Lost in Tennessee

by DeVito, Anita

  Kate measured and marked both the beam and the sign, moving effortlessly with a fluidity that only came with experience. She measured twice, asked him to lift the sign, checked again, then stepped back as she moved in with the drill. She didn’t speak, just worked with the materials they collected from his granddad’s old chest of drawers. “Okay, up she goes.”

  Butch lifted the sign again while she maneuvered it into place and made the final connection.

  Kate stood back and cocked her head. Then her face lit up, and she raised her hand for a high-five. “Nice team work. It hangs evenly. You shouldn’t have any problem with it, even in storms. Elderberry Farm. Very nice.”

  “Thank you.” Butch looked as the sign swung gently, back where it belonged with a lot less pain and suffering than if he had done it alone. He slapped his hand to hers, returning the pride shining in her face. “Let’s get you some directions.”

  Butch’s mother stood at the kitchen counter, her back to him as she wrapped left overs. “This should keep you for a few days.”

  “Thanks, Mama. I forgot how much I loved your cooking.”

  She turned around then. “As long as you don’t forget how much you love your mama.” She held her arms out.

  Butch filled them, resting his chin on his mother’s shoulder. “I could never forget that. Thank you for the fried chicken.” He knew she had made his favorite dish instead of the forewarned casserole after his father told her about the divorce. “Jeb appreciated it, too.”

  “That brother of yours.” She sighed heavily, pulling back until she could look at Butch’s face. “Marriage is about finding your partner in life. The one who makes high times higher and the low times worth remembering. What do you want in a wife, Butch?”

  Butch looked into his mother’s eyes but didn’t have an answer.

  Her gaze drifted away then widened in happiness.

  Butch’s father had walked into the room. “That program’s on you like. The one with the dogs.”

  “Oh. Is it that late already?” His mother pulled Butch down and kissed his cheek. “You take good care of my baby boy. I love him.”

  Butch smiled, embarrassed by her attention but treasuring it. “I’m heading back to the old house. G’night.”

  Butch’s brain rattled on the ten minute walk along the bumpy dirt road that skirted the fields. He wasn’t happy to be divorcing Fawn. He hadn’t married with the intention of divorce, not this time nor his other two marriages. He wasn’t proud he hadn’t been able to make a marriage work. He had come to terms with the feeling that divorcing Fawn was right. His life had been on hold for the last year, waiting for some sign telling him what to do. While he waited, Fawn partied and shopped and traveled. Without him. Fawn didn’t love him, if she ever had.

  The second and maybe more painful realization was it didn’t surprise him. It didn’t really hurt. His pain stemmed from the fact that for all his professional success, he failed spectacularly in the pursuit of love. A private pain that would become public fodder. He wanted to start living again. He finished the circle, coming back to where they had met and married to turn the page on this chapter of his life.

  His mother had asked him what he wanted in a wife. Butch hated not having an answer to give her. Then his father came in, and his mother’s eyes lit up. They had been married for thirty-five years, and she still stood a little straighter and smiled a little brighter when the love of her life walked into the room.

  That’s what Butch wanted. He wanted to be the light in a woman’s eyes. The light in her eyes. The spring in her step. The reason she laughs. The one she reaches for. The one she holds on to.

  With a song on the verge of birth, the thought of going into the old house made him feel claustrophobic. He needed room to breathe. Butch detoured to his granddad’s shop with a tune on his mind. Like a good whiskey, Butch found his songs needed time to ferment, and the best way to do that was not to try too hard. To give his hands something to do while his mind worked, Butch tinkered with the John Deere that stopped working his second day home. It had added insult to injury. He wanted to do something simple. Something he could accomplish. He had taken the tractor out to start working an empty field when something locked up, and the tractor growled like a poked bear. He took a hammer from the workbench, thinking he might not be able to fix it, but he couldn’t break it any worse.

  Somewhere nearby, the Lab barked excitedly. Butch felt a twinge of sympathy for whatever animal the dog played with to death. He crouched low to look through the underbody. The green-painted metal framed slim legs wrapped in denim and finished in leather.

