He had spent the last ten years or so obsessing about the “girl next door,” Jules Robin, now Baker. He had spent the last three years mourning her marriage to the prick next door, Will Baker, wondering how he was going to get around that little barricade. Rob could think of nothing in life he wanted more than his dream girl, the Southern beauty she was. He had courted her and tried his hardest to lay down some slick whiles of his own while he worked the stock room at Horizon Grocery, but nothing would catch her eye. It was like she had this perpetual vow of celibacy that he just couldn’t penetrate, but he tried to just as hard. And now he had done it.
He had finally gotten that girl to look his way, and Rob Evans made good on a promise he made to himself all those years ago. And last night in the rain, in something that can only be described as a moment of weakness by Jules and a particularly strong work by Rob, he found a way to make her give in. And now that he had her, Rob would do anything to keep her from getting away.
The day ahead looked to be a long one of farm work and yard work, so the lazy morning had to end. He turned on the radio and headed to the shower, reluctantly washing away the luck of the day before and the scent of a woman he had always loved. Rob didn’t mind too much, though, figuring it wouldn’t be too long before he got that scent back. The radio was pretty nice, playing a little Tom Petty as he was rolling into the shower. After the weekend rock wore off and they turned over to the usual repertoire of acoustic guitars and other twangy strings, Rob wandered the dial looking for another good rock show, finally settling on one of the bigger stations. It was a good choice. They had just started playing his favorite song, “Bad Moon Rising.”
It didn’t take long for a farmer like Rob to get ready. He’d get showered off, brush his teeth, scruff his hair down under a John Deere hat, then fill a thermos up with coffee before pulling out of the drive. And the last few years being in the fire department had helped teach Rob how to get ready in no time flat, always moving as if a call-out was right around the corner. Rob pulled on one of his old Bulldog t-shirts, covered it up with a light summer plaid fitting a country farmer from Horizon, all over his jeans and work boots. Sure it was Summer, and sure it would probably be a hellish temperature that afternoon, but the man had customs, and he wouldn’t break them for anything. Not even the threat of heat stroke.
The morning was still cool, so Rob just rolled the windows down on his old GMC, a beautiful white truck his dad had given him for high school graduation. It got the job done, and it had a cab cozy enough to fit a big guy like him. Rob wanted to get some fences built out at the back of his fields to try and keep the deer out, and maybe some of the smaller animals with a little chicken wire, so it meant tripping down to the Home Depot in Myrtle City
Before he got too far, Rob thought he’d stop in and fill up at the Minit Save, get a paper, and maybe talk with some of the old men in town. It meant crossing the highway twice over, but that was no problem for Rob. He loved any chance to meet up and talk farm with the former earth turners of Horizon. It always meant free lessons and sometimes free coffee.
Rob eased up to the curb and turned off the engine. It was a shame, though, because it meant turning off one of his favorite songs by The Who, but he had the Limp Bizkit cover on CD and would just play it later if he really wanted to.
The store looked about as dirty and poorly managed as always, and there were no old men standing by the counter talking with old Frank. They weren’t as consistent during the Summer when everyone’s schedule was different. It was nice to see another friend in the store, though, as Rob recognized his cop buddy in the back. He figured that Joe Rodriguez was getting some coffee or looking around for a morning snack. Probably, “checking in on the store” to avoid getting another one of those meaningless calls he hated so much.
They exchanged head nods, and Rob went about his business. He looked at the gum on the counter, poured a cup of coffee, and looked over the weekends lottery numbers, not surprised to see that none of his lucky numbers had come in. Rob never bought tickets, but he knew what numbers he would play if he did buy one. He always checked the winning numbers just to see. He felt like that if any of his lucky numbers came up, or even all of them, it was destined to be a lucky day.
That gosh awful chime on the door alerted everyone to another presence in the store, but Rob had gotten used to tuning it out back when he spent an hour or more talking to folks at the counter. A part of his mind always wondered who it was, but never really cared. The sound he heard next, though, that was one he wasn’t quite as accustomed to, and he instantly knew exactly who walked in the door.
“Lenny! What a pleasant surprise to see you in here this morning. How’s the farm coming?”
“Morning, Will. It’s coming along well. I’m actually heading up to Home Depot this morning to pick up some supplies. I’m gonna build a fence along the back of the fields, right up next to the woods there.”
“That sounds nice. That gonna keep all the rabbits out? Or do you want to keep them all in?”
“I’m mostly working for deer this time, but I may do something about the rabbits.”
Oh, Rob knew what Will was doing. They’d had Junior English together back in High School, and after they read Of Mice and Men, Will liked using his little nickname for Rob. Rob thought Steinbeck sucked about as much as Will. It was a pretty fitting nickname in some ways, given that Rob was a big man and he was a farm boy. Oh, Rob knew what Will was doing, but he chose to let it go. After all, Rob had something on old Bill Walker that he didn’t know about, and that was enough to make this a pleasant encounter for the farm boy.
Will crossed around him to reach the coffee, trying to fuel up before a long day down at the bank. “The deer messing up your fields?” Will finally dropped the act and just talked to him about the farm.
