Rainey drove over to the Texaco. Randy Stidham was pumping the gas, and Larry Joe was in the garage working on an engine. He wasn’t one bit surprised to see her. Charlene gave him a hug. Larry Joe never seemed to mind that she hugged him right in front of anyone who happened to be around. He would hug her right back. It always flitted through her mind that this might be some part of the conflict between her son and his daddy.
She felt much better when Rainey pulled back out on the road. She knew exactly where her children were, and Joey, too—for the time being anyway.
“How about barbeque from Blaine’s?” Rainey asked with a certain eagerness. “They’ve started serving barbeque sandwiches that are real good.”
Charlene told her fine. She really wasn’t hungry, but all the way there Rainey kept talking about the barbeque sandwich like it was the last food on earth, and she whipped into an empty parking space so fast, Charlene thought she might take the front off a little Nissan that appeared to challenge her for the space.
“Rainey, I know my truck is a little beat-up, but it is the only one I have,” Charlene said. “I don’t need you to wreck it.”
“That guy’s car was littler than us. He should know that we have the right-of-way. The bigger vehicle always has the right-of-way.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know that, because that is a rule you made up.”
“It is a commonly understood rule,” Rainey said matter-of-factly. “And if he doesn’t understand it, he shouldn’t be drivin’.”
Rainey was focusing a worried eye on the drugstore. “Look at this crowd. There’s always the Blaines’ table, though, and they still let me sit there, even though I don’t work here anymore. Mr. Blaine hopes I’ll come back. Belinda drives him crazy.”
Charlene removed her sunglasses and looked around. She had noticed the activity all up and down Main Street.
“I don’t think I want to go in,” she said.
This statement upset Rainey, who had become quite hungry. “What do you mean, you don’t want to go in? The whole point of comin’ up here was to get you out and about, Charlene. You’ve been cooped up in the house all week.”
“Yes, and look what happened to me when I finally got out—I saw my husband with his girlfriend.”
“You needed to see Joey. You needed to see the truth of it and to speak to him.”
“And I did that. That was enough.”
Rainey calmed herself. Force never worked with Charlene. “You’ll enjoy it, hon…a nice change of scene, maybe say hello to some nice friends.”
“I don’t want to run into Sheila Arnett.” Charlene was gazing at Blaine’s Drugstore as if it might at any moment blow up.
Rainey said, “I’ve only seen Sheila Arnett in Blaine’s once or twice. She’s the type that goes up to Lawton to get everything. It’ll be all right.”
“I didn’t wear any panties, and I don’t want to see anybody.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Charlene. No one can see you don’t have on panties. That dress is not see-through. And lots of women go without underpants. Men, too. Harry does all the time, says it is very comfortable under jeans.”
Charlene was a little surprised by this. Harry had never seemed quite as freewheeling as Rainey.
Rainey said, “I’ll bet if we stopped people and asked them, a fourth of these people are not wearing underwear, and it is no sin. Now, come on.” She grabbed her purse and opened the door.
“You go on in and eat in there if you want. I’ll wait.” She looked out the windshield and held tight to the armrest in the middle of the seat. “I feel like if I get out I’m just so bare…like I’m right out there for everyone to see, and they’ll come up to me and want to say something about me and Joey, and the whole time they’re thinkin’, ‘There’s that woman who couldn’t keep her husband satisfied at home.”’
Rainey said in a patently patient manner, “Lots of men and women fool around. And it is because of an unfulfilled need somewhere, but it is not the fault of one or the other. My Monte played around. I don’t really think it was my fault, unless it was that I mothered him too much.”
“I just don’t want to get out, okay?”
Rainey blinked and then said, “Do you want coleslaw with your barbeque sandwich?”
“No.”
Rainey got out and stepped up on the sidewalk and walked the few yards down to the drugstore in her long-legged, big-belly-that-she-didn’t-have fashion, sidestepped the drip from the air conditioner in the transom and disappeared inside.
