At Home in Last Chance

by Cathleen Armstrong

  As food was passed and the conversation swirled around the topics of Ray’s art, the move from Santa Fe, Steven’s renovation project, and whether this dry spell was likely to turn into a drought, Kaitlyn found her thoughts drawn back again and again to Lainie’s comment. She could sort of see the “hating yourself” part. Even as Kaitlyn had chosen to do everything she did, and would have said she liked doing it, part of her always knew there was something darker there, something that made her feel dead inside. But the thing Kaitlyn couldn’t understand was the rest of Lainie’s observation—the part where she said Last Chance was where she learned to stop the self-hate. How did she do that?

  “Is what I hear true, Miss Kaitlyn?” Nancy Jo pulled her back into the conversation. “Does Last Chance finally have its own hairstylist?”

  “I don’t know about that.” It took Kaitlyn a second or two, but she caught up. “I did get my license transferred, but that’s about it so far.”

  “Kaitlyn, that’s tremendous.” Lainie beamed at her as she reached for the Parmesan cheese. “Are you going to open your own shop?”

  “That’s too far out there for me to even think about right now. I have no idea where I would put it, and it would cost way more money than I have. So right now, my only option would be to get a job in San Ramon. Of course, I’ll still be happy to do friends’ hair in the kitchen.” She caught Chris’s glare. “Yes, in the kitchen at home, dear brother. It happens all the time.”

  “I guess you’re planning on doing your painting up at your cabin?” Joe Jr. clearly thought enough had been said about hairdos.

  “I’m going to give it a try.” Ray looked over at his uncle. “I’d sure like to make it work.”

  “I probably shouldn’t say anything, since it all seems to have been decided, but I’m sorry you gave up everything, again, to come back here to take care of somebody.” Nancy Jo sat back in her chair. “I guess I can see you coming back to take care of your daddy. With Steven away in the service, and your mom, bless her, passed on, there wasn’t really anyone your daddy’d want but you. But that’s just not the case with Gran. This is her home, and this is where she should be.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Aunt Nancy Jo.” Ray waited a long moment before he answered. “But coming home was something I wanted to do, both to be with dad, and now to be with Gran, for that matter. I admit I didn’t get in as much painting as I wanted to before, but I’m not expecting things to be that way now.”

  “Well, I hope not. You’ve put your life on hold long enough.” Nancy Jo picked up the platter near her and passed it. “Chris, have some more spaghetti. A growing boy like you needs to eat.”

  Kaitlyn happened to be looking at Steven when his aunt was talking, and she saw his jaw tighten and his gaze drop to his plate. She was almost sure Nancy Jo hadn’t intended it that way, but with one remark she had discounted Steven’s efforts to keep his grandmother in her own home and managed to remind everyone at the table that Ray had given years of his life so their dad’s bar would be there for him when Steven came home. A bar Steven never wanted in the first place.

  23

  Elizabeth came home in the middle of a March sandstorm. Steven stood in her front window with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, watching tumbleweeds and the occasional bit of trash bounce down the street in the pale, gritty sunshine. Every now and then an especially violent gust slammed against the house and sandblasted the windows. He checked his watch again.

  A fall during rehab in February had delayed Gran’s progress, and Steven had expected her to be crushed at coming so close to going home only to be set back, but that wasn’t Gran. She never had time to lament what might have been. She set her jaw, narrowed those blue eyes, and worked all the harder, and today she was coming home. He and Ray had wanted to go to San Ramon to get her, but Joe Jr. had said she was his mother and he would go, so they waited at her house.

  All morning people had been dropping by with casseroles and Bundt cakes and bowls of Jell-O salad. When Lainie heard that meals would be brought in, she had tried to tell them that she would be doing all the cooking, not Elizabeth, but that made no difference. In Last Chance a hospital stay, whether it resulted in a new baby, a removed gall bladder, or, as in Elizabeth’s case, a stint in a convalescent home, meant food, and lots of it.

