“Julie.” I said. “Are you hungry?”

“Starved,” she said after a short pause. Her head tilted to the left. A little smile was on the verge of taking up residence.

“Would you like to have a little breakfast with me?” I asked.

“God, yes,” she said, smiling suddenly past her tears.

“Good,” I said. “I know just the place.”

CHAPTER TWO

There are places to get good coffee and a decent breakfast and be in your own crowd. The place I took Miss Simmons was nothing like that. Nestled in a predominantly lower class neighborhood on the East Side of Interstate 35 there is a hole-in-the-wall place where they start the barbecue about ten years ahead of time and the wood smoke hangs about in the late morning hours like London fog. We had places like that back where I grew up, and I made it a point to find one about the second day of my life in Austin, Texas.

My old Mercedes was parked underneath probably the only willow tree in East Austin, not ten feet away.

The two of us sat just outside the screen porch at a rickety, paint-peeled picnic table as the April sun rose toward zenith between draping willow branches. I found myself wondering whether or not I'd died and gone someplace I couldn't begin to deserve. Her sunglasses lay not an inch from my right hand, which held the scalding cup of coffee from which I sipped.

I heard the familiar crunch of heavy footsteps drawing close from around the wisteria bush close by.

“Julie,” I said, “I’d like for you to meet a friend of mine.”

She stood up halfway, and I suppose because of my upbringing, I found myself standing as well.

“This is Lawrence White,” I told her. “Lawrence, meet Julie Simmons.”

Lawrence White was a gentle giant. He was a mountainous, dark-skinned, Haystack Calhoun-of-a-man with a blood-red apron already stained with his homemade barbecue sauce. The smile Lawrence wore on his face that morning was slightly nervous, as if he were in the presence of royalty. I’d never seen the man act that way before, but then again I’d never seen him in the presence of a beautiful woman before. I’ve seen men who have gone through some of the worst hells that men have ever experienced under fire who, when they came face to face with a beautiful woman became slightly less articulate than your average garden squash, which is descriptive of how Lawrence White was acting.

“Lawrence,” I said. “Shake her hand.”

He did.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lawrence.”

“Uh. You too,” he said.

Julie’s arm got a good workout as he shook it up and down.

“Lawrence,” I said. “How about two plates of your world-famous breakfast?”

“You got it, Chief,” he said, finally looking at me, his face breaking into a huge, boyish grin.

For a moment he just stood there, his attention back on Julie, who sat back down and looked up, smiling at him.

Just great, I thought. But then he looked back at me and must have noted my frown, because he turned back around and trudged back to the house, his shoulders now properly hunched.

Within ten minutes we had two small paper plates in front of each of us complete with plastic fork, two fried eggs sunny side up, a slice of Jimmy Dean sausage and a healthy pile of banana pudding.

For a while there under the shade of that willow tree on that first morning, I would have sworn that the woman was happy. What a difference. Twenty minutes before she had looked like the most pathetic creature in existence.

Okay. Not a bitch, I decided.

I watched Julie as she attacked her eggs, not chipping away at the flanks but going for the heart.

I suppose I was smiling at her, enthralled.

“So what's your story?” she asked me between mouthfuls of egg.

“Story?”

“Everybody's got one.”

“So they say,” I told her.

“Yeah. So let's hear it.”

“Well, lessee,” I began, not knowing quite how to do so, so I just started at the beginning. “I was born and bred about a hundred and forty miles east of here, been to more Texas A amp;M bonfires than I can count, survived junior high and high school somehow and the idiots graduated me. I took some pre-law classes at Sam Houston State, then decided that it wasn’t my thing. I went to grad school at the University of Houston and again somebody goofed and I got a sheepskin. One marriage, ten years. Bad divorce. No kids. Still love her, though. Suppose I always will. I know. Stupid of me. Three year fiancee-ship with another one, but we broke up and got back together so many times that any marriage would have been doomed. For a while though, her kid was my kid. Good kid. Not the best mother, though. So… I'm here in Austin and it's all work and no play makes Bill a dull boy. That's about it.”

“Gonna stick to that story, huh?” she asked, forkful of banana pudding suspended in time and space between us for emphasis.

“Wouldn't you?”

“Yeah, except in my case it’d be a lot different.”

“So your turn now,” I said. Bold of me.

“Aw man!” she said in sudden disappointment and dropped her fork.

“What?”

“Pudding is too sweet!” It could have been a report like Micronesia sinking beneath the sea or killer tornadoes in the Midwest.

The shifting pattern of willow frond shade and sunlight in her hair with shimmers of pure spun gold, delicate sharp pink tongue removing pudding from her front teeth, soft yet piercing green eyes with too much knowledge about the world and not enough of the mundane; and dark secrets hidden like treasures, the way squirrels will hide their nuts. I suppose from that moment I was in love. A dead man. No mourners, please, just shovel in the dirt and shut up.

“Besides,” she said. “You wouldn't be interested.”

“Oh, believe me. I am.” I took a strong draw of coffee and the movement of the earth slowed a bit.

The most amazing thing happened! She clucked, three times. Her tongue against the roof of her mouth pulled down quick. My idiot heart stopped, then resumed a full three beats later.

“Okay. You really wanna know? I'm gonna tell you. I survived a bad cocaine addiction when I was in the tenth grade. Was pregnant in the eleventh and carried it for six months, then miscarried. My mother and father were murdered while I was away in rehab for the second time. They were watching Punky Brewsterand he, or maybe they-no one really knows-just came in and blew them both away and made off with the jewelry, the silver, the electronics, everything. I never graduated from high school. No GED either. I married the Coca-Cola guy from the rehab just so I would have a place to go after I got out, you know, somebody to take care of me. Three years later I realized I had his I.Q. plus another forty points, so I hopped on a bus to Las Vegas. I won't tell you what I did there. You wouldn't approve. I've lived in Sacramento, New York, Boston, Greensboro, Fort Myers, Mercer Island, and six months on a pineapple plantation on Molokai. Then, of course, back to Vegas. While I was there this last time I ran into a really bad character named Carpin who had more money than sense-that’s had, for sure-and that about brings us up to present time. I've been married four times but I'm not wearing any rings now. And all work and no play makes Julie a dull girl. That's it.”

I checked to see if my mouth was wide open. It wasn't.

“I understand.” It's all I could say.

Her jaw dropped. I swigged at my coffee.

“No. You don't understand, Bill. My middle name is Trouble. You should run. Now. Very fast.”

I had no excuse after that. I’d been officially warned. A lot of good it would do me.

“But you won't,” she said. “Will you?” I couldn’t tell whether she was begging me to get up and leave or begging me to stay. Probably more than a little of both.

“Not on your life. How old are you Julie? I'm thirty-nine.”