“Doyle, this is Sarah. Uh, I hate to ask, but has Georgia showed up over there? Well, you see, I went up to the clinic for a minute, uh, for a while, and I took her with me and somehow she slipped out when I wasn’t looking. No. I’m at home. Okay. Could you call me after you take a look around? Thanks, Doyle. I’ll be waiting here by the phone. No. Yes. I’m okay.”
After she hung up, Sarah could do nothing but pace. Her boys loved that dog. Shoot, she was attached to Georgia too. How could she have been so careless? She tried to think. If Georgia wasn’t at Doyle’s, then what should she do? Stay at home and wait for her or cruise the streets looking and calling?
Why was Doyle taking so long to call back?
Then Kevin and Josh burst through the front door. “Mom! What happened to Georgia?”
“Guys—how did you get over here? Where’s your dad?”
“I’m right here.” Doyle was behind them. “Georgia didn’t show up at my house. The boys wanted to come here. She’s still not back?”
“No. Boys, I’m so sorry. I left the door propped open while I went out to the car. She must have slipped out then.”
“Dad, what should we do?” asked Kevin.
“Georgia’s never tried to run away before,” said Josh.
“Let’s get in the truck and drive around and look for her,” said Doyle. “You want to come, Sarah?”
All four of them piled into the cab of the truck, and Doyle slowly drove the streets of Ella Louise. Every so often he stopped and the four of them got out. “Georgia! Georgia! Here, girl. Here, Georgia,” they called.
No Georgia. After an hour, Doyle turned the truck toward Sarah’s house. What else was there to do? The boys were silent, but Sarah could feel their accusatory thoughts. She wondered if Doyle was accusing her too.
But when Doyle pulled the truck into the driveway, there was Georgia, illuminated by the headlights of the truck, wagging her tail. The boys tumbled out of the car.
“Georgia!”
She sprang into their arms.
“You were a bad dog!”
She wriggled with delight.
“We looked everywhere for you!”
She licked one boy’s face, then the other’s. Then she bounded over to where Doyle and Sarah stood, ran around them both, and went back again to the boys.
Sarah turned to Doyle. “I don’t know where she was or how she got home, but it feels good to know that I won’t be the one sleeping in the doghouse tonight.”
Doyle grinned. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Right. Tell that to those two,” she said, motioning to the boys. “You know, they’re not going to be ready to go for a while. Want some coffee?”
“Sure.”
Sarah and Doyle sat at the kitchen table while Josh and Kevin romped with Georgia in the family room. “Guys. Settle down,” Sarah called to them. “Don’t wear that poor dog out. Did anybody feed her? Josh, is that one of your good socks that Georgia’s got in her mouth?”
“No, Mom,” said Josh.
“It’s one of yours,” teased Kevin.
“House looks good,” said Doyle.
“Thanks.”
“How’s work?”
“Good. Yours?”
“Going good.”
The family room became quiet. Sarah looked in on the boys. The two of them, with Georgia between, lay side by side on the floor, watching a video that Kevin had put in. Georgia, when she heard Sarah, got up, stretched, and yawned. She followed Sarah back to the kitchen.
“Hey, girl,” Doyle said when he saw the dog. “Big night?”
Georgia rested her head on his knee.
“She misses you,” Sarah said.
“Yeah. I miss her too. Old Georgia here is a good ole dog,” Doyle said.
Sarah took a sip of coffee.
“Remember when we got her?” he asked.
“Sure do. Same day that we found out that the twins were coming. You surprised me with her—” she began.
“And you surprised me with them,” finished Doyle. Neither one of them spoke for a minute, then suddenly Sarah was blindsided by sobs that she was powerless to stop. Embarrassed, she covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry.” Her shoulders shook with her efforts to stop.
Doyle reached into his back pocket and pulled out a red hankie. “It’s okay. Here.”
“Thanks.” Deep breaths. Breathe in. Breathe out. Sarah blew her nose and wiped her eyes, but as soon as she did that, she started up again. She had not cried in front of Doyle in many years.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“No. I don’t want the boys to hear.”
