Love in a Small Town

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  In thinking of the kiss, she supposed that technically she had not kissed Sam. She had simply not stopped him from kissing her. She might have kissed him, however, if she hadn’t been so surprised. And she had thrown herself on his chest and into his arms.

  She kept on riding, keeping to open pastures and wide dirt roads. She startled a young couple out parking at a pasture gate, and Marker almost threw her when he spied three coyotes running across a ridge. It occurred to her that a nearly middle-aged modern woman out riding a horse all over the countryside in the middle of the night was a crazy thing. She might come across clandestine operations, such as drug dealers harvesting a hidden marijuana field, or a meeting of drug smugglers, or perhaps cattle rustlers, who could be every bit as ruthless as drug smugglers. Her imagination began to run wild, fed by stories she had heard.

  In fact, not having before considered the hazards of her situation was positively and totally crazy. Realization of this made her feel a measure of satisfaction at doing something other than halfway.

  That bit of satisfaction soon evaporated, however, and whatever desperation had driven her out riding went with it, leaving her too weary to feel anything other than a nagging worry that Marker might throw her and she would lie broken for days, without anyone ever knowing. She turned Marker back to the cottage, and the trip seemed so long. She had a sudden desire to close herself into the cottage now, and when she and Marker reached the corral, she unsaddled him and let him go and simply threw her tack atop the corral fence and left it, starting to run for the cottage, as eager to be there as she had earlier been eager to leave.

  Shucking her boots and jeans, she threw herself onto the couch in the living room and wrapped a cotton blanket tight around her like a cocoon. Rennie was snoring in the bedroom, and Molly couldn’t stand the thought of sharing a bed with anyone, because it made her long for Tommy Lee, long to say to him, “Hold me."

  * * * *

  The following morning Rennie slipped out of the cottage and went down to Swanda’s hardware store and purchased a Mr. Coffee machine. Eugene happened to have a can of coffee for the store, and Rennie talked him out of it, so she didn’t have to go to the IGA. As she walked back out to her Mustang, she reflected that it probably wouldn’t have been hard to talk Eugene into giving her the coffee machine itself. Eugene looked at her; he had always looked at her, so hard he almost drooled. He got so flustered that he made three mistakes in ringing up her purchase.

  It was probably being full of herself with this power she had over Eugene that encouraged her to drive past Annette Rountree’s house on her way back to the cottage, to stop and warn Annette to stay away from Tommy Lee.

  “Hey, look, I didn’t twist Tommy Lee’s arm last night. He’s a big boy. He can decide what he wants to do.”

  Annette, obviously pulled from bed, crossed her arms, squeezing her enormous boobs inside a sleep shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front of it. The Mickey Mouse shirt led Rennie to the conclusion Annette certainly hadn’t had a man in bed with her last night.

  Rennie said, “You and I both know that half the time a man doesn’t know what in this world or out of it he wants. You and I are very much alike.” Rennie gave a pregnant pause, and then, “Molly’s my sister. I’m tellin’ you to stay away from her husband, or I’m gonna make certain you regret it. I’m speakin’ for myself, not my tender sister. You don’t want to get on my wrong side.” Another pregnant pause and she added, “Think about it.”

  She had her eyes bore a hole in Annette. Although she wore sunglasses, which she didn’t want to remove and reveal her bruise—which would not aid in her threat—the force went through them. Annette paled slightly. Rennie, moving with perfect timing, turned and strode boldly away.

  Dealing with Annette in such a way gave Rennie confidence that she could deal with Eddie Pendarvis, should he show up to bother her again. And Tommy Lee had better watch his step. Right that moment she wasn’t very happy with him. She might have stopped by his place, too, but she figured Molly would find out about it and be upset with her. Poo, she was on such a good roll.

  Molly was sitting up on the couch when Rennie walked in. Just sitting there, staring, her hair all tangled and her shirt all wrinkled. The sight made Rennie’s high mood fall.

  Gathering herself, she smiled and said, “Look. I got us a coffeemaker.”

