Under the Autumn Sky

by Liz Talley

  Sally perched on the end of the couch, holding a worn-out-looking pacifier, presumably Lucille’s great find. She picked up a gift wrapped in floral paper with a large fluffy-looking bow. “This is from me.”

  Picou sat in her normal overstuffed armchair and took the gift. Love shone in her eyes when she looked at Sally. “It’s wrapped so pretty.”

  Sally rubbed the material of her skirt between her fingers and gave up a smile.

  Picou opened the gift while everyone found a comfortable spot. His mother lifted the lid. “Oh, my.”

  “What is it?” Lucille craned her head, and Abram noticed her wig was on crooked.

  “Look.” Picou picked up a small painted canvas and held it aloft. It portrayed a sunset on the swamps and was rather well done. His mother looked at Sally. “Did you do this?”

  Sally nodded. “I dabble around with painting every once and while. I thought it suited you.”

  Picou wiped tears from her cheeks with hands that bore more rings than necessary. His mother liked drama, wearing caftans, crazy feathers and ribbons in her soft gray hair and ornamenting herself like a palm reader at the state fair. She should have looked ridiculous. Okay, sometimes she did look a bit kooky, but it suited her. “Thank you, dear. I shall always treasure it.”

  Sally kept fiddling with her hem but managed another smile.

  Annie handed Picou another small gift. “From us.”

  Abram could tell it was a gift certificate. He hoped they hadn’t bought one to a spa. Rain on his parade, and all that. Nate constantly one-upped him on gift-giving.

  Picou pulled the red ribbon from the polka-dotted box. “This will make a good hair bow.” She tucked it beneath her thigh.

  Abram felt excitement radiating off Nate and Annie as Picou lifted the lid. Maybe they’d gotten her a trip? If they did, he’d be pissed. He’d once mentioned sending her on a cruise, and Nate had freaked over the expense. If Nate went and trumped everyone with a trip somewhere, he’d—

  “A grandmother’s brag book?” His mother’s eyebrows knitted together as she lifted the pink-and-blue photo book from the tissue paper. She flipped the book open and stared at a grainy-looking black picture. Two or three seconds tripped by.

  “Oh, my God!” Picou reared back against the chair, her eyes wide, her mouth open. “Is that—is that—”

  Annie started giggling and Nate just smiled.

  His mother stared with wonder at the picture in front of the book. “Are you telling me I’m going to be a grandmother?”

  Nate nodded.

  Annie collapsed in laughter.

  Picou shrieked.

  Lucille clapped.

  Annie and Nate had given his mother the gift she’d always wanted. Progeny. A stupid manicure and pedicure seemed like a booby prize compared to a baby. Like winning a five-dollar raffle ticket after winning a jackpot of over a million.

  He looked at his sister, who for once wore a genuine smile. “I think we lost on the gifts.”

  Sally laughed. “I think you’re right.”

  * * *

  LOU STARED AT the flashing lights in the driveway refusing to believe what she was seeing.

  Officer Harvey Coe climbed from the driver’s side and then opened the back door of the car. Waylon, head down, emerged.

  “Evening, Lou,” Harvey said, walking toward where she stood on the porch. “Hated to be bringing Waylon home this way, but I thought it might be best. He and a few boys were drinking beer down at the Sav-A-Lot parking lot, busting bottles, and such. One of the windows of the store got broke. Thought about arresting them, but being this is boys being boys, I gave ’em a warning and called Mr. Davenport about the window.”

  Waylon refused to look at her. He seemed to be studying the ragged pansies she’d planted that fall, and since she knew he had very little interest in botany, she knew he was afraid of her. He should be. Fury chomped away inside her. How dare he do something so infantile? So stupid?

  “Well, this is such a nice surprise,” Lou drawled, swatting away the moths dancing around the porch light before crossing her arms, mostly to keep from knocking her stupid brother in the head. “And here I was thinking my younger brother was at a friend’s house working on his research paper. Silly me.”

  She looked at Harvey who looked at Waylon who kept his gaze on the pansies. Silence lay on them like January snow.

