Capture the Wind for Me

by Brandilyn Collins

  chapter 24

  By the time the next hour had passed, I felt as incensed as a smoked-out hornet, having spent the time mentally telling Katherine everything I thought of her. Only because of her was Daddy so mad at me. Meanwhile I had work to do. I awakened Clarissa and Robert, fed them breakfast, started some laundry, fed Winnie. Then slammed around the kitchen, making sandwiches and assembling them with drinks in an iced cooler to take to the game. High and irritating voices from a cartoon show filtered in from the family room. Clarissa giggled like a nine-year-old without a care in the world. Apparently last night’s ills were forgotten, some short-lived fever soothed in sleep. Robert had returned to his bedroom after breakfast to begin the arduous task of dressing himself. Seemed to me the only graceful way to deal with a cast was to have it taken off.

  Daddy had driven down to witness Officer Hankins’s escorting Trent Baxter out of Bradleyville. Apparently, the man had agreed to Daddy’s terms once he learned the ring was long gone. What else to fight for? He’d certainly made it clear he didn’t want the likes of Katherine May King back.

  The phone receiver still lay stuffed in a drawer. I knew I needed to call Greg about our date, but I didn’t want to sound as if I was ready to bite someone’s head off. I thought of his wounded face and wondered if it looked better or worse. Probably worse.

  I slipped some cookies in a self-seal plastic bag, fleetingly amazed at my own selfishness. Why wasn’t I more worried about Greg? What if that bruise took two weeks to heal, as Robert’s had, and Greg had some photo shoot right after he left town? I plunked the bag of cookies in the cooler. Well, at least he could leave. Walk away from all this mess while I remained stuck with it. This was my life—and it was about as far removed from his as east from west.

  We would be leaving for the game before long. I really needed to call him. Easing open the drawer, I stared at the phone. Took a deep breath and picked it up. I hit the button to connect to a dial tone. Immediately, it rang.

  Terrific. I smacked the drawer closed, as if it were to blame. Which titillated friend would this be?

  “Hello?” Annoyance coated my voice.

  “Hi, it’s Katherine.”

  Katherine. I fixed my gaze on the tile counter, searching for . . . what was it Daddy had demanded? Respect. Tenderness. All I saw were numerous dirty spots needing to be wiped up. Automatically, I reached for the sponge. “Hi.”

  “Is everything okay? I’ve been trying to call for the longest time.”

  Like sure, Katherine, everything’s okay.What a moronic thing to ask.

  “We’ve had the phone off the hook.”

  “Oh. Too many people callin’, huh.”

  “Something like that.” I wiped furiously. “Do you want to talk to Daddy?”

  “Actually, no. I called to talk to you.”

  One spot would not come up. I flipped the sponge over and rubbed with the scrubber side. “Oh.”

  She hesitated. “I know the game won’t really give us time to talk, and tonight we’ll be with the family, so I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about last night. You have no idea—” Her tone bent. She drew in an audible breath. “I’m really, really sorry, Jackie. Your daddy and I have worked things out, but I feel I owe a special apology to you.”

  Deep within, a tiny voice whispered that she didn’t have to make this call, didn’t have to explain herself to me, the adult to the teenager. That, just as she had done the first night she came to supper, Katherine once again graciously recognized my special place within this household.

  And well she should. Hadn’t she done her best to win me over the first time so I wouldn’t stand in her way? And she’d done it too. With well-honed precision, I might add.

  The tile glistened beneath the sponge, spots all gone. I moved to the sink, polishing around the edge and the faucets.

  “Okay. Thank you.” My tone spoke louder than my words. I turned the water on, knowing she would hear it, and rewet the sponge.

  “Well. I’ll let you go. You sound busy.”

  “Just getting stuff ready for the game.” I turned off the water. “By the way, I won’t be here at supper tonight. I’m going out with Greg.” “Oh, Jackie, that’s wonderful! I hope you have a great time.”

  How sincere she sounded. I set down the sponge and wiped my hand on a dishtowel. Maybe she was. Of course she was. Hadn’t Greg been her ticket to my acceptance? I could not bear to think of allowing myself any reason to be in Katherine’s debt. At that moment I wholeheartedly wished that Greg and I would have a terrible time, that I’d expose all the ugliness and deceit and self-absorption that surely lay within him as some mystical mirror to Katherine’s own soul.