  She was convinced that drinking all that god-awful generic instant coffee was one thing that was straining Molly.

  Chapter 16

  Keep Walkin’ On

  Molly thought that she needed to figure out what she was going to do with the mess of her life. The conviction grew on her as she sat drinking coffee with Rennie and Mama, who came over to join them. The three of them sat around the maple kitchen table, drinking coffee, with the hot breeze blowing in the back screen door. Rennie was dressed, but Mama was wearing her fuchsia robe and appeared as cool as always, and Molly was wearing her blue robe, letting it fall off one shoulder in trying to be cooler. Rennie alternately smoked cigarettes and ate powdered sugar doughnuts, and Mama, her reading glasses halfway down her nose, worked on the electric plug to the black fan, which had burnt up that morning. Molly simply sat with her coffee.

  Molly reflected that when she had walked away from Tommy Lee, she had not thought anything out. She had been reacting to heartache and frustration, and she had been reacting ever since. This is what she tried to explain to her mother and sister, the two people she felt might know something about this sort of predicament, as they each had certainly had their share of emotions wrapped around a man.

  Rennie said, “Did you want to walk out when you did it?”

  “Well, at that minute I did, but I really didn’t want to. I simply couldn’t stand another minute of things as they were.”

  Rennie pointed out that Molly had decided to stay here at the cottage and had decided to escape Tommy Lee at the cafe, via the bathroom window—and then she had to tell that story to Mama, who found the whole thing very funny—and to flaunt herself at Rio’s, in an effort to scratch Tommy Lee. Mama had to be brought up on that, too. In hearing the way Rennie told the story, Molly got freshly embarrassed at her foolish behavior and then annoyed with Rennie for telling. Maybe she hadn’t really done anything wrong, but it had been wrong for her, and she didn’t care to be reminded of it.

  Then Rennie said, “You chose to do all those things, Molly, regardless of the reason—reaction as you say—so I really think you are deciding to do a number of things.”

  In Rennie’s view, people only thought they were deciding courses in their lives, while in reality what they were doing was reacting to their circumstances, whether good or bad. Put in this light, Molly had to agree, although she didn’t aloud because a thick desperation fell over her and made her lose the urge to converse. Remembering her various activities of the past week did nothing to bolster her confidence. She felt she had made a great many mistakes.

  She became aware of the scent of the cottage, above the scents of the coffee and Rennie’s cigarettes—it was that strong and seemed to grow with the heat of the day. She felt as if the cottage were sucking her into its very plaster and wood.

  Maybe it was something to do with her female Collier blood, she mused as she looked at her mother and sister. Maybe each of them could only be drawn away by a man for a time before they had to come back to their own. And here she sat among them.

  For much of her married years, Molly had felt somewhat as if she were split between her mother and sisters and Tommy Lee, as if she stood with one foot in Tommy Lee’s life and the other in the lives of her mother and sisters. She didn’t suppose it was so much their lives as a way of life. Her way of living was vastly different than Tommy Lee’s. For one thing, Tommy Lee ignored any ripples in his life and went about his way, working, always working. Molly had trouble ignoring the ripples, and she got darn tired of working. At times she needed fun and frivolity—Tommy Lee pretty much looked upon frivolity as he would an engine missing a pis
ton, which was to say useless, while to Molly frivolity was at times the very breath of life. She had always thought of herself as a blessing to Tommy Lee in this regard, for she saved him from a stark existence.

  Rennie left to go back to her own apartment, saying, when Molly tried to caution her, “I’m not goin’ to hide from Eddie Pendarvis, Molly. I do have to have some fresh clothes.”

  They whispered these things out beside the Mustang because they had told Mama none of it.

  Rennie drove off with her gay little wave, leaving Molly staring after the red Mustang, worrying about her, yet thinking that Rennie had had a choice and made it and wishing her own choices were as clear-cut.

  She went back inside and sat at the table and watched her mother working over the old fan plug. Peering up over her half-glasses, Mama said, “What you have to do is figure out what you want, Molly. Do you know what you want?”

