Secrets in the Sand

by Carolyn Brown

  “Clancy, you SOB, come right in here and sit down,” Patty said with a big smile. “Angel is on the phone to a CEO in Maine, and she’ll be a little while.”

  She closed her computer and sat down across from him. “Why did you treat her so rotten anyway?”

  “Because I was a scared eighteen-year-old kid who thought the whole world was Tishomingo, Oklahoma. I was stupid enough to believe that what people thought about me would either make or break me,” he said honestly. “I’ve listened to all of your opinions all the way up from the bottom. Now let me ask you something. Why in the hell did she make me meet every one of you?”

  “Because every one of us was with her the night she gave birth to your son. We timed the contractions for her when she was in labor and held her hands when it was time to push. We were her cheerleading squad when the pains were so hard they took her breath away, and we cried with her when that little boy was stillborn. We all held him in our arms one by one and offered to kill you to make it up to her. She wouldn’t let us do it.

  “So, we just thought we’d get to know you, even though all she’ll let us do now is walk with you from one office to the next. You might talk your way back into her life but if you make her cry again, you’re going to disappear—just like that. Someone might find you in six million years when they drill for oil…but it’ll probably be a dry hole like your cold old heart.”

  She broke off abruptly when Angel appeared in the doorway. “Clancy! Please come in.”

  ***

  After the treatment her girlfriends had put him through, Clancy was surprised to hear the genuine welcome in her voice. Patty threw him a warning look that Angel somehow missed and made herself scarce. Angel chattered on nervously as Clancy sat down by her desk.

  “I’ve got a few loose ends to tie up here and then we can go to dinner. Do you still like Mexican food? I know a little place where they serve the real stuff, but the spices will fry your innards, so I hope you like it hot.” She finished up, feeling a little foolish. “Did the girls give you the official tour of Conrad Oil?”

  “They sure did. I was impressed.”

  “Wonderful bunch, aren’t they?” She closed a folder and shut down her computer. “Met them my first semester in college. That’s when we formed the band. Played the honky-tonks and dives in those days for extra money to help pay our way through school. Lord knows, I never would have made it through that first year without them. They were the first real friends I ever had, and we’ve stayed together through thick and thin, marriages and divorces, tears and giggles. There now, I think everything else can wait until tomorrow. Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready.” He smiled for the first time. “And I love Mexican. They can’t make it too hot for this Okie.”

  “Elevator or stairs?” she asked as they passed Patty’s desk.

  “Elevator,” he said bluntly. “I think I’ve had enough exercise for today.”

  They walked to the corner of the block in silence and into a small café. The waitress seated them at the back of the restaurant, at Angel’s usual table.

  “Margarita?” she asked.

  “Iced tea for me.” Angel unrolled the bandanna wrapped around the silver utensils and put it over her lap. “Clancy?”

  “Iced tea is fine,” he said.

  “Now what do you want to talk about?” She picked up the menu and scanned it.

  “Us. I still want to know what you’ve done these past ten years, even though your friends each filled me in a little,” he said, then looked up at the waitress. “I’ll have the chicken enchiladas. Do they come with refried beans and rice?”

  “Yes, sir.” The waitress nodded. “And a side order of hot vegetables and flour tortillas?” She turned to Angela.

  “Bring me the beef fajitas, a full pound tonight. I’m hungry. And extra vegetables for an appetizer.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Angel looked right into Clancy’s eyes and didn’t blink. “I was hoping all your questions would be answered by now.”

  “How did you get started in the oil business?” he asked, ignoring her remark.

  “When my great-grandfather died, he left us the farm, twenty acres of the prettiest green grass in the state. We left Tishomingo since we could live in Kemp rent-free and it was closer to Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant. They had given me a grant and a scholarship. Guess you forgot about me telling you that,” she said. “Anyway, four years later Granny died, and I graduated with a major in geology and a minor in business right after I buried her. I had a hunch and drilled on the property. Everyone thought I was a fool, because there wasn’t an oil well anywhere around Kemp, Oklahoma, but it turned out right, and I was pretty well off overnight. Then I played a few more hunches, and everything I touched turned to gold. The girls helped me a lot. Allie is a geologist, Mindy is a lawyer, and Bonnie is a wizard at accounting.”

  “And Susan is great at PR, and Patty is a top-notch assistant who would like to feed my heart to the buzzards,” he finished for her.

  “You can’t blame them,” she said, defending her friends.

  “I guess not, if I’m telling the truth. And while we’re being honest, I’ve got a couple of things to tell you. That night you told me you were pregnant, I wanted to sit down and promise you the moon, but my mother and father would have died if I’d come home and told them I’d gotten you pregnant. My friends were waiting at the Dairy Queen, celebrating the last night before we all left for college. Melissa was there, and she started flirting. I was so mixed up that I didn’t know straight up from backward. Before long, we were dating, and we got married the week after we graduated from college. She taught school while I was in the air force. She didn’t make my heart do backflips like you did, but we got along pretty good until one fine day when she announced she wanted a divorce so she could marry the principal at her school.

