CHAPTER ONE   

Infinity Texas, 1928

Scooter Underhill eased off the brakes of his yellow roadster convertible as his bride, Jade, knelt in the passenger seat and waved farewell to their friends and family.

“Bye,” she called. “We love y’all! We’ll see you in a week!”

When the church grew faint in the distance, she turned and plopped down in the seat next to her new husband, combing her fingers through her bright red curls. Grains of rice flew into her lap and onto the front seat between them. She glanced his way, scooted over and yanked the Panama hat from his head, revealing his shiny black hair.

"What are you doing? Gimme that!"

"Are you saving this for our wedding dinner, Scooter Underhill?" Laughing, she poured the rice that had gathered around the hat’s brim onto the floor of the car.

He grabbed his hat away and jammed it back on his head. "No ma’am, tonight we’re having steak and champagne."

Happiness and contentment he'd never known before covered him like a soft blanket as Jade snuggled close, wrapped her arm in his, and laid her head on his shoulder. "Mrs. Underhill. I love the sound of it," she said.

"It’s a good thing, you’re going to have to use it for the next fifty or sixty years."

Light wind whipped about and blew her white chiffon dress in little ripples about her shoulders, her big green eyes revealed her joy. Beautiful Jade, he loved her beyond anything else. It seemed he always had. Tonight he would hold her in his arms and they would become man and wife, as close as two humans could possibly be. As he squeezed her close, his throat constricted. One day he'd look back at nineteen twenty eight as the best year of his life.

He turned right on Water Street, taking his arm down in order to shift. "I’m going to stop at the Gulf station up the street for gas."

Jade took a comb and mirror from her purse, and began to fiddle with her hair. "I thought you filled up the tank yesterday."

"I did, but it’s a long drive to San Antonio, can’t be sure we’ll find a filling station between here and there. I think I’ll fill the can in the trunk too."

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her primp. He was sure some thoughts of her own rambled around in her pretty head, now that her wedding night drew ever so close.

If he hadn’t known better, he could have attributed her virginity to deep moral convictions, or that she wanted to honor the vow she’d made to her mother to remain chaste, both reasons applied to her Christian attitude. However, he suspected something infinitely more urgent lurked inside her now with their wedding night imminent. Fear.

It wasn’t just her overactive imagination; Jade told Scooter her mother also contributed to her mind-clawing dread. During the talk, she assured Jade, losing one’s virginity only needed to be a little painful if one had the right attitude. She’d always told Jade the shots at the doctor’s office weren’t going to hurt, and it hurt her more than it hurt Jade when she introduced the switch to Jade’s backside.

Scooter parked his yellow roadster beside the gas pump. Jade looked up at him with a little wrinkle between her eyes, as though she’d been lurking inside his mind, she asked, "You’re not going to hurt me, are you Scooter?"

He pulled on the handbrake, drew her close and kissed her. "Hurt you? Why, I’d rather die than hurt you. Why would you ask such a question?" He tweaked her small turned-up nose with his index finger. "Maybe you’d better use the restroom while we’re here. I don’t suppose you’ll have another chance for a long time."

She gave him a smile and a nod, and he opened the driver’s side door.
An old panel truck pulled up across the street from the station. Scooter watched a man get out holding something in his hand.

A gun? Scooter dismissed the idea right away.

Jade slid out of the car and walked around to watch Scooter unscrew the lid on the gas tank. Her sweet perfume filled his head when her soft lips pressed his cheek. "I love you," she said smiling, her hair glistening in the sun. She turned toward the station.

Impatient to get on the way, Scooter called, "Isn’t there anyone around to pump this gas?"

Annoyed, he took the gas hose, shoved the nozzle into his tank, and squeezed the trigger. He glanced to his right, stunned to see an older fellow in an orange uniform standing in the door of the office with a double barrel shotgun.

Scooter turned his head to the left as the door of the panel truck slammed shut. The man with the gun walked to the edge of the road, staring across the street toward the filling station. His dirty undershirt had brown sweat stains under the arms; his over-sized trousers caked with mud around the cuffs. The man raised his right hand pointing his gun at the old guy standing in the gas station doorway.

A second man, shorter than the first and meaner looking, jumped from the back of the truck. A tommy gun his weapon of choice, he began to spatter bullets the instant his feet hit the road.

Scooter whipped his head to the right just in time to see the man in the orange uniform dancing and twisting, turn full circle and fall to the ground atop shards of broken glass from the front window.

