I tried to slow my breathing and let Bob and Tawny’s small-electronics sales pitch fill my head, forcing out the racing thoughts of infidelity, insolvency, and infamy.
“Folks, you know your Shop Net family loves to find you new and exciting items to improve your quality of life,” Bob said. “We’ve got a brand-new offering, and you just can’t beat this remarkable piece for value and functionality.”
“That’s right, Bob. The MiniAmp personal auditory enhancer will cancel out ambient noise and amplify conversation, so you never miss a word.”
I remembered the fight Bree and I had on our hands when we tried to convince Grandma Peachy to get a hearing aid. I wondered if we’d have had more luck if we’d called it a “personal auditory enhancer.”
“Just look at this,” Tawny continued. “It’s sleek, sharp, and so discreet. Just hook it over your ear like this—see how easy?—and it looks just like one of those hands-free cell-phone headsets.”
I cracked open an eye, intrigued. Tawny didn’t lie. The oval plastic doodad hanging on her ear looked like a cell phone earpiece. It wasn’t tiny, like the hearing aids we showed to Grandma Peachy, but it was so prominent, so obvious, no one would ever guess what it was. The hearing aid that hid in plain sight. Brilliant.
I let my eye drift shut again. Sleep. I was supposed to be sleeping.
“Tawny,” Bob cut in, “what I love about this product is its versatility. You can use this anytime you’re trying to hear conversation in a big crowd—restaurants, parties, movie theaters, church. But you could also use this when you’re hunting, so you can hear a twig snap or the faintest little rustle of leaves.”
I didn’t think that sounded fair. But, when you got right down to it, hunting wouldn’t really be fair until we started arming the deer.
“Absolutely, Bob. And the MiniAmp can also help you keep tabs on your kids when they’re playing in another room. You know how it gets real quiet when they’re up to no good? Well, now you can hear exactly what they’re doing.”
Bob laughed, and his voice took on a sly, slippery tone. “You’ll never miss anything, Tawny. You can hear what the neighbors are saying about your landscaping or what the good-looking guy across the room thinks of your new dress.”
My eye popped back open and an idea started taking shape in my brain.
On the fuzzy screen of my twenty-year-old TV, Tawny tucked her loose auburn curls behind her ear, showing off the MiniAmp. “At only $26.98, this would be a great gift for an older relative, or even for a spouse. I know Carl would love to be able to watch television in bed after I go to sleep, and this would be such a great item for our household. Carl could keep the volume low enough for me to sleep, and yet he could hear his favorite shows. It might just save our marriage.”
Bob laughed on cue. “Our viewers may have seen similar devices before, but the MiniAmp is special. See this little feature here?” The camera zoomed in on a dimpled bit of plastic on the front of the oval. “This is the very latest in digital directional microphone technology. Real cutting-edge stuff. By activating the directional mic, your MiniAmp will pick up on the sounds directly in front of you and minimize background noise.”
Tawny oohed appreciatively.
“And the microphone rotates here”—Bob caressed the little mic and it swiveled around to the side—“so you can focus on sounds from the side rather than in front of you. This is great for conversations in the car.”
I was fully alert by that point. With that little gizmo strapped to my head, I could hear the women at the Lady Shapers dish the dirt. I wouldn’t need to worm my way into their sacred social circle. I could get the unfiltered, uncensored scoop from clear across the cardio room.
With my bed quilt trailing me like the train of a homespun wedding gown, I shuffled into the kitchen, felt around on the table until I found my purse, and rooted through it for my cell phone. Standing in the doorway of the den, I squinted at the TV as I punched in the number for Shop Net.
“Thank you for calling Shop Net. How can I help you?”
“Hi. I want a MiniAmp. And I need rush delivery.”
chapter 14
Honey Jillson graciously agreed to discuss suitable exterior paint colors with me on the very morning after I called. Wednesdays were development days at the Zeta Eta Chi alumni house, so she needed to supervise the students and alumni putting together fund-raising packets. She assured me the job involved little more than collating, stuffing, and stamping, so it was no trouble at all for us to talk while the young women worked.
