One for the Road

by Lynne Marshall

  Fighting an urge to light a cigarette, he looked up just in time to see D’Anne approaching with two young men. Anxiety whittled a hole in his chest. His confidence fell like sawdust until it vanished altogether. Dee beamed with pride while carrying the Papago jar and accompanied by her sons—until she saw him.

  “Tyler, I want you to meet my boys,” she said, casting her gaze toward the floor and looking the slightest bit embarrassed. “Dean and Randy.”

  The first was affable and made eye contact, the second looked suspiciously at him through small wire-framed glasses as though Tyler were the devil in a blue shirt and cowboy hat. Both were of medium height with Dee’s fertile green eyes, rich brown hair, and presumably their father’s thin and narrow build.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel our luncheon date,” she said like they were mere acquaintances. “We’re taking Reese to the desert.” She looked uneasy. Ashamed? “Will you forgi—”

  “Tyler?” a shrill voice cut through the noise of the lobby crowd.

  He turned in time to see Pauline rushing her freshly dyed head of scarecrow red hair toward him. Pauline ignored D’Anne and her sons, grabbed Tyler’s arm and reversed his direction, solely focused on her task of getting him to the tailor. It took him by surprise and he was slow to resist.

  He looked quickly over his shoulder and said, “I’ve got to get fitted for my costume.” He shrugged free of Pauline’s hold long enough to take a couple steps back toward Dee. “I’ll see you tonight at the show then?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “It was nice to meet you Dean, Randy.” He tipped his hat, then left.

  A bittersweet curtain descended. D’Anne’s boys pulled her one way and Pauline tugged him the other. The distance between them filled with tourists and gamblers with broken dreams.

  Their unique worlds had collided by chance, flourished, and now drifted apart when reality reset its course. And he didn’t belong in her life any more than she belonged in his.

  Ah, but she had fit in for the past three weeks…almost perfectly.

  His heart fell like a brick and sank to his gut like they’d just said their last goodbye. He wasn’t about to let that happen. He tore away from Pauline and strode toward Dee, tapped her on the shoulder, and waited for her to turn around.

  “Almost forgot, I’ll be in the hotel bar at four. Meet me there.”

  “Okay,” she muttered.

  ****

  Dean drove his Forerunner for over an hour to find the type of painted desert Reese would have loved. D’Anne sat in the back and Randy rode shotgun holding the urn. They listened to the hauntingly beautiful voice of Evanescence’s lead singer and searched the scenery as it whizzed by. D’Anne noticed a fire road off in the distance of the deserted highway.

  “Hey, let’s try that,” she said.

  Dean swerved the car to make the turn, kicking up dust and spraying grit from the ground onto the windshield. It led to a stunningly flat vista with distant purple and deep red tinted buttes and mountain plateaus. Like something straight out of an old Western movie, the view took her breath away. The air felt clean and dry to the point of burning her sinuses when she inhaled.

  They parked and walked in silent procession to a cliff where a warm breeze whipped at their skin, and they stood for several seconds taking in their surroundings.

  “I remember the time Dad tried to surprise Randy and me with new bikes for Christmas,” Dean said, breaking the silence. “He stayed up all night putting them together and fell asleep on the living room floor. Remember?” His smile widened and tears welled in his eyes. “That was the year I figured out there wasn’t a Santa.” He sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand and toughened up. “Dad was Santa.”

  “Dad taught me how to drive the year we vacationed here in Las Vegas,” Randy said. “I wasn’t even fifteen yet and he made me promise not to tell you.” He looked toward D’Anne. “We drove way out somewhere like this and he just let me have at it until I figured out how to drive in a straight line and use the brakes.” He smiled and shook his head. “It was our secret and I’ll never forget how special it made me feel.”

  Randy placed the urn on a flattened rock. He walked toward the edge of the cliff and surveyed the desert, hands on his hips. “Two weeks after I got my driver’s license, you grounded me ’cause you found out I’d been ditching school.”

