Ms. Miller and the Midas Man

by Mary Kay McComas

  “Awww,” he said sadly. “That’s too bad.” His eyes were warm and intimate when they met hers. “Maybe she just needs to practice. We’ll work on that next time. You and I’ll teach poor ol’ Gus to dance,” he said, holding her gaze as he pressed his thumbs into her instep, kneading and...needing.

  “We can start now,” Chloe said, jumping up. “I can teach her. I can dance. Wanna see me?”

  He smiled at her enthusiasm, then glanced at his watch. “No time, baby girl. We have to get going.”

  “Oh no,” Gus said quickly, shooting him a look. “There’s time. Plenty of time. I want to see Chloe dance. Oh! And I just happen to have my violin here. How about some music to dance to, Chloe.”

  The little girl grinned, put one small arm in the air and the other on her hip, wiggled a little, shuffled her feet till she had them where she wanted them. Gus positioned her instrument, and with a teacher’s practiced body language gave a short introduction and the nod to go.

  Brush-brush stepping and belting out the words to the nursery song, Chloe went through the hand motions and pirouettes, tipping sideways at the end—the whole routine lasting less than two minutes.

  “Good night!” Scotty said, appropriately astonished and awed by her great talent. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  Enthralled with herself, Chloe bounced across the lawn into his lap and, with wild hand movements and sparkling dark eyes, told him all about her lessons.

  Gus, with her violin in her lap, sighed and leaned back on her arms to watch them. She couldn’t stop the sharp stab of envy that pierced her. It wasn’t merely the father-daughter portrait she was watching...and missing. It went beyond that. Where did such absolute faith and unquestioning love come from? Would he always be her hero? Would she always be one fabulous surprise after another for him? The answer was so obviously yes, she had to blink back tears.

  If she had a daughter or a son? This wasn’t the first time she’d felt the yearning inside her, but she couldn’t remember it ever being so strong or feeling it so desperately. How could anything—anyone—as loving and giving, joyous and pure, as bright and earnest as a child ever be a disappointment? Not a perfect child. A human child, always testing and learning, making mistakes and growing...always needing love and understanding and giving it in kind. Where was the disappointment in that? Mistakes and failures—they were expected, weren’t they? To learn, to develop character, to keep life from getting too...blah? Monotonous and flat? Taken for granted?

  She smiled and closed her eyes when Chloe hugged her and kissed her good-bye. She grinned when Scotty winked his farewell and made a promise of a speedy return, and watched them walk away hand in hand, the mirror of each other’s life. The hopes. The dreams. The attitudes. Even some of the mannerisms.

  She wondered at the reflections she and her mother made of each other. If her mother looked at something with disappointment, did she see it as well?

  He hadn’t missed the mushy I-want-a-baby glow in Gus’s eyes earlier. It haunted him all the way home. She haunted him.

  There were times when bills piled up and times when he brushed elbows with men who owned cars they rarely drove, who had their children’s futures secured in trust funds, who’d seen Madagascar and cruised the Indian Ocean. There were times when he knew he could have been one of those men, even an occasion or two when he wished he was.

  But he was meant to be a simple man. He found his greatest joy in touching the lives of young people, his greatest hopes in the people he loved, his excitement in the procreation of life, and his contentment in protecting it.

  The idea of filling Gus’s belly with life excited him. He dreamed of doing it a couple of times and then spending the rest of his life re-creating those moments of delirious happiness with her as they watched their children grow.

  He wanted what his parents had. Was that so bad? He didn’t think so. Their life together had been busy and productive, filled with laughter and love. What else was there? Ambition to have more than you needed? Power to generate respect or influence from other people? Altruism to make a difference in the world, to write history, to change the day?

  He smiled as he pulled into the driveway between his house and hers. Well, who was to say he didn’t have it all already? That he wasn’t influencing people, making a difference, changing the day? Life didn’t have to be complicated to be good.

