Coming Unglued

by Rebeca Seitz

  Darin turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the drive. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll finish it with time to spare, and it will be the hit of the reception.”

  He maneuvered through the streets of Stars Hill, turning off Lindell onto University, then Broadway, before taking a quick right onto the one-way street where the bright lights of Heartland’s parking lot shone. Kendra watched his hand on the gearshift, turning the steering wheel, adjusting the rearview mirror …

  It wasn’t right to be seeing someone else while this lovely man showed an interest in her. Momma would have a conniption fit. Probably was, up in heaven. And Daddy—well, Daddy would hang his head and shake it back and forth, and shame would come over Kendra like the humidity of a Southern summer night.

  Inescapable.

  Overwhelming.

  Suffocating.

  Inevitable.

  “You’ve gone quiet on me again, woman. And don’t try the ‘I’m thinking about the painting’ line again. I let you get by with it once. Is something wrong?”

  Kendra twisted the bracelets on her arm. “No.”

  Darin quirked an eyebrow and gave her a crooked grin. “Want to rethink that answer? You haven’t said ten words since we left your place, and you’re twisting those bracelets so hard I’d think you had Indian burn by now.”

  She glanced at her wrist. He was right. “There’s a lot going on right now. The wedding, getting the business going—”

  “Having a boyfriend who doesn’t want to see other people.” He reached over and touched her arm, stilling the bracelets. “If it’s something you’re not ready for, Ken, no problem. Just don’t pull away from me without at least having the discussion.”

  She sighed. “I don’t mean to pull away.”

  “And you don’t want us to be exclusive.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Not in words, no. Have I misread you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m confused.”

  He sat up and twisted in the seat to lean his back against the door. “Okay, confusion I can help with. What are you confused about?”

  Kendra closed her eyes. If only life could be as simple as Darin sometimes made it. Just make a list of fuzzy points, clarify them, and move right on down the line. Life, for her anyway, wasn’t that simple.

  “I don’t even know what I’m confused about.” Well, she did, but telling him that a married man was muddling her brain wouldn’t be the wisest course of action.

  “Have you enjoyed the last four months?”

  “Of course!” When his cocked head showed his doubt, she rushed to assure him. “I love spending time with you! You’re a wonderful man. Any girl would be lucky to go out with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Seriously? You want me to list why you’re great? Having a low self-esteem night, are we?”

  He settled further into his seat and crossed his arms— those arms!—over his chest. “Let’s just say a man likes to be affirmed every now and then.”

  “You know you’re a fabulous catch. I can’t believe you want me to sit here and—”

  “Name three things.” He held up three fingers, then crossed his arms again. “Three little things you find attractive in me, or three little reasons you’ve enjoyed the past four months.”

  “That’s easy.” She wriggled down in her own seat and ticked off items on her fingers. “You’re a great conversationalist, and I’ve had fun talking with you for hours on end.” Maybe not the same intensely personal way as Harrison, but still. She rushed on. “You’re a musician, and I like coming to hear you play. And you know how to dance, which is something I’m about to continue to enjoy if we can finish this conversation and get in there.” She gestured toward Heartland.

  “Not so fast, lady. Now name three things you like about yourself.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, it shouldn’t be hard. Three things you like about yourself that you notice when you’re around me.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She turned to open the door.

  “Kendra?”

  His quiet voice made her stop and turn to look at him.

  “Humor me. Three things. What do you like about yourself when you’re around me?”

  That’d be so much easier to answer if she liked herself right now. But here she sat, a cheating, conniving woman about to enjoy a wonderful date with a fabulous man who deserved a much better woman than she. Harrison’s face flashed in her mind, and her shoulders slumped.

  “Darin, I’m not going to sit here and list for you my finer points. If you can’t see them for yourself, then maybe we do need to see other people.”

  He leaned forward and took her hand, drawing her eyes to his. Thick, dark lashes framed the concern in those chocolate depths. She looked away but had to turn back when he squeezed her hand. “I’m not asking for me, Ken. Come on, three things, and then we can drop this entire conversation, go in there,” he nodded toward the dance hall, “and have a good time.”

  She took a deep breath. “Three things, huh?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because a good relationship means that the other person is better for being with me, just as I’m better for being with her. Not better as in earn-your-merit-badge better but better as in more aware, more happy, more fulfilled—more something because I’m around. You hear what I’m saying?”

  She grimaced, hearing the truth of his words. It was the reason he probably should be with someone else. How could he be better by spending time with her? How could anybody be better by spending time with a child whose own mother didn’t want her or protect her from a host of vile boyfriends?

  But what Darin asked for now wasn’t a difficult thing to provide. Three ways she was better for having known him. She could name a million if he wanted. The whole world felt like a better place now that he lived in it.

  “I see the dream possibilities of my life when I’m with you.” Her voice came out whisper-soft, all she could force past the lump in her throat.

  “I—”

  A knock at her window caused them both to jump. Tandy stood on the other side, smiling and waving.

  Kendra cast a rueful glance at Darin, then turned back to Tandy, half grateful, half … what? Disappointed?

