Talk of the Town

by Mary Kay McComas

  You see, Rosemary Wickum knew the truth about herself. She was a single. She had no match, no mate, no soul companion. It wasn't the life she would have chosen, but it was the life she got, and she'd accepted the fact that no one would stay in her life forever. Especially if she loved them.

  Nobody stayed. Not her mother. Not her father. Not Harley's father. She'd grown up alone. Raised her child alone. It seemed logical and fitting that she grow old alone.

  That was probably why she loved Earl so much, even if he was an old poop. And why she cherished every battle, every joke, every hug she shared with Harley. The time they were giving her to love them was a gift, and when they were gone all she would have were the memories.

  Gary slipped neatly into that niche as well. She was falling hard and deeply in love with him, but he wouldn't stay. Why would he? Earl stayed because she was living in his house and he couldn't get away from her. She was also a convenience. Harley stayed because she was his mother and for a while yet he needed her. But she hadn't been enough to keep her father from drinking himself to death, hadn't been a good enough reason for her mother to live, hadn't had whatever it would have taken to get Harley's father to marry her. . . . Why would Gary stay?

  She was only average height with unruly red hair, and she probably wasn't as strong as Earl said. She had no college education, lived in a gas station, worked in a diner, and dreamed of turning scrap metal into something beautiful. It wasn't a bad life overall. However, upon close scrutiny there wasn't much in her life that would induce a man, particularly one as energetic as Gary, to stick around.

  No, her time with Gary was a gift. Maybe something she'd earned after so many years of being alone. An oasis in her journey across life's desert. Whatever. She wasn't going to meddle with it or question it or measure how long it was. It was enough, more than enough, more than she'd expected to be in love again, to feel silly and happy and young. It was a gift.

  ~*~

  It wasn't long before the announced sightings of Rose and Gary walking hand in hand on the beach were as old and predictable as rain in the weather forecast. The townspeople encouraged the two of them to play catch in the street—they were both a little out of shape after the winter. They smiled when they saw Gary and Harley talking and shadowboxing as they walked to the Safeway on some errand for Rose.

  Of course, it was Gladys Ford's job to keep an eye on the comings and goings of Gary's pickup truck. She lived in the small upstairs apartment over her daughter's shop: Betty's Boutique, Hair and Nails, Open Tuesday thru Saturday, 8 to 4:30.

  "Lands alive, they were doin' some heavy-duty window steamin' in the truck last night," Gladys told Betty first thing when she came up the stairs to check on her mother that morning. "He still ain't staying though. Can't figure it out. Nice, good-lookin', healthy boy like that. . . . Don't know what little Rosie's thinkin', leadin' him on. Lord knows she wasn't playin' hard to get when she got young Harley-boy. Sat in the truck awhile after she went in last night. Must be painin' him some to leave her every night."

  "Mama," Betty said, turning red faced.

  "Aw, there ya go, Miss Priss. A man's got feelin's, too, ya know. 'Member, I told ya that's how I got my first clothes-washin' machine from your daddy. Didn't touch him for a whole two weeks and presto! There it was all bright and shiny and new come Saturday mornin'." She laughed and slapped the arm of her wheelchair with her hand a couple of times.

  "I don't think Rose needs a new washer, Mama. I think she's being careful this time. Do you want your hair washed this morning?"

  "Careful? Careful of what?"

  "Of her feelings," the divorced mother of two said, preparing to wash her mother's hair. "Of making another mistake."

  "Hell's afire," Gladys muttered. "The whole town can see they're made for each other. Rosie and her garbageman. Be a shame if she let him get away. Maybe I should have a talk with her."

  "Mama, don't you dare start yelling out your window at her again. She'll make up her own mind."

  "Well, she better hurry up about it. Use the other stuff that doesn't smell like dandelions, honey girl. That boy's goin' to pop wide open if he doesn't get some lovin' soon."

  ~*~

  "A picnic?"

