One More Knight

by Kathleen Creighton

“Naturally.”

  “And the Farrah Fawcett blonde is…?”

  “That’s Kelly Grace.”

  “Uh-huh. And the two jocks in the football jerseys?”

  She hesitated, then reached across the table and pointed. “That’s…Bobby Hanratty. He and Kelly got married. She says they’re divorced now-have two kids. And that’s Richie. I went out with him for a while. This was the homecoming dance. We were juniors-Kelly Grace was junior-class princess that year.” Her voice seemed oddly flat, Troy thought, for somebody reminiscing over her happy youth. And she kept her eyes downcast. He wondered if it was to keep him from seeing the sadness in them.

  He bared his teeth in a smile. “Yeah? Princess, huh? Why does that not surprise me? And the next year-queen, I presume?”

  She shrugged and her voice went from flat to edgy. “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t here then.”

  “So,” he probed, unable to stop himself, “that’s when you moved away?”

  “Right.”

  He waited, his pulse tapping like an impatient foot, but there was nothing more. So he touched the photograph once more. “Who’s the fifth wheel? The guy in the band uniform?”

  There was a long pause, and it seemed to him that she had to unstick the words from her throat before she could say them. “That’s Colin.” She reached across the table and took the snapshot from him, tucking it under the rest as she made a small neat pile of them and set them aside. “He was…a friend. He lived next door. We…grew up together.” And suddenly her voice had gone soft, with a kind of tenderness in it that for some reason made something twist and knot up under Troy’s belt buckle.

  “Where is he now?” he asked her, trying hard to keep it casual.

  Her eyes met his, shadowed and deep as the woods in summer. “He died.”

  “Aw, hell,” said Troy softly, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  She lifted a shoulder, and her eyes shifted downward once more. “It was a long time ago.”

  He nodded, though he knew how little that mattered. He’d lost friends himself, a few under circumstances that had given him reason to know how it was to wake up in the middle of the night, cold with self-doubt and self-blame. And how sometimes the smallest thing could send him back there, to the place where the guilt and second-guessing waited in ambush.

  “How did it happen?” he prodded gently.

  “An accident.” The words made a small sticking sound.

  And he understood that, too. He knew how hard it could be to talk about. And how important it was to do it anyway.

  But before he could encourage her further along those lines, little April, the waitress, was there at his elbow, saying nervously, “Excuse me, sir, but is that your dog that’s doin’ all that howlin’ out there?”

  So then he had to go out and try to bribe poor ol’ Bubba with the promise of a double cheeseburger if he’d calm down and let them eat their breakfast in peace. By the time he got back, their food had arrived. And naturally Charly jumped on that distraction like a duck on a june bug, energetically critiquing the selection of jellies, the doneness of her eggs, the temperature of the toast, the size of the holes in the pepper shaker as if those details were the most important things in the world to her.

  And maybe, Troy thought, in a way, just then they were. Because what they were, it looked like to him, were sandbags she was using in a last, desperate fight to hold back the flood of memories she was scared to death was going to drown her.

  Chapter 7

  July 5, 1977

  Dear Diary,

  I’m so confused, I don’t even know how I feel.

  Richie’s been calling all day, but I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t know what to say to him. What if he wants to go out with me again? I am so ashamed, I don’t think I can even look at him. Colin says I shouldn’t be ashamed. He came over a little while ago. I told him I didn’t want to talk to him, either, but he climbed up the back porch and came in my window, like he used to when we were kids. He was so sweet. We sat on my bed and he put his arms around me. I cried. He said it wasn’t anybody’s fault, that we’d both just had too much to drink, and that it was okay, nothing has changed, and as far as he is concerned we are still friends. He said we should consider it our secret, and go on as if it never happened.

  But it did happen, and it seems like nothing is ever going to be the same again. I even keep looking in the mirror to see if it shows, but I can’t see any difference on the outside. I guess that’s a good thing.

  Thought for the Day: I always thought losing my virginity would be something…I don’t know, special. So how come I feel like something the dog left on the lawn?

