Page 16 of Just Friends

Weasel sighed, but he didn’t stop eating, nor did he deny it.

“Tall girl,” Dalton mused. He took a drink from the cup a server placed in front of him. “She’s pretty.”

“Is there a point?”

Dalton just shrugged, but Weasel knew he was fishing for motive.

“She’s a friend.”

“But it’s not what you want.”

Weasel about gave himself whiplash as he looked at Dalton so fast he snorted. “It was written all over your face the minute she walked in.”

“Shit,” Weasel grumbled.

Rebecca came back with a plate. This time she was headed to Dalton.

“So, Rebecca, you want a story about Weasel as a kid?”

“Dalton,” Weasel warned. He’d hate to kill him.

Rebecca beamed. “Sure.”

Dalton pressed. “Did he ever tell you about the time he tried to launch the neighbors’ hen to the moon?” Rebecca shook her head and grinned at Weasel. “He thought he could blast a chicken into outer space. Who knows why?”

“For god’s sake,” Weasel mumbled. “I was seven.”

“Somehow, he’d gotten a hold of a chicken and wrapped firecrackers around this poor animal using duct tape.” Rebecca placed a hand over her mouth and giggled. “There was this crazy noise outside, the popping firecrackers, and a chicken making the worst squawking sound you can imagine. I got out there and found this thing going nuts, and it was so scared it was shitting everywhere. Weasel had apparently been struggling to throw the chicken into the air, and he was covered in shit… It had singed feathers.” He laughed, and Rebecca bent over laughing.

His brother was a dead man; he glared at him. The bastard just smiled and held up his index finger. Rebecca recovered, rubbing tears from her eyes, and leaned against the lunch counter in front of him. She reached over and rubbed his forearm. His body responded, “Oh my gosh…an astronaut chicken. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard. I hope you stopped trying to send animals into space after that.” With that, she patted his arm, turned, pulled two pieces of apple pie from the dessert case, and sat them next to their plates. “On the house boys,” she said and returned to the kitchen.

He stared at Dalton.

“You’re welcome.”

Weasel didn’t say it, but Dalton could have told a bunch of stories that were a whole lot worse. Ones of him being brought home by the police as a child came to mind.

???

Rebecca shifted from one foot to the other. Her feet stung, back ached, head hurt, and her chest was still sore, although healing, and there she was at the unoccupied nurses’ station. After pushing the call button in her father’s room and waiting for twenty minutes, she left to locate someone. A chorus of dings from unanswered calls rang out from the desk. It was beyond ridiculous. He’d been sitting in filth for who knows how long. Then, waiting another five at the empty nurse station, she concluded that she’d have to wash him herself. Rebecca returned to Stanley and turned on the hot water; needing at least two warm rags to start. She gathered the supplies and attempted to push Stanley to his side.

“Dad, can you grab the bed rail and keep yourself sideways so I can clean you up?” She pushed his dead weight as hard as she could. Rebecca struggled a few more times to move him, winded and her burns stinging, when a shadow appeared in the entrance.There, Weasel stood in the doorway she’d forgotten to close. How? She hadn’t told a soul. In four years, none of her friends had learned her secret. It was a miracle she’d kept it at all in this place. Her dad’s old friends didn’t ask about Stanley any longer. They’d all moved on with their lives and over time, forgot, and yet there was Detective Harlan Anderson. He strolled in closing the door behind him.

“This is my father.” She looked at Stanley. “This is my friend, Weasel.” Her dad’s gaze fell on the gun and badge on Weasels’ belt. “Yes, he’s a Detective with the White Oak Police.”

Weasel nodded and grabbed latex gloves from the box on the wall. He stepped across the bed from Rebecca. “Sir, I’m going to roll you to your side by holding your shoulder and hip. Your daughter will get injured trying to do this herself.”

Her dad slurred an approval, and Weasel then rolled Stanley with an ease that annoyed her. She tried to tidy him with gentle precision. Weasel, silent, his face a blank slate, helped her maneuver him and change out of his dirty hospital gown and linens. Soon they had him washed, powdered, and hopefully, more comfortable.

“There you go, daddy,” she added, straightening the last blanket over his legs. “All better?” But he’d already drifted off to sleep and didn’t answer. She kissed his forehead and almost knocked the book off the side table. There would be no reading to him tonight, and she placed it in the drawer for later. At the sink, she scrubbed up while Weasel waited, a conversation about this was in their near future.

Out in the hallway, she faced him. He interlaced their fingers and walked down the hall toward the exit. “What happened?”

“Stroke,” she responded. “Now, how did you find me?”

He remained calm and stoic. “It’s a small town,” he replied. “Rumors, and well,” he paused, “I was in the parking lot and saw you walk in.”

“And you just had to follow… Nosey,” she barked, only feigning irritation.

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