Jilted

by Varina Denman

  Thoughts and phrases and arguments spun through my brain like towels in a dryer, but I couldn’t think quickly enough to snatch a complete sentence. “You?” I repeated.

  He ran the back of his fingers under my chin but still didn’t reply. Instead, he leaned over in slow motion and rubbed his lips softly against mine. It wasn’t really a kiss. More of a nuzzle. Nothing like Friday night at the football game when we were angry. Nothing like the kiss in the kitchen. And nothing about it seemed spontaneous or accidental. This action felt premeditated and determined and purposeful. This kiss felt like Clyde had been thinking on it for quite a while.

  His mouth met mine once more, and I thought he would merely brush against me again, so I didn’t move. But instead he pulled my bottom lip with both of his. Gently, playfully, clearly asking a question.

  When he leaned back slightly and peered into my eyes, I realized I could hear him even though he wasn’t speaking. He was telling me so much without any words at all.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Clyde pulled away from his house, hoping Lynda would scoot over to the middle of the seat the way she’d done when he took her to the lake, but of course she didn’t. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing and remembering the nightmare of watching Hoby’s truck come up out of the water.

  He felt like cursing that whole day. Why had he talked about it being their first date? Now she would forever tie negative memories of Hoby’s death—or supposed death—to happy memories of their own time together. He wanted to give her another outing to remember. Something they could call their own.

  He knew he ought to wait and give her more time to grieve, but he had waited a lifetime already, and now that he had experienced a few happy moments with Lynda, he couldn’t bear to do without her much longer.

  He coughed. “Seeing as how our first date ended up all strange-like, I decided we need a new first date.”

  She shifted, and Clyde worried that he had made her uncomfortable. “Thanks for dinner,” she said. “It was nice.”

  “I’m not talking about dinner, Lyn. I want to do something to take your mind off your worries.”

  “That sounds good to me, but the windmills likely won’t have the same effect, since it’s pitch-black. There’s not even a moon out tonight.”

  He smiled to himself. Clouds may have covered the moon, hiding the three-hundred-foot giants behind a blanket of darkness, but above their heads, where stars should have shone, was a sea of blinking red lights, which disappeared into the distance. Clyde slowed at a county road and turned off the highway.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Maybe we can find a road that’ll take us to the base of a turbine. You said you’ve never seen one up close and personal, right?”

  “No.” She was quiet for a second. “No, I haven’t.”

  Clyde wasn’t sure why, but it suddenly felt like the space between them in the car had doubled in distance. “I thought it would be fun,” he said.

  “It’s too dark to find a road, Clyde.”

  She didn’t say anything else, good or bad, but his spirits fell harder than a mallard shot out of the sky on one of his grandpappy’s hunting trips.

  In the distance, a bolt of lightning illuminated a bank of clouds, and for an instant, the towering giants were visible. Lynda gasped, then leaned forward with her hands on the dash. “That was cool.”

  “Kinda creepy, if you ask me,” Clyde said. “Like monsters sneaking up on us in the dark.”

  A flash swept the sky, revealing dozens of rotors surrounding the car.

  “Now you see it, now you don’t,” Lynda sing-songed. “I can’t believe I’ve never been out here in a lightning storm. This is fun.”

  Clyde laughed. “I was thinking it was sort of like a scary movie. You’re thinking it’s cool.”

  “It is cool. Wait … for … it.” Another flash caused her to laugh. “This is better than a roller coaster.”

  “No, it ain’t.”

  “Okay, maybe not, but it’s a lot of fun for free.”

  Clyde caught himself before he said it was a cheap date, worried he would send her cannonballing into silence again. He sighed and smiled and listened to her laugh, and he was incredibly glad he had brought her out there. Not only that, but he knew from now on, he would be driving her down Highway 84 during midnight thunderstorms. He would do almost anything to make her happy, to hear her laugh and see her smile.

  He slowed, watching for road signs until he finally found what he was looking for, and then he turned and stopped in front of a metal gate. He put the car in park and reached for the door handle.

  “What are you doing?” Lynda asked.

  “Opening the gate.”

  “But it’s chained. And this is private property.” She leaned across the seat and called after him, but he kept walking, slipping the chain easily from the metal-pipe gate and swinging it against the side fence. As he walked back to the car, he could see her in the glow of the dome light, her mouth parted in curiosity. “Does this have anything to do with Troy Sanders?” she asked.

  He slid the gearshift into drive and eased off the brake, his headlights illuminating an arc on the white-rock road as he pulled forward, then stopped again. “Maybe.” He got out to shut the gate, and when he got back in, Lynda peppered him with questions.

  “Maybe nothing. What did he do? Leave the gate unlocked?” She looked behind them. “He could lose his job for something like that. He’s so reckless.”

  “Troy ain’t nearly as reckless as Pam makes him out to be.”

  “I think his wife would know. She said he’s just as irresponsible with the turbines as he is with the volunteer fire department. And we’ve both heard stories about that.”