  It was going to be a hot day, a typical June day in the South, already beginning to build toward the afternoon crescendo of thunderstorms. Charly thought she should have been prepared for it, but after twenty years in the land of sun worshipers, endless beaches and backyard swimming pools, she’d forgotten what humidity was like-the way it made the air feel heavy as wet cloth, and the softness of it, like a gentle mist on her skin. Southern California heat had the harshness of the desert in it, a burning dryness that baked the skin to delicious brownness, and then before you knew it, to old leather. In California people played in the sun. In the South they knew better. On days like this, Southerners sat in the shade and drank iced tea and fanned themselves. Those with any sense.

  Which obviously didn’t include Troy. Charly, watching him from a shady spot on the steps of the bandstand in the middle of Courthouse Square Park, was ready to conclude that the man had not a lick of sense. There he was, gamboling in the heat with that incredible dog of his, playing tag and chase and fetch and wrestling around like a kid, showing off like some kind of grown-up Tom Sawyer. Just because he was-what?-in his mid-thirties, at least, and had a body like…

  Oh, God, he did have a beautiful body, even fully clothed in basic polo shirt and blue jeans. Charly had just come from the land of beautiful bodies, and she’d never seen one that made her heart pound and her throat close up the way his did. And what a picture they made-beautiful man, beautiful dog, performing their own special ballet just for her, on a soft summer morning in the dappled shade of big old oak trees.

  Watching them, she felt a strange sort of yearning welling up inside, one that succeeded in smothering temporarily the sharper pain that had already taken up residence there. This was a gentler ache, rather like homesickness. A misty prickling that almost-almost-made her want to smile. And deep within, the slightest warming, the beginnings of softening in the icy knot of rage she carried, now, in her heart.

  Oh, no, you don’t! Charly, get a hold of yourself. She leaned forward and let her forehead rest on her knees. It’s this place, she thought, laughing silently, feeling not the least bit amused. It’s the South. I really think it must be a sickness, like malaria.

  “Somethin’ funny?”

  She lifted her head and watched them come toward her, both dog and master panting and grinning and looking vastly pleased with themselves. Bubba was once more attached to his leash, and Troy was carefully tying a knot in the top of a plastic bag, which he dropped into a trash can as he approached.

  “What?” He hooked an arm over the bandstand’s wooden handrail beside her and leaned against it, just slightly out of breath, his face flushed and spangled with sweat, his grin tentative. Like a little boy, Charly thought, who knows he has mud on his shoes.

  She looked away, keeping her ironies private for a moment longer, then shook her head and gave up a small huff of laughter. “You.”

  “Me?” He looked around in exaggerated puzzlement. “What’d I do?”

  What did you do? It was a question that was beginning to occur to her, and one she was afraid she wasn’t going to want to hear the answers to.

  She tilted her head toward the trash can. “That something they teach you in the navy?”

  His eyebrows rose. “What? You mean, pickin’ up after myself? Ah, hell no. I learned that a long time befo
re I joined the navy.” He ran a hand over his short-cropped hair, his smile becoming wry. “My mama made the U.S. Navy look like summer camp.”

  “That right?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He glanced at Bubba, who was pulling against his leash, responding to some invisible siren scent, then straightened and held out a hand to Charly. She found herself taking it without a thought. She let him pull her to her feet, and they began to walk together slowly, aimlessly, not talking, letting Bubba sniff and ramble to his doggy heart’s content.

  After a bit Troy went on in a voice rusty with reminiscence. “Yeah, my mama ran a tight ship. Had to, I guess. There were seven of us, and my dad was a trucker, so he was gone most a’ the time.”

  “Seven,” Charly murmured, breathing a silent whistle. She’d heard most of this already, from Mirabella.

  He laughed. “It didn’t seem like so many, growin’ up. Just every few years or so there’d be a new baby in the house, is all.”

  “Are you the oldest?”

  “Second. I’m the oldest boy-got one older sister. The rest are younger.”

  “Well,” Charly said dryly, “then I guess you’ve done your share of baby-sitting.” Don’t think about it. Don’t think at all.

