Austin and Emily Page 19

  Emily looked up at Austin. The smile widened across her face. She nearly screamed where she stood, bursting with pride and happiness.

  “I love you, Austin,” she said.

  Kenneth jumped in, “With the powers vested in me by the great state of California and/or God, I now pronounce….”

  The words stopped abruptly. Kenneth felt a catch in his chest. His breath stopped short. A thin line of pain traveled from the center of his torso up the shoulder and down into the arm. Agony formed slowly across Kenneth’s face.

  “Are you O.K.?” Angelo asked.

  Kenneth forced himself to speak, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

  Kenneth Mint dropped hard to his knees. At first, Cremora thought it was part of Kenneth’s crazy show, maybe the beginning of a prayer or a sacrament to the hair coat. But then she saw Kenneth’s face, and his hand rising up to clutch his heart.

  Buckshot Lemule rushed forward with Cremora. Ulysses went flying. They reached Kenneth before he fell forward onto his face and helped him gently down upon the star of Ann B. Davis. They rolled Kenneth on his back. Cremora hung up on Lila McAdoo and called for help. When the phone went dead, Lila threw it across the kitchen in celebration of her son getting married to a beautiful, simple girl named Emily Dooley in Los Angeles, California, on a warm blue morning. A few minutes later she lit another cigarette and began to decorate the spare bedroom for her future grandchildren, Emma and Pierre.

  CHAPTER 16

  Cremora Watson sat by Kenneth’s bedside at the hospital. She still wore the maid of honor dress. Austin, Emily, Angelo, and Buckshot Lemule waited in the lobby. When the nurse had asked her name, Cremora lied and said, “Cremora Mint, Kenneth’s wife.” Under the circumstances, not many questions were asked and she found herself at Kenneth’s bedside.

  The doctor said, “It looks like he had a heart attack. Any history of heart trouble?”

  Kenneth was drifting at the edge of consciousness. Cremora looked at him for an answer to the question. Kenneth shook his head, yes.

  “Prior heart attack?” the doctor asked.

  Kenneth shook yes again.

  “Any medication?”

  Cremora handed the doctor the empty pill bottle the nurse had removed from Kenneth’s pocket.

  In the silence between questions came the shrill sound of the butt whistle. The doctor looked up from his chart. Cremora stared at the floor like she’d heard nothing. Kenneth smiled slightly to himself and then drifted into a dream. He was on a boat, a white sailboat, with the ocean breeze in his face. There was a woman down below in the cabin. In the dream, Kenneth couldn’t see her, but he knew she was there, doing something in the tiny kitchen, and soon she would come out and join him topside. Her presence held its own feeling.

  In the lobby, Angelo insisted Austin remove his shirt to begin the process of dissolving the bloodstains as soon as humanly possible.

  “If you refuse to give the shirt, I must charge you full price,” Angelo barked, standing a safe distance from Emily.

  Austin was tired of fighting with the little man. Unfortunately, in the craziness, Austin had forgotten his enlarged breast. As he removed the shirt in the open lobby, Alvin Lemule got a glimpse of the man-tit.

  “What in God’s name is that?” he said.

  Austin covered his bare nipple with the jacket.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Nothing, my ass. Emily, the man’s got a boob. I saw it.”

  “I was bitten by a highly poisonous spider. It nearly killed me,” Austin explained.

  Emily touched Austin’s arm. She was shaken by Kenneth’s heart attack, and the wedding, and concerned about the impending honeymoon discomfort. Buckshot sensed Emily’s fears and quickly misinterpreted the problem.

  “Look,” Buckshot said, “maybe I pulled the trigger too fast when I fired you, McAdoo. How about this? My wedding present to you, to both of you, is Austin’s job back. After the honeymoon, come see me. I think we can work something out.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said, though she hadn’t had a thought about how they planned to support themselves when the money ran out, and there wasn’t much left.

  Cremora appeared in the lobby. The others turned to her for news.

  “The doctor says Kenneth will be all right. He’s got to stay a few days for some tests. I’ll stay here with him tonight. Emily, you and Austin enjoy your last night in the hotel. I’ll come by in the morning. Here’s the key to our room.”

  Austin reluctantly took the key. Angelo turned and walked away without a word, confident he could remove the blood stain from the shirt collar and seemingly uninterested in whether Kenneth would live or die.

  Buckshot Lemule shook hands with Austin and gave Emily an inappropriate kiss goodbye, putting his lips to hers and pressing a bit too hard. Cremora went to Kenneth’s room, and Austin and Emily started walking back to the hotel, Emily in her wedding dress, Austin shirtless with a tuxedo jacket barely covering his chest.

  “Do you want your old job back?” Emily asked.

  “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “It was nice of him to offer,” Emily said.

  “I suppose so, but if you’ll recall, I wasn’t fired. I submitted my resignation.”

  “I guess so,” Emily said.

  They walked down the street in no hurry. It was hot, but both were filled with thoughts and fears about the night ahead.

  “I’ve never had sex before,” Emily said softly.

  Austin was relieved and horrified at the same time.

  “Neither have I,” he said.

  Emily smiled. “You’re lying.”

