The Juliet by Laura Ellen Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

that prospector, only a little grayer and little softer. He was shorter than she’d expected, but she’d heard that was true of most actors. “You know, I just realized you look like my Uncle Carl.”
    Tony and Scottie looked uncomfortable. Perhaps their orange juice had gone bad, too.
    Dexon said, “Is that right?”
    “He’s gone a long time now,” she said. In fact, Uncle Carl had keeled over when she was in kindergarten. That was how all the Judys went, keeling.
    “Then maybe that’s why you took such a liking to me. Where’re you from, West Virginia? I detect a trace of the holler in your accent.”
    “Yes, sir. I came out to join the Parks Service, but it didn’t work out.” Willie hesitated, not sure just how much to say on that subject. “That’s probably your fault, you know. Filling my head with dreams of finding treasure in the desert.” Willie was only trying to be funny, but she heard how sad that sounded.
    When the office phone rang, Scottie excused himself to answer it and disappeared into the back. Tony gave Willie the eye and said, “Why do I have a premonition about that phone call, even though I’m not the least bit psychic?” Carter, Willie’s boss, had a habit of calling the Alkali first when he couldn’t find her.
    “Tony thinks I’m about to lose my job,” she said to Dexon.
    “Why?”
    “It doesn’t matter.” And it really didn’t. Nothing very interesting ever seemed to happen to her, though she’d been waiting damned patiently. That was the real reason she’d stopped at Shorty’s in the first place. She couldn’t bear the thought of making that trip again, out to Lone Pine and back, over and over, like she was a dull knife trying to slice the world open to see if there was anything interesting inside.
    Life is short was the sort of thing people said when they wanted you to get off your ass and do something, even if it was foolish. Now that Willie was looking into the eyes of Rigg Dexon, it was as if he’d stepped right off the cereal box to say No, no, no. Life is long. Look at me. Maybe she was right to wait.
    Melanie, the waitress at Shorty’s, had clued her in: Dexon wasn’t your average desert hermit, reading the bible and drinking his days away. He was on a mission, and everybody knew it.
    “I want to help you,” Willie said. She touched the actor’s arm. She rarely did things like that.
    “Help me? Help me what?”
    “Let the man drink in peace,” said Tony.
    Willie disliked that tolerant smile of Tony’s, especially since she knew it so well by now. She tilted her head closer to Dexon and said, “I want to help you find The Juliet.”
    “Willie!” Tony almost shouted.
    Rigg Dexon laughed so hard he began to cough. He set his glass down hard on the bar and gripped its edge as the color drained from his face and veins bulged from his forehead. When the cough subsided, Tony shoved a stack of napkins at the old man.
    “For your mouth,” Willie said, looking away while Dexon swabbed away the spittle.
    When he had breath again, he said, “I apologize for that.”
    Tony asked, “Are you sick, sir?”
    Dexon shook his head no, like a dog throwing off water. “You watch too many movies. I’m seventy-four. So are my lungs.”
    “It’s the flowers, I’m sure,” Willie said. As she waited respectfully for the man to recover his color, she waved off Tony’s disapproving stare. They’d had this discussion before, about her not creeping out the customers. Tony liked Willie well enough, but not quite the same way Scottie did. Tony was always waiting for her to fail so he could wag his finger at her, whereas Scottie was always waiting for her to fall. So he could catch her, she assumed.
    “Mr. Dexon,” she said. “What do you think about us working together? It’s true, isn’t it? You’re here to find The Juliet.”
    “What do I think,” said Dexon, still clearing his throat a bit. He patted her knee and had been doing so on and off, first as a