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

way of flirting with her, but now it seemed like he was just trying to keep his balance. She noticed one of his hands trembled slightly. “What I think is that you are delightful.”
    Tony leaned his elbows on the bar, bringing himself level with Willie. “That’s a no, Willie. The best bad news you’ll get today.”
     
    * * *
     
    Rigg found himself fascinated by the subtle shades of Willie’s disappointment. He’d expected, from the passion of her proposition, that she would try another tack, but no. She seemed to be one of those people who were nourished, albeit poorly, by defeat. Enduring folk, the defeated. It occurred to Rigg that he had not thought about death for several minutes.
    Willie Judy was a tonic.
    “So,” he said to her, “What’s your secret identity?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “I wasn’t always Rigg Dexon, Tony wasn’t always Tony Jackpot. Even your man Scottie has a past that is very unlike his present. Who were you before you became Willie Judy?”
    This was an invitation for her to tell her life story, Rigg’s go-to, no-fail strategy for driving any conversation out of the muck. Everyone loved to talk about themselves, didn’t they?
    Willie seemed to be thinking hard about the question. Too hard. Eventually she said, “I’ve always been me. I’m not anything else, yet.”
    Just then Scottie hollered out from the back. “Willie, you need to come talk to Carter.”
    “Except maybe I just became unemployed.” Willie stood and gave Rigg an unexpected, quick hug around the shoulders. “Don’t leave,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
    As soon as she left, Rigg noticed the beer stopped working. He decided it was time to go. “She with a fella? You or Scottie?”
    “Crazy’s not my type,” said Tony. “Scottie’s fond of her though, at least the thought of her. I haven’t seen him make progress.”
    “Ha. Dreams are good company. I’d like to settle up, hit the road.”
    “Before she comes back, right,” Tony said. “The drinks are on us.”
    Rigg politely declined. “I always pay my own way.”
    Tony tried to get the actor to start a tab.
    Rigg declined again, saying, “At my age I’ve become ‘commitment-phobic.’” It was a term he’d heard a much younger actor use with great seriousness on a television interview, and Rigg thought it was one of the funniest things he’d ever heard.
    “Look, you’ve got to come back soon,” Tony said. “I’ll personally make sure you aren’t disturbed again.”
    “I thought Willie Judy was very sweet.”
    “Sweet? Now that’s proof that you’re still a bad ass.”
    Still a bad ass. The things people said once you passed sixty. Rigg patted his jacket, making sure he had his jeep keys. He had at least six pockets to check and every one jangled or crinkled when he touched it. What you got for a grand was a jacket that let you tote a bottle or a gun in without ruining the line.
    Rigg was stalling, thinking about Willie. He pushed a twenty and a five over to Tony. “What do you think she’ll do now?”
    “Short term, Scottie and I can give her work here through Mother’s Day, but we’re the only ones that would. She’s run through her options.” The gambler was doing his best not to say that Willie Judy was a loser. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her like a sister, but long term, I hope she goes back home to West Virginia. You have to have a certain vision to make it out here.”
    “It sounds like she did, once upon a time,” said Rigg, reminded of his own lost plot. “That Parks Service job. What happened there?”
    “Couple of poor judgment calls. She didn’t make it out of probation.” Tony lowered his voice even though there was no one to overhear. “We’re not supposed to talk about it, but she might have killed a dog, thinking it was a sick coyote. And there was an injured flammulated owl she lost track of when she was supposed to be rehabilitating it.”
    Those were sobering details.