“Yeah, they’ve been eating on my apple trees and eating at some of the crops, but nothing too serious. I wish it were season so I could’ve shot one of them, but they aren’t that big of a problem. How’s the bank?”
“It’s okay. Handling other people’s money is just great, you know? Handle theirs while making none of your own.”
So said the man driving a fairly new Charger.
“I hear you there.” Rob tried hard as he could to talk to Will without giving anything away. He just wanted to look at the man and say, Hey, I’m doing your wife, but it didn’t seem too prudent. Instead, he grinned excessively and acted like he was in on the joke with Will. “Where were you this weekend? I didn’t see your car around any.”
“Oh, I was out of town on business, setting up an account for some clients. It was nice and tropical, really. You?”
“I was on shift Saturday to yesterday morning, and I’ll go back on tomorrow morning, so I’m just trying to get some work done on the farm. Maybe cut the hay this afternoon.”
“That sounds good, sounds good.” The banker just sort of trailed off after a minute, and just when it looked like Rob would get away with it, he came back. “You know, that reminds me. When I came in last night, I noticed something odd. The house smelled a bit odd. You know what might’ve caused that?”
“Well that would depend on what the smell was, Will. What’d it smell like and where was it coming from?”
“Well it smelled like hay, and it seemed to come from my wife.”
Will stood eye-to-eye with Rob, somehow, and challenged him to come up with a reason.
“I know what you’ve been doing with her, Rob. I’m on to you, and I’m not gonna let you get away with it. Tonight, I’m sitting down and talking to her about it. I’ve been watching her these last few months, and I know what she does when I’m gone. You can’t have my Jules, Rob. You touch her again, and I’ll kill you.”
The words of his voice came off smooth and uncontested, like there was no doubt that he meant it and he’d thought about it very hard. It bothered Rob, though, that Will seemed to think they had been going on for months and months. Before last night, Rob could’ve very easily dismissed this crazed husband, but for some reason, he didn’t want to correct the man. Rob felt more powerful when his competition thought of it as months, and that was something he didn’t want to give up.
“You threatening trouble with me, Will?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Boy, I could tear you up. You really want to do this?”
“I’d kill you where you stand, Rob.”
“I’ll be sure and tell my cop friend what you said when he comes back to the counter.”
Will took a glance back, and without missing a beat, “I’ll be sure and pull the trigger on my .22 so he knows it without having to walk over here.”
“You carry a gun around in your suit?”
“Sure. Bank’s a dangerous place. We got held up a few years back, I might as well be prepared just in case.”
Though Rob and Will had known each other a ways back, Rob never knew the timid man to be a violent one aside from the occasional outburst, but who didn’t fit that bill? Nor did he ever know him to be a member of the National Handgun Owner’s Association, but he also knew well enough not to push a man who’s wife you were sleeping with. Something told Rob that he probably wasn’t bluffing it.
“Now look, Will, there ain’t no need for you to do this. You shoot me right here in what looks like cold blood, my friend back there will have one between your eyes before I hit the ground.” Rob glanced over his assailant’s shoulder, trying to make contact with the officer, but it didn’t work.
“And if you get that guy involved, your both gone. So just keep those eyes on me, okay, friend? Now. You touch my wife again, I’ll kill you. You’re gonna call her up this afternoon and tell her it’s all over. Make up whatever story you want, I don’t care. Just don’t tell her I know about it, we’re all good.”
Rob couldn’t stop thinking about his saving grace, a police officer right in the back of the room just itching and waiting to pull that trigger. He couldn’t help but thinking that maybe alerting the officer was the best he could do.
“You really want to risk this? You want to die, Will?”
“Today feels like a good day to die. Why not, sure?”
That failed.
“What if I don’t leave it alone, Will? What if I go on doing what I’ve been doing and your wife just keeps on doing what she’s been doing, which right now happens to be me. What would you do?”
“Well, Rob, I think you know what I’d do. That seems to be the topic of conversation today, doesn’t it? I would take my gun, put it in your mouth, and pull the trigger. And I wouldn’t aim up, either. I’d shoot straight back. Your windpipe would be ruptured, and if I’m lucky I’d get your upper spinal column. You couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t move. You would die, alright, but not all that fast. You could be laying on the floor for hours and nobody would come to get you. Sound fun?”
About this time, Rob’s hero had finally come to save the day. Officer Rodriguez must’ve seen the discussion and wanted to get in on the talk.
When he first spoke and alerted the men to his presence, because neither man had the concentration to spare that would allow them to see him coming, Will shot Rob a look that pretty much repeated the message he had given him three or four times already: talk and your dead. “Hey, Rob. How’re the crops looking?”
“Oh…hey there, Joe. They’re doing well, mostly looking good this season.” Rob tried to hide the quiver in his voice, and it worked pretty well, but Rob just knew that something got out.
“What’re you boys talking about over here?”
“We’re just talking about that Braves game last night, Officer. We were disagreeing on whether or not this is Chipper’s last season,” Will said, once more looking back at Rob as if to get his message across. “You a baseball fan, Officer…Rodriguez?”
