Free Eden Hill by Bill Higgs Page A

he’d already used his wrecker to pull Arlie’s truck from the ditch and Mrs. Crutcher’s Buick out of the creek, spent an hour trying to find brake shoes for Grover’s Plymouth so he and Anna Belle could drive south for their vacation, and listened to Sam Wright spout off something about surviving an avalanche in the Himalayas.
    Mavine was seated at the kitchen table when he arrived, but the only aromas in the room were soap powder and bleach. The dinette and the stove were clean and bare, with no evidence of cooking or food preparation in sight. And no sign at all of Vee.
    “Hello, Mavine. Are we just having sandwiches today?” The washing machine was chugging and sloshing away, so she’d also been working this morning.
    “I suppose so. There’s bread in the breadbox, and Dixie loaf in the refrigerator.” Her voice seemed strained and tired.
    He tossed his coat onto the back of his recliner. “You feeling okay, Mavine?”
    “Yes, I’m fine. I’m just not hungry right now.”
    Opening the refrigerator, he grabbed the milk bottle and a small Tupperware that contained an old package of lunch meat. It popped when he opened it   —not a good sign. A quick sniff, a grimace, and he reached for the peanut butter in the pantry.
    Virgil sat down across from Mavine, and then remembered his milk still sitting on the counter. He arose and walked back across the room. “Are you sure I can’t get you something? There’s some leftover soup . . .” His voice trailed off, as he found Mavine not listening. She sat at the dinette and looked out the window.
    He retrieved the forgotten milk, spread the peanut butter generously onto a slice of bread, and thought for a minute. Once again, he couldn’t think of anything he’d done recently to deserve the cold shoulder, and this year he’d even remembered her birthday gift   —early, for a change. Even though it was still over a month away, he had already bought her a nice pair of gloves from Willett’s Dry Goods.
    Had Mavine come home with yet another Pageant magazine? The old one was back on his desk   —somewhere. Why couldn’t the Glamour Nook subscribe to something like the Saturday Evening Post ? Norman Rockwell would never get him in trouble with his wife like Betty LaMour did.
    “Sorry you’re not hungry, Mavine. Are you unhappy with me about something?”
    “No, not at all, but I am unhappy with Vee. He’s been areal challenge this morning.” With that, Mavine returned to the back porch. Sounds of running water suggested rinsing of some kind, and soon the machine resumed its low rumble. She returned to the table, taking a couple slices of bread on the way past the counter.
    “What did Vee do now?”
    “I caught him smoking this morning.”
    “Smoking? Smoking what?”
    “A cigar   —a big fat one. I suspect he got it through the mail   —from an ad in one of those horrible comic books he reads. The men all have blue hair, the women have way too much bosom, and they all use bad grammar. You’ve seen the mail-order advertisements in the back. Where do you think he got that disgusting thing he took to church last Sunday?”
    “Mavine, he’s ten years old. He spent his own allowance, and he also got a genuine miniature spy camera and a book about throwing his voice. And he told me it only cost four dollars for everything. Postpaid.”
    “That’s not the point. It’s what he did with it.”
    Virgil tried hard not to smile at the memory. Somehow Vee had placed the whoopee cushion in Toler’s chair during the opening hymn. When the song leader sat down after the final notes of the amen, the entire congregation heard the expected result. Toler turned red as a beet, Reverend Caudill gave him a look that would freeze steam, and almost everyone else just tried to keep from laughing. Vee couldn’t, so Mavine had hauled him out by the ear. His penance had been to read The Scarlet Letter .
    “Mavine, boys do stuff like that. I think you get a little