Driving Lessons

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  Charlene reached into her purse and pulled out a tiny gold pill box, a precious memento she kept with her at all times, in case the house caught fire; it contained several of each of her children’s baby teeth.

  She took out a tooth and pressed it into Jojo’s hand. “You go tell him you found it in the road.”

  “Oh, Mama…it’ll be a lie,” Jojo whispered, turning red.

  “Go on. It’ll just take a minute.”

  Jojo, scuffing her shoes, went over to the table, quickly and shyly handed over the tooth, then hurried back to Charlene, pushing her little body close.

  Charlene saw the boy examine the tooth, and the mother smiled at last, really big, and hugged him. Charlene knew just how that mother felt; it made a mother cross when she wasn’t able to make everything right for her child.

  Later they all sat around on Winston’s front porch, grandfather and grandsons swapping tales about the incident. Laughing now about it. Leo, the boy who delivered the Valentine Voice, came riding up on his bicycle and said he had been sent to get names of people who had taken part in helping. Charlene heard Joey’s name given as one who pushed Odessa’s car out of the way.

  When the boy pedaled away, Mildred said she hoped no mention of the big fight Everett and Doris had had got in the paper. “Everybody’s gonna be talkin’ about it anyway.”

  They were all still sitting there when Neville Oakes brought the Northrupts home. They all waved warmly at the couple, and Winston called that he was sure glad they were okay.

  Northrupt waved in return. About fifteen minutes later he came out to get his flag down because dusk had come. Everyone was quiet as Winston rose and did the same.

  Fourteen

  Saturday morning, Joey was riding a mare—Sheila’s top mare—hard on a steer when Sheila came running into the arena and called out to him.

  “Joey!”

  He heard Sheila’s call, but he ignored her. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. It was never a good idea to stop a horse right when it was finally beginning to get the gist of the idea. Focus was key in training.

  The steer turned, and…whoo-ee…that mare turned right with him. Joey jabbed with his spur, once, hard enough that the horse backed off. “Don’t you crowd that cow,” he whispered. Just the right distance, the horse had to learn.

  Joey felt the mare lean into her strong hips; her ears went back, and she lowered her head toward the doe-brown Brahman. The steer moved, the horse moved. The steer stopped, the horse stopped.

  Joey pushed himself deeper in the saddle and thought that cutting didn’t get much better.

  But Sheila was there, so reluctantly he lifted the reins to pull the mare off. It was always best to end on an up note, and the mare was tired. For himself, though, Joey would rather have remained riding on the cows. It was always a little annoying when people dragged him back into the real world.

  Sheila had climbed up on the arena fence. “She’s lookin’ real good,” she said.

  “Yep, Peggy Sue here is gettin’ the idea.” Beneath him, the mare was foamy wet and breathing hard.

  Joey was pleased with the horse’s growing ability. This was the best horse he’d ever had, and she was going to give him a crack at going to the World Show. He wanted to go there, and he knew he had to bring it about for Sheila, who was counting on him to give her a winner.

  He watched Sheila reach out to touch the mare’s forehead, about the only place not all wet with sweat. Just then Joey noticed the way Sheila was dressed, in tight jeans and a silky shirt, unbuttoned low. There was something about the way Sheila dressed that seemed to draw attention and always made Joey a little surprised he hadn’t noticed before.

  Then he saw that her eyes were glowing with excitement and moving from him to the horse and back to him again, as if she were already imagining fame and fortune.

  Joey felt called on to say, “We’ll take her to the World Show, but winnin’ is another matter. I can’t guarantee a win. There’s all the top horses there.”

  Still, Sheila was looking at him like she was just bursting. “I just talked to Clem Shackleford,” she said. “He’s finally come around to being willin’ to discuss sellin’ Peggy Sue’s half brother.”

  “That Boon Bar horse?”

  “Yes. I told him we would drive down this afternoon. He’s not feelin’ well and is talkin’ about sellin’ out again. We have to get down there and see him before he changes his mind—or before he dies, because that son of his won’t sell that colt.” She was speaking fast and already climbing down from the fence.

