by Cassia Leo
Stella stood up, clutching her Kleenex, which disintegrated in her fingers. “Joe!”
Nathan, one of the older members of the congregation, rushed to the front to help Joe stand. “You all right?”
“I am,” Joe said, straightening his jacket, though he winced when he tried to take a step. “All things considered.”
Nathan backed away as Vivian and the sheriff hurried up the aisle.
“Oh, no, you DON’T!” Vivian cried. “Arrest him, Terry.”
Stella plopped back down on her pew, holding on to the back so she could see behind her. She hated that sheriff. He’d been one of the many men to lounge around the house in Vivian’s glory days.
The sheriff shook his head slowly. “Viv, now, I can ask him to leave. But I can’t arrest him without the church people pressing charges.”
Vivian’s face bloomed purple. “Where is the preacher? Or a deacon?”
“I won’t be pushed aside,” Joe said. He laid his hand on Angie’s casket and looked down at her, losing his composure for a moment.
Stella sagged against the seat, wishing for Dane. Why wasn’t he back?
Vivian rushed back up the aisle, the sheriff trailing. “At least keep HIM out!”
Stella turned to see the sheriff clutching Dane by the arm, leading him back toward the door.
She jumped from the pew. “Mother, stop it!” She raced up the aisle and grabbed the sheriff’s arm to stop him.
“Hello, everyone,” Joe said from the front.
The sheriff turned, as did Vivian. Stella took the moment to dash to Dane, wrapping her arms around his belly to prevent anyone from separating them. He pulled her in close, shifting to one side so they could see the front.
Joe tugged a handkerchief from his breast pocket and turned it over in his hands. “I loved Angelica Sutton,” he said. “It wasn’t any secret. She’d been alone a long time. Her husband had been a good man. One of Holly’s finest. I had a lot of respect for him, and back then I had my own Maybelle. We both lost our loves the same year.”
He looked down at Angie again. “Some people in this town thought it wasn’t right for me to court Angie, even though we both waited for a proper mourning. There wasn’t nothing wrong with how we felt. How I felt.”
He looked out at Vivian. “I know Angie would want all this settled. For her family to stop living like they do, so mean-hearted.”
“Well, I never!” Vivian rasped and moved on out the door.
Stella shifted aside to let her pass. Good riddance.
“Stella.” Joe was talking to her now, so she turned back to the front. “Don’t let her meanness cause you any more grief. Don’t let her hate soil another love.” He pointed toward Dane. “There’s no reason why she shouldn’t like that feller, or anyone else you take a shine to. Don’t listen to her. I did, and now…” He pressed the handkerchief to his chest. “I’m going to do something I always meant to do.”
And old Joe started singing, his voice high and wavering, “You are so beautiful.”
The sheriff backed away, heading in the direction of Vivian, and so Stella let go of Dane. She walked back up to the front of the church and stood on the other side of Grandma’s coffin while he finished his song.
When he was done, she took his elbow and led him down to the front pew. “You sit with the family,” she said. They waited together for the pastor to come out, to deliver his standard speech about everlasting life and not weeping for the dead.
Dane sat on the other side of her. Vivian stayed away, and Stella closed her eyes, holding on to this moment, the last time she’d be in the same room as Grandma, and possibly, the last day she’d be in her hometown of Holly, Missouri.
***
20: Packing
JANINE tumbled through the door of Dane’s duplex, loaded down with collapsed cardboard boxes and duffel bags. “Okay, I scrounged up everything I could find. You ready for this?”
Stella pushed herself off the sofa. “Was the house empty?” They had waited for dark, assuming it would be easier to get around town unnoticed.
“Yes, I checked. Your mom and dad are at your grandmother’s. Half the town is.”
Dane returned from the kitchen, pressing a glass into Stella’s hand. “Drink this up, and we’ll go get you packed.”
Stella downed the alcohol. “You stay here, Dane. Janine and I can handle my room.”
“You sure?” Dane took the glass back and handed Stella his.
“Yes. In case Vivian comes back. No telling what she might have the sheriff do if you’re there.” She drained the second drink and set it on the crate. “That’s better.”
She took part of Janine’s load from her. “We’ll be back here in two hours.”
Dane moved past them to open the door wide. “That’s not much time to put a lifetime in boxes.”
Stella lurched forward, dragging a duffel bag behind her. “I’ll manage. Not that much I need to take.”
Dane set the glasses on the floor and picked up the trailing bags. “You going in your grandmother’s car? The Mustang doesn’t have a lot of trunk space.”
Stella shrugged. “No choice. Another reason to pack light.” The night had cooled considerably, a fierce wind kicking up her hair. She unlatched the trunk and popped it wide. Everything inside was immaculate. Joe had taken good care of the car after replacing the back window.
