The cigarette Leo had with Ruth was still working on him when he got the car out of the garage. He could feel it in his shoulders, a low even calm that hadn't been there in the morning. He hadn't smoked in a long while before today so the effects seemed to have lasted longer than usual.
He had quickly showered, changed, and put on a nice buttoned up gray shirt. He left the top button open. Bernice, the doctor's wife, had said to wear something nice.
He pulled out of his second garage in his sleek black luxury car, he once fucked Edna in, and was now doing fifteen over the speed limit.
It wasn't that long ago, only two days ago, that Leo cared about minding his speed while driving. But things had changed. Mainly seeing how incompetent and terrible the police here were after how he saw how they dealt with Apu's driving. Because of that, Leo could floor it without much concern.
The wind came in through the open window and moved his wavy brown hair around. The road out toward the center of town opened up, fewer stop signs, longer stretches, and he let the car run.
He was three minutes from the plaza when he saw the girl.
She was sitting on a wooden crate at the edge of the road where the sidewalk gave out near the old hardware lot, her body arranged in a lazy pose that made it impossible to look away. She was very skinny, with a delicate frame and tiny waist.
One leg was bent, foot planted on the ground, the other stretched out in front of her — long and covered in very smooth skin. She leaned back slightly, one hand braced on the crate beside her hip, the other resting on her raised knee. Brown hair, thick and messy, tumbled around her face in layers with soft bangs. The hair went down to her shoulders. Freckles were scattered across the bridge of her nose and high on her cheeks. Her perky breasts pushed firmly against the thin white fabric of her tight white tank top, the cropped hem exposing a tempting strip of bare stomach skin.
She somewhat looked close to his own age. Younger, even. Four years, maybe. The first woman he had laid eyes on in Springfield he found attractive that was below his age.
Her full red lips were wrapped around a cigarette, the cherry glowing bright while she took a slow, sensual drag.
Leo had just put out a cigarette less than an hour ago and he found, looking at her, that he would happily light a second one if he could smoke it with her. He wanted to learn more about her.
He looked at the clock on the dash. One fifty-six.
'Late,' he thought, and the word had real regret in it for once.
He drove past her. In the mirror she got smaller, still perched on that crate. He would remember her.
…
The center park plaza was a brick floor around a white gazebo, surrounded with planters that somebody actually tended, which Leo supposed was the point. Folding chairs had been set out in uneven rows facing the gazebo, maybe twenty of them, and most were full.
Leo parked, checked the gray shirt in the mirror out of habit, and walked up.
Many were deep in conversation and enjoying the snacks. Basically nobody looked up or found his arrival strange or worth paying attention to. Leo preferred that.
There were faces he didn't recognize. A thin, severe-looking older woman. A heavyset man in a cardigan with gray unique hair. And also many others.
But there were faces he knew, too, scattered through the chairs. Ned Flanders, near the front. Lenny and Carl, two rows back, mid-conversation, each holding a paper cup of coffee. They had shared drinks at Moe's. And on the aisle, spine straight, hands folded in his lap, Principal Seymour Skinner, who saw Leo and then very deliberately found something fascinating to look at in the opposite direction. Leo wondered what Edna had told them in their meeting. He still needed to do something about it either way.
Before he could pick a chair, Bernice Hibbert, the beautiful black woman, came at him from the side of the gazebo with both hands already coming up. She had slipped away from her husband, who was busy snacking on some cookies three rows back.
She was in a fiery red dress that clung to her like it had been painted on. It was tight, low-cut, and shamelessly sexy. The thin fabric stretched across her watermelon sized breasts, hugged the dip of her waist, and wrapped around the wide, round curve of her hips and thick ass like it was showing off on purpose.
It was the kind of dress a woman wore when she knew exactly how good her body looked and wanted everyone else to know it too. Gold hoops glinted at her ears, a delicate gold chain rested against the smooth dark skin of her throat, and her short natural curls were neat and shining.
She reached him and folded him into a hug, front to front, her arms sliding around his shoulders as the entire warm, soft length of her body pressed into the gray shirt.
It was a surprise. But Leo wasn't one to turn down something that was presented to him.
His hands found her waist on instinct. He glanced quickly over her shoulder, scanning the crowd. Nobody was paying them any attention. Ned had turned back toward the gazebo. Lenny and Carl were still laughing. Principal Skinner was staring straight.
Then he reached Dr. Hibbert. He saw his eyes glance up from the cookies. He saw Leo greeting his wife and all he did was smile then return to eating his cookies.
'Guess this is nothing?'
Leo let his gaze come back to Bernice and then drop lower, looking down over her shoulder at the way the tight red dress hugged the deep curve of her lower back and the full, round mound of her ass, thighs, and calves. He imagined getting a nice thigh job with her black perfect legs.
She felt incredible against him. Her huge breasts were soft and warm, pressing firmly into his chest. He could feel the way her body shifted just slightly as she held him tighter. Her perfume, something sweet, spicy, and expensive, filled his nose. When her hips nudged forward a little, he felt the soft press of her stomach and the lower curves of her body against his.
