Driving Lessons

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  This time, however, was different. This time they were making it an occasion. This time it was a date, she thought, pausing to check herself in the glass cabinet door and make certain she did not have flour or something on her face.

  “You look fine,” Larry Joe said, coming up behind her and startling her.

  She straightened his shirt that didn’t need straightening and told him, her throat getting thick, that he was so handsome. Then, suddenly, she threw her arms around him in a fierce hug. Letting him go just as suddenly, turning away so he could not see her face, she said, “Have a good time.”

  “Mom…I’ve had dates before,” he said, with a mixture of puzzlement and tenderness.

  “I know.” She waved him away, saying again, “Have a good time.”

  He bent over her shoulder and kissed her cheek and said he wouldn’t be late; then was gone.

  Why in the world she felt like crying, she couldn’t say. It was her children changing, growing up, she thought, and herself, too. Just that day she had tried a sample of a new lipstick from a supplier and found that the shade, decidedly more sedate and decorous, suited her much better than her old favorite. And at sometime, without realizing, she had given up the frosty shades of fingernail polish for calm, deep and smooth colors. These changes felt right and a little disconcerting at the same time.

  She let the heat of the oven blast her face as she removed the tomato pudding, thinking that would camouflage red eyes and blushing cheeks.

  Then came Jojo’s voice. “We’ll help, Mama.” And Mason stepped over to slice the roast, and Jojo began ferrying serving dishes out to the formal table.

  While not so openly rude this time, Danny J. clearly was not pleased with Mason’s presence. Refusing to look at anyone, he plopped himself in a chair, at the same time informing Charlene that he had arranged to go over to Curt Butler’s house, where a few of the guys were gathering to watch rodeo on ESPN. “Curt’s dad will come get me and bring me back home,” he said, “so you won’t be interrupted.”

  Charlene sucked in a breath. “All right,” she said, refusing to scold him for not consulting her. “I will expect you home by eleven.”

  He flashed her a sharp look, but said nothing. He had barely eaten a few bites when a horn honked outside, and he threw his napkin down, racing out of the room as if making an escape, with Charlene calling after him, “Remember, eleven o’clock.”

  The door slammed before she finished. She looked at Mason, who slowly raised a piece of meat on a fork and said, “This is really good pork roast. Tell me how you make the sauce.”

  The rest of the meal was quiet and decidedly intimate, and Charlene felt a rare contentment as she listened to Mason tell Jojo stories of when he had been a roustabout in the oil fields.

  After helping to clear the table, Jojo left Charlene and Mason doing the dishes together, shaking a mindful finger at them and saying, “I will be popping in here from time to time,” causing Charlene to chuckle and Mason to shake his head in disbelief.

  “How old is she?”

  “Nine going on nineteen,” Charlene said.

  They finished the dishes and then sat for coffee at the kitchen table. Mason said he liked the kitchen table best, that he felt more at home in the kitchen. They drank the coffee and ate chocolates out of the silvery box, and talked quietly about everything and nothing, just sitting and looking at each other and not at all embarrassed about it. Charlene kept marveling at how Mason paid such close attention to her, to everything she said, every question she asked. She marveled at his easy laugh, and the way he made her laugh.

  “Oh,” she said at one point, “I have not laughed like this in a long time.”

  “You should,” he said, looking intensely into her eyes. “You have a wonderful way of laughing.”

  They again looked long at each other, raising such a fluttering inside of Charlene that she jumped to her feet. “I should check on Jojo. She’s been quiet for an awfully long time.”

  Jojo was asleep on the couch in front of the television. Charlene turned off the set and then scooped Jojo up and carried her to bed. When she straightened, she found Mason standing in the doorway, gazing at both of them with a bleak expression.

  Silently she took his hand. It was warm and moist against her own as she led him back to the kitchen, where he said, “I really wish I’d had children.”

  Charlene wasn’t certain what to say to that. There was a loneliness in his voice that cut to her core.

  She poured more coffee. He didn’t sit down, though, but went over and turned the sound up on the television. A soft country tune played out, and he pulled her into his arms, tenderly, seductively, and danced her around the room and over to the overhead light switch, which he flipped off so that they danced in the dim light from above the sink.

  Around and around they went, to the song and then the next one, too, and all the while he gazed down at her the way every woman wishes the man in her life would look at her, as if she were the most beautiful and precious woman on this earth.

  “Where in the world did you ever learn to dance like this?” she asked, amazed.

  “You know that cook I told you I shared a cell with?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, he liked to dance.” At her skeptical expression, he added, “True, I swear. He earned money givin’ dance lessons, and I figured I should use my time wisely.” He winked.

  She chuckled and then pressed her cheek against his, felt the hard muscles at the back of his neck and his belly moving against hers. She inhaled the seductive scent of him and said she found it so, and he said it was some cologne from the Wal-Mart. She threw back her head and laughed, and he whirled her around and around, and she clung to him, savoring the sweet passion stirring inside her.

  The music stopped, and so did Mason. He kissed her, seeking her mouth softly with his own. Tasting the sweet-saltiness of him, she told herself to be careful, but then she was melting against him and kissing him and wanting him. When they broke apart, he held her carefully, tenderly, kissing her forehead and into her hair. She saw the pulse beating hard in his throat.

