Honky Tonk Christmas

by Carolyn Brown

  “Waylon was my cat before I met Judd and Waylon Mendoza,” she said.

  “Where did you get the money to buy a beer joint? And why?” Molly asked.

  “It’s a long story. A hell of a lot longer than any of your stories,” Sharlene said.

  “Well, afore you begin it can me and Tasha have a drink? We’re thirsty and the other kids said they are too and they said for us to bring them out something to drink too,” Judd said.

  “Of course you can, sweetheart. Granny bought a whole case of those little juice packs for you kids. I’ll load up a sack full and you two girls can pass them out. I’ve got a platter of cookies I made for afternoon snacks. You can carry them, Tasha,” Molly said.

  When the children had carried their treats to the yard, Molly sat back down and pointed at Sharlene. “We’ve got at least two hours before the men come in wanting supper. So talk!”

  “In the beginning God made dirt,” Sharlene teased.

  “Girl, this ain’t no jokin’ matter. You get serious,” Molly told her.

  She began when she first had the idea to write a story about the Honky Tonk and ended with that very day, leaving out only the small little detail of the trip to Weatherford and getting so drunk that Holt Jackson had to carry her into her hotel room. Well, that and kissing him in the barn just a couple of hours before.

  “The end,” she said.

  “Well, that explains a lot,” Molly said.

  “Such as?” Sharlene asked.

  “Why you never answer your phone after eight at night or before noon and why you’ve been so secretive about where it is you live in Dallas. Why didn’t you tell me this in the beginning?” Molly asked.

  “Good lord, Momma. I was afraid you’d have a heart attack. I waited until the sisters were here so they could hold you off while I got a head start back to Mingus. I figured you’d cut a pecan switch and start beating on me,” Sharlene said.

  “I can’t believe you got published that quickly!” Molly exclaimed.

  She nodded. “It’s a sheer miracle, I’m telling you. And I got an option for the second one, which I will have finished by Christmas. Which reminds me, we’re having a Honky Tonk Christmas at the beer joint on Christmas Eve. Y’all want to come down to the grand opening?”

  “Hell no!” Molly said.

  “Momma cussed,” Fiona said.

  “I always knew that if anyone could make her lose her religion it would be Sharlene,” Jenny said.

  Molly held up her palms. “And Larissa just handed the deed to that beer joint and the house over to you?”

  She nodded again.

  “What do these places look like?”

  Sharlene went to her duffle bag and brought out a small album and a manila folder. She’d put them in and taken them out a dozen times before Holt arrived that morning. First she was going to come clean with only her mother and see what kind of stinky storm that brewed up, but it didn’t work that way. Now it was out there for the whole family to see and it hadn’t been so very bad. Hopefully they wouldn’t faint dead away when she presented living proof of the story she’d just told them.

  She laid them both on the table and the four sisters gathered around Molly as she opened the folder first. “Well, I’ll be danged. There’s your name right there on the front and your picture on the back.”

  “I’m going to visit my friends that I met in Iraq when the book comes out. They made me promise to come to their towns and sign books for them. Four states in one week. You want to go with me?” Sharlene asked.

  “I’d love to but I couldn’t. Besides, your dad would die in a week if I wasn’t here,” Molly said.

  Sharlene almost choked to death. Her mother had actually said she’d like to go with her and she hadn’t said a word about the hunky man on the front cover in nothing but tight fittin’ jeans, a Texas Longhorn belt buckle, and cowboy boots.

  “That hunk must be the hero. Where’s the sassy witch lady who puts a charm on everyone and then forgets to protect herself from the charm?” Fiona asked.

  “Read it and find out,” Sharlene said.

  “Oh, honey, I will. I intend to own it as soon as it hits the market,” Lisa said.

  “I’m going to parade up and down Main Street and tell everyone that my sister is a writer,” Jenny declared.

  Sharlene pinched her leg. It hurt like hell so she wasn’t sleeping. They should all be gathering firewood to burn her at the stake instead of drooling over her book cover.

