Love in a Small Town

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  Sorrow fell all over her, and she felt the almost overwhelming need to call Tommy Lee. She wanted him to hold her.

  But if she called him, she’d just be leaning on him, and she didn’t want to do that anymore. She didn’t want to impose on him. That’s how she felt these days, like she was an imposition on him. One more chore for him to see to. She couldn’t bear that any longer.

  It was all so mixed up. She wished she could just stay in the closet forever and not have to figure anything out. But she had begun to cry and her nose was running, and she just had to get out and get a tissue.

  She blew her nose and wiped her eyes and then, again in front of the smoky mirror, she took the towel from her head. Her hair was just as she’d feared; the little wisps had dried around her face and stuck out funny.

  Chapter 6

  Get Real

  To Molly’s mind, the gathering at the cottage resembled a funeral visitation, with everyone bringing food.

  Mama brought over the big coffeemaker, a jar of sugar, and an unopened can of Folgers; Kaye still checked the expiration date. Lillybeth and Season arrived together from Oklahoma City in Lillybeth’s BMW, and they brought a Kentucky Fried Chicken picnic pack.

  “We figured you hadn’t felt like going shopping, and this would be a lot better than tryin’ to make a meal out of Mama’s refrigerator,” Lillybeth said and hugged Molly.

  Season could do nothing but cry when she hugged Molly. Her tears made Molly’s own stop up behind her eyes. She wouldn’t let herself cry for fear of completely unhinging her little sister.

  Since a young teen, Season had suffered periods of deep depression. She had been in and out of therapy and several times had resorted to antidepressant drugs. What had seemed to help her most was viewing comedy shows, a therapy suggested one day by a fellow customer at the prescription counter. The comedy shows did seem to be working, because she hadn’t suffered a bad bout of depression for over eight months since she had begun watching at least an hour of comedy a day. Molly certainly didn’t want to be the cause of setting Season back.

  Rennie came shortly after, and she brought Oreos and cold Coca-Colas and a bag of ice, and even Murlene Swanda stopped by and, for some strange reason, she had brought a pecan pie.

  “I just want to give you my condolences,” she said, shoving the pie at Molly, “and to tell you I’m prayin’ for you and Tommy Lee.”

  Molly gazed into Murlene’s face coated with pancake makeup and filled with sincere compassion and said, “Thank you, Murlene.” She was quite confused, feeling she ought to comfort Murlene and assure the woman that she wasn’t dying.

  As Murlene was driving out, Walter, in his Buick that matched Kaye’s, came in. Walter had to drive way over on the grass because Murlene, in the Swanda Hardware van, didn’t even attempt to give room on the driveway. Discovering she didn’t have any packets of Sweet’n Low in her purse, Kaye had phoned Walter to bring some over. She yelled to him out the window, “I’ll come get it, just wait in the car!” and without missing a step, Walter turned right back to his Buick.

  Once Kaye got her Sweet’n Low stirred into her coffee, she brought up the subject of what to do about the anniversary party. At mention of the anniversary party, Molly began to get a headache. She put her sunglasses back on.

  Mainly Kaye and Lillybeth discussed the situation of the party. Mama was busy trying to repair the kitchen’s single electrical outlet—they’d had to plug the coffeemaker into the overloaded outlet in the living room. Rennie was licking the filling out of Oreos, and Season was crying and blowing her nose. Molly sat silently behind her sunglasses, mentally getting in her El Camino and driving away, or perhaps grabbing Season and driving up to a Lawton movie theater and seeing comedy movies. She thought she might really do that, if she could get herself to move. An odd feeling of paralysis had seemed to take hold of her.

  “Well, they won’t return our deposit for the VFW hall,” Kaye said, her lips in a firm line.

  “How do you know?” Lillybeth asked. “Did you sign a contract when you reserved it?”

  Lillybeth looked soft, with a cherub face and short, curly ash-blond hair, but her eyes were sharp. Many people saw only the softness, and she had learned early to use this perception to her advantage. She was a legal assistant at the moment, but she was studying to become a corporate attorney. She said that legal assistants, especially the women, did all the work but the attorneys got the money and the glory. She didn’t much care about the glory, but she wanted to be paid for her work.

