Love in a Small Town

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  Her anger over this pulled her up from her desperate depression. What she thought was that Tommy Lee should at least call her so she could hang up on him, and she knew this was crazy, but feeling a bit crazy was preferable to feeling desperate. There never had been anything appealing about a desperate woman.

  By Sunday morning, she began to be terribly excited about Sam coming. The weekend had been stretching so long, with her mother and sisters all busy with their own lives—of all times for her family to have their own lives. She was tired of reading and of petting Ace and of drinking coffee all alone. She was so lonely. She needed to talk to someone about everyday things.

  She tried on darn near everything she owned in choosing an outfit. Threw the clothes all over the bedroom, tried her hair in a dozen different ways, and finally settled on how she always wore it. It was crazy to get so overwrought about the thing.

  Date. That’s what Sam had called it on the telephone. But sometimes Molly said “I have a lunch date with Rennie,” so it really was just a figure of speech. She and Sam were old friends getting together, just as they had forever.

  Except now Sam had kissed her.

  She was ready and waiting by twelve-thirty, looking out the window every three minutes. Sam came in his brother’s Bronco, and she went out to meet him. Her heart was beating fast. She kept thinking of how he had kissed her and thinking that she was making too much of it and that she should act natural, but she didn’t feel very natural.

  “Hi there, darlin’.”

  Oh, my. If Sam felt awkward, he certainly didn’t show it. He smiled his ever-charming smile and was easy, just as he always had been.

  “Little Joe’s sound good to you?” he asked, his dark eyes sparkling, giving her a wink as he started the Bronco.

  There wouldn’t be another thing in the world to say to his words or his wink besides, “Yes . . . fine,” and she had a feeling she was getting close to the line again, and she started hearing the tune, “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away” playing through her mind.

  He looked at her as a man looked at a woman, and everything inside Molly that was a woman responded. She sat there feeling a sort of glowing excitement as he drove along, past houses and pastures and fence rows. Then she got ahold of herself and told herself firmly that Sam was a friend and that she still wore a wedding band on her finger. She wasn’t going to go off on a silly pipe dream just because she was lonely.

  It was a little hard to do, though, when every time she looked his way, he smiled at her and seemed so very glad to be with her. How could a woman not respond to that?

  Little Joe’s was known for the biggest and best hamburgers in half the state, and pecan pie, too. It was a rustic sort of place but had a nice covered patio outside, with lots of potted ferns and hanging baskets of geraniums. Molly wondered if Sam thought the same as she did—that they weren’t likely to run into a lot of people they knew here, but that they weren’t really hiding, either.

  They started conversing about everyday things: the weather, the styles of the sixties and seventies returning, new movies they had seen or wanted to see. They went on to talk about their mothers, both of whom were growing older and wilder. Molly talked of her mother fixing electrical appliances and going to Hardee’s in her robe, and Sam spoke of his mother getting speeding tickets and having her hair teased up so high that sometimes she had trouble getting into her car. The way he told the stories had Molly laughing so hard she had to wipe her eyes.

  When Molly saw a young pregnant woman, it reminded her of Savannah, and she spoke of her anticipation of her first grandchild.

  “I’m not certain I’m ready to be a grandmother,” she said, “but I’m a lot more used to the idea than when she first told me.”

  “You sure don’t look like a grandmother,” Sam said.

  “Thank you,” Molly said. There wasn’t anything else to say, although she was thinking, Do you really think that?. . . Tell me again.

  They lingered over soft drinks and kept on talking, going on now to likes and dislikes. Sam had taken up riding horses, kept a gelding at a stable, and he found he enjoyed naps now, and he had just gotten a CD-ROM for his computer—did she have one? Yes, she did and she loved it, most especially a CD of quotes.