Doyle got up to get her water, but he couldn’t find the glasses. Sarah tried to direct him. “To the right. Up. Over. No, down.” He opened cabinet doors left and right.
Sarah laughed. “Thank you,” she said when he finally brought her the drink.
“You’re welcome.”
“Doyle, do you hate this as much as I do?”
“Yeah.”
“How did we let this happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Georgia’s not the only one around here who misses you. It’s all I can do every Friday when she tries to chase your truck, not to let loose of her collar and chase you too.”
“Really?”
“Really. . . . Is it too late—for us, I mean?”
“Way I always figured it,” said Doyle, “it wouldn’t be too late until one of us got married to someone else.”
“You engaged?” Sarah asked.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Listen,” said Doyle. “Hear that? Snoring. Boys are asleep.”
“Why don’t you stay in the extra room,” said Sarah. “No need to wake them up. I’ll fix us all breakfast in the morning.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
And later that night when Georgia jumped up on the foot of his bed, Doyle was grateful to get the chance to sleep with at least one of the girls that he loved.
FOR THE PAST SIX MONTHS, neither Sarah nor Georgia have had to fight the urge to chase Doyle’s truck on Friday nights. They’re still on their own when it comes to filling their Saturdays, but every Friday evening, at Doyle’s invitation, Sarah and Georgia pile into the truck with Kevin and Josh and go to Doyle’s house for conversation, fun, and food. They have a great time. Sarah looks forward to it all week.
It’s too soon to tell if Doyle and Sarah will get back together. They still have a lot of things they need to talk about—hurts, resentments, misunderstandings that won’t go away by themselves. It simply won’t do to smooth over such things and pretend that everything is all right.
Doyle knows that. Sarah knows that. They’re taking things slowly.
But in her heart, Sarah believes that Friday nights are a start.
And Georgia, sweet Georgia, is inclined to agree.
15
OLD SPICE
ROCKY SHARTLE BELIEVES IN LOVE at first sight. Of course he does. His bride of four years, Rochelle, stole his heart the first time he laid eyes on her. Their meeting was terribly romantic, Rocky believes.
More like terribly painful, Rochelle contends. She’s got the scars to prove it.
Even though he and Rochelle have been married for four years and share their home with two rowdy little kids, Rocky, a gentle and sentimental man, gets misty-eyed and runny-nosed when he talks about it.
The two of them were living in Houston when they met. Twenty-year-old Rocky was a student at the local university. He was an education major, and before doing his student teaching he was required to complete twenty hours of observation inside a public-school classroom. Not being very outgoing or brave about doing new things, Rocky’s hands were sweaty on his car’s steering wheel on the first morning that he arrived at the school. He didn’t know any of the teachers, the administration, or any of the students. He wasn’t sure what to expect or even what was expected of him. And w
here was he supposed to go? Rocky looked around. The campus was large, with several official-looking buildings. His advisor had told him to arrive early and check in at the office. The main door, the one he should go in, would be unlocked.
But there were a lot of doors to the inside. Which one was which? What if he accidentally set off some kind of alarm or something?
Rocky was sitting in his car, contemplating what to do next, when he spotted seventeen-year-old Rochelle. She was hard to miss, as she was perched six feet above the ground on a two-by-two foot metal platform in the middle of a blocked-off portion of the student parking lot. Both her red hair and her short skirt flying and flipping in the wind drew Rocky’s gaze. At first he wondered what she was doing up there—it looked to him like she was reading something from a book. But when he saw sleepy-eyed students stagger from the building, carrying horns and drums, he figured it out. Of course. The red-haired girl was the drum major. Marching band practice was about to commence.
Since the band’s rehearsal hadn’t yet started, Rocky decided to ask the red-haired girl for directions. He grabbed his book satchel, got out of his car, and strode to the girl’s perch. “Excuse me?” Rocky stood on the ground and looked up. “Could you tell me where I . . . oh!”
Rochelle had been so intent on looking over her music score, on making sure that she understood all the changes that the band director had asked her to make in the band’s routine, that she hadn’t heard Rocky come up. When he spoke, his voice startled her and she jumped, stumbled backwards in what seemed like slow motion, and tumbled right off the platform, landing in a twisted heap.
