“You ever spent much time around the two of us, you’d know better.” Then she smiled. “No, it was more a rock-hard you-are-beneath-my-notice kind of thing. On my part, at least. Him, well, I think it was mostly just rock-hard head. Which hasn’t changed in fifty-three years, I might add.”
“Fifty-three years. Wow.” I couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
“Yeah.”
And then I had her. A note that could only be called fondness, tinged ever so faintly with regret. “You still love him.”
“Of course I do. Changes nothing.”
Okay. I thought I was beginning to grasp this, but—”Why not?”
One eyebrow arched. “Life isn’t that simple, girl. He’s wrong. He . . . hurt me. And he’ll choke on his pride before he’ll admit it.”
“A driver’s license is worth going so long not speaking?”
She seemed taken aback, maybe that I knew so many details, but she didn’t comment on that. “Not just a license. A woman. A betrayal.”
A woman? Okay, now I was behind her one hundred per cent. One hundred ten. “Rat bastard.” Then, for good measure, “Slut.”
“Man won’t apologize. Not that I’d accept it.”
“Of course not. I’m sorry won’t begin to cut it.” I was enraged on her behalf.
But she only stared at something I couldn’t see, her face filled with sorrow.
How would I feel about Jelly in six months? Would it still hurt? Probably not. It really didn’t hurt all that much already. “Men and sex. Too much trouble,” I said.
She gasped. “Bite your tongue. I never said I was done with sex, and you certainly better not be.”
Oh, lordy, I was not at all ready for that mental image. “But—”
“The point is not the sex so much. It’s that he chose Glory. Nothing could hurt worse.”
Glory. The woman was Glory???? I couldn’t even begin to picture the warrior I’d left being involved with the Texaco man next door. Eww.
“Enough of that.” She rose. “Finish up, and we’ll get started preparing for tomorrow.” She glanced over at Alex, who had already cleaned one plate and started on another, though I had no idea where she put it. Baby Alex must have been hungry. “You, too, Alexandra.”
“Huh?” Alex was, as she had been except for when Jeremy was over for lunch, staring out the window. When Jeremy meandered out of the bay, you could practically see her melt, as though she was merely a teenager with a crush and not a mother-to-be who was far from home.
I wanted to remind her about the perils of the male of the species, but if she hadn’t learned anything from Pretty Boy, I wasn’t optimistic. And, to be fair, Jeremy was his polar opposite. Also cute as all get-out. At lunch, Alex had dreamed up any number of reasons to stray by the booth where Val, Jeremy and his dad and grandfather sat right across from the kitchen.
Speaking of which, did no one around there notice how often the not-speaking grandparents stole glimpses of each other?
“You’ll help Eudora.”
“Help with what?”
“Earth to Alex,” I said. “Breakfast tomorrow. Lunch.”
“What about them?”
She was so gone. Jeremy was toast.
“You’ll assist Eudora with the prep for tomorrow’s meal.”
“Are you kidding? Does anyone cook anymore?” She caught herself. “Besides you, I mean. This stuff is fantastic.”
“You cannot rear a child properly without home-cooked meals.”
“What makes you say . . . ” Alex’s voice trailed off as she noticed me shaking my head.
“Jeremy may be clueless, kiddo, but you can’t hide that baby forever. I’m surprised you’ve done so this long.”
“I wasn’t exactly . . . ”
My snort didn’t make her one iota happier.
Lorena placed one hand on Alex’s forearm. “My grandson has a good heart, but he’s only eighteen. Still a boy, while you are a woman now. Years aren’t the benchmark,” Lorena said. “Motherhood is. It changes you forever.”
So Alex was more mature than me? Lorena had a point, though. I was dependable and conscientious, however unglamorous that made me, but I hadn’t even signed a lease since Sister died, still waiting to find that perfect spot . . .
Home. Not that I’d know much about staying in place.
“But what if I can’t keep it?” She had tears in her eyes.
