Mason made them both ham sandwiches, and then he asked Larry Joe when Charlene was coming home.
“Four or five days,” Larry Joe said around his bite of ham sandwich. “Sometime next week.”
Mason sat looking at his hands holding his sandwich. “Does she know about me coming by?” He wondered what she would think of him.
Larry Joe said he hadn’t told her but he didn’t know about his brother Danny J. “You want me to tell him not to tell?”
“Oh, no,” Mason said quickly. “It isn’t a secret or anything.”
But still, he fairly itched when he thought of her learning of it.
He wasn’t certain he could show up at her doorstep like that again. In fact, he wasn’t certain he wanted to approach her again. He had begun to think that his fantasies had been a lot easier to bear. In them, he was all the man he wished to be, and she was all the woman. By turning the fantasy into reality, he risked having to face a much less than perfect picture. He risked destroying completely his dreams of their love.
The City Hall thermometer reads 100°
Joey didn’t mean to snap at Sheila, but that was how it came out when he told her that she could go pick up the young colt from Shackleford by herself.
“You don’t need to snap at me, Joey,” she said.
“I’m sorry. It’s the heat so early in the morning. Look, Primo can go with you. That colt’s easy to handle. He won’t have any trouble loading him.” He averted his gaze.
“I want you to go with me,” she said, hand on her hip and lips pouting.
He did not intend to go with her. He thought he would suffocate if he went with her. “I have to work those two mares. If we’re goin’ to show them this weekend, I have to work them every day. And then I want to go get bute and some of that high protein food from MacCoy’s.”
He felt her searching gaze as he turned to untie the mare from the rail, and then he heard the sound of her boots crunching gravel as she turned and strode away.
Sitting atop the bay mare, he watched Sheila drive away in her truck with the gleaming trailer and felt relief flow through every muscle. He was, he thought, about to lose everything yet again. She could throw him off this place, and where would he go? He didn’t know, and he didn’t care right then.
He did what he always did when beset by emotions he did not understand: he rode the horses. This was what he was good at. He knew who he was and where he fit on this earth when he was training a horse. That was why his horses responded to him, because he became one with them, leaving his human life and confusion behind.
After an hour, however, Joey could no longer block from his mind the image of Mason MacCoy having come to see Charlene. Both he and the horse were wringing with sweat, and when Joey took the mare to rinse her in the washing stall, he quite suddenly turned the water on himself, holding the hose over his head and letting the cold well water pelt him, hopefully to wash the disturbing memory from his mind. He blinked with the water running in his eyes, alarmed to find he wanted to cry.
He scrubbed his head under the water and then turned the hose to his chest, over his head again and back over his shoulders, thoroughly soaking himself. The mare looked over at him as if he had lost his mind. He put a hand on her neck, feeling the sleek wet and warm coat. Then, for an instant, he laid his forehead against her neck.
With tired movements, he wiped her down and put her in her stall, and walked, his pants legs stuck to him and his boots squishing, over to his trailer, where he showered and dressed.
On his way to MacCoy’s Feed and Seed, he passed the thermometer on the corner of the City Hall building; it now read 103°, and it was not yet noon. He stopped in front of the store, and when he got out of the truck, he realized he’d parked in exactly the same place he had when Charlene had come and fought with him that day. His cheeks burned all over again. He thought that memory would hound him for the rest of his life.
The bell rang out when he entered the store, causing him to wince. At the counter, Bennie made him out an invoice for five bags of the special grain mixture and got him three tubes of the inflammation medication. “Here you are, Joey. Mason’ll fix you right up with the grain over at the warehouse,” Bennie said in his usual cheerful manner.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Joey snatched up the small bag of medication and the invoice.
He backed his truck at a good speed over to the loading dock, stopped with a jerk and hopped out. His boots tapped the concrete, and his spurs jingled. After a minute, there came Mason, rolling the bags of grain on a dolly from the dim interior.
“Hey, Joey.”
“Hey.”