  “You’re back.” Butch stood, wiping his hands on a cotton rag.

  The dog danced around the little redhead, dying to get her attention. Her brows pressed low, and lines cut deep rills around her eyes and mouth, but she handled the dog gently.

  “What happened?”

  Kate slapped her palms against her thighs. Her voice quivered. “How do I know? I followed the directions.” She tossed the paper to him. “I never found the highway.”

  She lost that confident air she wore as close as skin just hours ago. Half her hair had escaped her braid, her cute tee was rumpled, and her petal-pink lips drooped toward the ground. She looked defeated, a feeling he understood.

  Butch took the paper and read his own writing. There it was. Left on Route 431. It should have been a right. He looked at her out of the top of his eyes and shoved the paper into his pocket.

  Kate paced across the open door, her shoulders curved inward. The dog moved as surely as her shadow, oblivious of the tension. She stopped suddenly. The dog ran into her legs. Her hand found his thick neck while her eyes took in everything in the barn and settled on the tractor. When she finally spoke, her voice was steady and laced with something that sounded to Butch like curiosity.

  She cocked her head to the right. “What are you doing?”

  “Tractor decided to stop running. The engine turns over but she won’t go into gear.” He tossed the rag on the seat. “But that’s my problem, let’s take care of yours. I’ll get a map and meet you at your car.”

  When Butch came out of the front door of the farmhouse with a large map crumpled in his hands, Kate paced next to her car, shaking her hands as if to wake them up after they fell asleep. The dog, changing his tactic, sat near the fender, watching Kate with adoring eyes.

  “Are you all right?”

  Kate jumped when he spoke, collected herself, and turned to face him. “Physically, emotionally, or psychologically?”

  Butch stopped short and let out a clear, low whistle. Shredded rubber wrapped around the front passenger wheel where the tire should have been. “Looks like you got a problem.”

  “What? What?” Kate walked around to the place he pointed at with his chin. “No. No, no, no, no. Why can’t one thing, just one thing, go right today?” Kate walked around to the trunk, opened it and began emptying it. “Have you ever had a day when you feel like a fish swimming upstream, and you keep thinking if I can just get around the next bend, I’ll be home free, but the only thing waiting for you is a hungry bear with good hand-eye-mouth coordination?”

  Butch nodded, as that pretty much described his marriage and impending divorce. He joined her behind the car and began taking boxes from the trunk and stacking them on his gravel driveway. “I’ve had months like that. What is all of this?” The boxes made for reams of paper were full, based on their weight. Smaller boxes and bags were tucked in every gap, completely filling the trunk.

  “Work.” She didn’t elaborate as she pulled another box from the trunk and stacked it on the growing pile.

  Butch took a heavy one before she could. “What do you do?”

  “Not enough, if you believe my father.” She stopped suddenly. Kate’s arms went rigid, and her head hung heavy, her hair flopping forward. “This cannot be happening.”

  Butch realized the problem. No spare tire. Kate took a deep breath and let out a long, heavy sigh. Butch
felt responsible for that sigh. His mistake got her nowhere, with a flat tire.

  “I know a mechanic. He’ll set you up with a spare, but as late as it is, you aren’t going anywhere tonight. I have a bed you can use.” When she shook her still hanging head, he quickly added, “A spare bed. I have a spare bed.” His cell phone rang. “I need to answer this. Just relax. We’ll take care of this. What did you tell me with the sign? Let me help. It will be better if we do it together.”

  Butch walked into the farmhouse and fell into the old couch his parents brought from the big house. “Evening, Finch.”

  “Everything is set for the tour, Butch.” There was no preamble with Finch. The man got straight to it, no hellos and no good-byes. “I’ll see about adding a few smaller venues to fill in the gaps, but all the major venues are set. I have your road crew set and I have a surprise for you.” In classic Finch style, everything was done big. He had hired the top concert designer to work with Butch on the lighting. A hard-drinking, hard-playing band the audience would eat up would open the gigs. Then it would be Butch and the band he toured with. People would come and come big. Coliseums, ball parks.

