Stars to Lead Me Home: Love and Marriage (A Novel)

by Peggy Webb

  Not that Dick was much company sitting all hunched over, hiding behind a menu or a road map or a newspaper. Even when he did look my way, he had a scowl on his face.

  Still. . .

  “Tea?”

  The young woman is standing beside me holding a yellow plastic pitcher.

  “I thought you looked like you could use another cool drink,” she says, and I wonder what she saw in me, whether I’m sending out signals of distress.

  “My goodness,” I say. “I didn’t expect service at the table.”

  “Slow night. Nothing’s been in here except the mosquitoes and a trucker or two. Not that I can tell the difference.”

  Up close she’s a pretty girl, one of those natural Texas beauties you see kicking their long legs at half-time when the Dallas Cowboys play. She looks about Lydia’s age. Old enough for college. My maternal instincts come to the front.

  “Do you work here part time?” I ask, hopeful.

  “I started out filling in then I got lucky. The regular check-out girl quit and I got the job full time.”

  I picture her fifteen years from now, faded and worn, varicose veins in her legs from standing all day long, permanent bags under her eyes from working two jobs, one at the service station and one at home, taking care of four children and a husband who comes home between long runs from Houston to Santa Fe.

  “You’re saving up for college, I guess.” This is none of my business, but I can’t let it go.

  “College is for rich kids and snobs, that’s what my daddy always says.”

  The young man pokes his head around the display of motor oil. “Car’s ready, Ms. Hudson.”

  I can’t leave yet. Maybe it’s because I want to save this young woman, or perhaps it’s because I’m bent on rescue, no matter who it is.

  “Thanks, I’ll be there in a minute,” I tell the young man. Then to the girl, “I grew up on a farm. Not one of those big plantations, but a small dirt farm with a few acres of soy beans and cotton.” I have her attention now.

  “I married in high school then managed to get a small scholarship for part of my education. I took out a student loan for the rest. I’ve never regretted it.”

  I read her long silence as a triumph. For both of us.

  “Do you want some more tea, or not?” she asks.

  Even though it’s now pitch black outside, I put on my sunglasses.

  “Maybe in a carry-out cup,” I say. “For the road.”

  I take this failure personally, as if she were my own daughter. She hands me the tea in a Styrofoam cup, and I’m torn between trying once more or pretending I never said anything in the first place.

  I’m saved making the choice .by the second appearance of the young man who fixed my car.

  “I noticed you were low on gas, so I moved your car over by the pumps, if that’s all right with you, ma’am.”

  “Certainly, thanks.”

  “It’s at the self-serve, but if you need help I’ll be glad to give you hand.”

  First the young woman saying I look as if I need something cool and now this. I rationalize: they’re young, they’re just being nice. And yet I begin to wonder if I look a bit senile and doddery, an old woman who forgets and wears her sunglasses in the dark.

  I slide them into my hair the way I’ve seen heroines on late night movies do, then I give a breezy wave.

  “Thanks, I’ll be fine with the pumps,” I say.

  But I’m not. They are the computerized kind that instructs you to press buttons you can’t even find when you’re nervous. Sweat gathers along my hairline and rolls down the side of my cheek.

  “Need any help?”

  The first thing I see is a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots emerging from a green truck the size of a football field. Then I see a long, lanky man with a wrecked face that is somehow attractive. All of a sudden I wish I were one of those women who look dewy when they sweat instead of frazzled.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”

  I don’t know why it’s easier to accept help from him than from the young man inside, except perhaps that he’s over eighteen. Closer to forty, I’d say.

  “Fill ‘er up?” His hand is already on the gas hose.

  “Go right ahead.” I glance at myself in the rearview mirror and notice my hair is puffed up around the sunglasses like a brownish mushroom. One that’s been in the refrigerator too long. I snatch the glasses off my hair, put them back on, change my mind, and then put them inside my purse.

  “Going far?”

  “Houston,” I say, and the trucker smiles. “From Jackson, Mississippi,” I add, as If I’m scared of silence.

  “Mighty long way for a pretty little thing like you.”

  I’m glad I took the sunglasses out of my hair. “Well,” I say. Now what?

  “All done.” He winks.

  “Well . . . thanks.”

  He stands hip-slung. “Why don’t you park that thing, ride to Vegas with me? I’ll bring you back next week.”

  I am shocked into complete silence.

  “A little fun and games,” he adds, and I’m still tongue-tied. “Don’t tell me this is the first time you’ve had an offer.”

  When I was fourteen, I used to stand on the front porch with my date wondering if I should kiss him goodnight, and what he’d think if I did. That I was loose for kissing on the first date? Ungrateful if I didn’t?

  The stakes are much higher now, but I get that same feeling as I stand beside the gas pumps trying to decide what I should say to this trucker. Should I pay him for helping me with the gas pump? Shake his hand? Certainly not drive off into the night with him for adventures in the land of neon and broken dreams.

  I’m furious at myself for sneaking a peek in the rearview mirror, furious that I cared about sweating and how my hair looks. I’m furious at him, too.