  After Little Joe’s, they went to an art gallery managed by a friend of Sam’s, and then, since they were up near the Kmart, Molly said she wanted to pick up a few things. It was fun going through the store with Sam, who kept cutting up, trying on hats and picking up things and making outrageous comments. Sam could be really funny at times. And he looked at her, really looked at her, as if he enjoyed what he saw. He looked at her and made her feel so much a woman. It was odd how this seemed to make her feel very sad. Throughout the afternoon, neither of them mentioned Tommy Lee. They walked around his name and the subject of marriage as they would have a snake coiled on the sidewalk.

  It had always been Molly with Tommy Lee, and Sam joining them. This time now with Sam was almost as if she and Sam were alone simply because Tommy Lee was just off getting gas in the car or something. It was easy to think of it like that, yet thought of like that, Molly continually felt that Tommy Lee was looking on, or perhaps about to return just any moment.

  She would think how beautiful Sam’s brown eyes were, how they were so dark that she couldn’t even see a pupil at times, and then she would think of Tommy Lee’s blue ones, how when a shaft of light hit them just so they would have gold flecks in them and be bluer because of it. She would remember Sam’s kiss, how startled she had felt and how warm his lips had been, and then think of a time Tommy Lee had kissed her, how he would smile at her afterward, as if the kiss lingered in his smile. She would catch the muskiness of Sam’s cologne and think of how Tommy Lee smelled . . . and for some reason she kept remembering how she liked to hold one of Tommy Lee’s T-shirts to her nose before she put it in the washer.

  She began to be aroused but found herself thinking lewd thoughts of both men, which made her feel very guilty, although the guilt didn’t stop her from having the thoughts. She began to realize for the first time that her body was at times stronger than her mind. Such was an exciting and fearful realization.

  It was after six o’clock when they turned down the driveway to the cottage and saw the red-and-white Corvette sitting there at the end and Tommy Lee leaning against the front fender.

  Chapter 17

  It Matters to Me

  Somehow Tommy Lee had known Molly was with Sam. The two of them stared through the windshield at him, and Tommy Lee, arms crossed, stared back.

  As the Bronco stopped, he straightened and went over to open the passenger door for Molly. She looked at him a second, then lowered her gaze and hopped out. He thought to lift a hand to help her, but she was out before he touched her, and then he felt like he shouldn’t touch her. She had on a soft cotton dress. It fell over her curves and was so thin that it gave the appearance of seeing the skin through the fabric. This startled him, to think not only he but Sam could be seeing her flesh, but then he realized the fabric was cream colored. It was thin, though. The familiarity of it came to him with a suddenness. He’d seen the dress a dozen times before but had never noticed how it fell over her breasts and hips.

  Sam came around the front of the Bronco, putting his straw Stetson on his head. Since moving out to New Mexico, he had taken to wearing a cowboy hat. Tommy Lee thought that if it came down to it, he himself was more cowboy than Sam, who could better ride a Harley than a horse and who never had done more than see a cow from the far side of the fence. Sam had on a light sport coat over a T-shirt, a real macho-male look these days. Tommy Lee was glad he had worn a crisp shirt and shined boots.

  “Hello, Tommy Lee,” Sam said.

  “Hello.”

  Molly didn’t say anything; she just looked at him with her big green eyes.

  “I came to speak with my wife,” Tommy Lee said. Sam blinked and shot Molly a questioning look, then said, “Of course.”

  “I had a re
ally nice time, Sam,” Molly said. “Thanks so much. Oh, I’d better get my things.”

  Sam pulled plastic shopping bags from the Bronco and started to take them into the cottage for her, but Tommy Lee stepped in front of him. “I’ll take care of them.”

  He walked off with the bags to the cottage, leaving them alone to say good-bye. In the kitchen, he quickly stepped to the window to watch. He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t help himself. He wondered if Molly still had on her wedding ring, cursed himself that he hadn’t thought to look. He couldn’t see now.

  He saw Molly speak to Sam, saw her uplifted face and the slope of her neck. His pulse pounded in his throat as he watched for Sam to sneak a kiss. But Sam didn’t. He backed the Bronco, and Molly stepped away. The breeze fluttered the hem of her dress and the wisps of hair around her face. When she shifted her eyes to the cottage, Tommy Lee quickly backed away from the window.

