The hellion

by LaVyrle Spencer

"It is?" The idea was stunning. Women were strange birds. Why did they do one thing when they wanted to do another?

  "Take my word for it."

  He carried the idea away with him, and it stayed on his mind throughout that sleepless night. The following day he thought about it again, and wondered how he could show her he had changed and was so much happier with the new Tommy Lee that he wouldn't dream of backsliding. That afternoon he was jogging past the end of his driveway when he stopped and eyed the kudzu vine tangled across the ditch. He pondered for some time before finally picking up three rocks and flinging them in, to clear the area of snakes. Then he forced his way through the thick vines to the place where he always used to toss his empties.

  As he moved through the ditch, he grew amazed. Lord o'mercy, did I drink all this?

  He picked up a can, tossed it up absently, and caught it. Then his eyes narrowed and he stared off into the distance. All right, Rachel, I'll try one more time.

  The following day Rachel came home from work to find a huge black plastic trash bag on her front step, bound at the top by an outsized red satin bow. She approached it cautiously, surveyed its lumpy exterior, touched it with a toe, and heard a metallic clink. Gingerly she untied the bow, peered inside, and found it filled with aluminum beer cans. She also found a note: "All right, Rachel, you win. I'm cleaning up my act. What else do I have to do to get you to say yes?"

  What the hair dryer and flowers had failed to do, the sack of beer cans accomplished. Rachel pressed four fingertips to her lips and burst into tears. Oh, Tommy Lee, you crazy, off-beat, irresistible hellion, can't you see it would never work?

  Callie Mae was immediately concerned to find a tearful Rachel dragging a huge black bag into the house.

  "Why, Miss Rachel, what's wrong?"

  "Everything!" The bag sent out a mysterious sound as Rachel dropped it and dissolved into tears on Callie Mae's shoulder.

  A sympathetic hand patted the back of Rachel's head. "Now, you just tell Callie Mae everything."

  "I can-can't."

  "'Course you can. You want to start with what's in that bag that set you off?"

  "Oh, Can-Callie Mae," she wailed, "it's a go-gift from Tommy Lee."

  Over Rachel's shoulder Callie Mae gave the bag a second look. "So that's it."

  Rachel drew back and mopped her eyes, still sniffling. "He won't stop people-pestering me, and I… we…" Her words trailed off and ended with a woeful look of misery and renewed weeping.

  "You don't have to explain nothin' to Callie Mae. I see how it is with you two. I always seen."

  "How it is between us two is impossible." Rachel threw her hands out and began pacing agitatedly.

  Callie Mae pursed her mouth and grunted, "Hmph." Then she asked, "You mind if I take a look at what he brung you?" Rachel shook her head and Callie Mae opened the sack and peered inside. "Well, now, what do you know about that!" she exclaimed softly, then asked, "He the one sent you them flowers, too?" Rachel nodded while Callie Mae noted her crestfallen expression. "Jus' when he call you skinny?"

  "Don't you go getting that… that look in your eye, because it isn't going to work. He isn't going to sweet-talk me into making a fool of myself. Not with a philanderer like him."

  Callie Mae crossed her hands against her stomach and affected a sober, judgmental expression. "Yup, he's a wild one, that Tommy Lee."

  Rachel paced. "And he couldn't make a single one of his marriages work."

  "Nope. He sure couldn't."

  "And he hasn't gone to church in years." It wasn't exactly true, but it felt reassuring to heap blame on him.

  "At least ten, fifteen."

  "And he still drives like a maniac."

  "He's one crazy white boy, for sure."

  "And you should see the way he lives." Rachel threw up her hands. "Why, his house looks like a pigpen!" Suddenly she came to a halt, looked up, and felt herself color.