  What she often said was, “I’d rather work honestly for my money and not marry it the way Kaye did. That is really too darn hard.”

  Due to money inherited from his father, Big Walter, as he’d been called by everyone, Kaye’s Little Walter, as he was sometimes called, was set for life. Big Walter had secured the family fortune in a trust fund because, he had said openly, Little Walter didn’t have the sense God gave a turkey, which of course wasn’t much at all, since a turkey was known to have the crazy habit of looking up during heavy rainstorms and drowning.

  Molly thought people underestimated Walter; he’d had sense enough to marry Kaye, who would always be looking out for Walter because she would always be looking out for herself.

  Kaye said now, “No, I didn’t sign a contract. As an Upchurch, my word is my contract.”

  “So what you’re sayin’ is that you simply won’t ask for the money back.” Lillybeth looked satisfied in besting Kaye, which seemed her ambition whenever she was around her older sister.

  “Stop it!” Season stuck out her hand. “Will you two focus on what is important here? Molly and Tommy Lee are breakin’ up . . . and I think that is a whole lot more important than worryin’ about the stupid hall.”

  Season was the peacemaker in the family. She was the soft one, inside and out. She had quit a promising modeling career in Dallas to work for long hours and little pay raising money for animal shelters across the West. People just seemed to open their wallets and turn them upside down for Season; there were few people who could deny her and her beautiful golden eyes anything.

  Kaye, unfortunately, was one of the few, and she said, “I realize Molly’s situation is a terrible thing, but the world has to go on, Season. And your carrying on isn’t helping any of us. Would you please dry up?”

  Rennie looked up from her bag of Oreos. “Good Lord, Kaye, if she dries up, then she’ll be just like you. I don’t think you’d like havin’ competition.”

  “Well, we all certainly know you’re always wet, don’t we, Rennie, and we and half the men in the state know where.”

  “Jealous?” Rennie asked.

  Kaye was puffing up and searching for a good retort, and Molly was thinking she ought to do something to stop the wrangling before Season got further upset, when the telephone rang from in the bedroom. Season jumped up, saying, “I’ll get it,” and sprinted from the room on her long legs. Season was the designated telephone answerer when they were all gathered. She seemed the expert with the phone from her fundraising endeavors.

  The phone rang again, and Season called out, “Where is it? Oh, I’ve found it!”

  Molly began to quiver inside, wondering if the caller could be Tommy Lee, wanting it to be Tommy Lee and not wanting it to be him at the same time.

  “Molly!” Season called in an excited whisper. She appeared, holding the receiver to her breast. “It’s Tommy Lee,” she said, her eyes round and worried and hopeful all at once.

  Molly’s heart pounded and a panic rose inside her. “Ask him what he wants,” she managed in a hoarse whisper.

  Oh, Lord, what if he was going to say he wanted to talk about a divorce? Maybe he was going to give her the name of his lawyer and say that she would be contacted. Isn’t that how it was done?

  I’m done tryin'. That’s what he’d said. Molly saw Season speaking into the phone, but she didn’t hear what her sister said because she just kept hearing Tommy Lee’s voice inside her head. I’m done tryin�
��.

  Suddenly she was on her feet and headed out the back door. The screen door banged behind her and Kaye was calling after her, but Molly kept on going, her heart pounding so loudly it drowned out Kaye’s voice.

  She couldn’t hear him say he wanted a divorce. Not now. Later she could take it, but she wasn’t ready now.

  Breaking into a run, she went to her horse trailer and yanked open the tack compartment. She swung the bridle onto her shoulder and hoisted the pad and saddle, lugged them over and threw them atop the fence. She caught a reluctant Marker and saddled him. When she was opening the corral gate to the big pasture, Rennie’s call stopped her.

  Rennie came running across the grass, waving Molly’s brown Resistol in the air. “You need your hat!”

  Well, goodness! Rennie climbed up on the fence and held out the hat. As Molly took it, she saw Lillybeth and Mama standing just outside the back door.

  Then Rennie cast that sad, crooked grin and said, “Ride out where you can really hoot and holler, Sissy.”