  “I want things to be like they were years ago, when Tommy Lee and I were in love and all of life was ahead of us with no mistakes cluttering it up.”

  Molly said this at first slowly but ended up with a suddenness of clarity. Even as she spoke, she knew she wanted what she could not have. That she wanted it easy, and that it would never be easy.

  Mama smiled softly. “Honey, I wish I could be as clean and fresh of mistakes as I was at thirty-five, too.”

  Molly felt herself sinking, as if she were melting down and becoming part of the linoleum and the cottage.

  “Mama, I feel like I’m fading. I don’t want to, but I can’t seem to help it.”

  Mama said, in that firm voice she used whenever she sensed panic, “Sometimes, honey, the only thing you can do is walk on through it, not knowing where you’re goin’ but having the grit to keep walkin’ on. Such is life.”

  That was not at all what Molly wanted to hear. She wanted sweet, heartfelt sympathy, some “poor darling” would be nice. But Mama never had been very good at sympathy; sympathy just made her too nervous.

  After her mother left, Molly took to her bed and books again, with Ace upon her belly and the now fixed fan blowing air softly over her body as the heat and despair grew. She read and slept or just lay there, drinking the delicious coffee from the maker and smelling the lonely old woman scent of the cottage and thinking dark thoughts.

  Her thoughts were not straight. They were a whirl of images: past to present, Tommy Lee and the children, the mistakes made time and time again, no matter how she had tried. Mistakes that caused wounds that caused scar tissue that would always be there and made the heart vulnerable and tough at once.

  Sam was in her thoughts, too, and every time she thought of him, she felt guilty and excited.

  At one point she had a really crazy moment and reached for the phone to call Tommy Lee. Get ahold of yourself! Which she did for about three seconds and put the telephone down, but then picked it back up and dialed.

  Her mouth went dry when Tommy Lee’s deep, soft voice answered. “Hello?”

  It was so familiar, the way he said a hello that was curious and hesitant at the same time. Molly immediately thought of putting her hand on his bare, hard chest.

  She asked, “Are you sleepin’ with Annette Rountree?”

  Shocked silence. Then he said gruffly, “No.”

  "Okay."

  She hung up, quickly, as if the receiver was on fire. Terribly embarrassed. But she was also satisfied to have given Tommy Lee a jolt, which she felt he had coming.

  She sat staring at the telephone, expecting it to ring, but it did not, and that made her angry. She had just made a fool of herself. The least Tommy Lee could do was call back and act interested.

  * * * *

  Molly was asleep when Boone and Colter came. It was embarrassing and awkward for all of them. Her sons had never seen her like this, wearing nothing but a big shirt and panties—and thank goodness she had at one point slipped into the shirt—her hair on end and face all puffy from compulsive reading and sporadic crying. She quickly went into the bathroom and put a cool, wet cloth on her face for two full minutes, but there was not much help for it. She slipped into her jeans and straightened herself up as best she could, though, because there were proprieties to be observed. She was the mother and they her children, no matter they were grown.

  In the kitchen, both sons stood with their backsides resting against the sink cabinet, their hands stuffed into their front jeans’ pockets. Molly sat at the table, first drawing her legs up, then self-conscious for some silly reason about showing her bare feet, she tucked them beneath the table. She wished for one of Rennie's cigarettes. But she wouldn’t smoke, not in front of the children, not even when Boone had had his wreck. Then she’d gone into the hospital restroom to smoke, and she’d had to quickly put out the cigarette when Savannah had come in. Savannah had noticed the smoke smell and said indignantly, “Somebody’s been smoking in here,” and Molly had baldly lied and said there was a woman in there before her smoking like a chimney stack.

  No matter that her sons didn’t say it, she could hear the questions: “Why, Mom? Can’t you fix this? Don’t you know what this does to us?”

  The closest they came to speaking of it was when Molly jumped up and got them Coca-Colas from the refrigerator.

  “Hey . . . the little Coke bottles,” Colter said. “Man, I haven’t seen these in eons.”

