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Hubert – Melinda Dus


Finally he obliged her. Hubert did her proud and dropped a load. The two scampered from the baseball diamond. Deanna’s face flushed with prideful mischief. Ponies next.

 

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Evening approached. Few races remained. No matter. She only wanted the last race. Deanna queued up for a teller to place Travis’s bet. In the line next to her she heard, “This one’s for Travis.” Her eyes swiveled and locked on a distinctive fedora as the hat bobbed away into the crowd. A vibrantly colored headdress painted with fedoras all over the felt. An object decorated with itself. One of Travis’s creations. Deanna followed the hat-wearing man. After the final race, Deanna left when the man departed. Her eyes stayed glued to the fedora.

Fields of parking lots surrounded the racetrack. She locked on the man’s trajectory to determine his intended destination. Deanna hightailed it to her vehicle many rows over. Hubert waited within. His snout slobbered through the partially lowered window.

Her car careened toward the area where the man had parked. Deanna idled at the exit. The man drove a commercial tow truck which clunked out of the lot as he departed. She tailed it. Deanna cautioned herself to stay back. Her vigilance proved unnecessary. The man she followed chatted on his cellphone, oblivious to her. He pulled into Mike’s Towing and Auto Repair and parked the truck which wore the same company name.

The trailer stared at her from Mike’s parking lot. Deanna drove by slowly. She passed Travis’s silver Airstream. Mike had more than a fedora from her brother. He had Travis’s camper.

The pieces fit. Mike had towed the Airstream. Lanelle probably sold the “hunk of junk” to him in exchange for clearing the lot. Her conclusion matched the manager’s spite.

 

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A pensive Deanna and an ecstatic Hubert looped through the Squeaky Clean. The towel guy, who shammies the vehicles by hand with a cloth chamois winked at Hubert. Deanna lowered her window. Hubert climbed over Deanna toward the man and nosed out the window.

The towel man rubbed Hubert’s ear, “Hey Hueby.” He avoided looking at Deanna. He went on to towel vigorously with elbow grease.

“You know each other,” Deanna said.

The man nodded without eye contact, “He loves the car wash.”

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