At the Corner of Love and Heartache
Page 16
Eyes squeezed against tears, she pressed her cheek to his.
“Oh, Marilee, I’ve felt so far away.”
“Oh, Tate, so have I. I just didn’t know how to get past it all and get back to you…. Tate…”
Then he was kissing her again, her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, eating her up with his lips and his hands that pressed her to him, heating her body until the hard, cold knot that had been inside gave way in a sudden burst, and love, like sweet heated honey, poured throughout her being. She savored the taste and scent of him, the sense of love swirling around them like a dust devil on a hot day, a magic blessing not to be missed.
“Marilee, I want you. I do.” His voice was ragged and breathless in a manner that made her feel like a woman blessed and powerful, as he trailed kisses down the other side of her neck. “Oh, Marilee…”
“Tate…Tate, my darling.” She kissed him, his lips, his cheeks, his neck, wanting to soak him up, all of him.
“Daddy, there’s someone in the church.”
The young voice echoed through the tall-ceilinged sanctuary and seemed to flow down upon them, like cold rain.
Ohmygod.
She and Tate sprang apart. Straightening her spine, and her clothing, trying as best she could to appear sane, although she felt far too shaky to be doing a very good job of it. Thank goodness for Tate’s supporting hand on her elbow.
Pastor Smith appeared, and right beside him were his three sons. “Ah…I’m sorry to interrupt, ah, your prayer together.” He grinned a knowing grin. “Good thing to start, too, right at the very first.” His grin widened. “We came over to get ready for Sunday night services. The children make certain the sanctuary’s straightened up for me.”
“We’re done with our time alone…after your powerful sharin’ with us, we needed to contemplate it together,” Tate said, giving way to his tendency for exposition as he and Marilee edged toward the front door.
“Well, good. Start out right. And come back for tonight’s services. We’ll be glad to see you!”
The pastor’s voice rang out behind them as they raced hand in hand and choking back laughter, out the vestibule and down the wide concrete steps and along the sidewalk, like children fleeing their mischief, flying on exuberance. The cool air on her hot, damp skin felt sensual and delicious. She saw the damp hair that fell across Tate’s forehead, his merry eyes and bright teeth as he laughed.
Oh, he was so handsome!
Just past the church parking lot and beneath the still-bare branches of a crepe myrtle arching over the sidewalk, they fell together in laughter.
Brushing back her hair with his fingers, Tate cupped the side of her head. “Ah, Marilee…I do want you, darlin’…I do.”
He kissed her tenderly, and then, for the barest touch, they pressed their foreheads together. The feelings that ran through her were profound, real and true and precious, like the first sight of a brand-new morning.
He put his arm around her shoulders, squeezed her against him, and they began the stroll homeward.
Hugging close to him, her arm around his waist, Marilee felt joy almost too much to contain. She realized that the fears of only moments ago were gone. She had gotten them out into the light, and had seen how distorted and unreal they really were. In an instant of clarity, she looked into her feelings, like Willie Lee looking into his ant farm, and saw that she had not wanted sex so much as this that she now experienced with Tate. This feeling—it was every-thing—a sense of being with him totally, having his total attention and giving him hers.
“I’m not very good at expressing my feelings,” she said, in that moment of understanding. “Most of the time it seems easier not to pay them any attention.”
“Hmmm.”
“I can’t very well express them, when so often I don’t know what they are.” She regarded him earnestly. This seemed an important revelation.
He nodded in a most gratifying manner. “I’m not too good with speakin’ of feelings, either,” he said. “I haven’t had much experience with it,” he added, and she thought this a splendid effort on his part.
“Well, we have that in common.” She again nestled into his shoulder, thinking of this, delighted to remain connected to him.
After a moment, Tate said, “We’ll just have to learn, won’t we?”
“Yes. Yes, we will.” What a dear, rare man he was.
She laughed, and he laughed, and then, right there in plain sight, he kissed her socks off again.
When a carload of teens went past and blew their horn, they jumped apart.
“We’re gonna get arrested before we get home,” Marilee said.
“It’ll be worth it…. We’ll get the sheriff to put us in the same cell.” He cast her a lascivious grin as again his arm went around her shoulder, and they fell into a comfortable stroll.
“In the Valentine jail, we would be in plain view of everyone…and you know who Pastor Smith reminds me of? A short version of Andy Griffith.”
“Yeah, he does. Especially his accent when he was yelling for us to come back tonight. I expected to hear him say, ‘Y’all come on back now, y’hear?”’
They laughed again, and Marilee thought what she appreciated most in Tate was his sense of humor about everything, from the smallest to the largest incidents. She told him this, and he said what he admired in her was that she encouraged everyone to have humor.
They walked along, casting smiles at each other, their hearts communicating without words. The fears, unacknowledged and unspoken, had built a wall, Marilee thought.
“We will need to remember times like this,” she said.
“Yes.” And after a minute, he said, “Let’s have a secret signal to remind us.”
“A signal?”
“Yes, maybe a tug on the ear, like this.”
“You do that all the time anyway, when you’re thinking.”
“I do?”
