by Alex Bledsoe
For a moment they stayed like that, gazes locked, each secretly ashamed of the way they enjoyed the other’s body pressed so close. Then Terry-Joe blushed and said, “Sorry.” He stepped away as she got her crutches in place.
As she steadied herself, she blushed as well, although for different reasons. Terry-Joe was Dwayne’s little brother, and he’d be sixteen or seventeen now. He looked distressingly like Dwayne from the back, but the family resemblance ended there. Dwayne’s face was always set in a smirk that said he knew exactly what you were thinking, especially if you were female. In Bronwyn’s case, it had been true damn near most of the time. His eyes had a twinkle that at first seemed to be mischief and laughter, but time revealed it to be the enjoyment of cruelty. He had matched her sexually, and in rambunctiousness, but ultimately his touch had disgusted her and his presence filled her with dread. She didn’t like who she was with him, and no matter how often she told him to go away, he kept coming back, like basement mold. He’d been one big reason she’d joined the army in the first place.
Now she laughed and said, “No, Terry-Joe, I’m sorry, I … you surprised me. I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“Bliss Overbay asked me to see if I could clean out the bearings on that chair so it’d move better.”
“Yeah. Well, look, don’t let me keep you from working, I’ll just hobble on out to the porch and soak up some sunlight.” She really didn’t want to go out, but if she stayed, she’d just make both of them nervous.
He rushed to push one of the chairs aside to make a clearer path for her. It caught on a rug crease and he fell over it. He jumped up so quickly, she burst out laughing, then choked it down when she saw the instant of hurt feelings on his face. He was so unlike Dwayne, who would’ve thrown the chair across the room in a rage for daring to make him look foolish.
“It’s okay, Terry-Joe, I can make it,” she said. He jumped to hold the screen door for her, but since it opened out, he had to stand with his back against the inner door, arm extended. She had to turn sideways as well, which meant they again pressed against each other as she passed. She sensed the heat of his body through her clothes, and the same distinctive tingle announced itself. She also thought she felt his erection through their jeans. Both looked anywhere but at the other.
Then she was outside, in the bright sunlight, looking down at the yard she’d grown up on. She dropped heavily into a rocking chair, and dragged another one over to support her leg. The pain of moving was still severe, but there was that added sensation, the itchy sense of the presence of strange metal things in her body. Did that mean she was, in fact, healing? Was Bliss’s timetable accurate?
“You’re looking perkier,” Deacon said as he came around the end of the house. He was dusty from the cornfield, and his shirt had big sweat rings soaked into it.
“Thanks,” she said. “I do feel better.”
“That’s not what I mean. Your high beams are on.”
She looked down at the front of her T-shirt, then blushed anew. “Dad,” she said, trying to sound scolding.
He tousled her hair. “Ah, your mom does the same thing whenever that Australian guy comes on the radio. Beats me how a foreign guy named Urban can claim to be a country singer, but hey, I don’t make the rules.…” He went inside.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back into the sun. Well, the hell with it. It had been nice to feel like a live human being again, even if it was for an instant, even if it was due to a jailbait boy three years her junior. He was cute, and sweet, and apparently good with his hands, if he was working on her wheelchair. Why not get a little horny from that?
Then she recalled the handsome young minister and sighed with renewed shame. She never had much sense of propriety to begin with, but had she lost it all now?
“Hey, Dad!” she called. “Could you bring me a cup of coffee?”
“Get it yours— Oh,” he answered. “Yeah, right, forgot. Sure thing.”
A moment later the door opened, only instead of Deacon, Terry-Joe appeared holding a cup on a saucer with both hands. It still didn’t keep the two pieces of porcelain from clattering. “Uh … here,” he said as he extended the cup to her. “Finished your chair, too. Should roll a lot smoother now.”
She placed it on the small table beside her. “Thanks. You’ve changed a lot in the past two years, Terry-Joe.”
“You, too. You didn’t have an oil rig on your leg last time I saw you.”
