A/N - This part was going to be shorter, but the characters kind of took over. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review, and thanks for all the kind words.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hart of Dixie, I am a mere fan.
Coming Up For Air Ch. 3
DAY 5
"It's Thursday, Addie, Alabama versus Georgia this Saturday, Addie," Brick said, as if his next words were 'the President of the United States, Addie', but of course they weren't. Brick had to watch his words carefully now, since Addie had banned the phrase 'where is she?' from the office.
The nurse practitioner/receptionist/office manager/teen-confidante and chief lollypop dispenser smiled up at Brick automatically from behind her desk and handed him the next patient's records. She too was choosing her words carefully.
"Yes it is."
Meanwhile, down at the Rammer Jammer, Charlene was informing Lemon that the dishwasher had barely made it through breakfast rush, and she wasn't sure it would make it through lunch.
"Wade's been keepin' this machine runnin' with duct tape and balin' wire, Lemon, he's put in half the parts that are on it now," Charlene was saying, "if he was here I wouldn't worry, but if we get backed up during lunch it'll be hell on wheels."
With Wade gone, at least temporarily, Lemon was beginning to realize just how much he did around there to keep things running smoothly, and she began to feel her heart rate go up. Why were people always coming to HER with their problems? Because, she realized with a start, she was the boss. Well, all right then, she thought, and since she was the boss it was time to delegate.
"What do you suggest?" Lemon finally asked.
"Well, Elwood, he works down at the hardware store, he's been workin' with Wade now and then on stuff around here, you know, showin' an interest in breakin' into the restaurant business, from the bottom up, so to speak, so he could probably help us out, but he's working at the hardware store today."
"I want him here, this morning, Charlene," Lemon said decisively, "I'll pay whatever he asks, but I want that machine fixed by lunch. Arrange it." Lemon turned and walked out of the kitchen, feeling like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, hoping there weren't any more leaks, as least just yet.
Excerpt from the Bluebell Blawker –
Zadewatch, Day Five. Residents of Bluebell remain on high alert for Dr. Zoe Hart and Wade Kinsella, who by all accounts have come back to Bluebell only to fall off the grid. The whereabouts of these erstwhile lovebirds is the topic of conversation all over town. The Blawker spoke with town resident Shula Whitaker just this morning.
…You know, Dash, you may recall I was one of Dr. Hart's first regular patients, she is such a sweet little thing, such a good listener, I surely hope nothing has happened to her, although I did hear tell…
…Now Shula, you don't want to go startin' any…
…that she might be workin' for the CIA, which could account for her not…
…rumors, that would be…
…although you do hear tell all the time about people being abducted by aliens in little out of the way places like Bluebell…
…irresponsible.
For those of you following online, click this link to the pictures that Blawker Photographic Correspondent Rose Hattenbarger has taken of the plantation over the last few days…
It was about eleven that morning when Lemon made it back to the kitchen to find a boy, really, closing up the dishwasher and preparing to leave. He had just snapped the bottom panel closed when Lemon entered the kitchen and he saw her, but he had forgotten to close the upper door so when he rose to greet her he hit his head.
"Ow," the boy said, rubbing his head and staying about half bent over.
"Gosh, are you all right?" Lemon rushed forward, grasping his forearm and looking into his eyes. "Do you need some ice for your head?"
"No ma'am, I should be OK," the boy said as he looked up into Lemon's face from a kind of half-crouch. It was at that moment that the boy, whose name was Elwood, fell in love. Surely the angels in heaven were missing one of their number, surely, somewhere, at that moment, the sky cleared, the angels sang, and there was music in the air, because this vision had descended from heaven to stand in front of him with a look of such worry and concern that his heart melted at the sight.
Lemon, unaware of the boy's reaction to her, asked Charlene for a cold pak as she walked him over to the office to find a seat. After she got him settled, and Charlene brought the cold pak, Lemon settled herself on a corner of the desk and smoothed her dress.
"I want to thank you, Elwood, it is Elwood, isn't it? I want to thank you for fixing our dishwasher so promptly."
"Naw, thank you for thinkin' of me, ma'am," mumbled Elwood, holding the cold pak to his head, so embarrassed at sitting so close to a goddess he could hardly look at her, yet at the same time he could barely tear his eyes away, so as a result he didn't know where to put his eyes or his hands either, so he could only sit and fidget. "All's I did was replace the upper main gasket and three of the water jet nozzles, Wade and I did the other one a few weeks back but we didn't have time to do those three. I coulda fixed 'em, but replacin's more permanent, more expensive though, hope you don't mind…" Suddenly Elwood panicked, thinking Lemon would accuse him of padding the bill.
"No, no, it's fine, Elwood, thank you again, I think replacing the jets is a good idea," Lemon tried to re-assure the boy, who seemed awfully nervous. "How much do I owe you?"