“Where is your family?” Lorena asked.
“Doesn’t matter. They don’t want me.” I saw in her desolation that she really believed it. Maybe even a grandchild might not change that?
She was like me. Like Val. Alone. Her relatives might be living while mine were not, but the world was full of families who hit wide of the Brady Bunch mark.
“Do they know?” I asked her softly.
She nodded. “My stepwitch and my dad wanted me to get rid of it.” She blinked several times, then lifted her chin. “I wouldn’t.”
“Is he the father?” Pretty Boy. I couldn’t call him Nicky.
“He says no, but he’s wrong. I’ve never been with anyone else.” The tears she’d been battling spilled over.
And it was me who was toast. I was far from the ideal savior for this girl, but it seemed I was all she had. “It’ll be okay, Alex.” I covered her hand with mine across the booth. “We’ll figure out something.” I didn’t know how, but that was for later. “You just go take your nap, okay? For the baby’s sake,” I hastened to add. “Got to keep your strength up.”
“Come with me, Alexandra,” Lorena said, and wrapped her arm around Alex’s thin shoulders. “There’s plenty of time to decide.” She glanced back at me and nodded as if she approved of my behavior.
When they were out of sight, I let my head sag against the back of the booth.
But when Jeremy popped out of his bay for his ten-times-an-hour check of the store windows, I managed a convincing smile and sign language to reassure him that Alex was indeed fine.
Then I got up and went back to work.
Ohmigosh. The RV. How freaking cool it was.
Okay, so it was really more of a trailer that had to be towed behind a truck than some streamlined house on wheels, but it was our own little abode.
Except its tires were flat. And even if they weren’t, I didn’t have the truck to haul it, but still . . .what I couldn’t have done with something like that.
I had to give Alex credit. While I was running the store that afternoon, she had taken a little nap, but first, amazingly enough, she’d made a stab at some cleaning. There might be hope for us.
The place dadgum sure needed it. Lorena and the rat bastard hadn’t used it, she said, since they’d stopped speaking. They used to take it to the mountains in New Mexico, she told me. Boy, did my brain start clicking over that. Sister just kept those clues coming.
The store and station were closed on Sundays—something I could not imagine—and sometimes, she said, they would just lock up on Saturday, too, and go fishing or to see their grandbabies who lived out of state.
The dust in this trailer and the flat tires told the whole tale. Glory had a lot to answer for. More, it seemed to me, than the rat bastard. I could not imagine what he saw in her. Not after comparing fried okra to MREs.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Could Lorena still be cooking for him at home? Oh, surely not. Surely . . . I couldn’t ask. I didn’t want to know that a woman I had begun to admire deeply could be so foolish.
Men. They are the undoing of us. I certainly couldn’t hold myself out as a shining example of wisdom.
Isis liked this place, I could tell. She’d already sniffed out the kitchen area, though we would be having a chat about where cat paws belong. Which was not on top of the counters—such as these counters were, about all two feet of them. Okay, eighteen inches.
This was the playhouse I used to think I would give up my dreams of a pony for. Stove, refrigerator, booth table that made into a second bed. Bathroom—with a shower!—and,
way up high, a double bed.
Perfect for one person, okay for two if they were close. Which, of course, Alex and I were not.
“Pea.”
“What?”
Alex emerged from the bathroom. She’d changed her clothes and looked . . . cute. Odd, yes, in a denim jumper Lorena borrowed for Alex from her daughter Millie, but sweet. Elfin, not some Goth wannabe.
“Jeremy wants me to go with him to meet some of his friends.” Her face was strained with misery. “You have to tell him I can’t. That you need me for—” She shrugged and scanned the trailer. “Something. I can’t go.”
She’d been so excited earlier. “Why not?”
“Look at me!” she nearly screamed. “I’m dressed like a dork.”
“We’ll get you something else soon, I promise, but you can’t expect to look like you used to before.” Bless her heart. It had to be hard, all the changes in her body. “Anyway, Jeremy would find out sooner or later. He deserves better than to be lied to.”