  He stood there a moment, wondering what he would say to her. Then he ran his gaze around the kitchen. A crawling feeling came over him. He never had cared for the cottage and always felt it hated him. He always had the odd feeling that something, a picture or some piece of molding, was about to come flying across the room and hit him upside the head.

  Propelled along by the feeling, he stepped to the back door and out of it, then stood waiting for Molly. It was a minute before she came around the corner of the house, and then she stood looking at him, her arms dangling by her sides. She wore her ring.

  “Let’s walk out back,” he said.

  They walked side by side out to the wooden fence. There Tommy Lee leaned his forearms on the top rail. The fence needed painting. So did the little horse barn. He toed his boot in the dirt and the image of Molly and Sam together came across his mind. He pushed the thought away. Words wouldn’t come, at least none he thought prudent to speak. He just never had been any good at deep conversation. He kept hoping Molly would start the ball rolling, which was what always happened. This time, however, Molly was apparently set to be stubborn and not help at all.

  He cut his gaze to her and saw her eyes were a deep turquoise in the light of the setting sun. His gaze followed the slope of her neck down to where the pale swell of her breasts showed above the cut of the dress. It came to him suddenly what that skin felt like, all warm and like satin. A desperation welled up inside of him. He felt as if he was holding on for dear life but his grip was slipping and a big wind was going to blow him right away from her.

  Then she said, “Do you remember the horse barn?” He was relieved she had spoken but confused at the same time because his thoughts had been far from that horse barn. Her warm tone and the look in her eyes told him she was saying something specific, but he didn’t know what. He said noncommittally, “It needs paintin’.”

  She regarded him intently. “I was talkin’ about us in the horse barn. When we made love for the first time.”

  “I know that,” he said quickly. He looked at the barn again. The memory was fuzzy. The barn in memory had looked a lot bigger and more substantial. And the two people in his memory were distant strangers from the past.

  Molly went to staring off into space again, and he looked down at his boot and toed the ground again. There they were, trapped in the fruitless silence.

  “I thought you came to speak to me,” Molly said and in a tone that brought Tommy Lee’s head snapping up.

  He said, “I am talkin’ to you. Are you in a hurry? . . . Have some place to go?”

  “No. I just thought you ought to talk, if you came to talk.”

  “Maybe I just came to stand here with you. Is that some sort of crime?”

  “No. Except you did say you came to talk.”

  He toed his boot, and Molly leaned against the fence, staring at the barn again. Then she said, “You didn’t remember the barn.”

  “I remembered.”

  She looked at him. “No, you didn’t. Would you just admit things? Just say things straight out? I never know where I stand with you because you won’t say things straight out.”

  “When I say things straight out, you get mad at me. You ask a question and then you don’t like the answer. I don’t remember much of that time in the barn, okay? Geez, Molly, we’d necked hot and heavy a thousand times before, only that time it got out of hand. It happened twenty-five years ago and was over in about five seconds, and I was so horny and dizzy what memory I have is all fuzzy. I don’t count what happened in that barn all that much, not to times that came after.”

  “Well . . . I’m glad you finally said exactly what you think.” She was righteous now.

  He took a breath, raked a hand through his hair, and said, “Have you figured out anything yet—about us?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. Have you?”

  “I guess not.” He looked at her. “Do you want a divorce?”

  “No,” Molly said breathlessly. “Do you?”

  “No," he said hoarsely, and fell back into a steaming kind of silence, his mind casting around, having strange but powerful thoughts of grabbing Molly and shutting her up with his own lips and body, right there on the grass. Emotion tumbled and rolled inside him, like storm clouds trying to decide whether to erupt or blow over.

  Molly felt the words coming and tried to hold them back—she shouldn’t do all the talking, she should listen, but her feelings were welling up, no matter that they didn’t seem coherent. She simply felt as if she were welling up.

  “We used to talk,” she said. “We used to not be so afraid of what we said.”

  Tommy Lee looked at her with a pained expression. “I guess we don’t have much in common to talk about anymore."