  If Gus didn’t know what he knew, if she wasn’t conscious of it, she at least felt the same way. He saw it in the satisfaction she took in her garden, when she played her music, when she was with her students, when she sat quietly and listened to night noises, when she raced out after an autumn shower to smell the air and went barefoot in the grass at the park.

  He got out of the car and headed for the front porch light she’d left on for him, smiling. Moments later he sighed, relieved and easy, as he held her in his arms, slow dancing to some weird classical tune she’d been listening to when he came in.

  The sound of her laughter washed over him like grace from God when he twirled her round and round, her body tight and warm against his.

  “What’s gotten into you?” she asked, breathing quick, her pretty green eyes casting rays of the love and happiness she was feeling upon his soul.

  “I’m crazy about you,” he said, dipping her back over his arm. “Left feet and all. Marry me.”

  “What?”

  “Marry me, Gus. You and I, we’re what happily ever after is all about. We have it all.” He tipped her upright, met her mouth with his. “Marry me. Share the rest of your life with me. Grow old with me. Let me love you. Let me...” He frowned, then glanced down at the hands pushing him away.

  He didn’t let go of her, but he stopped talking long enough for her to ask, “You’re serious?”

  “As a snakebite. As a heart attack. As taxes.”

  “Scotty...”

  “As a review board. As a born-again minister in the middle of the week. As a...”

  “Scotty!”

  He laughed. “I’m serious. Gus, we’re perfect for each other. We want the same things. You’ve made me happier than I ever dreamed I could be. I love you.”

  “Oh, Scotty,” she said, finally slipping from his hold and moving away, her heart aching more with each step. “We barely know each other.” He still thought she was someone special. “It’s only been a few weeks.” She hadn’t had time to screw anything up yet, to disappoint him. “This is a big step.” And he’d hate her if she let him make it before he had time to get a clearer, truer picture of her.

  He laughed at the confusion and mild panic in her expression.

  “It’s a huge step,” he said, throwing his arms wide, then lunging and closing them around her. “And I’m not being fair, am I? I knew, almost the first time I laid eyes on you, I knew we’d end up together eventually. I was never this sure the first time, with Jan. It wasn’t like this. I loved her, but...I never saw us growing old together, never saw us with children.” Then, as if it just occurred to him, he added, “Maybe that’s why Chloe was such a surprise—a wonderful, unexpected surprise.”

  “You were busy dreaming about other things when she was born. You were younger, had your whole life...”

  “No,” he said, turning her as he sat down on the couch, pulling her down onto his lap. “I’ve always seen myself with children, and growing old with someone I love. Even as a kid.” Slowly and with much consideration, he started to unbutton the front of her dress. He liked this dress, an off-white with tiny yellow flowers and green leaves the same color as her eyes. “But we don’t have to talk about this now, if it’s making you uncomfortable. I guess I...” He looked up into her face. “I wanted you to know how I was feeling, I guess. Hoping you’d tell me what was on your mind too.” She grimaced and tipped her head to one side. “But you don’t have to...”

  She used the back of the couch to turn herself and straddle his lap, taking his face in her hands and kissing him tenderly once, then once again.

>   “Not that I’m ever planning to get old, mind you—but if I were, you’re the only man I’d want to grow old with. And if I ever have children, I hope they’ll be yours,” she said, kissing him again as his ringers continued to work her buttons. “I’m just having a really hard time believing how happy I am right now. I didn’t see this coming. I didn’t know it could be like this. Do we have to rush? Can’t we go slow and enjoy it?”

  He smiled. Knowing she was happy was enough, for now. He parted the gap he’d made in her dress, rose up, and meticulously placed kisses along the line of her bra to the valley between her breasts, breathing in the scent of mystery and passion hidden there. Desire plowed through him, hard and fast. Go slow and enjoy, he told himself, drawing a line up her breastbone with his tongue, nipping at her throat.

  Relief seeped into her with the first wave of excited anticipation that jellied her bones and sent her pulse racing. There was time yet—to love him, to touch him, to wallow in his affections before it all came crashing down around her again. Time was all she was asking for, and a little good luck. She would horde the memories of moments like this, cherish them for the long nights when she felt like what they’d shared was nothing more than one of those dreams he’d spoken of.

