The House on Persimmon Road

by Jackie Weger

  “I can tell you both that I will not be put off about this. I intend to get a job.”

  “Mother, you’ve never worked a day in your life. You don’t have any marketable skills,” Pauline pulled a folded paper from her pocket. “You don’t know that. I’m willing to work. That has to count for something. Now, I’ve organized a list. I have a social security card, have had for years, so that’s one thing out of the way. I have a suitable wardrobe, although I may need some stockings. The tiny little thing that has to happen first is that I do need to learn how to drive.”

  “The tiny little thing! Mother, we only have the one car.” Justine had instant visions of the station wagon wrapped around tree trunks, telephone poles, languishing in ditches and plunging over cliffs.

  “I know, dear. But think how convenient it’ll be for you. I can do the shopping, run errands—”

  “Wreck the car.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I just can’t see you pounding the pavement hunting for work.”

  “Much less finding a job that meets with your imperial standards,” put in Agnes.

  “I won’t be sidetracked by either of you! I’m going to set up appointments by phone—when we get one. Which will be…?”

  “Tomorrow sometime, I think,” said Justine.

  “It’s settled then. When can you teach me to drive?”

  Justine leaned back and closed her eyes. Pauline was asking too much of her. There were already so many demands upon her time and emotions. It seemed that lately she did little but give parts of herself away. If it kept up she would be reduced to zero—useless to others as well as herself.

  “Right now I don’t have a spare hour.” Unless she were to give up running with Tucker. She couldn’t make herself mention that.

  Pauline slumped, utterly dispirited.

  “Oh, Mother, I hate to disappoint you.”

  “I can drive,” said Agnes.

  “Well, there!” said Pauline, reviving. “Agnes can teach me.”

  Justine suddenly felt very tired. “Agnes, you haven’t had a driver’s license since you broke your hip…that was before Philip and I married.”

  “Is a license necessary to learn?” asked Pauline. “Out here in these woods? When we arrived, we drove for miles and miles on a dirt path.”

  “A country road is not a dirt path.” Justine leaned forward. “Mother, you don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for—”

  “If Agnes is willing to teach me, I don’t see why you should object.”

  “Though that’s no small consideration, that’s not what I meant. You’re going to run into sexism, age discrimination—I don’t think you can handle it.”

  “Those things are against the law. Anyway, I handled your father for better than forty years. I do have some experience.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Why are you being so mulish? I want to be independent. Like you.”

  “Like me?”

  “Aren’t you making your own decisions, deciding where you want to live, how to spend your money? I want to do that, too. Only I have to make some money first. Besides, I like the idea of getting a job. I have so much time on my hands. I never had a hobby, unless it was shopping. I can’t even do that now.”

  “If she had a job, she’d be out of the house most of the day,” said Agnes, voicing a dubious defense on behalf of her prime antagonist.

  “That’s the most appealing part mentioned so far. But I have to raise my main objection—I can’t be stuck out here without transportation all day. Suppose one of the children got hurt? Or Agnes got sick?”

  “Can we cross that bridge when we come to it?” pleaded Pauline. “I know it won’t be soon, but eventually your father’s estate and the bankruptcy will be settled. The lawyers say I’ll get what’s left. It’s bound to be enough to buy a car—used,” she emphasized quickly to ward off the skepticism spreading over her daughter’s face.

  Justine moved out from under her mother’s gaze to the porch. The storm had spent itself, the rain now little more than drizzle, and that mostly dripping from porch eaves and trees. Frogs were beginning to chirrup; a lone hen, feathers wet and bedraggled, scratched in weeds.

  Justine was caught up in a classic case of role reversal. She could not issue a cavalier refusal. Her mother had to find her place in life as she herself was trying to do. And much as she would like to, she couldn’t protect Pauline from failure, or what the working world was all about.

  The rain-washed air was cool, freshening. Justine hugged herself and turned back into the house. “All right, Mother, I’ll go along with it. Give it your best shot.”

