by Pamela Morsi
“I don’t care,” Camyrn answered. “If she walks in and gets an eyeful, it’s her own fault for not giving us more privacy.”
Tree’s mouth was one thin line of disapproval. “Do you want your mom to hate me?” he asked. “Do you want her to try to keep us apart?”
“Do you mean, do I want her to act more like your dad?”
“My dad doesn’t hate you,” he insisted.
“Oh, yeah? Well, it sure feels like he does,” she said. “I know he talks against me all the time. And he’s the reason we have to play all these ‘non-penetration’ games. I’m practically the only virgin left in the high school and it’s your father’s fault.”
“You are not the only virgin left in the high school,” Tree countered, his words still barely above a whisper.
“Well, yeah, there’s you,” she shot back. “I want to do it. I want to do it for real. But he made you promise, so now you won’t do me.”
“I am going to do you, Cammy. There’s nothing in the world that I want more than to have sex with you,” Tree insisted. “We’re just not going to do it now. Not while we’re still in high school. Not when there is still so much ahead of us.”
“You mean ahead of you,” she answered. “There’s nothing ahead for me.”
“Don’t be stupid. That’s crazy.”
“It’s not crazy, it’s true,” she said. “You’re going to leave here and go to college somewhere and meet all new people. But I’m going to stay right here in Marrying Stone. Once you leave me here, you’re never coming back.”
“Is that what you think? You think I’m going to dump you?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I think. It’s exactly what your father wants.”
“My dad wants me to have choices,” he said.
“He wants you to choose somebody other than me.”
“No, Cammy, what he wants is for it to be my decision, not yours.” Tree’s eyes were narrow and his jaw was tight. “I love you. But I am sick to death of arguing with you, sick of being manipulated by you. And I’m really sick of never getting to make the first move with you. Sometimes, Cammy, the guy would like to be the guy.”
Camryn had never seen him so angry.
“If you loved me—” she began lamely, but he cut her off.
“Look, I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” Tree said. “I haven’t made a secret of that. But I don’t want ‘the rest of my life’ to start today. You think I’m going to walk out and never look back. And yet, somehow you think it would be better if I did that after spending months screwing around with you. I don’t get it. And I don’t want it. If you’re so sure we’re going to break up after graduation anyway, why don’t we go ahead and break up right now?”
“You want to break up with me?” Camryn was incredulous.
Tree stood there, staring angrily at her for a moment and then slowly began nodding his head. “Yeah, I think I do.”
The door to the living room opened. Her mother stood there, looking surprised, upset, unsure. Camryn realized that at some point they’d stopped whispering and started screaming.
“What is going on here?” her mother demanded.
Camryn glanced at Tree, but he turned his back on her.
“I’m fixing your plumbing, Mrs. Broody,” he answered. “And then I’m going home. It was a great dinner. And thank you for always being so nice to me. But I’m not going to be around here for a while.”
Tree dropped to his knees and hoisted himself under the counter.
Camryn decided to flee the room, but her mother stood in the doorway, looking daggers at her. She had no idea what she’d overheard, but it was obviously not to her liking. Pushing past her mother, Camryn hurried to her room. Slamming the door shut behind her was all the comment she needed to make.
24
Jesse hardly slept. At the first stirrings of daylight she was downstairs. She poked the fire into life, started the coffee and peeked in on Aunt Will.
“I’m not sleeping,” she said across the darkness.
“I was just checking on you,” Jesse told her. “There’s no need to get up yet.”
“I might as well,” Aunt Will answered. “I’m lying here waiting for that coffee to boil. I’m sure it will be faster if I’m in the kitchen to watch it.” The statement, and the chuckle that followed it, were so typical of her aunt that Jesse almost sighed in relief. The mental lapse of the night before seemed far away.
She floundered a little attempting to sit on the side of the bed. Jesse hurried to offer her a hand. The old woman seemed more sure of herself once her feet were on the floor.
