by Alex Bledsoe
“You should get out more,” she said, but her voice was a little raspy. She remembered that first day when she’d found him working on her wheelchair and later pressed against him as he held the door. The urge to press against him anew swelled in her.
Now he stopped playing. He looked down as he said, “Tell you the truth about something, Bronwyn. My brother may brag about his money and his wheels, but you’re the only thing of Dwayne’s I ever wanted.”
“I’m not like his truck. He didn’t hold the pink slip on me.”
Still avoiding her gaze, he shrugged and said, “To him, you were.”
“I’m not anymore.”
Now he looked at her, and the heat in his eyes matched her own. “He’d kill me if he knew I was even thinking about this.”
“Thinking about what?”
He leaned closer and their lips met.
She wasn’t clear as to how exactly they got from that point to lying on the bed, their instruments safely on the floor. But there she was, on her back, Terry-Joe still kissing her as his hands roamed over her. His lips moved to her neck, then her cleavage, and she put up no resistance when his hands slid beneath her shirt and closed over her breasts. He was tentative, but as gentle with her as he’d been that first day with Magda and she felt everything that she’d denied herself since the attack flare back to life.
She whipped off the tank top and arched her back. His lips found her nipples, and she made a sound she couldn’t hear over the blood roaring in her ears. Then he took off his own shirt, and she reciprocated, tonguing and biting his hard chest and tiny pink nipples.
She could not remember when another’s skin against her own had felt so good. He was hot to the touch, and his muscles were well defined and not bulky like Dwayne’s. He caressed her thighs and rear through her shorts while nuzzling her breasts, then her heaving belly. He kissed her navel, and when his lips moved beneath it and she felt his tongue along the top of her shorts, she was sure she screamed. He unsnapped her shorts and slid them down her thighs, leaving her clad only in her panties. He kissed along the lace edge of them, and she was infinitely glad she’d shaved and trimmed that morning. But then he was lifting the elastic and probing with his tongue, and suddenly nothing else mattered.
Until the voice in her head said, He’s seventeen, and he’s never been out of the valley.
She rose suddenly on her elbows and gasped, “Wait!”
He looked up. She had her good leg draped across his back, and quickly lowered it. “What?” he asked breathlessly. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Good God, no,” she said, and scrambled away to sit on the edge of the bed. She quickly found her tank top and pulled up her shorts. “Believe me, you’ve got my motor racing like no one has in longer than I can remember, and that includes your no-account brother.”
He looked confused. A red flush of arousal covered his shoulders and neck. “Then what’s wrong?”
She trembled with the intensity of her feelings. It felt as if the last set of switches had been thrown, bringing some huge, powerful engine roaring to life. It had nothing really to do with sex, although she was certainly turned on. It was more an awareness of the world, as if she now saw in vivid color what had previously been pastel. Last night she had asserted her independence from Tufa expectations; now she broke free from the things that once ruled her in the past.
She reached over and touched his cheek, unable to repress a smile. “Nothing’s wrong, baby. Whoever taught you did a fine job, because you sure know how to treat a girl. But…” And here she had to choke back a laugh at the absurdity, because she didn’t want Terry-Joe to misinterpret it. “We’re coming at this from two completely different directions, and they won’t ever really meet up.”
He took her hand and kissed her fingertips. “I think they will. Somewhere below the waist, maybe?”
Now she did laugh. She kissed him quick and soft. “Terry-Joe, I know you want to make love to me because you like me, or maybe even think you’re in love with me, and not to get back at your brother, which is the thing that would motivate most boys your age.” She saw his face fall at the use of the word “boy.”
She continued, “But if I did it, it’d just be because … well, it’s been a while since I wanted to, and now I do. Not for any other real reason. I like you, Terry-Joe, but if we went all the way, it’d mess that up.”
He frowned. “So if we did it, you wouldn’t like me anymore?”
“I wouldn’t feel any different. You might, though, and that could lead to all sorts of mischief. Best we leave it where it is.”