She shoved the boxes and bags inside and moved over to let Janine dump hers in. Dane stood off to the side, looking at the moon. She remembered the night she’d asked him to come with her. She still wasn’t clear if he was going along or not. She couldn’t bring herself to ask him directly.
He stepped forward and laid the last things in the trunk. “We’ll sort this out.” He closed the lid and moved into her, kissing her lightly.
What did that mean, sort this out? Still, Stella couldn’t bear to ask. “See you in a couple hours.” She jumped in the driver’s seat and cranked up the car, now humming as evenly as if it were new.
She backed out, watching him stand there in the dirt, barefoot, his white bandage glowing in the moonlight, his face dark. She wondered if she’d ever see him again. For some reason, she had doubts.
They avoided Angie’s street but could see the cars lined along the curb leading to it. “They’ll be tied up for a while yet,” Janine said.
“Not sure I’ll get a chance to say good-bye to the place,” Stella said. Surely her mom would go home eventually, and Stella could sneak back in Grandma’s house super late.
“You going to leave tonight?” Janine asked.
“Probably.” Stella slowed as they turned onto her street, squinting at the house. “I want as many miles as possible between me and this godforsaken town before dawn.”
“What about Dane?”
Stella slammed the car into park. “I don’t know. I’m afraid to ask.”
“He wasn’t packing anything.”
Stella opened the door. “I noticed.”
The living room sat empty and dark, so rare. Stella couldn’t imagine a time when her father wasn’t propped in his recliner, TV flickering, even when she stumbled in at all hours. She didn’t think he’d gone to his own bed in years. He definitely hadn’t worked in a decade, after an oil-rig injury left him with a permanent limp.
They dragged the bags and boxes to Stella’s room and dumped them on the floor. “There’s some packing tape in the drawer by the kitchen sink,” Stella said. “We can get these boxes back in shape.”
Janine headed out, and Stella surveyed her room. She’d never see it again, of that she was sure. Bon Jovi posters hung at odd angles, remnants of her teen years. Dried flowers hung upside-down from a corkboard. Pictures, love notes, a calendar from 1982 still sitting on December, a gift from Grandma.
Stella sat on the pink bedspread, not sure where to start, heavy with emotion, and angry at the sentimental notion that she might miss the place. She shot back up, heading to the closet, jerking the clothes she wanted off
the hangers and tossing them on the bed.
Janine returned with the tape and began assembling the boxes. “You’ll need something to cushion anything breakable.”
“We can layer the clothes in with the fragile stuff,” Stella said. She wrapped each bottle of perfume in a shirt and placed them gently in a box. A drawer full of socks covered those, and she nestled her favorite lamp, pink with white crystals, into the socks and panties. She topped that box with her pillow, squished it down, and Janine sealed the box with tape.
“One down,” Stella said, shoving it near the door.
“What about yearbooks?” Janine held up a shiny red one, from their senior year.
“Not interested,” Stella said.
“This?” Janine held up a family picture from when Stella was three. “You’ve kept it out all this time.”
Stella took it, looking at herself, tiny, sprigs of white ponytails sticking straight out, happy as a lamb. And her sister Marjorie, gangly and shy, a hand on Stella’s shoulder. Even Vivian seemed softer, grinning, no scowl, her arm tucked around her husband’s, who didn’t smile, but still, amusement crinkled around his eyes, before the accident, and the rehab, and Vivian’s indiscretions.
Stella tossed it on the bed. “Vivian can have it.” She reached onto the shelf, a picture of her and Janine. “But I’ll take this one.” Then one of Grandma Angie with Stella and Marjorie. “And this one.” Stella wrapped them in nightgowns and tucked them inside a red duffel bag.
They worked silently and quickly, Stella making a pile on the floor of things to take, and Janine dutifully filling the bags and cartons. Stella realized how little of her old life she wanted with her. “I think we’re done,” she said an hour later. Her room didn’t look all that different, just more bare spaces on the flat surfaces.
“You ought to take some sheets,” Janine said. “And dishes. You don’t want to have to rebuy everything when you get where you’re going.”
“I don’t want anything from here.” Stella pushed one of the bigger boxes down the hall. “Maybe some things from Grandma’s.”
Janine dragged a suitcase behind her. “Might could have used some boys.”
“We can do it.” Stella kicked the door open, and the two of them together lifted the heaviest box, containing her stereo, into the trunk.
Headlights turned down their street, and they froze, waiting to see who it might be. The car slowed as it approached. “Your parents?” Janine asked.
The blinkers signaled a turn, but the car passed their driveway and pulled in next door. “The Grubers,” Stella said. “Let’s go in.”
They hustled back inside, shutting the door. “Will she call your mother?” Janine asked.
“Probably,” Stella said. “Let’s hurry.”
They ran to Stella’s room, frantic now, and snatched up duffel bags and smaller boxes. As they darted back outside, car lights moved down the streets, turning corners, passing other blocks. “They have to be leaving Angie’s,” Janine said. “Nothing else is going on tonight.”
