Nature Girl

“I know, Dad.”

“Your mom coulda divorced me while I was gone, but she didn’t.”

Fry emptied two packets of sugar into his iced tea. He’d already heard everything his mother and father had to say about each other. It was interesting to him that neither had remarried.

Ski

“A thousand bucks,” his son said.

“For what, may I ask?”

“Two kayaks.”

“How nice,” Ski

“Plus paddles and life jackets.” Fry hesitated before telling his father the rest. “See, she quit her job at the fish market.”

“Yeah, I know. Only she got sacked is the way I heard it.”

“Now she wants to do ecotours through the backcountry-nature trips for bird-watchers and stuff,” Fry said.

His father took another big bite and grunted.

“She might be good at it.” The boy spoke loyally but without conviction.

“What the hell happened at the fish market? Did she say?”

“What did you hear?”

Ski

“After he grabbed her boob,” Fry said. “And it wasn’t a hammer. It was a crab mallet.”

His father blinked slowly. “Louis grabbed her?”

“Yes, sir, that’s what Mom told me. And I believe her.”

Ski

Fry could tell that his father was angry.

“Did he hurt her? Tell the truth.”

“No, sir, I don’t believe so.”

Ski

“Dad, there’s something else,” the boy said.

“How come I’m not surprised?”

“Mom needs two plane tickets. She wondered if maybe you could cash in some of your miles.”

Ski

“Not that I know of.”

“You’d clue me in if she was, right?”

“For sure,” said Fry. “She didn’t say what the tickets are for, but she told me to tell you don’t worry, it’s no big deal.”

Ski

“Mom said you could cash out your miles and it wouldn’t cost you anything-”

“Son, you don’t understand. Come on, let’s go.”

When they were outside, in the parking lot, Ski

Fry thought: If only I knew.

But to his father he said, “So, what do I tell her?”

“Tell her to come talk with me.”

“Aw, Dad.”

“What-you think that’s my idea of a good time?” Ski

He got in the truck and lowered the window. “What kind of grades are you makin’ these days?”

“Not bad. B’s and A’s,” Fry said. “Hey, thanks for lunch.”

“Anytime. Always great to see you, buddy.” Perry Ski

The boy got on his bike.

“Don’t worry. She’s all right,” he said, and pedaled away before his father could get a good look at his eyes.

Honey Santana didn’t despise her ex-husband as much as she claimed. She felt compelled to bad-mouth Perry Ski

After the split, Ski

Sometimes she envied her divorced friends, who seemed liberated by toxic and spiteful relationships with their exes. Of course most of those husbands had been caught screwing around, which wasn’t the case with Ski

Still, Honey couldn’t forgive Perry for filing first, which made it appear as if the whole damn thing was her fault when it wasn’t. He could have been a more patient and empathetic partner. He could have been a better listener, and not so quick to believe the doctors…

“I’m sorry, but at the customer’s request this number is not published.”

Oh please, Honey thought. He’s a nobody, for God’s sake.

She tried again, spelling the name more slowly, but she got the same recording. It was unbelievable: Boyd Shreave, anonymous low-life salesman, kept an unlisted home number.

Honey went outside and picked up a section of lead drainpipe and whacked it half a dozen times against the siding of the trailer. Feeling somewhat better, she went back inside and sat down at Fry’s computer, which he’d forgotten to disable, and Googled the name Shreave. Although only one match turned up, her spirits sailed.

It was a story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, appearing under the headline JURY BOOTS SALESMAN’S LAWSUIT.

A Tarrant County jury has awarded only $1 to a local salesman who claimed he was permanently injured while demonstrating corrective footwear to a prospective customer.

Boyd S. Shreave had sought more than $2 million in damages from his former employer, Lone Star Glide-Boots, following the mishap in August 2002.

According to the lawsuit, Shreave was making a sales visit to an elderly Arlington woman when he inserted a graphite orthotic device in one of his own shoes. While parading back and forth to show off “the comfort and unobtrusiveness” of the item, Shreave allegedly stumbled over the woman’s oxygen tank and ended up painfully straddling a potted cactus.

He claimed that the accident resulted in “irreparable cervical trauma” to his neck, and that the cactus needles “grossly disfigured” his groin area, causing “inestimable mental anguish, humiliation and loss of marital intimacy.”

Attorneys for Lone Star Glide-Boots argued that the incident was entirely Shreave’s fault because he’d mistakenly put a left-footed corrective wedge into his right shoe. They also charged that he had “flagrantly” violated company policy by attempting to sell such devices to a person who had long ago lost the use of both legs to diabetes.

The customer, 91-year-old Shirley Lykes, testified that Shreave was “a slick talker, but clumsy as a blind mule.”

The six-member jury deliberated less than an hour. The foreman later explained that the panel decided to give $1 to Shreave “so he could go out and buy some tweezers”-an apparent reference to the lingering cactus thorns that the salesman had complained about.

Shreave, who now works for another company, declined comment.