Lost Highways (A Valentine Novel)

by Matlock, Curtiss Ann

  “Sometimes he does.” Mr. Blaine and Monte were marching across her mind, and it was a couple of seconds before she realized that her sister had gone on talking.

  “Freddy and Helen are havin’ a little dinner party on Sunday night. They originally wanted it on Saturday, but Daddy refused to come because Bend of the River is playin’ on the Western Channel, and he didn’t want to miss it.”

  She paused for effect and added, “Freddy told Daddy to bring That Mildred Covington as a date.”

  “Oh.”

  Rainey thought of her father, picturing him in one of his white starched shirts and the way he always pulled at the neck. Surely he would not wear a good shirt for Mildred. He wouldn’t hardly wear one for Mama.

  “Is Daddy goin’ to?”

  “If Freddy has anything to do with it, he will. He does not care that Mama has been gone less than six months. You know what he said to me? He said, ‘Mom is gone, and it won’t do Dad any good to stay alone. He might need someone to take care of him soon, anyway.’”

  “Is Daddy sick?” Rainey said, alarmed that she might have missed something Charlene had told her.

  “No. Freddy’s just lookin’ ahead, anticipating. He doesn’t want to be havin’ to take care of Daddy.”

  It made Rainey sad to think of her father getting sick, and of Freddy saying it like that, like money and convenience were his chief concern, above their father’s happiness. Her father? Did she have a right to think that way?

  “But if Daddy is happy with Mildred, Charlene, that is all that matters.”

  “That Mildred is makin’ certain Daddy is happy with her right at this moment,” Charlene said in a tone that said she knew how the world worked. “Kaye Upchurch told me That Mildred did this same thing with Dwight Lowe last year after his wife died. That Mildred would have hooked him, too, but he moved to a fancy senior living center out in California with his sister.”

  Rainey pictured Kaye Upchurch. She was the mayor’s wife and knew everything about everyone in town. Rainey also knew that Kaye had had a terrible time with menopause and had for some time taken an antidepressant, which had been a blessing to her. She clamped her jaw shut. She was always careful not to tell what she knew about customers.

  Charlene said, “I’ll bet if we ask around, we’ll find out there’s a few more men that widow has cozied up to at one time or another.”

  “Well…” Rainey looked for a positive response. “She’s been widowed for five or six years. She’s probably really lonely.”

  “Oh, Rainey, everybody’s lonely at least half the time. She should just get a hobby.”

  “Well, I guess she has,” Rainey said before she thought.

  At least that made Charlene laugh full out.

  “Oh, Rainey, I know it’s true,” her sister said, her voice now pliable and warm. “I know Mama is as dead as she’ll ever be, but I just do not like this thing with That Mildred. I just don’t like it. And it gripes me to pieces to see Daddy actin’ like a silly old fool. Freddy thinks he’s an old fool, but he isn’t, Rainey. Well, except about this stupid Mildred.”

  “Daddy isn’t a fool, Charlene. He never was with Mama.”

  Charlene sighed heavily. “He’s eighty-two, Rainey, and Mama’s dyin’ has knocked the stuffin’s out of him,” she said in a mournful tone that slid into desperate. “I just don’t know what to do to help him. I just don’t know what to do.”

  Rainey thought that if Charlene didn’t think she knew the answer, then no one else was going to have a clue.

  She found herself saying, “I’ll be comin’ home, Charlene, Sunday, after the Amarillo rodeo.”

  “What? You’re whisperin’, Rainey.”

  “I said, I’ll come home on Sunday.”

  “Then try to get here in time for Freddy’s dinner. It’s at seven o’clock. Well, this is long distance, you know, and my story is fixin’ to come on. Bye.”

  “Bye…”

  She heard the line click and the dial tone return before hanging up.

  For quite a few minutes, Rainey sat in the gooseneck rocker, staring, seeing her sister, her father, the drugstore and the town, with its wide main street and sidewalks, colorful seasonal signs flapping from the streetlamp posts, the Main Street Café and Blaine’s Drugstore and the bank on the corner, and the tree-lined neighborhood streets where children and dogs played. Valentine, where she had lived all of her life, except the two years she had been married to Robert.

