Larry Joe nodded and stuck his hands in his pants pockets. “Hello, ma’am.”
“You don’t have to ma’am me, Larry Joe. You aren’t at work now.” She seemed to get a kick out of saying his name. “I don’t think I’m old enough to be your mother.” She was looking at him in the way she had of making him feel self-conscious.
Larry Joe glanced at Mason, to see the man was amused. He felt his face heating up.
Mason said, “Iris, did you see Larry Joe’s mother anywhere back around the rest rooms and fellowship hall?”
“Why, no. I wasn’t in the rest room. I just left Adam and the other deacons in the fellowship hall, havin’ their few words.” She lifted her foot to adjust the strap of her sandal, reaching out to hold on to Larry Joe for balance.
“Would you mind going to check the ladies’ room to see if she’s there?” Mason asked. “She wasn’t feeling very well.”
“Well…” she cast a curious look at Larry Joe “…sure I will. It’s probably the heat, and the ladies’ room is the coolest place in that whole building. Here, Mace, will you hold my Bible and purse?” She thrust the things at Mason and turned and left.
Larry Joe watched her go, her bottom swinging in her tight pink skirt and her high-heeled sandals clicking on the concrete walk and up the stairs.
Then he looked over at Mason, and Mason, with a knowing grin, looked back at him.
“Why don’t you hold the purse?” Mason said.
Larry Joe kept his hands in his pocket. “You’ve got two hands.”
“You’re a smart aleck,” Mason said, “but I like you, and I’ve decided to work on that Chevy. Maybe I’ll take it to some shows. Want a job?”
“What are you payin’?”
Just then, here came his mother with Danny J. from around the parking lot side of the building. Quite suddenly, watching her come down the walkway, with her hair bright and shiny in the sun, he was struck by how pretty his mother was. Every bit as pretty as Iris MacCoy, he thought, but in a different way. In a classy way…the way she walked and held herself straight. She smiled first at him and then at Mason, which sort of made Larry Joe mad.
“We’ve been lookin’ all over for you,” Larry Joe said, just then realizing he had been very worried. His father going nutty, he could understand, but he sure expected his mother to at least mostly stay stable. She’d always been there for them.
“I didn’t mean to worry you,” she said. “I got a horrible headache, and I needed some fresh air. I sat out on the bench over by the Sunday school rooms.” He saw then that she had roses in her hand. “I picked these. Don’t tell anyone.” She blushed.
“I don’t think pickin’ the roses is an arresting offense,” Mason said, and his voice was warm as melted butter.
And then she was looking at Mason and Mason was staring at her. Larry Joe watched them, feeling all sorts of confusion.
“Oh…you found her!” It was Iris MacCoy coming down the stairs. “Larry Joe said you weren’t feelin’ too good and sent me to see if you were in the ladies’ room,” she said, and as friendly as anything, she came close and slipped her hand right through Larry Joe’s arm, giving a sort of laugh.
“It was too stuffy in the church for me, but I feel fine now,” his mother said, her eyes straight on Iris. “I’d like to get out of this heat, though, so I’ll claim my son to drive us home.”
His mother’s voice was every bit as bright as Iris’s, and she slipped right in between Iris and him and took his arm. “It was so nice to see you all,” she said, then grabbed hold of Danny J.’s hand and walked them both off toward the Suburban.
“Mom?” Larry Joe said.
“Yes, sugar?”
“You’re squeezin’ my arm.”
“You said last week at Dixie’s that you planned to have Sunday dinner,” Mildred reminded her with an accusing eye.
“We are,” Charlene said. “It’s just that I forgot, and I really don’t feel like cookin’, so I sent Larry Joe and Danny J. to get pizza at Mazzio’s. They’ll be right back.”
“I’d have been glad to take everyone out,” her father said, looking a little uncertain.
Ruthanne was pulling out her chair and sitting at the table, just like always. Mildred looked like she was going to faint. She sank down into a chair. “Pizza just doesn’t agree with my stomach,” she said faintly.
