Bubba wasn’t happy. He growled. Continually.
A man and his cat. It appeared it had come to this, Tate thought, throwing a towel over Bubba, who then quit growling.
He turned the key, backed out of his drive and started away, thinking that his mother was probably at some healing revival or bridge tournament, and he would end up alone with Bubba, lying in her spare bed with a ceiling fan to look at for the next three days.
No matter. He needed a long drive. He could not stay and see Marilee engaged. Maybe getting away would give him a better perspective. He would come to accept what he could not change.
The sun was bright and warm when Marilee and the children and Munro walked to church. Out front of the parsonage, the sinkhole was still cordoned off with the yellow City Works tape. Holding securely to both children’s hands, Marilee took them over to join the small knot of observers. The hole had grown; the engineer at City Works was still working out the best way to deal with it.
Marilee looked at the hole and thought of her life.
Munro accompanied them up the steps and into church and into the back pew. He was accepted as routine now.
Marilee, sitting there gazing at the light playing on the altar and determinedly keeping to her no-worry status, was suddenly jerked to awareness by whispers. People were whispering and looking at the group who had just passed Marilee’s pew.
It was Winston, with Ruthanne and Mildred on his arms, and Aunt Vella following them, sashaying in a bright floral dress and an enormous sweeping hat. Ramona Stidham, who sat with Norm and an entire pew of grandchildren in front of Marilee, turned and said, “Marilee, I don’t care what people say, Vella has sure gotten a life since she and Perry split up.”
Getting a life was an apt phrase, Marilee thought, watching her aunt’s filmy dress sway as she slipped into the pew beside Winston Valentine. The poor man was somewhat squished, with Mildred leaning toward him on one side, and Aunt Vella smacking him with her hat on the other every time she turned her head.
They stood for the opening hymn. Willie Lee, standing on the pew, leaned on Marilee’s arm, his eyes on the hymnal while he tried to sing along as if reading the words. Corrine stood straight, holding open her own hymnal, singing in a faint voice. “’His eye is on the sparrow…’”
Tears of gratitude filled Marilee’s eyes. She looked with her blurry vision at the cross on the altar. I’m sorry, Lord, for all this mess with Parker. I behaved poorly with him. Running on fear, not faith. Show me the way, Lord. I can’t do it on my own.
Just as Pastor Smith was giving the closing blessing, there came the sound of a crash from outside. Before he had properly finished, people were exiting the building, intent to see what had happened. Marilee guarded Corrine and Willie Lee, to keep them from being trampled.
“Well, look at that.”
“My Lord.”
“Marilee, you’d better get over here for a story.”
The pastor’s wife’s little green Toyota, which had been parked several yards distant from the sinkhole, was now sitting very nearly nose first in the hole that had widened in all directions.
“This is good,” said Winston, causing people to look at him. “This thing has probably hit bottom, so there’s nowhere to go with it but up.”
It was a daunting thought that now she would have to go tell everyone that she and Parker were not getting married after all. She managed to get away from church without one person asking her about it, and her Sunday was spent blissfully alone with the children, but on Monday, the prospect loomed over her head.
“I do not want to go down-town,” Willie Lee stated, when she told him they were going down to the Voice offices.
“You don’t?” she said, surprised. Willie Lee was always so agreeable. “I need to take some articles to the paper, honey, and afterward I will take you to get ice cream. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Yes. I like ice cream.”
“Then come on. Let’s get your shoes on.”
Willie Lee shook his head. “Mun-ro and I want to stay home.” He climbed on the couch and sat there, looking at her from behind his thick glasses.
“Are you sick, honey?” She felt his forehead. It felt fine.
He looked at her. “No. I am not sick. I want to stay home.”
Marilee looked over at Corrine, who sat in the big chair with a book. “I want to stay home, too,” Corrine said.
Marilee called Aunt Vella, who readily and eagerly agreed to come stay with the children. “They are probably tired of you draggin’ them around everywhere with you,” Aunt Vella said.