  “No, I’m not. I swear.”

  They walked along further, both thinking. Finally Emily said, “How are we gonna know what to do?”

  Austin thought a moment and answered, “How did Adam and Eve know what to do?”

  Emily hadn’t thought of that. “You’re right. They didn’t have books back then, or movies. They must’ve figured it out by themselves.”

  “I guess so,” Austin said.

  “So can we,” Emily added.

  And they did. Over a period of twelve hours they figured it out at least six times. They laughed, and looked around on each other, and sprinted naked from the bed to the bathroom, and touched, and felt things they’d never felt before. They stayed awake all night, and ordered room service twice. Glenn cowered in the corner under a chair. Austin was quite sure there were no names for some of the positions they tried.

  In the morning, Emily stood in front of the bathroom mirror, holding up her ring hand. She whispered, “Mrs. Emily McAdoo, you’re a fine piece of ass,” and Austin heard her and couldn’t help but smile to himself.

  There was a knock on the door. Emily answered, wearing only a towel, and Austin pulled the covers up to his third chin. Cremora walked inside the room.

  “Did I interrupt anything?” Cremora said.

  “We were just starting to pack. Check-out time is only an hour away,” Emily said. “Can you be ready to leave by then?”

  Cremora began to sort through the piles of clothes and shove items in her backpack.

  “I’m not going,” she said.

  “What?” Emily asked.

  Cremora explained, “I’ve decided to stay here, in Los Angeles, with Kenneth for a while. He needs me, and besides, I don’t want to go back. There’s nothing in Tampa for me, even if old Hurricane Austin spared us too much damage. You can have everything in the apartment if you want.”

  Austin, remembering the words of a conversation from earlier days, said, “Who gets the frozen cat turd?”

  Cremora smiled. “You can have that, Andre. Consider it a wedding present.”

  Emily said, “You and Kenneth will make nice babies. You both have red hair.”

  Cremora pretended to ignore the comment. “Austin, I’ve got the key to your room. I’m gonna get Kenneth’s stuff and the dog. We’ll keep the dog.”

  “Oh, please
don’t,” Austin mocked. “I so love the dog from the desert. I would like to breed him and sell his priceless pups.”

  And then Cremora was gone. The train was on the move again. Change was coming. She walked down the Los Angeles street with only a bag full of clothes, a dog with no name, and the brilliant unexpected thought of beautiful red-headed girls playing in the yard while she and Kenneth watched from the porch swing.

  It took a while to get everything situated in the little red car. Austin was pleased when it started on the first turn of the key. The trunk was packed tight with suitcases and all the remaining hams. Glenn and Ulysses had the backseat all to themselves, and the busted rear window promised airflow in place of air conditioning.

  Emily shoved a toothpick into the window button and miraculously the electric windows came to life. She reached her hand around the back of the radio, yanked a few wires, and suddenly there was music.

  Sitting in the car, ready to go home, Austin unveiled his new road map. He had outlined in bold red marker the route home, purposefully avoiding the location of the death of the world’s largest chicken. Emily had a new respect for maps. She listened while Austin authoritatively explained each anticipated twist and turn on the road from Los Angeles to Birmingham. Austin even had gas station stops marked in different color ink.

  As he started to pull out from the parking spot onto the road, Austin saw a white envelope at his feet. He tried to reach it, pulled back, and tried again, still not able to touch the edge. Emily nimbly squeezed through and pulled the envelope from behind the accelerator.

  It was the envelope they found on the grave of Austin’s father in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Austin veered out in the traffic. He remembered the words inside the envelope, “Don’t make the same mistakes I made.” Without much thought he tossed the envelope out the open window onto Hollywood Boulevard to be swept away by the hot wind.

  “Don’t worry, Lovin’ Mustard Man,” Austin said out loud.

  As the car slowly passed the taco stand, one of the Mexican boys spotted Austin. He nudged the cook and pointed. The first Mexican boy yelled, “El Gigante! El Gigante!” and waved.

  Austin, like a man in his own parade, stuck his hand out the window and acknowledged the crowd with a few turns of the wrist. Emily, for unknown reasons, was impressed by this display. She looked over at Austin like he was some sort of celebrity, which, as a matter of fact, he was, even if he would never be formally acknowledged with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

  As they rose up onto the highway, heading east into the heart of America, Emily McAdoo, her eyes straight ahead, gently slipped her tiny hand into the hand of Austin McAdoo as it rested on his broad thigh. They stayed that way a long time. It was a perfect fit.

  Acknowledgments

  I need to thank my wife, Allison, Dusty, Mary Grace, Lilly, and Marlin. My father and Virginia, my mother and Skip, Sally, Bob & Ellen, Bill & Linda, Sharon Hoiles, Big Daddy, Russ, Joy Larson for the shoe thing, Linda Vernon, Angie Kaiser, Cindy Jackson for the Spanish interpretation, Joel Stabler, Smokey Davis, Sweet Sonny Brewer, Barry Munday, Shauna Mosley, Rich Green, Robert Bell, and of course David Poindexter, Kate, Danny, Dorothy, and the spirit of Mac Adam/Cage.