Jilted

by Varina Denman

  He had made a mess for Susan years ago, and maybe God expected him to clean it up now, but the woman didn’t need anything. She had Fawn and Nathan. She had a huge ranch house and a fancy car. She had friends here at the church. She had a million civic responsibilities that kept her busy. And she had Neil.

  Dodd wrapped up his sermon with a final challenge. “Get out there and use the gifts God blessed you with.”

  Clyde stood for the last song, but this time he didn’t even hum. He was too busy pondering Dodd’s statement. There was only one thing Clyde could think that he truly wanted to do with his life.

  And that was to make Lynda Turner smile.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Lynda, I’m about to melt into a puddle right here in the middle of the Trapp City Park.” Velma fanned herself with a wrapped Golden book while I poured a bit of water on the nape of my neck.

  “You’re not the only one.” I leaned back in my camp chair, happy to be at Nathan’s first birthday party but silently wishing the Blaylocks weren’t there.

  Fawn claimed she chose the park because it was Nathan’s favorite place, but more than likely, she feared the roof would blow off her double-wide if the families got too close to each other—like paint fumes to a pilot light. Not only did the outdoor venue provide better ventilation for the heated personalities, but it also included convenient escape routes.

  Velma and I had come appropriately dressed in shorts, and Ansel, sitting catty-corner in a lawn chair, wore a pair of thin cover­alls. Our grown children had changed out of their church clothes and were buzzing around us. JohnScott and Fawn hung balloons on the playground equipment while Dodd and Ruthie filled Styrofoam cups with ice.

  Opposite us, at the park’s lone picnic table, hovered Neil and Susan—the Blaylock faction. Susan arrived straight from church services in her ridiculous dress and heels, and even though Neil hadn’t attended worship in more than a year, he seemed to have gone out of his way to dress the part—Western slacks, starched shirt, drawstring tie, and, of course, his trademark cowboy hat.

  Susan shot a fake smile toward us, but Neil didn’t even glance our way. He paced in front of the picnic table, and I recalled Clyde’s adjective. Antsy.

  Nathan, joyfully oblivious, toddled around the table, using the bench for balance. When he got to Susan’s knees, he paused before continuing his circuit.

  “Come to Pops, son.” Neil picked him up under the armpits, and the baby kicked his feet, clearly wanting back down again, but Neil merely walked around the table and handed the child a Cheeto.

  “Daddy, he’ll get you all orange,” Fawn called. “Proceed with caution.”

  “Noted.”

  JohnScott stood with one hand resting on the metal slide. “Fawn, should we open gifts first? That way we can hold lunch until everyone gets here.”

  She gazed up the street. “I suppose it’s time.”

  “It’ll take Nathan twenty minutes to open each gift anyway,” Dodd said.

  Fawn nodded but didn’t smile. I figured she wanted to wait for Clyde, but no one dared make the request.

  An enormous, ornately wrapped box sat on the edge of the cement slab near the table, and Neil squatted next to it, resting Nathan on his bent knee. “You ready for your surprise, boy?”

  Nathan squealed and slapped his palms against the side of the box.

  I noticed Clyde walking toward us from down the street, but not until then did I remember his car was broken down. He lifted his chin in greeting to JohnScott and Dodd, then positioned himself away from the commotion. Leaning against the slanted metal pole of the swing set, he glanced around casually, and then his gaze bounced to me.

  My lungs felt as though a hundred dragonflies had taken flight during a windstorm, and I bit my bottom lip. Clyde couldn’t even get to his grandson’s birthday party on time, so there was no good reason for me to be feeling all fluttery inside. It was ridiculous.

  He ducked his head as he watched Nathan, and I peered at him a moment longer, wondering if I should offer to trim his hair. His blond ponytail was the exact same color as Fawn’s, only shorter. It was surprising more people hadn’t figured out she was his daughter long before that news flash made the gossip circuit. In fact, nobody had figured it out. A swell of injustice crowded the dragonflies out of my lungs.

