Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Clementine
When I get home at four, I can already hear the partying next door. It sounds like they’re playing horseshoes or something, and — by the sounds of it — having at least a couple of beers.
I try to see into their backyard, but there’s a big wooden fence around it, so I don’t have any luck.
Go over later and introduce yourself, I think, even though the thought of just showing up to a party makes my heart beat a little faster.
Show them some Lodgepole, Montana hospitality. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.
Oh, hell, I don’t even believe myself. Hunter’s over there, having a grand old time with a bunch of dudes and probably some girls, and I want to see him again.
Which is fine and normal and okay. We’re old friends. Old friends hang out when they run into each other, and it definitely doesn’t mean that anything is getting rekindled in either party.
I’ve gotta go back to work tonight, because I’m giving a stargazing talk for kids, but I’ve got a couple hours before it gets dark, so I toss my stuff into my room and rummage through the fridge. I’ve just barely grabbed cheese, jam, and crackers when the phone rings.
I know who it is without even looking at the caller ID. My mom’s the only one who calls our land line, because she claims that the static on cell phones gives her a headache. I love her, but she can be a little dramatic sometimes.
No one else is home, and I don’t answer the phone, because I’m not sure I can handle my mom right now. Besides, she’s called me nearly every day for the past six months, ever since my dad suddenly asked her for a divorce, and I feel a little like I’m starting to crack under the pressure.
The phone stops ringing. I chew cheese, cracker, and jam, and hold my breath. Sure enough, it starts again.
If she calls back a third time, I’ll answer, I think.
It stops. I cross my fingers.
Silence.
Come on, don’t ring, I think.
It rings. I sigh. Then I walk over, take a deep breath, and answer.
“Oh, Clem, I thought you weren’t going to answer,” she says, already sounding upset with me.
I ball one hand into a fist.
“Sorry, I was in the bathroom,” I say.
Not staring at the phone from the kitchen, hoping you’d stop calling.
“The neighbor,” she says dramatically.
I sit on the couch.
“The neighbor?”
Neighbor is a generous term for the people that live closest to my parents, since they’re each about a half-mile away.
“You know those new neighbors that moved in last October, the man who wore all those bolo ties and that blond woman with the ostrich skin cowboy boots?” she asks.
I think I met them once and they were perfectly nice. My mom just didn’t approve, probably because they clearly had more money than my parents.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Clem,” my mother says, then pauses for effect. I stay quiet. “I think it was her.”
I stand up and start pacing. I wish I’d let the phone ring a thousand more times, because I don’t want to have this conversation with my mom right now.
“Okay,” I say. “What does that change?”
There’s silence on the other end of the line.
“Don’t you think the timing works out?” she says, sounding taken aback. She doesn’t answer my question, because the correct answer is that it doesn’t change anything.
“They moved here in October, he demanded a divorce in February, and I haven’t seen them once since April!”
“Maybe they’re summering somewhere else,” I say. “That’s their second home, isn’t it?”
“I know I’m right,” she says. “An affair with the neighbor. Right under my nose, Clem, how could he?”
I walk up to a wall and lean my forehead against it without answering her.
Ever since my dad presented her with the request, she’s been bound and determined that he’s been having an affair.
Sometimes, in her mind, it’s a torrid one-night stand, sometimes it’s been going on for decades, but she’s got a different suspect every single time.
Then she calls me and tells me the awful things that my dad is doing, the women she sees him with, how he’s demanding half of their assets after he did this to her.
I hate it.
She’s trying to turn me against my dad. I know what she’s doing, and even though I feel terrible for her — after twenty-five years of marriage, a divorce? — I don’t want to hear any of this.
I’m almost certain he didn’t have an affair. He says he didn’t, and there’s no evidence otherwise. Besides, for most of my life, they’ve alternated between fighting constantly and almost never speaking, so it’s not like they had a great relationship to ruin.
I’m almost relieved that they’re divorcing, to be honest. They both deserve to be happy, and they sure weren’t when they were together.
I just wish they could do it without putting me in the middle.
I open my eyes, staring into the blank white wall, and realize my mom is talking.
