By April there was only a skeleton crew left behind in Appleblossom. Everyone else was reassigned to the new location in Toluca Lake, California.
No one at Ray Moon's Market and Service Station was considered a person of interest. Ben Baker would have made the list if they could see him now in his trailer on the edge of the apple orchard of St Anthony's Abbey. The snow had melted and the heaviest rains ever came. It was 10:00 in the morning on his day off but he couldn't go trout fishing from his favorite spot on the Apple Road Bridge, so he went to the refrigerator for another six pack of beer. He didn't get up for "a" beer. He grabbed six at a time. He took long drags on his bong and sat around in what passed for his pajamas these days, the uniform shirt stained with the blood of Cherie Solange.
Cherie was in the back office taking orders from Stan Stills, the society page writer. She was fetching stock photos for the piece about the upcoming annual Easter Egg hunt at the abbey. The doctors said she could return to her delivery job but Sam Masterson wanted her to wait one more month. Sam still believed Cherie aspired to be a writer and that she'd been taking writing classes. Craig and Skipper snickered between themselves that it must be hard for her to write with nun-chucks. They kept it as an inside joke between the two of them.
Craig and Skipper were donning their slickers and galoshes.
Skipper walked over to Tina's desk and leaned in towards her to show her he was dead serious. She was looking out her window at the cars in the parking lot. The rain was so heavy that it distorted shapes and made lights crawl like shadows on the wet pavement.
"I mean it, don't call me Skipper anymore. Call me Richard. I'm going back to my given name now. Seriously, Tina is that too much to ask," he noticed her jaw dropped and the blood left her face.
"It's not that big a deal," he frowned.
Tina stood up like a zombie and looked right through Skipper and let out a high pitched scream. She ran towards the front door. Just as the door squeaked open, she leap upon the him and wrapped her legs around his waist tight.
"Hey, Tina," His voice was horse and deeper than they remembered. Lewis slid her off him gently like hot wax gliding down a candle. He gave nods of recognition to Craig and Skipper. They didn't expect to see him until Christmas, if then.
"Dude," Craig nodded back to his big brother. Lewis didn't look like himself. His face was gaunt and it looked like he hadn't shaved in a week. He'd lost a lot of weight. He was wearing a leather jacket and a white tee shirt that was soaking wet.
"Is Cherie here?" he asked.
"She's in the back office working with Stan," Craig gave his brother a side hug.
"I'll catch up with you tonight, man," Lewis put one arm around Craig, squeezed tight and tugged him in for a quick rib cage bump.
He stopped in front of the glass wall of back office. Her back was to him. She was fishing for something in a file cabinet. He'd never seen her with her hair down. She always wore the braided ponytail. Since she was grounded from jogging, martial arts, her paper route and anything strenuous until her injuries healed, she let her hair hang. It was like a caramel waterfall with flashes of gold and red when it caught the light. Craig called her "Cousin Itt" from the Addam's Family. She had to whip her head to swish it away from her butt every time she sat down so she wouldn't sit on it.
Cherie felt eyes upon her and turned around. He opened the glass door and walked towards her.
"Cherie, get your things. I have to talk to you," Lewis choked the words out plaintively. He looked like a man in mourning, completely broken in two. A tear rolled down his cheek.
She hesitated. The sound of a toilet flushing broke the silence.
"Come on, baby, don't make me cry in front of Stills," he begged her. Something in her snapped. She put the file Mr. Stills asked for on top of the cabinet, grabbed her purse and threw her coat over her arm instead of stopping to put it on. coat He took other her arm. The file folder slid off the cabinet and the photos fanned out on the floor like the feathers of a peacock in heat. They didn't look back.
Stan Stills came out of the restroom and hydroplaned on the photographs, breaking his fall by grabbing the chair from the cartoon drafting table. It was on wheels so he ran with it, knocking over things in his path until the chair hit the wall.
"Mother Of God!" He shouted after he regained his balance. He bolted out into the front office to find out what was going on.
"Did she ask if she could leave?" Tina was trying to trade outrage for tears.
"Nobody said anything to me," Stills rubbed a patch of fog off the window. "I see! The Battling Burtons are at it again!"
Indeed, at first it seemed like Cherie and Lewis were at each other's throats in the parking lot in the pouring rain. Cherie's arms were gesturing so much she dropped her coat and purse in a mud puddle. Lewis kept slapping his heart like a love-sick gorilla. When she started to bend down to pick up her things he stopped her and brought her back up and pulled her in for a kiss that lasted so long that Tina couldn't take it anymore.
"For God's sake!" She stormed off to the restroom.
"Watch out for the shit on the floor, Tina! I almost broke my damn neck," Stills called out but didn't budge from the window. With Tina gone the men could openly stare at the scene.
"Yep, Burton and Taylor are an item again," Stills shook his head.
"Do they even know it's raining? Man, that's some heavy shit," Craig stood there almost unrecognizable and completely covered in his rain gear.
"You're too young to be watching this, Craig. You should be home watching Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop," Stills ribbed the wide-eyed innocent kid.
"Huh?" Craig didn't get it.
"Lamb Chop, the sock puppet? Yeah, before your time, kid. Sorry about that. I keep forgetting how damn old I am," Stills sighed. From then on his nickname for Craig was Lamb Chop.
Stan didn't mess with Skipper or Tina. They were both burning alive in the hell of unrequited love and no longer had a sense of humor between the two of them.
"Come on man, we've got deliveries to make, remember," Skipper sighed when the show was over. Cherie and Lewis took off in the tiny green sports car.
~ To Be Continued ~
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