“Watch me, I’m a monkey,” Waylon shouted.
Sharlene looked up to see him hanging upside down from a crossbeam. “Don’t fall,” she called out.
“Watch me, Sharlene!” Judd ran past her and plopped her fanny down on one of the swings. “I’m Jane from the Tarzan cartoon.” She gave out a bloodcurdling yell that sounded more like a half-dead starving coyote out in the woods behind the Tonk than Tarzan. If he’d sounded like that back in the day when he was the star at the movie theaters, there would have been more people rushing out than paying their quarters to get inside.
“I think Tarzan did that, not Jane,” Sharlene told her and went back to brainstorming in her spiral notebook.
The new book wasn’t a sequel to the first one even though her editor would have liked that. She’d started with a whole new cast of characters and timeline. This one was a time travel about a woman who went to sleep in the late eighteen hundreds and woke up the next morning in a small town in north Texas a hundred years later with a redneck husband, a double-wide trailer, and pregnant. All she could think about was getting back to her own world but then her husband won her heart and they lived happily ever after.
“Then I’m a girl Tarzan.” Judd let out another whoop that had all four men looking in that direction. When they didn’t see broken bones or blood, they went back to work.
Waylon left the jungle gym and claimed the other swing. “You can’t be a girl Tarzan. He’s a boy so I get to be him. You can be his monkey or Jane but you can’t be Tarzan.”
“I will not be a monkey. They’re ugly. I’ll be Jane and you be Tarzan. If you can’t holler like he does then I’ll do it for you. Me Jane. You Tarzan. Monkey is Chee-Chee.”
“My monkey ain’t Chee-Chee. That’s a dumb old girl’s monkey. My monkey is Hoss.”
“That ain’t a monkey’s name. You can’t name a monkey something like that. It’ll think he’s a horse and horses can’t climb trees,” she argued.
For the next hour they lived in a jungle. Their bickering and giggles blended in with the sounds of nail guns putting up two-by-four studs and men discussing what was next on the list that day and when they’d have the whole building in the dry. If they kept on at the rate they were going, it would be finished before the end of September. That meant she’d have to make a decision whether to go ahead and open the room up for customers before the grand opening or to wait.
She’d filled three pages with notes before she laid the book on the grass beside her folding lawn chair and watched them play. Her phone rang and she ignored it the first time but then it started again.
“Hello,” she said.
“Sharlene, where are you? What’s all that noise I hear in the background?” her mother, Molly, asked.
“I’m outside. I brought my work with me so I could get some fresh air,” she said honestly.
“I’m making final dinner plans for Sunday and I’m not taking no for an answer. Your brothers and their families are all going to be here right after church and then the next day we’re having a picnic in the backyard with the whole family plus friends and neighbors. You will be here. We haven’t seen you since Christmas.”
“I haven’t changed all that much since Christmas that you wouldn’t recognize me, and the road runs both ways, Momma,” Sharlene said, hoping the whole time that her mother wouldn’t get a wild hair and come south to see her.
“Yes, it does and if you don’t come see me this weekend like you’ve been promising, I’m coming to Dallas the next one. I mean it, Sharlene. Your dad said he’d let the boys take care of the chores and we’d drive down there. Eight months is too long.”
“I was gone a year two different times to Iraq, Momma.”
“That was more than five hours away and it was impossible for you to come home. It’s not now.” Molly’s tone didn’t leave an ounce of wiggle room.
“I’m coming to Corn, I promise. So don’t pack your bags and make Daddy put on dress clothes just yet,” Sharlene said.
“Just you?”
“Did you want me to bring someone, Momma?” The idea was born in an instant and she rejected it just as quickly. She would not ask Holt to go with her to Corn. As much fun as it would be to take the children, she couldn’t ask.
Or could she? All he could do was say no.
“You’re not getting any younger. I had five kids when I was your age,” Molly was saying when Sharlene snapped back to the present and stopped entertaining crazy notions.
“Can you hold just a minute?” Sharlene asked. If he went, he’d understand why she could never live in a place like Corn, Oklahoma.
“Yes, I can. Why?” Molly asked.
“I need to ask a co-worker a question,” she answered. She pushed the mute button and crossed the small yard to where Holt was measuring studs and cutting the ends off with a chop saw. She tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, I’ve got a favor. Do you have plans for this weekend?”
He rolled the kinks from his neck and looked at her. “Other than laundry? You want to come over and help me do laundry?”
“I do not!”
“Then why are you asking?”
She wished he’d bring those arms down and wrap them around her. “I want you to go home with me. We’ll leave at the break of dawn Sunday and not get home until Monday night. You up for a five-hour drive to Corn, Oklahoma, and another one back here on Monday afternoon?”
Holt frowned. “Are you asking me to meet your parents? We haven’t even gone to dinner or had a date. I mean, we did sleep together, but I don’t think…”
She slapped him on the arm. “Not in that sense. I just thought the kids might like to go to the farm for a couple of days. I’ve got tons of nieces and nephews and there’ll be family and food everywhere. If you don’t want to go, can I at least have the kids?”
He grinned. “Are we going to have a custody battle if I say no?”