Band members who saw what had happened rushed to Rochelle’s aid. One of them ran to tell the band director that he better come quick. Rocky, mortified that he’d caused Rochelle to fall, did not know what to do.
“Oh! I’m so sorry! Are you all right?”
Rochelle, stunned and in pain, tried to assure Rocky and the rest of those gathered around her that she was okay. “I’m fine. Just fine.” She looked up at Rocky. “Could you help me get up? I think I may have twisted something.”
Help her up? Could he ever! The sight of Rochelle’s hazel-green eyes, framed with thick brown lashes and wet with tears of pain, gave the slight-built Rocky a strength he had not known before. Though she outweighed him by about ten pounds, Rocky lifted Rochelle in his arms and carried her all the way to the band hall. He only nearly dropped her twice.
“HE WAS MY KNIGHT in pressed khakis,” teased Rochelle when she overheard him telling Melissa, the waitress at the Wild Flour, how they met. “I knew from then on that Rocky was the only man for me.”
“You did not. You hardly knew I was alive, until you got out of school. The hard part,” Rocky told Melissa, “was that I couldn’t let on that I liked her or I would have gotten kicked out of the teaching program at the university. She never even knew.”
“But I thought you said that you were just a student too,” said Melissa. “You were only there for a couple of weeks of observation, right?”
“I was, but then I ended up doing some substitute teaching at that school—which in one way was a good thing, because I made a little money and got to see Rochelle every day, but in another way was a bad thing, because I couldn’t let on that I liked her.”
“They have strict rules about teachers, even substitute teachers, having anything to do with students,” said Rochelle.
“So for twelve long weeks, I admired my redhead darling from afar.”
“And for twelve weeks, I hobbled around in a cast.”
“You mean your leg was broken?”
Rochelle pulled up her skirt a bit to show Melissa the evidence. “Yep. Had to have surgery and everything.”
“Rochelle wasn’t my first girlfriend,” Rocky said, “but she was the first girl that I actually caused to fall head over heels!”
ROCKY KNOWS IT DIDN’T HAPPEN exactly like that, but he thinks it makes for a good how-we-met tale. Actually, he was the one who fell for Rochelle. Hard. Though he never acted on his feelings while he was assigned to her school (so fearful was he of getting in trouble that he hardly dared speak to her), every single day his eyes sought her out. He snatched glimpses of her hobbling on her crutches down the school hallways, watched her laugh with her friends in the school cafeteria, and tried to act nonchalant when she passed by his classroom.
“Leg healing okay?” Rocky would ask about once a week.
“Okay,” she said.
“That’s good.”
The day after Rochelle graduated from high school, Rocky called her up.
“Rocky? Rocky who? Rocky Shartle? Mr. Shartle? Uh, yeah, I mean, yes, sir, I mean, yes, this is Rochelle.”
“Are you feeling all right? Your leg, I mean?”
“Yes. I’m totally fine. I don’t even have to go back for more therapy.”
“Good. I’m glad.” Silence. A deep breath. “I was wondering if you would like to go out sometime. Maybe Saturday? To a movie?”
“Well, sure. I mean, I guess so.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at 6:30. Would that be all right?”
“Okay, Mr. Sh—Rocky. That sounds like fun.”
Well, Rocky decided that very evening, the night of their first date, that Rochelle was the woman he was going to marry. It took Rochelle a little longer. Not until their third date did she decide Rocky was right for her.
“What will your parents think when we tell them we want to get married?” he asked.
“I dunno. Actually, I think they’ll be shocked, and since I’m only eighteen, they’ll probably try to talk us into waiting. Then again, they can’t say much. They were only eighteen themselves when they got married. Actually, once they get over the surprise, I think they’ll decide it’s okay. You gonna talk to my dad?”
“I think I should.”
“How about my mom?”
“Yes. Her too.”
Rochelle’s parents lived a thousand miles away. Because of her dad’s job, they’d had to move just six weeks before her graduation. They had allowed Rochelle to stay behind and live with a friend so that she could graduate from her hometown high school. Rocky and Rochelle’s marriage plans would have to be discussed over the phone.
