by Rhett DeVane
Though Tuesday’s clinic schedule was full, I remarkably had spare energy to burn at the end of the day. After changing into a pair of old shorts from the back of the SUV, I procured Jake’s keys to the Witherspoon mansion. A couple of hours’ labor completed the trim work in the back bedroom in Holston’s private quarters.
A twig snapped behind me in the dusk dark as I crouched by an outside faucet washing the paint tray and brushes. Startled, I spun around.
“Holston? Lordy! You scared me half to death! You’re home early!”
“What’re you doing back here?” he asked.
“Washing out some brushes. I painted the trim in your bedroom. Jake’s anxious to get the wood floors refinished so you can move your furniture in. I had some spare time, and I was bored. I got the key from Jake. Hope you don’t mind me being here…”
“No.” He stood still, watching me with his hands propped on his hips like the King of Siam.
“Well. Um…I guess I’ll get on home now.” I brushed past him and headed for Betty.
He appeared by the driver’s side of the SUV and motioned for me to roll down the window.
“Hattie, I’m not very good at this…”
“At what?” Being a jerk?
“I’d like to apologize for the way I left you last week. I had some soul-searching to do. I’m afraid my dealings with women, thanks to Claire, have left me a bit gun-shy.”
“Holston, you show me one man or woman our age who hasn’t been shot in the foot several times in relationships, and I’ll show you a person who’s been in a monastery! Besides, I thought we were doing pretty well being friends.”
“Yeah. My fault for the confusion.” His full lips curled into a slight smile. “Actually, I was hoping to reserve some of your time this Friday evening.”
Was he asking me out? “I’m all ears.”
“Have you found anyone to help you bring your truck back here, yet?”
“No. Jake’s been so busy, and I hated to bother anybody. I need to do it soon, though. Pearl’s battery is going to be dead as a doornail from just sitting around the townhouse parking lot.”
“Good! That is—I have a proposal to make. I met with my agent while I was in New York, and we talked over an idea for my next book. Last year, I met a wonderful couple, Patricia and Rainey Hornsby, while I was in Tallahassee doing a piece during the legislative session. They’d adopted a little orphaned Chinese girl. Given the somewhat strained relations between the U.S. and China, I thought it might be a good time to write a book documenting the experiences of the adoptive parents.” Holston smiled at me as if I had a clue as to my role in this whole thing.
“And…?” I prompted.
“Oh, okay. Here’s the deal. Patricia and Rainey have invited me to a social function Friday night where I can be introduced to several of the families, set up interviews for the book, that sort of thing. Jake is going over to have dinner with his legislator friend that evening, as well. If you’d like, I could hitch a ride with him, come by and take you to an early dinner, attend my meeting, then help you drive Pearl back to Chattahoochee.”
He hesitated. “Of course, you can attend the social with me, if you’d like. Patricia and Rainey are incredible people. I think you’d hit it off with them immediately.”
“Sounds like an interesting proposition. Why not? What time, and what do I wear?”
He patted Betty’s door. “Great! Patricia said it was very casual—jeans and T-shirts. I’ll have Jake drop me off at the townhouse about 6:00 PM. Will that give you enough time to get home from work?”
“Sure. I schedule my last client on Fridays at 3:00. I like to be clear of Apalachee Parkway before the 5:00 Demolition Derby begins.”
Holston flashed a smile. “I’ll see you then, Friday night around 6:00!”
I didn’t feel Betty’s tires hit the pavement all the way to the Hill.
Since I had been craving barbecue all week, Holston and I had dinner at Sonny’s Real Pit Bar-B-Q. I immediately splattered a dime-sized blob of red sauce on my clean white FSU T-shirt.
“I don’t know why I don’t just smear something on me when I first sit down and save the suspense!” I grumbled as I pulled a spot removal wipe from my purse.
Holston smiled. “Looks like you’re prepared.”