Charlene went over and crouched in front of the older woman and took one of her hands. “I’ll be glad to heat you up some canned soup. And then we can have the family meal right here, no trouble for anyone.”
“I guess so,” Mildred said, clearly disappointed. Then she pulled open her purse. “I have a packet of instant chicken noodle in here. I like it real well. You just add water and heat. Do you have oyster crackers? I just love oyster crackers.”
Charlene was sitting on the back stoop, sipping coffee, when the door opened. It was Larry Joe. She asked him to turn off the porch light so she could see the stars better. He did so, and then came and sat beside her on the middle step. They were both barefoot, and they put their feet hard and flat on the concrete, experiencing the amazing heat it held from the day.
“Weather report just said there’s a hurricane comin’ in the Gulf,” Larry Joe said, “and maybe we’ll get rain.”
“We have to pray for rain and think rain,” Charlene said. “There—Orion. See his belt.”
“What is Orion?”
“A constellation. That’s all I know. There’s legends with each constellation. I used to know that stuff. Grama and I would sit out at the edge of the orchard and look at the stars. She knew all about them.”
They saw a shooting star, and what Larry Joe told her was a satellite. They watched a frog hop across the walk-way. His nighttime feeding of bugs had been interrupted when the light had been turned off. Out in the pasture the horses came running around, dark shadows with pounding hoof sounds. Larry Joe could make out each horse, but Charlene’s eyes would not. She could do it by instinct, though. There was rustling out near the half-dead forsythia bush. They speculated that it was a possum, but then they saw it was a skunk. They almost jumped up to run inside, but then sat very still, watching it dig for grubs until it disappeared in the deep dark. They did all this while Charlene waited for Larry Joe to get around to telling her what he had to say.
“Mom,” he said at last, in that hesitant tone of uncertainty.
“Yes?”
“You like Mason MacCoy, don’t you?”
That was not what she had expected. “Well, yes. I think he’s a nice man. What I know of him.”
“You look at him, and he sure looks at you.”
“Oh, we do not.” She buried her nose in her cup, drinking the last of her coffee.
“Yes, you do. It’s okay. He seems like a pretty good guy.”
“There’s nothing there, Larry Joe. He’s just a polite, nice man.” If Larry Joe saw it, then it wasn’t her imagination.
“Whatever.”
“What does that mean, anyway?”
He shrugged and played with his toes. “I guess it means whatever you want it to mean.”
A few seconds of watching him, and Charlene leaned over and kissed his ear. “I’m so glad you’re my son.”
He gave her that charming grin, but she didn’t think it was in his eyes. He wiggled his toes and then said, “I have somethin’ to tell you, Mom.”
“Oh?” She thought he’d told her what it was he had to say, but now she sensed there was something much more serious. “Well, go ahead.”
“Dad went to Dallas with Sheila Arnett. For the weekend.”
She let out a breath. “I know, honey.” She wasn’t certain what else she should say, but she felt Larry Joe needed her to speak to this. “How do you know?”
“I went over there yesterday. I was gonna talk to him. I…I just thought we should talk. One of the guys over there told me. Told me what hotel they were at, even.”
“That must have taken a lot of courage for
you to go over there,” she said, feeling at a loss and so angry at Joey for missing the opportunity with his son because he was being a fool with that slut. “I’m sorry you missed him. But you can go again. I think you should plan on it. It’s a good idea, honey. Your daddy would love to talk with you.”
He gave that I-don’t-care shrug that was filled with hurt.
“Larry Joe, your father loves you. He does. He just doesn’t know how to show you.”
“I’m not a cowboy. He wants a cowboy, like Danny J.”
“Oh, honey, it’s just that you frighten him a little.” She laid her hand at the back of his neck, feeling his silky hair. “Sometimes it is like this between fathers and sons. He wants to be able to help you with things and share things with you, but what you are interested in, he doesn’t know about. And it frightens your dad a little, you growing into a man. He hopes he’s done right as a father. He so wants you to be happy, and he worries that he can’t help you, so he backs away. I really think your father thinks you don’t need him. You are awfully self-sufficient, Larry Joe.”
