by Linda Ellen
In a heartbeat, Vic reached in and grabbed the creep’s shirtfront in his fist. The coward’s eyes immediately bugged out in fright. “Listen you scumbag, I don’t need your business, nor theirs’ neither. We’ve got more than enough to keep us busy,” Vic barely got his hand out of the way as the man gunned his motor and sped away, shouting over his shoulder several racial insults.
Vic was livid. Heart pounding like the banging of a bass drum, palms sweating, he took a ragged breath and then turned to his men. Placing a hand on their shoulders, they began to walk together back toward the office.
“My, my, my. I’m sor’y, boss. I…” Duke began, but Vic cut him off.
“You ain’t got anything to be sorry about, Duke. We don’t need his kind,” he countered, with a few insults of his own thrown in the direction of the rude customer.
Floyd said nothing, but the look in his eyes bothered Vic. It was a look of resignation instead of righteous anger, and spoke volumes about hurts and insults from his past. His friend’s expression made Vic’s heart ache.
Suddenly, Duke started cackling that laugh of his. “Well, I’s tell ya what I’sa gonna do. I’s gonna pray fo’ dat man ta get saved, and let de’ Good Lawd spank his be-hind.”
Floyd and Vic burst out laughing.
“You do that, Duke. And I just might join ya – once I get over wantin’ to beat the slimeball’s head in,” Vic added with a chuckle.
*
When Vic arrived home that evening, leaving Floyd and Duke there to close up, he felt the frosty atmosphere as soon as he walked in the front door. His family was seated at the kitchen table, but no one was talking. Unbeknownst to him, Louise had been fussing at everyone before he’d gotten there. Even Jimmy and Buddy were quiet, trying to stay out of range of her radar.
Vic washed his hands at the sink, walked over and sat down, picked up his fork, and took a bite of the chicken and dumplings he scooped onto his plate. Without thinking, he dropped his fork on the table and griped, “This ain’t even warm!”
One comment was all it took.
Like a covered pot that had suddenly reached its boiling point, Louise shot up out of her chair, grabbed his plate, scraped the food back into the bowl, stomped over to the stove, and shoved the concoction back into the pot without even a pause. Then with more force than needed, she twisted the knob on the burner to high, grumbling under her breath something about slaving over a hot stove all day – which of course, she hadn’t, but it felt good to say it, anyway.
Tommy, Jimmy, Buddy, and Lilly all looked at one another, startled and unsure what to do or say, their forks frozen in mid air.
Vic, however, had reached his limit. He’d suffered frustrations all day with missing or wrong parts, the Phillips’ company tanker delivering a short order, and he had smashed his knuckle with a wrench. The incident with the ignorant bigot had been the icing on the cake. Now this.
Muttering a curse word, he swung around in his chair to glare at his wife’s profile as she stood at the stove, too vigorously stirring the food in the pot. He could see her lips were clamped shut. “Louise, what the he…” he paused, fighting valiantly to tamp down his temper. “What is your problem? You’ve been like a cat that got its tail mashed by a rockin’ chair for weeks, and I’ve had just about all I can stan…”
She whirled around, stopping him mid word. “What’s my problem? I’ll tell you what my problem is! My problem is my husband is too busy working and flirting with the neighbor women to bother himself to care about what I need! That’s my problem, Mr. Matthews!”
The collective jaws of everyone else in the room dropped. Lilly pushed back her chair and reached to grasp Jimmy and Buddy by the hands, nearly dragging them up from their seats as she ushered them out of the room and down the hall to the room she shared with Jimmy. Before she could get them inside and get the door shut, the occupants in the kitchen could hear Jimmy’s little voice ask, “What’s wrong with Mama, Grandma?”
Tommy didn’t know what to do. He’d never seen his parents so angry at one another, and he was torn between wanting to flee the premises, and wondering if he should somehow try to referee. Neither prospect seemed ideal.