"You came," she said into the side of his head, pleased, and then drew back to hold him at arm's length and look him over. "And you dressed for it like I told you. Such a good man."
"You said wear something nice."
"I did say that. I'm glad one person in this town listens to me. If only my husband would listen when I tell him to eat more healthily." Her eyes did a quick, trip down the shirt and back up, lingering a second longer than necessary. "It suits you. Sit up front. Helen likes to see new faces where she can keep an eye on them."
Leo remembered the name Helen from her being mentioned previously. He was curious who she was and now has the chance to find out.
"Helen will be speaking, I assume?" Leo asked.
Bernice smiled sneakily. "Yeah, she'll be at the stand any second."
She gave him a wink, squeezed his upper arm once and steered him toward an open chair in the second row before peeling off toward her seat with her husband.
Leo sat. He thought about his encounter with Bernice. It was only his second one ever.
'I know I'm a rather attractive man, but don't the women in Springfield seem to jump pretty easily? Are all the men that bad here? Is there something in the air? I need to talk to more of them to find out the cause, I think.'
Is that really the solution? Is what anyone else would have thought after hearing the conclusion he came to.
…
A small thin woman climbed the two steps up into the gazebo and the chatter began to fall off on its own. It must've been who Bernice told him about. The one who knew all about him somehow.
Helen Lovejoy.
She was not tall. She had grayish hair done up and sprayed, a high-collared floral dress buttoned to the throat that was really tight, a thin gold cross resting on top of all those buttons, and a smile that arrived a half-second before any warmth did. Medium sized bust on a really skinny frame and a skirt which made her hips seductive.
She set a small stack of index cards on the gazebo rail, squared them, and surveyed the rows of chairs like a teacher counting a class.
"Well," she said, and her voice carried clean to the back without any apparent effort. "Good afternoon, everyone, good afternoon. So nice to see such a turnout. Lovely. Now, before we begin, I'm afraid we are missing two of our members today."
A small, regretful sigh, performed for the audience. It seemed like they actually had some level of care for other members. A little comrade. A good thing. He noted it.
Helen continued.
"Cookie sends her apologies to everyone. Some estate matter, very busy, you know how she is, always selling something." A ripple of knowing nodding. "And of course." Helen's smile thinned at the edges into something more delicate. "Apu. Our poor Apu. As I'm sure some of you have heard, he has had a... difficult time of late. A very difficult time. I won't say more than that, because I am not one to gossip."
Helen pressed on. "But it does pain me. It pains all of us. A family man. Those beautiful children. One does wonder how a thing like that comes apart so quickly." Her eyes drifted, light and unhurried, across the rows, and landed on Leo. "And I understand we have someone here today who may know a little more than the rest of us. Mr. Depp. There you are. Why don't you come up and introduce yourself? You're our newest member and it would be lovely to put a voice to the face for all those in the horticultural club."
Around seventeen heads turned.
'Man, this has to be some sort of attempt at hazing. Let me enjoy my Saturday! And it started so good with that single mother.'
Leo wanted to shake his head, but instead, he stood, buttoned nothing, and walked up to the gazebo with unbothered ease. He turned to face the chairs.
"Hello, everyone. For those who have not met me I'm Leo Depp. I moved into 743 Evergreen Terrace around two months back. I run a manufacturing company, we did the equipment contract out at the plant, and I've been getting to know this exciting town since."
He gave them an easy, open look.
"I was told this was the place where things actually get decided. Important people. And you all sounded just so pleasant to meet. So here I am."
That earned a warmer murmur than the introduction deserved. They liked to be grouped as important people. Hearing it said always made one feel good. Bernice, off to the side, looked quietly triumphant at his successful intro.
Helen let it settle, then leaned in. "And Apu, Mr. Depp. You were there, weren't you. The night of the... most recent incident. With the car. On your street." She tilted her head. "Why don't you let us all know what happened while we have you up here? We're all friends here. We do look after one another."
Ned Flanders shot a hand into the air.
"Oh — I was there too! I can speak to it! I surely can, Helen, I was right there in my own jammies that very night, kneeling in the dewy grass, and I'll tell you what h—"
"Thank you, Ned." Helen did not look at him. "Let's hear it from Mr. Depp, shall we. Mr. Depp was the first one there, was he not?"
Ned's hand came down. "Right-a-rooney. You bet. Sorry, Helen."
Leo inside face was exasperated. It had thee same look as those drawings of characters with a single sweatdrop on their forehead and white blank eyes in disbelief.
'This feels like an interrogation instead of an introduction. Where is all the talk of plants?'
But Leo could perform. He gave them an easy shrug. "Yeah, I can do my best. Honestly, I don't know much. I never really got to talk to Apu, not then and not much before. That night, it was late, it was dark. He must've seen something swerve, or swerved himself, and put the car into the pole in front of my house. I went out, made sure he wasn't hurt, and stayed with him until the police came. That's about the whole of it."