  "Yeah. A picnic. With a blanket and food and ants. Flies and bees, too, maybe. Out in the middle of nowhere. No phones. No traffic. No binoculars. No crazy old ladies hanging out their windows screaming 'Go for it' at us. We need to get away."

  "You're just now coming to this conclusion?" she asked, yawning. She stretched her naked body long and tight under the bed sheet that covered them. She felt his hand move down her taut abdomen to her thighs and up again, his palm flat in the valley between her breasts. She covered his hand with hers, moved it slightly to the left, above her heart, so he could feel the way he made it race. "I can see college did you a lot of good."

  "At least now I know how my biology experiments felt under the microscope," he mumbled into the pillow beside her ear, his thumb strumming her nipple, slow and lazy. "Who's the guy who runs the convenience store again? I keep forgetting his name."

  "Bobby Roberts?"

  "Mmm. I stopped to get a newspaper yesterday and he tried to sell me a Playboy.” Her laugh came out like a snort through her nose. "Can you believe that? He came right out and told me that sometimes he uses them to get his motor started. Said it was nothing I should be ashamed of. . . . Stop laughing. This is getting to be embarrassing. I'm serious. Stop it."

  Of course, the more serious he got, the harder she giggled. His scowl brought tears to her eyes, and when he turned his back on her, she rolled over and screamed helplessly into the pillow.

  Actually, she was very proud of her partner in crime. For weeks now they'd been having hot, wild, passionate sex and making sweet, tender love under the noses of everyone in Redgrove, and no one knew it but them. A real live secret. No small accomplishment.

  He would come to her in the morning or in the early afternoon when Harley was at school and Earl, with his keen and mute perception, had disappeared for the day. He'd attack her like a hungry beast or torture her long and sweet before he took her, and then they'd dress and walk on the beach or shower together and swing in the hammock in the backyard, in full view of her neighbors.

  Only God knew what the gossips thought the two of them were doing every day for the hour or two they were closed up in the garage together. She suspected that they all thought sex was strictly a nocturnal activity. More's the pity for them, she thought, flipping onto her back with her hands behind her head.

  From his deep regular respirations she could tell that Gary had dozed off in his snit. She smiled. She wished she had his patience. His wisdom, too.

  Though maybe he wasn't as wise as much as he had good instincts about people. Like a con man. He always knew the right thing to say to people. He knew when to touch them and when to back off. For certain, he could play her like a fiddle at a barn dance, she thought, recalling their first time together. . . .

  ~*~

  He'd invited her to take an afternoon drive with him and she'd accepted. It was a bright sunny morning, but as they drove the highway south toward Eureka, the wind picked up and dark clouds rolled in from the west. They turned off the asphalt before they got there, onto the unpaved road through Myrtletowne and Freshwater. And lo and behold, they weren't too far from where he was living! Big surprise. Would she like to see the place?

  They were dancing around the fire like a couple of cowardly fire walkers, performing all the right rituals and intoning all the ancient chants, slow and meticulous, knowing all the while that eventually, inevitably, they were going to have to step on those hot coals.

  She couldn't believe how nervous she was, walking up the wide set of steps to the front porch of the old farmhouse. It wasn't as if she hadn't done it before, or wasn't expecting it or didn't want to have sex with him. Frankly, she was on the verge of losing -what little sanity she had left to an undeniable craving that needed to be satisfied s
oon.

  She stuffed her trembling hands into the bend of each elbow crossing her arms in front of her, and gave serious consideration to the view.

  "It's pretty out here," she said, listening to the overgrown grass in the fields surrounding the house, rustling in the wind. "I can still smell the ocean."

