Jilted

by Varina Denman

  “Momma …” Ruthie stared at me, screaming with her eyes. “Fawn doesn’t call Clyde Daddy.”

  “It’s all right.” Fawn dug through Nathan’s diaper bag. “I know Clyde’s not without fault, but he’s not a bad person either. He made one unwise decision that affected the rest of his life.”

  “There were five of us whose lives went into a tailspin,” I corrected her. “Not that I put the responsibility entirely on him. Clyde and your momma just set it all in motion.”

  We fell into a stiff silence, broken only by Nathan’s giggles, but when the Panthers ran for a touchdown, we stood and cheered with the rest of the fans, our squabble temporarily forgotten.

  I glanced toward the dark end of the field, on the far side of the track, to the pastureland where the scoreboard rose beyond the goalposts. If I remembered correctly, the property belonged to Wilmer Justice, who currently had it planted in cotton. Clyde’s sedan was parked just over the fence.

  He watched all the games from there. Most people thought he was legally forbidden to set foot on school property, since he was a registered sex offender, but really, he just didn’t want to cause trouble.

  Thin strands of barbed wire separated him from the festivities, and he sat on the hood of his car. He had one foot on the bumper, and he was sipping something from a can. If it turned out to be a beer, I’d lay into him, but I would be surprised if it was. He had all but sworn off alcohol, saying he had too much to lose.

  He stood and craned his neck as the Panthers blocked the opposing team’s drive, and when the Panthers thwarted them on the three-yard line, Clyde punched his fist in the air.

  I envied him, alone on the other side of the fence, even though he had told me more than once he’d rather sit in the stands with Fawn and Nathan. But I knew that from his perch on the hood of his car, the announcer, the band, and the noise from the crowd would all be muted, and he wouldn’t be able to hear the snide remarks or see the looks on people’s faces.

  Suddenly a shiver of anticipation vibrated through my core, and I was surprised to realize I wouldn’t mind sitting over there. Where it was peaceful. I wouldn’t mind sitting with Clyde. In fact, I might prefer sitting with him over just about anyone.

  Even Ruthie.

  Even Velma.

  Even anybody.

  But I couldn’t do that.

  Chapter Six

  When Clyde and Lynda arrived at Troy and Pamela Sanders’s junk shop on Saturday morning, Clyde only hesitated a second before stepping aside to hold the door for her. “After you, Lyn.”

  She paused as though surprised by the pungent scent of a stinkbug, then rolled her eyes. Just like Clyde knew she would.

  Troy and Pam had purchased the store and all its contents with the intention of sprucing up the place and turning it into a used bookshop. More power to them. The building, which had once been a post office, still held rows of copper-plated mailboxes, as well as the USPS emblem on the side wall, but the nostalgia ended there. The previous business owners had filled the place with garage-sale trash and called it a flea market, when it was actually nothing more than a front for drug deals.

  At least Troy and Pam had gotten it cheap.

  “Felton!” Troy stood behind a cluttered counter, spreading his arms wide. “Welcome to the Trapp Door, our town’s first-ever used bookstore and secondhand novelty shop.”

  “The Trapp Door?” Clyde stepped over a box filled with scented candles.

  “Pam came up with the name.” Troy grinned with his mouth open slightly. “You know … all those PO boxes on the back wall … and all those tiny little doors. You get it?”

  “I got it.” Clyde glanced at Lynda, worried she would feel out of place. Even though she had been friends with Troy and Pam for years, Clyde sensed they hadn’t done much socializing since Lynda left the church. However, he knew for a fact that Pam made a point to talk to Lynda at the diner.

  Lynda picked up a Mr. Potato Head toy that had several empty holes where parts were missing. “I can’t believe you paid money for this stuff, Troy.”

  “Aw, you know.” Troy’s grin was cemented on his face. “Gives Pam something to keep her busy. Now that Emily’s away at college, the wife gets awful lonely during the day when I’m at work.”

  Lynda’s gaze slid from a stack of coffee mugs to a basket of potpourri. “Keep her busy so she won’t think about you risking your life every day?”