  “Nice, Finch. You are the master.” Butch took a breath and broke the news. “I filed the papers yesterday.”

  Something heavy came down on something solid. Glass on wood? “It’s about time you cut off that ball and chain. I’ll handle the press statement. How has the soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. McCormick taken the news?”

  “I don’t expect she knows yet.” Butch ran his fingers through his hair. He stayed away from social media, not wanting to see himself depicted as a villain, a jealous man, a cheat, or whatever else the person posting thought others would “like.”

  Finch gave a rare, real belly laugh. “Just keep your legs crossed, and protect your balls.”

  Butch snorted with amusement but crossed his legs. “I thought that was your job.”

  “Damn straight. Now I got something to look forward to this week. Fawn Jordan may play the lamb on that sex-opera of hers, but she’s going to go out like a lion.”

  Butch cringed. “Yep, I know.”

  Finch snorted, the audio equivalent of an eye roll. “Don’t sound so worried. Just remember, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  Butch didn’t believe it but had no interest in debating the point. He didn’t do this for the publicity. He wanted his life back. He wanted to feel like him again. “Finch, I need a piano.”

  A moment of silence preceded a question that was more an accusation. “What happened to yours?”

  Butch draped his arm over his eyes. “I left it in California. I couldn’t pack it in the truck like my guitars.” He had moved the necessities of his life to his cabin in the hills, but his piano had stayed in the house he and Fawn shared. He could buy his own piano. Maybe he should, but he wasn’t in the mood to shop. He wanted to play. That little realization made Butch sit up tall. He wanted to play. Hot. Damn.

  Ice clinked against glass, then Finch spoke using the badass voice that showed his New York roots. “Fine, I’ll get one ASAP but don’t you let that unsophisticated wench keep that piano.” Finch walked in detail through his plans for promoting the tour, including appearances on Saturday Night Live, a fleet of morning shows, and a spread in Rolling Stone.

  A dull roar rolled into the living room, sounding like a brawl breaking out outside his back door. Butch leapt to his feet. “Finch, I’ve gotta run. I’ve got trouble.”

  Finch dropped the business tone for concern. “Trouble? Do you need cops?”

  A sharp metallic ping had Butch breaking into a sprint. “I’ve got to go. Call you later.”

  Butch ran into the barn and stopped short when he saw the guts of the big, green tractor spewed across the dusty floor. A computer sat on his Granddad’s workbench, a disembodied voice cheered on the ruckus. Tractor parts were spread out in parallel lines against the wall. In the middle of the floor, Kate wailed on the tractor with an old sledge hammer.

  “What are you doing?” Butch had to scream to get above the noise. “Kate. Kate! What the hell are you doing?”

  “Yes! Who’s your mama?” Kate held a mangled piece of metal triumphantly over her head.

  “You got it?” an amplified voice asked. “What is it?”

  “A wrench. A big-ass wrench.” She reached out, handing Butch the prize.

  “Who is that?” Butch frowned at the weight in his hands.

  “Clayton. My gearhead,” Kate said. “He’s the man with the plans. Thanks, Clayton. Bill me for your time.”

  “This one’s on me, Kate.” Butch heard the admiration and more than a little interest in the voice over IP. “Just remember my name the next time your father goes shopping.”

  “Please, Clay. My father loves you more than me most days. He doesn’t need to be reminded of your name.”

  “I just had a backhoe come in. Only five hundred hours on the engine. I’ll make him a deal.”

  Kate laughed. For the first time, Butch saw her really smile. It lit up the barn, lit up the night. Happy, carefree, proud. The smile went ear to ear and took years off her pretty face. The dog reared up, planting his front paws on her belly. Kate rubbed his ears enthusiastically.

  “I’ll let him know. First chance I get. Take care, Clay.”

  The dog refused to let her walk, making her laugh again.

  “Can you disconnect the call, Butch? I seem to be a prisoner.”

  Butch used the finger pad to end the call. “What are you doing, Kate?”

