The next thing she knew, they were driving down Main Street. She knew it was Main because she opened her eyes and saw the neon Blaines’ Drugstore sign.
“Marilee…honey, we’re almost home.” Tate’s voice.
She sat up. It was twilight. Streetlights had not yet come on. The buildings and trees and bushes were bathed in the ethereal glow of a sun now set but casting light upward. It had grown cold.
Stuart pressed the button to lower his window. He did it automatically, his hand moving there as if avoiding the door handle and the wild impulse that came over him to open the door and throw himself out before reaching Marilee’s house, where he didn’t think he could bear to walk inside. Somehow he had been confident and comfortable on the drive—he was, after all, most at home while traveling.
But now the trip was ending. He was reaching his destination, and suddenly he did not want to reach it. Trips he understood. Trips were in between times, when there were no expectations, nothing much required of him but to be carried along.
That was why he had always traveled, he saw in an instant of clarity. To avoid destinations, or to at least keep them to a minimum. There were things one had to do, accomplish, complete, upon reaching one’s destination. Destinations always involved some sort of commitment.
The car came to a stop in Marilee’s driveway, and when the engine died, Stuart felt like his energy did, too. He forced himself to move and get out, however, determined to keep his shoulders straight. The pity he was certain he would receive would be bad enough without his appearing pitiful. He wished angrily that he had never considered the idea of coming back here. It was a stupid idea. He didn’t think he could take it.
He went to the rear of the vehicle to load himself with his own bags, camera cases around his neck, small duffel bag on one shoulder, a big one in hand. Tate took the other; he would look foolish to protest.
He was following Marilee up the walk—thank goodness she wasn’t talking, saying something soothing—when he looked up and saw Willie Lee coming to meet him. He wondered what Marilee had told the boy about him.
“Hello, Father.” Willie Lee lifted a hand and took Stuart’s and walked along beside him into the house, stepping across the threshold into his destination.
It was warm, inviting, comfortable. He was surprised, and relieved. For just then, he would let himself rest. He could think of facts later. For right now, he would be grateful to have come to a place that wasn’t a hospital and where he wasn’t alone.
Franny and Corrine had cooked a pot roast, vegetables, rolls and apple pie, and they ate the meal in the dining room beneath the warm glow of the hanging lamp, in the manner of a family, as indeed they were, Marilee reminded herself.
Afterward Tate said, “Well, Marilee, let me take you over and show you my surprise.”
“A surprise?”
“Come on…no questions, just come along.”
She ran her gaze around all the faces at the table, wondering if anyone knew what Tate was talking about. Franny and Corrine’s expressions showed that they did.
Tate, having rounded the table, took her hand, drawing her up after him, leading her through the kitchen and out the back door into the night. She told him they probably should have gotten coats. Were they going far? Excitement washed over her at the anticipation of a surprise.
“Not far.” Tate led her through the back gate and over to his house, where he paused at the top of the back step to tell her to close her eyes.
She obliged. Her heart had begun to beat hard, and she held tight to Tate’s hand, a little fearful of tripping over the threshold. She thought she smelled a familiar odor. Paint?
“Wait until I tell you to open your eyes.” The light was flipped on. “Okay, you can open them now.”
Marilee opened her eyes.
Where was she? Tate’s kitchen? Yes, but it was different. It was painted, although the doors were off the cabinets and sitting against the wall, and the countertop was partially ripped off.
“It isn’t all finished.” Tate said. “But we’ve begun.”
“Oh, Tate.” There was a new refrigerator, a new dishwasher, a new stove, and a new sink, too. He watched her look at all of it, and she did her best at oohing and aahing. She was impressed, but mostly she wanted to make certain her admiration matched his expectations.
He had done it for her. Tears filled her eyes.
“Don’t go tearing up yet.” He took her hand and led her through the house, up the stairs and down the landing to his bedroom, stopping in front of the closed door.