“Oh, yeah. Great game last night, finishing up that sweep of the Phils. McCann launching one in the eighth to put us back up, that new kid, Heyward, coming in and knocking a few guys home. It was a great game.”
Rob, feeling a little emboldened by his friend’s arrival, decided to send a message of his own “I don’t think Chipper’s done yet. He’s still playing a really good game right now. I think he’s poised to have a pretty good season, even if it is his last,” he thought out loud, adding the real punch to it with his last statement and completely abandoning the illusion of sports talk. “I’m thinking he’s gonna put in a pretty good game this afternoon, if you ask me.”
“See, I’m pretty sure he’s done. You know him. You never can tell when his last game will be. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he didn’t even make the lineup today. If he didn’t even play this afternoon,” Will brought back in retort, clearly responding to Rob’s brazen attempt at throwing him off.
“He’ll have a good game today, you just wait and see.” Rob had regained his height advantage on Will, feeling ever stronger with a cop there on his side. His eyes were a good five inches above Will’s and looked down on them with a furious passion. Will returned the look with his own cold stare.
“Hey, guys. Braves are off tonight. It’s a travel day down South. Marlins, coming up, I think.”
Rob felt about useless at realizing his mistake, making the first strategic stumble in the battle he was having with Will. “Oh, yeah. Well, I never pay much attention to the schedule. I figure I’ll wind up listening to it no matter what, why care who they’ve got coming up?” It was a decent enough cover, but Rob just knew that Joe saw straight through it.
“Right. Well, friends, I hate to cut the water cooler chat short, but the bank won’t open itself. Have a good morning, officer. Rob, have a good day,” his last words coming off almost like a challenge to the farmer. And with that, Will took his coffee and left, Rob finally breathing easy for the first time in almost five minutes. Something had happened in that confrontation, and Rob could feel it. And what he felt was an upper hand.
“What have you got yourself into now, Rob?”
“It’s nothing. Just a friendly competition is all. And it’s one I plan on winning.”
“You be careful. I can’t help you if you get into anything, Evans, and that guy’s trouble. I can tell. And if I’m not mistaken, I think he had a gun in his pocket.”
“You think so? A banker?” Rob knew that the banker had been carrying a gun, but it just didn’t seem to matter anymore. The danger was gone, and he had no reason to fear it. Guys like Will were always making ridiculous promises that they never really intended to carry through with. Things like foreclosures and loans? Rob knew that he could win this, he just had to figure out how.
“You be careful, that’s all I’m saying.”
“You know me, Joe. I’ll leap, then look, and shout a big’ole yeehaw just to make it sound better.”
“Yeah, yeah, you redneck fool. I gotta get back to work. And I mean it. Don’t push this guy. I can feel something’s wrong there.”
And with that, Rob and Joe split off, Joe getting back to wherever he’d been before, and Rob breaking for the truck. He’d wasted enough time and needed to get on to that Home Depot before too long. That lumber wouldn’t sell itself, you know.
It was that part of the day where the sun was brightest but not the hottest, where the soil hadn’t quite gotten accustomed to the rays beating down on them, but the sky was already so much lighter than it had been a couple hours before, you just couldn’t tell. And the sun was still low, so you couldn’t really avoid it no matter how hard you tried. Rob was used to being out in the field by this time, or just showing up to the fire house and eating breakfast, so it didn’t bother him so much. He drove on for about twenty minutes, mostly because Monday morning work traffic and the stragglers heading into Atlanta
Reports on the radio weren’t any more helpful, saying there was a wreck on down the road past his exit on the locally known St. John
He finally got to the store and found a mostly empty parking lot. The weekend warriors had all picked up their supplies and headed on to work their office jobs. Monday morning was Rob’s time to shop, and for guys like Rob. He walked past the lawnmowers and the pre-built sheds out front, and even stopped to glance at a grill or two, wondering if he could really afford to replace his old charcoal burner. When he finally went in, past the automatic doors and the sales associate in an orange apron, Rob went about looking for what he needed. His main priorities were the wood and the chicken wire, but no trip to Home Depot would be complete without browsing and thinking about building projects. Rob wasn’t normally the browsing kind, but he could do some looking in a place like this.
After a few minutes of aimless wandering, Rob stumbled upon the wood he needed for his fences. There were tons of choices when it came to lengths and thickness and durability. He checked each type for quality, looking it over trying to decide if it would hold up for his purposes. He eventually went with an 8ft post, 4 inches thick at each side, to build his fence. And now came time to get the chicken wire. He would start with a wood and wire fence, eventually adding posts across each length to bolster the strength of it when he had the time and money to do so, but for now this would do.
He went through the store looking for chicken wire, not really seeing any. He could find sinks and pipes and locks and all sorts of tools he didn’t need, but nowhere could he find chicken wire. Finally giving in and forsaking his pride, Rob asked one of the employees, “Hey, you guys still carry chicken wire?”