  She kissed the dog on the center of his flat head. “I couldn’t solve my problem, so I solved yours. There’s your culprit.” She lifted the dog’s paws, letting him fall to all fours and joined Butch on a clean patch of floor.

  Butch turned the wrench over in his hands. The hard metal had stood up to the tractor, gouging but not breaking. “Last time I saw this wrench was two weeks ago. My first full day home. It was here, on the work bench with the rest of the tools. How’d it get in the tractor?”

  Kate tapped his cheek. “I have no idea, muscles, but I think getting it out makes me your hero.”

  Butch returned the gesture, smiling when she laughed. “Almost. You still have to put the tractor back together. I suppose that can wait ’til tomorrow. Come on inside, hero. You can have some of my mother’s coveted fried chicken before I take you to meet your mechanic.”

  Without the ambient light from a city, night was as it should be: dark. The full moon painted the edges in silvery shadows, bringing life to inanimate objects. Butch steered his truck into a long, asphalt parking lot, lit by warm, yellow light spilling from the adjacent building. Kate blinked until her eyes adjusted to the light. This would be an adventure, she decided. In the months she’d been working in Tennessee, she’d kept to herself. Once she had her wheels back under her, she’d keep to herself again. So what would be wrong with one night of fun? Butch held the door.

  “The Sly Dog.” Kate ducked under his arm to enter the local hang out. “Have you been coming here long?”

  “Since I was a gleam in my Daddy’s eye.” Before the door closed behind them, Butch’s name had been called out from across the bar.

  Butch knew everyone, and everyone knew him. Kate ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing the curls that tended to run free as every one of his friends looked over the newcomer. Kate had changed into fresh jeans and pulled a white blouse over a tight, midnight-blue tank, leaving the blouse hanging open. She had dismantled her braid and let her long hair hang tousled over her shoulders. She returned the warm smiles and kind words offered as Butch introduced her to a few dozen family, friends, and acquaintances.

  Kate instantly liked the small-town bar. Years of good times marred the hardwood floor. Pictures of high school football championships, framed jerseys with illegible signatures scrawled in black marker, fishing poles, a canoe, and a stuffed marlin cluttered the walls. Music from a live band brought the whole place together in a non-stop party.

  Butch
swept his arm around her, leaning close to be heard over the music as they finally reached the bar at the back of the room. “What do you drink?”

  “Whatever you’re having is fine.”

  The bartender set two bottles of beer on the bar. As an afterthought, he added a glass next to Kate’s. Kate took the beer, left the glass, and followed Butch to a corner table crowded with laughter and empty bottles. A slim blonde with baby-blue eyes bounced into Butch’s arms. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the floor.

  With a squeal of delight, the woman laid a kiss on Butch’s jaw. “Butchy! It’s about time you left the house, not that I minded having you to myself.” The woman giggled and cooed until her gaze found Kate. “Who’s this?”

  A wave of uneasiness flowed through Kate. Butch was somebody to the people in the bar. She was nobody with a northern accent. She took a deep breath, figuring her play under the heavy gaze of the woman that had to be Butch’s girlfriend. This was, after all, an adventure, and what was adventure without an element of challenge? When Butch set the woman on her feet, Kate flashed her friendliest smile.

  “Hi, I’m Kate.”

  Butch stepped away from the blonde and guided Kate to an empty chair with a hand on her back. “This is Trudy Williams, my good friend since second grade. Trudy, this is Kate Riley. Is Hyde here?”

  “I’m your best girl, Butch. Don’t pretend like you don’t know it.” Trudy looked Kate up and down.

  Kate felt the censure. Of what, she wasn’t sure. Her sensible boots, well-worn jeans, and makeup-free face were less out of place here than at the bar she and Tom frequented in the Detroit suburbs. Likely, it was who she walked in with more than what Kate wore.

  Trudy didn’t dress like most women that night. She looked like something out of a magazine. Tall and lithe, her shape came from sculpted muscles on display by the sleeveless print dress. The tucked in waist showed off her Barbie-doll figure and miles of leg. Kate envied the graceful hands tipped with fancy red and white nail polish, so different from her own calloused, short-nailed fingers.