I don’t know what I was expecting from the Zeta Eta Chi alumni house. Maybe a high-end spa environment, with trickling fountains and tropical aromas. Perhaps something akin to a French château, with gilded ceilings and damask-covered settees. Or even posh corporate offices with plush carpets and real oak wainscoting.
Whatever I was expecting, the Zeta Eta Chi alumni house was not it. In fact, the alumni house was nothing more than a converted garage behind the main house where the college girls slept and studied and partied. Neutral off-white paint coated the drywall, and posters from Zeta charity events hung in plain black metal frames, the kind you can pick up at any discount store. The furniture was clean but utterly utilitarian. And, on the day I visited, the interior was redolent of sausage pizza.
Honey greeted me with a weary smile. “The girls are upstairs in the multipurpose room, having lunch.” Her smile tightened a fraction. “With any luck, they won’t get sausage grease on the lovely new brochures we had printed up. The house depends on alumni contributions for so many of its activities. It’s important that the solicitations look professional.”
The notion of rich people asking for money from other rich people seemed odd to me, but I smiled and nodded.
“Why don’t we take over that table?” she said, pointing the way to a worktable made from two short filing cabinets and an old door that dominated the center of the room. “That way we can spread out some.”
She gathered up the scraps of paper and markers that littered the surface of the worktable and rested them on the corner of one of two more traditional desks set against the far wall of the room. One of the desks boasted a PC and a small ink-jet printer. An open can of discount diet cola and a half-empty bag of tortilla chips suggested that someone had been doing homework there. The other desk was more orderly: stationery and mailing and packing supplies were arranged in tidy little boxes around an old IBM Selectric typewriter, its tan plastic cover just a tiny bit askew.
Honey and I sat at the newly decluttered work table.
“First,” I said, handing her a silver insulated bag tied with a big white ribbon, “I brought you a little something to thank you for your help. I knew you liked butterscotch candies, so I went out on a limb and guessed you’d like butterscotch ice cream, too.” She took the bag from me gingerly, her expression alarmed. “Don’t worry; the insulated bag will keep it frozen for a good six hours.”
“Well, thank you, dear. Dub and I will surely enjoy that.” She set the bag next to her chair, and I began rooting around in my purse for the various paint chips I had brought—clipped together in groups of “maybe,” “no way,” and “no freakin’ way.”
“So,” Honey said, “you need to choose new paint colors. Do you have the fan deck of approved shades from Tiburgh’s Paints?”
My hand stilled in my purse and I looked up. “No. There’s a set of preapproved colors?”
She nodded.
“So I didn’t have to go through every color known to man at every single hardware store in the greater Dalliance metropolitan area?”
Honey chuckled. “Of course not, dear. It’s referenced in the historic commission bylaws. Section five, subsection c; I believe it’s paragraph four.”
“You’re kidding me.”
Ridiculously, I felt tears welling in my eyes and a lump of misery gathering in my throat. Suddenly, it was just all too much. Too many rules, too many regulations, too many suspicions and social pitfalls
, too much baggage. I had an impulse to get up and run—out the door, out of Dalliance, across the state line, and into the great unknown. I could picture myself bolting, running fast, and my body was already there: heart galloping, sweat beading on my burning face, breath coming in great heaving gasps.
Through a haze of completely irrational terror, I became aware of Honey Jillson patting my hand softly.
“Calm, dear, calm,” she soothed. “Tallulah, I need you to breathe for me. Can you do that?”
I nodded, because I wanted to please Miz Jillson, but I really didn’t think I could breathe at all.
“Hum.” She closed her eyes, then opened them with a smile. “Let’s hum ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas.’ I’ve always liked that song.”
While half of my brain was already somewhere near Tulsa and an inky darkness flooded my peripheral vision, I clung to the sight of Honey Jillson’s patrician features—her hair the color of unripe cantaloupe and her jaunty lilac neckerchief—and hummed along with her rendition of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” I’m not gonna lie: the sounds I made were not songlike at all, but the act of humming seemed to slow my heart, and after a minute or two my breathing returned to normal.
