“Got it,” he says, holding the canvas strap overhead.
“Hallie, can you get up on the couch and reach down toward Cletus on that side? I’ll pass the belt to you under Cletus.”
“Shugs,” Cletus says, looking at Hallie and closing one of his eyes slowly in what I think is an attempt at a wink.
I’m not calling him Shugs.
Hallie gets up on the couch, leaning over the armrest. I start to move the side table.
“No! No. No. No,” Cletus says. “You leave that right there, Greyson. That’s just where my wife liked that table. She wanted things just so.”
“We’ll put it back, Shugs,” Dustin says.
“I didn’t tell you to call me Shugs, Tree Trunk. I want the fire girl to call me Shugs.”
“Firewoman,” I correct Cletus.
“At my age,” he says. “She’s a girl.”
Hallie looks at me from across Cletus, a compassionate smile on her face. She mouths the words,Go with it.
I almost smile back. What is it about her? She always did have this straight shot past my defenses. Nothing’s changed in nine years.
“I have to move the side table, Cletus,” I tell him. “I’ll put it right back where Ginny Sue would want it. You have my word.” I pause, crouching low so I’m closer to his current level. “I know what it’s like to need things to stay in place when someone’s no longer with us.”
Cletus' eyes connect with mine. “Yeah, you do, don’tcha?”
I nod, solemnly.
“Go ahead then, move the table. But don’t you let one thing fall off.”
I carefully lift the table, setting it to the side, then I crouch next to Cletus.
“Lift your back for me,” I tell him.
“Now how am I supposed to lift my back? If I could do that, I wouldn’t have called you.”
“Cletus,” Dustin says, “You know you’ve got to give us some space to get the belt under you.”
“Listen, Tree Trunk, I know what I know. And what I know is that you’re just standing around while the pretty girl and Greyson do all the work.”
I chuckle under my breath.
Dustin shakes his head and squats next to me to address Cletus directly. “What do you suggest, Shugs?”
“I told you not to use that nickname with me.”
Hallie stifles a laugh, biting her lip and catching my eyes.
“Got it. Cletus,” Dustin says. “What do you suggest?”
“That’s more like it. You lift me so they can get that there belt up under me.”
Dustin wordlessly looks in my direction. I nod. He counts to three and lifts. I slip the belt under Cletus' left side. It goes about halfway.
“Lift his other side,” I tell Dustin.
“Being manhandled at seventy wasn’t on my Bingo card,” Cletus grumbles.