  Callie Mae cocked an eyebrow and said, "Oh?" But she wiped all expression off her face and busied herself unnecessarily dusting a table with her apron while advising softly, "And you mustn't forget, there's the fact that Mr. Owen, he's only been gone a few months. And your daddy would have a conniption fit if he was to find out Tommy Lee been nosin' around his daughter again. And o' course we all know what the Good Book says about honorin' fathers, no matter if they're right or wrong. But there couldn't be no question about your daddy bein' right. After all, he's got one o' the best heads in this county. Why, he runs that bank over there like them Yankees run the war- merciless. You know he always gonna end up winnin', and though he don't always smile a lot, people got respect for him, and there's them that say he's a mite cold and calculatin' at times, but he seems to get along just fine without a lot o' friends since your mama died. Yes, ma'am, your daddy, he's one smart man, got the respect of everybody in this county. And folks say you're turnin' out just like him. You want I should put this sack of junk out for the garbage man to pick up tomorrow?" Callie Mae looked up innocently, holding the sack of beer cans now.

  Rachel glanced from the sack to Callie Mae's face, then back again, trying to think of a reply. But she was too shaken to know what to say, and finally Callie Mae trudged off through the house, dragging Tommy Lee's offering with her while mumbling something about it being worthless and wondering what that crazy white boy was thinking to drop such trash on people's front steps!

  Rachel remained where Callie Mae had left her, round-eyed and stunned, digesting what the woman had just said, quite horrified at the thought that she might be turning out just like her father. Was she really all those things? Merciless? Cold? A person who'd rather have the town's respect than smile a lot? She swallowed convulsively, closed her eyes, and bit her trembling lip, wanting to deny it.

  But that made two people now who'd told her the same thing, for hadn't Tommy Lee called her a smug, supercilious socialite?

  And if it wasn't true, why was she crying?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  To Rachel's utter surprise, Tommy Lee showed up at church the following Sunday morning. He was standing on the steps when she arrived, and she realized her mistake the moment her feet stopped moving. Their eyes met, and her first thought was that he had new glasses, styled like the old ones, except that these had clear lenses through which she could clearly see him taking in her white and brown linen dress and matching spectator pumps.

  She felt herself blush but could not tear her eyes away from him. He looked magnificent! His skin was brown and healthy looking, and he appeared thinner, dressed in a pale blue suit with a rich navy shirt. The midmorning sun caught the black and silver strands of his hair and threw chips of gold off his tie clasp and the rims of his glasses while a light breeze lifted the end of his tie and gently turned it back, then settled it into place again.

  She wasn't certain how long she stood staring before becoming aware of the girl at his side. She was tall and lanky with dark shoulder-length hair, and from the way she took his arm and gazed up at him, there was no question she adored him. Just then the breeze furled the girl's hair and blew it back from her temple, and as Rachel caught sight of the red button earrings, her heart sank.

  Oh, no, she thought, not again. This one's young enough to be his daughter.

  Just then the girl turned, revealing Lily's cupid's-bow mouth and brown eyes that might easily have belonged to Tommy Lee himself at age fourteen. Rachel stared, transfixed, feeling her composure slip as she confronted the girl who, had circumstances been different, might have been her own daughter. Her eyes were helplessly drawn to Tommy Lee again, and they stood like a pair of marble statues. Move! she told her feet. Half the town is watching you gape at him, including his daughter and your own father! For in that horrifying moment Rachel realized Everett had joined her, after parking the car, and stood watching the silent tableau with growing disapproval.

  Beth's eyes flashed from her father to the pretty dark-haired woman and back again. Then, to Rachel's relief, Tommy Lee gave a silent nod and m
oved away with her.

  Beside her Everett said stiffly, "Rachel, for God's sake, people are staring."

  To her horror, she glanced around to find it was true. Several pairs of curious eyes had taken in the scene, but as Rachel looked up, they all quickly glanced away.

  The church service seemed interminable. It took a great deal of self-restraint for Rachel to face front for a full ten minutes before checking behind her under the guise of picking up a hymnal from the seat. Just as she'd suspected, Tommy Lee and Beth were only a few pews back. Surreptitiously she glanced at her father, but he was facing front with a stern, forbidding expression on his face. When she opened the hymnal, the print seemed to blur, and she was terribly conscious of Tommy Lee's eyes boring into her back. In a panic, she wondered where Gaines and Lily Gentry were sitting. Were they watching him watch her? Undoubtedly they were as shocked as she was to see him here this morning. After countless years of absence, he couldn't possibly attend without being conspicuous.