  “I would never do less. This is important to me.” She turned to Agnes. “I’m accepting your offer to teach me to drive. However—”

  Agnes tucked her chin down in her attack position. “However what?”

  Pauline faltered. “Dear me. What I was going to say slipped right out of my mind.”

  “There’s a car at the top of the drive,” Justine commented. “It may be the mailman. Yes,” she said, moving to get a better look. “It is.”

  “Finally!” exclaimed Agnes. “I’ll send Pip.”

  “Well, now that the ills of the world are solved, does anyone mind if I get back to putting my office together?”

  “Why no,” said Pauline. “Work as late as you like. Goodness me! I feel so energetic, I think I’ll even prepare supper.”

  Justine paused. “You might think of heating up that chili you opened last night, put it with some wieners.”

  “I didn’t open any chili. I loathe chili. Did you ever know cook to serve chili?” She shuddered. “Heavens! It’s made from stuff that grows between cow toes.”

  “Mother, where did you hear that?”

  “Your father told me.”

  “He was putting you on. Cows don’t have toes. They have hooves.”

  “Do we have any lamb chops? I could manage lamb.”

  “Manage the chili, add hot dogs, chopped onion, pickle relish, and mustard.”

  Pauline frowned. “If you say so. But once I have a job, I’m buying some real food and I’m going to hire a cook to prepare it.”

  Justine rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I’ll hold my breath.”

  “Daughter, you are sadly lacking in respect for your elders.”

  “I love you, though.”

  Pauline scoffed. “Small compensation.”

  — • —

  “Wait a minute!” Justine yelped as Tucker veered right, onto a path bracketed with thick wood instead of making an about-face at the fenced-off dead end.

  “I told you I was going to run your socks off. C’mon.”

  “I thought you meant a faster run, not longer.” She held on to the sturdy wooden railing, doing knee bends in an effort to stop the quivering in her calves.

  “You shoulda read my mind. Stop holding up that fence. Best part of the run is yet to come.”

  “I did my best part. I gave up cigarettes so I could get this far.” She also had on her best pair of cuffed shorts, white with green piping, zipper at the side and a sleeveless shirt, tails tied at her waist. Her hair was plaited, loose golden wisps held off her face with a pink sweatband left over from aerobics class. She had not gone so far as to apply cosmetics, but she thought she looked presentable. Had looked presentable. Now the blouse was glued to her by rivulets of sweat.

  By comparison, Tucker had yet to take an extra breath and his sweatband had yet to serve any more purpose than to emphasize features that looked to have been chiseled whole from hardwood. However, though his mustache was bristly and luxuriant as usual, his jaw was clean-shaven. Yesterday he had worn beard stubble. Perhaps he had shaved this morning for her benefit. The idea sent a quick thin sliver of delight through her body.

  “A two-minute rest,” he said. “Then, we’ll go on.” Tucker decided he couldn’t allow more than that. He couldn’t be around her without being involved in some activity. She had been o
n his mind all yesterday and all night: miserable night rife with gnawing dreams of her.

  He swung his arms to counter the urge to touch her. Justine stopped doing knee bends to peer in the direction Tucker meant for them to run. Tall trees and underbrush flanked the path as if reluctant to allow even that narrow a passage. It looked a jungle in there, thick with vines and creepers and tree ferns. No doubt it was home to all manner of wildlife.

  “Let’s just go back on the road,” she suggested.

  His dark eyes danced and teased. “Not afraid that I might drag you off into the bushes and ravish you, are you?”

  “Tucker, you’re a man who has charmed my mother, charmed my children, charmed me. I’m a city girl. I was thinking more along the line of snakes and lizards.”

  “A snake wouldn’t dare strike at you, not while you’re with me.” He couldn’t help himself, he leaned into her space. She smelled flowery. He liked it… a lot. “Charmed by me, you say?”

  She remained silent.

  He looked beyond her shoulder, contriving to appear unaffected. “Just wondering.”