  “Well, the boys are gonna have to pay for that window. Davenport said he’d get a bill to all the parents, and you, too. Sorry about this, Lou.”

  “Thanks, Harvey. Waylon will be calling Mr. Davenport to apologize, and he’ll take care of that bill.” Or she’d ride Waylon’s ass until the middle of next summer. Or until he stopped his irresponsible behavior.

  Harvey turned to Waylon. “Look at me, son.”

  Waylon lifted his head and stuck out his chin. Lou had seen that posturing before—scared little boy trying to be a man. Waylon’s brown hair gleamed almost red in the low porch light and she noticed he needed a haircut.

  The policeman pointed a sausage finger at him. “You need to keep your nose clean. I better not hear about you messin’ around with that Holland boy again. He’s trouble, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Waylon said, shifting in his new Nike workout shoes. He sounded respectful, but Lou saw the rebellion in his eyes. She knew he’d been hanging out with Willie Holland’s boy for the last two weeks and couldn’t understand the fascination with the high school dropout. This was not good. Cy Holland worked at his father’s garage and rode Harleys on the weekend to biker bars all over the state. Cy was eighteen, tough and often in trouble with the Bonnet Creek and Ville Platte police departments.

  “Go in the house, Way,” Lou said, her voice quiet but firm. Inside she still shook with rage, but she wasn’t going to show it to either of the two males crowding her driveway.

  Her brother surged past, his unused backpack sliding off his shoulder as he pushed into the house.

  “Thanks again, Harv.”

  Harvey turned to her. “I know things have been tough on you, Lou, but you’re gonna have to keep a tight leash on that boy. He’s at an age where he’s gonna test you and everybody he comes up against. He’s got a lot riding on his shoulders. Better talk some sense into him. Maybe talk to Coach, too.”

  Lou bristled. Waylon was a good kid, no matter what Harvey implied. Sure, he’d been ill-tempered and difficult lately, but it wasn’t something she couldn’t handle, and she didn’t need David Landry inserting himself even more into Waylon’s life. As it was, he spent too much time hanging around the coach’s office and sometimes at the Landry house. “Again, I appreciate your doing this. I’ll take care of it from here.”

  “Night,” Harvey nodded and walked toward the cruiser still flashing its lights. She winced as her neighbor popped her gray head out the kitchen door and stared at the departing police car. The nosy old woman would have something to gossip about over coffee the next morning.

  Lou walked into the house and shut the door.

  It was 10:15 p.m. Nearly forty-five minutes past Waylon’s school-night curfew.

  Lori appeared in the hallway, clad in an old T-shirt and pajama pants. “What’s going on?”

  Lou shook her head, swallowing her aggravation. “Nothing to worry about. You finish that geometry assignment?”

  “Yeah, but I had to call someone for help on that last problem. Hey, is Way okay?” Lori’s curls bobbed as she glanced at the closed bedroom door behind her. Her sister had light brown hair, blue eyes and a sweet disposition, and though Lori often sniped with her older brother, she worshipped him.

  Lou shook her head, locked the front door and set the security system. “Not if I kill him for being stupid.”

  “What happened?” Her sister sank onto the worn sofa and grabbed a quilted throw pillow. “You need to talk about it, Lou? Can I help you with anything?”

  “No, but will you double-check you have all your homework packed up so I don’t have to bring a
nything to you tomorrow?” Lori had turned fifteen last month, and since then, had tried to maintain a very adult-like demeanor. She asked to set up the bills online, used her babysitting money for a few groceries and jockeyed to become Lou’s sounding board on everything from work to dealing with their wayward brother. In one way it was amusing, in another almost a relief to have another person to lean on, even if it was an absentminded fifteen-year-old. “He’s under a lot of pressure and looking for a way to blow off steam. No need to worry. Everything’s fine.”

  Lori picked at the stitches on the pillow. “Things are going to change. I heard about that ULBR coach being at school this morning. Waylon’s a good player and everyone’s going to want him to go to their school. I don’t want him to leave, Lou.”