  Quite suddenly, she wished she hadn’t told Charlene she was coming home. She didn’t feel ready. She thought she might never feel ready. She had the awful fear that maybe she didn’t belong in Valentine anymore. Maybe she didn’t belong as a Valentine.

  Then she realized that she was staring at the thirty-year-old console television set and remembered her sister had said, “My story is comin’ on.”

  All My Children. Charlene had watched that forever.

  Wondering if the old television set would even work, she got up and switched it on. The picture was a little hazy and blue, but right there was Erica smiling that brilliant smile, the one she had when she was about to do something wiley.

  Rainey had seen the program while visiting their Aunt Pauline down in San Antonio. Aunt Pauline taped it each day while she worked and saved one or two weeks of episodes to watch at once in marathon viewings. She liked them best in bursts, Aunt Pauline said. Rainey had watched with her aunt and gotten caught up on all she had missed in two years of working at Blaine’s.

  Slipping back into the gooseneck rocker, Rainey thought she would watch, even if the picture was hazy and off-color. The people on the program had much worse problems than she did.

  She telephoned Neva at the bank. “I told Uncle Doyle that you and Buck were married.” She had begun to worry that her cousin would be annoyed that she had stepped into her business.

  “You did?” Neva sounded surprised and relieved at once. “What did he say?” her cousin, the high-powered bank executive, asked breathlessly.

  “Not really anything. I guess I didn’t give him much of a chance. I pointed out that this meant he would soon be a grandfather. I hope you guys get on that real soon, because he’s sure to come around then. Will you pick up some strawberries and bring them out? I bought the cream and then forgot the strawberries.”

  “Oh, Rainey…maybe it’d be best to cancel. Buck said he might go out with the guys tonight.”

  “Neva, you manage that bank, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then manage Buck just a little. You bring him tonight. I can’t leave here until I know things are started in the right direction with y’all.”

  “And what if we come out and things go off in the wrong direction?”

  “They won’t. Don’t even think that way. And you might suggest to Buck that he shave. That might be a help. Tell him, just until you guys have some babies, and then he can have as much hair as he wants.”

  When she hung up, she thought that she really was her mother’s daughter. She was able to correctly arrange everyone’s life but her own.

  When the phone rang that afternoon, she thought immediately of Charlene. She didn’t want to talk to her sister again, but then she told herself to quit being silly. This was Uncle Doyle’s phone; anybody he knew could be calling.

  A gruff voice on the line said, “This is Farris Wrecker Service. We got Mr. Furneaux’s Porsche out of that wash. Is this the right number?”

  “Yes, it is. Only he isn’t here right now.”

  A Porsche? She hadn’t realized it had been such an expensive car. She pictured him racing down the highway in it, his brown hair blowing in the breeze.

  “Well, tell him it’s bunged up good, but I don’t think it’s totaled. Anyway, we got it yeste’dy evenin’ and brought it to our lot. We’ll keep it thirty days, and unless he notifies us of what he wants done before that, we’ll start sellin’ parts.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “We do.”

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nbsp; “I’ll tell him. You better give me your number, just to make certain he has it.”

  Harry and Uncle Doyle came in about midafternoon: Uncle Doyle went straight up to take a shower, and Harry flopped down on the shady porch. He looked worn slap out. Sweat glistened on his face and dampened his shirt, and a fine layer of dust covered him. After one look, Rainey brought him a glass of iced tea and the note she’d written about the call from Farris Wrecker Service.

  “They said if you did not notify them in thirty days what to do with the car, they would start sellin’ parts off it. I don’t think they can do that, but the man said they would.” She eased backward and sat in one of the rockers.

  “I guess they can do anything they want. They have the car.”

  His throat bobbed as he swallowed large gulps of her tea. She hoped he didn’t get a headache from drinking the cold liquid so fast. He had an indentation around his head, so she knew he’d worn his hat, but he still looked to have gotten a lot of sun.