“Chicken wire? I…uh…no, I don’t think we do,” he responded in a long, drawn out thought speak.
Rob could tell the man wasn’t too sure, so he tried again. The guy looked new on the job, a middle-aged man who had probably just been fired from his office and forced to take up a job requiring an apron and a reasonable knowledge of home improvement and/or construction. He had the apron. “You know, chicken wire. That stuff you put up for basic fences or Pee-Wee baseball backstops at practice fields or occasionally to actually fence in chickens? Chicken wire?” The man still looked hopeless. “Metal, intertwining wire fences, made up of a lot of little hexagons or something like that?”
And the light came on. “Oh! You mean poultry fences.”
“What?”
“Yeah, we have poultry fences. Right back here, let me show you.”
Sure enough, there was the chicken wire. Under the label of a poultry fence. Despite the fact that he had basically said as much in describing the stuff, his friend, the out of place salesman, still needed some prodding to get it right.
“Thanks, sir, I’ll just put this on my cart and head to check-out,” he said, trying to curb any attempts at conversation or further tips the man might give. He grabbed up a few rolls of poultry fence, also known as chicken wire, and moved the load on down to check-out, picking up a post hole digger along the way. His was about worn and broken, so it was okay to replace it.
When he got to the check-out, Rob felt a little dismay at there only being one register open. The line was empty, but Rob still didn’t want to use it. The cashier was a girl that Rob knew from high school named Jenny Miller. Jenny was a short brunette, about his age, who had always had a thing for Rob. She was a pretty girl, someone who Rob used to not mind wasting time on. Jenny didn’t go to Horizon High School
“Rob! What’re you doing here?”
“Just getting some fencing supplies. Deer keep getting into my fields, and I’d really rather they didn’t.”
“Oh, that’s right, you’ve got that farm going back there. I guess it’s going pretty well, then?” Jen cheerily tried to carry on this conversation while she rung up his supplies. Rob just tried to carry it on until she finished ringing up his supplies.
“It is. Mostly hay for the other farmers in the area, but I do grow some corn every once in a while, and I keep some old apple trees. That’s what the deer mess with most.”
“Oh, it sounds nice. I should come out and see it some time.”
Trying not to be rude, but not wanting to invite the girl over who had just invited herself, “It’s a nice enough place. I keep it going on the off days.”
“Cool, cool.” They stood there for a second while she finished checking everything out, Rob thinking he was gonna get off easy on this one. “I was wondering, what are you doing this Friday?” Jenny asked with a tempting look in her eyes.
“Some friends of mine are having a fish fry in Horizon. Probably about…” he wanted to think of a time that would be too late for her to come but too early for her to want him afterwards, “eight o’clock. Yeah, about eight. Why? What’s up?” He knew dang well he wasn’t going to that fish fry, anyhow, but it just might work for him here for Jenny to think that he was.
“Oh, that’s too bad. See, my parents are having this big anniversary thing at their house this Friday and, I’m supposed to bring a date, and all. And then they’re leaving after that to go on some big second honeymoon and I’m gonna have to watch the house all alone. I just thought you might want to…join me?”
Rob only had himself to blame for this, because he knew it was his own fault for making her think anything would ever come of them. Truth be told, though, he might have taken her up on the incredibly tempting offer any other time. He knew well what she meant, and it almost sounded good, but it was time to let the poor girl know the truth. It just wasn’t gonna happen, and she had Mrs. Jules Baker to thank for that.
“Look, Jenny. I, uh, I can’t.”
“What? Why not? Is it the parent’s house thing, because I totally understand. The thought of it almost creeps me out, too, but they’ve got a guest bedroom.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was her who creeped him out and not the house, but whatever. “No, Jenny, it’s this. I’ve got somebody else. You know? I’ve met somebody, and I can’t just go running around with you anymore.”
“Oh. Really? Wow.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry to tell you like this, Jenny, but it wasn’t right, you know? It wasn’t right to let you keep thinking that I was your go-to guy.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just I always figured you’d end up getting yourself a married woman pregnant, not leave me for some normal, happy relationship. Just wasn’t your style.”
After a bout of nervous laughter, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe that’ll be next week. Oh, besides, I just remembered, I’m on shift this Friday night. I can’t.”
“The big fireman, gotta go out and save the day.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, Jen. You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, Jen. You gonna be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. Just…give me a call when that other girl doesn’t work out for you, okay? And you know where to find me.”
Rob broke off the conversation with her pretty easily, carting his wood out to the truck. He really did feel bad for the girl, especially knowing that it was his fault for dragging her along. Part of him wondered if that made him feel better about dragging along behind Jules for so long, the fact that he had somebody else feeling what he felt. Well that was all done, anyway, and now he could focus on other things. He could finally focus on what it would take to get Jules for himself once and for all. He had to figure out how he could remove Will from the picture permanently, and then something caught his attention.
After Rob loaded the wood and poultry fence in his truck, something else caught his nose and his eye. It was the gardening center next to the store. He saw it, and he realized what he needed to really get that girl. It was a garden. He knew how much she loved to garden, and how much that garden at home meant to her, and Rob knew that if he grew her a garden, he could win.
