West of You
Page 15
As the tears poured, I felt submerged unable to climb out of the deepest well. Cash’s face peered at me like someone on the other side. Me deep underwater, him above it trying to pull me out. But he couldn’t reach me. No one could. I couldn’t reach myself. I floundered, wanting to will my tears into nonexistence. His thumbs wiped more insistently until he gave up and began using his whole hands to try and stop the deluge.
“Baby doll, what’s wrong? What did I do?”
He held my face firmly between his large hands.
“How do I make it better?”
I felt his arms on my legs, his body nestled between my thighs. I concentrated on the familiarity of his closeness. Another time and place. The tears stopped. My eyes were swollen but dry. Exhaustion swept me into its arms and I wanted to rest until I was young again.
“Are you okay? You worried me.”
I nodded and while it was nice to have someone worry about me again, I longed for the world to disappear. If this was a movie and the screenwriter didn’t want the hero and the heroine to get together, they’d likely fade to the next scene. I wished for such luxuries but Cash didn’t appear to be going anywhere. He brushed a wet wisp of hair away from my cheek and tucked it behind my ear.
“What was that about?” he asked.
We had been here so many times before. My tears were a familiar site to him, albeit one from long ago. I shrugged, still wanting it all to go away.
“I think maybe there’s a reason you came here. Want to tell me what that was.”
I couldn’t think of one but he’s right. I didn’t have to take this route.
“I didn’t have any money for a hotel.” I offered.
He nodded.
“That’s it?”
“That’s all I’m willing to admit.”
I smile as coquettishly as possible wondering if there was any graceful way to rub away the snot from my nose without him noticing. It might’ve been dark enough.
“Why haven’t you read her diary? You seem so sure she did this on purpose and yet you don’t know why. You could have the answer in your car.”
“I tried reading it but a lot of it doesn’t make sense. I mean it does. It’s not like words that don’t make a sentence but it’s little things and quotes and lyrics. And I can’t tell what is hers and what she has piled together. It’s like those Friday-night dance parties where they mash together two songs and you’re not sure where one begins and one ends. And if you haven’t heard either, you don’t even know it’s multiple songs.”
He nods as I sniff hoping the snot will magically crawl back in before someone flicks on a light and he’s reminded of some creature from Alien, all slime and no sex appeal.
“Let’s get the book. Maybe it will make sense to both of us.” He moved to get up and I placed a hand on his thigh knowing it would stop any further motion on his part.
“I don’t want you to read the last page. Promise you won’t.” I begged.
“Why?”
“Just promise.”
“I can’t. That’s exactly where I would start. Did she write the day she died?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And nothing. There’s nothing there.”
“You just said she wrote something.”
“She did but it doesn’t make sense.”
The tears burned hot again behind my eyelids, a second tsunami waiting to be unleashed.
“Tell me.”
“It’s just song lyrics. The last entry.”
“Okay. Did the song have any significance?”
“To anyone who grew up in the 80s.”
“And?”
“Every now and then I fall apart.” I said trying to fight back the urge to sing it.
“Once upon a time...Total Eclipse of the Heart?”
I nodded but conveniently left out the earlier passage where she had sketched an uncanny comic of me lamenting my first-world problems surrounding Walsey. That stung brutally mostly because she was right. A guy being interested in you is not a problem...generally. And I probably did go on too long that day but she didn’t have to roast me in sketch.
“Do you want me to get it?”
“If that’s all it says, I guess you don’t have to.”
He slumped farther down on the hay bail. I guess he really thought we’d find the answers that easily or maybe he just wanted to prove me wrong. He was always competitive like that.
I got up slow enough that he could catch up to me if he wanted. And Cash did not disappoint. As we rounded the corner of the barn, he grabbed my hand from behind and pulled me into him in something as smooth as any professional on Dancing with the Stars. For a moment the alarm in my head sounded an alert but as his soft lips met mine, they barely lingered. It felt more like a good-bye kiss than a passionate embrace.
I longed to press my body tightly into his chest and feel his arms make the world disappear as they closed around me. I wanted to breathe in his earthy smell and find that spot on his neck that drive him wild. I forgot who we were now and I remembered only who we were then before mortgages and car payments.
But there was something in his barely-there kiss that reeked of hesitancy like when you’re trying soup that you’re not sure of the temperature of it. But maybe the hesitancy wasn’t a lack of passion but a reaction to the screaming.
The screaming and accusations that interrupted his fingers intertwining with my own.
“I can see you cheating on me. God knows I’ve heard enough stories about you and dealt with enough girls, but with her?”
She pointed accusingly.
“With her? Are you kidding me?” she reiterated as if we hadn’t heard it the first time.
She wasn’t sobbing like you might imagine an almost wife might in that situation. She simply gazed at me, lip curled, illuminated a sickly color by the bright light of the farm fixture. He was no longer in her vision. Cash grabbed her arm and tried to lead her away but she wouldn’t move. She was not the type of woman you could budge if she didn’t want you to.