  “I’m sure we will. I have to get off the phone now so I can call him.” She said goodbye and I smacked the “talk” button off as if it were a hot iron.

  Within seconds, it rang again.

  I stared at the phone in weary disbelief. Too much was happening at once, and I simply did not know how to keep up. Suddenly, staring at that stupid phone, it occurred to me that for over two years—ever since my mama had first taken ill—life had swept me along at a terrifying pace. I felt like a blind person being shoved down some unknown and obstacle-ridden path. I needed to stop, toe the ground, float my hands in exploration. Take it one step at a time, as I had done that day I walked away from my mother’s grave.

  The phone rang a second time.

  “Hello?” I didn’t even try to suppress the sigh that chased the word. Grandma Westerdahl was on the line. Demanding in a shrill voice to hear the truth about the horrible things she’d heard. My frustration piled higher, a growing mound of choking dust and debris in my chest. I told Grandma Daddy’s version of the events—the watered-down, Katherine-as-the-victim version. Disneyland meets Stephen King. But she didn’t want to hear about Katherine.

  “How is Bobby?” she pressed. “How are all of you?”

  “Daddy’s sore but okay. The rest of us weren’t hurt at all.”

  “But what you saw!” Her tone wavered like a violin player seeking a lost note. She sucked in air. “I knew that Katherine King was bad news the first time I laid eyes on her. Now she’s brought you terrible trouble, and you can bet this won’t be the last of it. Your daddy needs to get as far away from her as possible.”

  “Grandma—”

  “Where is he? I want to talk to him right now!”

  I wasn’t all that happy with Daddy myself at the moment, but no way would I unleash my grandmother’s tirade on him. Daddy had been through enough. “He can’t talk now, Grandma, we’re getting ready to go to Robert’s softball game.” I promised her he would call later, or at least see her in church tomorrow. I did not want to tell her that Katherine would be with us the rest of the day.

  By the time I hung up the phone, I couldn’t begin to sort out who I agreed with more, Daddy or Grandma. I couldn’t sort out much of anything. I’d have been happy to go to bed and pull the covers over my head.

  Quickly, before one more intrusion, I dialed the Matthews’ number. Celia answered. Shame washed over me as I identified myself, asking for Greg. I couldn’t even apologize for returning her brother-in-law looking like he’d accompanied me to a barroom brawl.

  “Greg,” I rushed when he came to the phone, “how are you? How’s your face and your hand? Is your family mad?”

  He laughed, unmistakably pleased at my concern. “You are right, I look terrible. But it doesn’t hurt much anymore. And no, they are not mad.”

  I closed my eyes, picturing his bruised face, remembering how quickly he’d jumped to Daddy’s aid. I felt about two feet high. How on earth could I doubt his sincerity? How could I think of foisting my disappointment and distrust of Katherine upon him?

  “How is your family? Your baba and his head?”

  Inside or out? I wanted to ask. “We’re all okay.”

  He hesitated. “And Katherine?”

  “Katherine is also fine,” I said, an edge creeping into my v
oice. “In fact she is so fine that she’ll be with Daddy all day.”

  “Ah.”

  That’s all he could say. Ah. As if he’d known it, expected it. Was I the only person around here with any sense about this whole thing?

  I pushed the thoughts aside. “Anyway. I called to see if you still want to go out tonight.”

  “Yes! You can?”

  I told him we’d return from a softball game around five, and I could be ready by six. I wanted time to shower, put on makeup. Get my head on straight. I wanted time to stare at his picture, recapture the magic of dreaming about being with him. “I’ll drive over and get you then, okay?”

  He said that sounded great. I hung up the phone, then thought better of it. Punching the “talk” button, I stuck it back in the drawer. As I headed for my bedroom, thinking again that Greg Kostakis was too good to be true, I heard the faint, disembodied voice declare that if I’d like to make a call, I should hang up the phone and try again . . .

  chapter 25

  Robert’s team lost the game, which meant the end of their playoffs and the season. He shuffled back to the car, head down, a glum expression on his face. “We’d a won if I’d been able to play,” he pronounced. I had to admire Robert. He could say such things without sounding like an egomaniac. Fact was fact.