  "It's in the wind," he said, standing behind her. Too close behind her. She couldn't actually feel him, but he was close enough to invade that invisible personal space around her body and send her senses into a supersensitive red alert. "It's almost thirty miles straight off that way," he said, pointing west. "At night I think I can hear it sometimes. The old man I bought it from said his mother picked this site special. He said his father was a fisherman and his mother used to have nightmares about him dying at sea. She'd go to the window a thousand times a day to look out at the sea for him, waiting for him to come home every night. For years she did this. Then one winter she decided she couldn't live beside the ocean anymore. She wanted to move inland. She pestered her husband and pestered him, the way women do . . ." He chuckled when Rose glowered over her shoulder at him. ". . . until finally he gave in, on one condition."

  "There's always a condition."

  "She could build her new house anywhere she wanted, so long as he could still smell the ocean from the front porch," He turned to rest against the porch railing, facing her. "So, she started sniffing on the beach—"

  "Oh, stop," she broke in, seeing that it was another of his elaborate and very stupid jokes. "I'm not going to believe another word you say."

  He tried to look hurt.

  "I swear, the old man told me his mother started sniffing the air on the beach just north of Humboldt Bay and started walking east. She had the front door built exactly one foot from the last place she could smell the ocean."

  "I don't believe you," she said, refusing to laugh, though she knew her lips were twitching.

  "Go stand over by the door and sniff," he said in earnest.

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Because if I go over there and start sniffing around, you'll have some asinine punch line, and I'll look like an idiot again. No thank you."

  "I swear I'm telling the truth."

  "Swear all you want."

  "I don't lie, Rose."

  "Gary," she said, placing her palms on his chest. "If I go over there and sniff and get a nose full of ocean, and you—"

  "I won't. Trust me."

  "Trust you?"

  "Trust me," he said.

  Even as she took the first step backward, she felt sure she'd fall through a rotten spot in the porch or walk smack into the brunt of this week's ha-ha. Still, there was something in his eyes and in the set of his firm jaw that insisted that she trust him this time. It was important to him that she could trust him, blindly.

  Her hands behind her, feeling the way, she backed up slowly, her eyes never wavering from his. She felt the screen door with her fingertips and pressed her back to the weathered siding. He was waiting for her to inhale, and she was putting it off, wondering how disappointed she'd be if it was a joke after all.

  Finally she drew in a lungful of air through her nose. She did it again, her olfactory nerve finely honed to kelp and salt. Nothing. She could smell the grass and the distinctive scent of moist forest soil, but no … then there it was, the ocean. Her gaze met his across the porch with instant recognition.

  He crossed the porch to her, knuckling her chin to tip her face up to his.

  "Was that so terrible?" he asked, his voice light enough to be carried on the tail of an ocean breeze. "Was it so hard to trust me?"

  "It was too easy," she said.

  His smile was small but pleased, touched even.

  "I don't lie, Rose. And I don't want to hurt you," he said. His words were so plain and direct, they reminded her of that part of the Declaration that goes 'We hold these truths to be self-evident. . . .' And they were. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in the marrow of her bones.

  "I know," she said.

  His stroke of appreciation for her faith came as a tender, loving cupping of her cheek in the palm of his hand. She pressed against it. Her heart felt safe there – in the gentle palm of his hand.

  "Would you like to see the inside of the house?" he asked, though they both knew that wasn't really what he was asking. If she chose to go in with him, they'd end up in bed. It was understood by them both.

  "Yes. I'd love to."

  He unlocked the door, and she followed him inside.

  "Wow. You weren't kidding when you said it was a bed and a roof," she said, her voice echoing through the empty old farmhouse. She could smell old dust covered with a hint of lemon.

  "This is the living room," he said, leading her around the first floor from one empty room to the next —still part of the fire-walker ceremony, she supposed.

  All in all, it wasn't a bad house, she decided, letting her mind sneak away from the thoughts of what awaited them on the next floor. There were big windows in every room, showing the mountains to the east and rolling fields in all the other directions. For an empty house, it wasn't at all gloomy. The hardier rays of sunshine still pushing through the clouds, filled the recently wallpapered rooms' and reflected off the shiny hardwood floors. And despite the fact that she could smell it, there wasn't any dust anywhere. Not the windowsills, the barren built-in bookshelves, or the floors.