Louise was so angry, she was trembling, and Vic was equally mad. Hearts pounding, they were breathing as hard as if they had just finished a 10K run. Before Lilly had gotten the boys to the doorway, he snarled, “Flirting with the neighbor women? Just what is that supposed to mean? And how am I not carin’ about what you need?”
Somewhere in the back of Louise’s mind, she knew the accusations she had thrown at him were unreasonable and totally ridiculous, but reason and sanity had somehow taken a flying leap off the Second Street Bridge. Turning fully toward him, she rammed her fists onto her hips and stared him down.
“Mrs. Barbara Dixon, our neighbor three doors down? You know – the one with the wavy, light brown hair and gorgeous green eyes?” She paused for him to react in some way, but he sat silent, as if he were waiting for her to make her point. She continued sarcastically, “The one built like Jayne Mansfield? The one you stopped everything for today to work on her car, as a special favor to her?” He opened his mouth to protest that he had not stopped everything, but had merely helped her with a problem as he would any other customer, but Louise forged right on, “The one who’s husband is serving in the military somewhere overseas and she’s all alone with two little kids and needs big, strong, wonderful Vic…to be her knight on a white horse?” she added that last bit as a barb, knowing the point would slice deep. Vic had always called himself her knight, and as a sweet reminder of his promise, on their dresser, she kept the figurine of a knight on a steed he had won her at Fontaine Ferry all those years ago.
Vic shook his head and ran a hand back through his hair. “That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me. How’d you know I worked on her car earlier, anyway?” he added, not realizing how that would sound.
Louise’s eyes flared even more as she immediately deduced that he meant he hadn’t wanted her to find out. “I saw her at the A & P after she left you and she told me all about it,” she snapped, flinging a hand in the general direction of the grocery store. Then placing a hand on one hip again, she propped her other elbow on her waist, let her wrist go slack, and tilted her head to one side, batting her eyelashes and smiling in a good imitation of the woman. “Your husband is just the most wonderful man to put everything aside to help me like that,” she simpered as she mocked the woman in an embellished Southern Belle accent. “He’s just the nicest, sweetest, kindest man I’ve ever met. Why, you’re the luckiest woman in the whole world to have a man like him,” she exaggerated her performance.
For a crazy moment, he almost laughed at the comical way she had mimicked the neighbor, but aggravation and anger still simmered too close to the surface. Closing his eyes, he drew in a deep breath, battling with the urge to stand up and shout his anger and hurt back in her face. To yell that he wanted the old Louise back, the one who used to be sweet and loving, instead of this shrew that now occupied her body. Instead, he clamped his mouth shut; knowing words like that would only make things worse.
He couldn’t believe Louise would be jealous of that woman – didn’t she know he only had eyes for her, no matter what? Not to mention that crack about him being the woman’s knight. It was a low blow. He considered it a sweet, sentimental private thing between them, that he was Louise’s Knight on a white steed. The way she had thrown it out there like that felt as if she had thrown the figurine in the dirt and stomped on it, and on his heart in the process.
Pressing his lips firmly together, he reminded himself what her real frustration was – the fact that she wanted another baby so badly and it hadn’t happened yet. But was that his fault?
Slowly, he enunciated his words, “I don’t care what she implied, all I did was help her put her convertible top down. Took all of about a minute. She thanked me and left. Period.”
Vexing tears clouded Louise’s eyes as she t
urned back to the now boiling chicken and dumplings, realizing just in time to take it off the fire before it scorched. She turned the burner off and stood with her back to her husband, her hands curled in tight fists as she made herself draw in deep, slow breaths. What’s wrong with me? Why did I let that counterfeit southern belle get under my skin like that? I haven’t felt this jealous since I found out about Alex’s sister Rose making a play for Vic. I know he loves me… Shaking her head with a soft groan, she silently fumed, “What’s wrong with you, stupid woman?”
