Kennedy came into the room wearing a brief halter top. Around her waist was a floral-print fabric tied Polynesian style. Her mother looked her up and down, and her disapproval was apparent. “Where are you going, Kennedy?”
“Just swimming at the grotto, Mama. It’s too hot to do anything else.” As if to emphasize her point, Kennedy grabbed a magazine from a nearby table and fanned herself. “How can you sit wrapped up like that in this heat?”
“I’m old.”
“It seems you’ve gotten quite a bit older since PJ died.”
Martha pursed her lips. Kennedy shouldn’t have mentioned PJ. She was immediately sorry.
“Besides, you’re more crazy than old,” she teased, trying to turn the mood.
The woman didn’t take offense. “Speaking of crazy—what’s going on with Delie?”
“She is crazy. As a loon.”
“She worries me. Lately she’s gotten so…trashy. She never used to be like that. She was such a darling little girl. A little bit off, but sweet.” Martha seemed to lose herself briefly in the past, and she sighed. “What’s happened with her?”
“Mama, she was always more than a bit off. She has no grasp of reality. Half the time she doesn’t even make sense, and she tells the most bizarre stories. My guess is that Freddie had something to do with it. That man is toxic. Growing up with him would ruin any little girl.”
It was the closest Kennedy could come to telling her mother the whole truth. Some things you just kept to yourself, especially if talking about them couldn’t change anything and would certainly upset someone else.
“It can’t be just him. She’s different lately. I don’t know. Meaner. And acting crazier. It would have broken her father’s heart.”
“Mama, neither of those girls has ever been exactly angelic.”
The older woman sat up a little straighter. “Tell me what you know.”
“You should be ashamed. You’re nothing but an old gossip hound. Besides, I don’t know a thing.”
“If I remember right, I taught you not to lie.”
“Yeah, well, I gotta go.” Kennedy moved to her mother and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. Kennedy loved her mother very much.
“So what’s his name?” her mother asked as Kennedy straightened.
She was taken aback. “Whose name?”
“The one you’re wearing that scent for.”
Before Kennedy could respond, there was a knock on the front door. Both women were puzzled by the intrusion.
Kennedy moved to the door. “Who is it?”
“Me. Dolores,” a voice responded.
“What do you want?” Kennedy’s tone was less than welcoming.
“Kennedy, don’t be like that. Let her in.” Martha cajoled.
Dolores called again. “I just want to talk to you.”
Kennedy looked over her shoulder to her mother, who indicated with a nod that Kennedy should open the door. She took a deep breath of resignation and then cracked it. Dolores, her half-sister, waited expectantly. Kennedy saw the family resemblance around the mouth and in the coloring, but Dolores had a coldness about her that gave Kennedy pause. Everyone always acted a little bit afraid of her, as if she wielded some secret power. She made Kennedy think of those stories about vampires. They appeared human, but they’d suck the life out of you in a minute.
Kennedy blocked the doorway. Dolores blinked at her for a moment before she spoke. “I came to apologize.”
Did Dolores expect her to believe that? Kennedy lifted her eyebrows; this was the last thing she expected to hear. “Apologize?”
“Look, Kennedy, I know you and I don’t really get along. I know you don’t like me much, but I really would like to try and be friends.”
“Why?”
Dolores was undaunted. “I am sorry about Delie. You know how melodramatic my sister can get sometimes. I heard she was bothering your boyfriend. I want to apologize to Martha. I don’t think anyone was very nice to her at PJ’s funeral.”
“Isn’t it a little late for that?” Kennedy sneered at her, unwilling to confess her mother had been inconsolable for days after.
“Dolores, honey, come on in,” Kennedy’s mother called.
Martha never could hold a grudge. Kennedy saw that as a tragic flaw.
Dolores moved to enter the dwelling, but Kennedy’s body still blocked her. “That’s OK, Mama—she can’t stay.” Kennedy never took her eyes off Dolores.