  My gaze wandered to Clyde’s hands, one shoved in the pocket of his jeans, the other absentmindedly gripping the chain of a swing, and suddenly it seemed like a million years ago that I had felt the urge to hold his hand on the side of the road. Everything had happened too fast yesterday, and I had foolishly let Ansel’s prognosis and Velma’s despair drive me to Clyde for comfort. And I let him hug me.

  Stupid.

  I forced my mind and my eyes back to the party, only to find Susan watching me.

  Her mouth twisted into a tight knot, but when she looked back toward Nathan, her smile spread.

  The toddler had managed to expose only a corner of the box by ripping the paper piece by piece. He threw the strips over his shoulder, but Fawn was there to intercept them.

  “Here we go, son.” Neil slid his hand under the edge of the wrapping and tore off a large chunk, exposing the label for a battery-powered, ride-on car. “Look there, Nathan. Look what Pops got for you.”

  “And Mimi.” Susan’s plastic smile slipped momentarily. “I’m responsible for that snazzy wrapping job.”

  “Let’s see what’s in here.” Neil’s eyes widened along with Nathan’s as he tore away the box to reveal a miniature replica of a Range Rover.

  Child-sized, yet far too large for a one-year-old.

  “Well, would you look at that.” Neil smiled at Nathan, but the boy pointed at a bird.

  Susan bounced around the two of them, taking pictures with her phone, but Fawn glanced doubtfully at JohnScott before picking up more pieces of torn paper.

  The car had doors like a real automobile, and Neil opened the driver’s side to nestle Nathan behind the wheel. “Ready, little guy?”

  The toddler leaned forward and backward in the seat as though he could make it roll just with momentum, and Susan cackled.

  “Hang on, and Pops will get you going.” Neil flipped a switch, and as the car began to roll, he walked alongside, steering to keep the child safely on the sidewalk.

  Susan squawked that Neil should be careful, and Fawn and Ruthie waved and cooed and tried to get Nathan to look at their cameras.

  Even though I despised the flamboyance of the gift, I smiled in spite of myself. I didn’t know which of them was acting the most juvenile. When I looked at Clyde, he winked at me, but I pretended not to see. That sort of thing would never do. I chided myself for agreeing to hike with him to Picnic Hollow after the party, but at least that would give me plenty of time to let him know how I felt.

  Nathan spied Clyde by the swing. “Cyde?” The child held his arms through the open roof, flexing his wrists back and forth.

  “Let’s try this little hill over there, son.” Neil steered the car away from the playground and toward a raised place in the sidewalk, but Nathan turned around in the seat and stood up.

  “Cyde?”

  As the distance between the Range Rover and Clyde lengthened, Nathan’s face screwed into a ball of emotion, and Fawn shuffled after them, retrieving her child from the plastic prison and laughing softly.

  Tension settled over the playground as though we had all been sprayed by a crop duster. Neil’s behavior was odd, even for him. Something was definitely up with him, and I decided right then and there that antsy was too light a term to describe it.

  Chapter Twelve

  “You think we’re on the right track?” Two hours later, Clyde pulled back a mesquite branch so I could pass without getting scratched. After twenty-some-odd years, we were having a dickens of a time locating any landmarks to help us find our way to Picnic Hollow.
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  “Maybe.” We had gained access through a Corps of Engineers service site, driven through a bumpy pasture as far as we could, then took off hiking. I shielded my eyes from the late-afternoon sun. “Who owns this land?”

  “Way back when, it belonged to Hector Chavez’s grandpa. I reckon it’s still in the family.”

  Obscured below a rocky bluff on our left side lay the lake, but even though we couldn’t yet see it, the fishy scent of the water wafted on the breeze, filtering through the crags and crannies as we searched for the declivity that would lead us down to the hollow.

  “Here we go.” Clyde ran-walked up a boulder, then jumped from the back side. He turned to wait for me. “Remember that time Hector used this rock as a stage? We’re almost there.”

  I laughed, partly from remembering our old escapades and partly from relief that we weren’t going to be hiking much longer. “I never would have thought he’d turn out to be the sheriff.”

  “Sure enough.” Clyde looked behind us as though we were being followed. “I bet he’s been busy out here this week.”