She smiled. “That’s a fact. So shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I graduated in the spring. Doing odd jobs until the fall, when I go to college at UT.”
“And Dwayne?” She tried to make the question innocuous, but there was no hiding the catch in her breath when she said his name.
“He’s still around. Out on parole, not that he’s acting like that matters. Want me to tell him anything?”
“No,” she said quickly. She felt far too weak, in every sense, to deal with Dwayne Gitterman. “I’ll catch up with him one of these days.”
Terry-Joe put his hands in his jeans pockets and seemed about to say something. Finally Bronwyn prompted, “What is it?”
He leaned close. “Bliss also wants me to, ah … teach you.”
“Teach me?” she repeated, eyes wide.
“Mandolin,” he added quickly. “Help you relearn how to play. She said you were having trouble with that.”
“She did.”
He nodded.
“I didn’t know you played.”
He shrugged. “I don’t talk about it much.”
“I never saw you at the barn dance.”
“Back then I didn’t want to go because Dwayne was around.”
She nodded. “That makes sense. Well, mine’s under my bed. Go get her and let’s hear you.”
He retrieved Magda, sat on the porch steps, and spent a moment getting the feel of the instrument. Then, with no introduction or warning, he launched into a blistering instrumental version of “June Apple.” He stared into the middle distance, not watching his fingering. He played with the certainty of instinct married to skill, and Bronwyn’s mouth dropped open in response.
* * *
In the kitchen, Deacon heard the music and smiled. Chloe came in the back door, and he swept her into his arms and kissed her passionately.
She responded, her arms twining around his neck. When his hands began to roam knowingly, she quietly warned, “There’s kids just outside.”
“Then we best be quick and quiet,” he said as he nibbled her neck.
She giggled. “You’re never quiet.”
* * *
On the porch, Terry-Joe finished with a flourish and looked up to see Bronwyn’s reaction. She clapped, genuinely delighted. “Wow, Terry-Joe, you’ve been hiding that light under a bushel, all right.” Then she made a gesture, fingers curled in a specific way, she hoped he would recognize. But his expression didn’t change.
He stood, dusted off his pants, and extended Magda to her. “Want to try?”
She shook her head. “Not now.”
“Bliss wants me to—”
“And I will, Terry-Joe, just … not now.” She looked away. “I’m supposed to get this monster off my leg this weekend. Come by next Monday and I’ll seriously try, okay?”
He nodded. “Okay. ’Scuse me while I put this away.” He went back inside.
She watched robins dancing across the still-damp lawn as they sought worms. She’d known Terry-Joe wasn’t a full-blooded Tufa; he was close, but that difference could be crucial. Why would Bliss send someone like him to teach her? She was a First Daughter, after all. But Bliss would have her reasons, and most likely they would become clear later on. All she could do was wait, and endure, two things the Tufa mastered long ago.
Terry-Joe returned, followed by Chloe. “See you Monday, then,” he said as he went down the steps, awkwardly stumbling at the bottom. He rushed to his dirt bike propped under the tree and zipped off down the driveway.
&
nbsp; Chloe shook her head. “That boy has a crush on you, you know.”
Bronwyn nodded, frowning at her mother. Chloe’s hair was disheveled, and her shirt was now on inside out. “He has since he was fourteen and caught me skinny-dipping with his brother.”
Chloe took several quick, deep breaths, as if calming down after some exertion. “Have you heard anything from Dwayne?”
“No, and I don’t want to. I’ve seen enough combat to do me for life.”
“Good,” Chloe said as she sat down on the steps. “That boy was bad news on toast. I wouldn’t have swerved to miss him if I’d seen him lying in the road.”
“He wasn’t that bad, Mom.”
She looked up at her daughter with the clear, steady eyes Bronwyn always feared. “He’s wired backwards, Bronwyn. He smiles when someone’s hurt.”
“Well, he won’t be around anymore.” Then she took a deep breath and added, “And some people worry the same about you.”