Chewing on words he was trying to hold in, Joey stood back and watched the man high up on the loading dock toss the bags of feed into his pickup. When Mason had finished, Joey handed up the invoice, which Mason signed, ripped off the copy and crouched to return to him.
Then they were looking at each other, Joey looking up, and Mason looking down, and Joey said, “You went to see my wife a couple days ago.”
Mason nodded. “Yes, I did.”
Joey looked away, then back up at the man. “Just so you know—we aren’t divorced.”
“I’m aware of that.” Mason inclined his head, and Joey thought he had finished, but then Mason said, “The facts are that you have left Charlene and are living elsewhere and are seen regularly in the company of another woman. Your wife is on her own. Those are the facts of the case.”
“Yeah, well, the main fact remains that we are not divorced,” Joey said, feeling small and silly and wanting to knock the man’s head right off.
Instead he got into his pickup, started it with a roar and drove off with both hands gripping the wheel.
The City Hall thermometer reads 90°
Vella was out admiring the solar lights now stuck between each rosebush when Minnie Oakes hollered from the back door.
“Yoo-hoo, Vella?”
“Yes? I’m over here.” Vella waved, somewhat sorry that Minnie had come while she was trying to watch and see any difference happening with her rosebushes.
“Your bread maker is beepin’,” Minnie called from the bottom step. “You need me to add anything?”
“Oh, no. I’m makin’ plain.” She might as well go in, she thought, but Minnie was coming toward her, walking on tiptoe across the shadowy yard.
“Perry said you were out here examinin’ your lights. They sure look pretty. But how are they plugged in?” Minnie glanced around, as if looking for a cord.
“They don’t need pluggin’ in. They run on solar.”
“On what?”
“The sunlight. They get energy from the sunlight.”
“But it’s dark.”
“They take the energy from the sun during the day and use it at night.” Minnie never understood modern things. She could not even work her VCR.
“Oh. What if it is cloudy for a few days? Will they still work?”
Vella looked at the lights. “Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to read the directions.” That could be a problem.
“Do you think they will keep the armadillos away?”
Oh, dear, Vella thought, still not settled about the cloudy days. “No, I don’t think so.” She had in fact heard that the light attracted the critters.
“You will be able to see the armadillos better, I imagine,” Minnie said.
Vella was looking down at the Valentine house. The rosebushes there were shrouded in darkness. Maybe the glow had to be at certain times to help the bushes bloom. That might make for a problem, because the lights she had bought came on automatically at dark and stayed on until light.
She and Minnie went back into the bright kitchen, where Vella kept glancing out the window to see the glow of her lights among the rosebushes.
“You don’t think those lights will attract armadillos, do you?” she asked her husband, after Minnie had left. She had been careful not to tell him how much she had spent on the lights.
“You can probably
see them better to shoot them,” he said, without looking up from his magazine.
“I don’t want to do that,” Vella said. “I’m not the sort of person who’d attract armadillos just to shoot them.” She might end up with trouble from the SPCA.
Twenty-One
Rainey’s patio thermometer reads 102°
Rainey was just hanging up the phone when she heard Charlene and Jojo coming in the door, Charlene calling out frantically, “Rainey! Rainey!” Footsteps thudded on the thick carpeting, and Charlene appeared through the open bedroom door, eyes wide and hair wild.
She stared at Rainey, and Rainey stared back from where she had sat up in bed, causing her dog Roscoe to rise up and tense, as if to be ready to defend his mistress.
“What is it?” Rainey asked, alarmed, thinking first of Jojo, but then, thankfully, Jojo appeared right beneath Charlene’s elbow.
“What is it?” Charlene repeated with high annoyance.
She dropped her shopping bags and threw herself in the big flower-print chair. “I have been phoning here for the past hour, and the line has been busy. I thought maybe some emergency had happened and you were calling a doctor, or maybe had knocked the phone off the hook when you fainted getting out of bed. You knew I would call to check on you. You shouldn’t have kept the line tied up.”