He walked into the little tented area. The shade obviously wasn’t for the benefit of the patrons, because it was just as hot in there with the flowers as it was out in the parking lot. They kept all sorts of gardening supplies out under that tent, with garden hoses and slate tiles for adding decoration to any garden. When Rob passed the tomato cages, he couldn’t help but conjure up images of rogue vegetables…fruits running wild in the countryside of Horizon. The manager in charge of garden supplies walked by and couldn’t help but give Rob a questioning look as he laughed to himself about giant tomatoes going on a rampage through town. He felt good knowing that seeing Jenny hadn’t completely ruined his good mood.
He kept admiring the different supplies, spending a few minutes looking at each section of plants from the junipers to the rosebushes, and the lilies and what have you. He couldn’t find anything that either she didn’t already have in the garden, or he felt would fit appropriately out in front of his house. He looked and looked, and nothing looked right.
It was fortunate, then, that he smelled one in particular, out of all of the floral aromas pervading the store, that seemed perfect. The perfect scent wafted to Rob and gave him a satisfied feeling unlike what he had expected. When he found the source, it was a large flowering bush that he recognized from his father’s old garden. He couldn’t remember what it was called, but he knew it was the one he wanted. There stood a tall, blooming bush with magnificent pink buds all over. Each bud stuck out from the branch with a long string of smaller flowers hanging off. The scent that had first caught his attention now drowned out all other feelings and senses with a gentle authority, reminding Rob of nothing but the quietly overwhelming sense of home. It was perfect, and Rob had to have them.
He checked out of the garden section, now carrying three large bushes of these pink flowering plants, and he knew this is what would get Jules. The scent rode with him, making him feel right about everything, but nothing in particular. He just felt right.
When Rob got to the truck, he saw one of those fliers sticking out of his windshield. Someone had gone through and put leaflets under everybody’s wipers telling them about some concert downtown that weekend. He’d heard of the group before, these guys called Thesaurus Slam, but he’d never got the chance to hear them. It was too bad. They seemed like the kind of band he might actually enjoy. If they hadn’t put a sheet of paper on his truck, he might’ve gone. Rob hated people messing with his truck. It was just one more spot on his somewhat lucky day.
Rob drove down the highway, bushes, soil, wood, and poultry fencing all piled up in the bed of his truck. He’d spent so long in the store looking at the flowers that it was almost lunch time and he’d abandoned the house for far too long, so Rob went straight on back where he would start planning the garden and the fence, garden first. The heat had picked up, and the humidity was overwhelming from the storms last night, but none of it even mattered to him. All that mattered to him was winning that girl and putting to rest all of his worries and desires with her. Rob was content and satisfied, perhaps since the first time he looked into Jules’ eyes that night out behind the grocery store.
When he looked into her eyes, it was when he knew that he had to have her, when he knew that he loved her. He had looked into those eyes again last night, he looked into her eyes again last night and kissed her. They both looked at each other after that, frightened at the possibilities and the things still undone, and then they both closed their eyes. The way it should be.
Rob’s house was still sitting there waiting for him when he got back, plainly sitting atop the hill above his farm just like always. Rob drove on around back and unloaded the bed of his truck. The wood was laid out in a pile, the “poultry fence” was laid out in a pile, and the bushes were stood up next to the entry to the barn. He had to keep them shaded for now until he could figure out where it was best to plant them. Obviously they would go out in front of the house, but he still had to figure out exactly where. He’d talk to some folks, get some ideas, and eventually plant them down in his own garden, but for now it just mattered that he cared for them where they were.
After a little time in the barn, Rob decided to go in and have a quick lunch, even if it was a little late. He hated missing meals, and he hated working without at least a good sandwich, so Rob stopped to eat lunch. He heated some left over steak and made a banana sandwich, wanting something that was filling but quick. It all got washed down with the afternoon news and the last glass of milk from his last gallon. Robert went about cleaning up after himself and started getting ready to work in the field when he saw something he little expected. Sure he’d meant to call her, but he didn’t think she’d come over so soon. Work in the field could wait, because his ambiguous day had just become his lucky day.
She got out of the car with those awful sunglasses covering most of her face, the ones that Rob just hated, but not even that could put him off today. He’d spent all morning thinking about his beautiful girl and the night he’d been dreaming of for a decade before and every hour since. “Hey, baby, come on in, it’s burning up out here. If I’d known you were coming I might’ve cleaned up a little better.” The place didn’t look too bad, but it wasn’t ready for her company just yet. He leaned in to kiss her as she came in the door like it was what he was expected to do. She pushed him away because it was what she was expected to do.
“Look, Robert, we can’t do this ever again. It’s over. It’s over between us, and this can’t happen.” Now Jules was talking like they’d been together for months instead of just once. Rob had to wonder just how Will had gotten to her so quickly. “I love my husband very much, and I can’t let you do this to him. He’s a good man, and he doesn’t deserve this.”