She moved closer to me and he got in between us.
“Jax, this is between you and me.”
She sidestepped him and addressed me.
“I am not his buddy. I am his wife.”
“Well…” I started to correct her and then thought better of it when I saw her face light up in anger.
“And we have children together.” She had marked her territory with shared DNA.
I had been on both sides of the aisle on this one and neither felt good but I expected the “dirty whore” role to feel worse. But honestly, all I felt was justification. Like a child who leaves her toy in the sandbox only to retrieve it later when someone else is playing with it. Her current claim didn’t matter to me. I was sad and then I wasn’t.
Even as she lectured me, I was thinking about the strangeness of his kiss. I didn’t remember him being a tender kisser. He had raged like a storm, his mouth possessing a hunger that nothing seemed to satisfy. This kiss contained all the passion of trying something on. It was tentative and unsure.
Her words washed over me like waves, the soft irritating kind that filled your ears with salt water but didn’t bury you. I watched as Cash tried to nudge, pull, yell, and finally fling her over his shoulder to get her away from me but none of it mattered. I was still the lonely girl standing below a light that cast eerie shadows on everything in its path.
I turned and even the horse had been engulfed in darkness on the other side of the barn light. I wasn’t sure if I should leave. It was just a kiss and not one that was planned.
Maybe M had witnessed something just as innocent. And it drove her crazy with jealousy. Then again, maybe she had been the one who had cheated and couldn’t bear to look at St. Luke.
I walked over to my car confused by this night. Had I come here for this? Is this what I wanted? Did I want to get him into trouble and feel what it was like to be on the other side?
It was probabl
y best that I leave but as I walked to my car I found myself sitting on the front bumper instead of getting behind the wheel. I knew it was probably best to leave as I could hear her screaming from the house even with the windows closed.
The hood of my car was still warm, the summer sun and warm night had ensured it wouldn’t cool down for a while and the comfort of the warmth prolonged my stay. Leaving would’ve been a decision and I just couldn’t bring myself to make one. So I sat alone on the hood of my car hoping M could give me some advice.
But as much as I willed her into a Doctor Phil role, she continued to leave me on my own. Counting out the things she’d never feel again.
✽✽✽
#376. (I was now making numbers up because I could no longer remember where I was.) M would never feel guilty again about making a bad decision.
#377. She’d never wonder how life had gotten so different from what she thought it would be.
#378. She would never wonder how others saw her and if being in her mid-40s made her old.
#379. And if she really was as old as her license said or if somehow she had escaped aging like some Hollywood starlet who had married a plastic surgeon.
✽✽✽
Where had the years gone? Why did they feel so fleeting and yet you could still feel so tired by having lived through all of it. When would it start to make sense and when would we become the confident adults of our parent’s generation. They may not have always been right but they knew what to do. Where were we when that got handed out?
When Tom walked up I felt 16 and in trouble with the parental units for staying out past curfew and making out in the backseat of a car.
“Can I join you?” he asked.
I nodded wishing I could disappear. He sat down and I prepared for the “I’m disappointed in you lecture.
“Well...you sure do know how to cause a ruckus. Belle would say, it’s the Yankee in you.”
I nod again.
“Jax wants you dead.”
More nodding. I felt like a bobblehead doll.
“Belle wants to hold a parade in your honor. But of course she can’t say that. So she sent me out here with these biscuits. Which is really better than some steamy parade in southern Alabama anyways.”
He handed me the bag. The bottom was warm.
“Thanks Tom. I’m sorry.”
I wanted to be sorry and knew I should be. That’s why I said it. But I felt nothing. Is this how Mike felt when he cheated on me?
“We’re in a bit of a pickle, you understand. This is Jax’s home until Cash says otherwise and we can’t really have you sharin’ it with her in the mood she’s in. But I don’t want to turn you out on the street if you’re tired either.”
“That’s nice of you but I’ll be okay.”
I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to be or not.
“You know our only daughter died real young when Cash was just in diapers. I couldn’t imagine sending her away in the middle of the night.”
“It’s not that late.”
“I’m gonna get you a room in town but you have to give me your word you’ll be gone tomorrow morning. I don’t like Jax but I don’t want the boys to suffer from all this. I know if you stay, and Cash knows you’re here, he’ll be knockin’ on your door and that won’t be good for anyone.”
“He was just comforting me tonight.”
But there was no way to make what we had done sound noble. I couldn’t really say what he had been doing. There was so much hesitation in his kiss I wasn’t sure if maybe I had imagined that he pulled me into him. Maybe I had turned around too quickly and he had never intended any of that to happen.
“Is that what you call it?”
“I’m sorry, Tom.” I mumbled.
He laughed and patted me on the back.
“Cash always had a weakness for you and I think it’s because you loved him warts and all. He didn’t have to be charmin’ with you. He could just be himself. He told Jax tonight that he was sorry she had to see it but was not sorry it happened. He said kissin’ you was one of his favorite things in life and you were one of his favorite people. I imagine they’re done but I’ve seen her take him back before.”