  Setting the glass aside, he lay all the way down on the porch. She watched his chest rise and fall.

  “I just think that is high-handed, saying they’ll start sellin’ parts,” she said. “How can they do that without the title?”

  “Most people can do anything they want to, if no one objects.” After a minute, he added, “Don’t worry over it, Rainey. I’ll take care of it. I’ll call my insurance agent in a few minutes. Did the guy say how badly it was damaged?” He cracked his eyes at her.

  “Bunged up good but not totaled. I still imagine it’ll take a lot to get a Porsche fixed.”

  He nodded and closed his eyes again, eyelashes long against his cheeks.

  “My parents bought that car for me as an early present for finishing my residency,” he said, eyes still closed.

  “Oh,” Rainey said. Relationships were all quite complicated, she mused.

  She watched him, his chest rising and falling, the hair that blew across his forehead. The puppy got up from his place against the wall and slunk over and lay next to him. A breeze drifted nicely over all of them.

  “You know,” Harry said, not opening his eyes, “I see now the value of physical labor in chain gangs. I have never physically worked so hard, and now I can see that when you do that, you stimulate your mental energy. No conscious thinking, beyond lifting the bale of hay and stacking it. The mind is able to focus and give forth all sorts of enlightened thoughts.”

  She was a little surprised. “Such as?”

  “Such as what is important and what isn’t. Such as giving away your soul because you don’t ever deal with things.”

  He did not elaborate on that, and she thought of his term: giving away your soul. She thought there was such a thing as getting lost from your soul. Of maybe never really finding it in the first place.

  He said, “Do you know your Uncle Doyle has thirty years on me and I had to hustle to keep up with him? And he knows the names of all sorts of birds and grasses and bugs.”

  “He’s been doin’ it all his life. I think you could say you know the names of some bugs—cold and virus bugs.”

  She went into the kitchen and brought back a wet hand towel. Easing down, she sat beside him and began to wipe his face. He peeked an eye at her and then closed it again. She boldly wiped gently at his eyes, over his long silky lashes, his cheeks and up on his forehead and down to his ears and on down to his neck, and then she traced his lips.

  His hand, strong, bleeding in a couple of places, came up and caught her wrist, and he gazed up at her. She did not look away.

  He let go of her wrist and caught the back of her head.

  “Something else I thought about while I was out there,” he said, his voice husky and his eyes seductive. “A lot.” He tugged her down to his parting lips.

  She went willingly, eagerly, and he kissed her hard, with passion that lit her up and made her moan. Kissed her until she could not breathe.

  Shaking, she pressed a hand to his chest and raised her head. She looked at him a long moment. Felt her cheeks burning, felt her body wanting much more.

  Then she got up and went inside the house, letting the screen door bang.

  Harry fell asleep on the porch. She saw him through the screen door, and then she tiptoed away, as if that was necessary not to wake him. Every time she passed the door, she would look out at him.

  She felt as if his kiss was permanently on her lips. How was she going to act toward him now? She was no doubt making a big deal out of nothing.

  He awoke some twenty minutes later and came inside. He stood there looking at her, until she looked at him.

  “Would it be all right if I used Doyle’s phone to make some calls? I’ll use my card.”

  She’d thought he might have been going to say something other than that. She was a little annoyed that he hadn’t.

  “I’m sure Uncle Doyle wouldn’t mind either way,” she said. “I heard the water stop in the pipes a little bit ago. He’s probably out of the bathroom now.”

  He rubbed his hand over his head and nodded. He went into the living room, and when she came into the dining room to start setting the table for the evening, she heard his voice. She moved quietly as she spread the lace tablecloth, not wanting to disturb him. And listening. Oh, it was only the insurance agent he talked to. Sounded like they were friends. She couldn’t hear a lot of words, but his tone sounded friendly. She heard him say thanks and goodbye.

  She got the good dishes out of the china cabinet; they clinked. Then she put them around on the table. Harry was speaking again. His tone had changed. It sounded strained. She stilled, holding one of the desert rose china plates.

