“Flowers can do that to a woman,” Franny said quite sensibly.
Marilee looked at her. “Yes…yes, they can. It’s just that this is so sweet.” But she couldn’t show anyone. She involuntarily held the card to her chest.
“My son is quite a guy.”
“Yes, he is.” A sense of unworthiness flowed over her. It seemed fantastic that Tate could truly love her, Marilee.
Seeing Franny and Corrine turn their heads toward the doorway, Marilee twisted in her chair, prepared to thank Tate for the flowers. But, his expression…what had happened?
“We have a guest,” he said, in a low voice because of Willie Lee’s sleeping head against his chest.
A guest?
Then Tate had withdrawn and another man took the doorway.
“Hello, Marilee.”
She took in the bright white shirt standing out against the growing dimness of the rooms behind him, a figure so tall that he seemed to have to duck.
“Ohmygod,” she said, recognition dawning, slowly, like a foggy morning.
“Not exactly.” He cocked his head and smiled.
“Stuart?” It could not be him.
“Yes. Surprise, sweetheart.”
In a smooth, graceful movement, he stepped into the room and over to brush her lips with his.
Six
Lost in the Grand Canyon of life…
They had a guest, her ex-husband, who she had not heard from in almost two years, and who, having come right at suppertime, was asked to join them.
“We’re havin’ our engagement celebration. Please join us,” Tate said to Stuart, while Marilee was still busy thinking: ohmygod.
She tried to regain coherent thought by busying herself with spreading the linen tablecloth on the big dining table, upon which Corrine placed the gold-trimmed china that would accommodate the down-home chicken and noodles. Tate, getting thoroughly carried away, lit candles.
Sitting with her ex-husband at her right hand, she shifted her gaze to look down the length of the candlelit table and into the handsome, smiling face of her fiancé and, returning his smile, wondered how the disconcerting situation had possibly come about.
Franny, who had brought a bottle of champagne, raised her glass and led them in a toast. “To Tate and Marilee and the vast possibilities stretching ahead of them.”
Vast possibilities. It sounded like the Grand Canyon, far too wide to traverse.
Feeling Stuart’s gaze on her, Marilee concentrated on getting her napkin spread in her lap, and next to seeing that dishes were passed. And keeping a smile on her lips and her eyes not lighting any one place.
Then here came Willie Lee, accompanied by Munro, padding in his sock feet from the bedroom. “I am hun-gry.”
Marilee and everyone, having momentarily forgotten his existence and the ramifications, sat staring at him as he went to the chair where he normally sat at the dining table, which was at this moment occupied by Stuart.
“Who are you?” he asked Stuart in his forthright manner.
Marilee said, “Willie Lee, honey, this is your daddy. He has come to see you.” Suddenly her vision was blurry. She blinked, seeing Willie Lee’s eyebrows go up. “It is a surprise,” she added, feeling totally inadequate to explanations.
“You are my dad-dy?” he asked Stuart.
“Yes. I am…Willie Lee.”
He spoke as if uncertain of his son’s name. No doubt he had forgotten the existence of a son, as well he had intended to do.
“Hel-lo,” said Willie Lee and stuck out his hand for a shake, as so often he and Tate did with each other.
Stuart’s eyebrows rose, and, hesitantly, he took the small hand, shaking it. “Hello.”
“This is Mun-ro. He is my dog.”
“Ah…hello, Munro.”
“You are sit-ting in my chair, but I will sit over here,” Willie Lee said as he rounded the table to the chair beside Corrine, and at Tate’s right. “You can see me from there,” he added in his very literal fashion.
Marilee had the urge to grab her son to her and hug him and tell him he truly was the most magnificent soul on earth.
Stuart said, “Ah…thank you.”
“I’ll get your plate, honey.” She started to rise, but Tate was already on his feet and reaching for a china plate and silverware.
“Here ya’ go, buddy.”
“Thank you.” His thick glasses reflected the candlelight as he looked across at Stuart. “I like chicken and noo-dles. Do you?”
