“Or,” Melba said as Stanley hit total on the cash register, “someone who’s crazy.”
Hope recognized the music pouring from the boom box as country; other than that, she didn’t have a clue. She’d dressed casually in a khaki skirt, white tank top, and flat sandals. She’d put her hair into a ponytail and pulled it through the back of her Gap baseball cap.
The early-evening sun cut a blinding trail across the lake as Hope stepped through the Aberdeens’ back door. In her hands she carried her paper plate, half filled with the salad she’d brought and one of Shelly’s deviled eggs.
A dozen teenage boys and girls ate at one of the two picnic tables sitting in the partial shade of the backyard. The smoke billowing from the big Weber barbecue enveloped the two men manning the grill. Only their lower halves were visible from behind. One wore his Wranglers at the crack of a flat butt; the other wore Levi’s riding low on his hips. A breeze cleared the wafting smoke as both men stared down at the burning hamburgers, hot dogs, and Rocky Mountain oysters. Wally and Adam stood behind them with empty plates.
Paul turned at the waist and plopped a black weenie in each boy’s bun.
“It’s burned, Dad,” Wally complained.
“Put lots of ketchup on it,” Paul advised. “You’ll never know the difference.”
“I told him not to put so much charcoal in that barbecue,” Shelly whispered out of the side of her mouth as she and Hope made their way toward the grill. The breeze waned and the men were once again clouded with smoke.
From behind, all that appeared were two male butts and a glimpse of one green T-shirt, the other white. Hope didn’t need to see their faces. After following Dylan around her house the night he’d brought her home from the Buckhorn, she easily recognized the width of his back beneath his white T-shirt, the pockets of his Levi’s, and the worn denim hugging his hard buns.
Dylan looked over his shoulder at their approach, and the smoke curled beneath the brim of his beat-up straw hat. “What are you ladies up for?” he asked.
“Which are burned the worst?” Shelly wanted to know.
“The hot dogs are pretty crispy, burgers are extra well done, but the oysters aren’t too bad.”
“Keep those oysters away from me.” Shelly frowned. “Burger, I guess.”
Dylan flipped a patty into a bun and handed it to Shelly.
“Paul is gonna give us all cancer,” she grumbled as she walked away.
Dylan turned his attention to Hope, and through the smoke, his green eyes stared into hers. “What about you, Miz Behavin‘?”
“I’ll risk cancer and take a dog,” she told him.
“One black weenie.” He plopped a sizzling frank into a bun and set it on her plate. “Paul says to put lots of ketchup on it.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Paul added.
“Actually, this is just right,” she assured the cook. “I like black weenies. I don’t eat raw meat.”
Dylan chucked, but he didn’t say anything.
“Are you gonna try an oyster?” Paul asked her.
“Are they well done?”
“Sure are. How many do you want?”
“Just one.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Dylan told her while Paul placed a small breaded oyster next to her burned weenie. “Have you ever eaten one of those before?” he asked.
“Sure.” She’d eaten seafood cooked all sorts of ways. “Lots of times,” she added, then carried her plate across the yard and sat at the table with Shelly and the two little boys. At the other table, the teenagers were all in a deep philosophical discussion about who was the “baddest badass,” Freddy Kruger or Chucky. The twins had finished eating and now had identical knots of Copenhagen bulging their bottom lips. The girls sitting next to them didn’t seem to mind. In fact, their lips bulged, too.
“Look at them,” Shelly said and shook her head. “Those boys were so cute when they were babies. I used to dress them alike. They had little sailor suits that were just so adorable. Now they’re grown and they have nasty man habits.” As if on cue, Andrew spit a stream of tobacco into a Solo cup.
Hope quickly looked at Shelly. “Are you feeling nostalgic today?”
“Old.” Her eyes got sad. “I miss the way they used to smell. They don’t smell like little boys anymore.”