  “Not this far east,” I said. “Those bones were found closer to Rock Creek.”

  I scooted past him and hurried the last few yards, my steps quickening because of the sloped curve of the solid rock beneath my feet. I figured the lake to be less than twenty yards away, but because we were sheltered in a tiny canyon of sorts, we still couldn’t see it. Waves lapped against the sandstone at the water’s edge, sending wet echoes bouncing off the walls to tease us with the sound of its coolness.

  “Take it slow, Lyn.”

  But I couldn’t. I hurried around the bend, curving to the right, where I stopped in the broad hollow created years ago by wind or water or time itself. I turned around and gazed at the sheer cliff behind us. A sandy wall rounded down from fifteen feet above our heads, creating a slanted ceiling of rock and sheltering us from the late-afternoon sun. I smiled.

  “Ain’t that something?” Clyde’s fingertips brushed along the surface as he studied the names carved in stone. “There’s my grandpappy right there. And Ma.”

  “And my parents.” I pointed to their names, carved deeper than some, one above the other, with a heart in between. “How old do you suppose they were?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say teenagers.” He chuckled. “Don’t seem like a grown man would carve that heart.” Unexpectedly Clyde slid one arm around me and firmly gripped both my elbows.

  I stiffened. What on earth? I hadn’t yet had time to set him straight about my feelings toward him, but I’d done nothing to give him the impression I wanted him to touch me. But when he tilted his head toward the ground where the wall sloped at a sharp angle, I realized he was only trying to keep me from screaming. A diamondback rattlesnake lay coiled in the shade of all those names.

  Clyde dropped his arms to his sides, leaving me feeling un­protected. “He won’t bother us, if we don’t bother him.”

  I knew that to be true, but I took three steps backward anyway. My attention was divided then between the carvings and the reptile, but I forced myself to drink in the sights and the memories, knowing I might not be out there again soon. Slipping my phone from my back pocket, I spent the next ten minutes zooming and focusing and clicking, but then I stopped to examine a picture once cut deeply into the stone but now weathered away. One of the oldest markings, a wagon train, toiled endlessly from east to west, complete with oxen pulling the covered Conestogas and a set of initials below each of the wooden wheels.

  I imagined settlers, stuck in the area for days because of sickness. Maybe a couple of them found this little spot, pulled out a pocket knife they brought from back home, and started whittling to pass the time. Maybe they even settled in the area. I searched the wall, deciding they probably hadn’t. The next identifiable time frame was a bold 1927 far above my head. “How do you reckon?”

  Clyde looked where I pointed. “Probably sitting on horseback.”

  My gaze bounced to the rocks at my feet, then to the jagged ravine above and below us, then to the snake still pretending to sleep. “Life was so hard back then.”

  “Hard now, too.” Clyde wore a canteen over his shoulder, and pulling its strap over his head, he offered me a drink and then let the water pour into his own mouth. “Funny you can’t see the lake from here, and we’re so close.” He held the jug above his head, just long enough for a splash to wet his hair, and then he blinked as droplets clung to his eyelashes.

  “A lot of things aren’t what they seem.”

  “But a lot of things are.” He sat on a rock and crossed his arms, and I knew he was looking at me.

  “Is your name up there?” I asked.

  “I reckon.”

  My gaze skittered across the rock methodically, left to right, up and down, searching for any rendition of the name Clyde Felton.

  And then I found it. C.F. + S.S.

  “You and Susan. That day.” My voice sounded as hollow as the nook where the rattlesnake rested, and I instantly regretted calling attention to the double date that echoed so gracelessly through my memory. Even though the evening had been innocent enough—two young couples hiking together—the weeks following it were so filled with pain that I wished it had never happened.

  “Long time ago,” Clyde said.

  “Yeah, it was.” Without wanting to, I let my eyes wander to the bottom left corner where the wall slanted parallel to a boulder. Neil and I had been in our early twenties then, and we had sat there together. I had lain back on the rock, sunbathing, while he carved L.B. Nobody but the two of us knew it stood for ladybug, and I wasn’t about to share that tidbit with Clyde. I squinted at the letters, realizing Neil hadn’t carved his own initials.