He started to leave the podium.
"Now I did hear—" Helen's voice came lilting back in before he could make his exit, and she put a delicate finger to her chin. "I did hear the poor man was quite intoxicated. Is that true? I do wonder why a family man would do a thing like that."
'God,' Leo thought, straightening back up. 'How much does this woman already know, or is she just fishing for more? I need to give her at least a little bit at this point.'
"Not that I noticed," he said, mild and regretful. "I'm sorry to disappoint. I wish I had more to share with everyone — I really do — but he was so in disarray it's hard to learn much. Hmmm…" he pretended to think hard, "the charge was littering, and he was muttering something about losing children? It seemed like something was ruled in a court negative for him. That's all I could infer."
It was a clean answer and he watched it work. He had given them exactly nothing and made the nothing sound like discretion. He saw it register on Helen specifically. A flicker behind the sweetness, a small recalculation.
Helen turned the sweetness back up to its full setting. "Well. We're just so blessed to have a wholesome new face in our little society. Thank you, Mr. Depp. You can sit down. For now."
Leo went back to his chair. Bernice caught his eye on the way and gave him the smallest nod. Meanwhile, Ned gave him a thumbs up.
…
What followed was, briefly, an actual meeting.
Helen worked her index cards. There were updates from the last gathering. The gazebo Leo was looking at, it turned out, was itself a project — the paint was peeling on the north side and there had been an "exchange of views" last month about whether to repaint it the original white or a "heritage cream," and the heritage cream faction had apparently lost.
Then the streetlamps on Main. Helen reported, reading off her card, that the city council's records showed four lamps on the 200 block as "replaced" in the spring, and that anyone who had walked the 200 block of Main in the evening recently could see for themselves that four lamps on the 200 block of Main were as dark as they had ever been.
This produced the most genuine emotion of the afternoon. An older man in a cardigan and long hair said the word "disgraceful" twice.
Lenny said, to Carl, loud enough to carry, that one time he tripped over a curb there and the city tried to bill him for the curb, and Carl said that didn't sound right, and Lenny said nothing in this town sounded right and that was the whole problem.
Leo half-listened and spent the time reading the room, looking for potential prospects.
Helen went on about two more topics before his attention was dragged back to the podium instead of scouting.
She tapped her cards on the rail. "Now. I do have one more piece of news, and it's a happy one for a change, which God knows we could use."
She paused.
"It seems," Helen said, "that Springfield is getting a new daycare."
Once again, it seemed like the people here were truly somewhat interested in the development of things, because the reactions from earlier announcements continued but with a bit more excitement for this one.
"A daycare!" the cardigan man said.
"A real one?" said somebody else.
"Where?"
Helen let them have their moment, smiling down at all of it, and then she did the thing she had done before.
She looked right at him.
"Now, I'd heard a little something already." She said it lightly, almost offhandedly, but her eyes stayed on Leo and there was a small private satisfaction in them. "Cookie mentioned it to me. In passing. You know Cookie. She handled the property." The smile widened. "And it seems our brand-new member here is the man behind it. Quite involved, aren't you, Mr. Depp. So. Up you come again. I think the society would love to hear your plans. We can give our opinions."
'Motherfucker, I don't need opinions!' Leo stood for the second time.
It felt like a small ambush. She had known a lot about him before he'd said a word. What Bernice mentioned to him was apparently just a preview.
'I thought a hot chick stalking me would've felt a bit better. This just feels like some hostile gossip. Well… not very hostile, just very inconvenient. I fear about finding out everything Cookie tells her. I really don't think she mentioned anything about having sex. Probably not, I have a strong gut feeling.'
He went back up to the gazebo podium and turned to the chairs and decided, in the space of a step, that there was no harm in saying what he was doing. To be honest, it was genuinely a good thing. Just one he did for selfish reasons.
"It's true," he said. "I've bought the old Carlson lot. South side of Pine, two blocks from the elementary." A few people nodded, they knew the lot. "Single story, good size, good parking. I'm going to turn it into a daycare. A real one, like the gentleman said."
Leo flashed a small smile at the cardigan man, who beamed.
"I've spent a couple months in this town now, and one thing I've noticed is that the families here are working families. Parents don't get time to themselves. That's not right. Everyone should get more free time without having to worry so much about their kids when they leave them somewhere and pursue things they enjoy."
'Or people they enjoy,' Leo thought to himself.
He let that sit.
"So that's the plan. Clean, safe, well-staffed, priced so a plant worker can actually afford it."
The applause this time was warm and a little long.
"Well," Helen said, and for once the sweetness sounded close to sincere. "Isn't that something. Isn't that just something." She put a hand to the gold cross at her throat. "It seems like someone will think of the children! We don't get many of those."
Her eyes were on him. "You may sit down, Mr. Depp. Thank you."
The meeting started to wrap up.
There was one last item — a vote, by show of hands, on whether to move next month's meeting to the community building on account of the forecast — and the community building won, and Helen thanked everyone for coming, and reminded them about the bake contribution for the fall festival, and rapped her knuckles twice on the gazebo rail in lieu of a gavel.