“Where’s my stick?” she asked. “I can’t very well be getting around of a morning without my stick.”
Jesse located the long, straight remnant of an oak limb that served as Aunt Will’s version of a cane.
Even with her stick in hand, the excursion of the previous evening had left the old woman more frail than she wanted to admit. Jesse helped her to her feet and then followed nervously as Aunt Will doddered unsteadily across the cabin. It wasn’t until she was safely seated in her chair near the fire that Jesse breathed a sigh of relief.
“Okay, you watch the coffee,” she said. “And I’ll get started on the chores.”
Aunt Will tutted at her. “You’ll be spoiling me so I won’t be able to do without you.”
Jesse resisted replying that she wouldn’t have to. After the revelations of last night, she had revised her “couple of weeks” in the Ozarks to an open-ended commitment. She had no intention of leaving her aunt. Her parents, her brothers, her friends back home could all do without her. Her elderly aunt could not.
Jesse had fed the chickens and milked the cow before checking again on Aunt Will. She remained seated by the fire.
“It won’t take me more than a minute to fix you some breakfast,” Jesse told her.
Aunt Will chuckled. “You’ve only been here a week and already you’re beginning to sound like me.”
Jesse decided to take that as a compliment. Aunt Will had spent so much of her life taking care of other people, Jesse was thinking that it might be her challenge to return the favor.
Eschewing the fresh laid hen eggs, Jesse cooked up a pot of more liver-disease-friendly oatmeal. Aunt Will made her way to the table without assistance and ate with some gusto.
At least, her appetite was no worse, Jesse thought to herself.
She followed her aunt’s typical protocol, eat first, ask questions later. But as soon as the old woman pushed her bowl away, Jesse brought up the subject that was the elephant in the room.
“I want to talk about what’s going on with your health.”
Aunt Will nodded. “I suspect Piney answered most of your questions last night.”
“He did, I suppose,” Jesse admitted. “But there’s an important one that only you can answer.”
Aunt Will raised a quizzical eyebrow and almost smiled. “When am I going to die? Lordy, girl, not even I know the answer to that one.”
“No, that’s not what I need to ask,” Jesse said. “I need to know when were you planning to tell me? Or were you going to let me go home without telling me at all?”
The older woman had the good grace to look sheepish. “I don’t want to be a burden on anyone, DuJess,” she said, by way of explanation. “Least of all you. I thought I’d try to slip out of this world, kind of quiet like.” Hearing her own words, Aunt Will laughed as if it were a great joke and then shook her head. “It would have been a first for me, I can tell you that. Ever blame milestone I ever passed managed to end up in a big ruckus of some kind. I don’t know why I expected my death to be any different.”
Jesse had no idea what kind of ruckuses had occurred at her milestones, and she was about to bring it up for discussion, when her aunt’s clear blue eyes settled upon her with an expression that was both evasive and serious.
“Then again,” Aunt Will told her. “I have something planned for the end that is a guaranteed
dust flapper. So I guess I was merely fooling myself all along.”
“What do you have planned?” Jesse asked.
Aunt Will grinned and shook her finger at her. “If I tell you now, it won’t be much of a surprise, will it?”
Jesse was secretly hoping that the surprise would be that her aunt would simply outlive them all. But maybe that was too much to ask, even for the best granny woman in the Ozarks.
“Okay, you can have your startling eleventh hour reveal,” she said. “But it can’t be that you are sick. People who love you want to know.”
“I suppose they do,” Aunt Will said. “Though I don’t relish having the place overrun with well-wishers. And if one of them holier-than-thou do-gooders tries to pray over me, I’ve still got the strength to split a skull open. I’ll need to keep my shovel handy.”
Jesse couldn’t help smiling at the proposed image of Aunt Will taking on the unwelcome attentions of the devout.
“I’ll make sure,” Jesse promised. “No praying.”