  “I bet your name’s up there a time or two,” Clyde said.

  I studied his profile, wondering what he meant, what he knew. Two years after I sunbathed on that rock, I had come to this place with Hoby. We were married then and brought our baby daughter way out there for old times’ sake. Hoby insisted on carving our names—probably to prove to himself and the world that we were really together—but he barely got started before Ruthie needed a diaper or a bottle or had some other urgent baby crisis. Half an H would forever mock me from the middle of the cliff, two shallow scratches among the solid indentations of all the others.

  “Lyn—”

  Clyde’s words were interrupted by a loud noise—an explosion—from down near the lake. We turned in time to see a geyser of water shoot above the rock line, bringing with it the foul scent of rot from deep in the lake and showering us with fine mist. Just as quickly as the spout appeared, it fell back to the water level, but my heart didn’t stop racing from the surprise.

  “Holy cow.” Clyde watched as the snake slithered slowly away from us to disappear into a crevice between two rocks.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Must be the Tarrons dynamite fishing again. The game warden was talking about it at the DQ last week, and I reckon if those boys get caught, they can kiss the military good-bye.”

  Rowdy shouts and whoops bounced up the crevices.

  “Where do they get the dynamite?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. Might not be dynamite, seeing as how it’s hard to come by these days. Could be C-4 or even hand grenades for all I know.” Clyde put his fists on his hips and stared at the carvings, but I could tell this time he wasn’t seeing them. He was frustrated about something, and it wasn’t the Tarron boys’ fishing methods. “Lyn?” He cleared his throat, and for some reason, the sound sent a tremor of apprehension through my mind like the rumble of distant thunder. “I’ve been wanting to ask you out, but every time I start, something always comes up.”

  My gaze landed on his hand, where it rested near his belt, and I mentally slapped myself for hugging him at the Dairy Queen. For giving him the wrong impression. For making him think anything cou
ld ever happen between us. I frowned at the letters near the boulder, wanting to tell him no but unable to flat out reject him. “We’re here, aren’t we?” I shrugged. “And we went to the windmills the other day.”

  “The side of Highway 84 don’t count, and this”—he glanced to the crack where the rattlesnake had disappeared—“this is closer, but it still ain’t right.”

  Irritation spread through my core like an angry infection, but close to the surface, a calming balm covered my pain, and I yearned for his baritone voice and strong hands. Squeezing my eyes shut, I blocked out the names that all seemed to be whispering advice, and I tried to focus on the sound of the breeze through the ravine, the waves slapping against rock, the call of a scissortail flying overhead. Real sounds.

  Without meaning to, I sighed. A frustrated release of breath, not a dreamy one, and I spoke quickly to cover my error. “Well, what did you have in mind?” My eyes snapped open.

  “Dinner maybe? I heard about a new steak house in Lubbock. Supposed to be pretty good.”

  The whispering voices fell into silence, leaving me with no answer. No rebuttal. No excuse. I felt helpless, with no real reason to refuse him. My mind told me to say yes, but the ghosts in my past insisted against it. I crossed my arms, shook my head, and started counting the names. One, two, three …

  I heard him take a step, and he paused a few seconds before moving in front of me, turning his back on the crowd of names to look me in the eye. When he spoke, his voice was deep and rough. “Will you go out with me, Lyn?” His eyes were sad and determined at the same time, and it hurt to look into them. Instead, I peered past his bicep to the wagon train and the lightly scratched H.

  He stood motionless, towering over me, and I sensed his sadness changing to fear.

  Our eyes locked for a few seconds before mine wandered to a few hairs hanging down the side of his cheek, having pulled loose from the tie at the base of his neck. The wind nudged them an inch toward his ear, then an inch back, and my gaze followed his jawline down to his chin, covered with stubble. Clyde almost always had stubble. I wondered what it would be like to touch his chin and feel the roughness of his face. What it would feel like to be the one buying him shaving cream at the United. What would happen if I rubbed my lips against his cheek.