The meeting was over.
The socialization period began.
…
Leo did not make it three steps before the room came to him.
It came all at once, from several directions. A knot formed around him near the edge of his row, before he had chosen a direction, and it was not the orderly receiving line he might have managed if he'd had any say in it. It was a mess.
Ned Flanders got to him first, because Ned had been half out of his chair since the gavel.
"Leo! Leo-d, hi-diddly, I just have to say again what a heck of a thing you're doing for the kiddos, a daycare, golly, Maude and I were only saying the other night that this town could use—"
"A daycare needs proper drainage," cut in a thin, precise man with a haircut like Mozart whose name Leo did not know, a music-teacher type looking man from the chairs. "I don't suppose anyone's thought about the drainage. The community garden flooded twice last spri—"
"Are you the daycare man?" This from a severe, elderly woman Leo also did not know, who had appeared at his elbow with the suddenness of weather. She looked him up and down with open suspicion. "You look soft. My son runs a school and let me tell you, children are animals, and a soft man will be eaten alive. Are you soft? You look soft."
"Ma'am, I—"
"He's not soft, he handl—" Ned again.
"Think about drainage, it—"
"Soft hands leads to—"
"—the patience of a saint, I tell you, kneeling right there in the dewy grass—"
"—an entire bed of ranunculus—"
A blonde woman in a creme blazer was trying to wedge into the circle from the far side, saying "—just wonderful, what you're doing, wonderful—" over the top of the Mozart man, and then the woman in the blazer had a business card already out, and the severe old woman was still demanding to know whether Leo was soft, and Ned was now narrating the entire night of Apu's crash from the beginning, and Leo stood in the center of it with a pleasant expression and absorbed approximately none of it, because none of it was finishing.
It was Bernice who ended it.
She simply stepped into the middle, put a hand flat on Leo's back, and said, "All right, all right, let the man breathe. You'll all get your turn. One at a time, like civilized people."
And then before anyone could say anything in reply, she smoothly nominated herself. "I'll go first."
And she steered him out of the crowd and away toward the planters at the edge of the plaza, with a hand light at his elbow, the others left blinking and re-sorting behind them.
…
"So," Bernice said, and tipped her head back toward the gazebo, the chairs, the whole afternoon. "What did you think of the little garden club?"
"I think you led me into a small ambush."
Bernice laughed, low and real, the gold at her ears catching.
"Oh, don't let Helen get to you. She does that to everyone the first time. It isn't personal — well. It's a little personal, everything's a little personal with Helen. But mostly she's just interested. A new man in town and already so deeply involved? That's Christmas morning for her. She'll be circling you for a month." She sipped her punch. "Did she rattle you?"
"She didn't. Don't worry."
"No, I can see that she didn't."
Bernice looked at him with something that was closer to approval than flirtation.
"That's good. Most people she either rattles or downright upsets."
They talked a while after that, and Leo found, somewhat to his surprise, that he was enjoying it. Of all the people he'd met, Bernice was the only one who talked to him the way he talked to himself. She'd run her own things over the years, it turned out; she'd had a stake in a medical billing company before she sold out of it, she still kept a hand in two or three ventures around the county. She was a career person who kept things simple, like him, and it was, simply, pleasant.
"Julius and I have always run things side by side, you know," she said at one point, when Leo asked how she did it all with a full time doctor at her side.
"People assume the doctor's wife just hosts. No. We're partners. Always have been. We don't keep much from each other, Julius and I — not the business, not the money, not—" a small, private flick of a smile that came and went so fast Leo nearly missed it, "—not anything, really. It's a very modern marriage. People would be surprised how much we share."
Her black breasts jiggled softly with every passionate word, the tight fiery red dress barely containing them as they moved beneath the thin fabric.
"We have an understanding that works for us, and it lets us both go after what we want. Although, it usually ends up being me who has an appetite while he just watches." She shrugged, easy, like it was the most natural thing in the world, which for her it evidently was. "Life's too short to be furtive about your appetites, Leo. For anything."
Leo nodded along. Some small part of him registered that the sentence had been built a little oddly. That "appetites" and "anything" had landed with a touch more weight.
'Very interesting.'
Bernice finished the punch and set the empty cup on the planter's edge, and glanced past his shoulder at the crowd by the table.
"Anyway. It appears someone's waiting on you." A small, knowing smile. "More than one someone, probably. I'll let you go, daycare man."
A pause, and then, lighter, as if it were nothing. "Julius likes you, by the way. He doesn't like many people. You should come to dinner sometime. Both of us would enjoy having you."
She walked back toward the table, and Leo watched the red-colored dress go.
…
A woman with short blue hair came at him from the direction of the coffee table, having clearly tracked his position the entire time he was with Bernice. He hadn't met this one yet.
