Off the Chart

‘You ready for a glass of red?’

‘Thorn, what did Webster want with Anne Joy?’

‘He thought I knew something about her. I assured him I didn’t.’

‘You should’ve told me that.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.’

‘The kind I have right now, you mean.’

‘Yeah, that kind.’

‘We shouldn’t conceal things.’

‘I’m sorry. You’re right. Really, I’m sorry.’

She looked into his eyes, and he could see her letting it go. Most of it.

‘So I had another visitor,’ he said as they strolled back toward the house.

‘What, they sent the vice president this time?’

‘When’d you get so funny?’

She stopped next to the bench.

‘And what in the world is this?’

‘A bench. A yellow bench.’

‘What is it, Thorn?’

‘I was thinking Lawton might like it. You know, for his midnight rambles. Might keep him off the highway if we can convince him the Greyhound stops here.’

She stared at the bench, then looked up at Thorn, a smile warming her lips.

‘Worth a try,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of putting it over there, next to the gumbo-limbo. Kind of like the bus shelter.’

‘You’re something, Thorn.’

‘Well, I’m not much of a furniture maker, that’s for sure.’

She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the mouth so deep and long, it closed his eyes and kept them closed a second or two after she’d drawn away.

‘So who was your visitor this time?’

He took her hand in his and waved his free hand at the open yard and the darkening bay.

‘Would you trade all this for three million dollars?’

‘All this?’

‘The house, the land, my car. All of it.’

‘Three million for that heap of rust you call a car?’

‘I’m serious. The house, land, all of it. Would you?’

She held his eyes.

‘It’s not mine to sell.’

‘But let’s say it were. You could take the three mil, go someplace else, invest some of the money in mutual funds, live off the interest. Never have to work again, do whatever you wanted.’

‘Mutual funds?’ She reached out and pressed her palm against his forehead. ‘You been outside all day without a hat?’

‘Answer the question,’ he said, startled by the impatience in his own voice.

She took her hand from his forehead. Her smile drifted away.

‘Would I swap all this for a truckload of cash?’ she said. ‘Not in a million years, Thorn. Not in three million.’

Thorn let go of the air that had been building in his lungs.

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

‘Was that some kind of test, Thorn?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Because I thought we were a little past the testing phase.’

‘We are,’ he said. ‘It’s just that sometimes, your job, all the shit you put up with every day, I wonder if you wouldn’t be happier retired.’

‘You’d sell all this so I could retire?’

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