  “Oh, Mason,” she whispered, daring to raise her eyes to look at him. “You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.”

  “That sounds like something I should say to you.”

  She grinned. “I said it first.”

  “Then I must get to say that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  “Now that sounds like some sort of line.” She would have pushed him away, but he held her.

  “Why?” He looked genuinely perplexed.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Uncomfortable, thinking of how Joey had left her, she shrugged. “I suppose because I am forty-six and things aren’t exactly in the same place anymore and my heart feels a lot like it’s been run over by a Mack truck.”

  “Well, ma’am, I imagine that is what attracts me,” he said, with that way that made her warm all over. “I surely know that feeling.”

  The music changed to a faster tune, but Mason stayed with both arms around her, only swaying back and forth, his warmth seeping into her.

  He said, running his gaze over her face, “What I see is a full woman. I don’t have an eye for any little girl without experience. I want a woman with full capacity.”

  “Capacity?” She raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes I feel so dry, like the holes in my soul are so big that air just blows right on through.”

  He nodded. “It’s the heart’s way to survive. Just give yourself time. You’ll get through it.”

  He swirled her around then, and dipped her backward, gazing into her eyes. “You ever heard the saying ‘From now on is all that counts’?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, it’s like this,” he said, straightening and whirling her around. “Everybody alive gets some dents and scratches along the road of life. That whole trip, though, is what makes us who we are. When I got out of prison, a guard told me to remember two th
ings—that everything we go through makes us who we are, and that with each new day, it was from now on that counted.”

  “You are a rare man, Mr. MacCoy.”

  “I’m a rare, lucky man who’s holdin’ a beautiful woman,” he said immediately and in a very seductive tone.

  She laughed and danced around the room with him. “Right now, I do feel as if I have capacity,” she dared to tell him.

  He smiled and waltzed her around the room, then pinned her against the counter. “I think I should tell you something.”

  She propped her arms on his shoulders. Their warm bodies touched intimately, separated only by threads of clothing and discipline, while their thoughts ran wild every which way.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’ve been in love with you since the first time I ever saw you.”

  She didn’t know what to say. His expression was serious and anxious, studying her for a reaction.

  “I came to deliver feed, and Joey was gone. You showed me where to put the feed. You were pregnant.”

  “With Jojo?” She gazed at his shadowy features with wonder.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  She stared at him, searching for the truth and knowing she had heard it.

  Struck to the core, she pulled away from his embrace and raked a hand through her hair. “Oh, Mason.”

  “I wanted to tell you so you would know how I feel. That this isn’t some passing attraction. I love you, and I want to marry you.”

  She raked her hand through her hair harder, growing angry. He reached for her, took hold of her wrist and turned her to face him. “Talk to me.”

  She had to find her voice and the words. “Mason, I am not even legally divorced,” she said, pausing to try to sort out the feelings that roared around inside.

  “Look, here’s how it is.” She shook her arm free of his grasp but faced him squarely. “I was married for twenty-one years. I’m just now beginning to find the pieces of myself that I immersed in Joey. I have a long way to go before I will be able to be in a partner relationship again. It wasn’t a healthy relationship, and I’m not sure I know how to have a healthy relationship. I have to learn. Right now I’m simply not ready to deal with love, romance and sex. I may never be ready.”

  She spoke hard and fast and angry, and then they were staring at each other. He did not look perturbed at all, and this perplexed her, as she felt plenty perturbed and she thought he ought to.

  Then there was noise at the back door, causing them both to jump and turn. The door flew inward, and Danny J. was there, bursting into the room, yelling in panic. “Mom…it’s Blue. Call the vet! Call the vet now!”

  “What is it, Danny J.? What’s wrong with Blue?”

  “He got into the grain. I forgot to tie the gate closed.” His face was smeared with tears and his voice was cracking. “He’s bad, Mom. Call the vet, please.”

  She strode to the phone, and punched the number on the speed dial. Mason said, “Show me the horse, son.”

  The rings came across the line as Charlene watched Mason hurry out into the night after Danny J. The ringing went on. Normally Parker Lindsey’s calls were automatically switched over to his home and mobile numbers. When an answering machine picked up, she left a quick message and hurried out to the barn.

  The horse was in the pool of light on the ground at the entry, squirming, making a grunting noise. Danny J. was with him, kneeling, and the other three horses on the far side of the gate, securely fastened now, looked over the fence with avid interest. Charlene looked around for Mason and saw him in the barn, looking into the grain barrel.

  “Parker’s out,” she told her son. “I had to leave a message.”

  “He’ll die, and it’s all my fault,” Danny J. said in a broken voice. “I didn’t fasten the gate with the bailing wire. He can open the gate unless I do that, and I forgot. I told Dad I’d look after him.”

  Charlene reached for him, but he jerked away from her.

  Mason came then with a halter and lead rope. “Was the barrel plumb full?” he asked as he knelt to get the halter on the old gelding.

  “I don’t remember…I don’t think so,” Danny J. said angrily, watching Mason.