  “No,” he said finally. “We don’t have to rush anything.” Taking her by the shoulders, he lowered her to the couch, resuming his work on her buttons. “In fact—”

  “Scotty.”

  “Shhhhh...” He pulled one hand slowly down her chest to her belly, while the other continued to slip buttons from their holes. “Don’t talk. Let me make love to you. I want to watch your eyes get dark and—”

  “Scotty...”

  He leaned over and placed a hot kiss in her navel, laved it with his tongue. “...feel you tremble in my arms and—”

  “Scotty?”

  “Mmm?”

  “This one has a zipper. In back.”

  He looked at the buttons he was fiddling with above her pelvis, felt her stomach quiver with laughter, then lifted his face to hers. She bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from laughing, but it was too late.

  “...and tickle you till you scream for mercy!”

  Laughing and screaming, panting and tumbling, they wrestled on the couch, then rolled onto the floor kicking and squirming. He topped her, capturing both her hands in one of his above her head.

  “You try my patience, Ms. Miller.” She giggled. “Buttons and zippers and hooks. What I should do, is chain you naked to a bed. Have my way with you whenever I want, no fuss, no muss.”

  “How dull,” she said, the amusement in her eyes turning seductive and insightful. Intrigued, he loosened his grip on her hands. They came forward immediately. “I love undressing you.” She started with his belt buckle. “You’re so warm.” Her hands under his shirt were the evidence. “I love the way your stomach quivers when I touch it. I like counting your ribs and feeling your heart beating here, under my palm. The muscles and your shoulders, so wide, make me feel safe and weak at the same time.” She sat up, and he leaned back on his feet as she continued pushing the shirt and his arms upward. “And these muscles in your arms...mmm...I love it when you hold me.”

  He flipped his shirt off his wrists, tossing it blindly. His gaze was snagged on hers when he peeled her dress away from her.

  “Who’s seducing who here?” he asked absently, his eyes lowering to drink in the sight of her breasts as he uncovered them.

  “Hard to tell, isn’t it?” she answered, smiling, meeting his glance with shining love and a desire as hot as the hinges of hell.

  The line between seducer and seducee was tissue thin, and who was whom, was never firmly established as they made slow sweet love to each other. Legs hairy and smooth tangled, muscles large and small strained and relaxed in turn. Hands big and dainty soothed and teased indiscriminately. Teeth nipped at the soft skin and wet lips taunted coarse, unpolished instincts as old and as primitive and as unfailing as a sunrise.

  He propelled her to the edge of oblivion, gave her rime to consider the jump, then pushed her off and watched her fall before taking the leap himself. He was there to catch her when she landed, his arms cradling her weak, sweetly tortured body. Warm and secure.

  “Why didn’t we do this in bed?” he wondered aloud, exhausted and too listless to move.

  “I told you we’d be sorry if we didn’t,” she muttered.

  He frowned and opened his eyes, trying to recall her saying those words.

  “As I remember it, you said you loved undressing me, and I couldn’t keep your hands off me. You attacked me, and we didn’t have time to get to a bed.”

  “Humph. What was I supposed to do? You were diddling with all those buttons when there was a perfectly good zipper.”

  His chest rocked with silent laughter. “I think you should look into muumuus, something that just slips over your head like a T-shirt.”

  “I think you should slow down and start checking for zippers.”

  “I think we’re gonna die here.”

  “I think we might.”

  “I think...I could live with that,” he said, smiling when she laughed softly.

  “I think,” she said, sticking with the game but changing the subject, “Chloe would make an adorable Munchkin.”

  The hand he was brushing up and down her arm stopped.

  “Ya think?”

  “Don’t you?”

  He went silent a moment to let the idea swim through the bog that was once his brain. “I’d be including her in my life. She’d love it. You’d teach her the songs?” He tipped his head a bit and looked at her with one eye open.