  “Tell them . . . I love them, but right now. . ."

  “We know.” Rennie waved her away. “Go on.”

  Molly turned Marker, tapped him with her heels and galloped away from all the pain and uncertainty. She was crying now, though, and had to trust Marker to watch where they went.

  * * * *

  Molly didn’t return until dusk. She had ridden Marker for miles south of Valentine. She knew where the gates were, and if they had been moved, she would ride along a fence until she found one. Once she and Marker jumped a low-hanging fence. She saw a couple of farmers from a distance but didn’t meet face-to-face with anyone, which was her intention. She soaked up the sun and the breeze and the time alone in which she didn’t try to understand all the confusion inside her. She was tired, dusty, and sweaty and looking downward and didn’t see Tommy Lee until she was only a hundred feet away. Then she looked up and saw him sitting up on the seat back of his Corvette parked just on the other side of the corral fence.

  She halted Marker, and sitting on the back of her horse, she stared at Tommy Lee. He stared back at her.

  Molly was the one to avert her eyes. She slowly dismounted, stiff and trying to hide it. Tommy Lee came over the fence and without asking began unsaddling Marker.

  It wasn’t that Tommy Lee didn’t know horses and all about riding. When they were kids, he and Molly had ridden a lot on two horses Tommy Lee’s daddy always had kept around the farm, but gradually, when he entered his teens, Tommy Lee’s passion had shifted to vehicles. Tommy Lee had put a hand in and helped when Boone was interested in high school rodeo, but Boone had graduated and Colter’s interest was as wild as Tommy Lee’s for engines, so Tommy Lee had given up horses altogether.

  Still, he deftly unsaddled Marker and slung the saddle and pad across the top rail of the fence, then led Marker over to the water trough.

  Molly looked at him uncertainly, removed her hat and shook out her sweat-dampened hair. It occurred to her that her hair would look awful, so she put the hat back on. Looking downward, she tried to brush some of the dust from her shirt and pants. Tommy Lee had on clean jeans and T-shirt, his hair neatly combed. She watched him work the headstall off Marker and smack him on the hip, sending the horse away. Marker was tired and ambled a short distance and went to eating grass.

  Then there was just Molly and Tommy Lee standing together, gazing at his Corvette on the other side of the fence.

  “What did you need earlier . . . when you called?” Molly asked.

  “Oh . . . I needed to know where you put the salve for my hands.” He held them up. “I had to use that cleaning solvent again today.”

  Molly stared at his hands. At last she said, “It’s in the lower right drawer of the bathroom vanity.”

  He nodded. “Good. I can use it when I get home.” Tommy Lee breathed deeply and rubbed his calloused, chapped hands together. There was a lot he had planned to say, but he couldn’t manage to think of any of it now that the opportunity presented itself. This seemed a definite weakness on his part. While he was thinking this, Molly said something, and he had to say, “What?”

  “You didn’t cut your hands, did you? You might need the Neosporin, if your skin is busted.”

  “Well, it is . . . on my thumb knuckle.” He held his knuckle up, but the light was growing too dim to really see it.

  Molly said, “You probably should put the Neosporin on that then. It’s right there in that drawer with the salve.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  Again they were both silent. Molly thought she could hear him breathing, but then she realized it was herself.

  “Mol . . . ," Tommy Lee said, but she started speaking at the same time, so he shut up and waited for her. But she didn’t say anything. “You go first.”

  ‘‘No . . . you."

  He said, “Savannah called earlier. She’s pretty upset.”

  "I know."

  “You called the boys?”

  “Yes. I told you I would,” she said defensively. And Tommy Lee said quickly, “I wasn’t criticizin’ or anything. I just wondered.”

  Molly turned, leaned her shoulder against the fence. “They took it okay. . . . You know the boys. They’ll think about it. Boone’s busy, like always. I told them both they could call you.”

  “Okay.” Tommy Lee nodded, raked his hand through his hair.

  Molly swallowed. Her spirit had raised a fraction because he hadn’t said anything about a divorce.

  “I just need this time, Tommy Lee . . . to think things out.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “This gives you time to think, too.”

