Bittersweet Creek

by Sally Kilpatrick

  The McElroys show up on the 1860 census, but the spelling of the name at the time was Magilroy. Since no one in that household could read or write, it would take more research to determine their origins. The census does list a grandfather with Ireland as his place of birth, so it’s possible the McElroys were recent arrivals. Other county records show Shaymus Magilroy bought the property from a William Wilson, the son of John Wilson.

  No record exists of any problems between the Satterfields and the McElroys until 1861. If I were a betting woman, I’d guess Matthew Wilson wasn’t happy his brother had sold half of the farm that would have someday been his. I doubt Benjamin Satterfield was happy about his new neighbors, either. It’s a safe assumption neither farm has been happy about much of anything since.

  Leave it to my mother to give the farms themselves personality. A car honked outside and I laid the folder down on the scratchy couch and gave Daddy a kiss on the cheek on my way out. He grunted his good-bye, still unhappy I was going but knowing I was old enough to do what I wanted to do.

  I slid into the car and did a double take. Gone were the frumpy hand-me-down clothes, frizzy hair, and glasses. The class ugly duckling had morphed into a rather beautiful swan. She’d traded in broken glasses for contacts, and she wore a neatly pressed linen suit that had no business going to a roadside tavern. We did an awkward half hug before I buckled my seat belt. She had to be at least twenty pounds lighter, quite a feat since I kept finding them instead of losing them.

  “Genie, you look absolutely stunning!”

  “And you, Romy, are looking pretty damn good yourself.”

  It took me a minute to realize I must look similarly polished and sleek, thanks to a flat-iron addiction and last year’s birthday gift from Richard: a makeover in the Nordstrom cosmetics department. I’d already chipped the pinkie nail on my left hand, but I pulled it underneath my fist with my thumb so she couldn’t see it.

  “So, how’s life been treating you?”

  She set out to tell me every detail of everything that had happened since we parted just after graduation, and I half listened and half watched familiar fields and houses blur by in the twilight. Somewhere in the middle of her story, we arrived at The Fountain. It hadn’t changed much in the past ten years. The cinder-block building still sat across the road from County Line Methodist, the church the Satterfields had helped found long ago. I walked through the same rickety screen door of what had been an old country store. Old Coke signs still lined the walls. The counter remained, but Bill had put in a pool table to go with the jukebox that never worked. He’d also added some chairs and tables around a stage.

  Genie only paused long enough for us to find a table and order a couple of beers. If she noticed how uncomfortable I was to be in another place that reminded me of Julian, she didn’t say anything. She also had the grace not to laugh at me when I tried to order an appletini, then a pinot noir, only to be informed my choices were beer, beer, or, perhaps, beer.

  Even then I sounded like a pretentious ass when I asked what was on tap and ended up with a bottled Bud Light. That’s what I got for trying to be low-brow. Apparently, I’d forgotten how.

  At least I didn’t mind listening to Genie chatter, because she’d done well for herself as the first person in her family to go to college. Now she worked as an RN at the Jefferson Hospital, but she was convinced she was still missing out on Mr. Right.

  “I hear you’ve met him.”

  I almost choked on my beer. “Excuse me?”

  “I hear you’re going out with Richard Paris.”

  “I am. I see news travels fast around here.” I focused on the infamous Beulah Land playing piano onstage. She didn’t look a bit older than when I’d left, still a redhead who liked to flaunt her cleavage. Like every other girl in town, I’d always been secretly jealous of Beulah, but we’d never traveled in the same circles. Satterfield children weren’t allowed to rebel—not even as teenagers.

  Genie waved her hand around the tavern. “Not much to do, you see. Besides, when you drive into town with a car like that then run over your ex-boyfriend, people tend to pay attention.”

  Heat blossomed in my cheeks. “Yeah. I’m not used to driving a car that fancy. It’s Richard’s.”

  Genie took a long pull from her neglected and sweating beer. “Jim Price has a pool going that says you ran over Julian on purpose.”

  “Price always has a pool going for something,” I said with a shrug.

  “He’s also got a bet going about whether or not you and Julian will get back together. He’s got his money on Paris.”

  “That’s ridiculous. And none of his business, either! I’m just here for the summer.” Why in heaven’s name would I break up with Richard? I glanced around the dingy honky-tonk full of self-proclaimed rednecks. Of course, if Richard came back here and stuck around for too long, he might decide to break up with me.

  It was Genie’s turn to shrug. “Just what I heard. Say, how are things going with the class reunion funds, Treasurer Lady?”

  “Everything’s collected and we’re past the deadline so my job is done.”

  “Unless you wanted to help with a few other odds and ends.” Genie batted her eyelashes.

  “Oh, no. I’m going to have my hands full.”

  “Please, please, please. It’ll be like being in Beta Club all over again. You’ve already collected the money, and I’ve already done most of the heavy lifting, and—”

  “Fine. I’ll help.” What? Where had that come from? Friends. You desperately want to remember what it’s like to have friends.

  She reached the short distance across the table and squeezed my hand. “I’m so glad to hear that.” Leaning forward, she lowered her voice. “None of the other officers are doing anything. And they live right here!”