  “I have that.” His laughter came so naturally. She was surprised at how much she was beginning to like hearing it, and how much she envied him the easiness of it. “Diapered, bathed, read to and done homework with more kids than most fathers ever do, I guess.”

  Diapered, bathed read to… His voice seemed to retreat into distance, to be overtaken by a child’s laughter, and the image of a boy…a bright, beautiful little boy with golden curls…

  She stumbled, and Troy’s hand was instantly there, a band of support around her arm.

  “Anyway,” he said, going on as if there’d been no interruption, “Mama was a schoolteacher, so she was pretty much used to handling a bunch of rowdy kids. Lord, though, I can tell you it was tough growin’ up a teacher’s kid in a small town. Only thing worse I can imagine is maybe bein’ a preacher’s kid.”

  “Or a judge’s…” She muttered it under her breath, and instantly wished she hadn’t. She could feel his head turn toward her like a sonar beam, and imagine the curiosity and speculation in his eyes.

  God, there was so much he didn’t know about her. So much she hadn’t told him. And after the night they’d just spent together… God only knew what he must be thinking. It surprised her to realize she actually cared about that, cared what this man thought of her. She wasn’t in the habit of explaining herself, not to anyone, and she’d never told anyone the whole story about her past, not even Mirabella. But she found herself thinking about telling Troy. And wondering what she would say if he were to ask.

  But he didn’t ask. All he said was, “Yeah, I guess you probably know what it’s like…” And he paused to let Bubba give a nearby tree his undivided attention, watching the dog now, his eyes in a thoughtful squint that fanned the creases at their corners. “Growin’ up in a small town like this, where everybody knows you, and your folks and everybody else’s business besides.”

  “Somehow I don’t think my growing up was very much like yours,” Charly drawled, kicking at a gnarled tree root while she waited for him. Her chest felt tight, stifled.

  “No? Why’s that?”

  She found his voice soft but compelling, like gentle fingers tugging the strings of a guitar. Primed as she was, she could no more not respond than a plucked guitar string can refuse to vibrate. “For one thing I was an only child.”

  “That right?”

  His eyes were on her again, bright as searchlights. Meeting them was suddenly too intense, the light in their depths calling up memories even his touch had not. She caught a quick gulp of air, and with a toss of her head, broke the contact.

  “And I never knew my mother. She died a few days after I was born.”

  “Aw, hell. That’s tough.”

  She shrugged away his sympathy, finding it an irritant, like a reminder of an itch she couldn’t scratch. “Not really. I never knew my mother. How can you miss someone you’ve never had?”

  Oh, Lord, she hadn’t meant to say that, at least not that way. But somehow her voice had gotten away from her, had risen too fast and too sharply, so that when she broke it off it was with a ragged sound, like something tearing.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think you can.” It was an easy drawl, his manner gentle but with a core of firmness that, like the hand that had held her when she stumbled, would neither let her fall nor escape.

  And oh, Lord, the temptation was strong to give in to that firmness, yield to the strength she could sense in him, lean against him and share her burden. He was giving her the openings she needed; the hand was there, and all she had to do was take it.

  But she had never yielded to, leaned on or shared her burdens with anyone in her life. Not since Colin. It was too late to change now.

  Face it, Charly, you’re alone. You always have been and always will be.

  She shook herself, fighting free of the thoughts. “Anyway, I had…someone.”

  “Your dad?”

  Her chest tightened. She gave a bark of laughter, and after a moment cleared her throat and said in a carefully neutral voice, “Housekeeper. Her name is Dobrina Ralston. I called her Aunt Dobie. She’s the one who raised me.” She walked a few paces, keeping step with him, conscious of the heat, of the day and of his body. Wishing, suddenly, that he would put his arm around her and hold her close to him in spite of it Traitorous notion.

  She took a breath and murmured, “I think… she loved me.”

