Chapter 9
Nine
quiddle (v.): to busy oneself with trivial tasks as a way of avoiding the important ones
Lucy
“Oooh, look at you!” Dot says when I arrive the next morning.
“What? What about me?”
“You. In that cap. All pointy and green and adorable. Love the puff ball.”
“Have you not been outside, Dot? It’s seriously thirty-one degrees. Why?” Okay, so we aren’t exactly experiencing a polar vortex, and it’s a faux complaint. Fall is my favorite, and this is how autumn sidles into the Pacific Northwest every year, like an improv jazz piece, impossible to sync with.
Besides, I hardly noticed the chill as I crossed town. Beneath a sky that rearranges itself daily, I gathered slices of the beauty around me like lines of a poem. A private heart ode to October’s imminent arrival.
Ruddy soil. Stone-gray mountains. Sun-bleached fields. In fact, I can imagine those words flowing across a crisp sheet of white paper in classic Smith Corona typeface. So maybe it’s meant to be an actual poem.
“Ugh, I know,” Dot says. “These weather changes are giving me whiplash. If you don’t like the weather in central Oregon . . .”
“Wait fifteen minutes,” I supply.
“But you do look like an elf, and—”
“No. I don’t.” I search for a distraction. “What’s that weird smell?”
“Yeah. You do. A Christmas elf. In fact, you totally look like that actress. How have I never seen it before?” Dot juts her bottom lip and switches to baby talk. “And we can’t have your cute little elf ears getting cold, now, can we?”
I pretend to glare. Remove my beanie and use it to give her a playful whack. “See, it’s sage. Sage, Dot. A fall color. Have you been nippin’ at the Christmas punch? Already drunk on holiday movies? It’s still September.”
“Sing for me, Jovie!”
I should know better than to attempt to swallow a beverage when my favorite coworker is in such fine form.
A jolt of laughter sends electrolyte water up my nasal passages.
In spite of my quick gyrations, neon-pink liquid dribbles onto my white tee.
At least it didn’t target my favorite Fair Isle cardigan.
“Oh dear!” Dot pats my back as if I’m choking, which I am not. “Anyway, this is where you say, ‘I can sing, but I just choose not to sing. Especially in front of other people.’ And then I say—”
No. This is where I play the straight man. “You are a strange one,” I say, shaking my head. “But please don’t ever change. Seriously, though, what am I smelling? Something is definitely wafting that should never, ever waft.”
“Oh . . . that. You’ll be pleased to know I took your advice and I’m steering my culinary zeal in a new direction! Working my way through a Thai cookbook. It’s called Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet. That, my friend, is lon dao jiao. Although, something went amiss when I was adding the tamarind, and—”
From inside Sam’s office, his voice bellows. “That you, Montgomery? Got that interview lined up?”
Reality check. Good morning to you, too, Sam.
Dot shoots me a parting wink and vanishes.
“I’m on it, Sam.”
But first I’ve got a hot-pink wardrobe mishap to deal with.
***
After lunch, I check my inbox for what must be the twenty-third time.
Still empty. Not one single classified ad to enter, nothing to proofread, file, or dust. I give our drama queen of a copy machine the stink eye.
Since when have you ever been cooperative?
At this point I’ll welcome a prickly paper jam if it requires my attention.
“When was the last time Bertha had a good day?” I say out loud to no one.
It’s growing harder to overlook a certain business card with a gold embossed sheriff’s emblem and an ill-fitting challenge attached.
Dot appears at my elbow. “Hey, I’ve got an extra Zebra Cake. I could feed it into the paper tray, make it look like an accident.”
“Little Debbie’s?” My mouth salivates. “Too wasteful. I’ll take it off your hands.”
Tragically, after washing down the cake-of-many-artificial-ingredients with tepid coffee, there’s nothing else keeping me from calling the stinking number.
I mean, it’s unlikely the man’s going to pick up anyway.
He’s bound to be out and about doing sheriffy things, ensuring public safety and eating powdered donuts and whatever else.
Although he hadn’t particularly struck me as the donut-gorging type, unless it’s some kind of special Keto protein donut.
It’s no big stinking deal, Montgomery. Just leave a stinking message.
Luckily, it occurs to me that I haven’t yet created an event in my Google calendar titled “Schedule Wyatt Hayes Interview,” so this eats up another thirty seconds, followed by thirty seconds dusting cobwebs off a filmy memory of a guy named Wyatt who attended my middle school. Nerdy little dude, as I recall.
Enough stalling.
Only, as it turns out, my interviewee is not off doing important sheriffy things or bench-pressing twice his weight in apple fritters. He’s taking my call on the second ring.
“Charity Falls Sheriff’s Substation. Is this an emergency?”
Fine. Let’s do this. “Uh, no. No emergency,” I say.
“Terrific. Lieutenant Hayes speaking. How may I be of assistance?” Yay, a friendly voice.
I launch directly into the reason for my call, without even another “uh” or “um.”
“Of course,” he says. “Sam Peabody mentioned something about that. Let’s see. I’m finishing up some paperwork, but I’ve got time after two.”
Two o’clock today? That’s barely half an hour from now. So I say, “I’m sure you have a busy schedule, Deputy—I mean, Lieutenant Hayes.”
“Wyatt is fine.”
