Ralphie's Wives

After lunch, they’d all come on over to the bar. It was Tuesday, which was usually slow, so they’d figured they would have the place pretty much to themselves. Darla’s brother, Boone, who’d been working the day shift for almost five months now, had already been there when they arrived.

Now Boone sat with Darla, his chair scooted close to her. He had his arm wrapped around her and his sandy-colored head bent close to hers.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Boone tried to soothe her by rubbing her back a little. “Darla, come on, it’ll be all right.” But Darla Jo only wailed all the louder. She was inconsolable.

The two women at the bar glanced toward the back table and shook their heads some more.

“Sad,” said Tiff. “No. Worse than sad. Downright depressing.”

Softly, so the two in back wouldn’t hear, Rose stated the obvious. “It’s tough to lose a husband when you’re twenty-one and pregnant with no job skills to speak of.”

“Yeah,” said Tiff. “But that girl has been cryin’ every day for three weeks now. It can’t be good for the baby. She needs to lighten up a little.”

Phoebe spoke then, quietly, bending close to her lifelong friends. “She loved him and now she just can’t deal with the fact that he’s gone. It’s tearing her up inside.”

The other two looked at her, looks that displayed the endless wisdom acquired once a girl approaches thirty and has had plenty of opportunity to witness—and participate in—what goes on between women and men.

At last Rose said low, “Pheeb, darlin’. She may be brokenhearted. But she’s also flat broke. Ralphie left her nothing. No money, no life insurance, no bar. I’d say at least half of all this endless bawlin’ is about a total lack of c-a-s-h.”

Tiffany burped—but delicately. “Oh. ’Scuse me.” She hunched to the bar and whispered so Ralphie’s sobbing child bride wouldn’t hear, “Well, she did get the double-wide, didn’t she? Not that it’s paid for, or anything.”

“Pardon me.” Rose kept her voice low and faked a snooty accent. “That is no double-wide. It is a manufactured home.” She slapped a hand on the bar. “Music. Now.” Sliding off her stool, Rose straightened her jean jacket—causing the rhinestone appliqués on it to glitter wildly in the dim light—and sauntered to the jukebox. Draping her lush self over the side of it, she punched out a few tunes. First off was Creed: “My Sacrifice.”

“Oh, God.” Tiff whined. “Did you have to?”

But Rose only grinned and strutted back to her stool, black salsa skirt swaying. Just as she was settling in, the unmistakable roaring rumble of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle rattled the wide window across from the bar.

Phoebe glanced up from polishing yet another glass as a big guy with shoulder-length crow-black hair rolled a gleaming two-wheeled hunk of chrome and steel off the street and into one of the spaces out front. The afternoon sun glinted off his black sunglasses. Phoebe had to squint against the glare.

The girls at the bar had also turned to look.

“Oh, my, my,” said Cimarron Rose. She pretended to fan herself.

“Nice Harley,” added Tiff out of the side of her mouth.

Rose loudly cleared her throat. “But back to the task at hand…” They both faced the bar again and lifted their glasses. Rose proposed the toast. “Ralphie. He was one of a kind and that is no lie.”

“Ralphie,” Tiff echoed after her, eyes glittering with moisture again. They drank in unison as Darla sobbed all the harder and, beyond the window, the black-haired hunk, in faded denim, a black T-shirt and a black leather vest, got off the Harley. He kicked down the stand with his big black boot. And then, for a moment, he just stood there, muscular arms hanging loose at his sides, staring at the front window as if he could see Phoebe in there behind the bar, staring right back at him. He couldn’t, of course. It was darker inside than out and the window was tinted. But still, a shiver like a dribble of ice water slid down her spine and a sizzle of heat flared low in her belly.

“Darlin’ Phoebe, another round,” said Tiffany.

Phoebe set to work on two more margaritas, glancing up as the big guy came strolling in.

Rose had got it right. My, my, my…

The stranger in question claimed a stool at the end of the bar and took off those black sunglasses. Tossing them down by the ashtray, he sent a glance Phoebe’s way.

“Be right with you.” She gave him a nod and he nodded back. Phoebe served the Queens and then moved on over to stand opposite him.

“Shot of Cuervo.” He had a deep, kind of velvety voice. With a little sandpaper roughness around the edges. “Beer back.” He laid down a twenty and as he did that she looked at his hands. Big hands.

She glanced up and their gazes caught. My, my, my. Eyes as black as his hair. And a mouth that made her think of deep, wet kisses….

Inside Phoebe’s head, alarm bells started ringing.

Don’t you even think about it, girl.

Phoebe had made plenty of mistakes in her thirty years, but she liked to think she’d learned from them. There had been other men in her life since Ralphie, every one of them big and wild and dangerous.

No way. Not again.

She broke the eye contact and concentrated on setting the guy up, free-pouring the tequila with a flourish, plunking the salt in front of him along with the fresh wedge of lime, tipping a beer glass under the tap, topping it off with a perfect inch of head.

“Enjoy,” she said, flashing him one dead-on glance, not letting the look linger.

“Thanks.”

Down the bar, Tiff complained, “Enough of this Creed shit.”

“Baby, your wish is my command,” said Rose.

Right on cue, the song ended and Rose stuck a fist in the air as though she’d been personally responsible. Phoebe moved back to her post near her friends and the Queens laughed together as the jukebox whirred and a much mellower Dave Matthews tune came on.

At Ralphie’s table, Boone was helping the still-sobbing Darla Jo to her feet. She sagged against him and he tightened his hold on her. Swaying together like a pair of bomb victims staggering away from a deadly explosion, they started for the door at the end of the bar that led through the storeroom to the employee parking area in back.

“Mind if I see she gets home all right?” Boone asked, steadying Darla as she stumbled.

“Go ahead,” Phoebe said. “Take the day. I can handle things here till Bernard shows up.”

“Happy birthday, Pheeb,” Darla Jo said in a tiny, broken voice, leaning heavily on Boone. Her honey-brown hair hung lank around her pale baby-doll face.

It caused an ache in Phoebe’s heart to see her hurting so much. “Thanks, sweetie. Take it easy, okay?”

“Take care, Darla Jo,” said Rose.

And Tiffany added, “Later, hon.”

They all watched, wearing solemn expressions, as Boone guided Ralphie’s pregnant widow to the swinging door and on through.

“Ralphie, Ralphie,” Rose pondered aloud, casting her gaze heavenward, once the door swung shut behind Darla Jo and Boone. “Ralphie, what were you thinkin’?”

Tiffany was nodding, looking severe, her famous dimples nowhere in sight. “You are so right, Rose. He never should have gotten the poor little thing pregnant. Almost sixty years old, and he didn’t have the sense to put a raincoat on that big thing of his.”

“Sense? Ralphie?” Rose made a scoffing sound low in her throat. “Now, there are two words never meant to be spoken in the same sentence.” They all nodded at that, even Phoebe. Then Rose’s face softened. “Think about it, though. That baby will be the only child that wild man ever had.”

Tiffany corrected her. “Well, that we know of.”

Tiff did have a point. Chances were Ralphie had other children somewhere. Ralphie had loved women. And women had loved him. It didn’t matter that he was too skinny and too old and his nose was too big for his face. When he turned those lazy-lidded eyes on a girl, she would fall hard and fast and not give a good damn that the landing was bound to be rough.