  When the service ended and everyone flooded the center aisle, she picked him out from behind by the thinning hair at the crown of his head. Odd how the sight of it lent him a certain vulnerability; she felt guilty to be studying it. And a little sad.

  Outside, she witnessed the stunned reactions parade across the faces of Tommy Lee's parents as they paused to watch their son and granddaughter leaving the church behind them. Gaines Gentry's hand went to Lily's elbow, and her free hand covered her lips while their eyes followed Tommy Lee's progress until he became aware of them and halted in mid-stride, pulling Beth up short, too. Rachel sensed the girl's momentary confusion, and the yearning among the other three. But then Tommy Lee nodded brusquely and headed toward his car with long-legged steps, already lighting a cigarette as Beth trailed along beside him.

  Everett drove Rachel home in stony silence, but the moment they were inside he confronted her directly, his face rigid and darkened by a scowl. "What's going on between you and Gentry?"

  She spun to face him angrily. "Nothing!"

  "Nothing?" He snorted. "I wasn't born yesterday, Rachel. If nothing's going on, then tell me what was all that about on the church steps?"

  "All what? I didn't even speak to the man!"

  "You didn't have to, to set the whole town talking."

  Suddenly Callie Mae's words came back, and Rachel stiffened her spine. "The town, the town! That's always your first concern, isn't it, Daddy? What the town might be saying! What business is it of theirs anyway?"

  "Rachel, are you forgetting what you have made of yourself? You're one of Russellville's leading citizens. You're a businesswoman whose reputation must ..."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, Daddy, stop." She pressed one hand to her forehead and turned away. "I don't want to hear it."

  He whirled her around by an arm. "Well, you're going to! I will not have you seeing Tommy Lee Gentry. Is that understood?"

  For a moment she was a girl again, hearing those same words, experiencing the same eruption of anger she'd felt then. It swirled up in a red haze, bringing with it the rage and rebellion she'd been unable to display then, when she could do nothing but bend to his will. But she no longer had to buckle under to her father's demands. She clamped her jaw in defiance, her face took on a belligerent expression, and there came a sweeping sense of a release in rebelling against him at last.

  "I'm not seventeen anymore. By what right do you tell me whom I can and cannot see?"

  "You're still my daughter. When a daughter behaves irresponsibly, what else is a father supposed to do?"

  "You could try letting me make my own choices," she returned brittlely. "I'm forty-one. Wouldn't you say it's time?"

  His face took on an apoplectic hue as he shouted, pointing toward the church, "And that's the choice you propose to make?"

  "Suppose I did, would that be so terrible?"

  "For God's sake, Rachel, Owen is scarcely dead in his grave and you're taking up with a… a hellion like Gentry?"

  "Tell me," she said, narrowing her eyes. "Exactly what do you think made him that way?"

  "That's not the point!"

  "Oh, and what is?"

  "The point is, I will not have you spoiling your reputation by being seen with the most notorious skirt chaser this county's ever seen!"

  She was every inch her father's daughter as she returned coolly, "And if I choose to see him?"

  "So you are seeing him!"

  She studied him levelly for some time before asking quietly, "What are you so scared of, Daddy?"

  He let his shoulders wilt, blew out an exasperated breath, and gestured appealingly. "Rachel, for heaven's sake, he's been married three times, he drinks like a fish, and he-was

  "No, Daddy," she interrupted, shaking her head slowly. "That's not it at all and we both know it. You're afraid that if I start seeing Tommy Lee again you may be forced to come face to face with your own guilt."

  "My guilt!" He was enraged now, gesturing angrily. "You disgraced us with him once. Wasn't that enough?"

  Again she shook her head, saddened by his inability to bend, to recognize his own fault in creating some of the wounds that had gone unhealed all these years.

  "No, Daddy, we didn't disgrace you. You disgraced us. By sending me away and treating me as if what we'd done was unforgivable. To us it wasn't. To us it wasn't sordid or… or immoral. We loved each other!"

  Again he gestured with an upturned palm. "Rachel, we did what we thought was best for all."

