the dripping lady turned back to Katherine.
Noah watched Cora Lee drop a dollar in the coffee jar and slip out unseen by the ladies fawning over Katherine’s dress.
The Homecoming Queen hugged the ladies as she explained she was just in town to check on her father. “I’m staying with my aunt in Waco while I’m relocating. I just have to come home now and then to make sure he hasn’t had a stroke or something. He’s getting older, you know.” Katherine looked so sad Noah wondered if Atlanta was burning again. Maybe the next dress would resemble drapes.
Noah doubted Katherine remembered any of the ladies’ names, but she told them all about the wonderful condo she was buying in Aspen.
At a break in the chatter Noah added a fact. “She doesn’t go by Buchanan. Bear told me last week that his oldest daughter might end up with more last names than our phone book.”
Two of the ladies before him laughed. Katherine walked right past the coffee jar and out the door. When the ladies were told there was no more coffee, they left for the café.
Noah just stood watching the women and enjoying the silence of his shop. In the calm, he remembered something. He’d heard Cora Lee’s shy, light laughter somewhere before.
Two nights ago. On the roof. He’d heard her. Though he never saw her in the pitch black, he knew she was there.