She was slender, average height, the blue hair cut into a chin-length bob that swung as she moved, red round glasses perched on a face she'd plainly just refreshed the lipstick on. A white button-up, tight purple pants, sandals. Average height, a medium bust she was carrying with the slightly forward posture of a woman who wanted it noticed.
"I'm Luann," she said, as if he'd wandered off. "There you are. I didn't get to really talk to you. Bernice was hogging."
She laughed, too brightly. "So. A daycare. You must love children."
"I love the idea of parents having somewhere to put them." Leo replied.
"Ha! Oh, that's good. That's funny. You're funny. I loveeee my child. I'd trust it to take care of him."
She put a hand on his forearm, the same spot Bernice had touched. Bernice's hand had been a claim. Luann's was a plea.
"Kirk never made me laugh. Did I mention I'm divorced? I'm divorced. Recently. It's very recent. Two months, which everyone says is recent, recent enough that I'm allowed to still be a little—" she searched for it, "—a little raw. You know."
"That's tough. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry." She waved the sympathy off, and the wave turned, somewhere in the middle of it, into her hand going to the top button of her white top she was wearing.
"I'm not sorry. I'm honestly better than ever. I've been taking care of myself. Working out. Eating right. Kirk used to say I'd let myself go, can you believe that? Let myself go."
She had the button of her shirt open now, then the one below it, then the one below that, talking the whole time, fast and a little defiant. She pulled the front of the top open wider and squared her shoulders so the deep line of her cleavage was aimed straight at him.
[Video in discord. Link in book summary]
"Does this look like a woman who let herself go to you, Leo? Be honest. I want a man's honest opinion. I haven't had a real man's honest opinion in sooo long."
Leo held her eyes for a second, then let his gaze drop, slow and deliberate, taking in the soft, good size of her tits as they rose and fell with her nervous breathing. He lingered there long enough to give her exactly what she was starving for before dragging his eyes back up to hers.
'She reeks of insecurity. But those are the easiest types.'
Leo got reminded of a similar feeling he once had. One where he was thinking all he needed was a brown bag to cover a face and it would be usable. Except this time the body was actually exceptional. She had nice tits. They were full, soft-looking, and clearly pushed up for his benefit. Her thighs, waist, and feet matched in rating. It was only her face bringing her down.
"Kirk," he said, "sounds like an idiot who didn't know how good you have it."
The relief that went across her face was almost painful to watch. She lit up completely. "See. See. That's — yes. Thank you. That is exactly — God, you have no idea." She left the buttons open. "You should come by sometime. I make a wonderful pot roast. Well. I make a passable pot roast. But I'm very good company and the house is so empty now with just Milhouse, and he's at his father's half the time anyway, drawing on crackers, learning the family tra—"
"I'd like that," Leo said.
The second the words left his mouth, he was already thinking about how he would fuck the shit out of her. He could picture it clearly — bending her over the arm of her own couch while she prattled on and on about her divorce, her workouts, her stupid pot roast, her empty house, never shutting up even as he drove into her hard and deep, using that needy, talkative mouth for nothing but broken little moans.
She probably wouldn't even try to keep her moans down even if her son was upstairs. Or would she? He would need to find out.
Luann glowed, beaming at him like he'd just handed her the world. "Really? Oh, Leo, that would be—"
Leo made a small mental note that Luann was the one who would say yes the quickest and need the most careful handling afterward. A woman that hungry for validation was a woman who would want a great deal of it once she had the first taste. And he was already planning on giving her plenty.
She floated off toward the punch bowl, refastening one button on the way with her tiny fingers, and Leo turned to find his next conversation and found instead, standing very close and very stiff at his shoulder, Principal Seymour Skinner.
…
"Mr. Depp." Skinner's voice was pitched low, just for the two of them, and it had a tightness in it like a wire pulled to the edge of its tone.
"I — I didn't realize you'd be joining the society."
"Skinner." Leo turned to face him fully, and let his face go pleasant, and let nothing else go pleasant at all. "Didn't take you for a flowers man."
"My mother is a member. I — it's a family obligation, really, I—" Skinner stopped, swallowed, and tried to find the small talk that would let him walk away from this. "How nice that you've, ah, that you've gotten so involved. The daycare. Very civic of you."
"It is, isn't it."
There was a silence. Skinner filled it because he could not help himself.
"I should say — that is — I want to be sure that there's no, ah, no lingering... awkwardness. Between us. Regarding the school. The funding arrangement, and the — the staffing. I trust we needn't revisit any of those administrative matters." He attempted a laugh. It died on the way out. "All settled. Water under the bridge. Yes?"
Leo looked at him for a moment.
He didn't actually have much. He had no idea what ended up happening between him and Edna. But it seemed like she had said something that scared him about him. He was really curious about what it was.
At the time his kidnapping, ribs, and tutoring had stopped him from going. It was a regret. But now, his ribs were not injured anymore and he had time the next few days.
He would play along for now. With whatever Edna had said to make him act like this, but it wouldn't be the end. Leo needed to do his own things to Skinner, just somewhere less public.
