Night Shift(25)
“Same difference as between you and the Diederik boy,” Kiki said meanly.
“What?” Fiji had turned away to dry the last glass. Now she swung to face Kiki again.
“Well, he is really tasty looking,” Kiki said with a smirk. “And he doesn’t look at you like he’s thinking how old you are.”
Fiji exhaled heavily, trying to control her impulse to jump on her sister and beat her about the head. But a thread of honesty kept her from it. It was true that when Diederik was helping the Rev dig graves in the pet cemetery, with his shirt off, it was hard not to think about him . . . carnally. If she just happened to be there at the time. But all Fiji had to do to bring herself back to reality was to remember Diederik as he’d been less than a year before, a very little boy who was really scared.
That memory was cold water. Ice water.
“Kiki, I really don’t want to hear that again. I’ve known that boy since he was a toddler, and I don’t even want that idea to cross my own mind, much less anyone else’s.”
“Oh, Fiji, I was just kidding!” (She hadn’t been.)
“Don’t kid anymore.” Fiji let the water out of the sink. “I’ll put the dishes away in the morning. I’m going to read for a while, and then I’m going to bed. Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m just fine.” Kiki looked angry because she felt guilty, and Fiji thought there should be a word for that. Guilter? Anguilty?
“See you tomorrow.” Fiji escaped to her room, shutting the door behind her with great delicacy.
The only television in the cottage was in the shop portion, and it was no great TV set. Fiji didn’t care that much about watching, though she heard all the time there was good programming that she really ought to see. But she always seemed to have something better to do. As Fiji, in her nightgown, padded to the bathroom to brush her teeth, she heard the television come on and saw the glow. Just as gently as she could, she closed the door between the shop and the residence. Mr. Snuggly came through the cat door, stopped by his bowls, and jumped up on Fiji’s bed the minute she climbed in. Fiji read some more of the Anne Rice novel, and worked a crossword puzzle, and caught herself yawning. She switched off her lamp and wiggled down in bed, Mr. Snuggly curled up at her feet.
Fiji said prayers every night, though she varied whom she prayed to. Tonight, she prayed for a smooth trip for Manfred and Teacher, and she also prayed that her sister would finally tell her why she’d really come to visit, and then find a reason to go.
6
At seven the next morning, Manfred and Teacher left for Killeen.
Teacher walked into Manfred’s yard holding a travel mug of coffee and looking morose just as Manfred was stowing his valise in the backseat. The two men nodded at each other, and Teacher got into the passenger seat. After a brief pause while Manfred put Agnes Orta’s address into his GPS, they drove south.
After Manfred had had his favorite morning beverage, CocaCola, and Teacher had worked on his coffee, Manfred found himself casting around to think of a topic of conversation. Manfred hadn’t met the new manager of Gas N Go yet, and he asked Teacher about the newcomer. Teacher told Manfred that he was okay. Teacher cataloged the repair jobs that had accumulated while he was employed at the convenience store and let Manfred know he was plenty upset about his truck failing him.
“What do you need to do in Killeen?” Manfred asked, after they’d listened to the morning news on the radio and agreed that the world was in sad shape. “I hope something that’ll take a couple of hours? I’ll be at least that long, I think.”
“I’ve got a friend there who handles this brand of tools I like a lot, so rather than order a few over the Internet and guess which one I’d really use, which one feels the best in my hand, I thought I’d take a look at ’em,” Teacher said. “He just e-mailed me to tell me he’d gotten in some new things, and I didn’t have a job scheduled for today, so I’d planned on driving down there. Kind of a treat to get away for a day. Thanks for letting me know you were going, man.”
“Fiji told me,” Manfred said. “It’s no big thing. Glad I could help. I guess these are pretty specialized tools?” Manfred only knew the basics about home repairs and tools, and he was trying to imagine how “special” a wrench could be.
“Some of them are special enough that I don’t know how often I’ll use them. The main thing is they’re very well made. So they’re pretty damn expensive,” Teacher said. “But my daddy always told me, don’t do to buy cheap tools.”