As Steve drove them to the club, Brenda stared blankly out the window. Her thoughts went around and around, and she began to feel that someone was stirring her brains like a bowl of brownie batter. Steve is my husband, the refrain went. I don’t love him. He doesn’t love me. I can’t divorce him. I don’t want to leave him. But I can’t live with him. I love Nick. I don’t know Nick, so I can’t possibly love him. I would be miserable with Nick. But Nick cares about me. I betrayed Steve. God hates me. I hate God. I hate Nick. I hate Steve. I hate myself. Over and over, the whispered words ran circles through her mind, until the car pulled into the parking lot of the club.
Now Steve was waving to a woman who sat near a window that looked out onto Lake of the Ozarks. In a daze, Brenda stepped up to the table. The woman, a frosted blonde in her early sixties, held out a hand tipped with manicured nails. She wore a designer suit in coral knit, two ropes of pearls at her neck, and a bracelet watch covered with diamonds. Her smile of perfectly veneered teeth was polite but hardly warm.
“My goodness, Steve!” she exclaimed as she shook Brenda’s hand. “This is an unexpected surprise. How nice to meet you, dear. Mrs. Hansen, I want to tell you that your husband treats me like a queen. I wouldn’t work with any other real-estate agent at the lake. You must be so proud of him.”
“Yes,” Brenda mouthed.
As they seated themselves, a server emerged from the shadows. It was Ashley Hanes. She handed out menus and recited the specials for the evening. And then she focused on her customers.
“Mrs. Hansen!” she gasped. “What are you doing here? I mean…wow, are you all right?”
“Brenda’s not feeling too well tonight,” Steve spoke up. “Do you have any hot tea?”
“Sure. I’ll bring some right out.”
Embarrassed, yet at the same time oddly apathetic, Brenda leaned back in her chair while Steve and Jackie Patterson chatted. Jackie, as it turned out, was not after Steve’s heart. Brenda saw that at once. The woman had been dating some man in St. Louis whom she mentioned as regularly as if they were married. And she certainly wasn’t flirting now—a demeanor Brenda had learned to recognize in about fourth grade.
But Jackie Patterson was on a mission. She spoke with great animation and fervor, punctuating her speech with a firm tap on the back of Steve’s hand or an index finger jabbing the table. Brenda found it difficult to listen to the woman. Instead she thought about Cody and how he would wake up on the porch swing and wonder where she had gone. She thought about Nick, his single-wide trailer, his son Leland, and his meth-making wife.
“Nelda had some problems, and so did I,” Nick had told Brenda. “We got to where we couldn’t work things out.” She wondered about those words as she stirred milk and sugar into the tea Ashley had poured. What had been Nick’s problems? Ashley once hinted that Nick had “popped” his wife. Could that be true? Was there a violent man hiding behind the kind words and gentle craftsmanship that Brenda had believed characterized Nick?
She recalled the strength with which he had pulled her into his arms. And the way he had faced off with Cody. And then she remembered how his fingers had clamped onto her arm after she’d paid him and asked him to go. Nick had refused to leave the house. He told her he wouldn’t go without her. He insisted that she wanted him as much as he wanted her, and then he shook her when she denied him. He shook her…and it hurt…so maybe he was the kind of man who would “pop” his wife.
“I’m going to the restroom,” Brenda said, suddenly realizing she felt sick to her stomach. “Excuse me.”
She grabbed her purse and made it to the ladies’ room without stumbling over her own feet or tripping on a chair leg. Feeling ill and stupid and hopeless, she pulled the stall door shut and sat down on the closed lid of a toilet. She put her head in her hands and stared down at the tile pattern swimming dizzily on the floor.
Where could she go to escape everything? How could she fix this? How could any of it be made right? The tears started again, and she could think of no way to make them stop.
“Hey, Mrs. Hansen?” Ashley’s voice echoed in the bathroom. “Are you in here? Steve’s worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” Brenda pressed her damp, swollen eyelids shut with her fingers. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“You look really awful,” Ashley said. “I can’t believe Steve brought you here tonight. You ought to be in bed, and he should have stayed home with you. You need some chicken soup, not dinner at the club. For pete’s sake, men are so stupid sometimes.”