Chloe nodded. “I know. There’s been some signs. But there’s two things to remember: One, a sign can mean more than one thing, and sometimes we read them wrong. And two, nothing’s set in stone. The night wind don’t blow the same way twice.”
Bronwyn nodded at the charm hanging inert in the still morning air. “And better safe than sorry.”
Chloe smiled and undid the tie holding her black hair. “I’ve seen you and Kell graduate high school. I intend to see Aiden. Like to see grandkids before I’m done.”
Bronwyn wasn’t fooled by the optimism. “But you’ll teach me the song.”
She nodded. The passage of the family song from mother to eldest daughter was a major thing to the Tufa, and in this case, since both Chloe and Bronwyn were hereditary First Daughters, it was monumental. The loss of this song would devastate their community. “As soon as Terry-Joe has you able to play.”
“I’ll work real hard, Mom,” she said softly.
11
Susie Swayback stood in the bedroom doorway, hands on her hips, and said, “Donald Carter Swayback, what the hell are you doing?”
Don looked up from the floor, where he knelt as he pulled things from the closet. “Looking for my old guitar. Have you seen it?”
“Lord, do we still even have that thing?” Susie put her purse on the bed and sat down to remove her shoes. Susie had been adopted from China but raised across the line in Georgia, so she had a thicker Southern twang than even Don. It often disconcerted people when they traveled. “And why do you want to find it? Planning to sell it online?”
“No,” he said petulantly. “Thought it might be nice to start playing again. Just fooling around with it, you know. Is that okay with you?”
“You didn’t lose your job, did you?” Susie said accusingly.
“No!”
“Well, good,” she said as she took off her scrub pants. Susie was an X-ray technician at the county hospital, and for the past three months she’d been pulling third and first shifts to cover vacations, which meant she went to bed almost as soon as she got home in the evening. Don was beginning to feel like they were college roommates with mismatched class schedules instead of husband and wife.
“Ah-ha!” Don said. From the very back of the closet he pulled out the battered black cardboard case. He placed it flat on the foot of the bed.
“Don’t get dust on my comforter,” Susie warned. “And put that other stuff away.” She went into the bathroom; a moment later he heard the shower start.
Don opened the case. Inside was his cheap old Sunburst acoustic guitar, now some thirty years old. The remains of a sticker, probably for Nirvana or Pearl Jam, marred the surface. He lifted it, rested it across his lap, and lightly strummed. The sound shimmered, mingling with the shower noise. He adjusted the G string slightly, but otherwise it sounded in tune.
He strummed again. The room abruptly seemed to grow clearer, as if a hazy curtain had been yanked away. He looked around, seeing his home as if for the first time. The cheesy landscape painting they’d bought on their honeymoon hung over the bed; straps of Susie’s bras protruded from the top dresser drawer. His brown loafers, one upright and the other showing the worn sole, lay on the carpet beside the door. The effect quickly faded, though, and then Susie came out of the bathroom, tying her robe.
Inside the case was a spiral notebook. He opened it and saw lyrics and chords in his own handwriting. He remembered that he used to write lots of songs, documenting his life through music; how long had it been since he’d done that? And why did he stop?
“I declare, that Coletta is going to get herself in trouble before long,” Susie said as she sat on the bed and began brushing her black hair. “She was an hour late, and I swear she smelled just like pot. She can only slip past so many pee tests before they catch her, I tell you what.”
Don looked steadily at his wife. He admired her shiny black hair, pale skin, and delightful slanted eyes. Her legs, where they emerged from under the robe, were smooth and soft. By the time his gaze returned to her face, she was also staring at him. “What,” she asked, “are you looking at?”
He smiled. “The most beautiful redneck Asian woman I’ve ever seen.”
She continued to stare; there was an unmistakable rumble in his voice. “I’ve been on my feet for sixteen hours,” she said warningly.
He crawled across the bed and growled teasingly, “Then you won’t mind being on your back for a while.”