  “Dad, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But this is something I have to do, and I’m the one who has to make the decision.”

  Silence.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  Silence again.

  Tiptoing to the entry, she looked beyond the narrow stairway. She saw him sitting there, his hand lying on the receiver he’d replaced, his shoulders slumped. She wanted to go to him, but she worried that might not be the thing to do. Sometimes when you know you’ve disappointed another person, you don’t want anyone to see you.

  And maybe she wasn’t the one who should be comforting him. They were just getting into all sorts of complications here.

  She went quietly back into the kitchen, got the plate of scraps she had saved for the puppy and took them out on the porch. He wagged his tail at her and sat down, waiting.

  “Well, you have manners,” she said, setting the plate on the porch floor.

  Lifting her eyes from the dog, she looked out across the field of alfalfa and the rolling land of mesquite, in the direction of her home. She thought of her father. Winston Valentine. It took a lot more than conceiving a child to be a father. Suddenly she was so very grateful to him. She wondered why she could not settle the questions in her mind with that one answer: he had been a father to her.

  Buck had shaved. His hair was still shaggy, but he had it combed neatly back. For an instant, with Uncle Doyle looking at him, Rainey thought Buck might back out the door, but then Uncle Doyle nodded at him through a wreath of cigarette smoke.

  Rainey whispered to Harry to get the old radio he’d fixed and face it into the dining room, and to turn it low on the blues station. “Maybe it’ll soothe their tempers.”

  She served supper on the long table covered with her aunt’s lace cloth. Candles flickered on the old oak sideboard.

  “Oh, Rainey, I haven’t seen the table like this since Mama,” Neva said. “It is just lovely. Isn’t it lovely, Buck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And everything smells so good. Let me help you get things.” Neva followed Rainey into the kitchen.

  “Get back in there with the men,” Rainey whispered. “Harry can’t do it all alone.”

  Uncle Doyle asked the blessing with five chopped words. Things looked awfully strained, until the food started being dished up, sending steam and aromas rising.<
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  “Oh, Rainey, this is delicious.” Neva grabbed hold of something to say. “Isn’t it delicious, Buck?”

  “Yes, it is.” The napkin tucked into his collar bobbed as he cast Rainey an appreciative grin.

  “There’s no doubt that Rain-gal can bring a person back to life with her chicken pot pie,” Uncle Doyle drawled, his tone slipping into warmth. “I imagine her cookin’ could be a prescription for sick folks, wouldn’t you say, Doc?”

  Harry nodded. “I’ll bet it could stop wars,” he said and very deliberately forked a piece of chicken into his mouth, while his eyes remained on hers.

  Rainey felt a funny response in her chest and thought of how he had kissed her. But he had not said a thing about going to Amarillo with her. Besides, their kiss wasn’t anything. Though it had been quite a kiss, she supposed.

  “Rainey could give me her recipe, and I’ll give it a try, Daddy,” Neva said.

  “It’s Mama’s recipe,” Rainey said. “She always made it for family gatherings.”

  What her mother had told her was to always rely on the pie’s cream gravy to put everyone into a mellow stupor.

  An uneasy silence fell over the table again, and Harry broke it by asking Buck about his experiences in Desert Storm. It turned out that Buck had been in the army—which Harry had no doubt learned in chatting with him the previous night—and this brought out Uncle Doyle, who had himself been in the army for a number of years early in his life.

  It seemed that every time conversation lagged, Harry had a way of getting it going again.

  CHAPTER 14

  Back Out on the Road

  When Harry slipped upstairs, and Uncle Doyle and Buck were engaged in after-supper smokes and a discussion of how Buck could weld the broken spring on Uncle Doyle’s hay wagon, Rainey left Neva finishing the dishes, got her bags, which she’d already set by the back door, and carried them out to her horse trailer.

  She didn’t want Harry to seea her taking her things. She had become increasingly agitated about the prospect of saying goodbye.

  For one thing, there were too many questions. Should she offer her address and phone number? What for? Was she going to hold out her hand for a shake, or was she going to hug him? Was she going to go for one magnificent goodbye kiss?