  “If I had known that was your ploy, I would never have accepted your offer of help.”

  “Hey, now. Don’t get on your high horse.”

  “Don’t people nowadays help somebody just for the sake of kindness? Don’t they ever do anything without expecting something in return? Good deeds are not supposed to come with strings attached, you know.”

  “Hey, lady. If I want to listen to bull, I’ll turn on the TV and listen to a political talk show.”

  “Next time somebody says thank you, why don’t you try saying you’re welcome, instead of making some sleazy offer for fun and games.”

  Still filled with self-righteous fury, I snatch my receipt and climb into my car. Only when I am on the road does fear catch up to me. I’m shaking so hard I have to squeeze the steering wheel to keep from going off the road.

  What if the service station had been dark? What if it had been in a remote stretch of Texas? What if the trucker hadn’t asked, but had simply nabbed me, then carried me off into the night?

  My imagination is running wild. Still, women traveling alone at night are vulnerable.

  I dig my iPhone out of my purse, set it on the console within easy reaching distance. What if I had become a statistic? Would Beth come to my funeral?

  Up ahead lights slice the darkness, and the sky turns a metallic hue that comes from artificial light. I am approaching Houston.

  Billboards pop up suddenly, and I search the darkness for the ones that advertise motels.

  “I’ll stop at the first one that looks decent,” I tell myself, then a La Quinta slips up on me, and I’m past before I know it.

  I grip the steering wheel harder and tension gathers in my neck. I have the feeling that I’m lost in the Sahara and have just bypassed my last chance for water.

  “At least I have plenty of gas,” I say, as if I’ve just been doomed to drive all night.

  Then out of nowhere I see the sign: motel, next exit. I slow the car to forty-five so I won’t whizz by in the dark, and I’m rocked by the draft of reckless fools passing me. The exit sign looms suddenly, and when I finally arrive, I sit for a while in the parking lot, triumph
ant and grateful.

  The desk clerk is young and personable, but he doesn’t call me ma’am, which comes as a relief.

  “Can I help you?” he asks.

  “I’d like a room.”

  “Single or double.”

  “Single.”

  Saying this aloud makes everything true. I am finally and truly on my own, legally unbound and free to go wherever I want to whenever the notion strikes. Suddenly my sassy side shows.

  I whip my sunglasses out of my purse and put them on because I can, because nobody is standing at my elbow saying you look ridiculous, Maggie.

  My room is on the second floor, clean and spacious, done in peaceful shades of blue and green. I hang my clothes in the closet, divide my underwear and sweaters into two drawers, then take a copy of my do-it-yourself book out of my suitcase and sit in the easy chair beside the window.

  The motel marquee is just outside, the lettering huge and confident: Comfort Inn.

  I believe the sign is true.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The blue has grown out of Lydia’s hair, and it shines like the pelt of some healthy animal, brown with natural highlights of red, the color mine used to be when I was young and full of myself.

  “What do you think, Mom?”

  She’s standing in front of the three-way mirrors in Express Limited wearing a floral print column dress that reminds me of orange sherbet and tall glasses of lemonade and cool green shade in the summer. It’s not the kind of dress she ordinarily wears.

  What I think is that she has changed, matured on somebody else’s watch, and I’m somehow saddened by this.

  “I think you look great, a daughter any mother would be proud of.”

  “You’re not going to cry again, are you? I thought all that would be over when the divorce was final.”

  I’d cried when I saw her this morning. I was waiting for her at McDonald’s, and I burst into tears when she walked through the door.

  “Tears of joy,” I say. “Someday you’ll know the difference.”

  “I already do.”

  Now I reach for my credit card to pay for her dress, but she shakes her head, no, and I watch while she counts out cash, proud and confident.

  “I’m buying lunch, too,” she says.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “It’s my turn now, Mom. Just say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, grinning at her.

  On the surface, this is role reversal, with Lydia repeating the advice I used to give her. But it is so much more. Our relationship has shifted in subtle ways so that when Lydia links her arm through mine, we walk through the mall as equals, as women bound together by friendship and common interests.

  “Is the food court, okay?” she says.

  “Sounds great.”

  I have chicken again, not because I love it so much, but because Chic Filet gives scholarships to the young people who work for them, and I feel doubly noble when I order a broiled chicken sandwich.

  “How’s Beth?”

  “She cries a lot these days. Not in front of me, of course. She’s too perfect for that.”

  “Lydia. . .”

  “Well, it’s true. She shuts herself up in the bathroom where she thinks I can’t hear her.”

  I take this news hard. I used to do the same thing, shut myself in the bathroom to cry so the children wouldn’t hear.

  “Do you know why?”

  “She doesn’t say, and I don’t have a clue.”

  “Is everything all right at home, with Daniel?”

  “As far as I can tell. He’s too nerdy for my taste, but I’ve never seen him mistreat Beth. If he did I’d black both his eyes. That’s what you should have done to Dad. “

  “I left. That was enough.” She concentrates on her ice cream, and I can’t tell what she’s thinking. “Lydia, I don’t want this divorce to divide us all. Dick’s your father, no matter what.”

