Cold Tea on a Hot Day

by Matlock, Curtiss Ann

  “Now, who could that be so early in the morning?” It was too quick for it to be Tate.

  Marilee brushed her hair back from her face, and then realized her hands were coated with flour. She asked Corrine to go see who was at the door. She was annoyed for being interrupted in cooking biscuits and gravy. She had not cooked both from scratch in a long time, and the effort required all her concentration.

  The doorbell rang again. Corrine, skipping through the living room, saw a head peering in the front window.

  “It is the dog-catch-ers!” said Willie Lee, who had come from the hallway and had his shirt buttoned crooked over his pajama pants. He raced back into the bedroom, calling Munro with him, and slammed the door.

  “What in the world?” Aunt Marilee came from the kitchen. “Who is it, Corrine?”

  Corrine, who had made it to the door but was hesitant to open it, gazed at Marilee and blinked her deep-brown eyes.

  Marilee went to open the front door herself. A man with a shock of thick and rather long white hair, and dressed in a crisp, pale-blue suit, smiled at her.

  “Hello. Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mrs. James?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have a little boy who has a rather splotchy type of dog, an Australian shepherd, I believe?”

  “Well, yes…what is this about?”

  She did not know the man, but she recognized the tall, slick blond man, the one Belinda had said was from Tell-In Technologies. He stood behind one of the white-haired man’s shoulders, while a very sophisticated woman stood behind the other shoulder. All three were gazing at her.

  “I’m Thomas Gerard, president of the Tell-In Technologies. May I have a few minutes of your time? If you would not mind, I would like to come in and sit down, and explain in detail.”

  The man and woman behind him were now peering around his shoulders, as if looking at something behind Marilee.

  “Well, okay.” She opened the door for them to step inside.

  Quite slowly, the man went to sit on her sofa. Marilee wondered how old he was. His face was not old, but he was stooped. Corrine, who was stuck to Marilee like glue, squeezed herself down in the big chair beside Marilee, and Marilee put an arm around her niece. Glancing downward, she saw she had streaks of flour on her dress.

  “You are familiar with the facts of our case?” The man spoke slowly and in a very gentle manner. “That a former Tell-In employee died of a heart attack just outside of town?”

  Marilee said she was familiar with the incident, and that the former employee apparently had some sort of company property.

  “Yes.” The man nodded. “We believe your son now possesses a dog that belonged to that former employee, and we have reason to believe this dog may be the key to us locating…something…our former employee stole from our company. Could you please tell us—was the dog wearing a collar when your son found him?”

  “Yes. It had his name on it.”

  “And is he still wearing that collar?”

  “Well…yes.”

  The man nodded some more and said, “We need to see that collar. It is possible that what we are looking for is in the collar, or may even be implanted in the dog itself.”

  “Implanted in the dog?” Marilee repeated. She looked at Corrine, as if to make note of the child in order to be certain she was not imagining this conversation.

  “Yes, possibly,” said Mr. Gerard in his distinctive manner. “Could we see your son’s dog? I promise that we mean the dog no harm. We do not want to take the dog, only to examine him.”

  When Marilee sat there, thinking and gazing at the three sitting on her couch, he added, “This means a great deal to my company, Mrs. James.”

  “I have no doubt. As my son means a great deal to me, and for some reason, he is afraid of you.” She added, “Let me speak to my son.”

  Marilee went to Willie Lee’s bedroom door. It was locked. “Willie Lee? Honey, I need to talk to you.”

  Corrine was right beside her. “He thinks they want to take Munro.” At Marilee’s questioning gaze, she said, “They tried to, one day in town. Munro ran away. He does not like them,” she added in a pointed manner.

  Marilee called to Willie Lee again, but there was no answer.

  Then Tate came from the kitchen. “What’s going on over here? Willie Lee said the dogcatchers are in his house.” He looked from Marilee in the hallway to the people on the couch and back at Marilee.

  “You’ve seen Willie Lee?” She looked back at the door and realized her son must have gone out the window.

  “Yes, but I told him I wouldn’t tell where he and Munro are.” He turned a questioning eye on the three strangers, who were now getting to their feet.

  “Ah,” Tate said to the younger man and woman. “I believe we have met…in the police station. You were waiting to talk to the sheriff. I’m the editor of The Valentine Voice, who you said couldn’t help you. I might be able to now, it seems.”

  Tate went out to talk to Willie Lee.

  Corrine stood guarding the closed swinging kitchen door, while Marilee, watching through the window, saw Tate go across the yard to the tree containing Willie Lee’s tree house. He looked upward, speaking, and there was an exchange for some minutes, after which an object came dropping out of the tree. Munro’s collar, which Tate brought back in to the people sitting on Marilee’s couch.

  The blond man reached for the collar, and all three on the couch bent their heads to look at it. Marilee and Tate and Corrine hovered, trying to see, too.

  “There it is,” the blond man said with triumph. “Oh, and here’s the—”

  Whatever it was, was gone from sight in an instant, as the blond man pocketed the collar.

  Thomas Gerard, getting to his feet, said, “I would like to thank your son personally. I owe him my company’s future. I’d like to give him a reward.”