Aunt Will shook her head. “Praying is a fine, good thing. I do it myself most days. But the bible says, do it in secret, in your closet. That’s when you get help to coming. Making a big show of yourself in front of folks, that don’t work a’tall. It merely pisses the Good Lord off.”
“Well, we don’t want to do that,” Jesse agreed.
“And people are going to want to bring things,” Aunt Will continued thoughtfully. “They’re going to want to show up with hams and roasts and the like.”
“We’re cutting back on protein,” Jesse reminded her.
“That we are,” Aunt Will agreed. “And I mostly prefer my own cooking to anybody else’s anyway. Still, if somebody asks you, tell them that we need pie.”
“Pie?”
“Never could make a decent pie to save my life,” the old woman confessed. “And since I cain’t have no meat or salt, I might as well eat something I like. I think I’ll eat a pie every day until I’m dead. Isn’t that what they say? A pie a day keeps the doctor away?”
“I think that’s ‘an apple a day.’”
Aunt Will shrugged. “So make it an apple pie.”
“I’ll ask Piney,” Jesse said.
“You do that,” Aunt Will said, smiling. “You ask Piney. And you let him get the word out. He’s got the whole mountain on a string down there. Once he’s given leave to spread the word, everybody from here to Kansas City will know.”
Jesse nodded. “But not Tulsa,” she pointed out. “I’ll send my mom a text next time I’m somewhere with a cell signal. I’m sure she’d want to know.”
“Yes, you’d best let her know,” Aunt Will agreed. “I like Patsy a lot. I didn’t think I would. I didn’t think any gal was good enough for my boy, Mac. And when she took him away from the mountain, well, I had no use for that. But she made him a happy man. He had such a short life and it started out so catawampus, he truly deserved those years away from here with a wife that he loved and a child of his own.”
Jesse felt a little clutch in her heart at the mention of her dad. He had kissed her goodbye at school and then an hour later he was gone forever. They’d buried him here on the mountain in Arkansas and they’d never gone back to Oklahoma City. They’d started a new life in Tulsa with a new home, new school, new friends. Jesse’s whole world had changed without him. She couldn’t let that happen again.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
“I am so glad I came, Aunt Will,” she said. “I mean, I would have felt terrible to…to have lost you without being up here with you again.”
Aunt Will reached across the table and patted her hand. Jesse looked directly into her eyes. The old woman’s face was lined with age and care, but her eyes were as clear and blue and determined as ever.
“I wouldn’t have gone without saying goodbye, DuJess.”
Jesse was skeptical and her expression must have said as much.
“I sent for you, in my own way,” Aunt Will insisted, then added with a spritely grin. “If that hadn’t a-worked, I’d have borrowed Piney’s telephone. Believe me, I wasn’t willing to go without seeing you again.”
“Thanks,” Jesse said.
“I wanted to have you here with me,” she said. “But I did worry about taking you away from your life.”
Jesse nodded, understanding.
“’Course, that’s all worked out for the best now, ain’t it?” Aunt Will said. “Thank heaven you shed that no-account you were thinking to wed. If you were still tied to him, you’d be in a pickle for sure.”
She looked at her aunt quizzically. “What do you mean?”
Aunt Will was smiling broadly even as she made a sound of disbelief. “Last night I might have thought I was delusional,” she said. “But here in the clear light of the morning, you’re glowing from the inside, like a woman in love.”
Jesse felt the heat rise up in her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You’re not that good of a liar, DuJess,” Aunt Will told her, grinning. “You and our Piney have got something going on. Even a blind old woman can see clear.”
Jesse stiffened her spine. She didn’t want to deny anything. And she was not ashamed of what they had done. Still, she wasn’t sure how exactly to explain the concept of sex buddies to her octogenarian aunt.
“We’re not in love,” she declared calmly. “We…we have been intimate,” she stated. “But it’s not a…a romance thing.”
