“Then tell me something, Hanky-panky: why do you want me to stay away from reformed Ranger Jethro? He sounds fantastic. I could settle down here in Gangrene Valley. I could learn how to do woman’s work. We could have all the babies. Side note, I hope they get his beard and my forearms.”
Hank dipped his chin and narrowed his eyes on me, fighting a smile. “First of all, it’s Green Valley, not Gangrene Valley, smart-ass.”
“Honest mistake.”
“And second, I don’t want you to stay away from Jethro for your sake. I want you to stay away from Jethro for his sake.”
I gaped, sputtering at my friend for several seconds before I managed, “I am insulted.”
“That may be, but I’ll ask you to stay away, nevertheless.”
“You are an asshole yokel.” I thought about throwing the tomato I was holding at him but decided against it. I’d found only one tomato, and I needed it for tacos. Tacos without tomatoes was like cake without frosting. Pointless.
“And you’ve always been opposed to settling down, or has that changed?”
“Absolutely not. Settling down implies settling. I have no plans to settle.”
“Exactly. You’re a man-eater, leaving a trail of broken hearts longer than I can list.” Hank set his hands on his hips and grinned at me like he knew me . . . which he did. “You and your dimples and your sexy everything.”
“I am not a man-eater. I don’t even like giving head usually, my gag reflex is very sensitive. All that hair, I hate hair in my mouth. And it’s the worst kind of hair—”
“You know what I mean, baby doll. Leave the poor guy alone. He’s been through enough.”
“Did you just baby doll me? You don’t baby doll me. I baby doll you.”
Hank ignored my outrage and grabbed the tomato from my hand, moving to the cutting board. “Jethro might have been a con artist, but he’s mostly reformed.”
“Keep your diaper on, baby doll,” I grumbled.
“I’m serious, Sienna. He’s out of bounds.” Hank chopped the tomato, though he kept his eyes leveled on me as he mumbled, “Poor man ain’t ever met anything like you.”
CHAPTER 5
“The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seemed filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”
― Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems
~Sienna~
Banjo music freaks me out.
I’ve always associated it with the movie Deliverance. It’s like, I hear a banjo and my hands go to my bottom in an automatic Pavlovian response. Ring a bell and nothing happens, strum a banjo and I’m covering my poop shoot.
Also, flannel.
Also, bearded men with hound dogs and rifles.
Likely this has something to do with the fact that my parents—although banal and suburban by most measures—didn’t really monitor my TV and movie consumption. My parents met in the Navy and left the service together to open a private practice. They worked a lot, were gone a lot, but always showed up and supported us when it mattered.
Nevertheless, my older siblings and old movies mostly raised me. By the age of four I was watching anything and everything. In my house that usually meant telenovelas.
However, I saw Basic Instinct when I was eight and have subsequently never owned an icepick.
I saw Friday the Thirteenth when I was twelve and have a morbid aversion to hockey goalies.
It also meant my favorite movie at thirteen was Duck Soup with the Marx Brothers, and my sister Rena and I could quote line for line the entire Abbot and Costello “Who’s on First” bit.
But now, on a backwoods mountain road in the middle of nowhere Tennessee, I glanced around my tree-lined surroundings and I swore I heard the ominous banjo music.
Duna-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-near-near. . .
Yeah. I was lost again.
This time it wasn’t my fault. Not that it was my fault last time, but this time it really wasn’t my fault. I’d been practicing for the last week. With the reluctant blessing of Dave, my security lead, Hank had taken me out three times, showing me the route to the filming location. He brought me maps. I made a mental map. I even drew my own map from memory. And I had a new cell phone, one that should have had reliable reception all over the mountain.
Driving by myself felt like a luxury after spending a week working from early morning until past midnight writing, answering emails, going into Knoxville to be seen and for interviews, and sharing a lake cabin with several burly, loud men.
Regardless, my new phone now had no reception, it was 6:47 a.m. and I was terribly and irrevocably lost. I felt like a fool. I should’ve just agreed to let Dave or Tim drive me. I didn’t know why I was being so stubborn about driving myself.