“Yes.” Stuart looked down at his plate. “I haven’t had it in a long time, but yes, I believe I do.” His eyes came up to Marilee, and an expression crossed his face that she could not define and did not care to try.
In the midst of Stuart’s telling about a trip to Scotland to photograph and report on castles, the telephone rang.
Marilee instantly threw down her napkin. “I’ll get it,” and she dashed through the swinging kitchen door to answer the phone on the wall.
Alone in the kitchen, thank you, God.
“Hello, Marilee. This is Parker.”
Parker.
She pressed her fingers to her lips. Caught up in her inner turmoil, she had forgotten him. Guilt fell all over her. She always experienced a great deal of guilt about Parker; she always seemed to forget about him.
“Oh, Parker, I’m so glad you called. I’ve wanted to speak with you.” Moving her palm to her cheek, she searched for words to tell the man she’d almost married some six months previously that she was about to marry another. Of course, her and Tate’s engagement could not be a surprise to him.
“Well, I just got back in town yesterday,” he said. “I stayed at the convention a couple of days longer…because I got married.”
Marilee pressed her back against the wall. “You got married?”
“Yes. And Tate was by here today…telling me that you two are gettin’ married next month.”
“Yes, yes we are.” Her mind was spinning. She had the sense of being in The Twilight Zone.
Tate had not told her he’d seen Parker, but there had not been time for Tate to tell her anything. She pressed harder against the wall, holding herself up.
“I look forward to meeting your wife.” Her voice dropped. “I’d like you both to come, Parker…to our wedding.”
“I’m going to be Tate’s best man…. Amy and I will both be there,” he said with a warmth that went to her bones.
“Oh, good.” Then, “You sound happy, Parker. Really happy.”
“I am.” The two words rang with joy. “I’m a lucky guy, and I can’t wait for you to meet Amy.”
Amy, a feminine name, perfect for a woman for Parker.
“I look forward to that. And, Parker—I’m glad for you.” They had been much better friends than lovers.
“Thanks, Marilee. Me, too, you.”
They bid goodbye, and she slowly replaced the receiver, standing with her hand on it. There were just too many things happening one right after another. All she could do was hang on until everything eventually stopped. Things did eventually come to an end, of some sort.
Tate was poking at a flickering fire in the fireplace. He liked to start fires, liked to have something to poke at, Marilee thought, watching him.
Franny had long gone, the children were in bed, and Marilee was ready to follow them. She was ready to crawl into bed, eat a package of Hershey’s Kisses and pull the covers over her head.
She was composing phrases to ease the men out of the house when Tate, carefully setting aside the poker, asked Stuart where he was staying.
“Uh, I meant to ask if there was a hotel in town,” Stuart answered, slowly uncrossing his long legs and sitting forward in the big chair.
“You passed it on your way in,” said Tate. He returned to his seat on the couch, draping his arm along the back behind Marilee, his hand brushing her shoulder in a proprietary gesture. “The Goodnight, out on the west highway.”
“I did? I don’t remember it.”
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“Well, you did. Vintage place. Has small duplex cabins. Gives you privacy.”
“Ah, yes, but does it provide running water?”
“I think you’d find a comfortable place up in Lawton,” Marilee put in and scooted to the edge of the couch. “It has really grown since you were here. And now I’m ready to call it a night. The children will be up for school in the morning.”
So much for subtlety. “We’ve enjoyed your visit so much, Stuart, and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow, I hope. I know Willie Lee wants to get more time with his father. We want you to visit as much as you can while you’re here.”
She made the best attempt she could at softening her abruptness, even as she rose and went to the door, gave him a quick hug and ushered him out.
As soon as she had shut the front door after Stuart, she turned to Tate and told him, in a manner she wished was not blunt but was, that she was too tired to talk anymore. It was as if she had come to the end of her energy and there was absolutely nothing left; she had gone bone-dry in the emotion department.