“That’s not what you were telling me yesterday,” Rob recalled. The whole purpose of their getting together the night before had been so Jules could talk to somebody about her frustrations with Will, and she certainly let them out. She’d called the man about everything she could, and Rob could tell she felt abandoned by him. So that’s when he made his move, and it just so happened to work out that they once again found themselves behind the grocery store and soaked to the bone.
“I was wrong. He’s not a perfect man, but he is a good man, and I won’t have it anymore. You’ve always given me these, these sideways looks and winks, and I can’t resist you. I can’t stop you, and I have to,” her words of inevitability giving Rob at least some confidence back. “You can’t let me do this to Will. I love him.”
“Are you trying to convince me or you of that fact?”
“Stop it, Rob! If you’re really my friend, you’ll leave this alone! Just stop. It’s done.” She had started to get uppity at Rob, throwing him off a little. He always panicked when she got this excited about anything, because she’d been known to really let loose in the past. Even so, he had to try and bring her back to his side. Rob had spent too long as her friend to let Jules bring that label back out on him. He could see it in her eyes when she had called him a friend, and she meant it to hurt. She fought dirty.
“Do you remember that night a few years back when you were stuck out in the rain behind the grocery store? And I promised to give you a ride home, but you were all soaking wet and had to dry off in the back room? Do you remember that?” He knew she did, or else nothing the night before would’ve worked. “I think about that all the time. And I think you do, too. I wonder, what would’ve happened to us if we would’ve gotten together that night?”
“I don’t think about it, and I don’t know,” returned Jules, her voice a little shakier now that her vicious diatribe was done.
“I think you do, baby. I think you do.” He could play the name game, too, and he did to great effect as he whispered in her ears everything she wanted to hear. “I would do anything to keep you with me. I can’t let you go, Jules. I just can’t. It took me so many years to get you here, I can’t let you leave me.” By now, his arms were around her waist and he could feel her breath on his neck, behind the ears, as he whispered softly to her. She fell into him without resistance, and he knew the game was working.
“How do we do this, Robby? How do we do this? I have to be in your arms, but I can’t.”
Rob let her push away some, but only because she was crying. He didn’t want to make her cry. He pulled her back in after a second and whispered to her softly, one more time, telling her that everything she felt and everything she wanted was right there and was perfectly open to her, “Sssh, sssh. It’s okay. The first time…” he thought for the words, seeking what he really wanted to say and what he knew would bring her back to him again, “the first time is passion. The second time is compliance.” She looked up at Rob, as tall as she was having to crane her neck into his eyes as a little girl would to look up at God, the tears forming on her eyelids. He kissed the tears away on her eyes, then she came the rest of the way and returned his kiss.
Although it was only the second time that Rob and Jules had been together, really together, he knew that this moment was bliss. He knew that this moment was what he wanted and that he would do anything to protect it. To keep it forever.
The two came together that afternoon, fully in love and touch, letting the afternoon sun give way to the bedroom’s night. As they lay there together, the young lady drifting off to sleep in his arms, Rob whispered to her again. “I want to grow you a garden, babygirl. Would you like it if I did that?”
There were no words, but she sighed and pushed up against him in a sleepy stretch that he took for a yes. And Rob just lay there, feeling her with him, and right this time. Not just in a frenzied passion reminiscent of his adolescent fantasies, but really together. He was afraid to move, knowing that waking her up would collapse the moment. When he did finally move his arms away from her, her body quivered again as his touch grazed her skin, but she slept on. Rob started to dress, knowing what he had to do. He knew it was time for him to fight for the girl he loved, and he knew that it meant just going up that banker and calling him out for abandoning such a beautiful girl. It meant shaming him for leaving such a perfect woman with an empty love that would neither cover her nor satisfy her. It meant ignoring the threats and bringing the fighter to his knees. But just to be safe, Rob grabbed his gun out of the drawer. It was an old revolver his dad had kept around the house for security, and now Rob kept it around to think of the man in his life that had been taken too soon. He knew that this act may well be the end of him, but Rob knew it was far better to give up your life knowing you had done all you could rather than to give up your soul to secure a better future.
As he finished tying his shoes, Rob’s phone rang from the pocket of his recently replaced blue jeans. “Hello?”
“Rob, hey, it’s Joe.” The cop on the other end was not what Rob had hoped for right now, but there wasn’t much he could do but listen.
“Joe, hey, how are you? You still on shift?” The attempt at reminding the man he was on the clock didn’t produce the desired effect. Rob spoke as softly as he could, hoping the combination of loud talk and a ringing phone wouldn’t wake Jules.
“Yeah, I’m still on. Hey, Rob, wh…why are you whispering?”
“Whispering? No, I’m not. It’s my throat, my throat hurts.”
“You’re a bad liar, Rob, what’s going on?”
“I’m trying to keep quiet, yeah, that’s all.”
“But why? Why are you trying to keep quiet? You live alone on a farm, Rob.” Rob hated being friends with a cop. “Who’s there with you?”