He sort of shrugged. Then he said, “Are you still wantin’ him to come back?”
She thought. “I haven’t decided. These things can’t be decided quickly, Larry Joe. They just sort of have to evolve. You have to go down the road, and see where it takes you, I guess.”
He folded his arms across his knees and rested his chin there.
“That your father and I have our differences has nothing to do with you and Danny J. and Jojo. You are his children, and he is your father. He wants to be your father, and he needs you all.”
He did not answer this. Her gaze flowed over his profile, his features dim but his handsomeness clearly visible. A proud ache filled her heart. The memory of Iris MacCoy flirting with him flickered across her mind.
“Have you made up your mind about junior college this semester?” she asked.
“I think so. I’m gonna go. Mr. Stidham said he would work my hours around my class hours. And I can pick up extra work around, too.” He looked around at her. She couldn’t fully read his eyes in the dimness, but his voice was certain. “I want to save my money and see if I can get enough to go up to Michigan, to a school there.”
Charlene stared at him. “Michigan?”
He nodded. “There’s a really good school there for car design. I think I want to give it a try.”
“Well.”
“I know it’ll take a lot of money, but there’s scholarships. ’Course, I probably can’t qualify with my grades, but they have student aid. And I can work. I can always get work.”
“Michigan, Larry Joe? What’s wrong with University of Oklahoma or even up at Oklahoma State?” She felt hysteria edging in.
“They don’t have this sort of program.”
“But you could start out at one of them. You don’t have to go all the way up to Michigan right away.”
“I told you, I’m gonna start here at junior college. My grades aren’t good enough to get right in up there.”
She swallowed, and he sat there with his chin on his arms.
She found her breath and some patches of sanity and told him not to worry over the money. “We’ll work it somehow, if you want to go. God will show the way. Now tell me about the school.”
Later, as she lay in bed, unable to sleep, she thought that her son surely had had a few things to tell her. He’d kept them all bottled up. That wasn’t good for a person.
Reaching over, she picked up the phone and dialed Joey’s pager. She held the phone, waiting to see if he called back quickly. Or at all.
The phone rang five minutes later, and she jumped.
“Are you alone?” she asked immediately.
“Well, yeah,” he said, clearly surprised.
“There’s some things you should know. Your eldest son found out you went to Dallas with Sheila. He found out when he went over there to talk to you, but you weren’t there, so some stranger told him his father had gone off to Dallas with his girlfriend. Also, the school year starts in two weeks, and I’m gonna be spending most of what’s in the checking account to take care of the kids’ school clothes. Good night.”
She hung up the phone, then took it off the receiver and rolled over. She could not believe she had spoken to him like that.
She wished there was someone she could run off with to Dallas, and she briefly imagined running off with Mason. But then she told herself to quit being ludicrous. For one thing, she was a mother and would not behave in such a manner.
Seventeen
Winston got his Confederate flag put out about the same time as Northrupt across the street got out his Stars and Bars. He was a little surprised to find himself breathless with the effort, but nevertheless, as he went down the steps to get the day’s edition of the Valentine Voice, he felt satisfied that another morning had gotten off on the right foot.
Just as he bent for the paper, music filled the air. The sound so startled him that he like to have lost his balance and fallen over. “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It came from across the street, from a long black box—one of those boom boxes—that his neighbor was that minute setting on the edge of his front porch. Northrupt fiddled with the machine, and the music got louder.
Then Northrupt straightened, saluted his flag and grinned at Winston, and saluted him, too. Doing a sharp pivot, the man went in his front door, leaving the flags waving ’neath the rockets’ red glare.
Winston strode on off to his roses, with the music floating after him, like stink on a skunk.
Vella, stuck behind her lilac bush where she caught the strains of the music, lowered her binoculars and shook her head, saying, “My land.”