  “Your Aunt Rennie bought them. She says they taste better than the cans or big liter bottles.” Chatter, something to fill the wide crack she had made in their relationship.

  Colter held his bottle up, looking at it. “Remember when we were kids and you would leave the lid on and punch a hole in it with an ice pick, so we could suck the Coke out?” His dark eyes lit on her and shifted away.

  And then Boone said, “Dad used to put peanuts in it for us, and you’d get all worried and say we might get one stuck in our throats.”

  His pale eyes rested on her, long and hard and demanding, which annoyed her because she didn’t think he had room to demand. Then she felt guilty.

  What could she say to any of it? How could she explain when she didn’t understand and no explanation on God’s green earth would serve anyway?

  What occurred to her was that her sons had driven home together, something they had never before done. They had never done much of anything together. They were so different, Boone as fair and wild as the Collier side of the family, and Colter dark and steady as the Hayeses. But here they both were, looking at her with the same hesitant and uncertain expression and moving from one foot to the other, while still making an effort to say without words: I love you.

  Then, right with her boys there, Sam called.

  “I’m down in Dallas,” he said when she didn’t say a word.

  She couldn’t say his name with her sons staring at her and couldn’t think of anything to say anyway. She was thinking, He called!

  “I have a meeting with a shop that might carry my designs, and I’ll be stayin’ the night, but I plan to come by and pick you up at one tomorrow, if our date’s still on?”

  “Yes, of course,” Molly said, as if speaking to the appointment clerk at the doctor’s office.

  Sam said, “Well, see you tomorrow.”

  And Molly said, “Uh-huh,” and hung up.

  Minutes later Colter and Boone edged their way out the door, which they had pretty much been doing since arriving. Molly followed them out and made her arms stay at her sides when they kept straining to reach out and hold her sons to her. Since they were little boys, whenever they would leave her, going off on the school bus, or leaving for a sleep-over at a friend’s, or off to work and college, she would have this crazy sensation that her arms, if not contained, would stretch out and grab her sons and hold on. Today the sensation was so strong that her arms actually did come up, moving ever so slowly, and she pushed them back down, and then up they came again.

  The boys had driven in Colter’s dandelion yellow ‘65 Ford pickup truck. At the front of it, they paused, looking sheepish, s
aying they were sorry the visit was so short; Colter had to be back to work by tomorrow afternoon, and Boone had a big horse sale at Fort Worth. They each needed to get some sleep before heading back.

  Molly allowed herself to reach upward and muss Colter’s hair. He grinned at her, but it was a sad uncertain grin, and his “Aw, Mom” was uncertain, too. She gave way and reached out and hugged him, stretching out for Boone, too, giving relief to her aching arms and ignoring Boone’s initial reluctance. Boone had never been one to hug. He did hug her this time, though, and tightly.

  “I’m sorry, boys. . . . I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Mom, what in the hell is goin’ on with you and Dad?” Boone asked, his eyes once more sharp and intense.

  “We’re tryin’ to work it out, honey. That’s all I can tell you.”

  Boone jerked from her, smacked his fist on the yellow hood. She reached for him, but he kept on walking away. Colter kissed her forehead. “It’s all right, Mom,” and then he, too, was walking away, opening the truck door.

  “Come again when your grandmother is home and can get to visit with you.” And, “Take your vitamins . . . drive carefully.” Then she called, “God Bless,” something she hadn’t said since they were children.

  And then she was standing there, at the edge of the tall trees, waving as they drove off, going home. Where she wished to be.

  Why didn’t she just go?

  Because she could no longer convince herself that she and Tommy Lee shared a love, and she couldn’t live with that anymore.

  * * * *

  The rest of the weekend, during which Tommy Lee never once called, Molly forced herself to straighten up, clean the cottage, call Savannah, do her hair and nails. She decided that what she had to do was take one day at a time. Keep walking on, as her mother had said. She wasn’t ready to say her marriage was over, but she supposed she would have to consider the possibility, since Tommy Lee did not approach her.