A woman came out from behind the boarded-up church down the street and seemed to be walking unevenly toward her. As she neared, Mel stood up. “Hello,” she said, holding her coffee cup in both hands.
“You the nurse?” she asked.
“Nurse practitioner and midwife, yes. Can I help you with something?”
“No,” she said. “I heard about you is all.”
The woman’s eyes were drawn down sleepily, as though she had trouble staying awake, with dark circles under them. She was a large woman, maybe five-ten, and rather plain, her greasy hair pulled back. It was possible she was sick. Mel stuck out a hand. “Mel Monroe,” she said.
The woman hesitated a minute before accepting a handshake. She wiped her palm down her pant leg first, then reached out. Her grip was strong and clumsy, her nails dirty. “Cheryl,” she said in response. “Creighton.” She pulled her hand back and put both her hands in the pockets of baggy pants. Men’s pants, it looked like. Mel stopped herself before saying, Ahhh. That would be the Cheryl who was supposed to clean the cabin; the Cheryl Hope suspected was drinking again. Which would explain her sallow complexion and weary eyes, not to mention all the little broken blood vessels in her cheeks. “Sure I can’t do anything for you?”
“No. They say you’re leaving right away.”
“Do they now,” she said with a smile. “Well, I have a few things I made a commitment to see through first.”
“That baby,” she said.
Mel tipped her head to one side. “Hardly anything goes unnoticed around here. Do you know anything about the baby, or her mother? I’d like to find the woman w—”
“So you could go sooner? Because if you want to go—I could take care of the baby…”
“You have an interest in the baby?” she asked. “May I ask why?”
“I just mean to help. I like to help out.”
“I really don’t need much help—but I sure would like to find the baby’s mother. She could be sick, giving birth alone like that.”
Mel chanced a glance toward the bar and noticed that Preacher had stopped sweeping and watched. At that same moment, Doc came out of the house. “Cheryl,” Doc said.
“Hey, Doc. Just telling the nurse here—I could help out with that baby. Watch her for you and stuff.”
“Why’d you want to do that, Cheryl?”
She shrugged. “Jack told me about it.”
“Thanks. We’ll sure keep you in mind,” Doc said.
“’Kay,” she said with another shrug. She looked at Mel. “Nice meetin’ you. Explains a lot, now I see you.” And she turned and walked back the way she’d come. Mel looked up at Doc and found him frowning. “What was that all about?” she asked him.
“Seems like she wanted to see what you look like. She tends to follow Jack around like a lovesick puppy.”
“He shouldn’t serve her.”
“He doesn’t,” Doc said. “Jack’s a generous guy, but not a foolish one. Giving Cheryl booze would be like throwing kerosene on a fire. Besides, she can’t afford Jack’s place. I think she gets some of that rotgut they keep out in the woods.”
“That’s going to kill her.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Can’t somebody help her?”
“She look to you like she wants help?”
“Has anyone tried? Has Jack—”
“Jack can’t do anything for her,” Doc said. “That would put an awful lot of useless ideas in her head.”
He turned around and went back into the house. Mel followed him and said, “Do you think it’s possible she gave birth?”
“Anything’s possible. But I doubt it.”
“What if we checked her? It would be obvious.”
Doc looked down at her and lifted one snowy brow. “Think I should call the sheriff?
Get a warrant?” And he walked off toward the kitchen.
What an odd little town, Mel found herself thinking.
While the baby napped, Mel took a break and wandered down to the store. Connie poked her head out of the back and said, “Hey, Mel. Can I get you something?”
“I just thought I’d look at your magazines, Connie. I’m bored.”
“Help yourself. We’re watching our soap, if you want to come back here with us.”
“Thanks,” she said, going to the very small book rack. There were a few paperbacks and five magazines. Guns, trucks, fishing, hunting and Playboy. She picked up a paperback novel and the Playboy and went to the back where she’d seen Connie. A parted curtain hung in the doorway to the back room. Inside, Connie and Joy sat in old canvas lawn chairs in front of the small desk, coffee cups in hand, their eyes focused on a small TV that sat on a shelf. The women were complete physical opposites—Connie being small and trim with short hair dyed fire-engine-red, and Joy must be easily five-nine and two-fifty, very plain with her long, graying hair pulled back into a ponytail, her face round and cheerful. They were an odd pair and it was said they’d been best friends since they were kids. “Come on back,” Joy said. “Help yourself to coffee if you want.”
On the television a very pretty woman looked into the eyes of a very handsome man and said, “Brent, I never loved anyone but you! Ever!”
“Oh, she is such a liar!” Connie said.
“No, she’s not—she didn’t love any of them. She just screwed ’em all,” Joy said. On the TV: “Belinda, the bab—”
“Brent, the baby is yours!”
“The baby is Donovan’s,” Joy told the TV.
Mel leaned a hip against the desk. “What is this?”
“Riverside Falls,” Connie said. “Brent and the slut Belinda.”