  I understood only too well how group work went: One person did all the work and the others showed up in time to bask in the glory.

  “I have a feeling I’m going to be really busy around the farm, but send me a list of things that need to get done, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Genie beamed at me and extended her beer bottle to clink with mine. “It’ll be the best reunion Yessum County has ever seen.”

  I clinked my bottle against hers and opened my mouth to say her expectations might be a little high, but the cuckoo clock in the corner cut me off.

  Beulah led the raucous crowd through the paces of “Dwelling in Beulah Land,” and I felt an eerie merging of past and present. The lyrics rolled off my tongue against my will, my heart warming at the words of the familiar song.

  “In ten minutes, we’re doing some karaoke, y’all!” Beulah announced before hopping to the floor for her break. Bill nodded to the Gates brothers, and they joined him in the corner to take out a couple of speakers, a microphone, and the other karaoke equipment. Pete rammed a speaker into Greg’s back. Greg used a creative litany of curse words, and the two brothers pushed past our table and outside for a fight.

  “Ha! You ought to put the Gates brothers on the committee,” I said.

  “Can’t. They never graduated,” she said.

  “I am willing to help each of them earn a GED if it means having someone to cuss creatively while lifting heavy objects.”

  But she wasn’t listening to me. Instead, she stared at the door, and my heart started to thump insistently even before she spoke.

  “Well, well. Look who’s decided to show up this evening.”

  I sucked in a breath and followed Genie’s gaze to the door. Julian wasn’t supposed to be here. But there he was, just as I’d somehow known he would be: tall and tanned from working outdoors, full of honestly earned muscles. And you are remembering him the way you used to see him. You are immune to his charms now, I chided myself.

  He sat down by Ben at the tiny ledge that ran against the far wall. I had to peer around our waitress when she appeared with another round of beers. His eyes met mine, but I looked away quickly.

  “Still got the h
ots for McElroy, huh?”

  “No.” My burning cheeks said otherwise.

  “Is that you, Julian McElroy? AND Romy Satterfield? It’s been forever since the two of you sang. How ’bout you start us off with a little ‘Islands in the Stream’?”

  I had never hated Beulah Land before that moment.

  My pulse pounded in my ears, and I shook my head no, but Beulah’s mouth had curved into a little smile. She liked to stir the shit, as my father would say.

  Some traitorous punks in the back started a low chant, “Islands, Is-lands, Is-lands . . .”

  I looked at Julian. He’d stood at the sound of his name, but he remained rooted to the spot, his eyes now locked with mine.

  Folks stomped their feet in time: “Is-lands, Is-lands, Islands. . .”

  Julian looked ready to bolt. Was he about to run? Again? I stood and shouted my challenge across the room. “I’ll do it.”

  “Fine,” he spat as he walked in my direction. I let go of the breath I’d been holding.

  The house erupted in cheers, applause, whistles, and catcalls, but I couldn’t think of anything but the fact that Julian McElroy had taken a step in my direction for the first time in ten years.

  Julian

  Beulah Land could go to hell.

  Damn her hide for dredging up memories of the first time Romy and I sang that song. We were each about seven, and both of us had wandered to the creek that bubbled between our farms. Our mamas would’ve had a fit if they’d known we’d wandered into the woods where the coyotes lurked.

  They called the creek Bittersweet, but it was nothing but sweet back then. I liked to walk there and look over at the Satterfield land and wonder if they were really as bad as Curtis made them out to be. The fact that the creek was far enough away from the house so I couldn’t hear my mother’s cries when Curtis smacked her was another reason I hid out there.

  One day I heard someone singing as I approached. A little girl with black pigtails hopped from one side of the creek to the other, singing about islands in the stream and asking how anyone could be wrong.

  I knew that song. Mama listened to the local country radio station in the mornings while she got me ready for school. She also had every Kenny Rogers cassette ever made.

  I sang about sailing away to another world and invited her to come with me. She stiffened at the sound of my voice, but then she gave me a wide grin and kept singing.

  We didn’t know about lovers or making love back then. That came later when Coach decided I needed some extra tutoring in English. Somehow, as we stumbled through Shakespeare, we began to see our relationship as a little island of sanity in that teeny creek. She was the one who figured out I couldn’t read but I could listen. And that’s how she fell in love with me.

  I fell in love with her the moment I saw her jumping over that stream like some kind of woodland fairy in knee-patched Sears jeans. And up until the night she gave up on me I had always thought we really would find a way to sail away together.

  Instead, Romy disappeared to Vanderbilt, and I hid out in Mamaw’s abandoned house licking my wounds.

  And now I’d agreed to sing our song like the damn fool I was.

  Romy

  Beulah handed each of us a microphone, and I willed myself to smile as I looked out into the audience. Thank God Richard wasn’t there—this wasn’t something I wanted him to see. I wanted to look at Julian, to see if he caught any irony in the words as he sang them, to see if I could figure out exactly what had happened on the night of our high school graduation.

  Julian, however, was focused on the little blue monitor.