  “Should we go ahead and have lunch? We don’t know for sure when they’ll get here.” Lainie stuck her head in from the kitchen where she had been trying to find places to put everything. “How about some chili-mac? We have lots.”

  “No thanks. I’m guessing they’ll be here soon. I can wait. You?” He looked over his shoulder at Ray, who had taken Gran’s old guitar out of the hall closet and was sitting on the piano bench plucking it.

  “Nope.” He didn’t look up. “I’m good.”

  Steven turned back to the window. After a minute Ray spoke again.

  “Saw Rita yesterday.”

  Steven shook his head and winced. Of course you did. You really have to be on your toes to avoid seeing that woman.

  “She wonders if we know what we’re going to do with the High Lonesome. I told her I haven’t given it much thought. What about you? She seems pretty anxious for us to get something decided.”

  “I know. Boy, do I know. Every time I leave a building in town, I have to throw my hat out first to see if she pounces on it. I think she hides in the bushes and waits.”

  Ray, still bent over the guitar, chuckled. “Sounds like her. But she does have a point. We can’t just leave it sitting there. Has there been any interest in it at all?”

  Steven paced the room, finally coming to rest on Gran’s recliner where he could still see the street. “Some guy in El Paso asked about it, but he was looking to reopen it as a bar.”

  Ray looked up. “Do you have the guts to tell Gran that’s what we did? I don’t.”

  “Nope. That’s why I told him we weren’t interested. But it still leaves us with the problem of what to do with the thing.” He got to his feet as Nancy Jo’s station wagon pulled up to the curb. “There they are. Tell you what. Why don’t we go over there this afternoon after everything settles down here? Maybe we can come up with something.”

  “Sounds good.” Ray laid the battered guitar back in its case. “Lainie, they’re here.”

  Elizabeth didn’t stop smiling. She used the walker that Joe Jr. took from the back of the station wagon, but her back was straight and her limp was slight as, despite the punishing wind, she walked up the ramp. She looked like Gran.

  “Oh, my goodness, I am home.” Steven tried to help her, but she lifted her walker over the doorsill with ease as she came in. “Home has never looked so sweet to me.”

  “Do you want to go lie down and rest?” Nancy Jo followed her in carrying her cosmetic case. “You must be exhausted after this morning.”

  Elizabeth held up one hand. “Don’t fuss. I’m going to sit right here in my own chair and just be home for a minute. My, something smells good.”

  “Lunch is ready whenever you are. But it can wait too, so just let me know when to dish it up.” Lainie leaned over Elizabeth’s recliner and gave her a hug. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

  “And I’m glad you’re home too, sweet girl. This is the way it ought to be.” She must have noticed the hurt expression on Nancy Jo’s face because she held her hand out to her daughter-in-law. “Don’t be too put out with me because I wanted to come back to my own house instead of back to the ranch. The ranch was my home for more than fifty years, but it’s your home now, and that’s the way it should be. Enjoy this time you and Joe Jr. have with each other. You don’t know how precious it is.” She turned back to Lainie with a smile. “Let’s have lunch. Knowing Joe Jr., he’s chomping at the bit to get back home.”

  When Lainie called everyone to the table a few minutes later, Steven, Ray, and Joe Jr. all jumped to help Elizabeth up, but she batted them away. “I’ve spent the last six weeks learning how to get out of a chair. I can do this, tha
nk you very much.”

  After they were all seated, Elizabeth looked down the table and smiled. “Look at this. Everyone has just outdone themselves. Sue Anderson took the time to make us her chili-mac, and Juanita, bless her heart, brought us her specialty. And if I’m not mistaken, that’s Evelyn Watson’s applesauce cake on the counter there. God has surely blessed us with good friends and neighbors.”

  “How did you know who brought what?” Lainie set the sweetener near Elizabeth’s glass and sat down.

  “Honey, when you’ve been to as many church potlucks as I have, you not only recognize the food, but you recognize the dishes. Now, Lurlene and Sue both bring chili-mac in Pyrex casseroles, but Lurlene uses a little more chile and a little less tomato, so hers is darker.” When everyone had joined hands, she turned her smile on Steven. “Steven, honey, would you offer thanks for this bounty?”