“Okay . . . Lieutenant Wyatt.”
A soft chuckle. “Just Wyatt works.”
“Right. I was hoping we could maybe get something calendared for tomorrow morning, Lieu—er, Wyatt. Ten o’clock, perhaps?” What am I doing? That’s the absolute latest I could put the interview off and still have time to craft an article. What’s my problem? “I promise I won’t take much of your time.”
“Ahh, I see. Hmm.” The man almost sounds disappointed. Probably looking forward to his fifteen minutes of fame. A touch narcissistic, I’d guess. Knows he was born to wear that Bermuda short–uniform thingy.
“Unfortunately,” he says, “tomorrow gets tricky. We’re hosting a regional training event here at the substation. But if you happen to have any time today, I’m all yours. At the moment it’s unusually quiet around here. That’s always subject to change, of course.”
“Of course.” I drum my fingers across my lips. To make matters worse, our editor in chief chooses this precise moment to approach my workstation. Hovering an arm’s distance to my left, Sam gives off those commanding vibes that used to make me quake in my faux Birkenstocks.
Not that I’d describe my editor as a mountain of a man.
More of a rounded butte. But maybe I have learned a thing or three in the years I’ve worked for him.
Because I’m no longer a completely spineless jellyfish.
I’m not the same woman who washed up in Charity Falls after the tall, dark, and intense man who promised to forever love and protect me did the very opposite.
For one thing, and it’s no small thing, I’m more likely to look beyond a man’s outward appearance to the posture of his heart. And I happen to know that under that gruff exterior, Sam’s a regular cinnamon roll. Head of steam, heart of gold, that one.
Still, if I delay this interview with the good sheriff’s lieutenant until the twelfth of never, as I’m tempted to do, Sam will never let me hear the end of it. And rightfully so.
“I’ll see you shortly, Lieutenant,” I say into the phone.
“Headed to the sheriff’s station?” Sam asks after I hang up.
“Yep.”
“Stellar. I’m sure Dot can keep an eye on things here.”
I slide my spiral notebook into my tote. “You mentioned a human interest aspect to this story.”
“Of course.”
“Can you tell me what it is?”
“No idea,” he says. “But you’ll ferret it out.”
“You want me to ask our new sheriff’s lieutenant personal questions?”
“I want you to be yourself. Stop overthinking it, Lucy.” He makes a move toward his office.
“Sam? You came out here a moment ago. Do you need something?”
“Oh. Right you are.” He slips his wallet out of his back pocket. Flips it open. “Here, take this.” When he hands me the business credit card, his eye catches on something below my neck.
Fiddlesticks. I’d forgotten about the hot-pink blob I couldn’t get out of my shirt.
Sam chooses not to comment on it. “Grab a bag of coffee on the way back, would you? We’re just about out.”
“Sure thing.” I toss a pen into my bag and fish out my car keys.
“Oh, and Montgomery?” I turn to find Sam paused outside his office, filling the doorframe. He quirks a brow. “Rumblegumption.”
“Beg your pardon?” Could’ve sworn he said—
“Rumblegumption. Look it up. You’ve got it in spades.”
Moments later, Dot thumps a stack of folders onto the reception counter next to me, preparing to take over my spot.
“Look at me, Dot,” I say, gesturing to the exposed V of my T-shirt. “I’m a disaster. I don’t have time to go home and change.”
“Babe, I have got you covered.” Within moments, she reemerges from her office carrying her ten-key and a cream-colored hoodie. As if wearing a way-oversized sweatshirt to a professional interview is an improvement. Not to mention . . .
“Dot, this has Justin Timberlake on it!”
“Mm-hmm, so? Why are you flaring your nose at me?”
“Not happening.” I shove it back at her. Ugh, where are my manners? “But thank you.” I’ll just have to turn my T-shirt around and cut out the tag.
“I’ll have you know, this is authentic 1999 NSYNC tour swag.”
Never doubted it.
Minutes later, I’m almost out the door when she sings out “Bye bye bye!” and adds a quick side to side boy band shuffle thingy.
I don’t know how she does it, but Dot always knows how to break the tension. Also, the woman is surprisingly light on her feet.
In the parking lot, I let my car idle gently while I stare at the Merriam-Webster app on my phone. Samuel Peabody III is a virtual fountain of weird vocab, but this might be the quirkiest noun the man has ever pulled out of his hat.
Good judgment? Me?
I draw a long breath through my nose. Let it fill my abdomen.
Release it. My dad wasn’t the only male authority figure who affirmed me.
I’ve been blessed with several. This isn’t lost on me, and it’s why I still struggle to reconcile my willingness to enter into a romantic relationship, not to mention a marriage commitment, with a guy who, even early in our relationship, treated me with condescension.
And, later, ridicule. And eventually . . .
Well, praise the Lord for wiping the scales from my eyes. Real men—healthy ones—have no need to disguise their admiration for a woman’s strengths. The real men in my life have lifted me up.
Even if it meant they were about to throw me into the deep end, the way Sam likes to do.
I back out of my parking space, shift into drive. Onward. Merging onto Main Street, I send a plea heavenward.
I don’t see what Sam sees. This assignment’s got me feeling airborne and uncertain. The deep end looks bottomless and murky. All I ask is . . . just please don’t let me sink.