“I don’t feel safe here,” I said.“Not without you or the boys.”
“Stacey,” Nagi said.“You must have understood the risks of this before we began.I cannot hold your hand every step of the way.”
“Nagi, I’m going to be pissed if you leave me alone with Brother Al in this strange place.”
“Then be angry,” Nagi said.“I’ll return this evening, at the latest.”
“What if you don’t return?Or the others don’t, either?”
“Then you’ll have to explain the game to Brother Al,” Nagi said.“Go.Explore and enjoy yourself.Perhaps you can sneak some fruit from the kitchen.You look famished.”
“I am stupid hungry,” I said.
“Come on, Stacey,” Brother Al said.“We can’t let Mr.Mime here run along unaccompanied.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
“Good luck,” Nagi said.
We hugged and then separated.
I wheeledBrother Al down the corridor we went to to get to the Doll Room.The metal shutter sounded much less ominous in the daylight.An older, paunchy woman with short brown curls and a cigarette in her lips was perched on a kitchen stool.I could not see her legs.
“Brother Al, this beauty you see before you is our executive chef,” John Jacques said.He said this with a French accent—Execute-eef—“My wife, Patti.”
“A pleasure, madame,” Brother Al said.“Never have I tasted a more exquisite tartare.”
“It’s to die for,” she said, in an unexpectedly hoarse voice, and winked.Now that I looked at her closer, I noticed that she was… well… broad.She was solid, is what I’m saying.Almost like if her mother was a troll and her father a brick shithouse.She didn’t so much take up space as she did plop herself down and reorder the universe around her.She looked like she could sucker punch a car and split it down the middle.
“Honey,” John Jacques began.He looked back and forth, and lowered his voice.“Did Sawyer clean up his mess in the churchyard?I’m taking these two on a tour of the facilities.”
“Far as I know,” Patti said, her voice deep.“That no good brother of yours does get into his services, alright.I told ya you needed to get on him about straightening up around here.”
“I know, I know.Look, he’s taking David’s passing hard.You know that.”
“Everyone’s taking David passing hard,” Patti said.“I’m taking David’s passing hard.I haven’t been fucked right in months.”
She looked over at me and winked.From the look on John Jacques’ face he would have blushed under his makeup if he could.
“Honey, now, this is decent company we got here,” he said.“I heard word that this young woman is a reporter for Feedworthy.Might could drum some business up.Getting people from the city to stop in, you know.French American Barbecue could become the next gastronomic craze in the big city.”
“You think big, and that’s why I love you,” Patti said.She reached out and patted his face with a huge hand.His makeup smeared.“And you have excellent taste, which is another reason.”
“How did you hear about my job?”I asked.
“One of your friends,” John Jacques said.“He mentioned it in passing.Said it might be worth a discount if we gave you the primo experience.I couldn’t turn down a brilliant idea like that, even if we like it out here in the country.”
“Less people in your business out here,” Patti said.“We lived in the city, down south a ways back.Too many people.Too many people in your business.Too much attention, too much drama.The countryside life is far better for our lifestyle.Why, it’s something I never dreamed of as a child.”
Their unexpected tenderness hit something in me.
“Look,” I said.“You seem like decent people.You have to understand though.I feel really uncomfortable about all this.We’re in the middle of nowhere.I’ve tried to call my friends and can’t get ahold of them.They’ve been gone for hours, and they never checked back in.I just don’t like it.”
“Honey,” Patti said.“Listen.We get next to no reception out here.I consider that a benefit to our living situation.We’re not stuck on the phone all the time, or caught up spending time on the internet.We just live life out here.And judging from the break on that tire—look, you all were low on gas and your tire went, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Nearest mechanic isn’t for something like fifty miles west, and even then he’s sketchy at best about the days he’s open,” Patti said.“We all live on our own time out here.It just takes time to get things fixed.The best thing for you to do is to relax and see the sights.I’m sure they’ll be back by nightfall.”