  Willie Lee, assured that Munro was still safely his dog, came back inside and into the living room and right up to Thomas Gerard, holding up his hand for a shake. “Hello, Mr. Ger-aard,” he said very carefully when introduced.

  “Hello, Mr. James. I thank you for taking such good care of this dog.”

  “He takes care of me, and Cor-rine, and Ma-ma,” Willie Lee interrupted.

  “Ah, so he does.” The man’s pale eyes fell on the dog sitting at Willie Lee’s legs. “I had a dog such as this once, when I was a boy. A long time ago. I wish so much to have another.”

  “Ask God. That is what I did.”

  “Ah…I shall.” Thomas Gerard pulled a paper from his inner suit pocket. “Here you are, Mr. James. Please accept this with my gratitude for returning to me something very important. Good day to you all.”

  Marilee saw the three people to the door and watched a moment as the white-haired gentleman went carefully down her porch steps. There was no rushing or excess of movement in Mr. Gerard.

  When she turned around, she saw Tate examining the paper the Tell-In president had given Willie Lee. “Stock,” he told Marilee. “Looks like Thomas Gerard just gave Willie Lee thirty-thousand dollars worth of stock.”

  Marilee had to sit down. She looked at Willie Lee. He will have something for when I’m gone. Tears came into her eyes. Thank you, God.

  Suddenly the smoke detector started going off, and all of them raced to the kitchen to see smoke rolling out of the oven. Her biscuits had burned right up.

  Tate told her. “Well, get yourselves fixed up. I’m takin’ us all down to the Main Street Café for breakfast. I’d like to start showin’ everyone that you’re my girl.”

  She jerked her head up and looked at him, and his luminous eyes smiled a deep smile at her. Slowly she returned the smile. Maybe she could be a woman to him.

  Maybe for her to be the right sort of woman for a man, she needed the right sort of man to bring her out. And maybe she had at last found him.

  The Valentine Voice

  Sunday, August 6

  View from the Editor’s Desk
/>   by Tate Holloway

  Tomorrow another school year begins, so be on the lookout for children darting in the road as you are driving around. The Valentine School Board finds enrollment up again this year. This growth in population is becoming a serious concern for the school board.

  Principal of our elementary school, Gwen Blankenship, has reported that this year she has some classes with over thirty students. Classes this large are a difficulty for both students and teachers.

  Folks, we are looking at the definite need to expand our schools and increase the number of teachers.

  My hat is off to the school board for hiring two more assistant librarians. Our libraries are our greatest resource. This brings me to the proposition that if there is an increase in tax revenue this coming year, we need to establish a town library. I want to hear your views on this. Drop by the offices, or stop me on the street.

  My hat is also off to the school board for establishing for the first time in the Valentine schools a program for the learning disabled. We have a lot of promise in these young folks, and it is to our own benefit to provide the best education for them we can. You can thank our own Marilee James, who worked hard all summer to bring this program into our schools, and who saw to getting a teacher with the right requirements. You can read a profile of this class on page 4.

  And lastly, Norm Stidham caught me on the street and took me to task for not writing about anything controversial for several weeks. Norm, I’ll work on it, and I’ll be happy to take suggestions. Come on in and visit.

  Charlotte was still not happy with Tate’s bent for inviting all and sundry in to visit them. She deleted the last sentence, thinking Tate would not notice.

  “Put that back in there,” he told her, just before she sent the disks to the printer.

  Twenty-Six

  Moving On

  “Tate’s here,” Corrine called.

  Marilee grabbed her purse and her tote. “Okay, let’s get movin’.”

  “We are mov-ing, Ma-ma,” Willie Lee said, as he walked with deliberate motion out the door ahead of her, Munro at his heels.

  They piled into Tate’s car and drove to school, where children were pouring out of buses and cars, and streaming across the yard and up the walks. Marilee kissed Willie Lee, who then walked away with Tate, Munro walking right along with them, to his classroom. Then she walked Corrine to her classroom.

  Outside the door, Marilee said, “Do not hesitate to call me if you need me.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “I know…but you will be all right.”

  Marilee breathed a deep breath, wondering at who mothered whom. She kissed her niece, who, her shoulders straight and stride easy, went into the classroom. Corrine had grown taller, and her grace of movement was arresting. Marilee, still gazing in the doorway, saw a number of boys turn their eyes to her dark-haired niece. Oh boy, more hurdles. Corrine would be equally as beautiful as Anita.

  It was so hard, leaving them. As she walked out of the school, she felt she left her heart behind.

  “How’d he do?” she asked Tate when they met back at the car. She had resisted the urge to go peek into Willie Lee’s classroom, afraid she might be spotted, afraid she might go in there and jerk Willie Lee back out.

  “Very well. He seemed to accept that Munro is show and tell just for today.”

  Tate directed the car from the curb, and Marilee sat there, looking straight ahead. She breathed deeply. She would be okay. As long as her children were okay, she would be okay.

  Tate drove to the Voice offices, parked at his space in the rear, and gave her a quick kiss before getting out of the car. They went inside together, Tate into his office and Marilee to her desk, where she worked for two hours, her eyes repeatedly checking the clock and thinking the day so very long.