  Clyde considered the fact that Lynda needed a spanking, but he looked over her head and made eye contact with Troy. More than once his friend had voiced his concern about his dangerous job, but he always tagged on a few excuses.

  “Now, Lynda.” Troy came around the counter and cast puppy eyes down at her. “Wind techs make a good living, and Pam knows that.”

  “Wind techs are crazy fools.” Her right eyebrow coiled like a leather whip intended to pop sense into Troy, but her gaze shifted to Clyde at the last second, just in time for him to feel the sting as well.

  Troy slapped Clyde on the back and laughed loudly. “That goes without saying, don’t it?”

  Lynda looked back and forth between the two men, but then she shook her head and smiled. “I’m not going to argue with you. I came here to work.”

  “Alrighty, then! Clyde already has your assignment—should you choose to accept it—so if y’all don’t mind, I’ll leave you in charge of the place while I run to Home Depot in Lubbock. Pam wants more shelving.”

  “You sure you trust us with your inventory?” Clyde reached for a gaudy piece of costume jewelry.

  “If you steal anything, I’ll know where to find you.”

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, Clyde and Lynda were settled at a table in the back room, surrounded by boxes of books, and Clyde was trying to find the courage to ask Lynda out on a date. Or maybe not a date. That sounded all formal and stuffy, and Clyde didn’t really do formal and stuffy. But he knew in a strange way that she had become the missing link that connected the past to the future, and he felt it all the way down in his bones.

  Lynda held an old book in her hands and slumped back in a metal folding chair. “I can’t believe you talked me into working in this dusty closet. Your ex-girlfriend is the one who donates her time to worthy causes, not that this shop rates as a charity cause.”

  Suddenly Clyde was back in the cell block, with catcalls and taunts being hurled through the air like knives. He pulled another box toward him and picked through the titles. “Don’t call her that, Lyn.”

  She flipped the book over and glanced at the back cover, and judging from the way her chin puckered, Clyde thought she might have been sorry she said it. She blew on the spine of the book, and a gray puff of dust floated away from her. She gave him a quizzical look. “So you’ve been helping Troy and Pam for a while now?”

  “A couple Saturdays.”

  She continued to study him, scrutinize him, frown.

  Like a prison guard.

  He shifted the remaining books in the box, picking them up one at a time, reading the titles, forcing his gaze away from her. Not really wanting to talk.

  She sighed. “Okay, so the drill is to pick out the good books.” She made quote marks with her fingers. “Then vacuum them, wipe them, and sort them.” She raised her eyebrows. “That right?”

  “Yep, that’s it.” She was deliberately being a toot, and he had no idea why. Women didn’t make a lick of sense to him.

  Not that he had been around many in his lifetime.

  He rested his forearms on his knees and reached for a roll of paper towels, swinging his hair out of his eyes.

  “Why do you let your hair grow long? It used to be short all the time.”

  She was full of questions today, and it made him wonder. “Because I can.”

  “Could you give me more than three words? Please?”

  He stra
ightened and met her gaze, then shrugged one shoulder. “They kept my hair short in prison, but now I do what I want.” He didn’t mention that Trapp’s barber looked down on him, and the only other option was Sophie’s Style Station, an estrogen-infused hovel Clyde didn’t dare set foot in. He supposed he could go to the little barber shop in Snyder, but he’d probably scare that old man to death. “Besides, Lubbock’s too far anyway,” he added, figuring Lynda would understand the rest without his going to the trouble of speaking it.

  “You know what I think?” She wiped a paper towel across a book cover. “I think they used to decide when you got your hair cut, and now you can’t figure it out on your own.”

  “I like it long.” Okay, maybe he didn’t—he wasn’t sure—but he didn’t see the need to burden her with his problems. Truth was, she was dead on target. He had trouble making decisions, but Dodd Cunningham was helping him work through all that. Clyde enjoyed his early morning coffee meet-ups with the preacher, even though Lynda’s son-in-law seemed to think Clyde needed professional counseling.