  Sighing away her confusion, she opened the door and stepped a boot out onto the gravel.

  “Hey, you! Ready to get your groove on?” Tandy held her arms in the air and shimmied a bit.

  Kendra tilted her chin down, hands on hips. “I don’t think Heartland would know what a groove was if we brought the dictionary and pointed it out.”

  Tandy dropped her arms. “You’re probably right.”

  “Probably?”

  “Okay, okay, forget the groove thing. Ready to boot scoot?”

  Darin’s car door closed, and Kendra turned to see him.

  “I don’t know, T.” She smiled at Darin. “Are we ready to boot scoot?”

  “Please, woman. I haven’t boot scooted since the nineties.”

  Tandy linked her arm in Kendra’s and tugged her toward the entrance. “Then what do we call it now?”

  Darin drew alongside them. “Got me.”

  “Let’s make something up. Come on, Ken, you’re good with this stuff.”

  “Uh-uh. Don’t go putting this on me.”

  They reached the door, and Kendra pulled it open. The twang of a steel guitar washed over them, the happy notes of a fiddle weaving in and out of the guitar’s whine.

  “Y’all figure it out while I go find some caffeine. I’m going to need it tonight, I think.” Kendra took off for the refreshment stand.

  “Get me some, too,” Tandy called, and Kendra waved her hand over her head.

  She glanced around the room on the way. Daddy and Zelda were indeed there and dancing. A circle had formed in the middle of the floor, and the participants were in the midst of a schottische dance. The multicolored lights played off Zelda’s
flaming red hair, creating a bizarre kaleidoscope of color, as she twirled beneath her partner’s arm, then rock stepped and moved to the next person in the circle. The floor vibrated slightly from a hundred boots shuffling and rock stepping.

  Kendra reached the refreshment booth and ordered a Coke, then turned and leaned on the counter to keep watching Zelda. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tandy, Clay, and Darin talking—their heads bent as if in deep discussion. She frowned.

  What was that about?

  * * *

  “I’M PRETTY SURE she’s seeing somebody.” Darin looked up to ensure Kendra still waited over at the refreshment stand.

  “Why are you so certain?” Tandy worried her bottom lip. Kendra had told the sisters she wasn’t seeing anyone else. Had she lied?

  “I told her I wanted to talk about it tonight, about seeing each other exclusively. When I picked her up, she was more scared than Bill Clinton on judgment day. Didn’t say a word the whole way from her place to here. When I brought it up, you should have seen her face.”

  “Maybe she’s just worried about something else. We are getting a new business off the ground, you know.”

  Clay rubbed Tandy’s arm. “The business is four months old, sweetie, not counting how long those girls up in Nashville had it before they sold it to you. Is there anything happening with Sisters, Ink that would cause Kendra to act this out of character?”

  “No, not really.”

  “But she told you girls she wasn’t seeing anyone else?” Hope rose in Darin’s eyes.

  Tandy met his eyes. “She did. But, Darin, sometimes Kendra can twist things to make it seem like one thing when really it’s another.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Well, I can’t remember now if she actually said the words, ‘I am not seeing another man.’ I know we talked to her about the strange man that Joy saw, and she made it sound as if we were crazy for thinking she’d consider seeing anybody while she’s with you.”

  “But you can’t think of her actual words?”

  Tandy tilted her head and stared at the ceiling, trying hard to think of Kendra’s exact words during their scrapping time. She lowered her head in resignation. “I can’t, Darin. I’m sorry. Why don’t you ask her?”

  Darin sighed. “You tell her, man.” He pointed at Clay. “I’m gonna go see if Kendra needs help carrying the drinks.”

  Tandy watched Darin walk off, a definite slump to his broad shoulders.

  “What should we do?”

  “Go someplace we can hear each other without yelling.” Clay took her hand and pulled her out the door. Outside moths fluttered in clouds around the parking lot lights. Clay kept walking until they were at the corner of the lot. He boosted himself onto the back of her Beamer—still the only BMW in all of Stars Hill—and patted the space beside him.

  She obliged and pushed up from the bumper to sit next to him. “Come on, Clay, how do we fix this?”

  He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and clasped his hands together. “We don’t, sweetie.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think we need to fix this for Kendra.”

  “What are you saying?” She tugged on his arm, and he turned to look her in the eye.

  “She’s a grown woman, Taz. If she wants to make a stupid move, I think she’s allowed at this point.”

  “When you love someone, you stop them before the train hits.”

  “How many trains are you going to deal with? She’s done this kind of thing for years. Are you always going to fix it for her? Is Joy? Is Meg?”

  Tandy leaned back on the rear windshield and watched the bats swooping through the darkness, no doubt snatching moths in midair. They were shadows of shadows, barely discernible from the darkness of night, visible only when they swooped into the light for the kill. And gone an instant later.

  “Clay, we can’t just sit by and watch a train wreck. How is that loving her?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m completely off-base on this. But I’ve watched her do this over and over with you guys, and I can’t see how anything you’ve done in the past is breaking the cycle.”