Roscoe, thoroughly confused and certain he might have been at fault, slinked off the bed.
“I’m sorry to let you down and not be unconscious,” Rainey said, to which Charlene rolled her eyes, and Jojo laughed and threw herself down on the bed with Rainey, telling her, “We bought lots of stuff, Aunt Rainey.”
And Rainey responded appropriately with, “Oooh, show me everything!”
She had been urging Charlene for days to go shopping at the big mall very conveniently located within a short bus ride. Since her sister and niece had been gone for over three hours—during which time Charlene had phoned Rainey on the cellular three times to check on her—Rainey thought the trip must have proved successful. And now that Charlene was calming down, Rainey could see she appeared quite perky. The shopping excursion had done her good.
“JCPenney was havin’ a great sale,” Charlene, queen of bargains, said, as she flipped off her sandals and slipped out of her skirt and crawled onto the big bed, too.
The bags were opened and fabrics and colors poured out. Even Roscoe wanted to see. “Oh, Roscoe…you’re too hairy,” Charlene said, brushing stray dog hair off a newborn sleeper.
“You’ve hurt his feelings,” Rainey said, as the dog turned to leave the room. “Come here, boy.”
The dog looked doubtfully over his shoulder and waited. Rainey looked at Charlene. “You have to apologize,” she whispered. “He understands everything.”
Charlene blinked and then said, “It’s okay, Roscoe. We’ll have to wash everything anyway. Come and see.”
The dog returned and laid his head on Charlene’s ankle. “Oh, you old spoiled hound, you,” she said and patted his head.
They all oohed and aahed over the contents of the first bulging shopping bag, which was filled with baby clothes and various articles. Jojo had chosen for the baby a musical stuffed Curious George, one just like she had had as a baby.
Then Rainey and Charlene insisted Jojo try on and model each of her new outfits. That Charlene had gone overboard was evident. Trying to make up for a broken home, Rainey knew, watching her sister’s bittersweet expression.
Jojo changed behind the bathroom door and came strolling out like a model down the runway, while Charlene did narration. “And now, from the wonderful sale at Penney’s, we have Jojo in a cotton pants and blouse set for the early hot school days.” This made Jojo giggle—as she had not in some time, Rainey thought, remembering how quiet Jojo had been the first days and how she would lie each night against Harry and Roscoe and watch the Disney Channel.
“And this little number is for cooler fall days. The blue brings out the pale blond of her lovely hair.” Charlene shot Rainey a mother’s prideful glance that said, See how lovely she is. She how she is growing up. Thank you for letting us come. It has been good for us.
When Jojo finished modeling all of her new clothes, she and Rainey insisted that Charlene do the same with the two dresses and blouse and skirt, and even the nightgown, that she had bought for herself. Jojo stood and pretended to narrate into her fist-microphone, while Rainey properly applauded Charlene’s taste and ability to get such bargains.
Then Jojo took Roscoe off to watch television, and it was just Charlene and Rainey on the big bed. Rainey thought Charlene had never looked more lovely. The new haircut and rinse set off the graceful shape of her neck and golden green of her eyes. She appeared much more relaxed than when she had arrived the previous week. Rainey was certain of it.
“I was talking to Danny J. all that time you were phoning me,” Rainey said. She was fairly bursting with all sorts of news.
“Danny J.?”
“Oh, Charlene, don’t get that look. He is fine. You do not need to immediately assume the worst.”
“Oh, I know.” She straightened and raked a hand through her hair. “I do fight the habit. I simply haven’t been able to get up enough strength to face Danny J. riding broncs. I should have followed up with Joey about the bucking horse. I should be the one to jump right in there and get him on the broncs, before he does it at some really inopportune time.” Her eyes opened wide. “He didn’t, did he? He hasn’t been riding a bronc yet?”
“Yes. He phoned to tell you. He was on one over at his friend Curt’s. And he is still alive to tell of it—quite happily so. ”
“Oh…and I wasn’t here to hear him.”