  “Well,” Lou said, picking up a throw blanket, folding it and tucking it away in the hollow ottoman. She also picked up a few soda cans and gum wrappers, tidying the house as was her habit every night before she went to bed. “I can understand not wanting things to change, but that’s how life is. It moves whether we want it to or not. But we have to remember, these programs wanting your brother is a good thing. Most guys only dream about what Waylon has.”

  “What if I don’t want it anymore?”

  Lou turned around to see her brother standing in the hall doorway, both hands braced against the door frame. He looked big…and sort of sad. “You no longer want to play football?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I’m tired of it. Maybe I’m sick of being the school’s hero—everybody watching me, examining my grades, timing my runs. Maybe I want to be normal.”

  Lou tossed the matching throw pillow onto the couch next to her sister—maybe a little harder than necessary. “Well, normal isn’t going out drinking and destroying other people’s property. It’s not lying to your family. Or failing American history tests. None of those things you’re doing are normal, Way.”

  “Whatever,” he said, walking past her toward the kitchen.

  So he was going to give her attitude after coming home in a cop car? No freaking way was he getting away with acting like a shit. Lou followed him into the kitchen. “What is your problem, Waylon? You’re close to getting everything you wanted and you’re trying to throw it away.”

  He opened the refrigerator, pulled out the milk and took a swig straight from the carton because he knew it ticked her off. “Nothing’s wrong, and you don’t know what I want. No one ever asked me what I want. Maybe I don’t want to play football in college. I may not even go to college.”

  “The hell you aren’t.” Lou walked over and plucked the carton from his hand. “And stop drinking from the carton. It’s gross.”

  “You can’t make me go to college, and you can’t make me play football. I spend day and night lifting weights, doing cardio and running drills. That doesn’t leave me time for anything else except homework and bed. Think I want to live that way? With no fun in my life?”

  Lou tilted her head. “Oh, so you want to have fun?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Well, then, let’s have fun.” She spun toward the purse she’d set on the kitchen desk and yanked it up. “Here, I’ll give you a twenty and you run to the Handi-mart for beer. Hey, Lori, put on music and call some friends. I’ll score the pot so we can all get high and drunk and trash the house Mom and Dad worked so hard to build. I’ll probably lose my job, but you two can drop out of school to work at a fast-food joint. We’ll just party until we lose the house and have to live in Dad’s truck. Come on, guys, it’ll be fun. Waylon needs fun.”

  “I don’t like beer,” Lori said, appearing in the doorway, looking nervous. “I personally think fun is overrated.”

  Waylon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sounds good to me.”

  “It would. You don’t have the sense God gave a goat.” Lou jerked the fridge open and shoved the milk carton back on its shelf. She actually thought about grabbing a wooden spoon from kitchen tool canister and spanking Waylon’s butt for being such a turd. How dare he casually toss away the gift he’d been given? How dare he try to ruin everything they’d been working toward?

  What gave him the freakin’ right to rip away all their dreams just because he felt a little pressure? The kid had no idea what pressure was.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped back, bumping up against the cabinets she and Lori had painted last summer. Okay, Lou. Stay calm. Don’t lose your temper. This is what parents everywhere do every day. Be the adult.

  “You don’t need the sense God gave a goat to man the fries at the Pit Stop.” Waylon leaned against the fridge and gave her a long stare. She wished she could decipher his intent like she once could. Maybe he was being contrary, pressing her buttons for the hell of it. He crossed his arms, mimicking her, and she noted he’d grown nearly as big as the refrigerator he cleaned out daily, but his eyes looked scared.

  “In all seriousness, Waylon, I understand. It’s spring, you’ll be seventeen next month and life hasn’t been easy for any of us since you starting getting all this attention.” She paused and tried to summon the calm demeanor her father had always maintained with her when she flipped out as a teenager. She needed to make Waylon feel she was on his side. “But you have to use that spongy matter between your ears when it comes to your future.”

  “Things feel too heavy. I can’t handle all this shit, Lou.”

  She started to correct his language, but the anguish in his voice had her figuratively biting her tongue. “You do have a say-so in your life, Way. If you don’t want to play football in college, fine. I can live with you never picking up a football again…but can you?”