“Thanks, ma’am,” Dolores said around the impediment in front of her. “Another time.” She looked at Kennedy again. “I am sorry about Delie. I’ll talk to her. And please tell Martha I apologize for my mother and my sister. My mother is still resentful. I guess I can’t blame her. If someone was after my husband—”
Kennedy glared at her. It seemed to give Dolores pause since she changed direction. “What I meant to say was that everyone was just so upset that day. I mean, our daddy was murdered, taken before his time.”
Kennedy swallowed a nasty comeback, and Dolores walked away. Kennedy watched her go and then shut the door.
Martha shook her head in disapproval. “Why can’t you try to get along with her? It sounded like she was trying to be sweet.”
“Mama, the only thing sweet about Dolores is…wait, I’m thinking.”
“Kennedy…”
“How can you forgive her after the way they all treated you?”
Martha shook her head. “First of all, what good would it do for me to stay mad? And second, they view me as the home wrecker. They don’t know what really happened or how much PJ and I loved each other. All they know is I threatened their mama and her marriage. Now with the will favoring my child… Can’t you see their side of it?”
Kennedy was trying to, but she could only see it from her side. Ruby had seduced PJ in a weak moment when he was drunk. She forced him into a loveless marriage and then tricked him into staying by getting pregnant a second time. She had made Kennedy’s mama miserable and forced Kennedy to grow up without a daddy in the house. Ruby and those girls drove PJ to drink even more. He was rarely home. They never appreciated him or loved him the way she and her mama would have. No, she wasn’t of a mind to forgive all that.
After a pause, Martha spoke again. “You never did answer my question, Kennedy.”
“Question?” she asked, innocently.
“Who is he?”
Kennedy didn’t answer.
“Just remember…guard your heart.”
“Ask around, Mama. I don’t have a heart.”
“Kennedy, you have more than your share. You just manage to hide it well. But I know you, and I know better.”
“Well, don’t tell anybody. It might ruin my terrible reputation.”
“I’ll wait up,” her mama said.
Kennedy’s response was dripping with sarcasm. “Oh, good idea.”
* * *
Wylie had walked from the motel. The night surrounded him; he was filled with the totally alive sensation of anticipation. He followed the highway out of town for about a quarter of a mile. Lighting the map with a handheld flashlight, he looked around for the landmark—a small broken tree, its top reaching down to hug its base in a desperate attempt to hang on, forming an odd-shaped circle. Consulting the map once more, he walked into the field and counted out two hundred paces.
In front of him was a line of vegetation, bushes, high grasses, and rocks. Hesitating, he wondered if this was some sort of joke the town had perpetrated on him. He was, after all, a stranger. He could have been lured here for any number of reasons, all unsavory. But then he remembered Kennedy. He trusted her. With that thought, he threaded his way around the natural barricade.
What opened before him was something out of a book of fantasy. The moon slipped from behind the clouds and illuminated the landscape in thick, white slices. He had arrived on a tropical island somewhere in paradise. Heavy-limbed trees created a canopy over a dark, deep pool that glittered its welcome. The air smelled heavy with eart
h, water, and summer flowers. He inhaled, closing his eyes in appreciation. When he opened them, a movement to his left had him squinting into the darkness. A goddess emerged, her bare breasts gleaming in the moonlight and a skirt angled off her hips to reveal her creamy, flat stomach. She smiled at him, and the ache of promise became undeniable.
It was clear she knew the effect this had on him, and he could see she savored it. She moved toward him. Just as she was almost within reach, her hips rocked in an age-old dance. Her body swayed in a rhythm only she was hearing. He watched, transfixed, as she stroked her neck, her breasts, her thighs, her hips, and then back to her breasts, coaxing the nipples to hardness. His intake of breath was the only audible noise in this private sanctuary, and sweat broke out on his brow in anticipation of what was to come. His gaze never wavered from the boldness of the fiery seductress before him. He stared as the fabric riding her hips fell away to reveal all of her incredibly beautiful flesh.