  “I moved out, filed for divorce, and came home to Oklahoma as soon as my enlistment was up. I got my master’s degree and a job teaching chemistry in Oklahoma City. I felt like I deserved what I got after the way I treated you that night. End of story. I tried my best not to think about you, Angel. I was a young, stupid fool who handled things wrong. I was too proud to stand up to my family or even to all of my friends and tell them that I was dating you all summer, much less admit that you were pregnant.”

  Angel’s eyes shifted from one thing to another, never landing on him, but he had things to get off his chest, so he continued. “Melissa was the right girl from the right family who would know all the right things to say and do. It may be too much information, but she was cold in the bedroom, and sex was a bargaining tool, not something that was out of love. She didn’t make me feel like a million dollars the way you always did. At first, I thought I just didn’t know better because I’d only been with you and then her, but I’ve been with other women since then, and I learned better. They say you never forget your first love. Whoever said that was a genius, because it’s the truth. I’ve never had the same almost euphoric feeling I had when we made love on the creek bank. Not even close.”

  She locked gazes with him, but her expression was unreadable.

  Clancy wondered if he’d said too much, if maybe he’d done more harm than good with his admission. But the heaviness that he had carried around in his heart for years was gone, and he could breathe again without feeling as if his insides were twisted in a pretzel when he even thought about Angel.

  “Well, enough soul cleansing,” Angel said as the waitress put the hot platters of food in front of them. “You know my story and now I know yours. But there isn’t a future for us today, any more than there was that hot August night ten years ago. It’s over, Clancy. We’ve both grown up, and we’ve changed drastically. I’m not that same little poor girl who fell in love with you, and you’re not the person who was ashamed to be seen
with me. It takes a good firm foundation to build a house, and a relationship is like that. Trust is the cornerstone, and I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”

  Chapter 6

  On his way back to Tishomingo, Clancy stopped in Durant at a liquor store and bought two six-packs of beer and a pint of Jack Daniel’s. Then he headed northwest, meaning to drown his sorrows, even if that was childish and not one damned thing would have been accomplished when the sun came up tomorrow morning. It had been years since he’d been drunk, and tonight he intended to get so plastered that by morning his head would feel like a drum was keeping time inside it and then maybe he wouldn’t think about Angela.

  He had been a complete fool to think that he would bare his heart and soul, and she would rush into his arms, tell him all was forgiven, and they’d ride off into the sunset to find their happily ever after.

  “Hey, Clancy!” Meredith called from the kitchen when she heard him open the door. “I had salad with the ladies at the country club. Have you eaten?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. “But I’m going out again to do a little fishing. Probably won’t be back until morning.”

  “Okay. I’ve got to make phone calls about the auxiliary picnic next week.” Meredith came into the living room. “I’ve got a hairdresser’s appointment in the morning at nine, so please be quiet if you come in late.” She smiled, showing beautiful white teeth. Meredith Morgan worked at keeping both her figure and her skin flawlessly young, and it was easy to see where Clancy had gotten his good looks.

  He went down the hall to the bedroom that had been his since he was a baby. He changed from navy-blue pleated dress slacks and a pinstriped shirt into a pair of faded jeans and a faded tank top, kicked his good loafers in the floor of the closet, and pulled on a pair of grungy white tennis shoes with no laces. “See you later,” he called as he left the same way he’d come in, noticing that his mother did take a moment to look up from the phone and wave at him.

  He parked the Bronco near Pennington Creek, took an old blanket out of the back, and tucked it under his arm. Shuffling the beer and bourbon until they fit under his other arm, he plodded down the pathway to the sandbar. In the past ten years, the brambles had grown under the trees so much that he had to fight them to reach the very spot where he and Angel had lain together so many times. Tonight, there was nothing left, just as Angel had said, so he carefully spread out the blanket, scaring away a frog and a grass snake while he was at it. Then he picked up the first six-pack of beer, took off his shoes, rolled up the legs of his jeans, and stuck his feet in the water.

  He popped the top on the first can and guzzled about half the contents before he came up for air. He hummed a few bars of a song until he remembered the lyrics…something about a man who had never been happy until he had a wife and kids. He tilted the can back and let the rest of the beer slide down his throat in one big swallow. Then he sang the rest of the lyrics at the top of his lungs, off-tune and off-key, just to make himself feel worse. He popped the tab on another silver can and continued to sing, until a sudden thought stopped him cold.

  “I could’ve had a wife and kids,” he whispered to himself. “But I threw it all away because of my pride and my fears. Well, here’s to all the mistakes made by all the young, proud fools in the whole state of Oklahoma in the last ten years.” Clancy opened the third can of beer and started sipping it slowly.

  He had almost finished the first six-pack by eleven o’clock and his fishing equipment was still in the back of the Bronco. He lay on his back, his feet in the water and beer cans stacked in a crazy pyramid next to him, watched the moon rise, and thought of another song. He started to hum and whisper the words. “Try… Try… Hmm… Try to remember why we fell in love.”

  “Hello,” a feminine voice said to his right.

  “Angel?” He didn’t even look. The sound of her voice was probably just a drunken illusion, but even if it were, maybe he could carry on a make-believe conversation with her.