“Well, your son is very beguiling.”
“Ha, he gets that from his mama. Sadly, he gets his lack of restraint from me, I’m afraid. Pretty bad combo.”
We laughed together in a Hallmark Channel movie moment but with a whole lot more embarrassment.
“What do you want to do? Want me to call a place for you?”
We got up and walked around to the side of my car. I heard Jax screaming and a door slam. When we got to my car I told Tom to apologize to Belle for me and to take care of her.
“No apologies necessary although I wish the kids didn’t need to see their mom and dad like this.”
I nodded for the first moment feeling truly penitent.
“When Belle heard you was comin’ she told me there was no way her boy wasn’t gonna fall madly back in love with you. I think she’s been hoping for it all day.”
He opened the door for me and I gently placed the biscuits next to M. When I turned around to say goodbye to Tom Cash was at my car door and Tom was behind him.
“I’m sorry” was all I could think to say but I wasn’t sorry about any of it other than the kids hearing the argument.
Cash shut the door and leaned in through the window. His mouth so close I could feel the heat from his lips.
“How long has it been?” he asked and I shrugged.
I watched Tom walk toward the house shaking his head. It seemed so strange for parents to be happy I kissed their almost married son.
“How long has what been?”
I pretended to be clueless, a trait that was not hard for me. His closeness was tantalizing and embarrassing at the same time. I wondered if I smelled of biscuit, not that this was a bad thing for a southern boy, or any boy for that matter.
“Invite me to the wedding.” I teased.
“Oh, that’s rich Sara. There’s not gonna be a wedding. I’ve made sure...”
He stopped mid sentence realizing what he had just said.
“That’s not why I kissed you.” he fumbled.
“Sounds like it.”
I turned and faced ahead. That explained his hesitancy. It had all been a show. He wasn’t incapable of hiding his need for me. He wanted out and hadn’t been sure how to do that on his own. As usual, I was the unwitting foil in Cash’s grand performance.
“Where are you going right now?” he asked.
“Why does it matter?”
“I want to come. Let’s go somewhere together. I want to be with you.”
But his words sounded empty like he was saying them to convince himself. He reached in the window like he wanted to stroke my cheek and I turned my face from him. I turned the key in the ignition and I willed myself not to cry in front of him.
“I didn’t think you were going to fall madly in love with me and want to go drop M off in the Pacific Ocean but I did think back at the barn was about something more than just not having the balls to tell Jax you wanted out.” I blurted through an impending storm of tears.
“It was. I promise.”
“Everyone used to tell me how well I knew you and yet twenty some odd years later and I’m still falling for your same stupid tricks. What is wrong with me?”
I took my frustrations out on the steering wheel, battering it, because it was a very stupid steering wheel, just like me.
“Baby doll, that’s not what this was.”
“You just said it, Cash. It hadn’t even occurred to me but now it’s so obvious. I’m the perfect player too because I can be gone quickly. Not like some townie that Jax would end up boiling her bunny or you would run the risk of getting beaten up by her old man.”
“Oh God.” I muttered under my breath frustrated that I thought he could still think I was hot after all of this time.
“Back away.” I ordered.
He hung on my door.
“Nope. It’s important to me that you know that there is something special between us.”
“I will run over your feet. You overestimate my driving ability.”
He smiled a sweet grin lit up by the front porch lights that just came on.
“I have never overestimated your driving ability. I am well aware of the peril my feet are in.”
He leaned in and pressed his full lips against my neck. They parted slightly and I wrestled with the anger I had in playing his desired role. But it evaporated as the familiar river of pleasure and memories washed over me. He pulled away, placed a hand under my chin and turned my face towards his.
“Did that feel fake?”
This is the part where I’d tell my daughter I flung open the car door and hit him so hard he won’t father any more children. But I couldn’t.
Instead, I said the only thing I knew to be true, “It always feels real, Cash. That’s the problem.”
I pushed him out of the window and rolled it up before I could ask him to do it again. He backed away from the car, his eyes wide, and his mouth slightly parted. As I pulled away I thought I saw him mouth the words, “I’m sorry” but I can’t be sure because there’s very little Cash ever felt sorry about.
I slept along a back road, where enough weeds had grown that I was confident it would hide my car from the road, the sheriff, and any marauders that may happen by. I just hoped the kudzu wouldn’t claim my car before morning. I filled up on biscuits and asked M why everyone else was married, or almost so.
Apparently my car wasn’t as well hidden as I had imagined. Early the next morning, a few quick taps against my car window pulled me from my dream of Walsey and Mike arm wrestling. Even the sheriff who woke me was wearing a tight gold band strangling his finger.
After I pulled away as he watched, I kept thinking about how the gold seemed to cut into his finger. He couldn’t remove that if he wanted to. To do so would involve elective surgery or at least a shit-ton of butter.