“I guess he wanted me to come,” Brenda said, wiping her eyes with toilet paper. Swallowing at the lump in her throat, she stood, smoothed down her dress, and stepped out of the stall.
Ashley’s face registered shock. “You’ve got mascara all over your cheeks!” she exclaimed. “You’ve been crying. Oh, my word. We’ve got to get you cleaned up and taken home.”
“No, I…I have to be here.”
“For what? Jacqueline Patterson? All that woman cares about is pushing Steve into joining her big scheme.”
“What?” Brenda muttered. “What scheme?”
“She’s got more money than you can shake a stick at, and she wants to buy up a bunch of lake property and get Steve to manage it for her. He doesn’t have time for that, not with his agency doing fine as it is.”
Brenda stared at Ashley, trying to comprehend the younger woman’s words. “Steve is in trouble?” she asked.
Ashley pursed her lips together. Then she leaned over near Brenda’s ear and spoke in a low voice. “Well, let’s just say Mrs. Patterson has been coming to the country club for years, even while her husband was around and their kids were younger, and she always treated the serving staff like the scum at the bottom of the bucket. She’s not friendly the way lake people usually are. Sure, it might be all right for Steve to buy a rental house or two, but not if it means getting tangled in that woman’s scheme.”
For the first time in days…maybe weeks…Brenda suddenly saw a view of the world outside herself. And what she saw was Steve Hansen. She saw two things about Steve: First, she had long ago stopped feeling proud and supportive of a man others admired. And second, if he wasn’t careful, Steve might become involved in something dangerous. Something that might cost both of them a great deal of money, effort, energy…and time. More time than ever.
“Here, we’ll have to use soap,” Ashley said, dabbing at Brenda’s cheeks with a wet paper towel. “You really are a mess. I’m sorry to keep saying it, but I’ve never seen you look like this. Are you sick, or what?”
Brenda followed the flickering brown eyes of the younger woman, who was doing her best to sponge away smudged mascara and streaked blush. How could Brenda explain something she didn’t really understand herself? Could she admit that she had willingly let a man other than Steve hold her? that she had wanted to kiss him? that she had dreamed of abandoning her husband, home, church, even her children’s respect, to have an affair with a handyman she barely knew? She might have done it. All of it. If Cody hadn’t pushed open the basement door, she might have let every moral restraint snap.
“I heard that homeless guy is back,” Ashley said as she lined Brenda’s mouth with a stick of lip gloss she had pulled from her apron pocket. “Is he the one who’s got you so upset?”
“No, but…I don’t know what to do with him.”
“Well, he’s not worth crying about. Take him over to the police station and let them figure it out. Or drop him off on Highway 54 in Osage Beach. It’ll take him the rest of the summer to find you again.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
Ashley stood back and eyed Brenda. “You still don’t look very good, but I have to get back to my tables.”
“Thank you for trying, Ashley.”
The young woman fiddled with the stack of black bead necklaces that took the place of her tuxedo tie. Evidently Ashley had been working at the club long enough to break from the dress code.
“You and I are in t
he club that Mrs. Moore started at Just As I Am,” Ashley reminded Brenda. “The Tea Ladies’ Club. That means you still owe Brad a job building a bridge over your ditch, and I still owe you and Steve dinner. But the main point of the club is to help each other out, right? So here’s the best way I know to help you tonight, Mrs. Hansen. Go out there and tell your husband to take you home now.”
“Call me Brenda, remember?”
“Brenda. Okay. Listen, my buzzer’s gone off three times while I’ve been in here with you. I’d better run.”
Brenda reached out and touched Ashley’s arm. “Thank you,” she said. “You’ve helped me a lot.”
A crooked grin brightened Ashley’s face. “Really? Cool! Okay, see you, Brenda. And don’t forget about that bridge.”
As Ashley hurried out of the bathroom, Brenda turned to gaze at herself in the mirror. She really did look awful. Just the thing to convince Steve to take her straight home.
