Pennies from Heaven by James P. Blaylock

Author:James P. Blaylock [Blaylock, James P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781625676139
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2023-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

28

WHEN JANE LOOKED into the Atchison Room behind the bar at Ruby’s Diner, she saw that Penny Potts and another woman had already arrived and had stopped at the bar for glasses of wine on the way in. The two sat in easy chairs at a coffee table. The walls were hung with photos of passenger and freight trains, and there was a mural of the Pacific Surfliner running south along the coast, the sun setting over the ocean. Through the west-facing window lay the lamp-lit railroad tracks of the Old Orange Metrolink station and the parking lot beyond.

“Jane!” Mrs. Potts said to her, “Come meet my dear good friend Mrs. Hazelton.”

Jane shook hands with Mrs. Hazelton, a stout woman, probably in her early seventies but with very little gray in her short hair. She had deep laugh lines on her face, and she wore an autumn-colored, leafy, cable-stitched sweater that was almost certainly handmade.

“Get yourself a drink before you sit,” Mrs. Hazelton said to Jane. “Talking is dry work.”

Jane headed back into the bar, which was nicely empty on a Sunday night. There was no music playing, thank God, only the sound of a model Santa Fe passenger train running around a track that circumnavigated the ceiling.

“Are you a book club member?” the bartender asked. He was particularly good-looking and was probably ten years younger than she was. The term “chiseled features” came into her mind, and he had the build of a dancer. The nametag on his shirt read “Jason”. “Just say yes,” he said to her. “There’s a thirty percent discount on drinks and happy-hour food for club members.”

“Then yes,” Jane said. “I’m a new member.” She waved her copy of The Empty House at him.

“That’s what I thought. I haven’t seen you before. Book any good?”

“It’s a collection of stories. Lots of atmosphere. I admit I didn’t read them all. Don’t rat me out to the others.”

“They told you there’s a test afterward, right?” He glanced down at her hand when he said this, pretty obviously looking for a wedding ring—some kind of helpless biological response. He poured her a glass of chardonnay, said he’d keep the tab open if she intended to order something else, and then told her to enjoy herself, all very cheerfully.

She carried her wine back into the Atchison Room and took a seat on the couch. “Jason is pleasant,” she said.

“Mr. Scrumptious, I call him,” Penny said. “He looks like that good-looking fellow on the television.”

“What fellow, Penny?” Mrs. Hazelton asked. “You can’t just say ‘that fellow’. It’s not sensible.”

“Maybe not, but it’s true, and that makes up for something. I can never remember the names of celebrities,” she said to Jane. “Do you know that Mrs. Hazelton is Curator of Cultural Heritage at the Little Tidwell Museum on Main Street in Santa Ana? It’s high time that the two of you met. She also has a deep understanding of mysticism. She’s our resident scholar on the paranormal.”

“I deny it,” Mrs. Hazelton said.

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