  She’s still immersed in her own thoughts, and I try to think up something wise to say to get her through this, to get both of us through this. Change is hard, I could say, stating the obvious. Adversity is opportunity in disguise, I might tell her, mimicking the other women in my family. But I take small comfort from these platitudes. How can I expect them to help her?

  I hum tunelessly under my breath, while Lydia taps her foot on the floor with an angry rhythm. Then she saves us both.

  “I’m just glad I didn’t get his hooked nose.”

  Back at the Comfort Inn that evening I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and think of all the things I didn’t say to my daughter. Call your father. Make your peace. Tell Beth I love her.

  There’s still time. Lydia is spending the night with me. She’s sprawled on the bed flipping through channels.

  “Mom,” she calls through the bathroom door.

  “What?”

  “There’s a great movie on Cinemax. Is it all right with you if we watch it?”

  “Sure. “

  I check my teeth for spots I might have missed flossing then join my daughter in the bedroom. She grabs extra pillows from the top of the closet, and we make a comfortable nest for ourselves while the opening credits roll by.

  “Mom?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” she says then we lean- back against our pillows and immerse ourselves in Unbroken.

  o0o

  My last day in Houston, I buy some CDs at a nature store in the Galleria. The one I like best is called Loon Echo Lake. It features some of my favorite music - Vivaldi’s “Summer” and Debussy’s “Claire De Lune” - along with sounds the artist recorded in nature, the sometimes mournful, sometimes lyrical, always haunting cry of the loon.

  I’ve never seen a loon, never been to the northern lakes they inhabit, but I’m captivated by them, by their alluring cry and the way they know when it’s time to leave the frozen north and head to warmer waters. Inside the CD is a synopsis of their story: When they leave the barren northern shores, they signal their departure with one final call that echoes across the water.

  When I climb into the car to head home, I pop the CD’s into the deck and drive along swaying to the music.

  In spite of the fact that Beth never came to see me while I was in Texas - she wouldn’t even talk to me on the telephone - and that Lydia didn’t make some kind of miraculous turn-around about seeing Dick and going back to college, I’m determined to make the trip home a grand, triumphant adventure. The life I plan to lead is just around the corner.

  Houston fades in the distance, and as I drive down the long ribbon of road I throw my head back and yodel.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The brochure from Loftin Realty says Low Budget Houses, Satisfaction Guaranteed, and I am hooked. Lillian called my settlement check grossly unfair while Jean said it was egregious and insulting. Still, the wrangling and uncertainty are over and I can move on.

  Saturday, I pick up Jean and Lillian then meet the realtor in front of a perky looking cottage that has a front porch.

  “Now, that has potential,” Lillian says, but Jean just says, “Hmmm.”

  She’d wanted us to see the house Bill found first, but I’m not sure I’m ready for a fixer-upper, even after all the Saturday nights I’ve spent with Mr. Fixit.

  We walk inside the house, and I immediately notice that the inside is not as nice as the outside. Besides that, the ceilings are low and the rooms are small.

  “I think I’d feel cramped in here,” I tell the realtor. “And the color is far too drab for me.”

  “Knock out a few walls and slap on some new paint and this house would be just like new.” She bangs on the wall and a mouse runs right over her feet. She jumps six miles and Jean screams while Lillian and I collapse against each other in giggles.

  The next house she shows us has bars on the windows. Lillian looks like she will croak on the spot, and Jean hauls us out of there while the realtor is still talking.

  “I didn’
t even hear the price, Jean.”

  “Who cares what the price is if you’re talking about a neighborhood where you’ll be murdered in your own bed?”

  After a string of equally disappointing listings, we take Lillian home to her family then meet Bill for dinner.

  “Are you still considering building, Maggie?” Bill asked.

  For months after I left Dick, I dreamed of building on the farm, of planting my feet once again on the land I love, of reconnecting with my roots.

  “I decided against it. There’s too much time and too much hassle involved in building, and besides that, the farm is too isolated. I don’t think it’s a safe place for a woman living alone.”

  He nodded, satisfied, then leaned back and took a long sip of coffee.

  “There’s a house on Meadowlark Road. It’s not much right now, Maggie. But it’s sound and has potential, and the price is right.”

  “Jean told me about it some time ago. I’m just not sure I want to get into a massive remodeling project.”

  “Matt Graham could do it. He’s a great carpenter and he’s honest.”

  “Is he cute, Bill?”

  “What kind of question is that, Jean?”

  “I met him at your office once, and I remember him as being sort of a hunk. If Maggie’s going to have to put up with a carpenter every day, it wouldn’t hurt if he was good to look at.”

  Bill gives her an indulgent smile, and I promise that I’ll think about the house.

  When I get back to my apartment, I can hardly wait for Mr. Fixit’s radio show.

  Hello, radio friends. This is the kind of night that makes me want to be outside under the stars. Have you ever seen such a sky!

  He’s a star watcher, too? I can’t call his number fast enough.

  And we have Maggie on the line. Hello, again, Maggie.

  Does he remember my voice from all his callers, or is he referring to his greeting earlier tonight? I prefer to think the former.