“Hold on.” Hub-Jay lifted his hand from the table. “Did you just say you’re moving?”
Mary Dell winced and nodded. The jolt Hub-Jay had felt when she uttered those words became a clench in his stomach when she confirmed them.
“Sorry. I forgot I hadn’t told you yet. I’ve been so crazy these last few days that I don’t know if I’m shucking or shelling. But then, I’ve hardly told anybody. When Gary grabbed the contract, started crossing things out and writing things in, I really wasn’t sure it was legal.
“Truth to tell,” she said, sounding a little astonished, “I’m still not sure about that. But it looks like the network is going to stand by it. I can’t believe it. Neither can Jason. He was mad as a red ant!” She picked up her wineglass and took another large swallow. “He really is a weasel. You’d think he’d be satisfied to see Gary gone and himself made head of programming, but no. He’s just bound and—”
“Mary Dell? I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She winced again. “Sorry. I forgot. Why don’t I start over . . .”
She explained it from the beginning.
“Even though Gary sounded relieved, even happy, when he called to tell me how things had shaken out, it was still a brave thing for him to do,” she said.
Then she went on to explain how the network had decided to honor his changes to her contract, partly because Gary agreed to go quietly without calling a lawyer if they did, but mostly because he’d convinced them that filming in Too Much would actually save the network money. “And money is everything to these people; the only thing,” she declared.
Having supplied the background, she went on to tell Hub-Jay about her meeting with the odious and arrogant Jason, relating how he had made no effort to hide his contempt for her show and her audience, how he’d made it clear that he was rooting for Quintessential Quilting’s failure and subsequent cancelation, and that, if not for the financial penalties imposed by her contract, made steeper by a stroke of Gary’s pen, he would have canceled the show immediately rather than wait until the end of the season, which he absolutely intended to do.
“He wants to cancel before he even sees if the new location will help your ratings? That’s not just mean; it’s stupid. It’s bad business,” Hub-Jay said.
“I haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet.” Recalling that worst part, Mary Dell’s eyes brimmed with tears.
Hub-Jay had never seen Mary Dell cry. The prospect of her breaking down was unnerving. He didn’t know what he’d do or say if she did.
He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket in search of a handkerchief. But then, thinking about mascara stains and remembering that this handkerchief cost seventy-five dollars at Neiman Marcus, he handed her the napkin from his lap instead.
She waved it away and blinked back her tears just as, thankfully, the food arrived. After the server left she gave Hub-Jay a sad but brave smile.
“Sorry.”
“Here. Eat something.”
He nudged the basket of extra-crispy shoestring fries toward her. Mary Dell took a handful, laid them on her plate, then started dipping them into ketchup and eating them, one by one.
“So,” Hub-Jay asked, “what was the worst part?”
“Actually, there are two worst parts. First, they’re bringing in a new co-host, some young girl.”
Hub-Jay furrowed his brow as he started slicing into a piece of chipotle-marinated skirt steak. “I don’t understand. You already have a co-host—Howard.”
Mary Dell shook her head. “Howard is off the show. They’re firing him. That’s the worst worst part.”
“But they can’t do that. His name is in the title.”
“Was. Come next season, Quintessential Quilting with Mary Dell and Howard will be Quintessential Quilting with Mary Dell and Holly.”
Hub-Jay put down his knife and fork. “Holly? Who the hell is Holly?”
“You tell me and we’ll both know,” Mary Dell said bitterly. “I can’t believe it. After all the work I put in, creating a show out of nothing, building up an audience, bringing in new advertisers. . . Hub-Jay, I have never been treated so disrespectfully in my life. The way that man spoke to me! The things he said about Howard! If we hadn’t been on the twenty-sixth floor I might have thrown him out the window.”
“If I’d have been there,” Hub-Jay said in a low rumble, “I’d have done it for you.”