  His hazel eyes shifted away from her as the impact of her words crashed into him. “No, I love when I’m on the field, just me and the guy I gotta beat. But this whole recruiting thing has me feeling out of control already.”

  She nodded. It had her feeling the same way, especially after the incident with Abram Dufrene and the realization the process was only going to get more intense. College recruiting was a science and her brother was on several programs’ radars. That meant soon there would not be just letters in the mailbox and invitations to specialty camps, but there would be visits, evaluations, weekly phone calls and immense emotional warfare waged on them all. Several years ago, the thought of Waylon being courted by the largest football programs in the nation sounded exciting. Now it felt like another layer, heavy on them, one more thing to yank their chains and deliver conflict in their lives. “I know. It’s going to be wonderful, and it’s going to be horrible, but that doesn’t take away the fact you are something special and have an opportunity to become something spectacular.”

  He just looked at her. “That doesn’t really help.”

  “Well, how about one night a week, we make a point to sit down and have dinner together? No phones, no friends, no last-minute activities. Lately we’ve all been going in different directions and need time to regroup. Mom and Dad used to make sure we sat down and talked at least once a week over dinner, so maybe we should start that tradition again.”

  “Can we order pizza?” Lori asked.

  “You don’t like my special spaghetti sauce?”

  “No offense, Lou, but your talents don’t lie in the kitchen.” Waylon finally cracked a smile, revealing the boy he’d always been—a charming, easygoing prankster. Here was the brother she’d been looking for over the last few weeks.

  Thank God, because Waylon was really starting to scare her. If he didn’t want to play football, he wouldn’t get a scholarship. Lou hadn’t thought of a contingency plan, but she’d be damned if she had to put off college for herself any longer than she had to. It was going to be bad enough being a twenty-nine-year-old freshman.

  She banked her fear and rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll spring for pizza once a week, starting tomorrow night.”

  Waylon disappeared, and she heard Lori call out a good-night. Lou wiped crumbs off the counter and loaded the dishwasher, hoping her plan worked. Years ago, t
he complication of raising her siblings lay in last-minute runs to get posterboard or wanting a certain kind of cool shirt. Now her brother and sister were at the stage where their actions affected the rest of their lives.

  Not easy being a pseudo parent when you hadn’t signed up for it in the first place.

  As Lou flicked the fluorescent light off above the sink, it hit her that she hadn’t even addressed the broken window and drinking problem. Nor had she talked about Cy Holland and his less-than-savory influence.

  Well, she knew the first item of business on the agenda for dinner tomorrow night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THREE NIGHTS LATER, Waylon tossed the beer bottle onto the floorboard and shifted Morgan on his lap. She squealed when he grabbed her ass. He smiled because he not only loved Morgan when she squealed, but he loved to grab her ass.

  He’d tried to stay away from Cy and his crew after having dinner with Lori and Lou, but after a tough practice and four calls from head coaches of top college programs, his gut had started cramping. All he could think about was escaping that world and doing nothing but drinking and hanging with someone who didn’t give a damn about anything. Cy topped that list.

  “You got to see the way that dude plays the bass. It’s the shit,” Cy Holland said, weaving his Avalanche around the washed-out ravines at the edge of the pasture. The headlights showed stupid cows dotting the field before them. “Next weekend we’re gonna drive over to Lafayette. Shank’s playing at Hooligan’s. Two-for-one beer makes it even better. You got an ID you can use?”

  No. But maybe one of the guys at Forcet Construction would let him borrow one. “Sure. I got one.”

  Morgan slid her hand down his chest toward the fly of his jeans. She was drunk and that always made her horny, but he wasn’t getting anything on in the backseat of Cy’s ride. Not with creepy Leesa Jardine watching them. He didn’t know why Cy let Leesa hang with him. She had a nasty temper, ghostlike skin and a horrible acne problem she covered with too much makeup. Every other word out of her mouth was the “f” word, which Waylon never dropped himself. He’d been a counselor at church camp and wasn’t trashy enough to use it often. Lou had raised him better than that.