Charlene looked around out the windows of the Suburban. Valentine was quite lively on a Saturday evening in summer.
The cafe and Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain had started staying open until nine o’clock, trying to compete with the new chain places out on the highway. All through the summer months there was Saturday night bingo at the Senior Center that had moved into the old Western Auto two doors down from Blaine’s. Tucked between the drugstore and Senior Center, Grace Florist kept later hours to catch customers on their way into either. Across the street was the Family Pool Hall that was trying to give teens somewhere to go, and the Little Opry, featuring a lot of local musicians, had opened in the old Starlight Theatre just last month. Charlene had wanted to go one night, had dressed up to go, but Joey had had a horse get injured, so they hadn’t made it.
Just then she saw a couple of women from her church approach along the sidewalk. She reached down and tilted the seat, laid her head back and closed her eyes; if she pretended to nap, she wouldn’t have to act like she saw them. Through her slit eyelids, she saw the women pass on by, their heads tilted toward each other, as if they were whispering to one another: “She didn’t keep him happy in bed.” “When it’s cold at home, the husband goes looking for warmer pastures.” “If he doesn’t get it at home, he’ll get it somewhere.”
She found her sunglasses and put them on. Maybe people might still recognize her, but she could pretend she didn’t see them.
It was so hot. The temperature on the City Hall sign still read 98°, and here it was near seven o’clock.
She rolled down her window and then scooted over to roll down the window on the driver’s side, letting a breeze that smelled like hot concrete and dust blow through.
Funny how such a breeze could be nice simply because of being familiar. Made her remember being a child and her thighs sticking to the plastic seat of the big winged-fender Plymouth her mother used to drive. Mama had liked to drive. Mama would put her foot down on the accelerator and send that car flying so fast it pushed a person into the seat cushion.
Blinking, she jerked her foot off the pedal where she hadn’t realized she’d placed it and dropped her hands to her lap, turning her gaze out the windows to watch people, mostly the women, whom she studied, noting their various stages of fix-up. A teenage girl hurried across the street toward the Little Opry. She wore a short skirt halfway up her thighs.
Rainey sometimes wore skirts like that. Charlene lifted her dress and examined her legs. Her legs weren’t bad, although they weren’t twenty-five anymore, either.
Time had passed her by. She wore long dresses and long hair, and all around her women were wearing their skirts above the knee and cutting off their hair.
She had noticed the short hair trend first on television news anchorwomen, then on the soap opera stars, especially those turning into their fifties, who whacked their hair right off.
Sheila Arnett had sleek chin-length hair, bobbed and tucked behind her ears. She looked really modern, like those models in the western-wear catalogs. Sheila Arnett was no more than thirty-five, Charlene guessed.
Reaching up and twisting the rearview mirror so she could see herself without really appearing to, Charlene mentally tried on a number of different shorter styles.
Activity in front of the Senior Center drew her attention. The senior citizen van pulled up, and people got out. Then there was Daddy getting out. Daddy was one of the number callers for the bingo. That surpris
ed everyone. He wasn’t much of a talker, but here he’d started calling those bingo numbers in a booming voice. And he’d started looking after old people, after Mama had taken care of him for sixty-five years. There he was this minute, helping old ladies out of the bus. Just went to show people changed, or else it was inside of them all along and just came out one day.
Watching all the old people go into the Senior Center, Charlene wondered what would happen to her when she got old. Would there be someone like her daddy to step in and take care of her? Would she have to take up playing bingo?
Suddenly the appearance of a woman at Charlene’s elbow at the window caused her to jump.
“Hello, dear,” the woman said with a tender smile.
“Hello.”
The woman had hair so white it shone like a halo. It was swept back from her face and in big curls on top. She wasn’t young, but she didn’t look terribly old.
“You sure do favor Winston,” the woman said, smiling so beautifully that Charlene had to smile in return.
“I do?”
The woman knew her daddy. But Charlene was certain she had never seen the woman before. Where had she come from?