  Here we go again. “That was a tough call, Randy,” D’Anne spoke up. “But your father and I agreed that until you could be trusted, you couldn’t drive.” She walked up behind her son and lowered her voice. “For the record, Reese didn’t approve of my dogging you at school.”

  He turned sharply. “I know he didn’t approve. He’d never do anything crazy like that.”

  “I refused to let you blow it, Randy. You weren’t applying yourself. Hell, you weren’t even trying and I couldn’t stand the thought of you not graduating.”

  “Let’s drop it, okay? This is about Dad, not us.” She closed her eyes and backed off. Reese was Santa. Reese would never do anything crazy like that. Yet Reese embezzled five hundred thousand dollars and dumped the whole damn mess, as usual, on me! Her chest grew tight and heavy.

  “Hey, remember that guys vacation when he took us fishing in Alaska?” Dean broke in, reclaiming his lifelong role as peacemaker. “We ate junk food everyday and never bathed until it was time to come home?”

  Randy smiled and nodded, allowing Dean to lure him away from his anger.

  D’Anne clenched her jaw, took a deep breath, and forced herself to focus on the reason they were there. It wasn’t about her or her resentment for her husband’s suicide. It was about grieving. It was about her sons saying goodbye to their dad, who’d been a great guy in their eyes.

  After several moments, Randy broke the silence. “I probably should have, but I didn’t tell either of you about this.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded, tattered envelope. “It showed up in a priority envelope a couple days after Dad died. His instructions said to wait until all three of us were together to read it.”

  She bit back the short fuse of angry feelings. Once again, Reese had shored up his side, and manipulated Randy into keeping his trust…at the expense of both D’Anne and Dean. She fought the urge to wring her son’s neck for keeping the letter from her for so long.

  Dean beat her to it. He ripped the envelope from Randy’s hand and pushed his chest, “You should have told me. You mind?”

  Randy struggled to keep his balance. His eyes tensed. Reticent. Defiant. Randy snatched the envelope back and tore it open.

  “At least he never opened it,” Dean said.

  Dear D’Anne, Dean and Randy,

  First off, I want you all to know how much I love you. That aside, I owe you an explanation about how I screwed up. Even with my economics background, I still couldn’t outsmart the stock market. I was looking forward to retirement, but I was broke.

  Five years ago, one of my students approached me with a plan to get rich quick. I laughed, but I was desperate. He had some connections and promised to provide after hours insider tips if I tried my hand at day trading. And more importantly, he had two willing investors.

  I took the bait, found out how easy it was (because I was cheating), and started making money. Lots of money. But I got greedy and things got out of hand. I started taking more and more money off the top and blamed the decrease in their profits on the bear market. I told myself I was still keeping up my end of the bargain. Hell, I’d doubled their money.

  One investor was able to open a restaurant in Arizona, the other would be able to retire comfortably in another year, and the student (who was never more than a mediocre pupil at best) got to buy lots and lots of toys.

  Every time I purchased another $10,000 cashier’s check for your mother, I patted myself on the back. Well done, smart guy. And yes, I paid the taxes on what I made.

  Long story short, the former student and one of his c
ronies caught up with me here in Tennessee. The investors are trying to blackmail me to keep working the market. If I don’t, they’re threatening to get a lawyer or report me to the Feds. I’ve got until the end of the week to return the money. Well, I’ve got news for them, I’m not giving it back and I’m sure as hell not going to spend my retirement in jail.

  So I’ve made a decision. I’m going back to the campground to tell your mother how much I love her, and then I’m checking out. Not a very noble thing to do, but nevertheless, my choice. It’s too late for me to learn from my mistakes, but I hope you will. I’m not proud of this. Remember, nothing is free and there’s no easy way out in life. I never seemed to get that part down.

  I’m sorry.

  Love, Dad.

  D’Anne, Randy and Dean looked at each other dumbfounded for several long moments. Randy’s face twisted with grief. “Why didn’t he come to us for help?” he sputtered, and swiped at a cascade of tears with his arm.