Tate responded to this by saying instantly, “Go to bed.” He gave her a quick kiss, the touch of his warm lips on hers, and then, in long, totally unhesitating strides, he headed for the back door, where he paused only long enough to say, “Sleep late. I’ll get the kids ready for school.”
She closed the door and stood looking through the glass, watching him be swallowed up by the darkened backyard and thinking that there was nothing more a woman could want in a man than agreeability.
Then she went to the bathroom, stripped in two seconds and stood beneath the hot shower spray, letting the water pummel all thought right out of her head.
When Willie Lee heard the water running in the bathroom, he rose up, slipped from under the covers and went to the deep dark by the closet. He felt for and pushed on the closet light switch; there was enough glow through the cracks around the door for him to locate his shoes, which he put on, and then his coat and his cape.
On his knees on his bed, he pulled the string for the blinds, raising them as quietly as possible, and then lifted the window.
“What are you doin’?”
Corrine’s loud whisper caused him to jump.
“I am learn-ing to fly. Go on, Mun-ro.” Being a very good dog, Munro disappeared out the window.
“You’re what?” Corrine came scrambling across his bed.
Willie continued on his course, sticking his feet out the window and getting himself sat down on the windowsill. He was trying to get out before the water stopped running in the bathroom. Once his mother told him not to do something, he would not be able to. So far, she had not ever told him not to go out his window.
“Willie Lee, you get back in your bed.” Corrine grabbed hold of his coat.
He prepared to tell her that she was not his boss, when, quite suddenly, the running water sound stopped in the bathroom. Willie Lee looked at Corrine, and she looked back at him.
The next minute low music sounded through the wall. His mother had turned on the little radio in there. That meant she would be there a while, probably painting her toenails. His mother sometimes liked to paint her toenails and eat chocolate bars.
Also, at that same moment of hearing the radio, Corrine relaxed her grip on his coat. Willie stuck out his hands, closed his eyes, and jumped.
He landed with a thud, falling over on his side onto the cold, wet ground.
Well, he almost flew.
“Willie Lee?” Corrine’s head poked out the window.
“I am go-ing to my tree-house,” he called up to her.
“No!”
He continued, running as best he could, following Munro, who was ahead of him.
Just then, at the corner of the house, Munro darted to the back steps, through the yellow glow cast by the porch light and disappeared into the darkness beneath the house.
Willie Lee heard hissing and snarling. Munro yelped and popped out, then ran back again into the darkness. Willie Lee followed and got down on his hands and knees, entering the dark area beneath the steps.
Light filtered through cracks in the steps. He saw a big cat and something smaller. His kitten! He just knew it was his kitten—and the big cat was Bubba, Mr. Tate’s big old yellow cat. Bubba was beating up his kitten!
“No, Bub-ba!” Willie Lee reached out and shoved the big cat, but the big cat just hopped sideways, out of reach. With ears flattened and growling in his throat, he advanced against the kitten, whose small shadow could just be seen, crouching against the inside of the bottom step.
Willie Lee tried to crawl closer. “Here, kit-ty, kit-ty.”
Munro darted in, but Bubba got his nose, and Munro jumped back with a yelp.
Then here came Corrine. “What are you doin’? Aunt Marilee’s gonna hear.”
“Bub-ba is be-ing mean to my kit-ten.” He was about to pound on the door and get his mother-who-saved to come to the rescue, but he could not leave his kitten. Bubba would eat him up. “Cor-rine?”
“Oh…sheesh.” Corrine picked up a dirt clod of substantial proportion and threw it at the big yellow cat, saying at the same time, “Get him, Munro.” The clod hit Bubba in the side, and Munro, sufficiently supported now, made another dart. The big cat, seeing he was outnumbered, went running away into the deep dark beneath the house, or as near running as a tub of lard can go.
Despite Corrine warning him about snakes, Willie Lee scrambled forward until he could grab the kitten. It scratched his hands, but he held on, pulling it out from beneath the steps.
On his knees outside the foundation, Willie Lee cuddled the kitten close. It was shaking. “He got hit by a car this morn-ing and got dead-ed,” he said, sniffing back tears, “but I picked him up, and he got okay. He needs me to take care of him.”