  It had been a while since Steven had prayed, and even longer since he had prayed out loud, so he felt a little rusty at first. But once he cleared his throat and ran through a quick “Dear-heavenly-Father-we-thank-you-for-this-food,” his heart caught up with his mouth, and he realized how grateful he actually was. He was grateful Gran was home, grateful for family who had supported him with a love so unconditional he couldn’t get his head around it, grateful for friends who gathered around to express their affection and concern the best way they knew—with food—and though he didn’t mention it in his blessing, he was increasingly grateful for the little family of two who became more important to him with each day. God was so good.

  “Think this wind will keep Rita down at the motel?” Steven parked in front of the High Lonesome and cut the engine. “You know that if she thinks we’re here she’ll be right here with us.”

  “I’m kind of surprised she doesn’t have an idea or two of her own. She’s not slipping, is she?”

  “Rita? Are you kidding me? Actually, she’d like us to donate the building and the land that it sits on to the town for a visitor center. Of course, that would mean Last Chance taking on the upkeep and the taxes.”

  “And as long as Russ Sheppard lives and breathes . . .” Ray grinned.

  “It’s not happening,” Steven finished. “Yep. You’ve got the picture.”

  Steven pulled a tumbleweed out of the doorway and let the wind take it before he turned the key in the lock and stepped inside. Ray followed. The howling wind, which had made conversation all but impossible outside, was muffled, if not silenced, when Steven shut the door and flipped on a light.

  “Wow.” Ray, holding his hat in front of him, stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. “I haven’t been back in here since the day I packed my truck and headed for Santa Fe.”

  “Bring back a lot of bad memories?”

  The bar had been an unacknowledged barrier between them for too long. It was time to see if they could get that barrier down.

  “Not entirely.” Ray walked over to the bar and ran his hand down the marred surface. “I met Lainie in here, you know. She came in one night just at closing with a broken down car left in the parking lot. She had the biggest chip on her shoulder you ever saw.”

  “No love at first sight?”

  “Hardly. By the next day I was ready to fix that car myself just to get her out of here, and if I had, I’m pretty sure the first thing she would have done would have been to run me over.”

  “Looks like you worked things out, though.”

  “Yeah, we worked things out.” Ray wore a half smile as he went over to the jukebox. He dug into his pocket. “This thing still work?”

  “Don’t think so. I tried it the last time I was in here. I don’t know if they even make the parts to fix it anymore.”

  “Too bad. We danced one night to a Willie Nelson song. Wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”

  “You getting all mushy on me? Do I need to get you back to Lainie?”

  “No.” Ray did look a little sheepish. “It’s funny, though. The day I handed you the keys, I really didn’t care if you burned the place down. I’d have even lent you the matches. But now that I’m here, it’s the good times I’m remembering.”

  “You know what I think about when I come in here?” Steven turned a chair around and straddled it. “I remember Dad. I can still see him behind the bar there. Don’t tell Gran I said so, but he was made for a place like this. He was what people came for; the drinks were just a sideline. If he hadn’t died, things would have been so different.”

  “That they would have.”

  “There’s something I’ve got to say, bro, and I hope you hear me out.” Steven took a deep breath and blew it out.

  Ray leaned against the bar and folded his arms. “Go ahead.”

  “I guess what I want to say is I’m sorry. I’m sorry Dad asked you to give up your own life to run this place for me. That’s just not something you ask of someone. But I shouldn’t have let you do it, and for that I apologize. Even if I had known for sure that I wanted this place, I shouldn’t have let you do it, and the fact that even before I came home, I was pretty sure I didn’t want this bar makes it even more unforgivable. I think I was maybe hoping that once I got here, I’d feel different.” He took another deep breath. “But I didn’t. I let you keep on, and I was a total jerk, and I am so sorry, Ray. I am so, so sorry.”

  Ray didn’t say anything for a long time. He just leaned against the bar and stared at a line of sunlight that had found its way through the boards on the windows and stretched across the dusty floor. Finally he looked up at Steven.