“You cannot go in this room until our wedding night,” he told her. “You cannot open the door. In the next week, you will see men coming and going from this room, but you cannot go in there.”
Men would be coming and going?
“Not even a peek?” she asked.
“Not even a peek, unless you want to spoil your surprise.”
“I don’t want to do that.” She knew that if she spoiled her surprise, it would spoil it more for him.
“Good.”
She threw her arms around his neck and brought her lips to his in a fierce and ardent kiss, until they both were out of breath. When she could speak, her voice came in a husky whisper.
“Tate Holloway, there is no other man like you on earth. I shall love you till the day I die.”
When the telephone rang, Corrine was drying a pan and keeping an eye out the back window for Aunt Marilee and Papa Tate. She moved to the phone on the wall and answered, her mind immediately anticipating either her mother or her grandmother, and in either case she was wary.
“Hey, Corrine. It’s me—Ricky Dale.”
Her eyes popped wide. She looked over at Granny Franny, who seemed intent on cramming leftovers into the refrigerator. “Hey,” she said.
There were long seconds of silence in which Corrine figured Ricky Dale had called her, so it was up to him to carry the conversation.
“Look, I got somethin’ bad to tell you.”
“You do?” She gripped the receiver.
“My grama’s cat died.”
“Oh.” Then she thought to say, “I’m sorry, Ricky Dale. Is your grama real upset?”
“Mom says she’s not. Mom just got back from over there. She said Grama seemed to be accepting everything now. She said Grama said the cat had ate real good, and then the next thing Grama found it dead. No sufferin’,” he added.
“Well…good.”
“I guess Willie Lee didn’t cure it.”
“Guess not.”
Silence again.
“Are you gonna tell him…about my grama’s cat?”
“Yeah, I’d better, or one of us might slip up, and then he’ll find out anyway.” She was a little irritated at Ricky Dale for letting the job fall to her.
Ricky Dale said, “Do you think it was just coincidence with Beau and the bird?”
“I don’t know.” She did not think it was coincidence with the dog and the bird, but she settled for saying, “Maybe he just can’t do it all the time.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Another silence.
Then Corrine said, “Hey, I’m movin’ over to Tate’s with Aunt Marilee. It’s because Willie Lee’s dad is goin’ to live here for a while. He’s sick and needs to be looked out for. You can call me over there, if I’m not here.”
That sounded a little confusing, but Ricky Dale said, “Okay. My dad’s got the number written right here on the wall.”
After Corrine had hung up, she wondered if he had meant Tate’s number was written on a piece of paper or actually on the wall. She could never bring herself to write on a wall.
She thought that maybe Willie Lee would be asleep. He had gotten his bath before supper. If he was asleep, she could wait to tell him about the cat. If he was asleep, she wasn’t supposed to tell him, was the way she figured it.
But he wasn’t asleep. He was on his bed, looking at his picture book of dogs, with Munro.
Corrine stopp
ed in the doorway and looked across into her aunt Marilee’s room. The light was on in there, where Mr. James was puttering around, putting away his things. Curious as to what the room looked like with him in it, she stepped back and peered cautiously. Mr. James was sitting on the end of the bed now. Just sitting there. Corrine didn’t think the man was only sick. She thought he was dying, but no one wanted to say that.
Going on into her and Willie Lee’s room, she quietly closed the door. Then she went over to his bed and told Willie Lee about the cat.
Willie Lee’s bottom lip quivered, but he didn’t cry. “It was a really old cat,” he said. “Really, really old.”
“Yeah.” Corrine chewed her bottom lip, then said, “Is that why you couldn’t fix it, Willie Lee? Because it was so old?”
“May-be. I do not know. Mun-ro just told me may-be.”
“Oh. Well, it was nice of you to try. Ricky Dale said his grandmother was not too upset.”
She got up and retrieved her book bag, shoving favorite books into it, and her mother’s picture, then looked around to see if there was anything else she wanted to make sure to take with her this first night.