“—And he wants the quilt, Clem, after I birthed and raised his children, he wants the quilt we slept under—”
“His mother made that quilt,” I say, then immediately bite my lip, because I know better than to let myself get sucked into an argument. It’s completely pointless, because she’s not really upset about the quilt, she’s upset about everything.
And I get it. I’d be upset. But there’s a limit to how much of this I can take, for my own sanity, no matter how terrible I feel for my parents.
“But we slept under it,” she says, sounding taken aback.
“Mom, I gotta go,” I say.
“What are you doing?”
Nothing, actually.
“I’ve gotta go to a thing. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I say.
“Clem, I just don’t know why you—”
“See you this weekend,” I say, and hang up the phone, even though I know she’s still talking.
It’s unkind of me, and I know that. But I also know that I need my sanity, and frankly, I need my sanity more than I need to be nice right now.
Almost immediately, the phone starts ringing again. I ball my hand into a fist again and answer.
“Mom, I really don’t want to talk about this right now, okay?” I say, sounding more pissy than I mean to.
There’s a pause on the other end.
“Clem?” Hunter’s voice says.
I take the phone away from my face and look at the caller ID. Nope, not my mom. I clear my throat.
“Hey, what’s up?” I ask, sounding as casual as I possibly can.
“You know anyone named Trout?” he asks.
I narrow my eyes and look toward the window.
“You have Trout?”
“Yup. I’ll keep her if you don’t want her anymore,” he says, and I think he’s laughing.
“She’s a terror,” I say. “I’ll be over in a second.”
The guys wave me into the backyard instead of the house, and sure enough, there’s Trout, basking in the attention from half a dozen firemen.
Shirtless firemen. Trout’s a lucky girl.
“Hey, I’m sorry about her,” I call.
“Aww, she’s no problem,” says her current human. “You’re not a problem, are you girl?”
Trout blinks at me, tongue lolling, like she agrees that she’s not a problem.
The fireman tosses a stick across the yard and she bolts after it.
“I’m Silas,” he says, and holds out one hand. I shake it.
“Clementine,” I say.
Yes, he’s hot. Not quite as hot as Hunter, but I’d take it.
“You presented the plaque the other night,” he says, smiling. “I remember.”
I laugh and tuck my hair behind my ear, a nervous tic because I’m not really sure what to say when a cute fireman says he remembers me.
“Thanks,” I say.
Trout comes back with the stick, briefly saving me.
“Okay, Houdini,” I say to her. “Ready to go home?”
“We’re just hanging out back here, drinking some beers,” Silas says. “You’re welcome to stay.”
Just as I reach down to take the stick out of Trout’s mouth, the back door opens and Hunter walks out. Wearing a shirt.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but I think he pauses for half a second in the doorway, looking from me to Silas and back, but then he keeps walking. Trout drops the stick before I can grab it, then trots over to Hunter.
“Traitor,” I mutter, and Silas smiles.
“Watch out, I might steal her,” Hunter calls. He roughs her up for a few moments before she leaves and walks over to the firemen playing baggo at the end of the yard, and he walks over to us.
“Want a beer?” he asks.
I was going to do laundry and make chili for next week before I went back to work, but standing between two hot firemen, suddenly those things don’t seem like much of a priority.
“Come on,” Silas adds. “It’s Friday.”
“We’ve got a whole case of Pabst,” Hunter says, like that’ll entice me. “Or, if you’re gonna be discerning, Fat Tire.”
I blow my bangs out of my face.
“I’ll take a Fat Tire,” I finally say, sneaking a glance around the yard.
I’d be an idiot to say no, after all. Someday, I’ll be telling my granddaughters about the afternoon I spent surrounded by shirtless firemen.
Hunter heads back inside. A shout goes up from the other end of the yard as a game of baggo ends and someone wins.
“Wanna play?” Silas asks.
I honestly can’t tell if he’s flirting or just being friendly.
But is either one that bad? I think. Nothing is going to happen with Hunter because there’s never been a worse idea in human history, and a little flirting never hurt anyone. Nothing’s gonna happen.
“Sure,” I say.