Likely this was true, Marilee reflected. She needed to find a way to get them interacting with other children.
She decided to walk downtown, and along the way she rehearsed several ways of nonchalantly telling Tate, “Parker and I are not engaged. We have called it off.”
She had seen Tate only once since the night she and Parker had gotten officially engaged, when he had taken care of Willie Lee and Corrine. He had kissed her quickly, in congratulations. She was disappointed that he had not come to her house with a pitcher of iced tea since then. Perhaps he had found some other woman upon whom to bestow his tea. And of course that was just fine. She did not want anything special to do with Tate Holloway. In fact, thinking of it further, she was torn between wanting to tell him that the engagement with Parker was off and being quite reluctant to admit it. Tate had been the one to be adamant that Parker was not the one for her. Now she would have to admit he had been right.
Tate’s office door was closed, she saw first thing upon coming into the newspaper offices. She had not seen the door closed in some time. Perhaps he was having a private meeting, maybe with Leo, who was the only one not in evidence.
She went to her desk, plopped down her tote and purse, and stated in a loud voice, to get it over in one fell swoop, “Parker and I are not getting married. We have called it off.”
There were the expected surprise and condolences. Reggie, bless her heart, came over and hugged Marilee hard and long.
“I’m here, if you want to talk,” Reggie said.
“Thank you, Regg.” Her heart warmed. Reggie gave her another quick hug, Imperia kissed her cheek, and June laid a handful of Hershey’s chocolate Kisses on her desk.
She looked at the closed door to Zona’s office; she did not want to leave the woman out of the goings-on, so she went over and knocked.
When Zona’s faint, “Come in,” sounded, Marilee poked her head in the door and said, “I just wanted to let you know I won’t be marrying Parker after all.”
“Oh.” Zona blinked behind her glasses.
Marilee withdrew and was closing the door, when Zona said, “I’m sorry for your disappointment, Marilee.”
She put her head back in again. “I’m okay.”
“Good.”
Marilee withdrew again, and Zona said, “Maybe you had better leave the door open…just a crack.”
“Oh, okay. How’s that?”
“That’s fine. Thank you.”
Marilee stood there looking at the crack in Zona’s door, the crack in her secure wall.
Then she went back to her desk. Well, she had dispensed with a necessary responsibility, and everyone was back to work at their desks, evidence that her private life had little effect on others.
Her editor’s door was still closed. She debated about whether to go knock on it.
She took the update on the sinkhole and the obituary write-ups to Charlotte’s desk and said in an offhand manner, “His door is closed. Is he in some sort of meeting?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Nope. Gone for the week, be back Friday or Saturday.”
“Oh.”
When she recovered enough from this surprise to speak, she said to Charlotte, “I guess you’re off the hook for standin’ up with me at my wedding.”
“I never felt on the hook. I just wasn’t too thrilled about you marrying Parker.” Charlotte sat back and turned her computer screen to the side.
Marilee looked into the woman’s dark eyes. “You knew about him and Leanne.”
“Yes.”
“Does everyone know?”
“Not everyone, but enough people. Julia Jenkins-Tinsley knows and told.”
Marilee let out a large sigh.
“I didn’t think it was my place to tell you,” Charlotte said, looking apologetic. “Telling just never seems to make anything…well, work out.”
Marilee nodded, at once touched by Charlotte’s caring, and hurt that the woman had held such a secret about her life.
“I never thought you two were suited. You don’t match. You are a woman who…” Charlotte paused, as if thinking.
“A woman who what?” A woman like you.
Charlotte shrugged. “A woman who needs someone different than Parker.”
That did not at all satisfy, but Marilee decided she would rather let the subject drop. “I guess I’ll go over to the post office and let Julia know the engagement is off. If I tell her and Belinda, I won’t have to tell another soul.”
“Well, you’re probably right there,” Charlotte said. Then, as Marilee went out the door, she called, “Oh…you don’t have to feed Tate’s cat. He took it with him.”