Her gaze lit on Willie Lee. She wished she could take him. She didn’t like leaving him over here, out of her sight. Willie Lee had hardly been out of her sight since she had come. The more she thought of this, the more she disliked leaving him.
“Willie Lee, don’t go out the window while I’m over there at Papa Tate’s house, okay?”
He looked at her and blinked.
“Promise me, Willie Lee.”
“I am one of the guys now, Corrine. I am a boy and can do some things.”
“I know that, but I’m still your older cousin, and I’m supposed to look out for you. Just don’t go out the window. You’ll probably get Papa Tate all upset if you go out the window.”
Willie Lee’s eyebrows went together for a thoughtful moment, and then he told her in a factual manner, “No. Pa-pa Tate does not get up-set.”
Sometimes Willie Lee could be really smart.
Twenty-Five
Moving on…
March, which had come “sneaking in,” as Tate put it, showed its true colors and began to roar in its first full week. The temperature bounced back and forth from cold to warm, sometimes changing twenty degrees in one day. Storms rolled from the high plains, bringing tornado conditions, winds that whipped tree branches beginning to bud with leaves, and a total of almost three inches of rain. This was quite normal for the season in Oklahoma, so no one was overly shaken up. The tornado sirens went off twice, which sent more people outside to watch the sky than to take shelter.
Tate, Stuart, Willie Lee and Munro were among these sky watchers all the way out in the yard, near the curb, for the best view, while Marilee went back and forth from the television reports to the front door, trying to keep an eye on both the TV and her loved ones, anticipating when she would have to run out there and grab Willie Lee to race him to shelter. The men were on their own. Franny and Corrine, and Vella when she was there, stood in between, on the porch.
Marilee caught sight of yellow forsythia bushes that had burst into bloom, and she began to be concerned that none would be found still blooming by her wedding date. She watched each bush she found, telling herself that forsythia bushes surely were not a life-and-death matter.
Marilee’s mother, who took the tack of brushing off Marilee’s attempt to talk about the situation concerning Corrine and Anita, pretending, as she always had, that there was no problem, assured Marilee that she had a friend who lived half an hour farther north and who had plenty of forsythia that should bloom at exactly the correct time. “I will cut them for you,” her mother said, quite amazing Marilee, who wondered how her mother would be able to accomplish this task at the same time as being on her Caribbean cruise but decided not to pursue this question and to accept the generous offer in the spirit in which it was given.
“Thank you, Mother. I would so appreciate it.”
Why was it, when there were so many true worries she could think of—wedding preparations, Stuart’s sickness, Anita’s self-destructiveness, mothering children, becoming a wife, setting up a new house-hold—that she had to dwell on insignificant things like the availability of forsythia?
Thinking of forsythia was so much easier, she decided; all the rest of her concerns could be, and very often were, overwhelming.
Despite a constant sense that she might be overlooking something, the wedding preparations appeared to be thoroughly on track, complete with the country-swing band of which Winston and Franny—and Vella, too, who had accompanied them to the VFW hall—approved. The three older people had become something of a trio.
Margaret Wyatt was making the final nips and tucks on Marilee’s and Corrine’s dresses, and Tate’s and Parker’s suits were approved.
“We don’t have to wear tuxedos, do we?” Tate had asked anxiously at the beginning of planning. “I’d really rather not.”
“No, dear, we’ll keep to an informal wedding. Your grey suit will be perfect. You look so handsome in it. And Parker has a sharp-looking blue one he bought for his mother’s wedding a couple of years ago.”
“It’s pretty convenient that you are familiar with Parker’s wardrobe,” Tate observed.
A little uncertain as to the exact nature of Tate’s attitude, Marilee responded forthrightly, “It does make life easier, doesn’t it?”
She had wanted a cozy, informal wedding, and she would get the informal, but cozy was another matter. The replies were coming in for the reception; it appeared everyone they had invited intended to come, even just about all the employees of Cooper’s Appliances. The refreshment order had been increased twice. Marilee was adamant, though, on using china serving dishes. She was not going paper-plate informal.