“Oh, Hub-Jay. How am I going to tell Howard that he’s off the show? He loves being on TV.” She paused a moment, staring vacantly out the plate-glass window. “And how am I supposed to do it without him? We’re a team. I can’t even imagine—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Hub-Jay barked out a short but descriptive string of oaths questioning Jason’s legitimacy and probable destination in the afterlife.
“Quit! I mean it, Mary Dell! Just quit! Those SOBs at HHN don’t deserve you!”
Mary Dell’s eyes went wide, and with good reason. Hub-Jay never swore. Having grown up with a father who used profanity like punctuation and flew into a rage at the drop of a hat, Hub-Jay had made a habit of avoiding both.
“I wish I could quit,” she said, her expression softening. “But the cancellation penalty in my contract cuts both ways. I can’t cancel on HHN and they can’t cancel on me, not unless one of us is willing to pay a pile of money. Unfortunately, my pile is gone. Building those new classrooms on the second floor of the shop ate up a big chunk of it. And even without that, there’s the sheer number of mouths I have to feed—not just my family but all the people who work for me too. If the show ends, it’ll hurt traffic at the shop. I have to keep going! If I can . . .” Her shoulders drooped. “But that snotty Jason is bound and determined to knock Quintessential Quilting off the lineup, no matter what I do.”
Mary Dell buried her head in her hands. Her shoulders started to shake. Hub-Jay sat dumbstruck, staring at the top of her head, battling twin urges that caught him completely off guard.
The first was to track down this Jason character and knock him into next week; the second, to gather Mary Dell in his arms and stroke her hair.
What he did instead was toss back an enormous swig of Gewürztraminer, a wine he had always loathed, and smack his half-empty glass back down on the table.
“Marry me!”
Mary Dell looked up. Her eyes were wet.
“What?”
“Marry me,” he repeated. “Then you won’t have to worry about money.”
“Oh, be serious.”
He took another, smaller drink. After a long moment, in a voice that displayed just a hint of surprise, he said, “I am serious. Why shouldn’t we get married? We’re a good team. We understand each other, make each other laugh. We’ve never had an argument—how many people can say that after four years? Plus, Howard likes me. If you stop to think about it, it just makes sense.”
Mary Dell’s face broke into a grateful, albeit somewhat watery, smile.
“Hub-Jay Hollander, you really are as sweet as tea. But you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be all right. After all, Jason doesn’t own the network—the shareholders do. And just like Gary said, the only thing they care about is money. If I can bring the ratings and ad revenue up, Jason won’t be able to touch me,” she said, her eyes beginning to spark with their customary light.
“Of course,” she mused, lowering her gaze and biting her lower lip, “I still have to tell Howard that he’s off the show. But . . . that might just be temporary. Once the show is a success, I’ll renegotiate my contract with HHN, tell them that if they want me, they’ve got to take Howard too. We are a package deal. End of story.”
Mary Dell raised her head, smiling broadly now.
“Thank you, Hub-Jay. I feel so much better.” She lifted herself halfway out of her chair, placed her hands on either side of Hub-Jay’s face, and gave him a smacking kiss. “You are just the best!”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “But, Mary Dell, when I—
”
“Darlin’,” she said, getting to her feet, “forgive me, but I’ve got to scoot. A Realtor is coming to list the house at four, but I need to talk to Howard before that.
“Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “Almost forgot. I’m flying to Connecticut week after next, so I won’t be here for lunch. We start filming in Too Much right after Christmas, and I know I’ll be busier than a one-armed paperhanger getting ready for the move. But I’ll see you before I leave town—promise.”
She hung her purse over her shoulder and stood there for just a moment, looking at him. “Sweet as tea,” she said again, and hurried off.
Hub-Jay watched her go, then reached for his glass, took a sip, made a face, and called for a waiter to bring him some bourbon.
For the next thirty minutes Hub-Jay stared out the window, nursing three fingers of Maker’s Mark and trying to make sense of what had just happened.