Taking a clue from Piney’s best “medical professional” demeanor, Jesse raised her chin and in an even, emotionally free tone attempted to describe the friends-with-benefits agreement she and Piney were settled upon. Saying it aloud, even to her own ears, sounded a little flakey. But she persisted in her explanation, finishing with, “For us it’s a more twenty-first century version of the lovesick cure.”
Jesse tried to control her own embarrassment as she faced Aunt Will. To her surprise, the old woman didn’t appear in the least bit shocked.
“You young folks today think you invented the world,” Aunt Will said. “Still, a dash of unlawful scrumping might work for you. A lot more folks have tried that recipe than my own, even if we don’t hear testimonials.” She chuckled naughtily at that suggestion.
Jesse giggled a bit herself.
The important thing was that her aunt was nodding and smiling again.
“But beware, DuJess,” Aunt Will told her. “Every cure has its side effects. It only seems fair to warn you. I suspect that a regular tonic of Piney Baxley can be potently habit forming.”
25
Piney woke up wearing a big grin on his face. He couldn’t remember when he’d slept so well. He pulled the pillow next to him up over his face. He could smell her hair on it.
“Jesse,” he murmured to himself. He liked her. He really liked her. And he loved, loved, loved doing her. Being inside her. She was so hot. She was so tight. She was…
Piney stopped himself in midthought and rolled out of bed. His mind was headed where his body could not go. He had plenty to do this morning. And none of it involved lolling about in bed remembering what they’d done there yesterday. And if there was any luck or justice in the world, maybe by this afternoon he’d figure out a way for them to do more.
With that idea in his brain, he was whistling his way to the kitchen to make coffee. He was surprised to find it already made and his son sitting at the table drinking a cup.
“You’re up,” he said to Tree with surprise as he glanced toward the clock. It was still early and he’d not overslept. But Tree, who typically had to be pried out of bed with a crowbar on Sunday mornings, was awake, alert and already dressed. He was not, however, wearing his dress clothes, but his sweats.
“Aren’t you going to church this morning?”
“Nope,” Tree answered. “I’m going to hang around here, shoot some baskets.”
Piney raised an eyebrow at that, even as he filled his cup on the counter.
“I don’t want you shootin
g hoops during the service,” he said. “That thud-thud-thud practically reverberates in the sanctuary and the pastor will bend my ear for a month about it.”
“Okay, I’ll wait ’til afternoon.”
Piney opened the refrigerator and pulled out a jug of milk. “You might as well go,” he said. “You’ll be bored hanging around here. And Camryn will miss you if you’re not there.”
There was a silence long enough for him to stop and look up at his son.
Tree shrugged. “We’re broken up.”
Piney let that statement settle in as he retrieved the cereal from the cabinet. He wanted to be available if Tree wanted to talk, but he didn’t want to pry if his curiosity was unwelcome. Even teenagers needed some privacy. Maybe teenagers needed the most privacy.
He set bowls on either side of the table and seated himself across from his son.
Should he ask? Should he stay out of it? Piney weighed his options. One of the tough realities of single parenting was that he was always flying blind. There was no one to help thrash out a best strategy. No one to provide backup if a good plan went awry. He just had to go with his gut and hope he didn’t end up with a bellyache.
He glanced over at Tree. His expression was pure hangdog and he was stirring his cereal instead of shoveling it in his mouth.
“Is this a relationship hiccup? Or are you two seriously on the outs?” he asked, attempting a tone he hoped was conversationally casual.
Tree shook his head. “I don’t think I can keep seeing her,” he said. “No. No, I can’t keep seeing her. I’m thinking I’ll concentrate on basketball through the rest of the season. I can worry about girls, about Cammy, later.”
Piney resisted the impulse to jump up and cheer. Instead, he solemnly replied, “That seems like a reasonable thing to do. The schedule is getting tougher. And the team is counting on you.”
“Yeah,” his son replied. His tone revealed more sadness than resolve.