Patsy Pringle had cleared her schedule for most of the afternoon this Wednesday, and she was looking forward to the arrival of the other members of the Tea Ladies’ Club. She had filled the urn with fresh water and set out a large variety of tea bags. That morning, she had baked a lemon–poppy seed bread for the group. Now she took it out of the foil wrap, sliced it into sweet, moist portions, and arranged them on a cut-glass plate she had inherited from her grandmother.
This would be the fourth meeting of the club, and Patsy had quickly discovered that the gathering of women was the highlight of her week. Each Wednesday they sat in the tea area, sun streaming through the windows, and chatted in cheerful voices while music played softly in the background. Sometimes the recounting of a story sent everyone into gales of laughter, and other times the whole group ended up in tears.
Every Wednesday afternoon without fail, into the salon marched Ashley Hanes and Kim Finley. Esther Moore was never far behind. In fact, she often showed up first. She considered the club her idea, so she told Patsy she felt responsible for making sure everything was set up. The only member who had failed to reappear for tea at Just As I Am was Brenda Hansen.
Patsy hadn’t seen her or heard a peep out of her since the day they had formed the group almost a month ago. This morning on her way to the salon, Patsy had stopped by the Hansen house to leave a little reminder note for Brenda and tell her how much they had missed her. As she stepped onto the porch, the homeless man lifted his head from a pillow on the swing and nearly scared Patsy out of her wits. Once she recovered from the shock of that scarecrow face and ratty hair sticking out in all directions, Patsy asked him about Brenda.
“She makes me sandwiches and soup and chocolate cake,” he had said, proudly displaying a cooler filled to the brim with food. “Brenda is my friend, but she doesn’t talk to me anymore. She says she doesn’t feel like talking and please leave her alone. So I do. I sit on the swing or wash the windows with the garden hose. I like to keep things span. That’s what I used to do for my daddy.”
Patsy hadn’t known what to say after that, so she tucked the note inside the screen door and drove off. But all day she kept thinking about Brenda Hansen, worrying about her and wondering if there was anything she could do. She worried about the homeless man, too. After dredging around in her brain for a while, she finally remembered that his name was Cody. What on earth would happen to Cody when winter came around again? And why would Brenda cook for the fellow but not talk to him? The whole situation was definitely a matter for prayer.
Which is exactly what Patsy was doing this afternoon as she finished spraying her last client’s hairstyle into place and the door opened to admit the main members of the TLC. All except Brenda…once again.
Esther bustled everyone into the tea area and began passing around the basket of colorful tea bags. She chose a central table and moved chairs around so that everyone had a place. Kim and Ashley were caught up in discussing the health of Kim’s son, the twin who seemed to be having more bad days than good lately. Kim and her husband, Derek, had driven Luke to a doctor in Osage Beach, but so far they weren’t sure what was wrong with him. They had been thinking of seeing a specialist in St. Louis.
As the women took their places, Patsy checked out her customer at the cash register and motioned to the other stylists that she would be away from her station for a while. Then she hurried into the tearoom, fixed herself a cup of steaming Darjeeling with plenty of milk and sugar, and took a slice of poppy-seed cake. Her favorite CD by Color of Mercy was playing, and for once she was absolutely certain that Pete Roberts would not interrupt with a leaf blower or chain-saw engine.
As much as Patsy hated to acknowledge anything good about the man, he had done a fantastic job soundproofing the wall between their two stores. Not only that, but he had built the flower boxes, painted them bright yellow, and set them in place on the sidewalk in front of each business in the Tranquility mall. He had asked Patsy if she would consider going to the NASCAR races with him some afternoon, and lo and behold if she hadn’t said yes.
“I have a subject to discuss,” Esther Moore began when Patsy had seated herself at the table. “I think it’s something we can all pitch in on, and if we intend to give each other tender loving care, it’s the perfect thing to do.”
“Is this about the video store?” Ashley asked. “Because Brad told me to stay out of it. He said this is a free country, and people have a right to do whatever they want as long as it’s not hurting anyone.”
