Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti

Author:Deb Caletti [Deb Caletti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2011-08-23T05:00:00+00:00

The arc Travis’ motorcycle made out of the Becker drive was delicious. I held tight to his waist. I settled into the feeling, the wind on my bare legs, my head wobbly and heavy from my helmet. It was the coldest ride yet, though, with the clouds full of rain and the sky dark. I was glad for my sweater. We passed Moon Point. The paragliders had a bonfire going, as they did some summer nights, and they were gathered around its warm orange light. By the look of the sky, though, they wouldn’t be there long.

I didn’t know how long we’d be riding, but I didn’t expect to stop after such a short while. No, I didn’t expect to stop right then at Johnson’s Nursery.

He stopped in a parking space, both feet on the ground. “Hop off,” he said.

“Why are we here?” The feathery wings of fear. Just a pulse beat of panic.

“Hop off. Shit, I’m just checking something.”

A wave of relief shot through my stomach. He turned the motor off. I got off, hugged my arms around myself. I hoped no one saw me there. It was quiet, and dark except for the round helmets of the landscape lights around the front of the store. I waited for Travis to check whatever he was going to check. He didn’t get off, though. Instead, he started walking the bike off the parking strip, toward the section of in-ground trees.

“I thought you were checking something,” I said. My relief disappeared as quickly as it came. A thread of fear snaked up my insides and settled in a coil around my heart.

“I am. I’m checking that no one will see my bike.”

“Travis,” I said. “No. I don’t want to be here.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, Travis, I don’t. I don’t want to be here.”

I heard the threep of crickets. A semi-truck rumbled down Cummings Road and made the air shudder.

He grabbed my wrist. He pulled me toward the path that led to the waterfalls. It was dark there. I thought of the ceramic toads and elves hidden among the plants, watching from the blackness. Libby had set them there, placed them in the ground with her own hands. Travis gripped my shoulders. The moon edged from a bank of clouds and then was hidden again. The light shone on Travis’s face and then was gone. “Tell me where they keep the key to the cash register.”

“Oh, God, Travis, no.”

“Tell me.”

“She keeps it with her.” I shivered. In fact, I was starting to shake. I saw Libby with that cactus garden on her desk. I saw her fleshy arms and her warm eyes. I saw her looped writing on bills and invoices, the way she sighed and said, Thank you, another day is done whenever she locked the door behind her. The plants, her business, her labor of love.

“She doesn’t. I’ve watched her. She always gets it from the storeroom.”

“No.” Tears were building hot behind my eyes. My throat was thickening. “If you want money, she doesn’t have it anyway.

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