Free Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel by Nancy Rue Page A

the pimp was glamorized in his formative years, and you’re going to be hard put to erase that at this age.”
    PleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod do not let me hit this woman over the head with my helmet and leave her for dead.
    I pulled back and straightened my fingers as far from fists as I could get them. Just to be on the safe side.
    “Ma’am,” I said. “You are out of line.”
    “And you are in denial. Head in the sand—”
    “No. I have never been clearer on an issue in my life. And here is how we’re going to deal with it.”
    For the first time, she looked as if this was not the next line in her script.
    “ We will handle what, if anything, needs to be handled at home,” I said. “And I advise you to refrain from applying your sidewalk sociology to my son. He is in your class to do push-ups, apparently. His physical fitness is your only concern. Leave the rest to me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think we’ve gone beyond a minute.”
    At least she had the good sense not to try to argue further. I think that was mostly due to my jamming my helmet back on my head and letting Classic have the last growling word with her pipes.
    I only drove as far as the parking lot at the Oldest House Museum before I stopped and let both the engine and my heartbeat idle. I sat staring at the line of school children forming for their field trip tour.
    There was no doubt the malaria-carrying creature didn’t know Desmond. At all. In the first place Chief had talked to Desmond on more than one occasion about the disrespect in considering the adoring group of pubescent females to be “his.” And the minute Desmond’s thirteen-year-old voice had started to deepen and those first tiny hairs had appeared on his young chin, Chief had the “talk” with him, which I gathered had not been the typical birds-and-bees conversation.
    In the second place we didn’t glamorize anything in our community. It was all so real and raw the Mosquito wouldn’t last through the first hour of watching a woman howl her way into withdrawal.
    Still, something poked at me. I pulled off my helmet and wiped my face with my denim sleeve. I knew my Desmond, but I didn’t know young girls with angst. I’d never been one. What if one of them wanted to show her appreciation for his comfort with more than a peck on the cheek?
    Wow. I was thinking like a mother. Not my mother but one who actually cared whether her child’s life was twisted by adolescent sex.
    I put my helmet back on and went easier on the throttle as I restarted the Classic. It wouldn’t hurt for Desmond to have another talk. I would put Chief right on it.

CHAPTER FOUR
    I wanted to fill Chief in that night before the board meeting, but India got to me first and pulled me aside, eyes full of news. That could have been anything from a reminder that my roots needed touching up to her opinion that Second Chances was never going to get off the ground. It was neither.
    “I have news about Reverend Howard,” she said. “I thought you’d want to know.”
    I almost asked her why on earth she’d think that. Garry Howard and I hadn’t spoken in months, not since I’d offered my condolences for his being asked to leave the church he’d led for twenty-five years. Even then he just didn’t get why I’d left before him, of my own volition.
    “He’s in hospice care now,” India said. “I think he was a perfect snake, treating you like he did, but still …”
    She waited, her almost-violet eyes wide.
    “Still what?” I said.
    “Well, don’t you think the whole congregation turning on him because he took Troy Irwin’s money for building that school is what’s killing him?”
    “I don’t even want to go there,” I said.
    Where I did want to go was after Hank, who had just passed us with a plate of bruschetta saying, “Last call.”
    India gave my arm a squeeze. “I just thought you’d want to know.”
    She whispered her lips across my cheek and followed Hank into the living room.