Franny and Vella were industriously making bows for the pews and reception table and anywhere else they could think to put them; anyone who passed by during a critical bow-making procedure was asked to be of assistance and put forth his or her finger. Once Marilee came upon the surprising sight of Stuart with one index finger toward Franny and the other toward Vella. He looked quite disconcerted, a man who had managed to avoid intimate ties finally all tied up.
It appeared, very much to Marilee’s amazement, that Stuart coming into their midst was proving to be a success in ways no one had imagined. A path began to be worn across the backyards, with all the coming and going from early morning into the night between Tate’s and Marilee’s houses.
There was constantly something forgotten in one house that was necessary in the other. Within the first two days of Stuart’s arrival, Marilee’s closet was empty of her many things and Stuart’s belongings had taken their place. All the clutter on the table beneath her bedroom window and the nightstands was now in the bedroom she used at the big old house, as well as being scattered about other rooms there. In this gentle fashion Marilee’s and Corrine’s clothes and personal items, their very lives, were eased over to the big Holloway house.
To keep his things at his own house and not be hauling them back and forth, Tate returned home for major showering and dressing. He liked seeing Marilee’s things living beside his own. He got excited when he saw her brush on the bathroom vanity. Once he stopped on the landing and inhaled deeply. His mother coming out of her room asked what he was doing.
“I’m soakin’ up Marilee’s essence,” he said.
Because of the ever-increasing remodeling and repairs proceeding in the kitchen of the big house—and now a new bathroom begun beneath the stair-way—meals were either cooked at Marilee’s house and eaten in her dining area, or brought from the Main Street Café or the IGA delicatessen.
Franny discovered that Stuart liked espresso, so she bought an espresso machine and took up drinking it with him along about midmorning, when Stuart would arise. Within two days of this, Winston and Vella joined them, coming down Church Street and cutting through the backyards, adding to the traffic on the path.
On her second morning in Tate’s house, Marilee stepped out of the bathroom and encountered three strange men passing by on the landing. Each said a polite, “Hello, ma’am,” slipped into the master bedroom and shut the door. Down in the kitchen, where Tate joined her with mocha and rolls from the IGA, she could hear faint thuds from the master bedroom.
She gazed at Tate, looked at the ceiling and again at Tate, who smiled and said, “Don’t spoil your surprise.”
When she came back from getting the children to school, two men were working in the kitchen, and Franny was checking out their progress. Two of the bedroom workmen came through the back door, bringing a large king-size mattress. Marilee thought it big enough to accommodate their entire family.
The next day, as she was clearing out worn and faded towels from the bathroom closet, she caught the sound of hammering in the bedroom on the other side of the door. She pressed her ear against the door, then carefully laid her hand on the knob.
Drawing herself up straight, she let go of the knob and firmly left the room.
Tuesday afternoon, at her own home, when Corrine brought her the mail, Marilee found two envelopes addressed to Stuart. They were fan letters from the first part of his photo article on fifties’ motels that had run in the Sunday edition of The Valentine Voice. Both had been sent to the Voice offices, but Julia Jenkins-Tinsley had forwarded them to Marilee’s house. That explained how word of Stuart’s presence and situation got around town so quickly.
Friends and neighbors, both sympathetic and curious, began to drop by to visit, often bringing food, and since there was so much food, people felt comfortable to stay quite a long time. A bridge game started up one afternoon, in which Stuart did not participate but took pictures with the aim of doing a study on the face of vanishing small-town America.
He began to take pictures all over the place. It seemed as if every time she turned around, Marilee heard the clicking of a camera shutter. Stuart took up going for walks around town and taking pictures that Tate began planning to run in special Sunday edition inserts. Charlotte searched the files for old photographs, which Tate paired with Stuart’s new ones, resulting in the first insert to be entitled: “Valentine Then and Now.”
At the Corner of Love and Heartache Page 27