“Well, my goodness, he must have gotten fond of it.”
“A man and his cat,” Charlotte said, casting a wave and picking up her glasses to again focus on her computer screen. It was wearing to be involved in people’s private lives; she preferred books that she could put down at will.
The phone on her desk rang. Without taking her gaze off the computer screen, she reached to answer. It was her boss.
“Hi, is Marilee there? I just called her house and Vella said she was down there.”
“She’s already gone…just this minute.” Charlotte spoke loudly; there was a lot of noise coming across the line.
“Oh.” Pause. “Well, how is everything there?”
“The same as always…too much for the few of us to do but none of it earthshaking. Oh, except I suppose the sinkhole is earthshaking—it just about ate the pastor’s wife’s car yesterday morning.” She was again raising her voice over background noise on her editor’s end, and this made her peevish. “Where are you? What’s all that noise?” People should know trying to talk and listen over noise was impolite.
“That’s just some friends…we’re at a bar for lunch.”
Now Tate had raised his voice, and Charlotte’s mind went into visions that caused some disapproval, and worry. Maybe, because of all the strain of changing the Voice around, their editor was going to stray into all manner of irresponsible behavior. He’d just up and left on this trip, like he was running off.
The noise abated. “There, that’s better,” he said. “Put Reggie on the sinkhole. Tell her just to take a picture and write a caption. No need for an article. We’ll begin following it with pictures.”
“Marilee took care of it.”
“Oh, okay.” Pause. “Then everyone is fine.”
“Yes, everything is going along fine.” Then, because he sounded a little disappointed and she wanted him to feel responsibility, she added, “But you’ve only been gone a day. You never can tell what emergency might happen. You’d better stay ready.”
The visit to Julia Jenkins-Tinsley was short. Marilee poked her head in the door, saw Julia at the counter and said, “Julia, Parker and I have broken off our engagement.”
Julia’s eyes went round. She opened her mouth, but Marilee pulled her head back out of the doorway and headed down the sidewalk for the drugstore. She required an enormous chocolate sundae.
Just as she entered the store, the door opened and there came Winston, being hustled out the door by Uncle Perry. Marilee had to back up.
“I’ll thank you to go use the new Rexall out on the highway,” said Uncle Perry, who then shut the door.
Winston straightened himself, smoothing his shirt and adjusting his belt.
“Are you all right, Winston?”
“Yes.” He smiled quite happily. “Yes, I am. I stirred him.” With a nod and “Good day” to her, he smacked his cane on the concrete and started away.
Marilee went in and checked on her uncle, who she found sitting in his chair, like always, although his face had color in it for the first time in years. She asked him if he was okay, and he said, “I am as okay as any man could be who has been thrown out of his home by his wife gone insane and havin’ an affair, and who has a daughter who doesn’t want him, either.”
For a moment Marilee worked on finding some positive comment to refute the statements. At least she should contradict the accusation of Aunt Vella having an affair. But could she?
What came out was, “I’m sorry, Uncle Perry,” and by the look he gave her, she knew she had fallen far short.
She made a retreat to the soda fountain, where the new girl, Nadine, looked at her over the counter.
“I’ll have a chocolate…” She paused, reconsidering. “I’d like a glass of iced tea,” she said. She was ready for a change.
“Sweetened or unsweetened?” Nadine asked.
“Sweetened.” She watched the girl turn to fill the order. She had to stand on tiptoe to get the glass. “Where is my cousin this morning?” she asked.
“Upstairs…said she was goin’ to put a cold cloth on her head.”
“Oh.” Marilee sat there, her eyes coming around to see her image in the long mirror on the wall.
Nadine set the tall glass, with a slice of lemon on the rim, in front of Marilee and plunked down a spoon beside it, then turned back to her compulsion of wiping every bit of stainless steel in sight.
Marilee sipped the tea and occasionally looked at herself in the long mirror on the wall. She made no effort to figure out anyone’s life, not even her own. For those minutes she sat and relished the cold sweet tea in a tall glass, and it was enough.