  He didn’t need the monitor. We used to sing this song all the time both as kids and back in high school when Bill had experimented with a “family night” and made anyone under twenty-one wear a fluorescent wristband to show they weren’t old enough to drink. Julian had never once looked at the monitor back then.

  He sang the first part about feeling a peace unknown, his voice reverberating through me. I had forgotten its honey timbre, the twang he’d picked up from years of listening to country music and nothing else. I snapped to and sang with him about the blindness of tender love. Then there was the part about dedication.

  I stared through him. I had been blind. I had given the required dedication. Kenny and Dolly were so wrong about not needing conversation, though. What had Julian McElroy ever given up to me through words? He’d given me his body, but there had always been a part of him he’d held back. If I’d been anything other than young and stupid, I would have seen we were headed for trouble because there were so many questions he wouldn’t answer.

  My eyes were drawn to his when he sang to me about how I wouldn’t cry and he would hurt me never.

  Bullshit.

  As we sang about starting and ending as one and interspersing “uh-huh”s with making love, I blushed. I couldn’t help it. I threw myself into the lyrics, forcing myself not to shout “how can we be wrong?” because I knew we’d been wrong but I still didn’t know the how or why.

  I didn’t need to know how. I only needed Julian’s signature on the dotted line. The why wasn’t important. My eyes landed on Genie, who studied us with her head tilted to one side like a zoologist studying primates. What did she think about Julian and me singing a song about making love?

  Blessedly, the song came to a close. The Fountain patrons erupted in applause, either not noticing the undercurrents or reveling in them. Julian stepped off the stage then reached over to give me a hand.

  “I need to talk to you,” I blurted as I jumped down in front of him.

  He put both hands on his hips and leaned back. “Go on, then.”

  “Outside would be better.”

  Julian cut a glance to Genie. “Thought you were here with her.”

  “She can wait for a minute.” I gestured toward the door and Julian headed off while GiGi Taylor started singing the world’s most off-key version of “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.”

  I cleared my throat as I stepped over to where Genie sat. “I need to step outside and have a word with Julian. Do you mind waiting?”

  “I can do that.” Again she had the look of an anthropologist taking notes on human behavior. I began to wonder if she secretly worked as a spy for the Paris family. Would she report back to Richard? Tell him I was singing in bars with my ex?

  Ridiculous. What did she care?

  Heart still pounding, I walked across the bar and out the door before my confidence could leave me.

  Julian

  As a general rule, I wasn’t much of a pacer, but being alone with Romy for the first time in ten years? That had to qualify as an extenuating circumstance. It ate me up to think of her with her city boyfriend—especially after we sang together, her voice humming through my body. But what could I do about it? I’d sealed my fate the night I hadn’t shown up at Wanamaker’s store.

  Knowing Romy, that night she’d packed entirely too much for our honeymoon—especially since I’d planned to keep her out of her clothes as much as possible. I had a vision of teenage Romy, lugging that old red suitcase of her mama’s as she walked up the road. We had agreed to meet at three in the morning, a time of night when no one should be passing. Her mama’s suitcase was too old for wheels so Romy would have fumbled along the road, occasionally passing the suitcase from one hand to another as her arms got tired.

  Once she got to the store, she probably sat down on the suitcase and hugged herself. She didn’t let anyone but me know it, but Romy was still afraid of the dark or, at the very least, afraid of not being able to see where she was stepping. Considering the wrong I was about to do her, she should have been more scared of me.

  The screen door to the tavern popped open, and she flew outside, jarring me back to the present. She had to have been born running because I’d never seen Romy Satterfield slow down for anything or anyone. I used to kid her she was a blur.

  Then she stopped.

  “You wanted me?” I asked.


  Poor choice of words. Or wishful thinking.

  She sucked in a big breath to help her carry on: “Julian, I need a divorce.”

  I opened my mouth to say yes, to say I’d known this day was coming. Instead my traitorous lips said, “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? Who do you think you are? You can’t begin to think you could just leave me on the side of the road with no explanation and think I would still want to be married to you. I swear, Julian McElroy, I don’t know what kind of demon cupid shot me with his arrow and made me think for one solitary moment I wanted to be married to you. Four years of college and almost six years of teaching and you have not so much as called or sent a note or said you were sorry. Now you want to tell me you aren’t going to give me a divorce? That is the most ridiculous—”

  “Just stop.” Whatever it was that had been squeezing my heart for the past ten years loosened its grip, and I grinned. Romy Satterfield was the only person I knew who started using bigger words and more of them when she got mad. Most of us resorted to shorter words and repeating a lot of them.

  “Just stop? Are you out of your mind? I can’t believe I managed to screw my courage to the sticking place to ask you this question and that you, of all people, would tell me no after all that—”

  “Why’d you have to go all Sweet Home Alabama on me? Why couldn’t you ask me years ago?”

  That shut her up. She studied the gravel for some time and we listened to the frogs sing. Finally, she looked up at me. “I couldn’t bear to look at you.”

  Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes, and I had to look away from the hurt. I kicked at the gravel, making a rut in the ground. “So I guess you’re really in love with this city boy. If you’re willing to come out here and look at me.”

  She crossed her arms, angry again. “Yes, I love Richard. And he loves me.”