  “Yes, we do. We have a lot in common.”

  “What?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know . . . lots of things. We both like to eat Mexican food.”

  “You like to eat Mexican food. I like to eat fajitas without hot sauce and sour cream, which you like a lot of. You like cars, I like horses. You like to work half the night, and I like to watch old movies.”

  “So what?” he said. “We’ve been like that for twenty-five years, and it worked all that time.”

  She looked sad. “It worked when we had the kids tying us together, but we don’t have them anymore.”

  He shut his mouth tight and looked away from her. She wanted to reach for him and pull him to her. But she couldn’t, and she couldn’t stop her heart from pouring out, either.

  “It just seems to me that I’m always trying to approach you,” she said, “and you back up from me. Oh, you give me anything I could want, the house, the El Camino . . . any amount of money . . . as much as we have, anyway. But when I reach for you, you back up. Then, when I find something else to fill my time and interest, you come after me, like you want me. But if I turn to you, back you go again.”

  Her voice was rising, and she gestured. “Oh, I can’t put it into words. It’s like you want me, to have me around, but not too close. Like you don’t want me to need you . . . not the things you can do for me, like taking care of me, you don’t mind that, too much, but you don’t want me to need you."

  Tommy Lee felt a rope wrapping around him. He heard truth in her words and turned from it. Women sure could make a lot out of nothing, he thought, but he knew darn well he’d better not say it. That was honesty she sure wouldn’t want to hear, and sometimes honesty wasn’t the entire truth. But he couldn’t explain that, and he knew he’d better not say any of it, either. She was looking so forlorn, and any sense of power he had felt was turning into confusion. He wanted to have answers, and at the same time he wanted to run from it all.

  “I’ve tried, Molly.”

  “I know that,” she said quickly. “I think we’ve both tried. You’re a very good husband, Tommy Lee.” She looked about to cry, and he sure hoped she wouldn’t. “It just seems like we don’t have anything in common anymore, and I . . . well, I can’t go on feeling like I’m tyin’ you down.”

  “You aren’t tyin’ me
down, Molly.” He felt her slipping away and himself blowing away.

  She shook her head and chipped paint off the fence with her fingernail. “You had to marry me, and I know you had lots of hopes and dreams that never came to light because of that.”

  “That isn’t the way it was.” But he felt guilt and a voice saying, That is the way it was. “I never felt like that, Molly—like I had to marry you.” Mostly he hadn’t.

  “Yes you did.” Her eyes were steady.

  “Okay, we had to get married. I’ve thought about it like that—that we both had to do that, and not only because of you gettin’ pregnant, but because it always seemed like we were supposed to get married. Maybe there have been times when I’ve wanted to go off and do somethin’ else, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to be married to you. I’ve always loved you, Molly.”

  He saw doubt in her eyes, and it made him feel helpless . . . and like smashing the fence.

  She said, “We have loved each other, but that hasn’t prevented us from growin’ apart.”

  “Okay . . . so we’ve grown apart.” Tommy Lee gestured wildly. “You comin’ over here to Hestie’s cottage sure hasn’t helped that.”

  “Well, me stayin’ at home wasn’t helpin’ it either.” Her words flashed through him, and Tommy Lee hit back with, “Well, even when you were at the house, you weren’t all that available to me, between the kids and your horse.”

  To which she said, “Who do you think picked up after you, if it wasn’t me bein’ there for you?”

  He couldn’t see that that had anything to do with the argument, or with anything at all, and he told her that and a lot more. Tommy Lee couldn’t recall ever being so angry in all his life, and he found himself dragging out every little thing he had held back for all the months, and in a couple of cases, years.

  “You say I back away from you? Well, you don’t exactly step toward me, Molly. You want it all your way. You want us to be together, but you get your own office off in town, and you get a separate checking account. I guess that’s okay, as long as you decide to do it. Do you think I don’t feel left behind when you and your mother and sisters take off for Oklahoma City or somewhere? I don’t say anything then! I like my time alone, and so do you, so don’t be makin’ me out to be at fault because of it.”