  “I know.” I opened the car door and helped him sit down. He scooted backward across the car until his cast lay out in front of him. Clarissa climbed in front, tired and crotchety.

  “I wanted to ride with Daddy and Katherine.” She folded her arms and frowned, mad at the world. I felt little sympathy. She’d spent the whole game leaning against Katherine as if her life depended on it, oblivious to the heat of body contact under the sun. Katherine had put up with Clarissa’s clinging almost as if she’d expected it, which irritated me no end. If Clarissa needed extra nurturing, it was only because of last night, and I should have been the one she’d come to. On the other hand, Clarissa had seemed just fine as she watched cartoons that morning and as we’d driven to the game, so what was this all about? I didn’t care for the thought that perhaps Clarissa indeed worried about something happening to Katherine. Why couldn’t she worry about Daddy, for pete’s sake? He’s the one who got hurt.

  Katherine and I had exchanged only chitchat during the game, and as little of that as I could manage. While still sounding respectful. “Tender” proved quite beyond me. “Tender” bespoke memories of Mama and my vague dreams about love. “Tender” spoke of the way Greg had held me last night when I cried.

  As I drove, I glanced at Robert now and then through the rearview mirror. He stared sightlessly out the window, lips puckered and sagging at the corners. I could imagine the thoughts banging about his adolescent head. Dreams of hitting a home run to the cheers of his teammates, of leaping to his daddy’s aid last night and sinking a fist into Trent Baxter’s well-deserving gut.

  Our phone shrilled as we entered the house. It was Grandma Westerdahl, announcing that she’d waited long enough to talk to Daddy. “We’ve just come back from the game,” I said, “and he’s right behind me. Can you wait a minute?” No trying to rescue him this time. A perverse part of me wanted to witness his having to defend Katherine to his mother-in-law in her presence.

  Of course, Daddy found a way to shield Katherine from the storm. He took the call in his bedroom. I flicked her a meaningful look as he disappeared down the hallway. Slowly, she set our cooler on the kitchen table, her expression flattened and drawn. Amazingly, my heart beat one fleeting thud for her. Irritated, I turned away, hearing the orchestral burst of welcome from the computer in the family room. Robert apparently planned to drown his doldrums in a sea of dead aliens.

  “Will you play a game with me?” Clarissa asked Katherine as I headed down the hall to dress for my first date.

  I chose a simple orange sleeveless dress and heeled sandals. As I fiddled with my hair and put on makeup, Greg’s picture smiled at me, reflected in my dresser mirror. I turned my radio on, hoping to hear “Hung Up on You,” but was disappointed. Fifteen minutes before I needed to leave, I could find no more primping to do. I sat on my bed and stared at Greg’s picture. Stared and stared until fresh amazement and deep disappointment bubbled through my veins.

  When you’ve lost a loved one, milestones in your life are bittersweet, inevitably tainted by the haunting “If only.” And so, even as I whispered aloud, “My first date, my first date,” reveling in the rhythm of the words on my tongue, a longing for Mama beat through my innermost being. Memories sprang up before me like projected slides. Mama, brushing my hair in this very room when I was thirteen. “Tell me about your first date with Daddy,” I said.

  She laughed. “How many times have you heard that story, Jackie?” Never enough.

  Sitting on the back deck with Mama, shelling peas, the sun warm on my arms. Plunk. The peas hit the large pan between our feet. Plunk, plunk. “On my first date, I want to go out to supper like you and Daddy did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to sit across the table from him and look at him. You can’t do that in a movie.” Plunk.

  “I’d have picked a movie,” Mama replied. “But your grandma wouldn’t let me go to them.”

  “Grandma didn’t let you do anything.”

  A winter afternoon three years ago, driving back home down a snowy Route 622 after gymnastics class. “When Daddy first took you out, what did you talk about? Was it hard to find something to say?”

