When Charlene joined Jojo and Oralee in the car, she said, “Your teacher showed me the rose the angel gave you.”
“She did?” Jojo regarded her with suspicion. “She didn’t believe me, that an angel gave it to me.”
“Did the woman tell you she was an angel when she gave you the rose?”
“Nooo…but she was all white and shimmery. And she was sort of old.” Jojo frowned in thought. “But I still think she was an angel. She told me that angels watch over me all the time, and that God loves me. I told her I knew that, but she said she wanted to tell me.”
She regarded Charlene, as if to see Charlene’s true thoughts.
Charlene smiled and said, “And she is absolutely right. God loves you, and so do I.”
After a minute, Oralee said, “I wouldn’t go tellin’ just everybody about the angel, though, Jojo. You might as well learn right now that it’s easier to keep some things to yourself.”
Charlene was trying to think of a way to contradict this negative statement when Jojo said flatly, “I think I already found that out.”
During the drive home, Oralee said, “I speak from experience, you know.” She hesitantly went on to tell of seeing what she thought were two angels when she was a child weeding the vegetable garden. “That was when we lived down in Tennessee. My legs were all tired, and I sat in the dirt, and about that time, here come these two girls with long dark hair out of the edge of the woods and floated past the end of the row of corn. I guess they didn’t see me. They were talking, and it seemed to me they were arguin’. I blinked and they were gone. I went runnin’ in to tell my mama, and she told me I’d fallen asleep in the garden and dreamed it. She said no angel had dark hair, for one thing, and that telling such tales wasn’t goin’ to get me out of weedin’. She put a hat on my head and sent me back out. Maybe I did fall asleep and dream it,” she said, wonderingly.
Jojo said her angel was no dream, she was just one woman, and she didn’t float.
Charlene, puzzling for some minutes, asked Oralee just how many places she had lived, since she had mentioned living in Chicago, and now Tennessee.
Oralee blinked and then said, “Well, I’ve moved some. I’m from St. Louis, but we got around.”
As they approached the drive to Charlene’s house, Jojo looked ahead and pointed. “Look, Mama!”
Charlene was looking. She saw a large truck with a flatbed trailer and big dump truck parked along the side of the road at the driveway entry. And there was Larry Joe, working their tractor, digging out the ditch.
“What are they doin’, Mama?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
There was Mason’s truck, and there was Mason himself, directing the lowering of a big galvanized pipe into the ditch Larry Joe had dug. And Danny J., helping with a shovel in hand.
Oralee edged the car up closer, and then she started laughing. “What they are doin’, honey, is makin’ your mama a wider driveway entrance.”
The next morning, after her children had left for their various schools, Charlene drove the Suburban up the drive and out onto the road, happily passing the ditch and the mailbox with plenty of room to spare. With the window down and the breeze batting her hair, she drove into town and continued on through it to the MacCoy Feed and Seed store, driving smoothly up to the warehouse loading dock.
Mason appeared and crouched down to say, “Well, good mornin’, ma’am,” his blue eyes twinkling in a way that made her insides flutter.
“I owe you an immense kindness,” she said. “Would you let me make you supper Friday night?” It was all she had to offer.
He grinned with a delight that split her heart. “You don’t owe me anything, but I sure won’t say no to a home cooked meal, especially one of yours.”
“Six o’clock,” she told him and drove away.
She went on to the Cut and Curl, and her only mishap was to bump over the curb when pulling into the very narrow entry of the shop’s parking lot. She found that acceptable for her first totally solo drive.
Charlene left the shop a few minutes earlier than usual. It was very freeing to drive herself home. She stopped right in the middle of her widened entry, got out of the Suburban and got her mail from the box.
In the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of ice tea and then sat, taking her shoes off, to go through the mail, anxiously viewing each bill and looking somewhat desperately for a letter from the State Department of Human Services for a confirmation of her eligibility for aid.
Then she came to a plain white envelope. The moment she recognized Joey’s handwriting, her heart leaped into her throat. There was no return address, but it was postmarked from some town in Texas.
She tore open the envelope, finding a single sheet of notebook paper. She read: Dear Charlene, I’m sorry for running out, but I know you can handle everything. It sounded like an accusation and excuse rolled into one, and Charlene wished she could smack him. I have sent five thousand dollars to your account at the bank. Startled, eyes widening and bringing a hand to her neck, she read that sentence over twice before going on. Please tell the kids I love them. I will send more money for them when I can. Thank you for taking good care of them. Joey.
Grabbing the telephone, she called the bank to check to see if five thousand dollars had gone into the account.
“Yes, Miz Darnell,” a young voice told her. “That money was posted to your account this morning.”
Charlene hung up and sank back down into the kitchen chair. She looked over at the stack of bills. She thought of how she had been falling into bed at night and praying for strength and for money to keep the electric and water turned on and her children fed.
“Thank you, Lord,” she whispered.
She thought of Joey, seeing him alone somewhere on the road. She knew the only way he could get this much money at once was to sell his one really good horse. Smiling, with tears beginning to flow, she thought, And Mrs. Norwood didn’t believe in angels. Joey, at that moment, surely qualified.