“My momma is waiting. She asked if I was bringing someone. I’m asking you. It’s not a marriage proposal.”
“Good. I don’t get engaged without a ring and I don’t see one in your hands. Yes, Sharlene, the kids and I would love to get away for a couple of days. The only condition is that we take my truck. I refuse to show up anywhere in a pink Volkswagen.”
She bristled. “What is wrong with my car?”
“It’s pink. It cramps my long legs. It doesn’t have enough room for the kids to cuss a cat without getting hairs in their mouths and I don’t like it. So it’s up to you—are we still invited? I’ll drive up and back. You provide us with a place to sleep and lots of food. Sounds fair to me.”
“Can I tell the kids?” she asked.
“I don’t care. You might wait until they wake up from their naps or else they’ll be so hyped they won’t sleep and then they’ll be cranky as hell the rest of the day. I’ll have to deal with them all day tomorrow wanting to know how many hours it is until we leave and how many kids will be there as it is.” He went back to measuring studs and wondered why in the devil he’d just agreed to her invitation. Sure, it would be nice to get away for a couple of days and the children would love the country. But five hours up there and back with Sharlene? Just the touch of her palm on his sweaty bicep had glued him to the ground. No woman had ever affected him like that.
“I have twelve nieces and nephews, all totaled. I’d have to count how many of each but it’s a good mixture so you can tell them that much. And they’ll have to be ready to leave Mingus by seven and we’ll get there by noon. That’s five hours any way you look at it.” She pushed the mute button on the phone and walked away from him.
“Hey, Sharlene,” he hollered.
She turned around with the phone at her ear. “What?”
“Do I have to pretend to be something other than your employee?”
She shot him a mean look and shook her head.
“Who was that?” her mother asked.
“Someone working on a building beside my park bench,” she said.
“Maybe someday I’ll get out of Dallas, Momma. But I’m not ever coming back to Corn to find a husband. Are you making ham?” She changed the subject.
“Yes and the kids are out of school up here on Monday for a teacher’s meeting so we’re having two days. Sunday it’s ham and the family. Monday your dad is grilling burgers and hot dogs and we’re inviting friends, but you didn’t answer me a while ago. Are you coming up here alone? Is there finally someone in your life? Please tell me there is. Folks up here are beginning to say that you are an old maid or worse.”
“Is there anything worse in Corn than being an old maid?”
“Yes, there is. Being one of them women who sell themselves or being one that don’t like men,” Molly said sternly.
“Well, I’m neither of those so I guess I’ll just be a disgraceful old maid. Maybe I’ll get a dozen cats and be a crazy old maid cat woman,” Sharlene teased.
“Don’t you go on like that with me when I’m worried about you ever finding a decent man at your age.”
“Sorry, Momma. It was going to be a surprise but I’ll tell you so you can quit fretting. I’m bringing a co-worker with me. His name is Holt Jackson and he’s raising his niece and nephew. Their momma died in May. Kids are twins. Six years old. Is that all right?”
Molly squealed. “Oh, honey, I can’t wait to go to Ladies Circle tomorrow morning and tell everyone. Is it serious?”
“No, Momma, it’s not serious. We’re just… friends.”
“Once he eats my cooking, it could get serious. A mother can always hope and pray,” Molly said.
“Yes, you can. Good-bye, Momma,” Sharlene said.
Her conscience nagged at her. She and Holt weren’t even friends. They were business associates. Of course her momma would read all kinds of scenarios into the visit and once she met Holt with his deep voice and big smile, she’d be on the sidelines with a John Deere tractor pushing Sharlene at the man. Thank God it was only for two days and then she could come back to her Honky Tonk. She’d just have to remember to go home more often.
At five thirty the hammering stopped and the work came to an end for another week. What had happened to the last four weeks? It seemed like only yesterday that Sharlene had hired Holt and now the job was nearly half done.
Sharlene and Judd helped gather up small pieces of scrap lumber and throw it in an ever growing pile in the backyard. The kids scattered it most days building forts or playhouses, but at five o’clock it was their job to get it all gathered up. As they picked up the pieces, Sharlene ran across several small end stud pieces that Judd had used for art. She’d colored them in bright colors and then stacked them up like a totem pole. The pictures made Sharlene smile and she couldn’t bear to throw them into the trash heap to be carried away.
“You want to keep your colored ones over by the back door so you can play with them next week?” Sharlene asked.
Judd nodded and carried them in that direction.
“Did you tell them?” Holt whispered when Judd was out of hearing distance.
“No, I thought I’d let you have some peace tomorrow. You can tell them whenever you want,” she answered.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with a bandana he kept in his pocket and slumped down into one of two old lawn chairs under the shade tree. “Sit down here with me and tell me what to expect. Am I walking into a hornet’s nest? I probably shouldn’t mention that I’m building an addition on your beer joint, huh?”
Sharlene sat in the chair beside him. Her sweaty thighs immediately stuck to the plastic webbing. “That would be a very good idea. I might tell them the news while I’m there. The stuff is going to hit the fan and stink to high heaven when I do.”
“You’re not a little girl anymore, Sharlene. You’ve been to Iraq and you can drive a jeep to the barracks in a hellacious sand storm,” he said.