“But I was doing it the right way, wasn’t I?”
She laughed again, and kissed him a final time. “You were sure enough doing it right. I’m so fired up, you could light a joint off me.”
He smiled and reached for his own shirt. “Well, I reckon I can’t be too upset, then.”
She watched him pull the shirt down over his torso, recalling its touch beneath her fingertips. The morning sun through the window glinted off its sweaty contours. She had a brief twinge that perhaps she was making a mistake, that letting him have her might be good for them both. But she knew which parts of her body were talking, and it wasn’t her head or heart. “You’re really not mad?” she asked.
Now he kissed her, on the cheek. “If I leave you better than I found you, how can I be mad?”
She giggled. “You sure enough did that.”
Bronwyn walked Terry-Joe to the front door and watched him amble down the hill to his bike. The buzz as it started echoed off the hills, and when he spun out and headed down the drive toward the road, its whine reminded Bronwyn of a sad, long wail. Yet he waved and grinned as he disappeared.
She leaned on the door until Chloe said behind her, “You’re letting the flies in.”
She closed the screen door and turned around. Chloe wore overalls and carried the big gloves she used for gardening. Her hair was tucked beneath one of Deacon’s baseball caps, this one sporting a bass in midleap. “I heard you two playing, then you stopped. What happened?”
Brownyn nodded toward the boys’ bedrooms. “Anyone else home?”
Chloe shook her head. “Kell and Aiden went fishing, your dad’s out in the fields.”
Bronwyn sat heavily at the kitchen table. “Terry-Joe and I almost … made out. All the way.” She looked at her thumb as it moved back and forth across the wood.
Chloe said nothing for a long moment, then leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you?”
Bronwyn shrugged. “I don’t know, it just felt wrong.”
Chloe sat opposite her, deliberately keeping the table between them. “’Cause of Dwayne?”
“No, because of me. And Terry-Joe. I could’ve … well … had a good time with him, and let it go as that. But he’d have fallen in love. It was three-quarters there in his eyes already.”
“Was a time,” Chloe said evenly, “when that wouldn’t have mattered.”
“Yeah, well, that time’s past.”
“And he’s a Tufa. Not pure as us, but close. And what’s there’s true. That’s the only reason I made your daddy put up with Dwayne for so long.”
Bronwyn frowned; then her eyes opened wide. She recalled Mandalay’s words, the promise they tried to exact from her, and jumped to her feet. “You gotta be kidding me,” she rasped. “You mean you pimped me out to Dwayne Gitterman?”
Chloe laughed bitterly. “Don’t be so dramatic. You found Dwayne all on your own, and we couldn’t have pried you off him with a crowbar. But your daddy would’ve sung his dyin’ dirge a long time ago if I’d let him. He knew exactly what Dwayne was about.”
“Did you?”
“Bronwyn, you ain’t the only woman in this family. Everything you feel, I’ve felt. Everything that you wanted, I’ve wanted. You think I don’t know the appeal of someone like Dwayne? You think I didn’t have someone like that when I was younger? I’ve been everywhere you have, girl. On my knees
, on my back. And nobody had to force me there, I enjoyed it.” Her eyes grew shiny and her words harsh. “I laughed at your daddy back then, wanting me to settle down and raise a family. I laughed at the First Daughters telling me he was the right man for me. How could any man so goddamned dull compete with the boys who’d take you off into the woods and show you the hum and the shiver?”
Bronwyn could hardly breathe. Who was this woman? “Holy shit, Mom,” was all she could say.
“And here you are. It’s like looking in a mirror some days, Bronwyn, and seeing myself twenty-five years ago. And you know what? I hate it. I don’t want to know about the boys you chase, and especially the ones you catch. I don’t want to imagine you with them, and you know why? Because when I’m lying awake at night staring at the ceiling, it makes me jealous. I’ll never feel that way again, and some days it feels like I’ve already died.”
She stood, went to the sink, and twisted the cold water tap. The running water covered any other sounds she made.