Across the room, Tommy opened his mouth several times to try and insert something that would defuse the tension, but nothing seemed appropriate. He’d seen the woman they were fighting about flirt with several of the neighbor men before, and he rightly figured that she had been the one doing the flirting. Not to mention, he had spent a great deal of time with his dad, away from his mom, and he’d never seen his father flirt with another woman. That didn’t mean he hadn’t, but Tommy just couldn’t bring himself to believe that of his beloved Chief. Finally, wisely, he closed his mouth and decided to let them work things out between themselves.
A full, uncomfortably silent minute went by, and finally, Louise drew one last deep breath and let it out in a resigned huff, mumbling, “Well, no use letting this food go to waste. Might as well sit down and eat.” Without turning, she called over her shoulder as she grabbed the pot’s handle, “Tommy, go tell Grandma and your brothers to come back and finish their supper.” The teen didn’t hesitate a second, but stood right up and disappeared down the hall.
Louise turned then, and Vic turned around in his chair to face the table again, both relieved that the tension in the room had somewhat dissipated. Drawing near Vic’s chair, Louise spooned out a good portion of chicken and dumplings onto his plate, mumbling softly, “Careful…it’s hot.”
He murmured his thanks as the others filed back into the room, their eyes darting between the two previously combating adults.
The skirmish was over, but both of them wondered why they suddenly seemed to be in a war.
‡
CHAPTER 12
The Reconciliation
The rest of the evening went smoothly, as the family finished up supper and retired to the living room to watch a few shows on the television. A difference was noticeable, however, in that Vic and Louise seated themselves at opposite ends of the couch, instead of side by side. Jimmy stationed himself between his parents, with his head on his mother’s lap and his feet propped on his father’s thigh.
Lilly sat in the family’s 1920’s art deco cocktail armchair that Sonny had given them several years before when he and Sarah had bought new furniture. Quickly becoming Grandma’s chair, it was covered in a soft beige material with a design of small brown flowers and its wide, wing-style arms were perfect for reading to children – with one draped over the arm and leaning into the reader – or for mending. Just then, she was doing the latter. Every few minutes, she kept glancing over at her daughter and son-in-law, trying to gauge if the argument from earlier was truly resolved.
Buddy lounged on one of the other chairs, his attention divided between one of the family’s favorite television programs – I love Lucy – and a copy of The Public Defender in Action comic book that had arrived in the mail that day.
Tommy had left immediately after dinner to go hang out at a friend’s house. Guiltily, Louise wondered if the young man had taken the first opportunity to flee the tension in the household.
For once, as the family watched the Ricardos weather a typical Lucy-inspired fiasco, Louise seemed to see the TV couple in a new light. Lucy was in rare form, outrageously jealous over something innocent and refusing to speak to Ricky, except for scathing remarks and wild accusations. Normally, everyone in the room would have laughed along with the audience the viewers could hear off camera. That night, however, Louise cringed; the plot too closely mirrored real life for comfort.
Vic and Louise both lapsed into silence, both of them deep in their own private thoughts.
He sat staring at the framed photograph of the family, on the table directly across from his seat on the couch, wondering how things in their life had changed so drastically. Thinking back over the years of their marriage, he couldn’t remember them ever having such heated words before, and his conscience smarted for his part in the proceedings.
Louise stared unseeingly at the screen, the fingers of one hand absently combing through her youngest son’s short black hair as he snuggled on her lap. She didn’t like herself very much at that moment. It had been a long time since she had felt such deep dissatisfaction and frustration – not since the years she had spent in her miserable first marriage with TJ Blankenbaker, Tommy’s real father. Part of her brain knew she should “stop and smell the roses” and be grateful for all of the many blessings in her life…and she wondered why that seemed to be so difficult to do.
Deep in thought, neither realized when the show ended and December Bride had come on. However, it did signal to Lilly that it was 9:30 and time for the boys to get to bed. With a glance at the parents, Lilly pushed her mending aside and stood to her feet, shepherding the youngsters down the hall for their nightly bedtime regimen. It didn’t take long, since they had already had their baths earlier.