  Clyde held his next words. It would do no good to argue about something neither of them knew much about. Rumor had it that Troy was reckless, but rumor also had it that Pamela was a worry­wart, and Clyde figured both rumors were partially true. Another burst of lightning vibrated, but it was farther away now and didn’t produce so much as a giggle from Lynda.

  He followed the road straight back, and after a hundred yards or so, it curved to the right. His headlights shone starkly against the white base of a windmill, so close it was almost unrecognizable.

  “Why are we here?” Lynda’s voice monotoned as he killed the ignition.

  He punched the headlights off, and the curved wall of the windmill disappeared. “Troy brought me out here and showed me around. He thought you might like to see inside.”

  “He thought so, or you thought so?”

  Clyde scratched his ear. “Both of us, I guess. We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

  He couldn’t see her, but from the sound of it, he guessed she had crossed her arms and leaned against the passenger door. Resting his fist on the steering wheel, he leaned forward and peered high above the car where the rotors hummed mechanically, but he couldn’t see them. From this angle, he couldn’t even see the red light on top. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought they were parked in the middle of an empty field instead of directly beneath a two-million-dollar wind generator.

  He reached for the ignition, then hesitated, confused. He had been so sure she would enjoy this little field trip, had thought it would be a happy memory to erase the bad one. He had even hoped for a few kisses, not to mention a lot more smiles. His hand dropped to his knee. “I don’t get it, Lyn. Talk to me.”

  She huffed. “When you said you planned a special date, I didn’t think you meant to bring me out here and show me your dream job. Are you going to give me a sales pitch? Because no matter what you say, I’m not going to think you should get a job as a stinking turbine cowboy.”

  Clyde’s nerves settled instantly, and he almost laughed. “What are you saying?”

  “Wind technician is one of the
most dangerous jobs in West Texas, if not the most dangerous. Pam says Troy has to climb onto the very top of those blasted things and walk around up there, as high in the air as a football field is long, and she’s terrified every single day.” Her voice rose slightly. “I’m sorry, Clyde, but I can’t live like that … always worried that you won’t make it home in the afternoons. I know I have a lot of baggage that you don’t necessarily take into account, but I cannot be the wife of a wind tech.” Her voice got faster and faster, and more and more wobbly, and just when Clyde thought she might cry, Lynda shoved open the car door and climbed out, slamming it behind her.

  In the brief time the dome light had been on, Clyde noticed her hands were trembling. He took a deep breath and tried to still his own hands. Most of what she had said had no effect on him at all, as though she were hurling cotton balls at him and expecting him to crumple. However, her last five words acted like a shot of adrenaline, peppering him with the possibility of a future. Wife of a wind tech. Had she really said that? In reference to the two of them?

  He ran his fingers through his hair, then gripped the base of his neck, and an uncontrolled chuckle rose from deep in his throat, startling him into action. Surely she hadn’t gone far. They were in the middle of a wind field, for heaven’s sake.

  He thrust the door open and then leaped to his feet, ready to scan the horizon, but she was leaning on the passenger side of the car, her back and neck glowing from the dome light.

  “I didn’t mean to say that,” she snapped.

  Clyde shut his door. She was so cute. So determined. So fragile. He walked around the sedan, letting his fingers trail across the hood, and when he got to the passenger side, he stood in front of her for a few seconds before saying, “I never said I wanted to be a wind tech.”

  She made a tiny sound but didn’t speak.

  “I guess I may have told you Troy was talking to me about it, but I never honestly considered it.” He put his hands on his hips, still trying to calm his pulse. “You know how it is, Lyn. I’ve missed too much of my life to go taking risks like that. Besides, they probably wouldn’t hire me to do electrician work, since I’m color-blind.” He couldn’t hold back a soft laugh. “Working the turbines ain’t for me. Never was.”

  Still she didn’t say anything, and he searched for what might be holding her back. Then he realized she was embarrassed. She had shown him a teeny part of herself that he hadn’t seen before, a frightened, timid part that was desperately afraid of being abandoned. Then she had topped it all off by blubbering about marriage, something Clyde knew she would never deliberately talk about.

  He took a step away. “So anyway. You want to see inside now? Troy left it open. We can’t do any climbing, of course, but we could look around just the same. Here, I’ll show you.” He stepped around the front bumper, fumbled with the car door, and then pulled on the headlights. “The door’s around at the side.”

  He walked away from the car, unable to hear her steps over the hum of the rotors, but when he opened the door, she was behind him a few steps, looking away from him like a scared rabbit. “Troy could lose his job for this,” she mumbled. “Reckless.”

  “There’s a light in here somewhere, but I don’t rightly remember where it is.”

  Lynda turned on the flashlight app on her cell phone and lit up the circular interior of the tower. Instead of looking for a light switch, her gaze fell on the vertical ladder, and she shone her light straight up, revealing a fraction of the rungs disappearing into the darkness above their heads. “Now that’s creepy,” she whispered. “Knowing it goes on and on and not being able to see. I feel like someone’s up there, spying on us.”

  “You watch too many scary shows.” Clyde found the switch, and when the lights came on, they both startled, and Lynda gasped.

  “Man, that’s taller than I expected.” She laughed. “I feel so small, don’t you?”

  “I reckon I do, for once in my life.”

