Sam came with Tommy Lee. They didn’t really have to talk about it. Tommy Lee said he was going, and Sam said he thought he would, too, and came right along while Tommy Lee went to his own house, parked the Corvette, and got his old Chevy pickup. Sam smeared mud on the license plate.
“What did you do that for?” Tommy Lee asked, getting uneasy. Sam doing that made Tommy Lee begin to feel like a criminal. Just because what he was fixing to do could be construed as a criminal act, he didn’t think he needed to start acting like one.
Sam said, “So no one can read it and identify us. Saw it on Matlock—you know that murder mystery show with Andy Griffith.”
The mention of murder startled Tommy Lee. “I wasn’t thinkin’ of killin’ Pendarvis.”
“Oh, I didn’t think you were,” Sam said quickly, and a little relieved. After a minute, he added, “I figure you just plan on goin’ in and scaring him real good.”
“Me? I thought you were comin’ along.”
“I am. I’ll be right behind you, backin’ you up. I hope you don’t plan to beat him up, though. I can’t risk ruinin’ my hands.”
“I’m not certain what we should do,” Tommy Lee said.
He kept thinking about facing Pendarvis. He didn’t like the idea. For one thing, he was afraid he might get shot. And it was funny, but he would really be embarrassed, dead or alive, when Molly found out he got shot trying to face Pendarvis.
Tommy Lee didn’t say it, but he was relieved that Sam was going along. Tommy Lee would have gone alone, but it would be easier with Sam. Just then it occurred to him that only five short days ago, he and Sam had come to blows over Sam’s going after his wife. Now here they were together, Tommy Lee relying on Sam, as if their fight had never happened. It didn’t really seem as if it had ever happened.
After a bit more mulling, Tommy Lee had to say, “I don’t want to get you into trouble, buddy. We aren’t kids anymore. You’re an artist, Sam.”
“And you’re a . . . well, what are you Tommy Lee? Are you a mechanic? Does a mechanic build engines, or just repair them?”
“Both, I guess. But neither of us go around bustin’ heads.”
“I told you, I’m not busting a head.” He held up his hands. “We have to convince. This takes brainpower.”
When they reached Lawton, it was well after midnight and the streets were almost bare of cars. They went to the all-night Wal-Mart Supercenter, where they bought a package of emergency flares, a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, two big, rather soft cantaloupes, two fried chicken dinners, a couple of containers of yogurt, and two soft drinks. Sam remembered they might want to leave a note, so he got a drawing tablet because he could always use one. Tommy Lee’s stomach started bothering him, so he ate a container of yogurt, using the fork from the chicken dinner, before he left the parking lot. Sam had started sketching on the tablet and kept it up as they drove down the street.
Finding where Rennie said Eddie Pendarvis lived in a bungalow in an old neighborhood wasn’t hard. Rennie said Pendarvis drove an eighties dark blue Thunderbird, and by golly one sat right in the drive, beneath an enormous elm tree. The dim, flickering glow showing through the front window indicated Pendarvis had a television going.
Tommy Lee pulled the Chevy to the curb several yards down and across the street from Pendarvis’s house. It fit right in with all the other cars and trucks parked up and down the street. From his rolled tool pouch behind the seat, Tommy Lee took out a modified table knife and a bent wire, which he unwound. He always had to be prepared because Molly had a habit of locking her keys in her car. He got a Bic lighter from the glove box, snugged one of the flares into his back pocket, and took up the other one. Sam got the two cantaloupes and the baseball bat.
They walked quickly, and their boots sounded loud on the pavement. A dog started barking, and then another, and Tommy Lee’s heart started to beat out of his chest. The Thunderbird was locked. Using the table knife and bent wire, Tommy Lee had it open in ten seconds. Sam peeked in the window of the house and sprinted over close enough to whisper that Pendarvis seemed to be asleep in a chair. Tommy Lee lit the flare, tossed it into the seat of the Thunderbird, pushed the door closed. Then he hopped up on the porch from the far side while Sam came from his.
They looked at each other and listened. There was a good glow going in the Thunderbird and the dogs were barking. A murmuring from inside, the television.