  Troy couldn’t answer. He was thinking of the home he’d grown up in, where the love was noisy, confident, taken for granted, a given-never, ever “I think…”

  As he angled a look at the woman walking so silently beside him. he tried to think what it would be like to live in a house filled with that silence, instead of with the thud of footsteps, slamming of doors, yells and shouts and arguments and the occasional knock-down-drag-out fight, with laughter and singing, piano lessons and Sesame Street on television. He tried to imagine this woman in that house. He thought about taking her home with him.

  That was a surprise. He told himself, Hold on, there, man, what in the hell are you thinking of? She’s not some orphan stray, like that little spotted pup you dragged home when you were ten. She’s a grown-up woman with issues that need settling, and whatever they are, they’re for her to settle, not you.

  The only problem with that was, last night he’d made the mistake of letting himself get sidetracked. And what that had done was make it hard for him to remember what his mission was supposed to be in the first place.

  Yesterday he’d come to the town of Mourning Spring, Alabama, as his brother’s best man with the sole purpose of rescuing one miscreant maid of honor and delivering her to his brother’s house in Georgia in time for a wedding. End of story. Right?

  Wrong. Today he knew it wasn’t anywhere near the end of the story, or the beginning of it, either. He’d pretty much figured out that Charly’s story must have begun a long time ago, right here in this town, and that maybe it was about to end where it had started. And maybe that was what it was supposed to do, all along-like completing a circle. He didn’t know yet what the woman’s story was, or what it was going to take for her to complete that circle, or why it was important to him that she not have to do it alone. He just knew that all of a sudden it was.

  Yesterday Charly Phelps had been a name, a general description, somebody he’d heard about. Today she was a woman he’d slept with. Which, oddly enough, had nothing to do with the fact that she was also becoming somebody he cared about.

  That thought was unsettling enough to demand some sort of action, so he gave Bubba’s leash a tug and said, “What do you think, ol’ man? Checked out all the local action?”

  Bubba gave the tree he was investigating one last snuffle, lifted his leg, then ambled on over and wallowed in between Troy and Ch
arly as proudly as if he owned them both, thumping them each a couple of times with his tail.

  Troy said, “Heel, Bubba,” without much hope, then turned to Charly. “How ’bout you? What’s next on your agenda?”

  She lifted one arm and combed her hair back from her face with her fingers, closed her eyes and breathed, “My suitcases. Please.”

  They’d started back toward the car, Bubba “heeling” so well Troy tripped over him. While he was untangling himself, he looked over at Charly and said, “You sure? I’d thought you’d be wantin’ your purse first thing.”

  She gave one of her little signature snorts, and he saw the corner of her mouth go up in that way she had that wasn’t really a smile. “Oh, I do. I just think I’d like to look a little more presentable, is all.”

  “Whaddaya mean, presentable?” He nudged her and grinned. “Woman, are you malignin’ my wardrobe? You look fine to me.” He thought she looked more than fine-damn cute, in fact-in one of his V-necked T-shirts, which she was wearing tucked into her own gray slacks and without any evidence of a bra that he could see. She’d looked even cuter earlier this morning, wearing the shirt with just his boxers, but he’d had to concede that the outfit probably wasn’t appropriate for running errands in a small Southern town.

  He also didn’t see anything wrong with her hair, which she’d washed in the shower, she’d told him, using one of those little bars of soap for shampoo. She’d been complaining about it ever since, something about it not having “body,” which he’d heard women moan and groan about before and still didn’t get. It looked great to him, sleek and shiny as a crow’s wing, with a slippery look that made him want to touch it. And not just with his fingers. She had great hair, thick and mostly straight but cleverly cut in a way that made it bend and curve and lie just right around her face and neck. Probably cost her a pretty penny, too, if he knew anything at all about women’s upkeep. But worth it. Definitely.

  As for makeup, well…like most men, he wasn’t real observant about things like that. He supposed, if she looked close enough, she could probably find all those flaws women worry about and like to fix, cover up or improve on. But as for him, he was more apt to notice what was in a woman’s eyes than painted on them. And a lot more interested in what came out of her mouth, and the way it moved, the way her lips curved and quivered and pouted, than he was in what color lipstick they were wearing. But that was just him…