James Webb—we just called him Webb around the office—worked on our engineering team. I'd have put him in his early thirties. He was medium-to-tall, slim, light sandy haired, and cordial enough, the kind of guy an engineering student like myself found easy talking to professionally.
I worked in XYZ Corporation's experimental shop that summer, having come to Davis City halfway across the country at their invitation because they licensed an invention I'd patented and wanted help in the experimental shop readying it for the market. Three months summer work and an expense-paid, extended driving vacation to a new part of the country promised a welcome adventure before I headed back to college for my junior year.
Davis City was a misnomer, at least if you consider a Mid-west community of 6000 a town rather than a city. But every small town has big city aspirations, right? Out there in its wide valley, Davis City had plenty of room to grow, that was for sure. Over its hundred-fifty years it had sprawled some, but unlike many, hadn't died at its core. The lazy river through its center, and Lake Davis—a nicely landscaped, hundred acre gravel pit, really—within the city limits provided focal points for family picnics, the annual
E. M. Davis Day
celebration, and the few tourists who might venture twenty miles up a
going nowhere
road from the interstate.
Webb always worked on projects different from those to which I was assigned in the experimental shop. Mostly I only had to do with him during the office's morning break, which the engineers, the office staff, and shop staff always took together. I was the only outsider, but you'd have never known I was non-local from the way everyone welcomed me in. Once the fellows just out of high school discovered I drove a car considered hot for its time, the would-be drag racers and NASCAR fans chummied right up, and we got along fine. The older office folks accepted me right off, too, I suppose that's because small town folks are pretty much small town folks no matter where you go. Within the second month I got two Saturday dinner invitations from families with eligible daughters.
Other than morning break, I saw little of Webb except when he dashed in through the shop at starting time, then dashed out again right at quitting. Apparently he lived close by; I gathered this from the good natured
another quickie, Webb?
he endured each noon from Jerry, the experimental shop clown. Maybe it was only joys of family that put that smile on Webb's face when he returned, and that anticipatory look on his face each time he left.
He played it pretty cool, considering everyone in the shop and office was either related to him or had attended school with him. His wife was local, so everyone knew her, too. Her cousin, who lived with them, came from some place too far away to matter.
I bumped into Webb, his wife, and his cousin-in-law one evening at the Davis Center Market, the only time I saw them together. I spent most of that meeting with my eye on the cousin—of course trying not to be too much the lecher. Tall, slim, brunette, poised, gorgeous, even without flirt on her part. Although not overdone, if she wasn't a model, she'd missed her calling.
Thinking back, so had Webb's wife.
***
"We all ready?" Julie Miles asked her cousin.
Elsie Webb flipped the comb through her shoulder-length, dark hair and stared at herself in the mirror. "Showtime," she whispered.
Julie felt growing apprehension every weekday at 12:07, and today presented no exception. How could she keep up with her cousin? After all, the man for whom they both waited was Elsie's husband. Julie had no claim on him. She looked down, said a silent prayer, and sucked in her non-existent belly. He was so good! Good to Elsie, good to her, and good compared to that turkey Julie had divorced four years ago.
Yes, that was Frank. How could she have been stupid enough to marry him? Julie had done all the work while he loafed. She often shook her head when she thought about that whole situation. Sure, he had a handsome build, but it did her no good for protection. Instead, she needed protection from him. Her protection came in the form of packing her bags one morning as he lay dead drunk in the bed she'd bought, asleep in his unearned lover's slumber. Her face healed up pretty well during the bus trip halfway across the country to take refuge with her cousin and her husband in Davis City.