“Yes, you do. How ’bout wetting the lips.” She showed him.
“I don’t know. Other women might think I’m comin’ on to them.”
“Then…tongue in cheek.”
He shook his head. “Here, wiggle the eyebrows. Just a bit.”
She tried it. “Okay. I can do that.”
“That’s it, then. Our private secret signal to remind us we are connected.”
Oh, it was lovely. Lovely walking home with his arm around her and the warm, sparkling feelings in her heart.
Then, at the corner of Porter Street, Tate said suddenly, “We need to talk a little bit more,” and glancing around, he then started across the street, tugging her along.
“Where…?”
“Here.”
Marilee was startled. “Buddy’s Mustang?”
“He won’t mind,” Tate said, rounding the front of the red Mustang that sat parked in its usual place at the curb in front of the white house on the corner where Buddy Wyatt, the young UPS deliveryman, lived with his mother, Margaret.
Opening the passenger door, Tate helped her into the seat, slammed the door, then went back around and got in on the driver side.
Marilee admired Tate’s audacity—surely no one could be as charmingly audacious as Tate, and this always attracted her—yet she was concerned about overstepping respectable behavior by making themselves at home in another person’s private vehicle.
“Oh, Buddy and I are friends,” Tate said, when she brought up the concern. “I showed him our engagement picture in the paper the other day, and he wished us well. Besides, he isn’t usin’ his car right now.”
True enough.
Tate twisted to face her. “Let’s make a pact right now. We will be honest with each other from here on out.”
“I didn’t know I wasn’t being honest about my feelings, Tate. Did you? Did you deliberately not tell me that you were worried about your age, or about not having time alone?” She wasn’t certain he had admitted to being worried about not having time alone with her, but she believed he had indicated this.
“Did you think I wouldn’t understand you?” She had always considered herself a rather understanding person.
“Of course not.” Tate stared at her, then tugged on his ear. “But some things are hard to speak of, Marilee, and that may be the clue to the need to do just that.”
“Yes, now we know. But we didn’t before, so that was not dishonesty. That was lack of knowledge.” This was distinctly different to her, and she wanted that understood.
Tate opened his mouth, closed it, then said, “Okay, let’s make a pact to talk out our fears. From right here and now, for the rest of our lives. We’ll talk each night before bed. Or any time we need to. We won’t hold back. We’ll speak any concerns, honestly and openly.”
“I agree. Let’s shake on it.”
They did, and kissed on it, too. Then Marilee was startled by a tapping at her window glass. It was Buddy Wyatt, hands in his tight jeans pockets. She rolled down the window.
“Hi, Buddy,” Marilee said, a little embarrassed.
Tate leaned across the console. “We needed a place to talk privately. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Oh, no. I don’t mind, Editor…but are you two about finished? I have a date. You can use my mom’s car under the carport, if you want. She’s busy watchin’ The African Queen on the television.”
They thanked the young man, declining his kind offer, got out of the car and headed on home to Marilee’s house, again hand in hand.
Stuart was in the kitchen, gazing out the window. “The kids have a wild bird,” he told them.
Marilee and Tate went out to the tree house to get the details.
Yes, they were told, Willie Lee had tamed a wild bird. Corrine explained something about it being pushed out of its own nest over at Mr. Winston’s, and that Ricky Dale had brought it to Willie Lee.
“Of course,” Marilee said.
Willie Lee jutted his arm over the tree house railing, displaying a small bird perched on his finger. The small bird took off in a fluttering manner, flying over to the clothesline pole. Tate said it was a tit-mouse and generally not afraid of humans.
“I was a Boy Scout for a brief time,” Tate explained, at her raised eyebrow.
“Where did you get the birdhouse?” Marilee asked, returning her attention upward to Corrine and Ricky Dale, who were fastening a basket birdhouse to a thick branch in the tree.
“Mr. James made it,” Corrine said.
For heaven’s sake. Marilee squinted, trying to get a better view of the birdhouse.
Corrine said, “I found the basket in the laundry closet, Aunt Marilee. I didn’t think you would mind.”
“No, honey, of course I don’t mind.” She saw that Stuart had cut and rewoven the basket quite neatly.
Stuart, still watching from the kitchen window, saw Marilee turn and look his way. No doubt she was surprised about him making the birdhouse. He had surprised himself in the action.
He watched the bird fly back to the tree house and land on a branch very near his son’s head. He recalled seeing the bird in his son’s hand.
Then his gaze passed over Marilee standing beside Tate, who slung his arm easily over her shoulder. Holloway said something, and Marilee and the kids laughed. He felt left out. Totally alone.
Turning from the window, Stuart walked slowly to the kitchen table, where he sank down into a chair. He was so tired. Dread, like a stormy sea, washed over him. He saw stretched in front of him the great horror of his life all alone, and his heart squeezed with such intensity, he felt as if he could not get his breath. If he could change many decisions from his past, maybe he would now. But he could not.
A tremor went through him. He couldn’t face his future alone. He just didn’t think he could.