“This is what Lizzie is going to be doing if Connie can’t get her out of those slutty clothes.”
“I have a plan,” Connie said. “As she grows out of her clothes and I replace them, we’re going to get a more conservative wardrobe.”
Joy laughed loudly. “Connie, it looks like she already grew out of them!”
The camera pulled back and Mel saw that the couple on screen were in bed together, their naked bodies barely concealed by a sheet. “Whew,” she said. “Soaps have come a long way.”
“You ever watch any soaps, honey?” Connie asked.
“Not since college. We watched General Hospital.” Mel put down her magazine and book on the desk and helped herself to a cup of coffee. “We used to get our patients to keep an eye on it for us. I had one long-term care patient—an old guy—and I used to give him his bath at two every afternoon and we’d watch it together.”
“There is only one man left on this show that Belinda hasn’t done—and he’s seventy. The patriarch.” Connie sighed. “They’re going to have to bring in some new talent for Belinda.”
Back on TV, Belinda bit at Brent’s lip, then his chin, then slipped lower in the bed and disappeared under the sheet. All three women in the back room leaned toward the TV. The lump in the sheet that was Belinda’s head went lower and momentarily Brent threw back his head and let a delicious moan escape.
“My God,” Mel said.
Connie fanned her face.
“I think that’s her secret weapon,” Joy said. And the program cut to commercial. Connie and Joy looked at each other, giggled and got up out of their chairs. “Well, not much has changed since yesterday. That baby’s gonna be in college before it gets out who the daddy is.”
“I’m not even sure it is Donovan’s. She was with Carter, too.”
“That was a long time ago—it couldn’t be his.”
“How long have you two been watching this soap?” Mel asked.
“Oh, God, fifteen years?” Connie answered by way of a question.
“At least.”
“You find a magazine, honey?”
Mel made a face and held up the Playboy.
“My, my,” Connie said.
“I’m not too interested in trucks, fish, guns or game,” she said. “Don’t you ever get any others in?”
“If you tell me what you want, I’ll have Ron pick ’em up on his next run. We only carry what we sell.”
“Makes sense,” she said. “I hope I haven’t just snatched up some poor guy’s Playboy that he’s looking forward to.”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Connie said. “Hey, there’s a little potluck at the bar tonight for Joy’s birthday. Why don’t you come on over?”
“Aw, I don’t have a present!”
“We don’t do presents, honey,” Joy said. “Just come and party.”
“Well, happy birthday anyway, Joy. I’ll check with Doc,” she said. “What time? If I can come, should I bring something for the potluck?”
“We’ll get over there about six, and no, don’t you worry about bringing anything. I don’t guess you do any cooking at Doc’s and we have the food covered. Nothing new on that baby, huh?”
“Not a peep.”
“Damnedest thing,” Joy said. “Bet whoever’s it is came from another one of the towns.”
“I’m starting to think that, too,” Mel said. She pulled some bills out of her pocket to pay for her stuff. “Maybe I’ll see you later, then.”
On her way back to Doc’s she passed the bar. Jack was sitting on the porch with his feet up on the rail. She wandered over. Sitting beside him was a fishing tackle box full of beautiful feathery flies. Small pliers, scissors and a razor blade were sticking out of the tackle box, as well as little plastic envelopes that contained colorful feathers, silver hooks and other paraphernalia.
“Break time?” he asked her.
“I’ve been on break all day, except for a little diaper changing and feeding. The baby’s asleep, there aren’t any patients and Doc is afraid to play gin with me. It turns out I can beat his socks off.”
Jack laughed. He leaned forward and peered at the book and magazine. He looked at her face and raised an eyebrow. “Little light reading?” he asked. She lifted the magazine. “It was either this or guns, trucks, hunting or fishing. You want to borrow it when I’m through?”
“No, thanks,” he laughed.
“You don’t like naked women?”
“I love naked women—I just don’t feel like looking at pictures of them. It seems like you’d get enough of that in your line of work,” he said.
“Like I said, the choices were pretty limited. I haven’t seen one of these in years, but when I was in college my roommates and I used to laugh ourselves stupid at the advice column. And they used to have some interesting stories. Does Playboy still run fiction?”
“I have absolutely no idea, Melinda,” he said, grinning.
“You know what I’ve noticed about this town? Everyone has a satellite dish and at least one gun.”
“A couple of items that seem to be necessary. No cable TV out here. You shoot?” he asked.
“I hate guns,” she said with a shudder. “Try to imagine the number of gunshot deaths in a trauma center in L.A.” She shivered again. He has no idea, she thought.
“The guns around here aren’t the kind people use on each other. Hardly a handgun in the town, although I have a couple, just because I’ve had them for a long time. This is rifle and shotgun country—used for hunting, euthanizing a sick or wounded animal, protection from wildlife. I could teach you to shoot, so you’d be more comfortable with guns.”
“No way. I hate to even be around them. All these guns I see in the gun racks in the trucks—are they loaded?”