  “Whatever you say.” The corner of her mouth curled into that spunky smile of hers, and then she ducked her head. “I like it long, too, I guess.”

  Her words sounded careless, as though they weren’t important, as though she hadn’t just tossed him a thread of hope to cling to. He grasped at the confidence it gave him, all the while hoping she wouldn’t cause his heart to unravel like his grandmother’s old crocheted afghan.

  “That’s a good one.” He pointed to the book she was wiping.

  “So …” She narrowed her eyes. “You read?”

  “Sure.”

  “Since when?”

  “Prison.”

  She leaned her elbows on the table and tilted her head. And stared.

  A lot of people stared at him. Now that the rumor mill had spread the truth about him and Susan, things were different, but many citizens still treated him like he had the plague. Children pointed and women scurried away. Men crossed their arms and planted both feet on the ground, but he had gotten used to that.

  Lynda’s stare felt different though, because her eyes didn’t scour him like the others’, and he didn’t have the urge to run away and hide. Instead, when Lynda looked at him, he wanted to look back at her. And hang around and listen to her talk.

  “Have you read any of these?” Like a salesgirl, she swept her slender hand through the air above the stacks.

  “I figure I have.”

  “What does that mean?” She moved the Dustbuster so she could look through the paperbacks beneath it.

  “The books in the prison library didn’t have covers.” He picked up a novel with a white stallion on the front. Swirling, dark clouds surrounded the horse, and red breath shot from its nostrils. The name didn’t sound familiar to Clyde, but he knew he would have remembered that picture if he had seen it before. He tossed the book onto the table. “I can remember the well-known titles, but the covers won’t look familiar.”

  “So the books were all old or something?”

  “Some were. Some weren’t.”

  “Then why no covers?”

  Clyde rubbed the side of his thumb against his shoulder, not sure what he should tell her, not sure he wanted her to know that much about him.

  He let his gaze wander over the pile of paperbacks until he located one that clearly wouldn’t pass Pam’s morality code. He reached for it and tore off the front cover.

  Lynda made a little sound but didn’t say anything. She watched silently as he folded the thick paper in half, then in half again. Moving quickly, he rolled the remaining shape into a cylinder and held it tight in his fist. A hard, sharp, pencil-like rod.

  Her mouth fell open. “They used books as weapons?”

  “They used everything as weapons.”

  Her brown eyes looked sadly from the tip of the rod to his fist, and she shivered. “You’ve done that before.”

  Clyde unrolled the paper, then tossed it in the trash can. “Twenty years, Lynda.” He hadn’t survived that long without learning a few tricks, but he should probably keep the rest to himself.

  “The Clyde I remember from years ago was a gentle giant.” She snickered. “Unless you were on the football field, and then it was ‘Annie get your gun,’ but this … this is new. I’m trying to imagine you using a homemade knife, but my brain can’t get around the notion.”

  Great. The last thing he wanted was for her to picture him defending himself in prison.

  She hugged a stack of books to her chest and rose, placing them one at a time on the shelf behind her. “Sometimes I think we don’t even know each other anymore. Not really.”

  “We’ve known each other since fifth grade.”

  “But we had a twenty-year gap in our friendship. And things change.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “Sounds like you have a lot of secrets.”

  “Making a shiv out of a piece of paper ain’t exactly a secret.” He reached for the minivacuum.

  “But I bet you’ve got more.” She looked at him straight on then, crossing her arms.

  He hated it when she challenged him, which was often. He hated when she pushed him for information about the past or the future or even the present. But more than anything, he hated the way he couldn’t open up to her, even though he wanted nothing more than for her to know him, really know him, inside and out.

  Honestly, he didn’t have many secrets left, other than being a closet bookaholic. But still, fear swept across him like a searchlight, because he longed to ask her one simple question. A question that could make or break him for the rest of his life. Would you still like me if you knew my secrets? He couldn’t be sure how she would answer that question, but he could be sure of one thing. The feelings he had for Lynda Turner wouldn’t go away on their own.