Patsy had a few words she would like to say to Brad Hanes, but she managed to keep her mouth shut on that account. “It’s too late to stop the video store,” she told the women. “I saw the new renter over there a couple of days ago. He was painting and working on the light fixtures. He told me he was just waiting for his shelving systems and his product to come in, and he’d be in business.”
“Product!” Esther said with a snort. “That makes his trash sound like graham crackers or something!”
“I wonder if the school bus will keep dropping kids off here,” Kim mused aloud. “They try to be very careful where they let the children out.”
“I’d like to report that Kim and I have done about all we can think of to keep that business out of Tranquility.” Esther was stirring her tea so energetically that it was slopping over the sides into the saucer. “Ashley, how about you and Brenda? Has she asked Brad to build a bridge over her ditch?”
“Not yet. I told you the last time I saw her was at the club that night when she cried her mascara all down her cheeks and Steve finally just took her home. I’ve thought about knocking on her door when I ride by in my golf cart, but that weird guy is always on her porch. He creeps me out, and Brad doesn’t want me talking to him. I called her once or twice too, to try to reschedule our fried-chicken dinner, but she never answers the phone or returns my calls.”
“That brings me to the point of today’s meeting,” Esther announced. “It’s Brenda Hansen. She’s a founding member of the TLC, remember, and that makes her our responsibility. Something has gotten into that girl, and we need to find out what it is. Not only that, but we’ve got a duty to help her figure out what to do with that hobo on her porch swing. Charlie tells me he’s there night and day, swinging back and forth or eating sandwiches. I hate to say this, but it’s almost like the Hansens have a stray dog hanging around.”
“A stray dog that needs a bath and a good grooming,” Patsy said. “Though I don’t think referring to Cody as a dog is going to help matters. He’s scary to look at, but he seems nice enough. I’ve never heard of any problems he’s caused in the neighborhood—anything missing or broken—have you?”
The other women shook their heads.
Esther squared her shoulders. “Well, I say we go over there right now. We’ll march onto the Hansens’ porch and ring their doorbell until Brenda lets us in. Then we’ll make her tell us what’s wrong, and we’ll fix it.”
Patsy couldn’t help but stare openmouthed. “We can’t just barge into someone else’s house and fix their prob
lems. Maybe what’s going on is none of our business.”
“I’ll say this one more time,” Esther declared. “Brenda is a bona fide member of the TLC, and that makes her our business. There’s trouble at the Hansens’ house, and I believe that, as her friends, we need to find out what it is.”
“Sounds like prying to me,” Kim Finley said. She didn’t often speak up, but when she did, it was worth hearing.
Esther was not inclined to listen. “It’s not prying. Not when you do it because you care about the person. We love Brenda, and as concerned club members, we need to help her.”
“I wouldn’t mind going over there,” Ashley said. “I’ve been really worried. I haven’t seen Brenda in more than a week, and Steve never mentions her at the club.”
“Well, that’s two of us,” Esther said. “Where do you stand, Patsy? Can you leave the salon for a few minutes in order to help a dear friend?”
Patsy knew her schedule had been cleared for the next two hours, but she tended to side with Kim. Bursting into Brenda’s house and demanding to know her problems just didn’t feel right. Over the years, Patsy had learned that if people were troubled, they usually booked an appointment and talked things out while she styled their hair. It wasn’t in her nature to meddle.
“I don’t have any clients for a while,” she began, “but I’m not sure—”
“You’ll understand how important this is when you get there,” Esther assured her. “So, that’s three of us. What about you, Kim? Are you with us?”
Kim glanced out the window. “I’m waiting for the school bus, so I only have an hour. I guess I’d agree to it if we only dropped in for a short visit. Maybe we could ask Brenda if we could help her with Cody.”
“Now that’s more like it,” Patsy said. “Let’s offer to shave that boy and do something about his hair. I’ll take a bag of scissors, shampoo, and such. Then Brenda won’t feel like we’re being nosy.”
It Happens Every Spring Page 19