  "Did you?" she asked softly, sadly. "Then tell me why you and the Gentrys never talked to each other again."

  The room grew hushed and neither of them moved a muscle. Everett's face slowly grayed while Rachel stood firm, facing him squarely. Then suddenly he lurched around her, heading for the door. She grabbed his arm, begging, "Daddy, could we talk about it? Please?"

  But Everett jerked free and proclaimed angrily, "There is nothing to talk about!" then slammed out the door leaving her feeling hopeless and sad and wondering if it would ever be possible to untangle the webs of the past.

  Why did I goad him? Why didn't I just come right out and say that there really is nothing between Tommy Lee and me?

  The answer was simple. There would always be something between them, no matter how hard she fought it. And it seemed only a matter of time before it would all come to a head.

  Rachel was still blue later that day when Marshall stopped by after his usual Sunday afternoon visit to his daughter's. She answered the bell to find him standing on her step with slumped shoulders and a dejected face.

  "Why, Marshall, what's wrong?"

  "Carolyn and I had a fight."

  "A fight!"

  Rachel might have chuckled; in a way it was amusing to think of the mild-mannered Marshall fighting with anybody. But she could see he was truly down in the dumps even before he added, "And furthermore, I hate the idea of facing the empty house. Want to take a ride?"

  It was so rare to find Marshall in low spirits that Rachel wouldn't have dreamed of refusing. Especially not after all the times he'd cheered her up.

  "Why not? I haven't been exactly on top of the world myself today."

  He drove as if he didn't care where he was going, and they ended up near the small town of Phil Campbell about ten miles south of Russellville. When he turned in at the entrance of the Dismal Gardens, Rachel teased, "The Dismals? On an evening when I'm supposed to be cheering you up?"

  Marshall smiled distractedly. "Apropos, isn't it?" Then he glanced out the window. "I haven't been out here in years. Have you?"

  "No, not since I was a child."

  "Care to take a walk through?"

  "Why not?"

  They parked, and Marshall paid their admission as they entered the gardens through a little country museum house, then stepped down into a rocky depression surrounded by house-size boulders that created the gateway to the park. They wandered through the waning afternoon, companionably silent, letting the surroundings ease their troubles.


  Unlike their name, the Dismal Gardens were stunningly beautiful, a refreshing breath of untainted nature in a setting left untouched by man since the canyon and its surrounding woods and caves had been inhabited by the Paleo Indians 10,000 years before. The gardens took their name from the dismalites, tiny incandescent worms that lived in the moss on the rock cliffs and shone like stars at night.

  As Rachel and Marshall entered the park, the sun was still above the cliffs, and they followed a clear tumbling river into shaded coolness where the air was thick with the fecund smell of moss and leaf mold. They explored stunning rock formations with such names as Pulpit Rock, the Grotto, and Fat Man's Misery.

  It was peaceful here, restorative. A pileated woodpecker flashed through the forest in a wink of red. Wild hydrangea vines clung to the high walls where trailing arbutus sprouted magically from the face of sheer rock. Farther along they came to Phantom Falls, a tiny opening no more than ten feet in diameter. Inside, they stopped and lifted their faces toward the small circle of sky overhead, listening to the roar of water echoing mysteriously through the depression, though the falls themselves were some 250 feet downstream.

  When Rachel dropped her eyes, she found Marshall studying her with an odd look on his face. She laughed nervously and moved along the trail, calling back, "Well, come on, slowpoke, get a move on!"

  The expression changed to a sheepish grin as he followed at her heels. But when they reached Rainbow Falls, she again sensed his gaze on her as if he was puzzling something out. She lifted her eyes to the twin rainbows high overhead, which were caught by the sunlight that couldn't reach into the shady depths where they stood. She feared he hadn't invited her here for anything as simple as a breath of fresh air. In a moment her suspicions were verified as he spoke in a serious tone.

  "Rachel, I heard something today that's rather disturbing."

  "Oh?" She dropped her eyes to find he'd been studying her intently, but immediately he glanced at his feet.

  "It… well, it could be a rumor. You know how small towns are."

  "Gossip, you mean?"