  Tommy Lee said, “I didn’t leave, Molly.” He looked at her.

  Molly trembled and then let herself say, “There’s all kinds of ways to leave, Tommy Lee.”

  After a second, he said, “Yeah . . . I guess so.” He breathed deeply. “What do you want, Molly? What do you want me to do?”

  Molly considered that a stupid question, and it annoyed her. The bit of sarcasm in his tone annoyed her, too. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to, that’s for sure. I don’t have any answers, either. I just thought we weren’t doin’ very well together, so maybe we would do better apart. I just want time alone to think.”

  “And just what am I supposed to do while you’re doin’ this thinkin’?”

  Molly’s first thought was that he ought to try thinking a little so he might come up with an answer to that.

  She said, “I guess you can go on doin’ what you’ve been doin’ for months. . . . anything you want to do.”

  That led to another long silence, and Molly thought that she was not doing well at all in holding her tongue. She was so tired of measuring words. She was tired, period.

  “I’m really tired, Tommy Lee. I can’t talk about this anymore.” She climbed over the fence, turned and started hauling her gear down from it.

  “Yeah . . . okay,” Tommy Lee said, coming after her.

  He jerked her gear out of her arms. It was annoying that he could carry it so easily. She hurried ahead and opened the tack door of the trailer. At least she could do that. After he stuck the gear inside, she slammed the door.

  “Goodnight,” she said.

  “Goodnight,” he said.

  She headed for the cottage, and he headed for the Corvette. She had just reached the back door when he came zipping through the trees and headed away down the drive. Molly went on inside, let the screen door slam behind her, and strode through the cottage to the bedroom, where she tore off her hat and flopped down on the vanity bench.

  The image that gazed out at her from the mirror was not an encouraging one.

  Chapter 7

  Whole Lotta Holes

  Early the following morning Molly went riding again, and when she returned her mother’s gleaming black Lincoln was just pulling around to the backyard. Her mother got out—she was wearing her fuchsia robe—and called to Molly. “Come have breakfast with me.” She lifted
two Hardee’s paper bags.

  Molly waved and nodded her assent. She dismounted, slowly and stiffly, her legs quivering. Her pelvis bones were bruised and screaming about it, too. Over six hours of riding the previous day and four this morning were about five times more than she was used to in two days’ time. More than Marker was used to, too. That morning he’d been so annoyed at the prospect of being ridden again that he’d tried to buck her off. At least now he’d had the spit and vinegar worked out of him; he was quiet and obedient, even appreciative of her care.

  “Did you go into Hardee’s in your robe?” Molly asked as she came in her mother’s back door and went to the sink to wash up. Although not quite eleven, the day had become hot, and Molly’s clothes stuck to her skin.

  “I went through the drive-up,” her mother answered, then added, “I have gone into Hardee’s in my robe. Not on purpose. I just forgot. No one seemed to pay much attention. There’s only a couple of old farts in there this late in the morning, anyway, lingerin’ over their coffee. The morning crew are all senior citizens, too—women, thank God. Men are just no good in fast-food restaurants or handlin’ grocery checkouts.

  “That’s quite a sexist view,” Molly put in.

  Mama gave a dismissing wave. “It’s a fact of nature. And that morning crew is the most efficient one J.R. has—J.R. Morehouse runs it now, and you ought to see him try to work behind the counter.” She rolled her eyes. “J.R. started out with just Geneva Whitefield, and when he saw how efficient she was, he asked her if she knew anyone else her age who might want to work the breakfast shift because he can’t hardly get kids to do it. Pretty soon he had a whole Gray Crew— that’s what they call themselves because all of them have gray hair. Except Doris Torres. She’s black, and she wears her hair cut close, and it is black. She says she doesn’t dye it, but I’m not certain that color could be real.” She sighed. “I always wanted black hair, and I hated going gray so early. Doris says that as a rule black people don’t gray as early as white people. I’ll have to research the statistics on that, if there are any. Doris is the one who saves me these cinnamon biscuits, so I can get them even if I don’t get up there until after they’ve quit servin’ breakfast.”