  She shook her head. “We’ll never know.”

  Dean’s chin quivered. He tensed his lips into a tight line and glanced toward the sky. “He died for a measly half a mil. Jesus.”

  What could she say? D’Anne opened her arms and her sons came to her. They held on to each other and cried until there was nothing left.

  “It’s time to move on with our lives,” she said. “Your father would want that.”

  She’d made up her mind to explain on the drive back to the hotel about finding Reese’s money and what she intended to do with it. But for now, it was time to pay final homage to her husband. She broke away from their arms. Unable to think of one good thing to say about him at the moment, she forced herself to walk to the rock and lift the urn toward the sky.

  “Reese, despite your mistakes, you were a wonderful father and a good husband.” The words stuck like sand in her throat. “We’ll never forget you.” Her chin quivered and she cried. She lowered and opened the urn and pressed her thumb into his remains. Dean approached looking curious. She outlined a heart on his forehead with the ashes. And when Randy came over, did the same for him. “May the good memories of your father live on forever.”

  Dean repeated the gesture for her, then they each reached into the urn, took a handful of ashes, and released them into the wind. She watched them scatter across the sky and imagined them settling on the desert sand far below. The heaviness in D’Anne’s heart lifted a bit. How different it felt sharing grief instead of hoarding it to herself, like she’d done in Nashville. Whatever made her think she was that strong? She needed the boys to help her through the loss of her husband.

  More tears streamed down her face when she said goodbye to Reese and silently forgave him.

  “Let’s save some ashes to take back home,” Randy said, glumly, “so we can scatter them in the ocean.”

  D’Anne sealed up the lid and handed the urn to Randy realizing she had no intention of ever going back to California. “Take good care of him.”

  When they walked to the car, Dean asked, “So who do you think the investors were?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, “But I think I have an idea.”

  ****

  “Shee-it! You gotta be kiddin’. I am not wearing damned rhinestones!”

  The gaunt tailor took offense. “This is what stars wear in Las Vegas. Our city sparkles and so must you.” He tugged on Tyler’s sleeve and dashed angry blue chalk marks around the cuff of the white western cut suit outlined in garish, sparkling drops.

  Pauline stood by the mirror watching while Tyler saw himself transcend from a roadie to a Vegas attraction. “White suits you. The hat looks marvelous.”

  You gotta be nuts, lady. “This isn’t exactly me, Pauline,” he said, attempting to be diplomatic.

  “This is the new you, Tyler-babe,” she replied, pushing off from the wall and walking toward him.

  Tyler studied his reflection in the mirror. A tall buffoon is what he saw. He sucked a tooth and uncharacteristically bit his tongue rather than bite the hand that was soon to feed him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  D’Anne had the strange feeling of being watched. For a second time, she looked over her shoulder from her spot at the bar. The dark, smoky room jam-packed with loud party-hardy Vegas visitors, been-there-all-day types, and on-the-job hard-looking babes, didn’t offer a clue. Oddly, after all the dives she’d visited across the country with the band, she felt more out of place in this slick, high tech saloon. She squirmed on the chrome stool but couldn’t find a comfortable position.

  Tyler said he’d be in the hotel bar at four—only a few minutes away—she’d manage until then. She lifted her wine glass and took another sip of house white. She had skipped lunch in order to go to the desert with her boys and not yet eaten anything, so she popped a few peanuts into her mouth. They’d scattered Reese’s ashes and she finally had the nerve to remove her wedding band for good.

  D’Anne pondered the naked spot on her left hand…and the last three weeks on the road.

  Locked in an RV with four musicians, things had almost seemed normal until she came face to face with her two distinctly different lives in the lobby where Tyler and her boys had met. Randy had mumbled to Dean under his breath what a bunch of hicks Tyler and the band were. She’d wanted to slug him for saying that, but he’d been through enough lately. And Tyler had looked tense and out of place when she’d introduced them. Now, forced to compare him with the puzzle of her family and a former life in California, reality smacked her between the eyes.