Corrine petted the kitten. “You mean he got knocked out and woke up.”
Willie Lee did not see any point in correcting Corrine. He pressed his cold nose into the kitten’s warm fur. The kitten smelled like cold dirt.
“It’s okay, Willie Lee. You have the kitten now.”
“Why was Bub-ba so mean to him?”
“Well…” She paused, and he waited. “It is what grown boy cats do. Bubba was just bein’ a boy cat and protecting his territory. But when this kitten is grown, Bubba won’t do it, or this kitten will whip Bubba’s tail.”
“I do not like that. I want them to be frie-ends.”
“Yeah, well, we all want a lot of things. Come on. We gotta get back in before Aunt Marilee finds out we are out, or we’re gonna get it.”
Willie Lee thought that Corrine would know just how to get back inside, and he was very happy to be taking his kitten. Only he had not practiced learning to fly, and this made him sad.
Then Corrine said, “Let’s go back by the fence, where it’s dark, and see if we can see the stars.”
To his great surprise, she was already dashing off across the yard, with Munro at her heels. Willie Lee, holding his kitten close to his chest, took off after them with his ever-clumsy run.
He wished so much that he could run like other boys. Feeling his cape flutter behind him, he thought, someday I will fly.
The decor of the cottage room at the Goodnight Motel contained every god-awful ugly style of the fifties, sixties and seventies, starting with the giant rose-printed curtains and going on to the green shag carpeting.
After his first look, Stuart turned off the glaring overhead light and switched on the bedside lamp, putting most of the room in shadow. Then he sank down to the edge of the mattress. He felt queasy, as he often did when exhaustion overtook him. He had been too exhausted to drive up to Lawton and a decent hotel, and determined to show Tate Holloway that he did not require pampering. It had taken almost twenty minutes to get registered by the chatty old man who was hard of hearing and was watching a television turned up to shouting level. Only one other cottage in the strip appeared occupied; it had two cars parked in front of it, indicating the probability
of a tryst. The No-Tell Motel was what Stuart would have named the place.
Just then he noticed the brown metal box sitting on the bedside table. The bed had a vibrating machine.
After several long seconds of staring at the box, he dug into his slacks pocket, came up with a quarter and stuck it in the slot. The bed began to vibrate. The thing actually worked.
Stuart lay back gingerly, wondering if it would make him more nauseous. It did not. In fact, he began to relax.
His mind slipped into memories of a time he and Marilee had stayed at one of those once-modern economy motels that sported a vibrating bed, which by that time had passed the summit of popularity but were still frequently found. He recalled her youthful delight in putting in the quarters and laughing with the sensation.
And he recalled what she had felt like beneath him, giving him all she had, while the bed rocked underneath and he rocked on top.
He ached right that moment to reach back in time and touch her as she had been. To have her fill him up, as she had then, with the life of her.
Pained, he threw his forearm over his eyes. He had hardly thought of Marilee since the day he had left her, but these days the memories came repeatedly, plaguing him with a relentlessness, now that he was dying.
Damn Stuart James anyway. His showing up right at this time was no coincidence. No, sir. James professed no knowledge of the engagement, but Tate was as certain as he had spit in his mouth that the man had read about the engagement on the Voice Web page. He judged the man a liar and a taker. While he could admit to being on the prejudiced side, Tate had a good ability to call people as they were, and he had called this man correct, by golly.
There was no sleeping. Middle of the night, and Tate got up, got dressed in sweatpants and shirt and Nikes. Passing his mother’s closed door on the landing, he saw light showing beneath. His mother never seemed to sleep, although since he did not hear a sound within, perhaps she slept with the light on.
Down the stairs with light steps, out the front door and across the porch into a cold, misty night. His big tomcat, Bubba, popped out from beneath the porch and came bouncing behind him to the street, where the animal stopped. Bubba had gotten too fat and old to even go halfway down the street.
At the Corner of Love and Heartache Page 6