  The answer to that came soon enough—in the kitchen, where they found half a sinkful of cold soapy water and a broom resting over a pile of lint and dirt.

  "Aw, damn," Gary muttered, flicking the stopper from the sink to let it drain while he searched for the dustpan. "I did a little cleaning this morning," he said, surprising her with his sudden fluster. He found the pan and quickly swept up the dust. "I wanted it to look nice. I mean, well, it's not a real home or anything, but I didn't want it to look like a . . . a . . ."

  "A what?"

  "A cheap motel," he said, making the words sound like an admission of guilt. They tore at Rose's heart. Who but Gary would have worried about such a thing? He always went out of his way to make everything they did together seem like something special.

  She smiled. "I love these big old kitchens," she said, returning to the rite to ease his discomfort, though it did little for hers. She was growing weary of the dance and was eager to get to the main event.

  "The old man said he spent the greater part of his life sitting at a big old maple drop-leaf table that sat over there," he said, nodding with his head. "His mother purposely put the kitchen at the back of the house so she wouldn't have to spend her days watching the road out front." "How did her husband die?" She turned to move on to the next room. "Old age, I hope."

  "He said that a year after they finished this house, to the day, his father died in a boating accident at sea."

  She turned abruptly to see if he was pulling her leg again, and he caught her in his arms.

  "Is that true?" she asked, overwhelmed by the awareness of his hands on her upper arms, of his mouth only inches away, of the quickening in his eyes.

  "Would I lie to you?" She had the suspicion that if a prank were involved, he wouldn't hesitate. But then again, he'd just told her he wouldn't lie to her. When he could see that she was beginning to believe the story, he smiled. "It's hard to find a house with a story these days. That's one of the reasons I bought this one."

  "One of the reasons?" she asked, turning to walk on, thinking it best not to stand too close to him for too long or they'd never make it to the second floor. "Are you planning to live here someday?"

  "No. I needed a tax write-off." Whimsical, yet practical. A good definition of a Gary Albright, she thought. "See here," he said, taking two stairs at a time twice and bending low to point out a piece of wainscoting. "The old guy's name was Gabriel Peters." Deep in the woodwork, under a clean coat of white paint, were carved the initials GP. "There's ten of them. Every other step. One for each kid. He said his mother used to make them sit on
their step when they were in trouble." He moved up several more stairs. "This poor guy's name was Pauly. Seems his brothers and sisters had a grand time with his initials. This one was Mary. MP. They called her Copper for fun. Like cops. Policemen?" he said when Rose didn't seem to understand.

  "I got it," she said, still looking at him oddly. "I can't believe you remember all this stuff. All the names."

  He grinned. "I told you. I like a good story. And why buy a house with a story if you can't remember it?"

  "You like people, too, don't you?"

  "I do," he said, walking up a few more stairs to the top. "I'm not too crazy about the way they handle their garbage, but for the most part I think they're pretty interesting." He waved an arm around in a vague gesture. "There are four bedrooms up here and two more on the third floor under the attic. I figure they had two kids to a room, the older boys upstairs, the girls and younger children down here . . . and the master bedroom," he said, stepping over to the first door on the right and pushing it open.

  He moved to one side to let her enter. There was a big oak bed on the far wall with thick round bedposts at each corner, covered with a thick quilt with a blue and gold geometric pattern. There was a nightstand and a chest of drawers of the same wood and design. A lamp. No curtains. And the closet door was closed. It could have been a motel room. Until she spied a dog-eared copy of The Firm on the bedside table. It was his.

  "You're pretty tidy for a man," she said, feeling she'd understated an anal-compulsive need for sterility. There were no pictures on the walls, no dirty socks, no crumpled newspapers, no aftershave on top of the dresser. Nothing but the book on the nightstand to show that someone lived there. It was still more the Peterses' house than Gary's.