Tommy Lee knocked on the door. “Hey, Pendarvis, your car’s on fire.” He tried to sound frantic but not too loud.
Noise from inside, the door was flung open. A big man filled the doorway, and Tommy Lee thought, Oh, no. He and Sam pushed themselves at Pendarvis. They had the advantage of surprise and of Pendarvis just coming awake. They shoved him into the middle of the room, and Sam closed the door. The man croaked, “My car . . . my car!” Then he was looking wildly at Tommy Lee and Sam. And the baseball bat Sam held high.
Tommy Lee advanced on the man, who to his relief did step backward and looked fearful. Having taken the advantage, Tommy Lee kept on going, as if he were going to walk right over the bigger man. Pendarvis fell back across the arm of a chair. “I’m tellin’ you to lay off Rennie Bennett,” Tommy Lee said. “If you don’t, this is what will happen to your head.”
Sam tossed up a cantaloupe, swung hard with the bat, and smashed the cantaloupe with a sickening thud, sending cantaloupe flesh and seeds flying. Then, grinning wickedly, he did it again, and the entire time, Pendarvis stared, wide-eyed.
“Got the picture?” Tommy Lee said.
Pendarvis nodded.
“It might be good if you went somewhere else to live,” Tommy Lee added, feeling quite full of himself.
Then Tommy Lee and Sam got out of there. Glancing in the rearview mirror to see Pendarvis jerking open the door to his Thunderbird, Tommy Lee pressed the accelerator and headed the Chevy away.
Sam said, “Whooee. I can’t believe we did that.” Tommy Lee eased the spare flare out of his back pocket and grinned. He felt suddenly light-headed. “We didn’t do that—that was two knuckleheaded fools who forgot how old they are.”
“We’re older, but we’re smarter, too,” Sam said, his grin as wide as Tommy Lee’s. He popped the tabs on two of the Coca-Colas and handed Tommy Lee one. “Do you think it worked?”
“God, I hope so,” Tommy Lee answered. “It felt pretty good while we were in the midst of it, but I’m clean out of breath now.”
A little way out of town, Tommy Lee pulled over at a roadside park. He needed to unwind, and he had suddenly gotten really hungry.
Sam said, “Me, too. Threatening a guy really leads to an appetite.”
They ate their chicken dinners and recounted the events, bolstering themselves.
“You know you scared me, buddy,” Sam said. “God, you looked to me like you were gonna kill him.”
Tommy Lee said, “Your grin was an artful touch.”
“It was, wasn’t it,” Sam agreed proudly. Tommy Lee couldn’t quite believe he had done something like he had done. So few times in his life had he done dangerous and outlandish things. His dangerous acts had generally revolved around driving fast and doing stunts with cars, and for him that wasn’t all that dangerous. As for outlandish, well, he couldn’t really say he’d done anything outlandish. He wasn’t an outlandish kind of guy. He supposed the most outlandish thing he had ever done was hiding that bottle of vodka in Molly’s cottage, an act that had nothing to recommend it.
He sure hoped Pendarvis left Rennie alone now. He sure hoped it was over and that he and Molly could get back to the problems of their own lives. He began to feel deflated, as if what he wanted was never going to come about.
Later, as they drove on to Valentine, they discussed telling Molly and Rennie and decided not to. They needed to see how everything came out first.
Chapter 23
Deep Down
Mama called Kaye first thing the following morning. Rennie had asked her not to, but Mama had said, “Of
course I’m calling your sister. She’ll want to give her support.”
And Kaye did! She came bursting into their mother’s kitchen, voicing righteous indignation as only Kaye could, damning the perpetrator to everlasting hell and Rennie, if not to sainthood, up near an innocent and misused angel.
“We won’t let this man get away with this, Rennie,” Kaye said. “We’ll sue him, that’s what we’ll do. You can hit a person hardest in the pocketbook. I’ve already spoken to Jaydee, and he’s goin’ to get started on a civil suit. We’ll teach this pervert that he can’t treat our Rennie like this. Here, let me get you another cup of coffee. . . . You are wrung out.”
Good Lord, would wonders never cease? Watching Kaye’s solicitous expression, hearing her righteous words, Molly felt great surprise and even greater relief.