“Oh, Miz Jillson, I’m so sorry,” I choked out, terror replaced by mortification. “I don’t know what came over me.”
She smiled gently and patted my hand again. “It’s called a panic attack, and you mustn’t let it bother you.” She waved her hand in the general direction of the ceiling. “Those girls up there get them when they get an A-minus or the polish on their nails doesn’t match their lipstick. I think, under the circumstances, you’re entitled to a momentary breakdown.”
Her kindness itself threatened to bring back the tears, so I didn’t dare say much. “Thank you,” I managed.
“Now,” she said, her tone brusque and no-nonsense, “let’s pick a color for that lovely little house of yours. I have the Tiburgh’s fan deck in my attaché, since we’re having a historic commission meeting this evening and I didn’t want to forget it.” She paused in the act of rifling through her briefcase. “In fact, if we can settle on a color this morning, I’ll make a motion to approve your choice as ‘new business.’ You won’t even have to wait the two weeks to get it on the agenda.”
A wave of relief washed through me, clearing away the last of the jitters. “Thank you so much, Miz Jillson. That would be great.”
“Honey,” she chided as she plopped a booklet of paint chips in front of me. “How do you feel about blue?”
With a limited selection to choose from and no fear that I’d get it wrong, it didn’t take me long to settle on a misty, mossy green—nearly the color of Finn Harper’s eyes—with accents of a deep terracotta and a lighter blush.
Honey was jotting down the names and numbers for the colors we’d chosen when a young woman in jeans and a yellow sweatshirt embroidered with a huge orange Z skipped down the stairs and into the front room.
“Miz Jillson,” she said, “we ran out of the envelopes with the return address already printed on them. Do you want us to run off labels, or do we need to wait for more envelopes to get here?”
Honey sighed. “The labels look tacky, Lisa. I ordered more envelopes last week, and they should be here any day. Could you girls come back on Friday afternoon to finish up?”
Lisa’s face tightened, and I had watched enough moods cross Alice’s face to know that the young woman did not want to spend her Friday afternoon stuffing envelopes. But she forced a smile and said, “Yes, ma’am. No problem.”
As she took the stairs two at a time to spread the word about the revised plans, Honey sighed. “It looks like I’m finishing up here earlier than I planned. Dub was going to drive me over to the historic commission meeting this evening, so I don’t have my car. I hate to impose on you, but would you mind driving me home?”
“Not at all. It’s the least I can do.”
We made small talk on the ride to the Jillsons’ house in the exclusive Ember Ridge neighborhood. The development, where Finn’s parents lived, dated back to the 1960s and featured an eclectic mix of architectural styles nestled amid mature oak and pecan trees. While the Harpers’ house was a Tudor, the Jillsons’ Spanish colonial, just around the corner, had creamy stucco walls and a clay tile roof.
As I pulled into the driveway, I mentioned how much I’d always admired their house. “Every time I drove past, I thought how beautiful it was. In the summer, it looks so cool and inviting. I always wondered who lived here.”
“Thank you, dear,” Honey replied. She smiled as she gathered her satchel and her purse close. “I imagine we passed one another quite a lot back when you dated Finn Harper. But, of course, we wouldn’t have had much reason to stop to talk.”
I was stunned that Honey knew whom I’d dated in high school. My surprise must have shown on my face, because Honey chuckled.
“Tallulah, this is a small town, and an even smaller neighborhood. Ida Harper and I were close back then, what with her boy Sonny and my Miranda being the same age and all.”
“Are you still friends?”
Her lips thinned and she looked out the windshield. “No. You would think that both of us losing children like we did would bring us closer together, but instead we drifted apart. I guess we were both so full up with sadness, we couldn’t stand a drop more.”