“Just some girl.” He thought about telling him it was Jenny from the store, but being that specific in a lie might come back to bite him. “She needed a place to stay, she’s been having a real tough time and needed a friend.” Rob took the call out of the bedroom and let his volume come up a bit. “I’m not doing anything wrong, I promise you.”
“God, Rob. It’s Mrs. Baker, isn’t it? You’re doing the banker’s wife.”
“No, no. It’s…” and here’s where Rob knew lying was just too exhausting to be worthwhile, “yeah, you’re right, it’s her. But she doesn’t love him, Joe. And we go back. We’ve got a history.”
“Just tell me you two ain’t got a future, Rob. That guy’s dangerous, Rob, and that girl’s not any better. Something’s gonna happen to you, boy, and I’m not gonna be able to help you.”
“I know what I’m doing, okay? Look, I’m gonna end it with her, but not yet. I can’t, not now.” Rob had no intention of ending anything except Will’s hold on her, but Joe didn’t need to know that.
“You send that girl home right now, you hear me, Rob? You send that girl home to her husband right now, he’s here waiting on her.”
“You mean to tell me he’s home right now?” The news of Will’s present location made the thought of a confrontation instantly more dangerous and equally more tempting.
“You don’t do it, Rob, I said send her home. Don’t you dare go over there with her.”
“I’ll call you later, Joe. Have a good evening.”
“Rob, don’t you do it, I swear, I’ll…” Rob could hear Joe saying as he hung up the phone. He had no intentions of going over there to see Will with her. Jules was going to stay at the house and watch the farm. Or just lay in bed waiting for her man to come back and find her sleeping. Either way worked for Rob.
He sat in the barn for a minute before cranking the truck, wondering if this really was a good idea. It took Rob some time, but he pushed the idea of fear out of his mind. Rob would have to resolve himself that this was the right thing to do before he would crank that GMC up, and it was no easy task. Impatience finally found Rob out on the road with the windows down and the radio off. He had to focus on getting this done.
Rob parked his truck about two blocks down from the Baker house and one block off the strip. There was a small church there where he could leave it in the parking lot and no one would notice. The plan was for Rob to walk over to the Baker house from here. If something went wrong and Will did something stupid, he wouldn’t see Rob’s truck to dispose of it, and investigators might be able to piece together what happened. If Rob did something stupid and, Heaven forbid, shot Will, then his car wouldn’t be too close to the scene for anyone to tie him to it immediately. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was all that Rob had.
He walked quickly in the July heat, not wanting to attract too much attention. He’d already decided on leaving the flannel over shirt in his car it was so hot, and a guy walking down the road in a white t-shirt, jeans, and work boots would probably get some attention in the quiet streets of Horizon, GA. Rob’s focus was on nothing but his words and the coming confrontation. Rob knew what he was going to say, that he was going to tell Will he would never give up Jules, he thought about threatening him a little with Joe and telling him that his cop friend knew where Rob was going and he expected a phone call or whatever nonsense. Or not, really. Rob didn’t want to cause trouble for his friend, especially the kind that could get him shot again.
He ran the script through his head, over and over, making sure everything was right, until he finally saw the Baker house. Rob saw the garden first, then Will’s Charger, then the front door. Should he knock on the door, or break it down? Knocking on it sounded best. He went and knocked on the door. No answer came. He tried again, and still no answer came. Finally, he tried just opening the door. Surprisingly, the banker had left his door unlocked. Rob slowly opened the door and then pulled it shut behind him.
“Will! Will, I wanna talk to you.” Rob was standing in the welcome area right before the living room, still turned and looking at the door he’d just now closed. “I’m not giving up your girl. She’s not happy with you, Will. She’s not happy with you, and that’s why she’s laying in my bed, in my house, waiting on me to get back to her. So you know what, it’s over for you two. You can shoot me if you want, but you’ll never have your wife back. You hear me, Baker?”
How could Will not respond to this call? Perhaps he wasn’t really home, or maybe he was sitting and waiting calmly, preparing to surprise Rob when he least expected it. Maybe he was just out back in a hammock, Rob really didn’t know. All Rob knew is that it would have been impossible for him to ignore a challenge like that, and he figured Will was the same way.
“My friend, Officer Rodriguez, the cop, is waiting to hear back from me. If I don’t call him back in ten minutes, he’s sending in the SWAT.” It sounded as fake as it was, but Rob had to try.
Against his own better judgment, Rob moved further in the house. He thought about following the stairs down into the basement, but he went into the living room instead…and immediately wished he hadn’t. There in the middle of the floor lay a lifeless man, face down, breathing in the carpet. Rob instinctively reached down to check for a pulse or for breathing, only barely being able to even make out the man’s lips due to the intense beating he’d taken to the head. Whoever had wanted him dead had done a pretty bang up job of it. He was definitely dead. Rob couldn’t find a pulse, almost unable to even find the proper place in all the blood and carnage before him. He put his ear down to the soft blue collared shirt that Will had been wearing as he accosted Rob, very much alive, just a few hours ago. The same shirt was now beyond recognition, beyond identification, having been drenched in the same horror as the rest of the body and this God-forsaken home. Rob knew that Will was dead and that he would be the first suspect.