Skinner did not stop at water under the bridge. Skinner, who could not survive a silence, kept going, the way guilty men always keep going.
"I only ever — that is, with Mrs. Krabappel, with Edna — it was always entirely professional, you understand, the coffee was simply a — a collegial gesture, and the — the meetings about the budget were strictly above board, and if I ever — if it was ever misconstrued as anything other than a principal's ordinary attention to a member of his staff—"
He smiled.
"Edna," Leo said quietly, and watched Skinner go very still.
"I — pardon?"
"Whatever it is you're doing, and you clearly know exactly what it is, it stops. She was appointed in her position by me and the investors. She's mine. People involved with this have money and care. They talk to the superintendent, your boss."
There were people everywhere. Stacked chairs, poured punch, Helen holding court forty feet off. This was not the place, and Leo had no intention of doing the real thing here, in the open. That part would happen later, somewhere quiet, on his own time. The thought of it sat warm and patient in his chest.
"We'll talk about the rest another time," he said. "Somewhere with fewer people."
He left it there, and let Skinner's own imagination run wild.
Edna really threw him a nice lob.
"Yes. I — of course. Whatever you think is — I'll stop. I'll stop all of it. Today. There's no need for any — any further—"
"Today's a good start."
"Today. Absolutely. Today." Skinner was nodding the way a bobblehead nods, all the way down to the shoulders. "I have some… files. To reorganize. At the school. Right now, actually. If you'll excuse me."
"Drive safe."
Skinner fled. Leo watched him go. His eye drifted back across the plaza to the severe old woman who'd cornered him earlier, the one who'd looked him up and down and pronounced him soft, who'd bragged that her son ran a school and would eat a soft man alive.
He'd just watched that son nod himself half to death and flee the premises to go alphabetize a filing cabinet.
'Right,' Leo thought. 'I can see the family resemblance now, she's the one who got all the spine.'
…
The woman in the blazer was waiting for him when he turned around, which did not surprise him at all. She had clearly decided his conversation with Skinner was over the moment Skinner's posture collapsed and seized the moment.
"Lindsey Naegle," she said, and the business card was in his hand before he'd agreed to take it. "I'm so glad we get a minute. I've been wanting to connect ever since Helen announced the daycare, which, by the way, is a phenomenal vertical, hugely underserved, very strong fundamentals. You're going to crush it."
"A phenomenal vertical?"
"Yes. Childcare? In a two-income micro-economy with no incumbent provider? It's a layup. I do a lot of this."
She had a brisk way of talking, all forward motion.
"I sit on the chamber board, the zoning advisory committee, the parks commission, the library foundation, and I chaired the gazebo paint subcommittee, which, between us, was a bloodbath, but we got the white through."
She smiled with very white teeth. "I reinvent myself professionally about every eighteen months. Right now I'm in civic development consulting. Before that, pharmaceutical sales. Before that I owned a frozen yogurt concept. The throughline is I know how this town's machinery works and I know which levers actually move."
Leo turned the card over in his fingers. The woman in front of him was pure business, and he really meant pure and only. She wasn't simple about it like Bernice, and she was nothing starved like Luann.
"You're in everything basically," Leo responded to all her chatter. "Are you hinting at something?"
"I'm hinting your variance is going to be a problem." She said it cheerfully.
Variance.
The word made Leo have a small flashback. He was at his own kitchen table with Lisa Simpson and her index cards, walking her through standard deviation and then variance. At the time, or maybe another tutoring session, he had thought that these things weren't used by others at work when she asked if they were.
'Well,' he thought, watching Lindsey's mouth move. 'I guess I was wrong about that one. Came up sooner than I'd have bet, too.' Then, a second later, he re-evaluated being wrong. 'Though I'm not sure she's using the word to mean anything Lisa would recognize. Pretty sure that's just a word she likes the shape and sound of.'
Lindsey had not stopped. "—because a daycare two blocks from the elementary isn't a by-right use, so you're into conditional-use territory, which means it routes through the zoning advisory committee, and the committee's calendared monthly, except they skipped last month for the budget retreat so the docket's already backed up, and even on a clean read Quimby's office likes to let conditional-use approvals season for a cycle or two so the applicant remembers who did them the favor—"
It was the kind of corporate talk filled with buzz words that seemed to extend meetings by hours. Bloating up conversations for no reason at all.
But she was extremely hot. Bright blonde hair, covered up shirt that made her boobs want to pop out of her blazer and shirt. Small curves and a loud mouth. Many would find it attractive. Business words flying out rapidly, plans and ideas. A boss some would fantasize about. She could surely make her way up the corporate ladder. In a little different way than from Dottie.
"—so realistically," she was finishing, "you're one to two months out from pouring a footing. Maybe more."
And there… the actual important part was finally reached after a very long set up. Leo focused back in. One to two months. That part was real. Buried under all the buzzwords and the committee acronyms. The woman did have an actual point, and the point was that she knew exactly how projects and approvals in this town stalled and got slowed down. And she really did know what he wanted. The daycare up and running as fast as possible.