“I try to be. Growing up in the country, one learns to be resourceful. Besides, I come by this trait genetically. My mother used to say, if it’s not worth wearing, it’s not worth eating!”
Laughter eased the tension between us.
Patricia and Rainey Hornsby’s five-bedroom home graced six wooded acres in the Chemonie Crossing development several miles out Centerville Road. The grassy side yard was filled with tables, chairs, and people of mixed ages milling around with soft drinks and plates of food. Smoke billowed from a brick grill on the side patio. Throughout the crowd, small girls of Chinese descent dashed and played like honeybees tipping between spring blossoms. A few American-born children, the biological offspring of some of the couples, also mixed with the group.
A petite forty-ish strawberry blonde woman broke away from the crowd when she spotted us walking across the front yard. Her impish green eyes and ruddy cheeks made me want to call out well, if it’s not Mary McShane in a thick brogue.
Holston bent to give her a warm hug. He introduced us.
“I’m so glad you could come,” she said.
Holston searched the crowd. “Where’s Rainey?”
Patricia waved her hand in dismissal. “Last time I saw him, he was tightening one of the seats on the swing set. Have you eaten? There’s a ton of food!”
Holston glanced toward the informal buffet. “Actually, we had something earlier.”
“I should’ve told you to eat with us. I’m sorry! Anyway, come on over and I’ll introduce you to the families here this evening. This isn’t all of us. The Bronsons left last week to pick up another orphan. This’ll be daughter number two for them.”
Since Holston was busy speaking with the adoptive parents, I wandered over to the playground to watch the children play. One little girl of about four ran up and grabbed my hand.
“Come on Mama chuntian, come play with us!”
I didn’t bother trying to explain to her that I wasn’t anyone’s mama, unless Shammie and Spackle counted.
She led me over to the play area and introduced me, one by one, to the other little girls, referring to me as Mama chuntian each time.
Patricia appeared from the edge of the crowd. “I see you’ve met our daughter, Ruth. She’s not shy, that one.”
“She’s made sure I got to meet her friends. She’s been calling me Mama chuntian.
“Do you know what that means?”
Patricia shrugged. “The mama part is obvious, as to the other word…I haven’t a clue. Ruth likes to give her friends nicknames.” She called her daughter.
Ruth ran to her mother and tipped her head in a slight bow.
“Honey, Miss Hattie would like to know what Mama chuntian means. Can you tell her in English?”
Ruth smiled at me. “Sure! It means mother spring.”
Patricia rested her hand on her daughter’s shiny black hair. “Why’d you name her mother spring?”
Ruth shrugged. “May I go now?”
“Yes, honey.” Then, to me. “Who knows? Maybe you remind her of springtime.”
“Holston told me he met you two last year during the legislative session.”
“Isn’t he an adorable man? I work for the legislature, mostly dealing with domestic-violence issues. Rainey and I met Holston at a fund-raising dinner for the Refuge House, the Tallahassee shelter for battered spouses and their children. We had just returned from our trip to China to adopt Ruth. It was a pretty hectic time.”
I was surprised. “She’s only been here for a year?”
She glanced toward the children and smiled. “Ruth’s an amazing kid. I had expected to adopt an infant, but, my psychic set me straight on that one!”
“Phil Waters. He’s incredible. Let go of your expectations, he told me. Your daughter will be who she is meant to be. Age means nothing to spirit.”
“He did a reading for me a couple of weeks ago, too.”
“Small world, isn’t it?” Patricia smiled slightly as she watched her daughter from across the lawn. “Ruth was nearly three when we got her. Within a year, she’d totally grasped the English language. Her first word was McDonald’s. She can spot the Golden Arches from miles away!”
We laughed.
“I noticed most of the children are female. Why?”
“Politics. Chinese families are allowed one child per family. Anymore than one, and they are fined. Boys are desirable. Girls are not. Lately, a few older boys have been orphaned. They are usually left behind because of poor health. The Cooper family adopted their son last year. He was nearly five years of age when they got him. He can remember his parents. Still, most are little girls who were orphaned as infants.”