“Oh, yes. You have Winston’s lovely green eyes.”
The woman had a bouquet of red roses in her hand, so she must have walked out of Grace Florist, probably while Charlene had been watching all the seniors.
“I just love the scent of roses.” The woman lifted the bouquet of roses and inhaled. “Don’t you?”
“Well…yes. Those are lovely flowers,” Charlene said, being polite, yet wondering why the woman was standing there beside her, and thinking that maybe she should ask who the woman was, if she could find a polite way to do it.
“I think the scent of roses calms a person, just like a tranquilizer. Here, dear. You try this rose. There aren’t any thorns on it. They have this little tool that cuts off the thorns, and if they’re careful, they won’t hurt the stem at all. I don’t think roses last as long without their thorns, though. It’s not natural. Everything in this life has a thorn or two. Now, inhale deeply. That’s it.”
“It is nice.” A sort of feathery peacefulness seemed to wash over Charlene. She sniffed again.
“Yes, it is,” the woman said, herself again inhaling from the bouquet. “This summer has been hard on roses, I’m afraid, but they’re a tough species. They’ll survive, and the struggle makes them produce even more beautiful blooms. The ones with the most thorns are the toughest, and the most fragrant, too.”
Charlene didn’t think hothouse cultivated roses cared one whit what the summer brought.
“Well, now, here comes your sister. So lovely to have seen you, dear.”
“Oh…goodbye.”
Charlene was already turning her gaze out the windshield to see Rainey coming out of Blaine’s, sidestepping the drip, carrying two paper bags. A man was coming with her.
Why, it was that MacCoy from that afternoon at the feed store. Mason MacCoy. Coming right along with Rainey.
And then he was looking right at Charlene. She could not really see his blue eyes at this distance, but she remembered them clear as day.
He nodded and touched the brim of his ball cap. And Charlene smiled at him and nodded in return. He didn’t come over with Rainey, though, but kept on walking past and on down the street, and went into the police station at the corner.
Charlene realized she was staring after him when Rainey slipped into the truck. She also realized she still held the single rose. She looked around, starting to point out the woman who had given it to her, and to ask Rainey if she knew who the woman was, but she didn’t see her anywhere.
“Well, she was right here just a minute ago, right when you came out of Blaine’s.”
“Daddy knows a lot of women,” Rainey said.
Then they sat there, gazing at each other.
“Well, aren’t you gonna take us home?” Rainey asked.
She was poking fun, because Charlene was still sitting on the driver’s side behind the steering wheel, and Rainey had gotten in on the passenger side.
“Good heavens, no!”
They had to get out and trade places.
“You are gonna have to start driving again, Charlene, now that Joey’s gone.”
Inhaling the rose, Charlene let the comment pass.
Seven
The City Hall thermometer reads 90°
It was dark when Joey returned with the children. Charlene walked out to meet the truck when it pulled into the drive. She felt more stable now, at home where she belonged and wearing jeans and a denim shirt. She’d left her hair put up, though, and her earrings on. And she had these hopes fluttering around in her chest, too.
Danny J. said a quick but friendly goodbye to his father. His eyes came around to Charlene, and then he ducked his head, turning. She reached out and touched his hair before he was away and hurrying into the house in the manner of a son who didn’t want to hear private things between his parents.
Joey lifted Jojo from the truck seat, and she hugged him with one arm while clinging to the small box of leftover pizza with her other arm. As Joey lowered her to the ground, she hugged and kissed him again and let go with the reluctance of Velcro, turning to wave at her daddy halfway up the walkway.
“Pizza in the refrigerator,” Charlene reminded her, feeling the need to say something, make some contact with her daughter.
The door closed, and Charlene and Joey were left standing there. She looked at him, and he looked back. The silvery moon shone on his thick hair and fell over his shoulders. Joey Darnell was a handsome man.
She averted her eyes and managed to say, “They seem to have had a good time.”