  Mama managed a smile in spite of her concentration on the slippery road. “I’d have talked a blue streak, but I was scared to sound too chatty, so I stayed pretty quiet. Your dad forced himself to talk so I wouldn’t find him boring.”

  No, I thought as I waited to leave on my first date, Daddy forced himself to talk to keep his mind off someone else. Had Mama known then? I wondered. Did she believe he’d stopped liking Celia Matthews? Or was she just so glad to be with him that she didn’t allow herself to think about it?

  I ran my palm over my bedspread, feeling the stitches, and stared at Greg’s picture. Mama’s first date with Daddy may not have been perfect, yet somehow over the years her memories had sifted over the imperfections like gold dust. I wanted that same gold dust now, tonight. Instead of my mama sending me off, Daddy would tell me goodbye, Katherine at his side. Gold dust. Greg’s bruised face would remind me all evening of what Katherine had done. Gold dust. I would never be able to tell Mama about my first date.

  Gold dust.

  I left my room telling myself no matter what, I would make the most of this night.

  chapter 26

  My heart fluttered as I clicked up the porch steps to the Matthews’ home. I felt downright strange. Never had I expected to be the one ringing the doorbell on this momentous occasion in my life. And I did not care to face Celia or her parents. Greg answered the door and my jaw slacked. His left cheek plumed reddish black, trailing all the way up to his eye. He looked bruised and battered and handsome all at once, dressed to kill in dark pants and a beige shirt, again of silk. The sapphire ring was back on his finger.

  “Come.” He took my hand and pulled me into their entryway, where I stood tongue-tied, the spicy scent of his cologne filling my nostrils. Greg licked his lips, anticipation and anxiety hanging about him like a fine mist. He gave a self-conscious shrug. “Sorry I look so bad.”

  “You look wonderful,” I blurted, meaning it.

  Mr. Matthews appeared, Celia and her mother behind him. My insides cringed. “Jackie,” he said warmly, “so nice to see you.”

  “Nice to see you too,” I replied in a small voice, forcing myself to look at him. I saw not the slightest hint of blame in his expression, nor on the faces of Celia or her mother. Instead, Celia smiled from me to Greg with a mixture of tenderness and joy, almost as if she were bestowing some kind of blessing upon us. I felt bared, spotlighted on a stage with no knowledge of my lines. I turned my eyes to the wrinkled, worn face of Mrs. Matthews. “I’m sorry about la
st night. Everything that happened. And Greg getting hurt. My daddy’s really sorry too.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Mr. Matthews declared, tilting his head back to look Greg up and down with satisfaction. “I’m right glad Greg was there to help. Think what might have happened if he hadn’t been.”

  “Good for you to say,” Greg replied teasingly. We all laughed.

  “Have a good time,” Mr. Matthews said, putting a hand on Greg’s shoulder and urging him toward the door. Gratitude for the man’s kindness welled within me.

  “Celia’s father sure is nice,” I told Greg as we drove away from the house.

  “They are both very good to me.”

  “At least bein’ at their house has been a little more quiet than bein’ at mine, huh.”

  I made the remark lightly enough, but Greg laid a hand on my arm. “Let’s make a promise to not talk about what happens last night, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  We were silent for a moment.

  “What did you do today?” I asked.

  “Meet people. We eat lunch with Mr. and Mrs. B, and Jessie and Lee. Then we go to the Kings’ house. That is already planned,” he added. “We almost don’t go, but Mrs. King says come.”

  I threw a glance at him, wondering what he wasn’t telling me. Surely that had felt awkward. I could imagine Mrs. King making a fuss over his face. But we weren’t supposed to talk about that. “Did you meet Derek?” The thought of Greg and Derek side by side almost made me laugh. Talk about night and day.

  “No, he is working.” Greg paused. “He is a friend of yours?”

  “Yeah. Sort of. He’s . . . well, he’s Derek. Kind of different.”

  “Mm.” He focused on the tree-lined road. “Sorry you have to drive.”

  I envisioned all the boys in Bradleyville who could be driving their daddy’s cars, taking me out for the first time. Not one picture could begin to compare with this, even with my driving and Greg’s wounded face. “I don’t mind at all. But you haven’t told me which restaurant we’re going to.”