  “If we could figure out why she does it, we’d have a chance of ending the cycle.”

  “I think she doesn’t feel worthy because of Sylvia.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “And there’s nothing we can do about that.” He pointed up to the moths still circling the light. “Any more than we can teach those moths to stay away from the light or they’ll get eaten.”

  “Noticed that, too, did you?”

  “It’s hard to miss. Lots of bats out tonight.”

  “But isn’t there a group of moths somewhere that change colors or something to make themselves harder to see?”

  “Yeah, but nobody changes the color of those moths from the outside. It was God letting them adapt from the inside.”

  “So we’ve got to hope that God changes Ken?”

  “No.” He took her hand. “We’ve got to hope that Ken lets God change her.”

  Tandy held onto the hand of this wise man God had used to change her and watched the moths.

  * * *

  KENDRA AND DARIN twirled past Daddy and Zelda, and Kendra laughed. Darin’s arms around her made the world feel right again. For right now she could let go of that part of her that wanted to be with Harrison. That part of her that wanted to throw morality to the wind and just take the thing in front of her that made her feel good, even though the other part of her—that part that leaned into Darin now and nuzzled his ear as the music switched to a slow love song—knew that Harrison wouldn’t feel good in a few years.

  If he left his wife—stop it, that’s not a good thing—how could she do anything the rest of her life but wonder when he would leave her as well?

  “Penny for your thoughts.” Darin’s breath slid over her ear as he whispered the words.

  “Just enjoying the dance.”

  “Mmm, me too.”

  She swayed in his arms, wishing she could be worthy of this man.

  Knowing she never would be.

  But that’s not stopping you, is it? From taking what you can get now and worrying about the rest later? No surprise there. Just goes to prove—

  Kendra closed her eyes, trying to push the dark voice away, finally succeeding, but not before it gave her one last jab.

  Like mother, like daughter.

  Nine

  Thanks for another fabulous night.”

  Darin stood outside the door to Kendra’s apartment. She looked so amazing—full of life, fresh. Energy lit her eyes, and if she asked, he knew he’d spend another hour dancing despite the fact that his feet were killing him and his back screamed for an Advil.

  “You’re welcome.” She looked at the floor, and he grinned at the paradox of a suddenly shy Kendra.

  “Well, I guess I should be heading on home.” He touched her face, bringing her eyes to his. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Before she could think and that light could go out of her eyes, he closed the short distance between them and kissed her. She didn’t resist, not even a hint, and he cupped her jawline in his hand. Could he be wrong about another man in her life? Would she give herself so fully to kissing him if someone else hovered in the wings? She’d been so hard to read all night, completely with him one moment and in another world the next.

  He pulled away and looked into her mocha-colored eyes. “Kendra?”

  “Mmm?”

  Are you seeing someone else? He couldn’t bring himself to say the words. It would kill their perfect evening; and, besides, what good would it to do have her admit it? There was still a chance she’d ended it. Or would be ending it. Or never had it to begin with, and he was suffering from a case of overactive imagination.

  Along with all the sisters.

  “What, Darin?” Her soft voice was a gift to his ears.

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  She let him get away with it. B
ecause she needed to hide something? Because she feared his questions?

  He stepped back, a little mind whacked from the unspoken words that floated around them.

  “Thanks again. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She smiled at him, touched his lips, and entered her apartment.

  He stared at her door for a second. Would she talk to the other guy tonight? Or had she called it off by now? Or did she have a date planned with him for tomorrow?

  Stupid! He should have asked her out for tomorrow.

  He raised his hand to knock on the door but dropped it before he could make an idiot of himself. Turning on his heel, heart heavy with possibility and probability, he went to the grand staircase and descended.

  * * *

  KENDRA SAT DOWN on her overstuffed white couch and pulled her feet under her. Miss Kitty came over and settled in the crook of her mistress’s legs.

  This roller coaster of a love life couldn’t continue. It just couldn’t. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Midnight. About the time Harrison’s wife would be going to bed. Would he e-mail her before the night ended? Send a text her way? Dare to step outside in the driveway and call her?

  Why did she care so much? Had those first few months with him removed all vestige of the morality Daddy and Momma had instilled in her for years? Hundreds—thousands—of Sunday school teachings and sermons delivered in Daddy’s slow Southern drawl from the pulpit of Grace Christian pushed against the questions in Kendra’s mind.

  Tigers can’t change their stripes.

  Sylvia’s words cut deep. Had Kendra spent a lifetime learning ways opposite those of her mother’s only to find herself destined to follow in Sylvia’s footsteps? Did daughters have a choice?

  She glanced at the cordless phone on the table at her side. She could call Harrison’s cell right now and leave a message that ended everything. That’s what Darin deserved. Sweet, precious, loving Darin. His kiss lingered on her lips, and she reached to touch them, to feel that tingle of anticipation.

  The phone rang and anticipation leaped to anxiety. No one would call her this late except Harrison. Unless a family member had an emergency.

  Another ring, and Kendra picked up the phone to check Caller ID.