  They stood side by side, Lynda gazing upward at the enormity of the monster’s belly they had crawled into, and Clyde gazing downward at the smile on her face. When she noticed him, she blushed. “So did Troy let you climb?”

  “He took me up to the first landing. See it there?” He pointed. “But I made sure that reckless rascal used all the appropriate safety precautions.”

  Her gaze bounced around the enclosure. “Like what?”

  “Harnesses, lines, locks, hooks.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure what all the stuff was.”

  She bit her lip, then timidly put a hand on the ladder. “Can I?”

  “You’re kidding me,” he said. “How far?”

  “As far as I can.” She gripped the metal and started climbing up the rungs, one after another, hand over hand, not quickly but fast enough that Clyde got nervous. She seemed to be climbing up a swinging bell rope. Her giggles echoed to the top of the tower and back down again.

  “Uh … Lyn?”

  She slowed to a stop, then looked down at him. “Whoa.” She clung to the side rail. “I see why they say don’t look down. I think that’s far enough.”

  Her Converse sneakers were just above Clyde’s head, and he moved to the other side of the ladder and climbed the first two rungs so he could rest his hand on her thigh. “Go slow.” She stepped down, and his hand met her waist before they backed down together.

  When Lynda was safely on the bottom rung, she stopped there and looked through the ladder where he stood opposite her. Their faces were level with each other, and she smiled. “This is a good date, Clyde. Thanks for bringing me here.”

  He shook his head, feigning exasperation. “I would’ve left you at the trailer if I’d known how reckless you were going to be.”

  She reached through the ladder, hooked her finger on the neck of his T-shirt, and tugged, and when she covered her mouth with his, he felt her smile again. Silly girl, what on earth had given her the impression he wanted to work with Troy? He had never told her that, but then again, there were a lot of things he had never told her.

  She pulled away, then stepped off the ladder, and he felt the distance as if it were a solid wall of steel, but then she came to him and melted into his embrace. She pressed her cheek against his chest and slipped her arms around his waist. Even though he couldn’t see her face, he thought she might still be smiling, because everything felt so natural, as if for once she wasn’t holding anything back.

  She looked up at him. “You know what I said before?”

  He wasn’t entirely sure which thing she meant, but he imagined it was the five words that were still exploding in his head. Or really just the one word. Wife. Because the others were irrelevant now. “Yeah?”

  “Can you just forget I said that?”

  Her eyes drooped on the edges, and she looked like a woman who had been through hell over the past week—exhausted, unsure, and afraid. But also happy.

  Without a doubt, Clyde would remember those five words as long as he lived, but he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “I can forget you said it, Lyn … but only for a while.”

  She nodded, and her body relaxed into his.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “You working today, Lyn?”

  Clyde had persisted in asking me that, but now I could finally say yes. Three days off had stretched Dixie’s bereavement limit, and she had gently but firmly told me it was time to come back to work. I didn’t mind. Even though I felt more comfortable at home, I couldn’t afford the time off without pay. “I’m working this morning, and the lunch shift tomorrow.”

  I sat on the passenger seat of his sedan, but I had no idea where we were going. He had knocked on my door and invited me to breakfast, but then he clammed up. Surely he wouldn’t take me to the DQ or the diner, and other than the Allsup’s convenience store, there were no other options. He had already passed his street, so the trailer house was out of the
question, and he was headed north, the opposite direction of the wind fields.

  He nodded. “Tomorrow, will you get off in time to go to the game in Tahoka?”

  “Give me a break. You’re lucky I’m going to work.” He was lucky I was going to breakfast with him. Clyde had become a healing tonic to my nerves. Every time I was with him, the darkness lifted a tiny bit, and when he kissed me, my doubts were banished to the back side of my heart, where I could easily forget they existed. “Where we headed?” I asked again.

  He didn’t answer, just kept driving north, past the city-limit signs and on toward Lubbock.

  “I have to be at work in an hour.” We couldn’t make it to town and back in that time, but surely Clyde knew that.

  “Yep.” He flipped on his blinker, and as it clinked, I cringed. He was turning east on the gravel road at the top of the Caprock, and I knew immediately what he had in mind. We meandered down the small lane, around the curve that inched too close to the drop-off, then parked in front of his grandpappy’s old house.

  My fingers clenched the seat cushions. Clyde hadn’t brought me to his family’s home place until I got all stupid and called myself his wife. What had come over me? He probably got the impression I sat around dreaming about white dresses, when actually my comment had startled me as much as it seemed to startle him. I didn’t want to be his wife. Did I? Now it felt as if we were barreling toward marriage with the speed of an out-of-control locomotive.

  But still … the property was breathtaking.

  The house sat near the rim of the Caprock, and I looked across the rolling plains, hundreds of feet below us. The northern Cap, free of the windmills I loved so much, had an unpolluted beauty that I had always found mesmerizing. “This view is amazing, Clyde. You should be proud you own something like this.”

  “You like it?”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I turned to smile at him, surprised to realize his gaze was fixed on the run-down house. “No,” I said quickly. “I was talking about the land and the view. You should tear the house down.”