  “I need to walk the mare out,” Joey told her. “Twenty minutes.”

  “Let Primo cool her off. You go shower and get ready. I told Clem we’d be down there by noon for lunch, and afterward we can celebrate by goin’ on down to Dallas and stayin’ at the Adolphus.”

  Joey was halfway out of the saddle when she got to the last part and was so startled that he slipped and had to jerk his foot out of the stirrup or he would have fallen.

  “Dallas?”

  “Yes. Saturday night in the big town. Won’t that be fun?”

  Her gaze was intense on him. He looked back at her, not knowing what to say.

  “I want to buy a new saddle over in Fort Worth,” she said, “and I’ll need you to help me pick it out, Joey, so it’s my treat all the way. We’ll have us a real good time. And just think if we get that Boon Bar colt.”

  He was thinking of it, and of what Sheila was requiring of him, and when he got to that, his mind got all confused.

  He was shirtless, standing in the small trailer bathroom and combing his wet hair, when he heard the door open and Sheila call out. He stepped into the bedroom and snatched a fresh starched shirt from a hanger, jerking it on as fast as he could as he heard her coming down the little hallway.

  Then she was there, her eyes on him and running up and down him in a manner that caused all sorts of commotion inside of him.

  “Hurry up and come on. We’ll take my car,” she said and tossed him the keys to her Lexus. “You drive.”

  He buttoned his shirt and grabbed his hat on his way through the trailer. At the door he had to stop to tuck in his shirt. Sheila went on out and got into the passenger seat. As he followed and slipped himself behind the wheel of the fancy automobile, he felt a great weight of guilt fall over his shoulders.

  What if Charlene needed him for something? What if Charlene found out?

  They would only be gone overnight, he reasoned. Really no more than if they drove over and saw about the horse and came home and went about their normal business. And maybe nothing at all was going to happen in Dallas, he was jumping the gun about that, and besides, they would get down there and get back, and no one needed to know about it.

  He made certain to take the back road away from Valentine, and it occurred to him that sometimes a man just got drawn along by things he did not understand at all but could not stop.

  Mason was driving past and saw the Darnell Suburban swinging into a space in the IGA parking lot. Instantly he tapped his brake, taking a second look.

  Someone in the passenger seat. Could be Charlene, even though the figure wore a ball cap. Maybe one of Larry Joe’s girlfriends.

  The next thing Mason knew, he was turning around at the post office and driving back to the IGA, all on a chance that it could be Charlene. As he pulled his pickup into the IGA lot, Larry Joe and Charlene were entering the grocery store. It was her—he recognized her curvy shape and flowing stride.

  Mason whipped into a space, stopped, and his hand hovered over the key in the ignition. He wondered if he was going a little crazy running after her. What would he say when he caught up?

  He did need a few things, he told himself, shutting down the engine. He jerked off his ball cap, raked his hands through his hair and checked the mirror. Outside his truck, he paused to rub the toes of his snakeskin boots on the backs of his pants legs.

  Walking with quick strides, he went inside, got a shopping cart
and cruised along the front of the store, looking down each aisle as he went. At an end-cap stack of coffee, he paused to grab a can and throw it in his cart. He didn’t want his cart to be plumb empty when he came on them.

  He found Charlene and Larry Joe at the far end of the store in the produce section. When he saw them, he stopped and pretended to consider the stuff in a display on his right.

  She was choosing a cantaloupe, picking one up and sniffing it. Larry Joe was getting bananas. Where was Charlene’s hair? Maybe it was put up under the cap. No…it was plumb cut off.

  Mason considered how he should approach them. He couldn’t just race over there and scare them to death. He would ease over, like he was after cantaloupe, too. He could say hello and ask Larry Joe about his truck.

  Before he could take action, however, the two were moving on.

  Keep cool, Mason told himself, as he cruised along the bread racks, picking up a loaf, and proceeded slowly, counting on just the right moment opening up. He rounded the corner and saw Charlene and Larry Joe heading down the coffee aisle. With what he took as inspiration, he rolled his cart on down to the meat case. When Charlene and Larry Joe came back down the next aisle, they would be getting really close to the meat case. He had been told once that the meat section was the best place to meet women.

