Saturday 9:15 p.m.
"He's late."
Peggy's husband was in the living room sitting on the couch in front of the television. Channel 25's new roving reporter was giving an update on a barn that had caught on fire from a lightning strike earlier in the day. A siren still was blaring off camera as the owner of the farm described how he barely was able to get all his cows out before the fire spread out of control.
"It was a fire and a rainin' and I ain't seen never nuthin damnedgum quite like it, no ma'am!"
The reporter gently reminded the farmer to be cautious in his choice of words because he was now live and on camera. She then took a step back away from the man and motioned the camera to the smoldering shell of the barn.
The farmer, undeterred, stumbled back into frame and leaning closer into the reporter continued on, "Am I uh on the picture tube right now? Can I say hello to my friend Harold? Hey, Harold?" the grinning farmer said, "It's me, Clarence! I done made the news!"
The female reporter, sensing the potential for losing control of the situation, cut the man off and tried kicking the feed back to the instudio anchor when the farmer yelled in, "Boom! It was a loud boom! And lightnin'!"
The excited man, clearly enjoying the attention, now attempted to recreate the events with his flailing arms. He quickly raised his hands, surprising the reporter and knocking the microphone out of her grasp and into the air and out of view.
The astute cameraman, following the trajectory of the rocket launched mic, caught its splash down squarely in a pile of brown manure, then swiftly panned back to the wide-jawed reporter, and finally, once more, to the farmer in time to get him sheepishly shrugging his shoulders and mouthing the word, "Oops."
The worst of the storm had now passed through most of the surrounding area, but a steady downpour still was drenching the county. The storm, the TV, and the comedy routine that had just unfolded were all white noise to Peggy's husband as he casually turned the pages of his favorite fishing magazine.
The reporter was Donna Greggs and she would be wearing a puffy, slightly oversized blouse that was either pink, white, or a combination of both. Ms. Greggs's best intentions for respect in her craft by displaying modesty in her clothing selection still could not hide her busty figure.
He did not have to look up at the tv to know all of this.
Throughout his life, Peggy's husband had prided himself on his intuition of reading the wants, mannerisms, and behavior of people and, even better, his foresight and planning off of this sixth sense of his. He naturally became a police officer, quickly rose through the ranks to become a detective, and left the police force to then start a successful private investigations business. He parlayed his knowledge of deductive reasoning to the stock markets enough to acquire a modest sum of wealth. So much so, that when circumstances forced him to face an earlier retirement than he had hoped, that he was able to easily choose walking away from the work he enjoyed without much worry of a financial burden.
Relaxing because one could never appealed to him. He struggled with this new shift in his life and depression slowly came over him. He stayed in bed, losing track of hours and days, aimlessly staring at the popcorn patterns on the ceiling of their bedroom. It took him waking up craving breakfast one morning and finding out that it was really three in the afternoon to finally begin to snap him out of his post retirement gloom. He went into the bathroom and showered and shaved and made a promise to himself that keeping his mental senses sharp was going to be his new job.
Now, with this renewed outlook, he began to enjoy life again. He timed how fast he did crossword puzzles. He started to fish the creek that ran along their property. He built wooden models of WWII airplanes and he grew fond of watching the Game Show Network. Correctly guessing the answers himself was always a fun test, but he enjoyed more watching the thought processes people went through before giving an answer that could leave them either a bit wealthier or with nothing at all.
He turned the pages of his fishing magazine to the review of the newly anticipated lure that was supposed to 'change bass fishing forever!' He shook his head and rolled his eyes, "Just like every other ad claims," he thought.
His gaze then went to the scroll of the day's college football scores and he smirked at how Channel 25 ran its programming. He gave them till the end of summer before Ms. Greggs was permanently in studio, in better lighting, and with access to a wardrobe that featured tighter fitting tops.
Lights began flashing inside his head because the former cop in him knew that a statement so bold demanded some sort of accountability.
"There's gotta be a wager, a consequence and a penalty if I'm wrong," he thought to himself. "Wait? Did I just think that?" he paused from again looking at the shiny lure and frowned at second guessing himself. "Wrong? I always get these things right and the current anchorman should probably be polishing up his resume."
"Did you not hear me? I said, he is late!" Peggy said more sternly.
Peggy was now standing in their bedroom doorway and clearly expecting a reply.
Her voice snapped him from his mindwander and into the present. He already knew what time it was but, sensing her increasing agitation, he put down his magazine and made a show of looking at the clock mounted above the TV.
"I know. I know. We've called and texted and..."
"It's over an hour now!" Peggy blurted in.
He placed his magazine under his arm, got up from the couch, and went to look out their front window. He could see any car traveling down the road a mile away from the east and two miles from the west in the light of day. Nothing was coming from either way and he didn't have to get up from where he was sitting to know if a car had turned off from the road to come down their driveway.
"There were thunderstorms earlier. It's possible that he is caught in traffic. The reception is bad or a tower is down. It's easy to confuse the intersections of Mills Crossing and Millers Avenue. Or, maybe, there was a stray, runaway, half burnt cow in the road. It could be any one of those things."
He didn't have to turn back around to know that his rattling list of excuses was not going to satisfy her or that she didn't find his little joke the least bit funny. He could feel her stare burning into his back. 40 plus years of marriage will do that.
"It was actually 41," he reminded himself, "41 years of marriage and 45 years of falling in love with her."
He remembered how her family had moved into town halfway into the school year. There weren't too many things a teen could imagine going through that was worse than being the new kid. Starting over in a different place, being behind in the curriculum, and having to navigate cliques of kids who've known each other from preschool to try and carve out new friends at his one school town was not easy for her.
She stood firm and quiet between the flag and the chalkboard before being introduced into his 9th grade math class. A halo of stars spun around her head and her arms were wrapped tightly around her books as she waited for
Mr. Riley to finish calling out roll. No one else in class noticed the erupting volcano ripping the school and his heart into bits and pieces.
"Young lady, in my class, you'll learn that science and biology are just math covered in flowers."
Mr. Riley repeated his old and tired line that never brought the laugh he expected and as he led her to her new desk, she couldn't have seen her future husband floating behind riding the air on the wake of her scent.