"Well, hell, ma'am…"
"Elwood, please, I am not your mother's age, call me Lemon. How much do I owe you? Surely the parts alone…"
"Well, Ms. Breeland…Lemon…I…uh,"
"Wait a moment," Lemon said as she leaned back a little and opened one of the desk drawers, pulling out a bank bag, and in the process giving Elwood a flash of lower leg that he was sure was a vision he would carry to his grave. Lemon sat up, opened the bag, pulled out a roll of cash, peeled off three twenties, folded them in half, and stuffed them in the breast pocket of Elwood's shirt. At her touch, Elwood felt a thrill such as he had never felt before. "Will that be enough?"
Elwood was barely able to nod yes.
"Oh, and before you go," Lemon said as she stood up, "do you have a card or something so we can get in touch with you if we need you?"
"No, Ms. Breeland, but you can call this number," he scribbled one down on the notepad Lemon handed him, "anytime."
"OK, well, thanks a lot, I'm sure we'll be in touch," Lemon swept him out the back door. She turned to find Charlene watching her. "I think he could be very useful."
"I think you have an admirer," Charlene said with a smile.
"Oh, don't be silly," Lemon waved her hand, as if the idea was a pesky insect she could brush off.
"I've seen that look," Charlene said, shaking her head. "That boy would crawl across hot coals for you."
"Ridiculous." Lemon waved both hands this time as if to fly away, which she did; relieved that one more problem had been solved without Wade's input, one more crisis dealt with in her own way, and with the dawning realization that there was no way she could say she couldn't do a job that she was already doing.
Which was good, because at that moment her father entered the Rammer Jammer with a look on his face that did not bode well. Dr. Brick Breeland seemed both focused and distracted, like a man being eaten by horseflies at a tennis match. Lemon recognized the approaching crisis immediately, and began searching desperately through her mind for a possible solution as she walked up to meet him at the bar.
"Lunch, honey, I think I need some lunch," Brick said. "I tell you, my nerves are goin' through hell's carwash, Lemonade, feel that," he thrust out his wrist "pulse is up, blood pressure's up, are my eyes bulgin'?" he leaned over the counter up close so Lemon could see his eyes.
"No, Daddy, you look fine, just kind of frazzled is all. I know what you want," Lemon slapped the bar for emphasis, which unfortunately made Brick jump a little. Actually a little more than a little. "Turkey club on wheat, light on the mayo, unsweetened iced tea, easy on the stomach. Got that Charlene? I got the tea."
A plan began to form.
Lemon walked down to the cooler, got a large glass beer stein from over the bar, filled it with ice and left it below bar level as she added a generous ounce or perhaps two ounces of Stolichnaya, then poured in the unsweetened ice tea before bringing it up to bar level and topping it off with a lemon slice. Lemon figured she could always apologize later for getting her father drunk, but she knew him well enough to know he wouldn't treat anyone if he knew he had been drinking, and he would eventually figure out that he had indeed been drinking…the idea is to get him to RELAX and get someone to cover for him this weekend. It seemed like such a good idea. What could go wrong? She'd fixed the dishwasher crisis, hadn't she?
By mid-afternoon Brick was hammered and Rose Hattenbarger was off in the non-alcohol section with her laptop, explaining to several people her latest theory about the mystery of Wade and Zoe.
"See, I've managed to rig up these three stationary cameras around the plantation, on public property, they can all be monitored and controlled from this laptop, and I have DVR on demand for any of them, up to, of course, my limits of storage."
"So you've got them, like, under 24-hour surveillance?" One of the boys asked, somewhat incuriously.
"No, no, essentially no, no, it's like, not really, no, well, sort of, in a way, but no, it's not like I'm the CIA or anything, no, I don't do that, no, no."
"OK, cool."
"Really, it's not like that at all."
"Really, Rose, it's cool, just show us the thing."
"Well, anyway," Rose went on to her slide show, suddenly with a new perspective on her project and deeply unsettled at what she had done in the name of 'the people's right to know', as she saw it, "if we focus in on this area of the gatehouse here, just near the back corner, and zoom in, then time-lapse those pictures, we see this," which appears to be a fairly dark and fuzzy screen with some dim shapes, "which, because of the pattern of the leaves, clearly indicates human foot traffic."
"What if it's a squirrel?" Asked a tall boy in the second row of observers around Rose's table, pronouncing it like it was one long muddy syllable, SKWURL.
"Because there is no photographic evidence of a SKWURL, Elwood Freiburghouse," Rose snapped impatiently, "but there is evidence of random leaf disturbance that could only be made by an animal which walked on two pretty large feet, and that could only be a human…or a bear. But there is no photographic evidence of a bear, either, and that would be pretty hard to miss…BUT," here Rose spread her hands, arms in, palms up, on either side of her shoulders in the universal gesture for TA-DA, "check this out, a slide show of the side of the house, and you can watch flickering candlelight through the window."
Everyone surrounding Rose ooh'd and aah'd at the pretty light show on the screen, while Rose began to feel worse and worse, like she was invading someone's privacy, specifically her friend Zoe's privacy, which was definitely different than invading just any old person's privacy. However, as her slide slow ran, Rose realized that cat was already out of the bag, and while whether she should shut these cameras down or not was a question she would have to ask herself again later, whatever damage that might have been done had already been done.
"So there you have it," Rose said with a lot less enthusiasm than she expected she would have had, "we're pretty sure they're in there, and ferrying supplies through the back." At that, Rose blushed, now fully convinced she was going to hell for having betrayed a confidence.