As if summoned to the place from whence she had appeared, she took a step backward, and then disappeared into the depths of the black-water pool. After a moment, her head broke the surface. Her look beckoned him to join her. In seconds his clothes lay in a pile, and he had jumped into the cool water with her.
Kennedy giggled, a throaty, lusty sound, and then dove again, this time pulling him with her. Together, they rose from the water. Hungrily, his lips moved to hers. Their desire for each other was as naked as they were. They made love quickly, frenzied, not daring to hesitate for any reason.
Later they lay together on the bank, intertwined, breathing in the night.
Wylie finally broke the silence. “It’s unbelievable.”
“A dream. One day, it was here, and no one remembers how it got here. There must be a natural spring feeding it from underground since the water is always fresh and cold.”
“What about you, Kennedy? How did you get here?”
“I take that to mean more than this grotto.”
“Yes. I want to know about you. Where you came from, what you want.”
“Wylie, in a few days you’ll be gone. Off to wherever. So why can’t we just be, right now, and not worry about complications.”
“Who says I’ll go in a few days?”
“Now you’re just talking silly. Why would you stay in this dirt water town when the whole world’s out there? Believe me; I’d go if I could.”
“So come with me.” He stated this as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Right. Get real. This has been fun, but do you really see a future in it?”
“What if I do?”
“Then you’re a dreamer, and I have to wonder about you. Besides, do you even make a living at what you do?”
“I manage,” he laughed. “People seem to buy my books.”
“So you tell stories. Isn’t that what old men do when they can’t do anything else?”
Wylie raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I can do something else. Wanna see?”
“I’ll see if I can fit you in later,” she dodged.
“You didn’t seem to have any trouble earlier.” He leered at her. Then, growing serious, he stroked her cheek. “I wasn’t kidding before. I meant it. Come with me.”
She shook her head. “I was born and bred in this town. I am locked into it and its dirty little secrets and small minds as surely as if I had chains on. Men like you can’t understand what it’s like.”
“Men like me? What’s that mean?”
“How many states have you been in? How many countries have you seen? Me? I’ve never been out of Texas. It’s as if an invisible wall holds me here, bound by a line I can’t cross.”
“So wouldn’t you agree it’s time?”
“I don’t think you can ever understand.” She sighed, as if resigned to her fate.
“You’d be surprised what I can understand. Sometimes, though, you just have to take that old clichéd leap of faith even though it’s scary.”
Kennedy snorted. “Oh, being scared has nothing to do with it. I have some…unresolved issues to deal with first.”
“Like?” he probed.
“Like…sorry, none of your business.”
“Don’t do that.”
“There’s so much history, it seems as if I open the door a little, the flood will knock it down.”
“I got nothing but time. Maybe you’ve noticed that I can’t get enough of you. I have no intention of just walking away.”
“That’s exactly what you should do—walk away.”
“Not gonna happen. Sorry. And don’t tell me you don’t feel the same, because I won’t believe you.” He caressed her hair with infinite tenderness.
“I wish it was that easy. Besides, what is wrong with you? Everyone in this town is smart enough to hate me.”
“Why would that be? Are you really so dangerous?” Now he was really curious and wanted to dig deeper.
“Yeah, I guess that’s it.” She hesitated. “No, it isn’t that. I just never seemed to belong. Sounds stupid when I say it out loud, but I was always the turd in the swimming pool.”
“Lovely reference,” he teased.
She giggled in response. “It’s true though. My father never married my mother, even though he meant to. Because of that, my two half-sisters always resented me. Not to mention how their mother felt. The bad feelings about me just seemed to catch on. I told you before, everyone needs someone to hate. It makes them feel better about themselves.”
Wylie nodded. “It does sound complicated.”
“It gets better.”