  Plain and simple, Tyler didn’t fit. What had she been thinking?

  She had run into Marlene and Ricky-Bob’s wife, Gina, in the lobby on her way back from the desert. The ladies were with Bear and Ricky-Bob, and all four looked animated and happy like they’d had a good lunch and a few drinks. By the look of Bear’s jack-o-lantern smile—but with all teeth present and accounted for—D’Anne thought she caught a hint of attraction, sparks flying between the large Kentuckian and Marlene, the lady of campground leisure. D’Anne crinkled her eyes and shook her head. What a thought—Bear with Marlene.

  Drinking another mouthful of wine, she held it, then swished it back and forth like mouthwash. Hell, did Bear and Marlene look any more mismatched than she and Tyler? Gorgeous with eyes the color of Texas bluebells and gobs of wavy, natural hay-colored hair, Tyler had rocked her world. Big as a truck, a well-built rig—especially since he dropped those few extra pounds—he’d been gentler than any man she’d ever known. His pure, deep voice touched her like warm soothing molasses. He’d unlocked her soul and taught her spirit to dance.

  All she could visualize for herself was a map of spider veins and crow’s feet and a harvest of sprouting gray hair. She’d almost convinced herself the soon to be five-year span between them didn’t seem like much, until she thought about the eminent threat of menopause. What could he possibly see in her over the long haul? The last several weeks had been time out of mind. Nothing more.

  D’Anne gulped a swallow of wine and coughed when it went down wrong. Damn it! She loved him, but it didn’t matter. They were doomed. Her life history existed in California and his future was anywhere the wind blew, or wherever the music contract carried him. Independence, yeah, she’d finally tasted its sweetness, but…

  She took another swig of the bitter wine.

  Whatever.

  Just like he’d promised, Tyler had left concert tickets and backstage passes for her at the front desk. She fingered them and felt grateful for his generosity, well aware Tyler always kept his word. Had he let her down even once on the journey home? Well, he still owed her money.

  She checked her watch, tapped her foot. He was late.

  That little redhead could certainly distract him.

  She studied her glass and mused over how much the MeggaDecca music scout and concert promoter bugged her. Why did the world have to be so full of perky younger women?

  She sloshed another drink down and heard herself imitate Tyler, “Shee-it!�
��

  “Something bothering you, lady?” A husky smoker’s voice asked.

  D’Anne looked over her shoulder and squealed.

  Theresa stood smiling and waiting for a welcome hug. When they embraced she swore she saw Jilly’s bartender lurking just across the room. D’Anne froze. He slipped into a booth and disappeared behind black leather and tall chrome posts. Jilly’s bartender in Las Vegas?

  Nah.

  ****

  Tyler walked into the Oasis hotel bar at ten past four in time to see Dee slap some money on the counter. Pauline had managed to delay him with a contract to sign. Dee and some other lady turned to leave with arms wrapped around each other looking all friendly-like, happy as big time roulette winners. How easily she’d forgotten their date.

  Snug navy blue pants caused him to take a quick, cheap look at Dee’s shapely ass. Damn, she had what it took to yank off his boots. She also held his heart in her hand and probably didn’t even know it. So why hadn’t he told her? He planned to.

  The lady friend was too thin, skinny in fact, in some fancy outfit made with loud flowery material. She looked overly tanned and worse for the wear, with hair obviously dyed an unnatural shade of brown. He hated feeling like an outsider looking in on Dee’s life and wasn’t about to let her leave.

  “Dee!” he called across the noisy room, pushing people aside to get through. “Dee!” He didn’t want to embarrass her in front of her friend by making a scene, but what he needed to say was important.

  They didn’t hear him.

  For all he knew she felt ashamed of him and pretended not to hear. Hadn’t she blushed deeply when she’d introduced him to her sons earlier? She’d tried to disguise it, but he’d seen the downward look in her eye, the tale-tell sign of shame.

  Tyler rushed to catch up.