When she finished, she put the money on the counter and said to Nadine, “Please give Belinda a message for me. Tell her that her cousin Marilee and Parker Lindsey broke off their engagement.”
Then she left and walked home, thoroughly refreshed.
It needed to be done. A full apology and explanation were in order. If he did not want to speak to her, he could say so.
She telephoned Parker and asked if he was free to come by that evening.
He said, “Yeah…I guess I can.”
It was dusk when he arrived. She met him on the front porch. “The children are watching a movie on television. Let’s sit on the steps.”
They sat side by side. Parker didn’t say anything; he sat rubbing his hands together as he often did when uncertain. Marilee reminded herself that she was the one who had requested the meeting. She had rehearsed what she was going to say and still had great difficulty getting the words to her tongue. “I’m sorry, Parker, for how I’ve treated you.”
He looked surprised, but said nothing.
She took a breath and went on to say that she had been attempting to make more out of their relationship than was there all along. She had done this by having the wrong motives, and said she had not seen the reason she kept putting off sleeping with him was that she was not as committed to the relationship as she believed. She explained that she was just not ready to be married. Finally she quit talking, because she doubted that Parker got any of it anyway. She doubted she had made a lot of sense out of something that even she did not fully understand.
“I do hope we can be friends. We always were good friends,” she ended.
She wondered about Parker’s motive for wanting to marry her, but decided not to ask. If he said he loved her, she doubted she would believe it. She suspected he had wanted to marry her simply to get her into bed again, which seemed really strange, so perhaps it was that added to someone to keep house and cook for him. Parker did seem to need taking care of.
The extent of what Parker said was, “Yeah…I guess we’re pretty good friends.”
Marilee looked out at the streetlig
ht where it pooled on the sidewalk. Yep, nick of time.
Twenty-Two
Family Matters
Corrine was reading in the big chair when she heard a car pull up in the driveway. Her Aunt Marilee was working at her desk. She sat there staring at the computer, with her chin propped on her hand, looking like she did when she was frustrated. Willie Lee and Munro were watching cartoons on the television.
Corrine, as if her antenna were tuned to any change, rose up enough to see out the window. The car, sleek and dark, was unfamiliar; an unfamiliar man was getting out from the driver’s side.
With a gulp, Corrine slipped down beside Willie Lee and whispered in his ear, “Somebody’s here. Take Munro in the bedroom.”
He cast her a puzzled frown, and she made wide eyes at him. “Hurry up…they might be here for Munro.” Ever since that day when the two people downtown had tried to get Munro, she had been on the lookout and ready.
Willie Lee scrambled to his feet, causing Aunt Marilee to look over from the computer. Corrine heard voices coming up the walk and shook her head at Willie Lee, to tell him to keep his mouth shut. He and Munro went on to the bedroom, and Corrine looked at the door. Someone knocked.
Corrine went to the door and slowly opened it, peering around it with half an idea that she could shut it again if need be.
It was her mother standing there. Her mother with a smiling face.
“Hello, hon. Are you gonna let me in?”
“Mama!”
Marilee, in something of a daze, walked across the room to greet her sister, taking in the man standing behind Anita with a cursory glance, before her gaze fell totally on her sister’s head bent against Corrine’s. Two dark heads together, two at last.
Then Anita looked up at Marilee, her expression so hesitant and doubtful of her welcome, that Marilee instantly opened her arms, and the two of them fell together, embracing and crying, “Ohmygosh, it is good to see you!”
It was strange how the burst of warm closeness could quickly fade to one of caution.
Marliee made coffee for her sister, who had come, out of the blue, not even calling first, taking for granted, of course, that Marilee would be right here where she always was—good ol’ Marilee—just waiting to see Anita and entertain her and the man who had brought her, Louis Alvarez, a man so handsome and full of sex appeal that he could probably get women to drop their pants with one glance of his smoldering eyes.
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