When the children came in that evening, she had the letter on the table for them to read. When Danny J. read it, he said, “I guess this means he isn’t comin’ home real soon.”
“No, he isn’t,” she said. “But he hasn’t forgotten you. He’s trying to say he loves you.”
“I’m driving again,” Charlene told Rainey during their telephone chat.
“Well, hallelujah,” Rainey said. “Now you’ll be able to drive up here and see the baby when he is born.”
“Yes, yes, I will,” Charlene said, and her mind raced ahead nervously down the road to Rainey’s, mentally checking places where she might have problems. The only narrow turn would probably be into Rainey’s house. She would probably be better at turning by then. “You tell Harry to call me the instant you go into labor…after he gets you to the hospital, I mean.”
“We have some weeks yet,” Rainey reminded her.
“Yes, but I want to be ready.” She was already thinking ahead to having Larry Joe tune up the Suburban and to keeping the gas tank full. She always liked to be prepared. When she hung up, it occurred to her that for some things, like a marriage breakup, there was simply no preparation. One had to just go along with faith.
Thirty-Two
Cool fall came in as it always did—abruptly. The previous day the temperature had risen to a warm, humid 80°, and overnight storms came through, bringing rain and temperatures dropping into the fifties. By early afternoon, when Charlene went around to the cafe to get hers and Oralee’s fountain drinks, the sun had warmed things to the high sixties, but the air remained brisk. Strolling along the sidewalk, Charlene enjoyed the fresh-feeling air and sunshine, and just about everyone she encountered seemed to have a smile on their face. Fayrene even said, “Isn’t this weather wonderful? I am sure glad to be shut of that awful summer.”
Charlene agreed the summer had been awfully tough.
As she pushed out through the chrome and glass door, she thought of that day when she ha
d confronted Joey in front of the feed store, in the blazing heat. It seemed a lifetime ago. She had thought she would die, yet here she was, she thought, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the plate glass window. That was her. She recognized herself now and no longer felt a stranger.
“Miz Darnell!”
Turning, Charlene saw a teenage girl with glossy black hair and wearing a midi-T-shirt and jeans hurrying out the door of the cafe.
“Could I get an appointment to have my nails done this Friday? I have a date, and I want them to look really nice.” The young woman held out her hands, showing fingernails that were mostly bitten off. “I thought maybe I could have tips put on, and that would help me to quit biting them.”
“Yes, that often helps.” She checked the small appointment book she’d taken to keeping in her smock pocket for just such occurrences and wrote the girl’s name—Pia Sanchez—in for just after noon on Friday.
Then the girl said shyly, “The date I have…it’s with your son, Larry Joe.”
“Oh.” Giving a polite smile, Charlene held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Pia.” The girl’s shake was firm, while her expression remained shy. Charlene saw a dark-eyed beauty, but one with the open face and lively expression of a still young and innocent heart. Her smile widened. “I look forward to seeing you on Friday.”
She walked back around the corner of the shop, casting a wave at the woman on the other side of the Valentine Voice window, who had taken to waving back, and thinking about her son and the young woman with a mixture of gladness and fear. She wished she could prevent Larry Joe from suffering any heartache at all. But there was no way she could. Larry Joe had to make his own way and learn his own lessons, even those of the heart. What she had to do was to trust. Easy words to say, hard to actually do.
The entire week, the weather remained balmy and dry, and everyone agreed it was perfect weather. It had the effect of stirring people’s enthusiasm for life, and as a result, more women than usual came to have their hair and nails done. The shop fairly “sizzled,” as Oralee put it, and for the first time Charlene’s schedule was crammed. It was most fortuitous that she was driving again, because twice she had to go to school to pick up Jojo and bring her back to the shop to wait while Charlene fulfilled late appointments. It was also fortuitous that she was earning money, because any aid from the state would not be forthcoming.
She learned of this on Friday from a woman from the State Department of Human Services who called the shop to tell Charlene that her assistance was being canceled because their investigation showed that she had five thousand dollars in the bank. The woman made it sound as if Charlene had been lying about her needs. Charlene was furious. She only barely remembered to switch to the phone in the back room, and then she asked the woman just what assistance she was speaking of.
“There never has been any assistance. My children could have been thrown out into the street by now. You take weeks to provide any aid, yet you discover money in my account immediately. Did your investigation happen to show that that money just arrived from my husband?”
The woman ignored the question and said, as if taking notes, “The money is from your husband. It says here that you don’t know where he is. Well, since he is now providing such good support, your state aid will be canceled.”
“You can’t cancel what you haven’t started!” Charlene yelled into the phone and hung up.
She felt only slightly ashamed of hanging up on the woman, who had sounded like an automaton. Perhaps the woman could not help that, given all she saw and heard in her position, but Charlene thought that she herself put up with a lot in life, too, and yet she managed to be able to drum up interest for her customers who needed her to be interested.
The woman introduced herself as Nancy Scott. “Head nurse at Shady Elm…the nursing home,” the woman added, when they all looked at her blankly. She was a serious-looking woman with short auburn hair. She put Charlene instantly in mind of a television news commentator.