Raising his head, he looked through the open kitchen door, through the living room to the big front door, in his mind getting up and walking out, getting in his car and driving away. He had no idea where he would go. Likely there wasn’t one person on earth who would miss him. Who would look one minute for him.
He could not seem to make himself move.
Just then the back door opened. Instinctively Stuart straightened his spine, gathering himself and what dignity he could muster. In came Willie Lee, running in his clumsy gait, straight to Stuart and saying the most amazing thing.
“Fa-ther…Fa-ther, come and see.”
Hearing the boy call him Father was startling enough, and then Willie Lee threw himself onto Stuart’s thigh, where Stuart had to grab him to keep him from falling.
“My bird went in the nest you made. He likes it. Come see.” The boy’s eyes were large behind his thick glasses. He tilted his head, regarding Stuart in a disconcertingly probing fashion.
Then there was Marilee in the doorway. She regarded him, and he regarded her. “Go on and see the result of your handiwork. I’m going to make us some sandwiches.”
Her tone was warm, and so was her smile.
Stuart, a lump coming into his throat, nodded. “Okay, kid,” he said to Willie Lee. “Let’s go see this bird of yours in his house.”
Willie Lee surprised him by taking his hand. “I will show you.”
Marilee watched them go out; then she peered through the window, seeing her small son leading the tall man across the yard.
The sight of Stuart, sitting all alone at the table when they entered, the stark loneliness she had glimpsed on his features, cut deep into her heart.
Willie Lee scrambled up into bed, and Marilee tucked him in. Kissing his cheek, she was reminded by the fresh-washed scent of him of the horrible encounter with the skunk. Give thanks for small blessings, she thought.
“Ma-ma?”
“What, sugar?”
“I think my fa-ther is sick.”
She paused in smoothing his blankets. “Why do you think that?”
“I just do.”
“Well…maybe he just isn’t feeling well today. Maybe tomorrow he will feel fine.”
Her son’s expression cleared. “Okay.” And he turned over, snuggling into the covers, where he would be asleep in seconds.
Marilee kissed his unruly hair and whispered, “God bless and keep Willie Lee.”
Fifteen
Age is only a matter of mind….
There he was, Winston Valentine, sitting at a candlelit table with a beautiful woman, in a fancy-schmancy restaurant, eating a piece of chocolate cake rich enough to provoke an instant heart attack in a man of his age.
“I’ll be poppin’ Tums after this,” he said, gazing at the lovely face across from him.
“But it’s worth it, isn’t it?” she said, as sultry as any woman could possibly be.
Winston wondered at what had come into his life in the form of Franny Holloway.
She had said, “Winston, I believe we need to go out. How ’bout it?” Tongues would be wagging over this, her sitting on the front porch with him, and then showing up, dressed in what looked like a whole bunch of silk scarves, with a neckline that dipped to show the creamy flesh of her small breasts.
She took hold of his arm when they walked, too, and she looked at him when he spoke. She listened to him as if what he said was of great interest. She seemed especially interested in what Valentine was like in the early days, and he delighted in telling her about how the train used to stop there, and the way the town filled up on Saturday nights in the summer, and the long lines of cotton wagons in the fall. Where she had grown up in Texas had been much the same.
And she didn’t laugh or even look mildly bored when he told her about the visits, that first year, from his dead wife, Coweta.
“The flesh is temporary, b
ut the spirit lives on,” she said with warm understanding. “I’ve seen a number of dead people—any that I had a close attachment to. I loved my daddy dearly, and I saw him shortly after he died from a kick in the head by a mule. Only one time. He went right on to the other side, and I never saw him again. My mother told me I imagined it and gave me a teaspoon of cod liver oil. Believe you me, I certainly was not quick to tell her when I saw my aunt get up out of her casket and go looking at everyone. I never saw Mama, but then Mama liked my sister best.”
Winston, who at first was relieved to know she had some experience in seeing spirits, began to feel uneasy. He sure hoped she wasn’t a nut. Although, what other type of woman who looked like her would go out to a restaurant like this with him?
“You must have loved your wife very much, and she you,” she said.
Something struck him hard. He nodded, averting his eyes. “We had ups and downs…some humdingers, too…but we both saw it through. I miss her.”
Franny stretched out her arm and laid her hand on his. “You were very blessed, Winston. Better to have known the love, even with the hurt, than not to know it at all.”
He felt the need to ask her about her life, but he shied from this. What if she told him secret feelings? That would just wear him out.
She said then, “Excuse me, darlin’,” and slid back her chair. “I need to go powder my nose, and I think I’ll call Tate to let him know we’re all right. No tellin’ when we might show up at home.” She winked.
Yep, that Franny was something, Winston thought.
He felt a little regret at his cowardice in not asking about her husband. He knew she was a widow. She had said that much. Maybe he could bring himself around to asking when she came back.
He took several deep breaths and stretched his shoulders. He sure didn’t want to be some old man who fell asleep in his chair in a public restaurant. It wasn’t yet seven o’clock, either.
Glancing around, checking out the other occupants of the restaurant, he felt his spirit sink. He was the oldest in the place by far. He got tired of being the oldest.