He kissed her shoulder, and she giggled. “What’s got into you, Don?” she demanded, but did not resist as he pushed her back onto the pillows.
Later, she turned to him and said, “Now I need another shower. But if this is your idea of a midlife crisis, I have to admit I like it.”
“I’m not middle aged,” he disputed with a tired grin.
“And my eyes are round like Ping-Pong balls,” she said in a cliché Asian accent, swapping the l’s and r’s. She ran her fingertips across his chest; the remains of his youthful muscles were still there beneath the layer of sedentary fat he’d accumulated. “Seriously, what brought this on? Did you imagine I was that cute little clerk down at the Q-Mart?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, I just … I was out at Aunt Raby’s today getting the old Swayback family Bible. I hope I can find some family connection between me and Bronwyn Hyatt’s family that might let me get that interview with her.”
“You’re part Tufa?”
“Yeah, my right leg below the knee and the three fingers on my left hand. One of my ears is suspect, too.”
“Seriously? I guess it explains the hair and the teeth, but you never mentioned it before.”
“Never really thought about it before. But my great-grandmother was Tufa, and if I can track down her family in Needsville, it might give me an in with the Hyatts.” He paused, looking down at her hand now drawing lazy circles on his bare stomach. “The thing is, Aunt Raby mentioned that Grandma Benji used to sing weird Tufa songs. I checked online, and at the library: nobody knows anything about any Tufa songs. I mean, any songs that are specifically Tufa.”
“And all this made you think, ‘Hm, I want a quickie when my exhausted wife gets home’?”
“No, all this made me think about my guitar and the songs I used to write, which made me feel kind of … I don’t know, young, I guess. And that made me want a quickie with my exhausted wife, who I might add was up to the challenge.” He playfully yanked a stray strand of her hair.
She giggled, then stretched luxuriously. “Boy, I’ll sleep now. You know, one of the ambulance drivers who drops people off at the hospital is a Tufa. Bliss Overbay. I could ask her if she knows any Tufa songs.”
Don shook his head. “Nah, doesn’t matter. Just thought it was odd.”
Susie looked into his eyes. “I like you like this. All interested in something. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you this way.”
“Been a while since I’ve felt this way.”
“Think it’ll stick?”
He shrugged.
Sh
e kissed his ear and took the lobe in her teeth. “Anything I can do to help it stick?”
He turned to her. “You’re doing a fine job already,” he said as he kissed her.
* * *
It took forever for night to fall.
The sunlight faded and at last the moon rose, casting enough light that Bronwyn could see the yard outside her window where the trees didn’t cast shadows. In that clear spot of silver, the haint would again appear. Eventually.
She rubbed around the point where the largest pin went through the skin of her thigh. Scratching was totally forbidden, but the itch had grown exponentially. She would be immensely glad to be shed of this monstrosity, and would hold Bliss to her Tufa timetable. She dreaded what she’d see when the Ilizarov mechanisms were removed, though; her legs, once the envy of all the other Tufa girls, would be permanently scarred. She pretended it didn’t bother her, but it did. She liked being the Bronwynator, the hell-raising hot chick all the other girls hated and all the boys wanted to take out on a quiet gravel road. That would be hard to maintain once she looked like she’d been through a blender, and she never, ever wanted a mere pity fuck.
She looked at the banners across her ceiling. Tomorrow she would take them down while Aiden was at school. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but there was no longer any meaning in the symbol for her. She would leave the army when her enlistment was up. Stop-loss wouldn’t apply to her; she was more valuable as a PR tool if she vanished back into the hills anyway. If she emerged into the public eye again, she might say something Major Maitland wouldn’t like. Besides, she knew her immediate future was here.
That should’ve brought a sense of relief, but instead the tight panic in her chest increased. The challenge she now faced was even more daunting. Her mother appeared so young, alive, and filled with music that it seemed impossible the night wind would take her. Her absence would send reverberations all through Cloud County, and probably to every Tufa who’d left as well. A First Daughter didn’t go without leaving a mark.