“We did okay, I guess. Didn’t do anything but eat pizza and play video games and pinball.”
He toed the concrete drive with his snakeskin boot. He’d dressed very nicely for the occasion with his children. Charlene thought of this and felt warmth wash all over her.
“It was being with you that they needed,” she said. “You showin’ them that they matter to you.”
“Well, of course they matter to me, Charlene.”
He glared at her, then dropped his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I know they do,” she said. “I know you love them just like I do, but we have to keep showin’ them. Sometimes in such a mess like this the kids get to wondering. We need to make certain they know none of this is their fault.”
He nodded, and then he went to again toeing his boot on the drive. The action irritated her. She wanted to kick his foot and shout, Look at me!
Oh, God, help me. Help me to do right. To say whatever I should.
She wondered what he would do if she said, “Joey, come home now.”
And then Joey was saying that he was sorry.
“I didn’t mean any of this to happen,” he said in a low voice, still looking downward. Then slowly his eyes met hers. “I never meant to hurt you, or the kids, Charlene.”
Quite surprised by his words, it took Charlene a long moment to answer.
“I know you wouldn’t hurt us on purpose, Joey. I know that.” She almost touched him, then stopped, possessed of all manner of nameless fears.
“Yeah…well.”
“Joey, I wouldn’t hurt you either. I love you.”
He glanced at her, then away.
When he didn’t respond, she said, “What did I do wrong? What does she give you that I didn’t?”
“Look, Charlene, I’m not sleepin’ with her,” Joey said in a low voice. “I’m not havin’ an affair with her. It only happened one time with Sheila. That’s all.”
“I see.”
“I’m stayin’ over there at the trailer she has, not in her house. She’s exchanging the trailer and her arena and horse barn for me training her horses, so I’m not spendin’ any money on it.”
Charlene’s mind had several moments of pure incoherence, and then she said, “Well, what do you want, a medal?”
> “What?”
“For sleeping with her only one time, and now savin’ money in a business deal with her. Do you want a medal for all that? Am I supposed to be grateful?”
“I was just tryin’ to explain how it is.”
“And how is that? Do you even really know? Let me tell you what the facts are. You are over there with her, and I’m here alone, that’s how it is. Why, Joey? I’d really like to know what is so wrong with me that you had to run away from me. We’ve had twenty-one years together and produced three children, and I never wanted to be anything other than your wife.” She stopped, clamping her mouth shut.
“It isn’t you, it isn’t her. It’s me. Okay? You didn’t do anything…but look at the last year, Charlene. Have you been happy? We’ve been arguin’ and tryin’ to patch it up, but we haven’t managed to do that, have we? Don’t you think I wonder what’s wrong with me every time I look at you and see you can hardly look at me?”
“I just knew you were mad at me, and I didn’t know what to do about it. But I kept trying, Joey.”
“I can say the same thing, Charlene.”
“But I’m still here. I’m still tryin’ to understand. I’m not running off and havin’ an affair.”
“That’s right. You’re still hangin’ in there. Well, I got tired of that. I got tired of these arguments that never get us anywhere. I got tired of seein’ myself disappointed all the time. I think beatin’ a dead horse is about as useless a thing as anybody can do. It’s time to try somethin’ else now.”
“Then you should have said that!” she screamed at him. “You should have told me that from the beginning. You didn’t have to desert me.”
With that, Joey threw himself into his truck, slammed the door and started the engine. Charlene, humiliated by losing her temper, clamped her mouth tight against further crude yelling.
Whirling, she strode for the house. Reaching the safety of the doorway, she looked over her shoulder and saw Joey roaring away down the drive. Running away from her. Leaving her again.
She went into the house and slammed the door. Danny J. stared at her from the hallway, and Jojo and Rainey from the dining room. Charlene burst into tears, causing Danny J. to turn and head back to his room, while Jojo and Rainey came to put their arms around her.
Driving Lessons Page 6