CHAPTER 8
When she said it the first time, Howard thought it was a mistake.
Because he’d had a lot of ear infections when he was little, sometimes he didn’t hear things quite right. He took a step closer to his momma and made sure his good ear was turned toward her.
“Did you say that they don’t want me on the show anymore?”
“Not everyone,” she said quickly. “Just that mean man I was telling you about, this Mr. Alvarez . . .”
“He’s the new Mr. Beatty?”
“Yes . . . I mean, sort of. He’s the man who took Mr. Beatty’s job at the network.”
“And he doesn’t want me on the show.”
“Oh, Howard. Baby . . . I just . . .” Mary Dell’s face fell and she shook her head.
It wasn’t very often that Howard saw his momma looking sad, or lacking for words, but he was so surprised by her words that he hardly noticed.
He couldn’t believe it had been so easy.
His girlfriend, Jenna, had said it would be, that his momma would understand, but Howard had his doubts. Jenna didn’t understand about the show and what it meant to Momma.
Remembering that, he asked, “But they aren’t canceling the show, right? They’re going to move the filming to Too Much and they still want you—just not me.”
She confirmed his understanding of the situation with a nod.
“Oh, that’s all right, then,” he said, and sighed.
She paused for a minute, examining him closely.
“What are you saying, baby? Are you . . . ?”
“Happy,” he answered, filling in the blank. “I was trying to think how to tell you about it. Now I don’t have to!” His face split into a grin.
“Now you don’t have to tell me what?”
“That I want to quit the show.”
“Wait. You want to leave the show?” Mary Dell gave her head a quick shake. “But why? I thought you loved being on TV.”
Howard rolled his eyes. “Momma, I’ve been doing it for seven years. It’s time to do something else. I’ll be thirty soon. I have other plans for my life.”
She started to question him, trying to probe more deeply into what these other plans for his life might entail.
“Going to college,” he said. “I heard about some special programs for people with Down syndrome. I found a link about it on the National Down Syndrome Society Web site and looked for programs in Texas.”
“But, Howard. College is . . .”
He lifted his hands out flat to intercept her objections. “I’ll work very hard,” he said earnestly. “You always said that I could learn anything if I worked hard at it. Remember how nobody thought I could learn to use a sewing machine or make quilts? But we didn’t listen to them, did we? You showed me what to do.
“Remember when you taught me to thread the machine? You made me practice over and over until I could do it all myself—about fifty times . . .”
“Not that many,” she said. “You caught on quicker than that.”
“But I had to practice and work hard,” he said. “And now I can run the machine and make quilts all on my own. If I can do that, I can take college classes. Don’t you think so, Momma?”
“Oh, I do, baby. I absolutely do,” she assured him. “But I don’t think they have those kinds of programs in Too Much. The nearest community college is in Waco, and that’s a long drive. Maybe we could get—”
“That was the other part I was going to talk to you about,” he interrupted, then rapped his knuckles twice against his forehead. “I forgot. I’ve decided to get my own apartment.”
“Your own apartment? Where?” Mary Dell cocked her head a little to the side. An amused, indulgent little smile tugged at her lips.
“Here in Dallas. Jenna’s next-door neighbors have a nice apartment over their garage. They already said they would rent it to me. It’s right on the bus line, but if I need a ride someplace, Jenna’s momma said she would drive me.”
“But, baby, I don’t understand . . . we’ve finally got a chance to go back to Too Much. Don’t you want to go home?”
“I am home,” he said simply. “My friends are here. My girl is here. What would I do in Too Much?”
Howard smiled wide, so relieved that he failed to notice how his mother’s smile was fading or the way the muscles in her neck twitched, as if her throat had become suddenly sore and she was trying to swallow the pain.
“You know, I was really worried that you’d be upset when I told you I wanted to leave that show. But now that you’ve got a new co-host, you won’t need me anymore. Isn’t it great how everything worked out?”
