Draft

 

{ Will be finished soon. Check back here for the updated version }

One day two Irish men were digging in a ditch / One called the other an Irish son of a / Peter Murphy had a goat, a wiser goat was he / Along came a bumblebee and stung him on his cock / tail gingerale, five cents a glass / If you don’t like it shove it up your as / k me no questions, tell me no lies / If you get hit with a bag of / it just close your eyes.

- Warren Barnes, great grandfather of Kayla Mae

The yard was lush with grass, delicate against Kayla’s olive-brown skin. Rays of sun shone through the trees in Fred’s front yard, reflecting off the pallid water in a stone birdbath, making steamy waves in the air. Fred was laying on the grass, admiring Kayla’s smile as she laughed at something he said, her head burrowed warmly against his well-muscled arm.
 

It must have been at least one hundred degrees, but the humidity didn’t bother him, and it didn’t seem to bother Kayla either. The weather channel has been reporting record highs all week. There hasn’t been a hotter day in the danity town of Birch Falls since June of 1943. This was good news for Fred, who appreciates quiet, relaxing drives to the beach on weekdays after work. He’s always busy on Fridays - that was the day Tom put aside for band practice and meetings. Saturday and Sunday nights were for playing gigs at local clubs. Because of this new whacked-out schedule, Fred’s alone time with Kayla was very short and limited. Working out at the gym on the first floor of his apartment building took up the first few hours of his mornings, and work took up the rest of the day. His shift at Scrappe ends at four o’clock, giving him two hours of retreating daylight to drive down to the shore with the windows of his beat-up Chevrolet rolled down, the cool evening breeze smacking his hair across his sunglasses.
 

“I’m glad you came by the house, Freddie.” Kayla said. “I miss you.”
 

Fred looked down, his eyes glancing over her red tube top, and said, “I miss you too. It’s been hard finding a way over here - Tom’s been booking gigs left-and-right and Holly has been having me close the shop for two weeks straight!”
 

Kayla stopped smiling and said, “I could close the shop for you, Freddie. I don’t mind it. I’m there late enough anyway. I wait around the back room until ten o’clock so Tom and I can get dinner.”
 

Fred shook his head. “No, no. I can close the shop, that’s not a problem. It just takes up a lot of time since the place stops serving customers at eight but stays alight until nine-thirty. How late does Tom work?” Fred’s arm tightened around Kayla. He felt her breasts press against his side and smiled.
 

“Oh, it depends on the day. He locks the doors at nine o’clock and then goes through all the buckets of film to make sure everything is in the right place. He tidies up and sweeps the floor of the back room: stuff like that. He doesn’t make it to Scrappe until after ten. We go for dinner and end up here. He doesn't leave until after midnight. I ask him to stay, but he often doesn’t.”
 

“I don’t know how he could decline such an offer, pretty lady.”

 

Kayla laughed at this, and Fred couldn’t help but wonder what Kayla and Tom’s relationship was really like. On the outside, they seemed to be the perfect couple. But, knowing Kayla for as long as he has, her relationship with Tom could be in the gutter and she wouldn’t say a word about it. Fred thought he could read Kayla pretty well, though, so he wasn’t concerned about the later thought. If something was wrong, he was sure he could catch something in her voice or smell it on her. Their relationship was weird like that. Fred could always sense when something wasn’t right.

 

“Fred,” that was Kayla, speaking in nothing more than a whisper above the highly anticipated gust of wind that rattled the grass around them, dancing gently over their skin and cooling the sweat on his brow.


There was something in her voice that made Fred uneasy.


Later, he would remember this moment. He’d think about it in his dreams: the way her hair felt on his arm, the brilliant flame in her amber eyes, the way her bottom lip twitched between words.