"Or?" he said, looking to see her answer.
"Or…" Lindsey's smile got a little more interesting. "I sit on that committee. The chairman owes me, and Quimby's office owes me more than that. One call from me tonight and your permit goes on the consent agenda. All the long stuff gets skipped. Approved before you've even ordered the concrete." She tilted her head. "I'm very pro-expedite."
"And what does this expediting cost?" Leo needed to know what she wanted for her services.
"Now that," Lindsey said, and stepped half a step closer. The movement was smooth and deliberate, the hem of her blue skirt shifting against her thighs as she closed the distance. "That is exactly the right question. I don't want money, Leo. Money's boring and it leaves a record. What I want is access. I want to be the person you call. The fixer. The one who knows your business before the committee or anyone else does. It's how I thrive, making decisions. I find men like you very—" she let her eyes do a slow, professional appraisal of the gray shirt and the open collar, her gaze lingering just long enough on the line of his throat before returning to his face, "—worth investing in early. The returns compound."
She produced a second card and tucked it into his breast pocket with two fingers, slower than the gesture required. Her fingertips brushed the fabric of his shirt, then pressed lightly against his chest as she slid the card home.
'It seemed like Wade had some competition. Although, he would seriously never let this lady in on the real internals of his business and ideas.'
"That's my personal cell. Not the office one. Call me and we'll discuss terms. I'm a very thorough negotiator and I like to do it in person."
She held his eyes one more second to make sure the offer had been fully understood in both of its layers, then snapped back into her normal version. The blazer shifted with the movement, settling back over the curve of her waist.
"Anyway! Thrilled. Truly. This town needs movement makers. Call me." And she was gone toward a cluster of people back near the gazebo.
Leo looked at the two cards in his hand and the third one in his pocket. He wondered if Naegle was a woman who treated sex like closing a deal — fast, clean, and already thinking about the next one. He hoped she was. He could work with that if she was. He could work with that very well. Leo could only wish for now. It seemed like her priority really was his business ventures.
…
He found Helen Lovejoy by the planters, by herself, which he suspected was not an accident.
She had set herself a little apart from the crowd, holding a paper cup she wasn't drinking from, and she watched him come the whole way over, unhurried, taking her time about it, watching him over the rim of the cup with eyes that moved over him slowly.
"Mr. Depp." Low, warm, with a curl of amusement at the bottom of it. "I hoped you'd find your way over here. To me." She let the pause sit. "What do you think of us? Be honest. We must seem very quaint to a man who's come from bigger places."
"I think you run a tight club here, Mrs. Lovejoy. And that's not easy. A lot of people couldn't hold a crowd like that together for five minutes, let alone an hour." He paid her lip service.
Helen's mouth curved, pleased, and laughed. "Now that's a man who's been paying attention. Most people only notice the room. Hardly anyone notices the work it takes to run one. I appreciate that, Mr. Depp. I do." Another slow sip. "I like you. You see how it works."
"And you, Mrs. Lovejoy, knew about the daycare before I said a word."
"I know about most things before most people say a word."
She said it almost proudly. As if it was a talent. She drifted half a step nearer.
"It's my little gift. I notice things, Mr. Depp. I've noticed you, for one. You've been a very busy man for someone who only just got here." Her eyes were bright and far too sharp.
"The teachers' strike — you, I hear. Tutoring, too? And there's a new woman across the street from you now, isn't there. A divorcée. Moved in just today?" She named each one as softly as a caress. "And the daycare. And the plant. And poor Apu's terrible night, which somehow happened on your particular lawn."
Her tongue touched the corner of her mouth. "You turn up everywhere. I find that fascinating. I do so love hearing how a man like you fills his days."
She really seemed to know… or at least hear a lot. Leo stood there and felt the double-edged pleasure of being undressed and interrogated in the same breath, and he began to understand what Helen Lovejoy was. She was the town's nervous system. Every secret in Springfield ran through this one small petite woman sooner or later, and she sat at the center of the web with her hand on every thread.
A woman who heard everything was the single most dangerous person in his life and also, if handled right, the single most useful.
Leo knew he was pushing it. He had been sleeping with a lot of women already from this town. Some even married. If it all came out now he would lose what he had with most of them. But that was only if it came out now.
If Leo planned it right, he was sure with time and planning, he would be able to get at least some of the women to accept each other. Share himself with multiple and know about it.
He had even done some research on Springfield local laws. Springfield acted strange, and its laws were the same. There were things he read that would make what he planned to do as okay and accepted.
But that all required time. He had to deeply win these women over.
Therefore, Helen was the person who could possibly put what he was doing at most risk. She didn't know his relationships with these women were romantic already, he was sure of it. She just knew he was close to them. But if things kept going, she would hear more and more. And she would be able to hold the power of stopping things.
If he stayed outside her, she'd repeat whatever the town handed her about him and his women, and the town would get it wrong in the worst possible way. But if he got inside her — close, trusted, her favorite confidence — he could put his hand on the same threads she did. He could decide which rumors stayed and which quietly died. He could shape the story of himself before it ever reached anybody else.