“Charlene, you will call him back. It’s okay. You can’t be there every single minute. You were with Jojo this time.”
“Well, yes, I was. And we had such a good time. This is the first year she has really taken part in choosing her school clothes. And she does not like the color green. That girl wants denim blue, and that’s the end of it.”
“So I noticed. It looks good on her, too.”
“She may turn out to be one of those girls who can wear a feed sack and look good,” Charlene said in an absent fashion and then studied her fingernails like she always did when thinking deep, sad thoughts.
Intent on pulling her sister up, Rainey said, “Guess what Daddy did now?”
“What?”
“He installed lights for his flag and speakers up underneath the eaves. Now, each morning at sunrise, he flips a switch and “Dixie” plays out. And he doesn’t have to take his flag in, except in rain, because he switches the lights on it each night. Danny J. says it looks grand. Can you imagine?” She laughed.
Charlene said, “I just hope he doesn’t get some ACLU fellas comin’ into Valentine. You know the fuss a lot of people are makin’ over things like that.”
“Oh, he’s just an old man who loves his South. Lots of people do. Lots of older people know a country we don’t, Charlene. One of Harry’s patients, Mrs. Roth, she goes on and on about how her family was thrown out of their house by a big corporation that moved in and ran them off their farm back in the Depression. It happened all over out here. There’s a lot of those older people over at the retirement home who sit around the radio and listen to these shows that talk all about the terrible acts of government. They’re like a bunch of Senior Subversives.”
“Well, Daddy may not like the government, but his main objective is to get Everett’s goat,” Charlene pointed out.
Rainey nodded, thinking warmly of her father, a one-of-a-kind man. “Their rivalry keeps them both going. It makes them happy, and there’s no harm done.”
Then she went on to tell Charlene that Danny had reported the heat had been so bad as to open a crack right on Main Street, right out from the thermometer. “Mildred says that’s a sign they need to take the thing down for good. She’s hopin’ you’ll come back and make Sunday dinner, by the way.”
Charlene was studying her fingernails
again.
“And Mason MacCoy came by to see you.” Rainey had been saving this for last.
“He did?” Charlene’s head came up so fast it almost snapped off.
“Yes,” Rainey said, quite pleased to relate the information. “The very evenin’ after you left, but Danny J. forgot to tell you. He hopes you aren’t mad at him.”
“Well, for heaven sake.” Charlene looked flabbergasted.
“He came calling, Charlene,” Rainey said, tickled by the phrase. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” Laughing, she picked up a pillow and whacked her sister. She was thoroughly delighted at this turn of events and had questioned Danny J. very closely about the entire matter. “He brought flowers. Danny J. said Mason had flowers in his hand.”
“He brought me flowers?”
“He said he wanted to come visit. What that means, Charlene, is that he is hot for you.”
Charlene stared at her for a long second. “But I’m not divorced. I don’t think I should start carrying on with some man who brings me flowers.” She backed off the bed, as if backing away from the idea.
“Oh, Charlene, Joey has gone off. He has broken his vow before God. You don’t get much more broke up than that. I don’t care what the legalities are. And just because a man brings you flowers does not mean you are carrying on with him.”
“Well, I am not ready to start dating,” Charlene said, raking her hand through her coppery hair.
“You told him he could come see you.”
“I didn’t think he would bring flowers.”
“What does that have to do with it?” Rainey was a little exasperated at Charlene, who could not seem to be pleased.
“I don’t know. I should have explained that I didn’t want to date. That I didn’t want to start any sort of affair.” She breathed the word affair in a low, furtive voice.
“You may just insult Mason by saying that. Just because he brought you flowers does not mean he wants an affair.”
Charlene went to raking her fingers through her hair at a frantic rate, and Rainey told her to stop it, before she pulled her hair right out.
Charlene looked at her. “I don’t know the least thing about dating nowadays. And I’m not sure I want to know.”
Driving Lessons Page 20