“That’s incredibly sad. It just makes me furious to think they’d just throw a child away!”
Patricia sighed. “I felt that way too, initially. Still do, for the most part. Their culture is so much different than ours. After meeting the gentle women who were caretakers at the orphanage, I still believe it would be heart wrenching for a mother, any mother, to desert her infant daughter. I’m just glad we can help some of them have a better life.”
“What was involved in the adoption?”
“Months of waiting, reams of paperwork, testing. Money—lots of it. We had to travel to China with a group of prospective parents from all over the States. We used every mode of transportation known to man, short of camel procession, to reach the orphanage where she lived. Then, we spent three weeks meeting with their counselors, and our counselors.”
Patricia smiled in Ruth’s direction. “It’s all been worth the effort. She possesses such an insuppressible spirit. She also has compassion and a knack for healing. I’ve actually had the beginning of one of my migraine headaches, and she’s held her hands on my head until the pain completely vanished. I’ve seen her cradling one of the animals when it’s hurting. Sometimes, she tells me things before they happen. I tried to squelch that talent initially. Now, I see it’s one of her gifts.”
Patricia turned to me. Her green eyes glistened with moisture. “Gosh, I just met you, and here I am hogging the conversation. You’re as easy to talk with as Holston. Please, make yourself at home. I’ve got to mingle a little.” She left to attend to her hostess duties.
Across the yard, I watched Holston as he spoke with the adoptive families. It wasn’t difficult to see why people found him attractive. His manner was open and attentive, a reflection of genuine interest. He seemed unaware of his effect on women, young and old—a trait that increased his allure.
By the end of the evening, Holston had made appointments with twenty families for research interviews. Patricia and I had become fast friends.
She hugged me warmly. “Please call us. Rainey and I would love to spend some time with you two. You’re such a cute couple!”
“Actually,” I said, “we’ve only just begun to get to know each other.”
Patricia’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow. I thought you’d been together for a while! You seem to fit each other.”
Rainey and Holston joined us, and we promised to meet again soon.
At ten o’clock, we pulled into the parking lot at the townhouse. The inside lights were off, as Jillie had traveled to south Florida to visit her mother for the weekend.
“Want to come in?” I asked. “I’ll grab Pearl’s keys.”
I bounded up the stairs to the second floor, and gathered the truck keys from the top of my bureau. When I returned downstairs, Holston was standing in the center of the living room.
“This townhouse doesn’t feel like you,” he said.
“Funny. I came to that exact conclusion myself the other night. I’m seriously considering selling it.”
“Sounds like Chattahoochee has captured your heart as much as mine.”
For a long moment, we stood staring at each other in the low illumination from the entrance hall light. He stepped forward and gathered me into his arms, brought his face close, and hesitated briefly before touching his lips to mine.
I’d always poked fun at the smarmy, lust-filled romance novels Aunt Piddie loved to read. At that instant, any of those authors’ descriptions of the way I felt inside would’ve fit—and then some.
He drew back slowly, and held me gently, safe and cradled next to his heart.
“Do you really feel like driving all the way back to Chattahoochee tonight?” he asked softly.
“No,” I managed to squeak.
“Neither do I.”
He held my hand as he led me up the stairs.
I stopped midway. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
He looked at me over his shoulder.
“I can’t be your paid massage therapist anymore.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Ethics…I can’t be intimately involved with you and be your massage therapist.”
Holston laughed. “That’s okay, Hattie. This time when you touch me, I want to touch you back.”
Excerpt from Max the Madhatter’s notebook, April 4, 1962:
Next time I come back to this earth for a visit, and I believe we all take turns returning here, I would like to have the love of a good woman – or man, depending on which I was and how I was persuaded. I have seen the evidence of that special kind of love, and it’s a true gift.