Bronwyn stood and put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Mom, I—”
“Go away, Bronwyn,” Chloe said.
Bronwyn felt the breath tight in her chest. “I don’t want you to die, Mom.”
Chloe said nothing.
Bronwyn’s vision grew misty. “You still have to teach me your song.”
Still nothing.
“All right. I’ll be around when you’re ready.” She turned and went back down the hall to her room.
* * *
When she heard the door close, Chloe splashed cold water on her face and turned off the tap. Her eye fell on two pictures hanging on the wall beside the front door. One showed Bronwyn in her uniform, fresh out of basic, stern and straight and with her natural fire tamped down by military brainwashing. The other showed Bronwyn and Kell, with baby Aiden in Kell’s lap. Bronwyn had her older brother in a headlock and he was trying to resist and keep his smile at the same time. It showed their dynamic perfectly, which is why Chloe loved it.
She also hated it. Those three children represented the loss of her freedom and tied her to a man she dearly loved but who seldom excited her to a frenzy anymore. She felt a jolt deep inside at the memory of a young dark-haired brute of a man, her own Dwayne Gitterman, so handsome and masculine that just the rumble of his voice saying her name could make her knees wobble. But he was long gone, and she was no longer that girl. How had she allowed that to happen?
And now the threat of death hung over her. Signs that could be ignored individually, together hinted at an undeniable fate, and it took all her strength to pretend she wasn’t scared.
She took off the baseball cap and shook her hair free. This was not the way to think, not the song she needed to sing. Deacon was the best thing that ever happened to her, and none of her children had asked to be born to her. They all deserved better than a mother who despised their existence. Especially Bronwyn, her baby girl, who’d endured such unimaginable torments. She suddenly realized that perhaps Bronwyn’s selfishness as a child hadn’t been an anomaly after all; maybe she actually had gotten it from Chloe. Only a selfish, bitter woman would’ve said the things she’d just told her daughter.
She closed her eyes. There was no time for bitterness, or selfishness. It was time for her to be strong, to be a true First Daughter.
She went to find her autoharp.
25
Susie Swayback looked across the plate of blueberry pancakes at her husband. It wasn’t her imagination: there really was something different about him, a change that made him somehow more attractive and at the same time disconcerted her. She couldn’t define it exactly, but his amorous attentions had certainly improved and she wasn’t about to complain about that. She said playfully, “What are you thinking so hard about?”
Don blinked back to the moment. He’d been staring past his own reflection in the window, out into the twilight. He watched the treetops wave in the wind, and the sight mesmerized him. It was almost like a song he couldn’t quite recall, hovering just beyond his consciousness. He’d experienced that a lot lately. He smiled and said, “Sorry. Just zoning out.”
“Because of work?”
He shrugged. “Nah. Work was just work.” In truth, the day had flown by, and even Sam seemed impressed with the column inches Don produced. It wasn’t easy for two men and a handful of stringers to fill a weekly newspaper, and usually they ran more filler than any respectable journalist could stomach. But tomorrow’s edition would be filled with real if not terribly exciting news stories, most of them rustled up and written by Don. From higher electrical rates to the construction of a new bridge on County Road K, he’d called his contacts until he got results. It was the way he’d been as a young reporter fresh out of college.
Sam hadn’t even bugged him about missing the deadline for the Hyatt interview. He seemed to accept that Don was working on it, building trust in the Tufa community as he went.
Now Don and Susie sat at the Waffle House outside Unicorn. Their first date as freshmen had been to a Waffle House after a movie, and they considered any of these restaurants “their” special place. Susie was off work for the whole weekend, so it seemed an appropriate way to celebrate a free Friday night. They were overdressed for the place, but that also echoed their first date.
“Well, you certainly seem to be in a better mood lately,” Susie said.
He scowled. “Wow. Was it that bad before?”
“Let’s just say I didn’t mind working extra shifts. But now I’m actually looking forward to seeing you again.” She waggled her eyebrows for emphasis.