Rocky fortified himself with three swigs of Pepto-Bismol before gathering the courage to call Rochelle’s dad and ask him for his daughter’s hand.
“Hi, Daddy,” Rochelle said after she’d dialed the phone. “How are you? I’m fine. Yes. Yes. Okay. I sure will. Uh, Daddy, remember the guy that I told you about? Uh-huh, that’s the one. Rocky, the one who’s going to be a teacher. Well, he’s here with me now and he wants to ask you something.”
“Mr. Riggs,” Rocky said, his voice sounding high inside his own head, “Rochelle and I would like to get married, if that’s all right with you, uh, sir.”
Rochelle, only inches away, tried to read Rocky’s face and guess her daddy’s response.
“Yes. Yes. In May, after I graduate, sir. Uh, no, sir, but I have several leads. Uh-huh, I mean, yes, sir. Of course. Yes. I promise. You have my word on that. Yes. Okay. Good-bye, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
He laid the phone back into its cradle and sank to a chair, sweating and grinning and thinking that he might throw up.
“Well? What did he say? Did he say okay? Did he sound upset? Tell me!” Rochelle hopped from one foot to the other.
“He said we could get married as long as I promised to . . . ” Rochelle’s dad’s words suddenly registered in Rocky’s brain, “take care of your teeth?”
Just then the phone rang. It was Rochelle’s mother. Her dad had hung up before she’d had a chance to talk, and that was not all right by her. “Yes, mother, I’m sure. I know, but we don’t want to wait. Oh yes, he’s very good to me. You do? All right, I’ll put him on.”
Rochelle handed the phone to Rocky. He drew back from it as if it were a snake. “She wants to talk to you,” Rochelle hissed.
“Yes, ma’am. Uh-hu
h. Yes. I understand. Yes. I’ll do my best.” He hung up the phone again.
“Rocky! I wanted to talk to her some more. What did she say? I couldn’t tell if she was excited or upset. How do you think she sounded?”
“Rochelle, is there something you haven’t told me?”
“What do you mean? What did she say?”
“She only wanted to know one thing. If we got married, would I take care of your teeth? Your dad asked me the same thing. You don’t have, like . . . are those your real teeth?” He looked at her mouth. “I mean, your teeth aren’t going to fall out or something, are they?”
Rochelle began to giggle. “No. Of course not. It’s just that when I was younger, when my permanent teeth first started coming in, I had lots of problems and my parents had to spend a ton of money on my mouth. And my parents are not rich. For years and years, I had to go to the dentist almost every month. It nearly worried my mother and daddy to death. But my teeth are fine now.”
Rocky did not look convinced.
Rochelle opened her mouth and showed him her teeth. “See? They’re fine. You’re looking at a very expensive smile. I guess Mom and Dad just want to make sure that their investment is well taken care of.”
ONCE HE’D FINISHED TELLING Melissa the story, Rocky looked at his watch, gave Rochelle a peck on the cheek, and left to pick the kids up from the baby-sitter. Melissa watched him go, then turned to Rochelle. “You agreed to marry Rocky on your third date? And you were only eighteen?”
“It was his cologne,” said Rochelle.
“No!”
“Really. Old Spice. When I saw it in his bathroom—five full bottles—well, I just knew that Rocky was the one.”
“Pee-yew! I don’t like Old Spice,” said Melissa. “I’ve never smelled it on Rocky.”
And she never will. Rocky doesn’t wear the stuff. But he gets a brand-new bottle every year at Christmas.
ROCKY’S GRANNY OPAL, in her younger, more spry years, loved to go shopping, especially for Christmas presents. She’d never learned to drive, so in early December (Granny Opal liked to beat the crowds), her daughter-in-law, Rocky’s mother, would pick her up and take her to Sears, J.C. Penney’s, and Wal-Mart. Granny Opal would search for perfect gifts for her children, her grandchildren, her next-door neighbors, and the preacher at her church. The two of them, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, enjoyed each other’s company, and so they would make a day of it, stopping midmorning for coffee and midday for lunch.
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