Chapter Twenty-two
DINNER AT THE MANSION
Sex, for the most part, is overrated. That’s how I’d felt before my physical union with Holston. In past relationships, sex had been a biological urge—just a messy part of the package. Previous relationships seemed to start out hot and heavy—long weekends spent in bed, emerging only to pay the pizza-delivery person. Then, they gradually cooled into a mutual apathy devoid of touch. With Holston, my initial shyness about the ridges and bumps of my over-forty body gave way to a wanton erotic playfulness. I morphed into Xena, Warrior Princess, to complement Holston’s Caveman Jack. Holston was the most affectionate man I had ever encountered. He had no qualms about holding hands in public or giving me warm hugs at regular intervals.
We agreed to confine the over-night erotic forays to the Tallahassee townhouse. Jillie was wrapped up in final studies, and seemed oblivious to meeting us over coffee in the mornings. Our lives settled into a comfortable routine. Sunday through Tuesday, we spent in Chattahoochee at our respective abodes. Wednesday through Friday, we stayed in Tallahassee. Holston spent his days, and some evenings, meeting with the adoptive families as work progressed on the book he’d tentatively entitled Daughters of the Rising Moon: China’s Lost Children.
I attended a few of the social gatherings the group regularly planned, and began to see them as one large, supportive family. The parents agreed the children needed to retain contact with their cultural heritage. Frequent meetings allowed them to play together and speak in their native tongue, as well as perfecting the English language. Because the problems the families faced were similar, the adoptive parents drew strength from understanding each other’s struggles to raise their children in the best way possible.
The fact that Holston and I spent so much time together didn’t escape the rumor mill in Chattahoochee. According to Evelyn, Piddie and Elvina Houston had a major fallin’ out over Holston and my weekly cohabitation. Apparently, I had gone from dismissing the male species entirely to being crowned the town hussy. Amazing! Piddie had reportedly called Elvina a bug-eyed busy body. Elvina countered with a drawn-out lecture on Baptist morality and Piddie’s part in the downfall of modern society. Piddie allowed that although she and Carlton had not actually consummated their union before marriage, they had come pretty close. I didn’t sample the fruit first, I just wanted to make sure it was rip
e! She and Elvina didn’t speak for a couple of weeks. Like most news tidbits, updates on our sordid liaison lasted a short span before the crew at the Cut ’n’ Curl moved on to more interesting topics.
The delight of a new relationship lies in ferreting out the minor faults and idiosyncrasies of one’s partner. Early on, Holston busted me for my tendency to put the pickle and olive jars back in the refrigerator with just juice. I noted his habit of passing gas three times each morning as he shaved. He couldn’t fathom why I felt the burning need to coin a song for the daily occasion.
Toot Three Times
By Hattie Davis
(Sung to the tune of Knock Three Times by Tony Orlando and Dawn)
Toot three times in the bathroom if you loo—oooove me!
Twice on the porch (clap, clap) if the answer is no—oooo-oo!
Pfftt, Pfftt, Pfftt means you’ll meet me in the bedroom!
Twice on the porch (clap, clap) means you ain’t gonna show—ooow!
At least once a week after I’d heard him in the bathroom, I’d dance around the bedroom singing Toot Three Times, doing my best Tony Orlando imitation with a hank of hair held under my nose to approximate a mustache. He’d listen patiently behind the door before answering, “You need therapy.” No matter how many times I heard his reply, the phrase always sent me into hiccupping fits of laugher. Who wrote the rule that you can’t have fun with bodily functions?
Holston jokingly chided me about the attractive half-lens reading glasses I kept in the bathroom to assure I was putting the makeup on my face. The cruelest trick of the natural aging process lies in the fact that, at a time in my life where I sprouted at least one new chin hair a month, my close-up vision had waned. Presbyopia seemed to occur overnight. I could recall exactly when I first noticed it. Garrett and I were seated in a fancy-pants restaurant in the Florida Keys, and I couldn’t read the scripted menu in the low light. Too embarrassed to ask Garrett to recite the entries, I just asked the waiter to bring me the chicken.