by Jackie Weger
“I don’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
“There you go again, Justine. Making me feel guilty. I feel such a headache coming on.”
“You timed it just right. There’s the moving van. Do you think you can hold off on headaches until we get settled?”
Pauline sighed. “One can only hope.”
“I don’t have the luxury of hope. I have to deal in realities.”
“Mr. Highsmith looked real enough to me. He isn’t married, you know.”
“What are you now, a seer?” Justine handed her mother the keys. “Go unlock the door. I’ll direct the movers.”
“His shirt had laundry creases. No woman in her right mind sends wash ‘n’ wear shirts to a commercial laundry. So he’s single.”
“Mother,” said Justine, vexed, “I’m still reeling from the effects of one failed marriage. I’m not interested in putting myself through that a second time.”
“Yes, but you thought you were happily married. And people who’ve been happily married always—”
“Save your convoluted philosophy for the children, Mother. They understand it better than I do.”
“Justine, dear,” Pauline said, placing a restraining hand on her daughter’s arm. “You need a man. I never thought I’d live to see the day I’d believe in that old adage, but in your case it’s true. You’re better at life when coupled.”
“Coupled?”
Pauline wiggled her eyebrows. “You know what I mean. I just want you to know, I won’t stand in your way. In fact, I intend to encourage you.”
Justine turned away quickly. Hot tears came up behind her eyes. Even her own mother was doing it! Thinking, suggesting, that she could not make it in life without a man.
It was true that she had leaned heavily on Philip. But he had encouraged her to depend entirely upon him; he wanted it, insisted! Now, of course she saw through that. It was his way of proving to himself that he was a man above others.
In the end all he had proven was that he couldn’t bear up under the responsibility of a mortgage, two children, work—a classic case of biting off more than he could chew. He overloaded. His circuits went haywire. He was hoisted on his own petard. When he had crumbled, her entire world had crumbled along with his.
Thinking of Philip caused a churning hurt and anger in Justine’s stomach.
If only it had been another woman.
Or even another man!
She could’ve battled that and won!
But how does a woman fight a man who has decided to abandon his family in favor of becoming a monk so he could wear saffron robes, chant “om”, and go live in Southeast Asia?
There wasn’t a single article in any magazine that told a woman how to cope with that! Impotency, herpes, how to argue effectively—all topics well covered. One thing those women’s rags never delved into was revenge. How could they miss that a woman needed revenge, craved it! Justine sniffed. She got back at them. She had canceled all of her subscriptions, except Martha Stewart—but only until the subscription ran out. The satisfaction had lasted only moments.
While her world collapsed, she had tried not to think or feel, pretending strength and calm she had not really possessed. She was still pretending.
She knew the score. She was only accountable to her dreams in the dark lonely recesses of the bed she no longer shared with anyone.
Pauline’s words threaded their way far into Justine’s brain: “You’re better at life when coupled.”
Deep down in her soul Justine knew she was a woman who thrived on loving and being loved, a woman who longed to be held, enclosed in strong arms, partnered in life and safe from the outer world. But a stubbornness that was entirely Justine Hale kept her from admitting it, to herself—or anyone else.
She lifted her hand to greet the movers and the image of Tucker Highsmith’s lazy sardonic grin crossed her mind’s eye. She blinked, erasing his features.
— • —
Lottie Roberts was beside herself with excitement. Inside the old house she flitted from one window to the next, anxious for the new tenants to come inside and unpack. It was always wonderful to peek in drawers, handle the untold and modern treasures people brought with them. She hoped they had a television. Lottie adored television.
The previous tenants used to eat lunch accompanied by the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show with Molly Bee. To this day she could still hum a few bars of “Sixteen Tons.” And in the afternoon she had watched Edge of Night and Dark Shadows. Lottie liked electric can openers too. Tucker Highsmith had one. The whirring sound reminded her of The Green Hornet on radio. The Green Hornet used to give her goose bumps.
At least, she imagined she erupted in goose bumps. It was terrible not to have any flesh. She had form, but it wasn’t anything a body could actually see—not that she hadn’t attempted to extend herself. She had. Dozens of times. She had tried everything she could think of from mustard packs and herb teas to strengthening jelly…until the barley ran out.
Thus far, nothing had worked.
Not even the family Bible had been of help and she had spent hundreds of hours scouring it, especially John 11:1-12 to see how Lazarus had done it.
Unfortunately Lazarus had the help of a higher nature. Being in the situation she was, sort of betwixt and between, Lottie didn’t think it behooved her to draw attention to herself from that quarter.
Not that she thought even for a minute that she’d sinned enough to be thrust into Eternal Fire, but you never knew. There had been that incident with the Union soldier, howsomever, she hadn’t realized God was on their side until the North had won the war, and by then it was too late to undo the deed.
Of course, she never missed saying her prayers, God-fearing woman that she was. She just never asked for anything, most especially for an end to her condition, seeing as with Him it could go either way. Early on, she’d figured it best just to manage getting back on her own.
Anyway, doing for herself had always been her long suit. She reckoned that being strong willed was simply bred into her.