  Justine gave in. He was so appealing it was hard not to. “Yes, I’m charmed by you—a little. You’re flirting with me. I liked it yesterday and I like it now. You might as well know that’s as far as it’ll go. I’m not into men right now.”

  “That’s because you were married to a snake. Got bit, too.”

  She turned frosty. “I’m glad we see eye to eye on the subject.”

  “You’ve somehow got the idea that I like you and now you’re trying to put me off. I haven’t felt any chemistry bubbling between us. Have you?”

  Yes, she had. A cauldron of the stuff. Add a frog wart, a lizard tail and chopped parsley and she’d end up in his bed. Her smile was lofty. “Not a bit.”

  Liar. Tucker considered the issue. Justine was a woman with two children to raise, a mother, and an ex-mother-in-law on board—responsibilities with a capital R. He owned a few of those miseries himself. He liked the family well enough, but—and therein lay the crux of the matter.

  It was enough to scare a man. Make him think twice about starting something. He looked at his watch. It was six fifteen already. “Are we gonna run, or jaw all morning?”

  To Justine’s surprise he spun off back down the road.

  “I thought we were going to play Hansel and Gretel,” she said when she caught up to him.

  “Left it too late.”

  She was winded by the time they reached her drive, but she managed, “Coffee?”

  She was prepared today. The coffee was perked and in a thermos on the table, waiting to be poured.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” he said and left her with only a brief backward glance.

  Justine sighed and had never meant a sigh more.

  She had been looking forward to their tete-a-tete, expected it to become a pleasant morning ritual, one that she could reflect upon during odd moments as the day wore on. In her mind, sharing coffee and conversation with Tucker had taken on a special significance. That was probably because she had not mentioned it to her family. Not that she was keeping it a secret, exactly. It was only that pleasures were few and far between these days.

  It was foolish, almost adolescent, wasn’t it? To hoard and hold private those few moments spent with Tucker. Of course she felt the chemistry between them. Yet what good could come of encouraging it?

  An affair?

  Impossible. Affairs were but a temporary panacea for the misery of being lonely. Anyway, where would she find the time? Even if she did manage time, how could she face herself? The children? Her mother? Agnes?

  Suppose she actually fell in love? Not that she would, but suppose?

  It was one thing to take children by a previous marriage into a relationship—but a mother and ex-mother-in-law? Would a man sit still for that? Not if he had an ounce of common sense.

  There was another strike against it happening. His age. Thirty-six. Which made him eminently unsuitable. If only he were even one minute past forty.

  Nip it in the bud, avoid temptation, avoid heartache. Don’t run with him again. Be friendly, yet distant.

  He was smart. He’d get the message loud and clear—especially when she wasn’t waiting for him tomorrow morning at the top of the drive.

  Issue settled. Solomon couldn’t have done better. With an immense sense of virtue and not a little of the martyr, Justine went about her daily life.

  The sun shone. Leaves washed clean of dust appeared greener, the grass higher. Milo Roberts arrived and hooked up the washing machine, though there was no electrical outlet for the dryer. Justine took it in stride and directed Milo to string a clothesline. She allowed Pip to go fishing, Judy Ann played house in the yard, fed scraps to the chicks. Pauline, with Agnes at her side, spent an hour in the station wagon familiarizing herself with gears and brake and gas pedal. Wonder of wonders, when they came back into the house, they were still on speaking terms.

  The telephone was installed, and the estate agent, Jim Kessler, alerted that they had arrived and settled in. Their newspaper subscriptions started arriving, and the mailman brought Agnes’s social security check.

  Justine booted up the computers, found them all working to her satisfaction, then spent an hour after supper arranging her desk and files and planning a work schedule.

  It was one of those days when all went right, making her feel good about the world.

  She went to bed feeling noble, honorable, and righteous.

  Her dreams were pleasant and all of Tucker Highsmith.

  She awakened with the notion that she was in absolute control of her life and her emotions.