  This thought took a downturn, though, when he saw Lila Hicks pushing her cart along the meat case. She looked up at him and instantly smiled.

  Lila liked to talk, and she liked to flirt. She didn’t mean anything by it, did it as naturally as breathing, never mind that she would never see fifty again and was twenty pounds overweight.

  “Well, hello, Mason.” She had bright blue eyeshadow. She would have been rather pretty, was nice-looking even with the shadow, but it was quite disconcerting. It sort of gave the impression of constant winking as her eyes blinked.

  “Hello, Lila.”

  “That was quite a mess in town yesterday, wasn’t it?” she said and started in talking about the big wreck. It was what everybody he had come upon all day talked about.

  He thought to cut her off a bit by saying, “Well, it’s good to see you are doin’ okay after it. Odessa’s front end was pretty smashed up.” He meant Odessa’s car but suddenly realized how it had come out.

  Lila didn’t notice. “Oh, no, I didn’t get hurt. I’m better than I have any business bein’,” she said, giving her tinkling girl laugh.

  Lila had a really pretty smile. She also liked to touch people, and her hand came out and squeezed his arm in an intimate manner at the same moment that Larry Joe appeared from the aisle, with Charlene coming up right behind him.

  Charlene looked at Lila’s hand on him. Mason saw her eyes go right there. No telling what she thought.

  He shifted from Lila’s touch, thinking desperately that he had to get away from her to strike up a conversation with Charlene and Larry Joe.

  But then Lila was saying, “Well, hello, Larry Joe…Charlene. How are you two doin’? Y’all know Mason MacCoy, don’t you? We were just talkin’ about the big wreck yesterday. It sure was somethin’.”

  Mason was looking at Charlene, and she was smiling shyly at him.

  “Yes, we know Mason. Hello,” she said. She looked really cute in the ball cap. Her eyes were blue-green.

  “Hello,” he said. He looked at her, and she looked at him, then away.

  When he looked over at Larry Joe, he saw the boy watching him and his mother.

  “How are you doin’, Larry Joe?” Mason said.

  “Okay.”

  “How’s that hot rod of yours?”

  “Runnin’.”

  “I see you just cuttin’ around with the girls in that truck, Larry Joe,” Lila said. “I can hardly believe it. Seems it was only yesterday your mama would bring you to town to ride your tricycle up and down the sidewalks. Remember that, Charlene?”

  Charlene said she remembered and that Larry Joe had been driving something since he was two years old. Her eyes were warm and proud when she gazed at her son. Mason knew he was staring at her, but he could not stop himself.

  They talked about the thermometer no longer being there and how the temperature seemed a little cooler, and Mason spoke of all he knew on the subject and then started making things up about hearing there was rain coming. He was determined to stand there talking to Charlene until Lila Hicks left, and was grateful when Lila finally said she had to go give a piano lesson.

  “Lila’s quite a fine pianist,” Charlene said, her eyes back on him.

  He nodded in agreement. “I’ve heard her at church.”

  “Oh?” She cocked her head, peering at him.

  “I get myself there from time to time,” he said, enjoying gazing into her eyes. Saying just whatever came to mind, he added, “She’s got a good touch.” Immediately he felt the red creeping over his face.

  Larry Joe grinned knowingly, then he said, “Mom, I really need to get goin’.”

  “Oh, yes…nice to see you, Mason.”

  He nodded at her.

  She smiled at him and turned away with her son.

  Mason just stood there watching her walk away, seeing her graceful neck and the slope of her back and gliding hips.

  Then she paused, casting a glance back at him, before disappearing down the paper products aisle.

  Mason took hold of his shopping cart and began to push it back the way he had come, not really even knowing what he was doing. It was amazing. Here he had been in prison, had seen the toughest things a man could see, and his heart was beating like crazy over a simple encounter with a woman.

