Dewey and Emily confess to each other about how they really feel

“Emily,” Dewey said, “I have a confession to make to you. I don’t have a neurotic fascination with manure.”

“You don’t?”

“No.” He kissed her again and they both smiled.

“It’s my business. I supply fertilizer to people’s gardens. That’s what I do. When I told you I was in manure, I meant the manure business. They call me the fertilizer king, actually.”

She smiled. “Wow! That’s wonderful. I was a bit concerned about falling for a guy who had a … thing … for manure. You know. But it’s what you do.”

They kissed again.

“But won’t this mess up your doctoral thesis? I thought that was why you wanted to see me. Your tape recorder and all that …”

“Dewey,” she said. “I have a confession to make to you, too. I’m not writing a doctoral dissertation on you. I don’t want a doctorate. I want you.”

His index finger reached up and traced each delectable cheekbone gently, and she smiled at him some more.

“I want you, too,” he said. “But there is something else I need to confess.”

“There is?”

“Yes. You see, I have little … accidents. I’m kinda clumsy. I’ll try really hard to do something right, but the next thing you know the truck’s in a mud hole or a cow’s in a tree, or I’ve vaccinated Dud for blackleg, or …”

“I’ll have to hear about that cow one of these days.”

“Anyway, I wanted you to know.”

“Isn’t that why we’re lying here on the shoulder of the road, kissing and smiling and why I have a rock in the small of my back?”

“Yes.”

“I kinda like it, Honey.”

They tried to pull apart to get more comfortable but something held them together. They both looked down at the fishing fly that had joined their shirts together. It was that stonefly nymph on a number 6 streamer that Marvin Pincus tied to help Dewey find a girlfriend. Sometimes there’s magic on a warm spring night.

Slim Randles can be reached at (505) 306-6009, at 7308 Painted Pony Trail NW, Albuquerque, NM 87120, or at ol_slim@yahoo.com or www.slimrandles.com. “The Home Country” book is available at www.slimrandles.com.