  “He didn’t have that much…he’s just takin’ on like some do. We got to get him up.”

  And with that Mason went to tugging on the lead rope and shouting, “Get up. Get up, you old sissy…get up!” and started kicking the horse in the hips. Charlene stared at him. “Hee-yaa…get up, you mangy old critter!”

  Danny J. flew at Mason, and with the boy tugging on his arm and yelling at him that he couldn’t treat his dad’s horse like that, Mason kept kicking the horse and shouting at him to get up, while Charlene and Jojo stood there staring at both of them.

  Then the gelding began to get to his feet.

  Danny J. let go of Mason and stepped back. The horse got partway and acted as if he might lie back down again, but Mason didn’t give him a chance, and now Danny J. joined in kicking and screaming at the horse to get up. The big old gelding got to his feet. Mason didn’t give him a chance to go back down. He began to run and tugged the horse after him out into the dark yard. Over his shoulder, he hollered at Charlene to check in Joey’s medicines. Charlene caught the word Bani-something. Danny J. raced off after Mason and the gelding, and Charlene ran into the tack room, jerked open the refrigerator.

  There were several tubes of wormer. She found a clean needle and syringe, then went through the couple of vials. She thought she found what Mason had asked for and hurried out to where he was making the horse walk quickly around the yard.

  “Is this it?”

  Mason handed the lead rope to Danny J. and said for him to keep the horse moving. He peered at the label in the silvery light from the pole lamp. “No…but it’ll do.” And he began to load the syringe.

  Danny J. came trotting past Mason with the horse, and Mason quick as a wink injected the horse. “I don’t think he got enough of that grain to make him all that sick, but some horses can fold at the least pain. Keep him up and movin’,” he said.

  Parker Lindsey came and tended Blue with mineral oil down a tube to his stomach. He said the same as Mason. “This old fella just got a little uncomfortable, is all. I’ve seen their sides so tight their stomach bursts.” Then he assured Danny J. that the gelding was too old to die young and that it wouldn’t be that night, in any case.

  Leaving Danny J. in a corral with the gelding, Charlene and Mason walked the veterinarian to his truck and waved him off. Then Charlene walked Mason to his own pickup, there in the dark beneath the stars.

  “Thank you for saving the horse,” Charlene said. “It meant the world to Danny J. It’s his father’s horse.”

  “I gathered that.”

  He reached for her hand. While they spoke in low tones about the events of the evening, they rubbed each other’s palms with their thumbs.

  Then Mason said, “About what I told you earlier in the kitchen…”

  He gazed at her.

  “Yes?”

  “I wanted to tell you, so you would know where I stand. That’s all. I’m willing to wait for you as long as it takes. I wanted you to know how I feel.”

  Before she could recover from that statement, he bent his head and kissed her softly but fully, taking her breath.

  When he lifted his head, she stared at him, unable to do anything else.

  A movement came out of the darkness. It was Danny J. Charlene immediately let go of Mason’s hand, even as she thought that her son must have witnessed the kiss.

  “I wanted to tell you thanks,” Danny J. said to Mason in a halting tone, “for savin’ Blue.”

  “Glad to be able to help,” Mason said.

  Then he got into his truck and started the engine and began to back up.

  Charlene hurried up beside the open driver’s window and said in a low voice, “You are really a piece of work, Mr. MacCoy. I want you to know that I can’t make you any promises, even if you
are a hero. I’m not up to promising to a man. You may be waitin’ till hell freezes over, if you wait for me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and drove away.

  Thirty-Three

  When Vella went outside at dawn, felt the air and saw the heavy dew all over everything, she had to go back inside for her gardening sweater. Her daughter, Belinda, who was up amazingly early—upset stomach, she said—reported that the paper called for an overnight low of fifty-eight. “High of seventy-two expected,” she said.

  All Vella could see of Belinda was her hands holding the newspaper and one fuzzy slipper. She went back out the door, wondering if Belinda were still talking to her.

  Her feet left footprints in wet grass. Vella loved these fall mornings. Spring was nice, too, but she loved fall best. Surely now, with the cooler temperatures, her roses would bloom well for at least a month, and then she had that one garden rose that would bloom well after Thanksgiving. She surveyed each bush anxiously and was thrilled to find many new swelling buds. At last. This was as it should be.

  Then she slipped her binoculars out of her pocket and looked up into the trees to see what birds she could find. She walked around, aiming the binoculars upward, until she’d reached the large lilac bush. Belinda could see the bush from the kitchen, but likely she wouldn’t look out from her paper until coffee made her have to go to the bathroom.

  Vella pushed her way into the lilac and sited the binoculars on Winston’s rosebushes. She studied each one of his bushes in turn, all the way from back to front and then back again. Her bushes were picking up in production, but still, they could not seem to match the Valentine rosebushes.

  Just then the faint strains of “Dixie” reached her. She moved the binoculars to see Winston coming down his front steps with his flag. She checked over at the Northrupts’, but there was no movement there. She had heard that Everett was in a depression about Winston’s flagpole. She shifted the binoculars back to Winston and saw that he was not only attaching the Confederate flag, but another, too. When he pulled the rope, up went both the Confederate and United States flags.