Minutes later, after kissing the boys goodnight and unable to find interest in the program, Vic and Louise finally rose and turned off the television. She paused next to the set, uncertain. They had not moved from their positions on opposite ends of the couch. Knowing they would soon have to break the silence between them and go into their room together, Vic glanced at his wife and mumbled, “I’ll be back in a while…I’m goin’ for a walk,” and slipped into a jacket as he headed out the door.
Louise watched him go, and then with a sigh, dragged herself down the hall to the bedroom. She slowly removed her light blue striped dress and tossed it into the hamper in the corner. Glancing up at the mirror over the dresser, she stared at her reflection, her amethyst necklace glinting in the soft light of the lamp on the nightstand. Reaching up with one hand, she caressed the stone with her fingers as she let her memories float back to that magical day at Fontaine Ferry Park, nineteen years before…
Arriving at the huge carousel just in time to step onto its ground level surface for its next cycle, Vic tugged Louise through the maze of majestic, beautifully carved and painted horses to one of the stationary seats.
“But…aren’t we going to ride a horse…? Louise began, but the intense look in his eyes stopped her protest and she followed him onto the seat. Music played and children laughed and talked as Louise felt Vic take her hand and turn her toward him while he reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved a small, velvet covered box. Her heart jumped as she thought he was about to present her with a ring.
With a shy smile, Vic explained, “I wanted to get ya something nice, and especially since I didn’t have any money to get ya anything for your birthday…so…well…I hope you like it.”
Opening the box and finding the lovely pendant on a simple silver chain, she gasped, “Oh Vic! An amethyst necklace! It’s beautiful!”
Never had she felt so cherished. It was as if all of her childhood dreams of finding her ‘Prince Charming’ had culminated in that moment.
“Here, lemme put it on ya,” he whispered, undoing the clasp and reaching around behind her head to fasten it. She turned then, gazing into his eyes as he sat back to view the pendant as it sparkled against her skin. She smiled lovingly and he reached for one of her hands, bringing it up to his lips and grazing the surface of her knuckles with a soft kiss as she told him she felt bad that he had spent so much money on her.
“You’re worth it. You’re an angel. The sweetest, truest, most beautiful angel I’ve ever known,” he softly declared.
Angel, Louise unconsciously winced as reality came rushing back with a jolt. Right then, with her harsh words and anger fresh in her mind, she felt quite the opposite. Remorse seemed to fill her belly and overflow
into her veins like liquid fire. And now…Vic had gone out for a walk, too uncomfortable around her to come to bed. With a touch of melancholy, she remembered her father, Willis, doing the same thing many times after arguments with her mother. Was she becoming like her mother?
Sighing dejectedly, she gathered her things to take a bath.
*
Deep in thought, Vic walked along Granvil Drive – in the opposite direction from Barbara Dixon’s house. His emotions were tied up in knots and he had been afraid that he and Louise would have words again, so he had skipped out to walk and think. Part of him hoped she would be asleep by the time he returned.
Although it had been a pleasant day weather-wise, cooler temperatures had arrived with the setting of the sun. Now, he was thankful he had thought to grab his tan uniform jacket before he left the house as he walked along with his hands stuck into his pockets. The environment around him was silent, since it was early spring and no crickets or night bugs were out yet. A full, bright moon lit his way along the sidewalk.
As he strode along, he could see into the windows of other houses along the street as families settled down for the night. He heard laughter from one house as he passed by; from the next, the clear sounds of a program on a television set. From somewhere nearby, he heard a backdoor open as a female voice encouraged, “Go on, now,” and he figured she had let her cat out before turning in for the night.
The street curved to the left and he aimlessly followed it around, his rubber-soled work shoes making no sound on the concrete sidewalk. Shoving his hands deeper into his jacket pockets, a few minutes later, he raised his head and saw the barricade at the end of the street. Beyond were acres and acres of empty land that had been covered in row after row of corn stalks when they’d first moved in. He kept going, easily stepping over the barricade and stopping at the base of a large oak tree at the edge of the field.