  Finally, almost not realizing she was doing so, she took up her purse and tote and headed out the door, telling Charlotte, “I need to go home for some things that are on my computer there.”

  She walked out the door into the hot August day, across the street and up the long block of Church. She was wet with perspiration by the time she got to the corner of Porter. Her pace picked up, though, heading for home. She went into her house and shut the door and leaned against it, listening to the quiet.

  She hated the quiet.

  Pushing herself away from the door, she went to her computer on the desk, sat down and turned it on.

  She wished Munro were there, at least.

  This would not do. She had to get ahold of herself and her swirling thoughts.

  She went to the back door, more or less just aimlessly moving. The sunlight made speckles through the trees on the back steps. She went out and sat down.

  This was where Tate found her. He drove over to check on her when he had found her gone from her desk. It was a little absurd, but he had been worried since they had let the children off at school. He knew it was hard on her, and she had seemed too calm to him.

  He got in a little panic when he went in the front door of her house and didn’t find her. The house was stone quiet, and he had the thought that maybe she had been abducted. She never did lock her doors. Things could and did happen, even in small towns.

  “Oh, here you are,” he said, speaking with some relief when he got to the back door and found her sitting there.

  “Well, yes.”

  She moved over to let him out to come sit beside her.

  “Someday I shall get new lawn furniture,” she said.

  “I like sitting on the step.”

  “I do, too.”

  They grinned at each other.

  She looked away quickly, suddenly sad and afraid to reveal herself. Then she dared to say, “I miss them.”

  “I do, too.”

  “I’m really glad for the summer we had. They came so far this summer. I think Willie Lee has real talent with sculpting, and we wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t started tutoring him.”

  “He really does. No tellin’ what can happen there.”

  “And Corrine’s had time to get confidence. She’s really growing up. She’s becoming a young lady.”

  “Yes. A lovely young lady.”

  The entire time Marilee was thinking and chatting of these things, she was becoming more and more aware of Tate’s strong thigh touching hers. More aware of the fact that they were there alone, for the first time in months. Her brain seemed to whirl, bouncing between her awareness of Tate and her sadness at missing the children that had by now caused a lump in her throat and the need to cry, which she really did not want to do.

  “They don’t need me like they used to,” she said. “Oh, they’ll always need me, but it’s changing. I feel like there’s a sinkhole right underneath me, the sand just runnin’ out.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks. “I’m so tired of adjusting. You know that’s what life is, adjusting time after time, and sometimes I just don’t want to adjust any more.”

  “I know.” Tate put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her against his chest. “I sure miss them, too.”

  “You do, don’t you?” This fact somewhat amazed her. Tate had so fully involved himself in the children’s lives.

  “Yes. Makes me feel old without them.”

  “Oh, you’re not old.” She tried for a smile for him and to dry her eyes, but then a fresh wave of discouragement came over her. “I feel old, too. My babies are growin’ up. What will I do?”

  With that she went to sobbing against him. He rubbed her back and whispered soothing whispers. Gradually she became very aware of his hand caressing her back, of his strong chest, of the scent of him.

  Then he was nuzzling her neck and said, “Let me make you feel better…let me…”

  She lifted her head and met his kiss, eagerly and completely.

  Tate’s response to this kiss, when he lifted his head, was to say, “Good golly!”

  They made love in her bed, slowly and without nervousn
ess. They had been together for months now and discovered, with delight, that they knew each other very well.

  He was a miracle, Marilee thought, pressing her cheek against his chest and hearing the beating of his heart.

  “Nothing is awkward with you,” she said.

  “Don’t know why it should be,” he replied. “This is most natural between a man and a woman who are attracted to each other.”

  He kissed her in places all over her body, and he caressed her with abandoned pleasure, and he made her laugh, and made her cry, and made her shout his name with searing ecstasy.

  Afterward, they lay in each other’s arms and talked as they had not talked in the past two months.

  “I guess when two people have done this,” she said blushing, “it is easier to say some things.”

  He grinned at her and kissed her and whispered that she sure did something to him that was great.

  She told him she was afraid, and then she told him something about when she had grown up, how she realized where she got the mothering talent. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to be a woman as a wife. I’ve messed it up for two relationships now.”

  “But you’ve learned. We learn from our mistakes. And I’m not the same as Stuart and Parker.”

  “No, you aren’t.”

  He told her about his growing up, about a father who drank until he got run over by a train, and his mother, whom he described as beautiful and with quite strong spiritual ideas, as he put it. Marilee liked watching the light in his eyes as he spoke. He told of his failed marriage, and how he had not been able to be married, had not really wanted to be.

  Then he said, “But I want to be married now. And I want to marry you. Will you?”

  Immediately all sorts of questions popped into her mind. Fears.

  “Yes,” she managed to get out at last.

  He laughed aloud. “It is sure a good thing I’m a secure man.”

  Then he kissed her in the way every woman wants to be kissed and only a few get to experience.

  They went to pick up the children together, as they had taken them to school. Marilee could not wait, and they were in Tate’s car at the curb in front of the school ten minutes before the children were let out.