“That’s a lie.” She blushed.
“Oh?”
“I was just making that up but I have no doubt I could’ve done it,” she said.
“What else did you make up? Did you really go to Iraq?”
She nodded slowly. “I really did go. Two tours. One for a year, came home and got sent right back a couple of weeks later. So it was more like one tour with a two-week break.”
“What’d you do over there?”
“I’d rather talk about my family,” she quickly changed the subject. “Momma is Molly and she will try to win you into the family with her cooking. I can’t help that. She’d feed a homeless serial killer to find me a husband. Don’t encourage her or she’ll have you talking to a preacher before we leave on Monday afternoon. Oh, no! I wasn’t thinking about Judd and Waylon missing school on Monday.”
“Statewide teacher’s meeting on Monday. I’d been meanin’ to tell you but I only got the note in their backpacks yesterday,” he said.
“Good. Oklahoma has a teacher’s meeting that day too, so my nieces and nephews will be out,” she said.
“Go on. Tell me about your dad,” Holt said.
“Daddy is Claud and basically he’s pretty quiet. He has to be because Momma is like me. She talks all the time. His ears probably scarred over years ago and he could be deaf by now. They’ve built on to the house so there’s enough room. They’ve got two spare bedrooms and a big family room. Momma says Monday is going to be with friends invited and Sunday is family only but both days will be out in the yard. The house isn’t big enough for that many to sit down to dinner. I have four brothers; Jeff, Matthew, Bart, and Miles, and four sisters-in-law and a dozen nieces and nephews.”
“What kind of clothes do I need to pack?” he asked.
“Play clothes for the children. Casual for you but tuck in a set of work clothes in case the men folks decide to do something.”
Holt cut his eyes around at her. “Like what?”
“Don’t get that deer in the headlights look, Holt. Corn is out in the middle of nowhere but it’s not Deliverance. They don’t wear their starched and ironed jeans out to feed the cows or to harvest watermelons for the party,” she said.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’m not going to have to ride a horse or wrestle a bull to the ground, am I?”
She laughed. “No, maybe toss some feed out to the livestock or… you haven’t ever ridden a horse?”
Judd came running up to them. “What horse? Is there a horse back in those woods? Can I ride it? I want to ride a horse so bad.”
Sharlene patted her shoulder. “I thought you wanted to ride in a carriage like Cinderella in a fancy dress with your hair all fancy.”
“And glass slippers too. But after the party at the castle, I want to ride one of them big old white horses,” she said.
Sharlene hugged her tightly, not even minding the sweaty smell of a child who’d been running and playing in the hot Texas afternoon. “Someday a prince will ride up on a big white horse and he’ll reach down his hand and…”
“And help me up on his horse and we’ll ride off to live happy never after,” she said wistfully and then ran off to tell Waylon about her prince.
“On that note, I’m taking them home. You’ve still got a busy night ahead of you and I’ve got laundry to do. See you at seven o’clock on Sunday morning. I’ll pick you up so you don’t have to get your car out.”
“Don’t want my pink car sitting in front of your Bahamas island house? And you didn’t answer me. Are you a city boy who’s never been on a horse?” she asked.
“I have been on a horse a few times. And your pink car wouldn’t even show up in the driveway of that house. It’d be like wearing camouflage into battle. Don’t oversleep, and get ready for the ride of your life. Five hours in the pickup with those two will have you pulling out all that pretty red hair,” he teased.
She sat there for a long time after he and the children left with three words playing on a loop through her mind—pretty red hair.
***
It was one of “those” nights. Luther shooed everyone out of the Tonk at closing time. Tessa wiped down the bar one more time. They sat down at a table and talked about the new addition for ten minutes while they had their after-hours beer and then she was alone.
She tried a hot shower but it didn’t work. Neither did hot chocolate. Finally she put a pair of rubber flip-flops on her feet and headed for the orange rocking chair on Holt’s porch. She’d be extra quiet so that she didn’t wake him. He’d had a long week of hard work in the hot sun. He needed his sleep.
She drove to the house, parked, and shut the car door as quietly as possible. She was halfway across the yard when her right foot sunk into a gopher hole in the yard and she went down on one knee.
“Well, shit!” she whispered.
“If you keep sayin’ those words you’ll have to stand in the corner at school,” Holt said.
Thinking she’d imagined his Texas drawl, she jerked her head around in the direction from where she thought she’d heard it. Sure enough there was Holt stretched out on his back on an old quilt in the middle of the front yard.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I might ask you the same thing. Did you stump your toe?”
“No, I think it’s a gopher hole but I’m all right. I was stealing time on your porch. I couldn’t sleep.” She retrieved her flip-flop from the shallow hole and stood up. When she took a step, her knee didn’t hurt so evidently she was fine.
“Need some hot chocolate?”
“Already had some. It didn’t work.”
“I’ll share my blanket. Forget the rocker and join me. I couldn’t sleep either. I let the kids stay up late and watch movies since it’s Friday night. They’ll have to go to bed early tomorrow night so we can go to Corn on Sunday.”
Honky Tonk Christmas Page 9