Lillybeth and Season were called and came straight down, and then there they all were in Mama’s kitchen, and Rennie was basking in their attentions. The more of a fuss they made over her, the more she came out from beneath her guilt and shame. Molly hadn’t seen it before, but she saw it now, how Rennie’s shoulders had been drooping and how now she was like a flower hit by sunshine after rain, straightening and opening up.
“A suit is just the thing,” Lillybeth said, agreeing with Kaye for the first time this century. “We can get him for mental anguish like he’s never been gotten before. We’ll teach him he can’t play around with the Collier girls.”
“But court cases take money,” Rennie said, looking worried again. “And can you sue without evidence?”
“A person can start a suit for anything,” Lillybeth said airily. “Don’t worry about the money. I have a lawyer friend who will do it for little or nothin’.”
Kaye put in, “Walter and I will handle the cost, Rennie. I am not going to let this thug get away with terrifyin’ my little sister.”
“What if he just runs away and starts stalkin’ Rennie from a hidden place?” Season said, her eyes wide and round and worried. “What if he stops on Rennie and starts on some other unfortunate woman?”
Molly hadn’t thought of that, and in looking at her sisters, she saw neither had they. Rennie began to hunch over again.
Season continued with her dire scenario. “Starting a lawsuit against him may just set him off and make him come right after Rennie. It won’t be hard to find her down here. Everyone knows us and . . ."
“Season,” Molly broke in, "we're not helpless. We’ll deal with him, one step at a time.”
Then Kaye said, “Well, we’ll just have to go after him. There’s five of us, and only one of him.”
Kaye saying that, and in the tone she used, was surprise enough, but then Mama said, “I know someone." They all turned to her. “Well, I don’t know this person, and it was years ago, too, but I know someone who knows a person who can be engaged to handle unpleasant people.”
“Mama?” they all said at once, but, gazing at her mother, Molly wasn’t really surprised. Mama had led a wide and varied life.
And the important thing was that they were for once in agreement, all of them together. Molly glanced around the room, at all of them around the table, Season on the high stool she always preferred, the table covered with china breakfast dishes and the leavings of breakfast Kaye had brought from Hardee’s.
There had been a threat, Molly thought, and they had circled the wagons, and now Rennie was being drawn tight into the circle. Molly hadn’t realized until that moment how much Rennie had been hurting, feeling the odd one out. It was seeing her sister being drawn in and glowing that made her see how it had been. Rennie had been dying on the vine!
Was that why she had kept after all those men? Was feeling the black sheep of the family what made her continually sink her own chances for happiness—because she felt unworthy? Why would Rennie feel unworthy? Why would she feel any less than the rest of them? They’d all had it tough . . . . Look at Kaye, she didn’t feel unworthy. She thought she was God’s gift to the world, no matter the evidence to the contrary. Then there was Season, with her depressions . . . and Lillybeth didn’t trust men. Actually she hated men. And there was Molly herself, who so much of the time felt a heavy dread that she never quite understood. Finding out the why of any of it would take a lifetime, and probably wouldn’t be of much help, either. Walk on, Mama said. Mama was an example that doing so worked.
Oh, I love you, Rennie. Molly looked around the table. Oh, I love you all.
It was one of those moments that struck a person, one that brought with it no particular understanding and yet an understanding beyond words. Molly got up and began clearing dishes, moving in and out between the chairs, refreshing coffee, touching each one, feeling glad for the moment and tucking it away in her heart.
Later, when she got a moment alone in the kitchen with Kaye—the others were upstairs in Rennie’s bedroom looking through old photographs—she said, “I want to thank you for what you’ve given Rennie today, Kaye. You might not realize it, but she was terrified you were going to criticize her, blame this thing with Eddie Pendarvis all on her. She has been blaming herself, you know.”
Kaye looked surprised. “Why would I do that? Good Lord, you both must think me an ogre.” Her bottom lip sort of quivered.
“No!” Molly said quickly, startled at seeing that bottom lip. “It’s just that you and Rennie often clash . . . and well, she needed you so much right now, and you came through. I just wanted you to know what it means to her. It means the world, Kaye.”
“Oh.” Kaye turned abruptly away, went and shut the back door, saying, “Mama keeps this house too darn hot. I’m turnin’ on the cooler.”