  He lifted his chin and shrugged. “Everybody has secrets, Lyn.” He flipped the switch on the Dustbuster and let its soft hum mask the ear-piercing beating of his heart.

  Chapter Seven

  After you, Lyn.

  Those words echoed in my ears. That silly convict had actually held the door open for me, and he never held doors. The action, coupled with his comment about secrets, left me wondering what he was up to.

  No, that’s not right. I figured what he was up to.

  I just wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

  We had worked for two hours, and even though I tried not to enjoy it, in the end I admitted to Clyde that I sort of liked the smell of the books. Most people would have said I was strange, but Clyde didn’t. Instead, he opened To Kill a Mockingbird, sniffed its yellowed parchment, and slowly nodded.

  When I got back home, I drank a glass of chocolate milk—comfort food—changed into a clean T-shirt and an old pair of cut-off blue jeans—comfort clothes—and then stood on my back porch and let the sunshine soak into my skin—vitamin D. But in spite of the food and the clothes and the sunshine, in spite of the undeniable tingle I always got when I knew a man noticed me, in spite of all that … I could still feel my mood slipping.

  My proverbial cup was half empty.

  I wandered through the house, ending up in my bedroom without ever deciding to go there. As I lowered myself to the edge of the bed, I scrutinized the plaster on the wall. The Sheetrock had been painted so many times, the texture was nearly invisible, but I knew it was there beneath layer upon layer of semigloss. My hand reached out, and my finger traced a small chip in the paint. An oval.

  Clyde Felton wanted me. He had all but told me so, though not with words. After you, Lyn didn’t exactly count as a declaration of romantic intent, but his actions spoke louder than his deep voice ever could. Not only had he pulled me out of my daily routine, but he had helped me reach outside myself by taking me to the Trapp Door.

  My hands lay clenched in my lap, and I willed them to stay that way. I tried to force my mind
away from painful memories, but on days like today—days when life tempted me with happiness—the past wouldn’t leave me be. Like narcotics that numb the senses, my memories prevented me from feeling anything good, and I was addicted to that numbness as hopelessly as a junkie is addicted to crack.

  Still staring at the wall, I pulled open the drawer of the bedside table and felt around for the letters. This time they were all the way at the back, pressed flat against the cheap wood and buried beneath tissues and ChapStick and long-forgotten odds and ends. Apparently it had been a while.

  I slid one letter from an envelope, and the page fell open, the creases behaving like well-oiled hinges to reveal the scratchy writing. This letter had kidnapped my sanity for more than two decades. Its mate was younger, though—less than twenty years old. I hated those letters. Despised them. Whenever I touched the paper, my heart flared with anger—not just any anger but the rage produced by rejection, jealousy, and injustice. I ought to hide them in the metal firebox under my bed where they belonged. Where they would leave me be.

  My palms jerked as though I had been bitten by red ants, and the papers fluttered to the worn carpet. Scooting back on the bed, I lay down and curled into a ball. I had made it two weeks between spells, so that was good. I called them spells. Ruthie had always referred to them as episodes, but now that she was taking a college psychology course, she had all kinds of new terms she threw around. Like clinical depression, mood disorder, and long-term treatment. The girl thought she knew everything.

  I curled tighter, wrapping my arms around my knees and tucking my head in an effort to disappear. To be less significant. To become a smaller target for life’s arrows. My forehead pressed against my knees until it hurt, and I thanked the Lord I wasn’t scheduled to work.

  Yes, occasionally I thanked the Lord, but only for things like my work schedule. I would check in with Him, usually during a spell, but I wasn’t too sure He had much patience with me. Ruthie certainly didn’t, and she and the Big Man were BFFs now.

  Today my thoughts blared through the room like a stinking-mean cheerleader with a megaphone, telling me not to consider Clyde because he would probably leave me, too. Besides, I would never be worthy of him. Ironic, but true. Clyde may have been a convicted rapist, but at least he could function in society without taking routine trips to the funny farm.