Fool's Puzzle by Earlene Fowler (reading eggs books .TXT) 📕

“That’s all you’re getting,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “And stay out of it.”

“What’s going on?” I asked. Startled by my voice, she jerked her head around.

“Nothing,” she said, with an impatient wave of her hand. Eric continued studying the floor with a nervous smile on his face. Tossing an irritated glance at him, she pushed through the heavy Spanish door, slamming it behind her.

“What did you do?” I asked as he strapped a worn leather tool belt around his slim hips.

“Could you hand me that box of nails?” he asked, climbing the aluminum ladder. I slapped the box in his outstretched hand.

“You haven’t conned money out of her for one of your schemes, have you? I’ve told you I don’t want you asking any of the co-op members for money.” Eric’s get-rich-quick schemes and the money he’d talked various members of the co-op into “investing” in them were another bone of contention between us.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry.” He pulled a hammer from his belt and started banging a nail into the wall.

“Marla wouldn’t be that mad over nothing. What did you do?”

He climbed down the ladder, walked over to the radio and flipped it on. A rock-and-roll scream exploded from the crackly speakers.

“Eric,” I said in my most strident tone.

He ignored me and twisted the dial on the radio.

“This had better be done today,” I snapped when I realized he wasn’t going to tell me anything. Maybe I’d ask Marla the next time I saw her, if she was in a better mood. Then again, maybe it wasn’t any of my business.

I chewed on my bottom lip as I walked back to my office. Sometimes the juggling of the personalities in the co-op, as well as the day-to-day problems of just keeping our head above water financially, seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth. I’d convinced Constance when I applied for the job that looking after a bunch of artists couldn’t be any more difficult than seeing to a herd of cattle, something I could do blindfolded. I’d discovered in the last three months that not only were cattle more predictable, they were also more cooperative, even on their worst days.

This was the first time in my life I’d been on my own, and for some reason, it seemed important to make it, even if I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. There were times, though I never voiced them to anyone, when I’d contemplated going back to the Harper Ranch; it had been my life for fifteen years. I missed the rhythm of animal time, the repetitive pace of life ruled by their needs and the capriciousness of weather. Though I went home tired from the museum every night, it wasn’t the heavy, satisfying tiredness that soaked my shoulders and back after long hours doing calf checks or fixing fence.

But I couldn’t get past the feeling that it wasn’t right to move back; technically, I wasn’t family anymore, and though Daddy would love it, going back to live with him and Dove at the Ramsey Ranch seemed like going backwards.

Throw yourself a pity-party and you’ll be the only guest is what Dove would say and she’d be right. I was relatively young, healthy and had an interesting, although low-paying, job. What more could a person ask for these days? With that echoing in my mind, I buckled down and cranked out paperwork the rest of the day, arranging for the use of the San Celina High School gym in case of rain and trying to convince the one repairman who would hear me out to fix our kiln and wheel, then bill us. The minute he heard we were an artists co-op, he made a rude remark somewhere between “Right” and a grunt before he hung up.

At six-thirty, my best friend, Elvia, called.

“You’re still coming, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “Is the birdman there yet?”

“No smart remarks tonight, Benni. He’s very serious about his work.”

Elvia managed Blind Harry’s Bookstore and Coffee House for the absentee owner, a shadowy Scottish man who owned three casinos in Reno. He bought it five years ago as a tax write-off and expected to keep it as such. He underestimated Elvia. The first year, she finagled funds out of him to make the store’s inventory the largest in the county. The second year, she converted the basement storage area to a coffeehouse with round oak tables that seated six, and walls lined with used books that were borrowed and replenished on a regular basis by customers. Serving the best espresso and cheesecake in town, it became the favorite hangout for college kids as well as a growing literary crowd moving in from L.A. and San Francisco.

“I’ll be good,” I said. “Is there going to be any food at this thing? All I’ve had to eat today was a jelly doughnut and I’m starving.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll see that you’re fed. Do you look presentable?”

I inspected my mottled Reeboks and brushed at the dried mud. “Reasonably so.”

“What are you wearing?” she asked. Since she’d taken charge of the bookstore, her personal shopping habits had caused Anne Klein stock to rise twenty points.

“Who are you, my mother? Don’t worry. I look exactly like someone who slogs through marshes looking at birds.”

“Condors are not waterfowl,” she said. “Didn’t you read the cards I gave you?”

I decided silence was the safest response.

“Benni!” she wailed. “You promised.”

“I’ll be fine, Elvia. I’ll memorize them on the way over. Have I ever let you down before?”

She groaned and hung up.

When I walked through the main hall, Eric was, as I’d expected, nowhere to be found. There was evidence that he’d worked, but not enough to convict him. My stomach fluttered in panic, a feeling I attempted to reason away. Not counting Thanksgiving, we still had a day and a half until the pre-showing and auction on Friday night. Plenty of time.

“Honey,” Jack