Then she was just standing there, looking at Molly. “I know I can be harsh sometimes,” she said, and right in front of Molly’s eyes she seemed to wilt. “I know I criticize. It’s just that I have standards, you know, and it seems like no one keeps standards anymore. Look at the world, Molly!” Then, eyes straight on Molly’s, she said coolly, “Walter is havin’ an affair.”
Molly could not have been more surprised if Kaye herself had said she was having an affair.
“Oh, Kaye.” She didn’t think she wanted to hear this. Oh, why did everyone insist upon confiding in her? Kaye’s bottom lip had begun to quiver again.
“I know I criticize him,” Kaye said, “and he’s found someone who hangs on his every word.” She kept her chin up, but her bottom lip continued to quiver dangerously.
“Maybe you’re mistaken. Not Walter. I don’t believe it.” Now that she thought of it, Molly could not believe it. “I imagine you saw something that looked suspicious but is truly nothin’ at all. Have you asked him about it?”
“I heard it, Molly. I picked up the extension in the bedroom to call Murlene, and Walter was on the telephone with Fayrene Gardner. They didn’t hear me because Fayrene’s voice—you know how it is.”
“Fayrene Gardner from the cafe?” She simply could not believe it.
“Yes. She was complimenting him on what a man he is and how he made her feel so much a woman. She said she couldn’t wait to see him again.”
Ohmygod, Molly thought. A shocking image of Walter in bed with a woman flashed through her mind and she chased it out. Before her face Kaye was holding on and crumbling at the same time. “Oh, Kaye.” Molly stepped forward to embrace her sister, but Kaye’s stance caused her to drop her arms. “What are you goin’ to do?” she asked.
Kaye’s bottom lip quit quivering. “I went to Fayrene and I told her that I was not about to throw twenty-one years of marriage down the drain. That I would tell her husband and would broadcast her indiscretion all over town, and when I saw her out anywhere I would attack her and snatch her bald and that she would never know a moment’s peace from me.”
“Oh, Kaye.” Molly could imagine all of it. Kaye was like everyone, weak in some areas, strong in others, and where she was strong, she was granite.
“I know a lot of people may not think that Walter is much.”
“Oh, Kaye .
. . Walter is a fine man.”
“I know that people think I henpeck him and that he is weak, and in a way, in the world’s way, maybe that is so. But we are not of this world, Molly. The Bible says so. Walter has loved me, and he is my world. And Fayrene is right—he is so much more a man than anyone realizes. He’s strong enough to love me. Only brave people can love, Molly.”
“Oh, Kaye.” Molly felt reduced to that one phrase. She did think, as she hadn’t before, that it would take a strong man to love Kaye. She began to see in Walter someone she had never seen before.
“Well,” Kaye said, quite matter-of-factly, “I’m going to hang on to him and make him glad to have me.”
Molly gave herself over and went to embrace her sister, but Kaye stood woodenly and after a minute, Molly let go.
“I will hold my head high, no matter who knows, but I would prefer that you didn’t tell the others,” Kaye said and left the room, head still high.
When Molly thought about it, she couldn’t recall a time she had ever seen Kaye cry. And thinking about that, Molly began to cry, feeling both despair and a strange happiness. She went home to the cottage so no one would hear her cry, and when she had stopped, she called Tommy Lee and chatted with him about almost nothing.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” she told him.
After she hung up with him she called each of her children and told them about Rennie and asked them what was going on in their lives. After that she was too exhausted to think and fell asleep with Ace on her stomach.
Sometime later Tommy Lee called and woke her and asked if she wanted to go to supper and a movie. Of course she said yes.
“No pressure,” Tommy Lee said. “Let’s just forget everything for a while and have a nice time.”
And of course she said yes to that, too. Tommy Lee didn’t know it, but she was in the mood to say yes to everything he said.
She hung up and sat with her hand still on the receiver, wondering why in the world she wasn’t at home with him. Kaye had said that she was going to make Walter glad to have her. How did she propose to do that, and why didn’t Molly see things in that light? Was it her pride? Why couldn’t she get herself straightened out?
Love in a Small Town Page 27