He smiled and winked. “I’ve been feeling the same way about you.”
She reached across the booth table and squeezed his hand. Her wedding ring caught the light. “If I’d known getting your guitar out would’ve done this, you’d have been picking and grinning years ago. Think I could come with you the next time you go play somewhere?”
Don was about to reply when suddenly the front door opened with a slam. A tall young man with black hair and a cowboy hat strode inside with a loud, “Don’t nobody drop your pancakes!”
He laughed at the sound of silverware and crockery. People turned to glare at him, then quickly looked away. Intimidation radiated from him with no discernible effort. He took a french fry from a man’s plate, ate it, and went behind the counter where he pressed himself against the waitress. “Hey, sweet thang, I drove all the way out here just to stare at them fine titties. You glad to see me?”
The lone waitress, whose name tag read ALSIE, did not look at him. She continued to refill the ketchup bottles, although her hands now shook. “Dwayne Gitterman, you’re drunk and you’re behaving like an ass. I think we’d all appreciate it if you’d just leave.”
He blatantly ground his hips against her behind. “Aw, Alsie, don’t be that way. You know you’re the prettiest girl in the Waffle House. Take the rest of the night off and let me show you what this big ass of yours can do.” He slapped one buttock for emphasis.
Alsie squirmed away, her face red. She had blond hair with artificial streaks piled into a bun on top of her head, and her eyes shone with tears of humiliation. “Dwayne, leave. Please. I don’t want any trouble.”
Don looked at the half dozen other patrons, all men, none of whom seemed inclined to stand up for the waitress. Not even the cook, a stout Mexican with a wispy mustache, looked up from his grill. Alsie was clearly terrified, and just as clearly Dwayne was enjoying her fear.
Softly Don said, “Hey, Sue? Got your cell phone with you?”
“Yes,” Susie replied quietly. “Why?”
“Get ready to call 911, will you?”
Her eyes opened wide. “What are you going to do?”
He shrugged. “Ask him to leave.”
He stood, avoiding Susie’s grab at his arm, and walked to the counter. He was no fighter, and there was no way he could intimidate the younger, larger, no doubt stronger man. But something in him just couldn’t let this happen. He leaned a
cross the battered Formica and tugged on Dwayne’s sleeve. When he looked around, Don said, “’Scuse me, son, I think I heard the lady ask you to leave? Might be the best thing to do.”
Dwayne’s eyes took a moment to focus on him. “Who the fuck are you, her daddy?”
Don smiled. “No, just a guy who’d like to finish his dinner in peace. I’m not trying to start anything.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Dwayne said. With a sudden explosive move, he shoved Alsie aside and grabbed Don’s shirt. He yanked Don up onto the edge of the counter, holding him there so that Don’s feet almost left the floor. “’Cause it looks you have started something, big man. I don’t imagine your ass can cash the check your mouth just wrote, now, can it?”
The other men stopped eating and sat still and silent. Amazingly, Don was completely calm. He had no idea where the words came from, but he said softly, so that only Dwayne could hear: “I know your dirge, pal. Want me to sing it for you?”
Dwayne laughed, but it was thin, and the amusement drained from his face.
Don began to hum. Out of nowhere the words, “The arms that hold you are not those of love, you cannot see down nor anything above.…” came to him, bursting out in a tune he neither knew nor recognized.
Dwayne turned pale, shoved Don away, and banged his way out the door. In a moment his truck started and roared off into the dusk.
Don stared after him, then looked at Susie. She was speechless, and shook her head in both wonder and confusion. He shrugged.
“That’s it!” Alsie screeched, and slapped the counter for emphasis. “Y’all get out of here, right now! I mean it!”
It took Don a moment to realize she was referring to him. “Me?”
“Yes, you and your dang gook wife over there! Get your trailer-trash Tufa asses out of here or I’ll call the cops.”
Don looked at the others for some kind of help, but met their cold, suspicious stares. Alsie had out her cell phone and said, “I mean it, I’ve already dialed the nine and the one.”