His hands were covered in blood from trying to find a pulse or heartbeat, so he wiped his hands on his own shirt, there being no place to avoid blood on Will’s Van Heusen. As he left the broken body there before him, Rob dialed his friend the cop while running out of the house in a fevered panic. The horrified farm boy had never seen a scene to compare with Will’s house. Even as a fireman, the calling card of death had never been so plainly laid out in front of his eyes as it had been this night.
“What do you want, Evans? I do not have time for you right now.”
“Joe! He’s dead! Somebody’s…he’s dead, Will’s dead.”
“What did you do? What did you do, Rob?”
“What? Me? No, Joe, no…I…no.”
“What happened, Robby?”
“I just…the blood, man, he’s dead.”
“Okay, look. Get home, wake that girl up, and get her over there. She needs to be there as soon as we show up if possible.”
“Right, yeah, right. What else?”
“You’re gonna be there with her, and we’re gonna talk about this when I see you there.”
“You mean I have to go back?” The last thing Rob wanted was to see that house again, or experience the horrors he only glanced at inside, but with greater detail. He was afraid of cops forcing him to look at it, frightening him into a false confession.
“Yes. You’re going back there with Mrs. Baker, and you’re gonna tell me what you did. I’ve gotta go call this in. Now just do it!”
Rob didn’t feel like arguing when Joe hung up with him after Rob had done the same thing to him just a few minutes earlier. Instead, he ran to the truck like he was running from Death himself, and started it up without even thinking. Rob flew home, thinking that all of the police in the area would be too busy getting to a murder scene to worry about a speeding truck. He passed the station on his way home, and sure enough, everybody was rushing out and starting up their blue lights and their sirens. Rob just kept on going, hoping that Joe wouldn’t see his truck.
Robert Evans pulled into the driveway of his little farm house and left the motor running with the keys in the ignition and the parking brake on. He didn’t have time to think about his course of action, he just knew he had to get undressed so that Jules wouldn’t see the blood before he had a chance to speak. Rob threw the blood stained mess in the garbage before he even got in the house, just being covered by his summer flannel. He slammed the door behind him with no consciousness of how that would affect a sleeping girl. Rob tried to wash his hands under a scalding sink, hoping to remove the stain of her dead husband’s life from under his nails. When that was all done, he ran into the bedroom and tried ripping his shoes off. While standing one legged and out of his mind, Rob heard Jules start to stir and speak, startling him off balance onto the floor.
“Where do you think you’re going, Robert Evans?” After he hit the ground, he heard her apologize a bit too late. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry, are you okay? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Rob groaned, almost forgetting why he was so shaken in the first place, then remembering why he had been trying to undress.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Robby. What time is it? Oh wow, I need to be going. I guess I fell asleep. See, this is how it’s supposed to work. You don’t leave me alone, it’s your house. I’m the one who leaves. I’ve gotta go home and get dinner ready for Will.” Rob couldn’t speak at hearing that man’s name, the man he once hated so viciously. Now he couldn’t even control the muscles of his face and keep them from betraying him. “What’s wrong?” And still he wouldn’t speak. “Rob, what’s wrong?”
“You need to get dressed.”
“Rob. What is going on.”
He tried to bite the words back without telling her, but Rob had to say it no matter what. “Baby,” he said, taking her hand, “I just got a call from the station. They found him laying on the floor.” Even as vague as he was being, Rob couldn’t help but see that image again, this tortured carcass engulfed by a warm red spot.
“Be honest with me, Rob. What are you saying? Who’d they find? It’s not Will, it’s not Will.” She spoke swiftly, trying to talk herself out of the truth.
“I’m sorry, baby, it is, it is.” He knew all too well how true it was. She started beating Rob in grief, and it took all he had to keep her from throwing this giant of a man back to the floor. “You need to get dressed now, we have to go.”
“No! No! It’s not, it’s not!”
“I’m sorry, baby, but they found him beaten to death on the floor. It’s your husband. Will’s dead.”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: We're drawing ever closer to the end of this mystery, and I hope you're still enjoying it. I certainly am enjoying writing it for all of y'all! If you're curious or confused about the odd nature of the numbering, go check out my Facebook page and see what it says there. I wrote a note explaining why episode 6 has been temporarily passed over, and will not be posted in order. I'll put it out in a few weeks when it fits better in the timeline. It just wouldn't make sense yet. Also, please tell your friends about 42Cobras! It's a great experience for me writing this, but no amount of writing is really worthwhile if you can't share it with people. Otherwise, what's the point? You know? I want y'all to read it, tell me what you think, and share your comments/questions/theories with me. I want to know what you think is going on here in Horizon. So, for now, I hope you enjoyed Episode 7, and I look forward to posting Episode 8 for all of you next week. I'll go ahead and warn you, I have no idea when I'll get next week's episode posted, because next Friday I'll be busy with my final exams and moving out of the halloed TLN-Part I. Later, folks! And keep using those :42: Facebook chat icons, if for no other reason than that it's a whole lot of fun.
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