"Ah still think it's a SKWURL, them lights don't prove anything," Elwood muttered just loud enough for Rose to hear.
As Rose turned off the slide show, the screen went back to split screen stills of all three cameras, and in the middle screen there was a man standing in the middle of the road in front of the mayor's plantation. Rose's eyes widened as she zeroed in on that camera and enabled real time DVR.
"Let's see if I can zoom in and find out who this is," she said as she manipulated the camera. "Mmm, hard to tell from the back, let's see…wait a minute…that looks like Dr. Breeland!"
"What!" There was a collective gasp from the crowd as people turned to the bar and found Brick had gone.
"What did you say? What about Dr. Breeland?" Lemon asked as she came through the door from a last minute afternoon meeting with the fish wholesalers. Before she left she had poured the rest of the Stoli bottle into the unsweetened ice tea and told Wanda to keep her Daddy's glass filled with fresh ice and lemon slices and this mixture and he'd be fine, which she did and he was, at least until he staggered, unnoticed, out of the Rammer Jammer and down to the Mayor's plantation, or at least that's what Lemon saw on Rose's laptop screen, her Daddy carrying some kind of…something…just sort of softly swaying in the breeze. She pulled out her phone and dialed a number she had to punch in manually because she had deleted it from speed dial.
"Lavon? Lemon. We need to circle the wagons. Don't ask me how I know, but Daddy is outside your house now, he's really really drunk and I think he's pissed off that Dr. Hart is deliberately waiting until it's too late to relieve him so he can go to his football thingy this weekend, can you please just make sure he doesn't make a fool of himself? Thank you so much."
Lavon looked out his front window and saw Brick in front of the iron gate, swaying a little and keeping himself up by leaning on a shop whisk broom, one of those patio types with the stiff bristles, with the broom side under his arm and the handle pointing down, like a big dusty crutch. The Mayor sighed, dialed the sheriff on his speed dial, asked him to meet him at the plantation, shook his head, and went out to meet the doctor.
"Brick, how ya doin'," Lavon smiled.
"Lavon, Lavon, how are you, my friend," Brick waved his free hand expansively and somehow managed not to fall over.
"I'm good, Brick, real good, how can I help you?"
"I believe," Brick said as he staggered forward a bit, catching the head of the broom as it fell forward and reversing it so the wide sweeping part was on the bottom and able to catch him, "as do these people behind me, I might add," he lurched one of his arms back as if to indicate a vast throng, "that you are harboring a fugitive from medicine." He threw his head back and opened his eyes wide on the last syllable. "I am astonished, Mayor, absolutely fligger-busted," Lavon thought that's what it sounded like anyway, "that you would do such a thing. I demand the miscreant immediately."
With that, Brick staggered back a few steps and threw his arms wide, just like the guy in 'Network', whereupon the broom handle fell back against him and nearly toppled him over.
"You know, Brick, I think you've had a little too much to drink today, why don't you just go home and sleep it off? Tomorrow's a brand new day, you know." Lavon could see Sheriff Bill pulling up quietly behind Brick and getting out of the car slowly.
"I may have had a couple of drinks, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that our doctor is hiding out behind these castle walls, and I want to know why!"
Lavon and Bill exchanged looks. 'Castle walls'?
"In fact, that's why the whole village," Brick once again lurched his arm around to indicate a whole village, in the process spinning himself around, "has come here with torches and pitchforks," Brick raised his broom, brushes up, "to demand answers to our legitimate questions. WHY?" Brick shouted to the sky, brandishing the broom again, his other hand waving in the air as if appealing to the gods.
"Brick," said Bill gently as he walked up to the doctor, "let's get you home."
"Careful, Bill, those torches'll burn your arm clean off," Brick warned the sheriff with his free hand.
"Oh, it's OK, Brick, that one's gone out," Bill said as he took the doctor by the elbow and guided him into the back seat of the cruiser.
Brick stared blankly at the patio broom. "You mean this isn't on fire anymore?"
"That's right, Brick, let me have that," Bill said quietly as he took the broom and got Brick settled in the back, where he curled up, closed his eyes and appeared to go to sleep.
"Geez, that's embarrassin'," Lavon said to Bill as the Sheriff walked around the cruiser to get in his car.
"I'll get him home, pour him into bed, or maybe Lemon can do it, he'll have a head in the mornin', though." Bill paused with one foot in the cruiser. "There are some things that some folks would rather forget."
"Very true, Sheriff, very true. Thanks for stopping by."
Bill nodded, tipped his hat, got in the cruiser, and took off.
"That IS embarrassing," Rose Hattenbarger agreed as she tapped the 'stop recording' button on her remotely controlled camera and re-named the file 'Dr. Breeland'. Of course, everyone in the Rammer Jammer had seen it happening live like it was on CNN, for crying out loud, but it was nice to know the photographic evidence was on her computer.
Meanwhile, back at the plantation, Lavon trudged back up the walk to the front door and walked in, where he was met by Annabeth.
"You poor thing," she said.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take," Lavon said, "feels like my nerves have been through hell's car wash."