  He’d been in prison. He found himself staring at his hands on the grocery cart handle. They were thick and rough and callused. They had touched and done things, ungodly things.

  It had been years since Charlene had seen a man look at her. A pair of blinders suddenly went over a woman’s eyes when a wedding ring was put on her finger. Or they were supposed to; she guessed for some women the blinders didn’t take. They had for her, though, and she had not looked at a man or noticed any man look at her since the day she had married Joey.

  Mason MacCoy had looked at her.

  Charlene told herself this was impossible. He had been standing there with Lila Hicks’s hand on his arm. Lila, who was friendly with every man, and who had a good touch. Wonder how far that went?

  She was being really silly. Mason’s relationship with Lila was none of her business, and furthermore, why would Mason possibly look at herself—a woman of forty-six, barefaced and wearing a ball cap?

  Slipping off the cap, she flipped down the visor and peered in the mirror. She hadn’t cared what she’d looked like when she left the house. Her lips were colorless as a corpse, and she had hat-hair, too, just flat all over.

  She really needed to drum up some pride in her appearance. She might have run into Joey. The way she looked now certainly wasn’t going to attract him. Like she was now, people would say it was no wonder Joey had left her, more so than they probably already were saying it.

  They were well down Main Street by the time Charlene made up her mind about going to the beauty shop and Larry Joe had to drive around the block to go back.

  Fifteen

  A bell tinkled as she opened the door with the lettering Cut and Curl in white script on the glass. Then the sweet-acrid scents of beauty products enveloped her. So did the color blue. The light seemed hazy blue, shining as it did through blue blinds at the window and bouncing off the blue walls and all the blue decor. Even the woman coming toward her wore blue neck to toe.

  “Hello, Charlene. So nice to see you.”

  It was Dixie Love, owner of the shop, who had once lived in California. A flamboyant streak of pure white ran through her dark hair, which was swept back from her face. Bold earrings with blue stones dangled from her ears. She wore a light blue smock over a blue knit top and a long, filmy blue print skirt that flowed and swirled with her strides. Her lips didn’t really smile, but it was as if her entire face b
eamed. “What can I do for you today?”

  “My goodness, Charlene…Charlene!”

  Oh, Lord. It was Mildred, waving and struggling to get herself and her big rollers out from underneath a hair dryer. One of the rollers caught the hood, causing her to lose her balance and propelling Charlene to sprint forward and try to catch her and the dryer, both tipping toward the floor. Thankfully Dixie Love was equally quick, because Mildred’s bulk and the dryer chair were too much for Charlene alone.

  “Well, my goodness,” Mildred said, when she got straight and fixed an eye on Charlene. “I wouldn’t have known you, Charlene. What did you do to your hair?”

  “I cut it.”

  “Yes, you did.” Mildred blinked, then she called to Ruthanne, “Look who’s here, Ruthy.”

  Charlene saw Ruthanne sitting in the second beautician’s chair where a tall, skinny somber-faced woman worked on her hair. Next to her, in the front chair, another woman spun around—Kaye Upchurch, the mayor’s wife and deacon of Charlene’s own Baptist church.

  Kaye waved, and Charlene nodded.

  Ruthanne looked at Charlene and blinked. “Hello.”

  “It’s Charlene, Ruthanne,” Mildred said in a raised voice, as if Ruthanne was deaf rather than confused.

  “Hello, Charlene,” Ruthanne said with a smile of genuine recognition. She appeared to be afraid to move the least iota beneath the beautician’s hands.

  Charlene returned the hello, her gaze moving from Ruthanne to Kaye Upchurch, and a quivering flitting across her stomach.

  Ruthanne said sweetly, “I’m fine,” although no one had asked.

  Dixie Love took hold of Mildred and told her, “Now, hon, you are not quite done. You just get back under here and finish cookin’.”

  Charlene began to edge backward toward the door. “I see y’all are busy. I’ll call for an appointment…I just wasn’t thinking.”

  She had gotten foolishly carried away. She could not possibly sit in here and get her hair done, with That Mildred and Ruthanne and Kaye Upchurch and heaven only knew who else might come through the door.