  “Of course. And I was thinking earlier that she might feel awkward—being an outsider, but I counted four of her cousins on my Munchkin list, and I was thinking I’d work with the Mayor and the boys in the Lollipop Guild separately. She could meet them too.”

  “I think you did a lot of thinking about this,” he said, his tone light, his heart heavy with emotion.

  A slight shrug. “She was just so cute out there this afternoon, dancing and singing for you. Showing off for you. This would be another opportunity for her.”

  “And little girls should have plenty of opportunities to show off for their daddies, right?”

  She nodded. He took her chin in two fingers, tipping her head, forcing her to look back at him. Dark eyes, abysmal in their ability to perceive, he searched her face softly, tenderly. He traced her lower lip with his thumb, her cheek with the back of one finger. He stroked her hair from her face, delving deeply into the cool green pools of her eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to say something, then he simply pulled her close and held her tight, as if he’d plucked her from the edge of a cliff, terrified of losing her.

  NINE

  IT WAS ARGUED EARLY on that perhaps a winter or spring production might give them more time to prepare, but Scotty had insisted that the cold and flu season after Christmas would have kids dropping out like flies and that spring was too busy with college fever and other senior rites to get their full attention.

  Therefore, Tylerville’s First Annual Senior Play was scheduled to open for a two-night run the weekend before Thanksgiving. They had eight weeks.

  Eight weeks was more than enough time, he said. But of course, only a Midas Man would think this way.

  Relatively speaking, Gus had very little to do, but she went about it in her usual style—methodically, from the beginning. First, she brought popcorn and ginger ale to school and watched the entire movie with the children: ground zero; everyone starting out on the right foot; basic understanding of the project. The next day she played only the Munchkin scene for them—step two, focus on a specific area. On the third day she held auditions for speaking and singing parts, which was step three, dividing the specific area of focus into controllable subsections. Day four, she delegated responsibility, handing out sheets of paper with the words to the songs on them and doing a quick run through of the three songs they’d
be doing: “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are.” “Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead.” And “Welcome to Munchkin Land.”

  For the next six weeks they rehearsed the songs. All the Munchkins stayed after school for an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Lullaby League, Lollipop Guild, the Mayor, the Bishop, and the Coroner staying Wednesdays as well.

  Scotty, on the other hand, had his own methodology—putting all his sticks in the pot at once.

  Rather than use a production company’s version of The Wizard of Oz, which included the little heard of Jitterbugs in the Enchanted Forest and called for a magic bridge that no one born after 1939 could identify with—and for maximum educational benefit—Scotty decided to stick as close to the Judy Garland movie version of the story as possible.

  And so...Auditions for the lead singing roles were being held by the band director, even as Mrs. Fiske and her volunteers in the English department wrote the first draft of the script while Carolann Goreman, the over-sexed biology teacher, and her five-student committee of choreographers watched over their shoulders for ideas. Scotty finagled lumber from the local hardware store owner and turned it over to the physical education department. The football coach and his horde, which included several browbeaten parents as well as students, were in charge of building the sets according to the designs provided by Jayne Nivens and her troupe of artists—who also painted them when they were finished. With the basketball coach and his posse of prop procurers turning the town upside down, Scotty was dazzling Diane Watts out of all the remnants in her fabric store and taunting Lester Finch, who was not to be outdone, into donating a whole bolt of green brocade drapery material for the good citizens of Emerald City.

  “There are fifty Munchkins total,” he announced to the ladies and gentlemen at Shady Grove Retirement Home. “They’re all pretty much the same size, so we thought a one-size-fits-most pattern would work out well. You could cut them out three or four at a time and set up something like an assembly line, if you think that would be easier for you. The few that will need bigger or small costumes, or special costumes like the Lollipop Guild, are being taken care of by Carrie Mutrux, the minister’s wife, who’s working closely with Augusta Miller, who’s in charge of all the Munchkins,” he said, swinging his arms wide. “Yes, Mr. Hayes, you have a question?”