“OK—”
“My father was a gambler and a drunk. Alcohol was his drug of choice. His greatest excuse for everything. Years ago, he was engaged to Mama. He got drunk one night, and Ruby seduced him. A month later, and two days before he was to marry Mama, Ruby told him she was pregnant. He married Ruby instead. PJ said he was going to leave her as soon as the baby was born and had a proper name, but somehow Ruby managed to keep him. She was a bitch, and his daughters by her were mean-spirited and crazy. Happily for him, he could just follow his profession wherever he could find a game. He’d show back up now and again, stay as long as he could bear it, and be gone again. Once he even stayed long enough to conceive me.” She stopped and took a breath, the telling seeming to wear on her a little.
She tucked her hair behind an ear and dropped both hands to her lap. “Ruby suspected who my father was. She was convinced he was cheating with my mother. But she was determined to make it work with him. Once Delie was born, Ruby became an even more demanding and spiteful shrew. The story goes that one night he had enough. He told her the truth. It was all the excuse she needed finally to give it up. She kicked him out. He didn’t even know he was homeless until a few months later. I think Ruby kept hoping he would crawl back and make things right, but he was done. He stayed with Mama for a while, and then he was gone again. Ruby should have known after all those years that PJ didn’t worry about doing the right thing. The last time he tried, he ended up married to her.”
“It sounds like he wanted to be a good man.”
“He did. He came by the gambling honestly. It was just the family business, passed down from his grandfather to his father and then him. He just wasn’t suited for a ‘real’ job.”
“I can understand that.”
“Anyway, one night he got lucky and won some oil leases. I’m sure the man who lost them had no idea what they were worth, and PJ didn’t either. But he did have the sense to ask the local banker. I bet his teeth nearly fell out of his head when he found out they were worth millions.”
Wylie was fascinated. He hadn’t anticipated this information. When she hesitated and looked off into the distance, he urged her to continue. “So now he’s rich?”
Kennedy came out of her reverie. “Yep. And this time, I think he was planning to stay home and try to make everything right. He was divorced from Ruby, she had remarried Freddie, and his kids were grown. So he was finally free. And then he was dead.
” She stated this with so little emotion Wylie found it almost startling.
“Oh, I know. It sounds so cold. Don’t misunderstand. I tried to love my daddy, but he was hardly ever around and was a coward. He never had the courage of his convictions.” The anger in her voice was melting the ice. “He was one of those people who let life happen to him. You surely can’t trust a man like that.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean you can’t trust men.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Just a hunch.” He smiled to lessen the weight.
“Anyway, no one knew about the money in the beginning. I think once the dust settled, PJ was hoping this was finally his chance to marry my mama. I’d like to believe that’s why he came back this last time.”
Wylie was entranced. This was so much more interesting than his latest idea for a novel, and it was coming from the lips of this amazing woman. The definition of a writer’s paradise.
After a pause, she continued. “Somehow, though, word spread about his fortune. I’m guessing the guy at the bank told Freddie. Freddie’s the mayor and Ruby’s now husband.”
So much acid colored her tone when she said the man’s name; Wylie was sure some ugly history was hiding there.
“Anyway, PJ wasn’t back in town but a few weeks, and someone killed him. Stabbed him to death in a back alley.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be. He was more a little girl’s fantasy than an actual flesh-and-blood father most of my life. It does make me sad that maybe, finally… But it’s no use thinking about it.”
Wylie’s curiosity got the better of his good sense. “What about his money?”
Kennedy’s eyes lit with fire. “You too? That’s all anyone cares about—the damned money.”
“Take it easy. I was just wondering.”
“Sorry. Maybe a slight overreaction on my part. It’s just…that’s all anyone seems to be concerned about.”
“You mean Ruby and her daughters?”
“Well, not Ruby. She has no legal claim. No one knew until after he died that PJ left a will. It was specific. The money is to be divided among his three daughters, with me getting a much larger share than the other two. I’m sure they thought I would have no claim until they found out about the will. It must have pissed them off. He wrote it that way knowing I’d take care of my mama. That can’t sit well with Delie or her sister. Now we’re just waiting for probate and all the legal stuff.”
Texas Summer Page 6