Leo had to get close to her. He for once could not fail.
Helen watched him. She really wanted to know what he said next after letting him know about all she knew. She looked delighted, the way a starved person looks at a full table, her lips parting slightly, that flush climbing higher.
Leo held her gaze and only his mouth smiled. "Seems like you'll know either way. You've got me at quite a disadvantage. I can tell you more about my days. You'll know more how I fill my days like you want… but I don't know the first thing about how you fill yours."
Leo paused for a second. "But we can fix that. I'll tell you a few details myself, so you don't have to go guessing about things you don't know — and I'd imagine you've got plenty worth trading back." He let the smile reach his eyes. "Can you keep a secret, Mrs. Lovejoy?"
Helen laughed, low and pleased.
"You're good," she breathed. "You're really very good. A man offers to hand me his secrets, and somehow I think I may still not hear them all."
She set the cup down on the planter without looking at it, freeing both hands, and let her fingertips come to rest light on his forearm. "I could talk to you for hours. A man who makes this much happen, who keeps this much quiet — I'd learn the most interesting things just remaining close to you."
"I think we'd be good for each other," Leo said.
"Mm. So do I." Then she drew the public Helen back over herself. "But I'll tell you the part I do mean plainly, because it's the truest thing I've said all afternoon. The daycare."
Her face changed. She looked sincere for once.
"I have spent twenty years in this town begging anyone who'd listen to "Think of the Children!" Twenty years. And not one soul ever has. And then you walk in out of nowhere and do it. You actually do it."
Her eyes were wet at the rims and entirely sincere. "I won't forget that. Whatever else you are… you still thought of the children when no one else in this town ever would. You've earned something from me with that. You truly have."
It was the realest thing she'd shown him so far, and Leo put extra importance on it, because sincere goodwill from the town's gossip was worth more than gold and he intended to spend it.
"Now." The sweetness came flooding back, warm as bathwater. "One more thing, and then I'll let you go. Come to church. Tomorrow." She said it like an invitation to something far less holy.
"My husband gives his little sermon, and the congregation should meet our new daycare man properly. And I do want to see you in a pew, Mr. Depp. There's something about a man in a pew. You can tell so much about him. What he'll kneel for." A pause. "Half past ten. I'll save you a seat right up front."
"I'll see if I can make it."
"You have to." She stepped back. "Half past ten. Don't be late, now." A last slow look, head to foot and back. "God notices. And so do I."
And she went, hips unhurried, back into the thinning crowd, leaving Leo by the planters with Lindsey's cards, a dinner invite from the Hibberts, a church invitation, a daycare that could be approved by morning if he made a single phone call, an invitation to a pot roast with a recently divorced woman, and plans to get back at Principal Seymour.
…
The plaza emptied. The folding chairs got stacked.
Leo got back in his car as the light was starting to go gold and long across the brick, and sat for a second before he turned the key, and let the afternoon catch up with him.
Four women. One garden club. He turned the key and pulled out, and the cool air came in the window again, and his mind, unhelpfully and entirely on its own, did the thing it always did when he was tired and loose.
It put the four of them in one room.
He pictured it clearly. A room in his house, warm lamplight, and the four of them lined up together. Each of the woman he meet today in lingerie.
Bernice in something deep and purple and expensive, gold still at her throat, sure of herself. Luann in white, a little too much of it, trying a little too hard even here, which somehow made it work. Lindsey in something crisp and blue, lingerie that looked like it had been chosen for efficiency. And Helen, prim, buttoned-to-the-throat Helen, in green, the most undone thing of all, the floral dress and the gold cross gone, because the fantasy understood, the way Leo's mind always understood, that the buttoned-up one was always the one with the most underneath.
And in the picture, all four of them turned at once. Turned away from him and looked back at him over their shoulders, and bent, hands coming to rest on their own knees, and looked back at him from that pose, waiting, four pairs of eyes over four shoulders, each of them presenting herself and watching to see where his eye would go first. If he could fuck them all. Please them.
[Image in disc0rd]
He drove home with the window down and the gold light coming through the trees, and somewhere on Main he passed the 200 block, where, sure enough, four streetlamps stood dark in a row, exactly as advertised in the meeting, completely off and not shining.
…
…
…
[A/N]: 8.7k words. Wow, that's like 4 chapters right there. All in one. Three new woman characters. Only because I wanted to prove one of the two main women would be the focus of the next chapter. So fuck you.
[A/N (2)]: I learned that Dr. Hibbert and Bernice are swingers in canon in the show. Hinted at multiple times. facts.
[A/N (3)]: I'm going to make an auxiliary chapter that describes Leo's appearance and a brief description. And also attach images for how I imagined him. When I first started the story I wanted to leave it up to the readers imagination but now I changed my mind. Ignore it if you don't want to spoil your imagination version. Also he is 22 years old in the story it was said.