“How may we help you, Ms. Scott?” Dixie Love asked.
“I believe it is your manicurist who came out and did three of our ladies’ nails recently?” She looked at Charlene. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
Charlene introduced herself and said that, yes, she had been the one. The woman looked so solemn that her heart leaped into her throat, wondering what she had done wrong. Perhaps she had managed to kill one of the women by filing her nails.
But then the woman, in the same solemn fashion, went on to explain that the ladies whose nails Charlene had done had so enjoyed their manicures that it had picked up morale considerably.
“Therefore, we have decided that having a beautician for the ladies should become a weekly event. We have created positions for a hairdresser and manicurist to come once a week, in the afternoon, to do our ladies,” the woman said. “The nursing home will be picking up the tab. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement to suit us all, if any of you are interested.” She mentioned a fee sizable enough to cause Oralee’s eyes to widen.
“I think we can arrange it,” Dixie said, and Oralee said, “Yes, ma’am, we’ll be there.”
When the woman left, Charlene had to sit down a moment. She thought about the older women whose nails she had done at the nursing home that day, and how she had apparently managed to bring happiness to them by something that was easy for her to do. Something she enjoyed doing—most days—anyway. It thrilled her beyond measure, bringing tears to her eyes.
Oralee took over her last customer, saying, “You get on and get yourself up for your prospect.”
“He isn’t my prospect.”
“What would you call him, then?”
“Well, not a prospect,” Charlene said, finding the idea disconcerting as she hurried out the door to drive over to the IGA, where in her haste she turned too sharply into the parking lot and, with little notice, bumped up over the curb.
Dashing inside, she raced up and down the aisles like a driver in a road race. Then she headed home, dropped the grocery sacks on the kitchen counter, stuck the pork roast that was waiting in the refrigerator into the oven, checked the ice maker to be certain there would be enough ice, and hurried to shower. She put on fresh makeup, choosing night-time colors, and went to the closet for her chambray dress, old, but pretty and comfortable.
“He is not a prospect,” she mumbled. He didn’t have to be a prospect for her to want to look nice. She wanted to look nice for herself.
Just then her eye fell on an apricot-colored knit number she had not worn in several years because of added pounds. In a bold moment, she pulled it out and put it on, just to see how it looked, calling herself crazy.
But an astonishing image was reflected in the long mirror on the closet door. She turned this way and that, making certain what she saw was true from every angle. Amazed and thrilled, she put on earrings and a bracelet, quickly combed her hair and spritzed on Éstee Lauder, then hurried into the kitchen, where she switched on the television to CMT, hummed along with the music as she tied on an apron and set to work making supper, beginning with tomato pudding.
Danny J. and Jojo came in from school. “What’s goin’ on?” Danny J. asked, frowning at her.
“Supper,” she said. “I told you Mason was coming to have supper with us tonight.”
“Yeah,” he said, and slouched from the room.
Charlene paused, gazing at the empty doorway after him, wondering if there was anything she could say to him to make it better.
“I’ll help, Mama,” Jojo said, her expression that of peacemaker.
Charlene kissed the top of Jojo’s head and told her to set the dining room table with grandma’s tablecloth and the good dishes. Jojo surprised Charlene by questioning the wisdom of this move.
“Is Mason company or a friend?” she asked in the manner of one getting rules straight. “Is this a date or having a friend over?”
“Well…tonight he is both, I think. Use the good dishes.”
Larry Joe came in. “Mom, did you wash my good jeans and blue plaid shirt? I have a date.” Glancing around at her cooking efforts, he winced. “I forgot to tell you, I won’t be here for supper.”
“I know.” Charlene, bending over the stove, tasted her sauce. “I did Pia’s nails this afternoon.”
“You did?” He looked a little uneasy.
“She’s very pretty. And you should compliment her nails. She wanted to look pretty for you. Your pants and shirt are hanging in the laundry room.”
He disappeared into the laundry room and came back out holding up his shirt and pants, tossed her a thanks and a kiss on the cheek, and hurried away to get himself ready.
Charlene checked to see how Jojo was doing in the dining room. Jojo had set two candles in crystal candlesticks on the table. “I thought it would be nice,” she said matter-of-factly.
When his truck pulled up, she hurried to the door, then paused and composed herself. He was not a prospect.
She opened the door and found he had brought flowers, purple mums and white daisies and little irises and rosy carnations that smelled like spice, and the loveliest little silver box of chocolates. He had dressed for the occasion, too, in a crisp yellow shirt and sharply creased jeans and shiny snakeskin boots, and he looked a little nervous. Every bit of it touched the soft place in her heart, and she buried her face in the flowers for long seconds, thinking, He is not a prospect.
Then she put her arm through his and, rattling off the menu, escorted him eagerly through to the dining room, where she sat him at the head of the table. As if on cue, Jojo appeared with a glass of ice tea for him and sat down to entertain him, while Charlene went to the kitchen, where she hurriedly put the flowers into water and then got the roast out of the oven and set the rolls to browning. She was glad to do these familiar things. She kept telling herself that Mason had had supper with them before.
Driving Lessons Page 32