  “Thanks. I appreciate everything you’ve said more than you know. And of course your apology is accepted. But it wasn’t all bad, you know?” He smiled a slow half smile. “Did you hear the one about the California girl with the chip on her shoulder who walks into a bar?”

  Steven laughed and got up. Ray met him in the middle of the room and grabbed him in a bear hug. “That’s all history now. It’s all good.”

  “So, what do we do about this place?” Steven stepped back and waved his arm. “We can’t just leave it alone. I’ve tried, and Rita tracks you down like a dog.”

  “Only the one guy has shown any interest?”

  “Yep, he’s the only one so far.” Steven hooked his thumbs in his front pockets and looked around. “Think it might work as a studio for you? You wouldn’t have to make that long trip to your cabin.”

  Ray opened the door and turned to survey the way the room filled with light. “If I really was stuck, it might work. But the light comes in from the east, which means it changes all day long. I guess I just can’t see me giving up the cabin for this. The cabin’s too perfect, even if it is a ways away.”

  “What about a gallery? You know, showcase our local artist?”

  Ray grinned. “Thanks for the thought, but my paintings are too big for this room. I’d have to hang them too low, and even then I could only get a couple on each wall. It’s just not a good fit.”

  Just before Ray shut the door again, Steven saw Kaitlyn come out of the Dip ’n’ Dine across the street and get in Chris’s Jeep. He looked at his watch. Yep, school would be out soon. He turned back to Ray as an idea struck him.

  “How do you think it would work as a beauty shop?”

  “What? Where did that come from?”

  “I just thought of it. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. You know Kaitlyn is a hairdresser, right? So far she just does hair for free out of her kitchen, but if she’s going to stay here in Last Chance, she needs a place of her own. How do you think this place would work?”

  “I’m the last person who could tell you that, bro. What does Kaitlyn say?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet. I told you I just thought of it.”

  Ray looked around. “It would take a whole lot of work to make this look like a place ladies would want to go. Especially the ladies here in Last Chance. That could get expensive.”

  “I could do the work myself. Kaitlyn could tell us how she wanted it, and then she co
uld rent it from us.”

  “Hold it, hoss. I think you might be getting just a little ahead of yourself. In the first place, you don’t even know if Kaitlyn wants her own shop or, assuming she does, if she wants it in an old cowboy bar. Lastly, and this is a biggie, where are we going to get the money ourselves to turn this place into a beauty shop? Lainie and I don’t have that kind of money right now.”

  “I’ve got some savings. It would be an investment. Better than letting this place sit empty.”

  “Okay, the first thing you need to do is to talk to Kaitlyn. Chris and Sarah are getting married in a few weeks, and you don’t even know if Kaitlyn’s planning on staying in Last Chance when they do. I don’t see a whole lot of difference between owning an empty bar and owning an empty beauty shop.”

  “Gran would.” Steven grinned.

  “Yeah, well . . .” Ray didn’t finish his thought.

  “Okay, your point is taken. I’ll talk to Kaitlyn, and meanwhile you keep thinking. We’ve got about six weeks to get this taken care of before I leave for the academy.”

  “I just have one question.” Ray grabbed his hat as they headed outside and the wind nearly snatched it out of his hand. “You’ve been back in Last Chance since before Christmas. What have you been doing about the High Lonesome since then?”

  Steven clamped his own hat to his head as he locked the door. “Mostly dodging Rita.”

  Kaitlyn looked up when Elizabeth’s front door opened and Steven and Ray practically blew in.

  “Kaitlyn! I was hoping to see you.” Steven’s smile widened at the sight of her.

  “We’re not staying long. Livvy just had to come by to say ‘welcome home’ to Miss Elizabeth, but we don’t want to make her tired, do we, Livvy?”

  Olivia, making a pointed effort to ignore any suggestion that meant leaving, leaned on the arm of Elizabeth’s recliner and continued showing her the day’s schoolwork.

  “Do you have enough time to come with me for a few minutes? I’d like to show you something.”