the ultra-long-distance runner.
But no glasses. Not like the little girl I’d seen in the photograph. And… as she drew closer, I could see that the wandering eye had been straightened.
The disappointment I felt was surprising. I’d liked the face on that child from long ago.
Had Bobby’s eyes been brown? I couldn’t remember… more likely, I’d never paid enough attention to know. But there was something familiar in her eyes… could see it as we shook hands-“It’s nice of you to meet with me, Dr. Ford”-as she held my face with her gaze, then allowed it to wander.
Got a glimpse of something tougher than suggested by her averted eyes. A little bit of Bobby in there peering out. Then could hear that toughness in her voice when she said, “You’re the man in my father’s letters, right? You knew my father.”
I thought, Letters? but answered her by saying, “Years ago, I knew a man named Bobby Richardson. If he was your father, then you have a lot to be proud of. He was a fine man.”
Her expression softened momentarily. “Then I’m glad I found you. I don’t know if you can… can help me. But I know it’s what my father would have wanted. My real father. Talking to you, I mean. It’s what he told me to do in his letters, so that’s why I’m here.”
Letters again.
Turning to Tucker, she added, “So, if it’s okay with you, Mr. Gatrell, I won’t waste any more of your time. I can talk to your nephew alone.”
Not asking permission, but telling both of us where she stood, just what she wanted.
But she obviously didn’t know Tuck very well. Not if she expected to get rid of him so easily. He touched his hand to her back, steering her onto the deck and then up the stairs toward my house, saying, “Miz Richardson, I come this far with you, I kinda hate to let you sail solo now. Besides, Duke here’s not the quickest on the draw, if you know what I mean. I’m not talking ’bout brain power, understand. Let’s just say he’s not the type to let sympathy get in the way.” Maybe joking but maybe not; hard to tell from his tone. Then he replied to the look I gave him as he brushed past me, saying, “Excuse me. I meant Marion.”
Wearing Levi’s and a rodeo shirt, he smelled of rank hay and whiskey and chewing tobacco. Like horse, too. An old horse.
The man did not change.
I watched Amanda watching Tuck as he rambled on and on, dominating space and conversation as he always did, Tuck and the woman sitting with glasses of iced tea at the galley booth, me leaning against the door frame in the small room, taking it in.
The night before, on the phone, Tuck had tried to tell me what her problem was, but he had it so convoluted, so confused, that I’d finally told him to keep quiet, let her tell me and I’d judge for myself.
So now I stood there listening, waiting, looking at her. What I was thinking was: Not attractive, yet something solid about her and… troubled. Yes, a troubled young woman.
It gave me a pang. How would it make Bobby feel, seeing that his little girl had apparently grown up to be gawky, lacking confidence and seemed to be unhappy?
She was what? Twenty-four, maybe twenty-five years old. About the same age as Bobby when I knew him. But gaunt as she was, she did not have the look of health, only endurance. Had dull, brittle-looking hair-it didn’t get much attention-and long wading-bird legs with calves traced by varicose veins. Runner’s legs. And the way she dressed: everything baggy; clothes that were chosen not to look good but because she could hide in them. Shirt and shorts were feminine and casual like “Who cares?” but also vaguely defensive, with maybe a hint of aggressiveness. A T-shirt that read: Thirty-Second Rule Strictly Enforced.
What the hell did that mean?
But a good face. Strong nose, but a little too much of it; solid jawline but flat cheeks that made her lips seem thin, pale. Bits and pieces of her mother and father bonded together, no doubt about it, but the proportions were just a tad off. It was hard to believe that two people as attractive as Bobby and Gail Richardson had produced someone as plain as this girl who now sat in my house. Gail was Latina by birth, mother and father both from… South America? Maybe Mexico or Central America, I couldn’t remember. Bobby had bragged to me more than once that his wife was a direct descendant of pure Castilian royalty. Her great beauty, he claimed, had been handed down through the blood.
There didn’t seem to be a hint of Latin blood in Amanda. Well… perhaps a touch in her dark eyes. No place else, though. But the vagaries of genetics are ever-surprising and cannot be predicted.
Or maybe… maybe it’s just the way that Amanda Richardson chose to look.
Some makeup, maybe. A decent haircut. Some clothes chosen to set off her lean lines; better posture.
I wondered…
Every now and again she’d glance up and catch my eye-a searching look of appraisal-then return her attention to Tuck.
Tuck had been talking about his years shipping and working cattle in Central America with his old partner Joseph Egret: “But the Indian bastard up and got hit by a car. Killed him deader than two smoked hams, which taught me once and for all, no more Injuns for partners. The poor fools got no brain for modern times. Took me fifty years with Joe to learn that an Injun can’t be trusted, but I finally did. These days, ma’am, I work strictly alone.”
Which is when I finally made a move toward the table, planning to tell Tuck, enough, for God’s sake, take a walk so the woman and I could talk.
But Amanda intercepted me. First, it was with a look- Don’t hurt his feelings — and then by touching her fingers to the back of my hand- Let him talk for a little longer.
So I did. Listened to the old man ramble for another fifteen or twenty minutes before she finally cut him off. Asked him for half an hour alone with me so she could share the contents of a letter-“It’s confidential,” she explained-and Tuck left as meekly and amenably as I had ever seen him, charmed by her or manipulated by her, it was difficult to say which.
I studied the girl’s face, thinking maybe she wasn’t as troubled or as defenseless as I’d believed.
“The rule has to do with this idea some friends and I came up with. The thirty-second rule. The way it goes is, a guy comes up-this is usually at a bar, a concert maybe, someplace like that. Nothing to do with business, but like at a party or something. So a guy comes up and he’s got exactly thirty seconds to prove he’s not plastic or full of crap or a fake. If he doesn’t say something honest or worthwhile in thirty seconds, what’s the sense of wasting your time?”
Trying to keep things relaxed, trying to ease her into what she’d come to talk about, I’d asked her about her T-shirt: Thirty-Second Rule Strictly Enforced.
I said, “And the guys know there’s this time limit? It’s a new thing now… or-?”
“You mean do a lot of women use it?”
I was nodding. “Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.” There were enough years between us that this might have been some generational fad. If it’s not on shortwave radio or on the VHF weather stations, I have no way of keeping up.
She said, “I just told you, some friends and I, it’s our idea. But yeah, it’s getting around. Like the university towns. Gainesville, Tallahassee, Miami. I heard some girls down on spring break took it back to Michigan, University of Iowa. Some other places, too. But it was all our idea.”
Proud of that.
I had taken Tucker’s seat at the galley booth facing her until she scooched a little closer to the wall to create an extra couple of inches of distance between us. That slight movement stirred the air enough so that she left a few scent molecules lingering. Body powder. Shampoo. Woman. The thirty-second rule, I guessed, was like her baggy clothes, her hair: a place of her own creation in which to hide.
I said, “I’ve been talking to you for a couple of minutes and I don’t feel like I know very much at all about you. A lot longer than thirty seconds, but I wouldn’t presume to make any judgments.”
“But this isn’t social. So the rule doesn’t apply, see?”
I said, “It’s not business either, though. Or is it?”
Amanda was sipping her tea, hands very steady, eyes and eyebrows showing just above the rim of her glass. “It’s neither,” she said. “What it is is personal.”
She had handed me a sheaf of letters, all of them getting brittle and yellow, they were that old. Written on
