Turkey Ranch Road Rage Read Free Page B

were watching the news. In the back office. Some big crisis we had here. Glad I’d rushed right down.
    We headed down the hallway, homing in on the sound of the ten o’clock news behind door number three. The door was cracked open so I peeked inside to get feel for Lucille’s state of mind—the unrehearsed version. She sat in a chair in front of the television, sipping a cup of coffee, legs crossed, gold glittered slipper swinging, and a not a wrinkle in her purple pantsuit. Clearly, she was neither traumatized nor in need of rescuing. “Well, fancy meeting you here.”
    She jerked around in her chair, very nearly spilling her coffee then leaped to her feet. “Jolene!” Yes, she sounded more stricken than thrilled. Imagine that. With her dark and frosty blonde hair (yet another new color) piled high, dangly purple ball earrings, matching acrylic fingernails, gold bangle bracelets and professionally applied cosmetics, she looked quite stunning. And darned nervous. Guilty even.
    I smiled. “Surprise!”
    She was not amused and frowned to prove it. Setting her Styrofoam coffee cup on the desk, she tried to cover her shock and dismay. “My Lord, Jolene, how on earth did you get here so fast?” She checked her watch, trying—poorly I might add—to pretend interest in my travel abilities. “Jerry Don called you not nine hours ago.”
    Apparently, there had been a lot of clock watching going on, my potential arrival time having been precisely calculated. My showing up sooner rather than later was both unexpected and unappreciated by the damsel in supposed distress. I could only guess at what theatrical display she’d had planned for my arrival tomorrow. I had deliberately not called Jerry on my way in, hoping I could surprise him. But not wanting to be overly surprised myself, I’d also wanted to get a feel for what I had to deal with, which was why I’d stopped at the courthouse first. With the shocked—and somewhat guilty—reactions I was receiving from Lucille and Leroy, I figured I’d done exactly the right thing. I repeated my flight and car arrangements, which seemed to mildly impress her, at least the part about my great concern over her awful, awful situation. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and gave her a little daughterly squeeze. The hugging thing is not a natural and normal exchange between my mother and me so she was rightfully wary, eyeing me nervously, like she was waiting for the axe to fall. I kept one hand on her shoulder while I said to Leroy, “What do I have to do to get her out of here?”
    Leroy glanced at Lucille and shrugged. “Jerry Don says she can go. She just don’t want to.”
    Lucille twirled out from under my arm, spun to face me and straightened her shoulders. “Don’t you start with me, Jolene,” she said, waggling a finger for emphasis. “Things went real well today, but I’m not leaving here until I’ve made my point.”
    “And what point would that be? What, exactly, went ‘real well’ today, Mother? Was that the attempted murder of the county maintenance truck or the fiasco at the courthouse? What was it that I heard blow up?”
    Lucille’s eyes darted to the TV hanging from the ceiling in the corner. She pointed to a chair beneath the TV and suggested I sit there. I didn’t. Neither did she.
    Leroy, however, hitched up his pants and settled himself in the chair behind the desk. “’If I hadn’t been watching what they were doing, I’d have thought terrorists were trying to blow up the courthouse. Those cans sounded like bombs when they went off.”
    “Cans?”
    “Yeah, aerosols. The AAC people had parked an old camper trailer out in front of the courthouse then started painting their animal slogans and things on it. The costumed toads was supposed to act like they was dying then throw firecrackers at the camper. Didn’t go real well though. There was some kind of scuffle and—”
    “And the idiots caught the grass on fire,” Lucille snapped,