An hour later she drove herself over to the county agent’s office and plunked the jar of dirt she’d gotten from around Winston’s roses on the clerk’s government-gunmetal desk. “I’d like this analyzed, please.”
Charlene was alone in the house, her children gone off to friends. The house seemed to echo.
Before leaving with Larry Joe, Danny J. had reminded her that the horses needed grain. She would call MacCoy to have them bring it out, of course. Likely Mason would bring it. She hoped he would bring it.
Charlene thought of this as she dialed the feed store. Bennie answered and said, “How are you today, Miz Darnell?” and she said, “Fine, thank you.”
She gave him the order, adding, “Oh, and I need four bags of water softener salt, too.” She felt a little guilty at them delivering her small horse feed order and wanted to improve it as best she could.
“Okay. We’ll get that out to you this mornin’,” Bennie said.
She almost asked if Mason would bring it, but, of course, she couldn’t ask that. Likely he would, though, she thought with anticipation as she hung up.
She was anticipating too much, she told herself. But Mason was a handsome man, and thinking of speaking to him did give her something to occupy her mind in the empty day ahead, and that was the truth of it.
She went to comb her hair and put on some lipstick. She did not have energy for a full makeup job, which would have been too silly anyway.
Mason strode in the front door of MacCoy’s Feed and Seed, passed Bennie at the front desk without a glance and went straight into Adam’s office. “Why were there surveyors at my place when I left?”
“They’re surveying,” Adam said, rising up from his chair.
“I told you I don’t want to sell.”
“Did you look at those papers good? At that offer?”
“Yes, I did, and I still don’t want to sell.”
“Okay, fine.” Adam held up both his hands, then leaned forward, jutting his face determinedly. “But I’m gettin’ the place surveyed. It won’t hurt to have that done. Might be I can find a buyer for my half. I do own half, by God.”
“Suit yourself.” Mason turned and left.
“You’re pigheaded, you know that!” Adam yelled after him. He strode to the doorway, yelling out, “You don’t wan
t to sell just to mess me up on this deal! You just got a dad-gum problem with your older brother, that’s what.”
Mason, who had stopped at the front desk to get the order invoices from Bennie, said, “You got that right. My older brother is my problem.”
With that, Adam got so wrought up that he half jumped off the floor, yelling, “I’ll kick your ass out of here, and then where will you be?”
“You can’t do that,” Mason said with a deliberate calm he knew drove Adam crazy. He snatched up a Tootsie Pop from the cup on Bennie’s desk, and left Bennie, who was used to the occasional confrontation, shaking his head, and walked out the door thinking of how their mother, after forty years with her husband, had been ahead of them and fixed it so Mason couldn’t be cut out of the business.
Adam came shooting his head out the door to yell, “I’ll buy you out. That’s what. You just name your price.”
“Don’t want to sell,” Mason called back, not looking around. He stuck the Tootsie Pop in his mouth and thought that he should be ashamed of himself for enjoying the moment so much at his brother’s expense.
He strode across the concrete lot in the hazy sunlight to the warehouse, adjusting his ball cap against the brightness, shifting the sucker from one side of his mouth to the other. Lord, send us rain, and thank you for it comin’.
Out front of the warehouse was a flatbed truck and in it a farmer he knew simply as Hoover. Mason said he would fill the man’s order directly.
“No hurry. I gave up hurryin’ in this heat,” the man said.
Mason let himself in the small door and went over to press the button to raise the loading door. As it rolled up, he pulled his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and went through the invoices looking for the man’s order.
Charlene Darnell. His eyes lit on her name and stuck. He shifted the sucker around in his mouth and read her name again, just to make sure, and all sorts of stirrings happened inside him. The invoice was for eight sacks of pelletted horse feed, three mineral blocks and four sacks water softener salt.
Another truck pulled up at the loading dock, bringing him back to the present. He found Hoover’s invoice, stuck the rest in the clip on the little desk, and went back to fill the man’s order. He threw away the mostly eaten sucker and started whistling.
Driving Lessons Page 16