Shotgun blast still ringing in his ears, Scooter's gaze moved to the ground next to him and rested on Jade's lifeless green eyes. Blood rushed from her body shinning silver in the heat of the sun, growing dark red as rivulets met the shade and gathered in a pool around his feet.

Click, pop!

Scooter whirled around; the first man pointed his gun--at him.

The bullet left the chamber and sparks rushed forward from the barrel forty-feet away from where he stood.

In slow motion, the small cylinder began to travel across the street.

His feet stuck to the ground beneath him. He looked down to see what held them. His eyes rested on Jade, the little rhinestones around the ankles of her stockings sparkling like diamonds, her red lips stark against her pale motionless face.

Thirty feet.

A hush fell on the world as though a vacuum had sucked Water Street into a different dimension.

Move, move you idiot.

Twenty feet.

His feet fixed in Jade’s blood, he felt powerless to move.

Fifteen feet.

The orange gasoline pump rippled as the gas fumes rose.

Black letters on the white globe--jagged teeth in a clown’s face--laughing at him.

Ten feet.

Gasoline began to flow from the tank, pouring out onto the pavement.

Five feet.

Jade’s sweet perfume filled the air.

The bullet pierced his heart; he fell where he lay on the ground beside his beautiful wife in a river of blood and gasoline.

* * *

Infinity Texas, 2007

This isn’t a good time for you to sit on that glass bakery cabinet, Jade."

"What does it matter where I sit? You think I’m gonna break it? I haven’t broken anything in almost eighty years." Chin high, eyes closed; she placed her index fingers on her temples in a contemplative pose. "Somewhere in the annals of time, I've read a spirit should never have to worry about such things."

Jade Underhill’s short-bobbed red hair bounced as, in deference to her husband’s wishes, she scooted forward and slid off the high counter to the floor.

He smiled, shot a sideways glance at Jade and looked back outside. Farthington, or Scooter, as she preferred to call him, concentrated on something in the driveway. 

From the first day they met, Jade searched her mind for something to replace his snooty first name, realizing early on shortening it to Fart wasn’t an option. Even though he stood well over six-feet, Farthington Underhill weighed in rather on the skinny side. More a bookworm than a jock. Nevertheless, he had a witty mind, wore smart clothes and moved as quick as a Banty Rooster.

She remembered one Friday evening back in their high school days. They’d stopped by the band room on the way to the football game to pick up Scooter’s gobble-pipe…a saxophone to those not in the know. Harvey Olmstead walked through the door and hollered, "Hey, Fart Under the Hill, you going to Pampell’s for sodas after the game?"

Licity-split, Harvey sat flat-dab in the middle of the floor with his head jammed into his drum.

Later, Scooter told her he hadn’t intended to hit Harvey. He said old Satan shot an arrow at him he wasn’t able to avoid, and before he knew it--Harvey hit the hardwood. 

Scooter's voice pulled her back to the present. "Someone just drove up. I think it’s our new owner."

"At four thirty in the morning? Why so early?" Jade nudged up against Scooter on the windowsill and peered through the curtains.

He pursed his lips and gave her a quick glance. "It seems reasonable to me someone should get here early enough to put on the coffee and bake some goodies." 

"I guess so," she agreed, moving toward a little round plastic table in the corner, where she climbed up and sat down Indian style. Her white chiffon dress hiked up to the middle of her thighs revealed silk stockings embedded with rhinestones near the ankles, rolled just above her knees and held fast with pink elastic garters.

Jade studied Scooter sitting in one of the plastic chairs next to the table, looking dapper with his beige linen knickers and V-necked sweater. On his feet, he wore brown and white spectator shoes. Above those deep red socks went clear up his legs and ended somewhere under his knickers. These matched the red bow tie at his neck. Topping the outfit, a white Panama hat covered most of his sleek black hair.

Scooter tapped his fingers on the table next to him and watched the front door. "They’ve really done a good job fixin’ this old place up, don’t you think?"

She fidgeted around and licked her bright red Clara Bow lips, "It’s been great having people here for a change. How long has it been, anyway?"

 "How long has it been?" he whispered, casting a look in her direction. "It’s been a very long time." 

"Ya know it really doesn’t seem so long though, does it?"

"It’s nice having company."

She moved to the edge of the table, swung her legs over the side, and looked around the room. "Who would have ever thought it possible to turn a stinky little old filling station office into a cute little restaurant?"

"Coffeehouse," Scooter said, returning his attention back to the front door.

"Oops, coffeehouse, sorry."

* * * * *

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