  “Who?” the voice asked, annoyed.

  “Angel?” he repeated without taking his bleary eyes off the moon.

  “Look at me, Clancy. God almighty, did you drink all these beers? What in the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re a grown man with a responsible job, and you’ve never been able to hold your liquor. Your high school principal would probably fire you on the spot if he knew you were lying down here in the dirt half-crocked and talking to the angels. Have you been smoking weed as well as drinking?”

  He turned and looked at his ex-wife, Melissa, sitting on the sandbar beside him. “I’m not layin’ in the dirt. I’m layin’ on a blanket.” Good God! What was she doing there? And was she real or just a figment of his drunken imagination? One thing for sure, she was right about him not being able to hold his liquor. That was the whole point. He was willing to fry a few brain cells to get the image of Angel out of his mind when she told him they could never build another relationship.

  He chuckled.

  “What’s so funny? You have been into something other than beer, haven’t you?” She popped her hands on her hips and glared at him.

  “You being here is funnier than the time the preacher sat on the cake at the church social,” he slurred.

  He hadn’t seen her in three years, not since their day in divorce court. What a helluva time for her to show up. He noticed a few wrinkles around her eyes, and her blond hair was shorter than he’d ever seen it. Other than that, she was the same old Melissa, looking as if she’d just walked out of Vogue. He impulsively looked down at her feet. Her toenails were freshly polished. How many times had he been ready to go somewhere and had to wait for Melissa’s toenails to dry before they could leave?

  “Your mother said you might be down here fishing,” she said. “We need to talk.”

  “About what, Melissa?” he asked. “Talking with you is in the past. We’re divorced, and why are you even in Tishomingo?”

  “I come home every summer for a week to see Momma and Grandma, remember?” she said. “Since we got divorced, you’ve never been here when I am, and you’re too drunk to remember anything about me anyway.”

  “Oh, I remember very well. You were all sexy until we got married, and then you were an icicle. Did your new husband figure that out too? Have a beer. Maybe it’ll warm you up for him.” He held up a full six-pack, still held together with the plastic webbing.

  “You know I hate beer,” she snarled.

  “Then grab that bottle of bourbon under that tree bough, and we’ll drink to the good old days.” He laughed sarcastically.

  “You really are drunk,” she snarled again.

  “And you’re married,” Clancy reminded her. “I’ll get the damned bourbon. Never let it be said I was a bad host at my own self-pity party, even if you are an uninvited guest.” He slurred the last word and wobbled just a little bit when he stood up. In his topsy-turvy world, the sandbar swirled, and the moon dropped about six feet toward the horizon, but he didn’t fall.

  “Here’s the stuff.” He staggered back to the blanket, flopped down, and stuck his wrinkled feet back in the water. Ignoring his ex-wife, he fell back to stare at the stars again. “Sorry, I can’t give you a crystal glass to drink it out of. Just tip the bottle back and drink it straight.”

  “What’s gotten into you? You never drank,” she reminded him. “You always were the designated driver, even in the air force, and you wouldn’t even drink a glass of wine with me on our first anniversary.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.” He worked hard to make his words come out right.

  “Did I do this to you, Clancy?” she whispered.

  He chuckled down deep. The chuckle soon became a laugh, and he sat up to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Oh, Clancy.” She shook her head. “You were so brave through the divorce. I never knew I caused you this much grief. Have you been drinking ever
since?”

  “Hell no!” He raised his voice loud enough to be heard all the way across the creek.

  “You poor man. I’m so sorry.” She sighed, but he knew her. That was the sign for him to give in to whatever she wanted.

  “You ought to be.” Clancy sat up slightly, then fell back on his old blanket again. “You ought to be sorry because you never did love me. You never loved anybody but yourself, Melissha.” He heard himself slur her name and made a mental note to work harder at keeping his words straight, because he damned sure intended to tell her what he thought about her while she was sitting there, acting like a soap opera star.

  “Oh, Clancy, I did love you. I never really stopped loving you,” she whined.

  “None of that matters a whole helluva lot, now, Meliss…a.” He was proud of himself for saying it just right. “Because I didn’t love you either. I just married you because everyone thought that’s what we should do. You had the wedding planned, and there were all those showers and presents, and I knew I’d be considered a real heel if I backed out of the marriage then. You know who I really loved? I loved Angela Conrad,” he said.

  “You’re full of crap,” she said. “You couldn’t love her. She was a nerd, and she’s probably off somewhere with a house full of snotty kids—”

  “Angel owns Conrad Oil Enterprises in Denison, Texas,” he said, as clearly as if he were stone-cold sober. “She’s not a nerd and never was.”

  “Oh, she’s Angel now, is she? Well, you didn’t love her. You were in love with me from that time we all met at the Dairy Queen not long after graduation,” she reminded him. “Remember how we flirted that night? You came in all sad and downhearted, and I cheered you up.”

  “I had just been a big jerk, and you were there.” He shrugged.

  “Sure.” Melissa tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You had the senior blues. Graduation was over. Football season was done. College hadn’t started. We were all scared of change. Why do you say you had been a jerk?”