“What do you care? You won’t be around long, anyhow,” she muttered. “And I don’t know where I’ll end up once you ditch me. I don’t know why you couldn’t have just left me alone.” She wheeled, grabbed the door handle. “I was doing fine with Nicky, no matter what you thought.” She was halfway out the door when she paused. Looked back. “He loved me once. He could have come around in time, once he saw his son.”
“You know you’re having a boy?” I asked, since I didn’t have the first idea where to begin explaining all the ways in which she was wrong about Pretty Boy.
But only empty air was there to hear me.
I refused to sit down. Nothing good ever comes of sitting still in troubled times. All you do is think your way into a funk.
Meanwhile, dust awaited me.
By the end of my second day, I was flat worn out. Even being a cocktail waitress on stilettos was nothing compared to what a woman twice my age managed every single day.
Lorena was a revelation. Patient, kind, an excellent teacher . . . and tough to the bone. She might have been quiet and reserved, but the woman did not know the meaning of the word quit. I couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d been like when she was young; even though she moved more slowly than me, it was all I could do to keep up with her. I was ready for a nap before we even served lunch.
So by all rights, I should have had no trouble falling asleep that night. Alex sure hadn’t, curled up with Isis on the short bed made from what would have been the RV’s kitchen table. As for Val, I’d seen little of him except that he showed up at the café in time for every meal. I had also spotted him over at the station now and again. I’d have worried more, I think, about what trouble he might be getting into at the station while everyone else was under a car or a hood, but I’d actually seen him with grease under his fingernails before he cleaned up at lunchtime today. Unlikely con man behavior, I’d say. Looked to me like he was really trying to go straight.
I’d caught sight of him earlier joking around with Jeremy, the rat bastard and Jeremy’s dad, seeming more relaxed than I’d known him to be since I’d met him. An extended version of that one vulnerable moment I witnessed when he spotted the hawk.
Just because he learned how to pick a pocket as a boy didn’t mean he did that anymore. Okay, so he still hadn’t explained where he got whatever money he was carrying, but he appeared to be working hard now. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for a little boy brought up that way.
I flipped over yet again and punched the pillow.
I could not lie there pretending to sleep one second longer, or I’d scream. I got up and crept out quietly. Over my shoulder, I saw Lorena’s house, darkened, and I wondered about the silence.
I had a mind to have a chat with Ray.
Or, better yet, to go see Glory and ask why she did it. Although the image of her shotgun pointed my direction did put a damper on my yen.
But I kept thinking about that sword competition and wondering if I could get her to teach me. Not that I would be around for the festival, but the mental image of a sword in my hand, of being a woman who could wield one, had stuck in my brain and didn’t appear to have any interest in leaving.
Past the house, gray with hot pink trim, and the heart-shaped handrails on the front steps. I couldn’t help smiling every time I thought of them or the metal silhouettes attached to the side of the house. Two snoozing cowboys book-ending one of a couple dancing close, her skirt flaring at the knee like she was wearing petticoats. The house sat back halfway between grocery and garage. Ray and Lorena should remember that its position meant something.
Love lived there, you could feel it. In a world filled with woe, there is no excuse for wasting love. Somehow, before I left, I would get to the bottom of their situation and fix it, I hoped. I had to try. I just didn’t think I could bear to walk off, knowing their standoff might last for heaven knows how long.
People do not seem to understand how easy it is to lose those you love.
I wandered outside in the light from the big lamp on a pole in the middle of the yard. Moths were dipping and diving, and the drone of cicadas was punctuated by the croaking of frogs. I slapped at a mosquito and pondered going back, but I was tired of tossing. It was dark, though, out past that circle of light.
Then I heard footsteps crunch on gravel. I shielded my eyes to peer at the road and began edging backward, out of sight. Who would be walking down this road in the middle of the night?