That had always been a thing said of her. Folks from miles around used to joke about it. “You got a mule that won’t pull a plow,” they said, “let it spend a day with Lottie Roberts. Once the fool animal sees what true balkiness is, it’ll be so shamed, it’ll harness itself to the plow and bellow for the farmer to step into the traces.”
Lottie was counting on her will and determination to see her through. Only thing was, once extended and fleshed out again, she would have to know enough of the modern world to get by.
Some modern things frightened her. Automobiles, for instance. You had to be closed up in them and they went so fast. She’d gone off with a tenant once, in a 1917 Oakland, if she recollected right. She had felt certain she was going to be killed twice over. Her heart or the region where she imagined her heart to be—had lunged and pounded so hard she’d thought the rattling might give her presence away.
She had been building up her courage to try it again when another war started and the tenant had gone off to fight.
Like her own Elmer, the tenant had never returned. Lottie sighed. She missed Elmer something fierce.
Oh, it had been so long since the old house had had tenants. And this bunch looked a mixed bag. Surely, among them was one who would be her friend.
The front door pushed open with a bang and a boy came barreling into the house. He raced down the hall, banging open doors.
Lottie bristled and shot up to the ceiling, out of harm’s way.
That’s one scamp needs manners taught!
Next through the door was a slender, elegantly clad woman with silver hair shaped into a perfectly rendered chignon. Lottie surmised the woman was about her own age. Well, not her age now, but before.
A blonde-haired girl hesitated on the threshold until she was given a push by an elderly woman with a cane. Lottie gasped.
The old lady was dressed in various shades of purple and mauve and had tightly perme
d curls. Purple permed curls.
Lottie had never seen hair like it. Trailing cobwebs she moved down from the ceiling and whirled about the old woman for a better look. She wanted to touch the hair, but didn’t dare. The woman hobbled into the parlor and sat in a fiddle-back chair.
Lottie plopped down on the matching stool and stared. She spared a glance for a younger woman who came in and began inspecting the room, but it was the purple hair that kept her enthralled.
“I swear! It’s cold in here,” complained Agnes. “And look.” She shuddered, pointing at Lottie. “Dust and spider webs are literally falling from the ceiling!”
“You don’t exercise enough, Mother Hale,” suggested Justine. Stepping into the wide hall was like stepping into a dusty, cool fortress. “I think it’s quite pleasant. And the agent was right about spaciousness—this house is huge.”
Agnes snorted. “I guess I know cold when I feel cold. Pip, dear,” she said, as he came racing into the room, “open those French doors, and let in some of that nice warm breeze.”
“Mom,” he said breathlessly. “There’s no bathroom.”
“Of course there’s a bathroom.”
It’s on a corner of the back porch, said Lottie, trying to be helpful. It’s a good bathroom. The same tenant who owned the Oakland installed it.
No one paid Lottie any mind. That was another problem with being in the state she was in, she thought with a twinge of disgust. No one could hear her. The only way she had of getting a body’s attention was to mingle with the other’s aura and sort of make suggestions. Sometimes that worked and sometimes not.
“I looked in every room, Mom. Ask Judy Ann, if you don’t believe me.”
“There’re all sorts of nooks and crannies in the house, darling, you just missed it, is all.”
“He didn’t,” announced Pauline, arriving on Pip’s heels. “I couldn’t find it myself. I’m in a terrible fix, too.”
“Are you?” Agnes smiled wickedly, voice full of sly hope. “Diarrhea?”
Pauline scowled at Agnes.
Justin threw up her hands. “Please, you two, save your energy for unpacking. The movers are bringing in the beds. Mother, can you hold on? I’ll locate the pot in a minute.”
“No, I can’t hold on. I begged you to stop at that last gas station, remember? But no—”
Justine sighed. “All right. It’s your bedstead they’re bringing in, Mother Hale. Tell them which room.”
Agnes beamed and moved with alacrity, cane bouncing. Pauline protested. “She’ll pick the finest room for herself!”
“Which is it to be, Mother, mover guidance or an accident in your pants?”
“The bathroom. But I must say, you’ve become exceedingly vulgar.”
“I don’t know how else to protect myself.”
“From what?”
“If you have to ask…” warned Justine, patience growing thin as a taut wire.
“If only your father were alive,” began Pauline, but the fierce gleam in her daughter’s eyes caused her to stop in midsentence.
Lottie had taken in the whole of the conversation, observing Pauline’s air of disdain and Agnes’s peevishness. The outcome settled it in her mind that the one called Justine suffered a peck of trouble at the hands of the two old biddies.
Since the house was Lottie’s own, she thought it did behoove her to rise to hostess duties. She left her perch on the stool and hovered near Justine.
With Pauline following, Justine went off down the wide hall. She couldn’t say how she knew the bathroom was on the back porch. She just seemed to know. She put it down to an obscure, perverse intuition.
“Oh, dear!” said Pauline.
“At least it’s not in the backyard.”
It used to be, said Lottie. Miserable that was, too, on a cold blustery day.
“Look at the tub,” Pauline insisted. “A bear could bathe in it.”
The huge, claw-footed, high-sided affair was constructed of iron and porcelain, draped with cobwebs and years of dust. Its bottom was filled with windblown debris of leaves and moss.