  Her earlier thoughts about Tucker had been foolish. She took things too seriously these days.

  The man flirted with her. So what? Men did that. It was meaningless chitchat, done solely to boost their own egos. The only reason she had taken it so to heart, made an issue out of it, was that she hadn’t engaged in flirtations in years. It may have been the done thing in some marriages, but not in her own.

  Heavens! She had no grandiose designs on the man, her thoughts and dreams were nothing more than flights of fancy—entertainment, really.

  There was no good reason to stop jogging with the man.

  She did, after all, have those five pounds to trim.

  Having no wish whatsoever to attempt to bedazzle, she donned her oldest sweatshirt, faded blue shorts, and tied her hair back in a style she considered most unflattering.

  At 5:42 ante meridiem the sky began to lighten, birds chattered and a rooster crowed as if he were the bugle that called up the sun.

  At 5:50 a.m. Justine was at the top of the drive. Waiting.

  — • —

  Tucker stared bleary-eyed into the mirror. He’d had a bad night. Dreams of Justine had been interspersed with scenes from his youth—scenes he had not recalled in years.

  He fingered the beard stubble on his jaw, but his mind was filled with images of himself as a ten-year-old.

  His mother had been dead a month. The only food in the shack was a sack of potatoes. He’d peeled and boiled them while his dad holed up on the bed with a bottle of whiskey.

  When the potatoes ran out, terrified that he was going to starve to death, he gathered up the peelings he’d tossed out, washed them and fried them, surviving on them until his dad had sobered up enough to scrounge a few dollars.

  He hadn’t starved, but harking back to those years still called up the stark terror he had suffered.

  He knew he was stronger for the experience. He had learned early on to look after himself, to persevere in the face of adversity. He had managed a year of college, got himself a good job, had a little money in the bank and his own home, such as it was. Not to mention fried potato peelings were in these days. Add a dab of sour cream and a sprinkling of chives. Hell, in the matter of food, he’d just been ahead of the times.

  The image of himself as a boy faded, replaced by one of Justine. A small spark of terror stayed
with him. He tried to dismiss it.

  He wasn’t scared of a woman. Especially her. There was no way, even given the opportunity, she was going to change his plans, the goals he had set for himself.

  So what if he was taken with her? Couldn’t stop thinking about her? He had seen women he couldn’t have before. Hell’s bells! She was just a neighbor with a good-looking pair of legs. Nothing to get excited about. It wasn’t as if she had become a drug he couldn’t do without. What a hoot! He hadn’t even touched her.

  Better to stop all this willful thinking before he made a grave mistake.

  Women hated to be stood up. That’s how he’d handle it. He’d take the back path, jog along the river instead. Leave her standing at the mailbox high ‘n’ dry with a case of the furies. That’d be the end of it.

  Feeling as if he had culled a millstone from around his neck, Tucker brushed his teeth but stopped short of shaving since he wasn’t out to impress anybody.

  Before he set off, he scooped up a pail of corn and scattered it for the hens. Then he loped down the track toward the river. He had only gone a few yards when an unacceptable idea slowed his pace to a walk.

  He was running from a woman! Like a weak-kneed ninny with his tail between his legs.

  It was an image of himself that Tucker Highsmith could not countenance. His rebel-warrior self-image was already stretched thin by the knowledge that he was involved—to his way of thinking—in the very feminine action of gathering recipes and putting them in a book.

  Two dents in his self-esteem were more than he could bear.

  The truth of the matter was that he had let his libido catch him off guard—do his thinking for him. He had a lock on it now. Grit to withstand seduction of any sort. Justine Hale could stand buck naked before him and he wouldn’t be stirred. Not a chance.

  The oddly fluttering sensation in his chest he put down to indigestion. Too many spicy foods.

  He reversed his direction.

  Chapter Eight

  Tucker signaled her to fall in as he jogged past. His expression was as hard and dark as slate. Justine’s cheery good-morning died on her lips.

  “Get up on the wrong side of the bed?” she asked.