The figure stopped. “Red? What are you doing out here?”
“Val?”
“Yeah.” He skirted the edge of the light to reach me. “You okay?”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“Why are you out here so late?”
“Can’t sleep.” All too aware of him standing so close, I was grateful that I’d taken the time to slip into some shorts and a tank top. “What are you up to?”
“Headed back to Jeremy’s. Didn’t want to wake anybody, so I had my ride drop me off a ways back.”
“Where were you coming from?”
“The Rough and Ready.” He paused. “You should come with me sometime.”
“Thanks, but I’m not that big on bars. For a while, I was a cocktail waitress at a topless joint.”
His eyes lit. “Short skirt? High heels?”
“Four-inch stilettos.”
“Tell me there was cleavage, and I’ll die a happy man.”
I couldn’t resist teasing back. “A peek of nipple if I wasn’t careful when I bent over.”
A guttural sound from his throat. “Red—” He reached for me.
I side-stepped. “Nuh-uh.”
“Fine.” His hand dropped, but his eyes held a glitter that should have had me running. “But you’re missing out.”
It’s only fair that I let him in on the secret, that I am Through With Men and thus immune. “Val,” I began “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m not attracted to you.”
His eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline. “Sugar, that can’t be right.”
“Oh, really? You’re that irresistible?”
He shrugged. “Hey, no bragging, just simple fact. Women like me. A lot. Even when I don’t exert myself.”
“But if you do, they fall at your feet?”
“I don’t ask for things to be that way.” A quick flash of teeth. “Just how it is. I know I’m lucky.” He leaned toward me, his voice sliding low. “But I’m also real good, sugar.”
I couldn’t stifle the laughter that erupted, part amazement at the size of his ego and part pure amusement as I contemplated taking it down a notch.
He laughed with me, and the moment sang with something shiny and bright and . . . fun.
I crossed my arms and shook my head slowly. “I truly do hate to dent that fragile ego, but I won’t be viewing you from shoe level anytime soon, and you can forget feeling bad about breaking my heart because you won’t.”
“Oh, really?” That devil’s grin again. “How do you figure th
at?”
“Because I’m finished getting attached to the male of the species.”
The grin widened, but it didn’t deter me. “I come from a long line of women who make poor choices, and I have carried on the tradition admirably up to this point, but there’s one thing different about me.”
“And what would that be?”
“That was Pea. I am now Eudora, and Eudora is Through With Men.” I enunciated clearly, to make sure he understood. Then I relented a bit. “Except for their obvious uses.”
“Which are?”
“Hey, I appreciate a good orgasm as much as the next woman.”
“There are appliances to deal with that.” He shook his head. “A poor substitute, you ask me, but okay in a pinch.”
“I couldn’t agree more, and I did not come unprepared.”
His eyes went hot. “Well, well, Red, you surprise me. Can I see it?”
“I’m not finished,” I said primly. “There are occasionally other uses for men.”
“Not as much fun, I don’t imagine. Let me guess—opening jars.”
“Please. They make little rubber pads for that.”
“Killing bugs?”
“Snakes, maybe. I murder my own bugs, thank you.”
“Car repairs, I know that about you already. You can’t even remember to fill your tank.”
“I could, if certain people hadn’t been distracting me.”
“Wanna see how distracting I can be?” He leaned so near that I could feel his breath warm on my cheeks.
I stood my ground. And yawned.
Val chuckled. “Okay, okay.” He studied me. “Tired but can’t sleep, huh?”
“I’ve been trying.”
“I have a remedy that never fails.” He held out a hand, started towing me along.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He led me to a small clearing at the far side of the grocery, away from house or RV or garage. He tugged me to the grass. “Stretch out.”
“You must think I’m an idiot.”
“Don’t be so paranoid.” He settled himself on the grass beside me.
“I’m not going to roll around on the grass with you, Val. I told you—I am Through. With. Men. Period.”
The Goddess of Fried Okra Page 14