Pauline took a tentative step closer.
“It looks like a bear has bathed in it! And that toilet …” she said of the monstrosity of iron, her voice trailing off in justifiable dismay.
“It’s nothing a little Comet cleanser won’t cure,” Justine said succinctly and closed the door upon her mother’s expression of distaste.
Seeing the set of Justine’s mouth as she turned, Lottie surmised that the bathroom was not considered up to snuff. That had been the complaint from more than one prospective tenant. Lottie couldn’t understand it. All one had to do was turn a valve and water shot out. Some folk were downright unappreciative. Mayhap they ought to spend washdays at the working end of a pump handle. A spigot would look mighty good after that!
Justine lingered a moment on the back porch, part of which was enclosed by tattered strips of latticed wood. She had a view to the rear of the yard where a number of sheds leaned precariously into one another, casualties of the elements … of life. She, too, was a casualty, but unlike the sheds she had no other support to lean upon. And she was supposed to be the glue that held them all together. Dear God, but she had never felt so vulnerable, so lost, so unable to cope.
“We’re bringing in the fridge, ma’am,” one of the movers called out to her. “The other lady said you’d tell us where to put it.”
“Yes, I’ll be right there.”
She gave a last brief glance at the backyard. She could see no other dwellings. How nearby, she wondered, did her neighbor Tucker Highsmith live?
Then, catching her train of thought, Justine moved purposefully back into the house.
Chapter Two
Tucker sat stiffly at his typewriter and for the fifth time painstakingly began to peck out the recipe for potato pie with a creme fraiche. He made another typo.
Damn! He couldn’t concentrate. The image of Justine Hale filled the page. A one-time aberration, he concluded and tried again. He misspelled fraiche.
Okay, pal, he told himself. That’s it. Take a breather, have a go at Justine Hale, then forget you ever saw her. Remember, there was a Mrs. attached to her name. Which meant that she was married and off limits.
Off-limits or not, she intrigued him. He had caught sight of her as she rounded the corner of the porch. He didn’t know what had made him stop in midstep. The way she carried herself? The sudden intense look on her face that bespoke vulnerability? The long, slender length of her legs?
During the seconds he had observed her, before drawing attention to himself, he had watched her questioning herself—in body language. Curiously, he’d understood. He had felt drawn to her on the instant.
But it was more than her looks. It was in her eyes. They were a deep green, wondrous eyes that seemed to illuminate her face. When she had turned to face him he had looked into their depths. She had touched him in a way that he had not been touched in years, and he knew at once she was uncomfortable with him.
He had sensed in her haughty deportment a cover for the vulnerability he’d seen. That knowledge had made him speculative, appraising, and far too bold. But, hell! He’d had his own vulnerabilities to camouflage. His legs had suddenly needed support and he’d had to lock his knees. Lord, that was something. Never happened to him before. But an affair with a married woman? He wouldn’t even come close to considering it.
Yes, he would.
He argued the point with himself for five minutes.
On the downside he concluded Justine Hale probably wore a girdle under her shorts. That’s why she looked so trim. Her hair color had to be out of a bottle and undoubtedly she’d puffed up her bosoms with falsies to make them appear enticing. He knew from experience that women pulled sly tricks to make themselves alluring, even when they didn’t mean to go beyond teasing.
It was settled. He had Justine Hale’s number. She could lure from here to hallelujah for all the good it’d do.
He ro
lled a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter. The memory of a pair of green eyes mesmerized him.
“Ah, hell!”
“You still working on those field reports, son?”
Tucker stopped typing and carefully disposed of the rejected pages.
“I’m trying. If they’d make a man-sized keyboard, I’d be finished by now.”
Tucker concocted the lie about field reports so that he could work on the book while his dad was visiting. Writing a cookbook was a secret he kept from everyone, mostly because he couldn’t quite come to terms with it himself.
He was redneck through and through and knew it. He wore the label as proudly as he displayed the Rebel flag above his bed. He couldn’t help it that he was Southern bred with a generations-held notion that the kitchen was a woman’s place.
The only accounting he could give for himself concerning the art of cooking was that it had been forced on him. The premature death of his mother had sent his dad into a tailspin. The old man had spent more years since her death drunk than sober. It had been learn to cook or go without. One thing led to another until he’d become pretty damned good at it.
But hell! Writing a cookbook? Oh, he knew that a few famous chefs had written cookbooks, especially foreign ones. And every time he saw them on television they were kissing each other on the cheek.
If any guy he knew tried anything like that, he’d end up in the hospital.
To his way of thinking it was okay to throw a slab of ribs on the grill, fry fish on a riverbank, whip up a pot of chili, or fry eggs. The married guys in his set even admitted to opening a can of soup or boiling hotdogs for the kids when the wife was out of sorts.
But admitting to cooking fancy sauces and writing them down? Tucker’s ire rose just thinking of the name-calling and innuendo that would invoke.
Not that anyone would accuse him of being effeminate. At least not to his face, or he’d break the heckler’s jaw. He just couldn’t see any advantage in telling anybody. It’d be like telling his most secret wish.