  “You don’t have to wait for them to be for sale in stores. I’ll have author’s copies. I’ll send you each a copy.”

  “If you can do all that, by damn, I can straighten out Bart,” Fiona said.

  Sharlene grinned. “That’s the spirit. And if he don’t like what you tell him, remind him that his sister has a beer joint and a house. You and the kids can move to Mingus and you can bartend for me. After you sell his farm and take all his money.”

  Molly quickly shut the folder and opened the album. “Don’t you be leading these four astray.”

  Her nose snarled when she saw the house. “That looks like shit.”

  “Momma, two dirty words in one day!” Sharlene exclaimed.

  “Well, there ain’t another word in the English language to describe that thing. And you need to paint this honky tonk. It looks like something out of a John Wayne movie instead of a modern business,” she said.

  “That’s the charm. Vintage music and vintage looking building. Holt is making the new addition look just like the old part. And I love the Bahamas house. I wouldn’t dream of painting it white.”

  “Well, I’m not sleeping in that place when I come to visit.” Molly pointed at the picture of the multicolored house. “I’d have to take Pepto to stop the diarrhea. I can feel my stomach grumbling just looking at the picture.”

  They all giggled.

  Sharlene pointed at the picture of the Honky Tonk. “You can stay in my apartment. I’ll take the sofa and you can have my bed. Maybe it won’t be too noisy for you.”

  “The day I sleep in a beer joint ain’t dawned yet,” Molly huffed.

  They were still talking about the beer joint when five men filed into the kitchen door but the conversations stopped and the room went silent. Claud went to the refrigerator and took out a gallon jar of sweet tea. Jeff filled glasses with ice and Matthew poured.

  “What’ve you girls been doing? I see you got some pictures,” Claud said.

  “I need to prepare your dad before he sees this stuff,” Molly whispered.

  “We’ve been having some time with Sharlene,” Fiona said. “I’m gathering up the kids and we’re going home, Bart.”

  “We haven’t had supper yet,” he protested.

  “We’re eating at our house tonight,” she said.

  “Why?” Bart asked.

  “I’ll tell you when we get home.” She yelled out the door to Tasha to take her younger sister and brothers to the truck.

  “But…” Bart started to argue.

  The look Fiona gave him would have put a grown grizzly bear in the praying position. Bart knew he was in hot water. His face was a picture of pure guilt.

  “Well, I suppose Fiona’s got her dander up about something.” He tried to make light of the situation. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow at noon. Enjoyed your company today, Holt. Tomorrow we’ll talk about all the carpentry we could use in this family.”

  “Thank you,” Holt said.

  “What was that all about?” Claud asked when they were gone. “I haven’t seen Fiona act like that in years. I thought the children tamed that temper down.”

  “You ever send flowers to another woman?” Molly asked.

  Holt looked at Sharlene.

  She shrugged.

  “No, ma’am, I ain’t that stupid,” Claud said.

  “It’s a good thing,” Molly said.

  “We’d best be leaving too,” Jenny told Miles.

  “I didn’t send flowers to another woman. What are y’a
ll talkin’ about? Is Fiona mad because Bart sent a bouquet to that little filly down at the bank? The woman helped him get his business checkbook straightened out. He’d made a couple of mistakes,” Miles declared.

  Sharlene poked Miles in the arm. “He should have told Fiona. She’s always managed the books. If he made a mistake he should’ve owned up to it with her, not gone flirting with a younger woman. And don’t take up for him. He was wrong and he’s about to find out what happens when you’re wrong,” Sharlene said.

  “Well even if he was wrong, why do I have to go home? I didn’t send flowers to anyone,” Miles said.

  “Under the circumstances, I hope not,” Molly said with a chuckle.

  “What are you talking about?” Miles asked.

  “It’s a big surprise,” Jenny said as she made her way to the door to call their son and daughter into the house.

  “You didn’t tell him yet?” Sharlene whispered in Jenny’s ear.

  “No, but tonight’s the night,” Jenny answered.

  “We stayin’?” Matthew asked Clara.

  “I told them all about my job,” Clara said.