CHAPTER 9
Rob Lee couldn’t sleep anymore.
Bone tired, he’d get into bed and lie there for hours, sometimes turning on the lamp so he could look at the clock and see how many hours remained until morning, sometimes getting out of bed to pull a fifth of Jack Daniel’s out of his boot and take a swig or a few, hoping it would help.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
Even when it did, the images that filled his dreams were often more terrible and vivid than the ones that invaded his thoughts in the daylight. When the terrible dreams came, he would act out his part in his sleep, thrashing his arms and legs, fighting and fleeing the nocturnal enemy, crying warnings to his buddies, always to no avail.
He’d hoped that the oil-field job, and living with Jeb and his family, would work out. For a little while, it did.
But one day, while he was on the job, a load of pipe accidentally dropped from the back of a truck, hitting the pavement with a resounding boom. Rob Lee hit the deck with his arms wrapped over his head and his heart pounding, waiting for shrapnel and blood, waiting for death. When it didn’t come, he looked up and saw a ring of faces staring at him, some confused, others amused. A young guy, maybe nineteen or twenty years old and skinny, laughed out loud. Rob Lee threw him to the ground, straddling his shoulders, but somebody pulled him off before he could land a punch. Rob Lee walked off the job.
The next day, he was an hour late. Jeb pulled him aside, his face all serious and voice real low, and said he understood it was rough, but brother or not, he’d have to dock his pay if it happened again.
The day after that, Rob Lee arrived three hours late. And three sheets to the wind.
He wasn’t trying to embarrass his brother . . . well, not much. And he knew Jeb was trying to help, but every time he said he understood, it made Rob Lee’s blood boil, because he didn’t. Jeb might have been a Marine, but he’d never been in combat, and unless you’d been there, you had no clue.
Rob Lee was sure the phrase “to hell and back” had been coined by a combat veteran. There was no other way to describe it and no way to imagine it short of personal experience. But the weird thing about hell was that, assuming you lived through it, after a while you could actually learn to live with it.
Every day you woke up and tried to stay alive until the next day. No matter what else you might be doing or who you might be talking to, your mind was constantly alert to danger, your mu
scles continually coiled for action, always tense, ready to fight or flee. That was your whole focus, your only job.
Because of that, living through hell had turned out to be easier than coming back from it. He had lost the knack of living like he had before, of dividing his attention among multiple pursuits and people, lowering his guard, pretending to be normal. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pull it off.
When Jeb suggested, not for the first time, that he ought to talk to somebody at the VA, Rob Lee told him to mind his own damned business and threw a punch, which Jeb returned. Rob Lee threw his brother to the ground and started pounding on him, just like he had that skinny kid on the oil crew, only this time, there was nobody to pull him off. The only thing that stopped him was the sobs of Jeb’s little girl, Flannery.
It was the sight of Flannery, her little face buried in her mother’s skirts, howling in fear, that propelled him out the door and on a bender, not the fury in Jeb’s voice when he threw him out. He didn’t blame him for that, or for firing him. That part was a relief, albeit a temporary one, prolonged by three days of drinking that came to a close when Jeb found him.
He wasn’t anxious to return to Too Much, but he had to go someplace. When Jeb left him at the bus station, he briefly considered exchanging his ticket for one to Austin, maybe seeing if he could get his old bartending job back. But even he realized that wasn’t a good idea. Besides, he’d already agreed to come home and take charge of the F-Bar-T Ranch for a while, at least until Moises recovered. He’d promised Aunt Mary Dell when they talked on the phone.
And though he hadn’t given voice to it, not even to himself, he had an idea that by going home to Too Much, he might be able to help his sister and niece, stepping into the hole left by Nick’s death and, in doing so, somehow making up for being the cause of it.
But when Cady met his bus, put her arms around him, and started to cry, his own arms hung useless at his sides, unable to respond, and he knew it was no good.
From Here to Home Page 7