She gave herself a little shake. “But I heard about her troubles, and that she isn’t doing well. I keep meaning to stop in to see her. Us old biddies need to stick together,” she added with a wry smile.
“I’m sure she would appreciate that.”
“And I understand Finn Harper has come home to take care of his mother. It certainly seems like that hellion has grown into a fine young man.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, her expression heavy with significance.
“Yes, ma’am. He seems to have done well for himself. Maybe I made the wrong choice back in high school.”
Her brow wrinkled and the corners of her mouth tightened. “Tallulah Jones, we all make choices we come to regret. Take it from this old lady. You can’t dwell on the mistakes you’ve made in the past. You have to act in the here and now to make it right.”
She wrapped one hand through the straps of her bags and put the other on the door handle.
“You’re young and single. Finn Harper is young and single. Just make it right.”
Before I could think to help her with the door, she climbed out of the car and began making her slow and careful way to her front door.
Just make it right, she said. It sounded so simple.
But I was pretty sure that nearly two decades before, when I chose security over the adventure of Finn, I made a choice that couldn’t ever be undone.
I wore a white sundress, as crisp as new money, the night I broke Finn Harper ’s heart.
He picked me up in his dark green Scirocco, Sonny’s car before he died. For nearly an hour, we cruised around town in a looping, baroque circuit that brought us back again and again to the courthouse square. A mix tape—Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails—blared from the stereo speakers, a raw wound in the sultry summer evening.
I slipped out of my thin-soled sandals and propped my feet on the dashboard, tugging my skirt down over my bent knees so that only my toes, nails painted a candy pink, peeped from beneath the ruffled hem. Finn slouched behind the wheel, the curve of his body a physical echo of the desolate beat of the music. His hand, tan and long fingered, draped over the gearshift, but at stoplights he’d reach out to brush my arm, just a whisper of a touch, as though to reassure himself I was still there.
When the violet twilight deepened to a rich amethyst, Finn pulled into the Tasty-Swirl parking lot, the wheels of the Scirocco popping on the fine gravel. The lot was full. A T-ball team in bright orange jerseys swarmed over two of the aluminum picnic tables, while teenagers drifted from car to car, wild-eyed and boisterous. The air smelled of scorched chocolate and the sweet malt scent of waffle cones and the greasy
tang of onion rings.
While Finn bought our ice cream, I staked out a table as far from the T-ballers as I could, a table halfway between the blue-white glow of the Tasty-Swirl’s halogen lights and the velvet dusk beyond. I perched on the very edge of the metal bench, mindful of my bright new dress. Above me, bats swooped out of the night to feast on hapless insects. On the far side of the parking lot, a flock of grackles cloaked a small post oak in shifting shadows, chattering and squawking, and at odd intervals a glissando shriek pierced the air. I wrapped my arms around my waist and shivered.
“Tally.” Finn’s voice, liquid and low, startled me. He handed me a cone wrapped with a rough paper napkin. Already, pearly droplets of melting ice cream welled along the seam between the sugar cone and the waxy chocolate shell.
I tried to smile as I took it from him, but my mouth wouldn’t seem to work right.
He frowned, accentuating the sulky fullness of his lower lip and the harsh geometry of his heavy brows. “What’s wrong?”
“Cal McCormack told me yesterday that you turned down the scholarship to Southern Methodist.”
He sat next to me, the origami folding of his lanky frame stirring the hot, heavy air.
“Cal McCormack needs to mind his own business. It just kills him that you turned him down for me.”
“Forget Cal. Is it true? Did you turn down the scholarship?”
“I don’t want to go to business school,” he said.
“I know.”
“But you don’t understand.”
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t bother answering.
A rivulet of melted ice cream snaked across the back of his hand, but he didn’t pay any attention.
“You ever seen cattle in a chute?” I nodded stiffly. I could see where this was going, and I didn’t much like the idea of being nothing but an obstacle in Finn’s life. “They take that first step and there’s no going back. Each step after that, they can only go one way, one step after another until they’re dead.”
I Scream, You Scream Page 11