  “You’re going to work?” Claud asked.

  Matthew finished off his tea and said, “Yes, she’ll be working at the school, Dad. Teacher’s aide position came up and they asked her to fill it. What do you think?”

  “That’d be between the two of you. Wouldn’t be any of my business,” Claud said.

  Molly looked around at who was left. “It’s supper time. Clara, you go on and get the leftovers out and put them on the buffet table. I made a big salad to go with the cold cuts and just in case we needed it I made Sharlene a couple of extra pecan pies. Figured we could use them tomorrow if we didn’t eat them all up tonight.”

  “What can I do to help?” Lisa asked.

  “Go make that phone call to the Alvarez family so they’ll have plenty of time to whip up something to bring along. If you give them too short of a notice they’ll feel like they can’t come,” Molly told her. “And then you get out the plates, napkins, and cups. Holt, you and Sharlene go wipe down the tables where the kids made mud pies and put on those new plastic tablecloths. Bart, you can fill glasses with ice and Matthew, you call the kids in and make sure they get their hands all washed.”

  “What about me?” Claud asked.

  “You come over here and sit down on this sofa and listen to me,” Molly said.

  Sharlene wasted no time getting to the backyard with a bottle of spray cleanser and a roll of paper towels. She hadn’t been this nervous when she told her father that she’d enlisted in the service. That time he wouldn’t speak to her for days. She might have heard the last words from his mouth for the next decade if her mother showed him the pictures of the Honky Tonk.

  “What just happened in there?” Holt asked.

  “We had our meeting of the Waverly women. Miles is about to find out that Jenny is pregnant and they weren’t planning a third child. Bart is fixing to find out that he’d best not ever send another woman flowers again. Lisa and Jeff’s son is going through puberty. Clara went to work. And I told them about my book and the Honky Tonk. Momma is cluing Daddy in right now. After the army fit, I’m not sure whether to take off for Mingus or stay and fight.”

  Holt wiped one side of the table and she got the other. More than once their hands met in the middle and white heat passed between them. “Do I need to put Judd and Waylon in the truck and point it south with the pedal to the floor? Sounds to me like what’s about to hit the fan is going to stink really bad.”

  Sharlene wiped fast and furiously at the mud stains on the table. “Don’t know just yet. Momma can work wonders when she wants to. She didn’t want to when I joined the army. I’m not sure if she’s got a big enough miracle up her sleeve to get me out of trouble this time. We might want to tear out of here if Daddy comes outside with steam coming out his ears.”

  “Did your momma take it well?” Holt asked.

  Sharlene tossed him the paper towels when his got too wet and dirty to use anymore. “Surprisingly, yes. If she hadn’t I was going to blame it on you.”

  Holt caught the roll mid-air. “Why me?”

  She sprayed a heavy layer of cleaner on a dirt smear. “Because you made me feel guilty because your family is all gone.”

  “They’re going to crucify me right along with you because they asked several times what I was working on and I evaded the issue,” he said. He liked her family and her brothers. It had been a wonderful afternoon and he looked forward to more of the same the next day but it could be coming to an abrupt halt.

  Matthew joined them and winked at Sharlene. “Clara filled me in on the skeleton of why you haven’t been home in eight months. She said I can have details later tonight.”

  “Daddy?” Sharlene asked.

  Matthew yelled at the children to come wash their hands and get ready for supper. “Momma’s still talking. I heard something like ‘looks like shit’ and ‘a beer joint’ but that’s all I can tell you. Fire isn’t shooting out the top of his head yet. It would be mine if one of my girls grew up to be a bartender in Texas, let me tell you.”

  “Why are you so afraid of your dad? Good grief, Sharlene, you are a grown woman,” Holt said.

  “Thank you for that reminder. It just makes me feel so much better,” she snapped.

  “You are so welcome. Now I’m going back inside to see what else I can do,” he said as they smoothed the last tablecloth. “Are you coming with me?”

  “Yes, I am. You are my buffer.”

