Poetry Stories: Adjustments

Chapter 25. Winking, teasing, inviting.

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Chapter 25

Will woke early but stayed in bed much longer than usual the next morning. Most Saturdays he went to the bakery with the guys and played dice over a fried cinnamon twist and a cup of coffee. His whole body ached in what he liked to call a “Barbara Hangover” and he didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. Around 9:00 he heard Pearl downstairs and remembered the cigarette in the flowers. He rethought his cavalier ideas about upsetting her and got out of bed, pulled on his jeans and hustled out the back way. He dug around in the peony bush under the stairs and found the cigarette butt. Glancing up at the kitchen window to make sure Pearl wasn’t standing at the sink, he then went to the bushes to find his phone. The low battery light was flashing. When he lit up the home screen, he saw a missed call.

“Uhhn, Barbara!” He jerked his hand to get away from the phone, tossing it back into the shrubbery.

Will took a step back. “No way. She didn’t call back. She wouldn’t. Ever.” He put his hands in his pockets and stood facing the bushes, then contemplated walking away and leaving the phone, chalking it up to a “mysterious disappearance” and getting a replacement through his phone’s insurance plan.

“Mr. Phillips!”

Why in the name of all that’s holy does that woman have to shake her rugs every single morning? Will did not turn around.

“Tell me you are not relieving yourself into my boxwood.” Pearl’s heels clomped down the cedar porch steps.