  Holt shot a look across the table at her and grinned. “Well, damn! Those hayloft kisses were just mercy kisses because you brought me here to stand between you and your folks if they threw a fit?”

  “If you think that, then they might have been.”

  Claud looked up from the picture album and cocked his head to one side. “That has got to be the ugliest house I’ve ever seen, Sharlene. I don’t like you running a beer joint but you are a grown woman and if that’s what you want to do then I can’t stop you. Don’t expect me to come down there and go inside that place though. And the book? Congratulations on that. You’ve always had a way with words. Momma says you made a bunch of money already with it and that’s good. Now let’s eat supper,” he said.

  It was more words than he usually spoke at any one time and Sharlene was very grateful to hear every one of them.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Holt slipped an arm around her waist and she trembled at his touch. “Now that wasn’t so difficult was it?”

  “How do you feel about your woman running such a place?” Claud asked.

  Holt let his arm fall away from her. “Sharlene and I are just friends. I guess it’s her business what she does for a living.”

  “I see. Well, you kids all ready for some supper?” Claud nodded seriously.

  “Yes!” Yells from all the kids echoed through the house.

  Claud reached down and took Molly’s hand. “Momma, you say the blessing and we’ll let these young’uns get after it.”

  Holt noticed that Matthew was holding Clara’s hand and Jeff had an arm around Lisa’s waist. He held his hands behind his back and wished he had the same right to Sharlene.

  ***

  The pillow was too firm. The bed was too soft. The air conditioner made too much noise. A lonesome old coyote howled in the distance. All of it combined to keep her awake. She looked at the clock. It was ten thirty. No wonder she couldn’t sleep. She was just catching a second wind at two in the morning most nights. She was never in bed before three. If she was in the Honky Tonk she’d be hustling around drawing up beers, making buckets and pitchers full of mixed drinks.

  It didn’t help that Holt was in the next room. Right through that wall. She looked at it as if she could see through the two layers of sheet rock and into the other bedroom. His bed was no more than five feet from hers but a solid wall separated them. Not totally unlike the wall that would always keep them ap
art. Fathers and bartenders did not mix.

  A ten thirty bedtime was one of the reasons she’d left Corn. Granted, it wasn’t the major one but it did contribute. Get up with the chickens, go to bed with the cows, and start all over the next morning before dawn. Sharlene was not cut out to be a farm wife. Besides, if she shut her eyes the nightmares would start and she hated them worse than anything.

  She eased out of bed, checked the children, and pulled the sheet up over each of them, then carefully went down the hall to the kitchen. Maybe a glass of milk or a piece of pecan pie would make her sleepy. If not, she’d turn on the kitchen light and look at magazines and catalogs until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. That beat flipping from one side of the bed to the other.

  There was one piece of pie left so she ate it in the dark with her fingers instead of dirtying a fork. She looked out the kitchen window while she washed her hands. It was hard to imagine that just hours before kids had been yelling and screaming as they tried to touch the tree branches in the old swing set. That she’d sat beside Holt and his leg had brushed against hers sending heat flowing through her body like hot lava. She wandered out to the backyard, tucked the tail of her mid-thigh knit nightshirt up under her rear end, and sat down in a swing.

  She pushed off with one foot and let the motion take her mind back to when she was a teenager and couldn’t sleep. She often worked out her problems in the night air on the same set of swings. It was there that she decided she was not going to marry her high school sweetheart. It was there that she decided to join the army. And when she came home, she was swinging when she made up her mind to go to Dallas, rent an apartment, and look for a job.

  When she was a little girl the swings were bright red and shiny. By the time she was in high school they were dark green. When she left for Iraq the first time her father had painted them yellow. Now they were red again. The chains had rusted and been replaced several times and the original metal seats had rusted years before and were now wooden.

  Did Holt grow up on a farm or a ranch? There was so much she didn’t know about him and she wanted to know everything. If she did would it make it easier to find a chink in his armor? One little rusty hole called a major fault that would be something she couldn’t stand? Maybe when he got angry he slapped his women around? No, that wouldn’t hold water. Holt was the kindest, most decent man she’d ever met.