“Crap, crap, crap,” Stella said. “Move faster.”
Back in her room, Stella assessed what was left. The Mustang wouldn’t hold much more, plus Dane might have something. She hoped.
“One more trip, I think.” Stella hefted one last large box and stumbled into the hall. “See if you can manage that suitcase.”
Stella couldn’t see in front of her, but the sound of crickets let her know the front door was wide open.
“Stella?”
She set down the box, grateful for a male voice. Her father.
“Yeah, Dad?”
He blocked the doorway, slightly stooped, looking every one of his fifty years and then some. “So soon?”
“Yeah. I gotta go.”
Janine came up behind her and stopped abruptly.
Her father turned his felt hat in endless circles, gnarled fingers pinched and red. “I wish you wouldn’t go.”
Stella picked the box back up. “I’m all grown up. Time to leave the nest.”
He moved aside as she barreled toward him with the box. By the time she had shoved the carton in the backseat and returned, he’d moved back to his recliner.
But when she passed the living room with her last load of bags, the TV remained dark. The dim reflection of her father in the screen didn’t move or look her way. Stella paused, trying to think of something else to say, a good memory maybe, a trite farewell, but eventually gave up and just walked on by.
*
“That was close,” Janine said when they were closed up in the car. “I guess your mother is still at Angie’s.”
“No doubt talking to her church biddies about how I wrecked the funeral.” Stella backed out of the driveway. She refused to look out at the yard where she’d once jumped rope with her sister. It was done.
“So what now?” Janine reached down to flip on the radio. When Air Supply’s “I’m All Out of Love” came on, she immediately shut it off again.
“I guess find Dane.” Stella turned onto Main to head toward Renters’ Row. “Kill time until I can stop by Grandma’s to pick up a few things.”
“So this is really it?” Janine wouldn’t look at her, fixed on the darkened windows of the shuttered businesses.
Stella slowed in front of Good Scents. She hoped Beatrice understood that she had to leave now. God, she should say good-bye. But she couldn’t bring herself to watch even one more sunrise over Holly.
She reached in front of Janine and fished a set of keys out of the glove compartment. “Give these to Beatrice tomorrow, will you? The shop keys.”
Janine took them. “Okay.”
Stella sped up and turned onto Dane’s street. “This part sucks.”
They pulled up to the duplex, but everything was dark.
“I don’t think he’s here,” Janine said.
“Figures.” Stella killed the motor. “I guess I’ll make sure.”
Her tennis shoes sunk into the mushy dirt as she walked up to the door. What was he doing? Why hadn’t he at least waited to say something to her? Good luck, maybe? Or thanks for nothing?
She knocked, waited, and knocked again. The wind kicked up. Fall was reestablishing its presence after the warm day. She shivered in her cropped shirt and tried to cover the one bare shoulder of her pink halter as she headed back to the car.
“We’re early, you know,” Janine said. “He might be here when we said, in another hour.”
Stella plunked into the seat and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “I can’t just sit here.”
“Let’s see if they’ve left Angie’s,” Janine said. “We could hang out there and pick up the things you wanted.”
“Yeah. I want the Mathis records. An address book. Some little things.”
She started the car again and headed back to the center of town. Cars were pulling into the Watering Hole.
“Hey,” Janine said. “Isn’t that Ryker?”
Stella slowed and peered at the parking lot. Sure enough, Ryker was heading into the bar. She jerked on the wheel and pulled into a spot.
“Don’t park by the road,” Janine said. “Your mother.”
“Right.” Stella backed up again and cruised through the lot, hiding the Mustang behind a jacked-up truck.
Janine blew a rush of air out. “I don’t think we should go in there.”
Stella tugged the keys from the ignition. “I know. Nothing but trouble here before.”
“Maybe we could wait out here?”
“We don’t even know if Dane is in there.” Stella opened her door.
They picked their way across the rough lot, asphalt kicked up in places, toward the noise and light. Janine suddenly halted.
“What is it?” Stella asked.
“That motorcycle,” Janine said. “Is it Dane’s?”
They approached it, partly hidden behind a shrub at the back corner of the bar. “Yeah,” Stella said. “That’s it.”
“Now I really think
we shouldn’t go in.” Janine didn’t look like she was going to take another step.
Stella tugged on her arm. “I need to know what this is about. What Dane’s planning to do.”
Janine stepped forward hesitantly. “This could be a bad scene.” She pointed across the lot.
Stella turned around. Bobby Ray’s battered pickup was unmistakable in canary yellow. She let go of Janine and raced to the door.
***
21: Machismo
“WHAT the hell are you doing in here?” Ryker slid into a chair opposite him. “You got a death wish?”
Dane shoved the empty beer bottle away. “Not much into skulking out of town in the night.” He’d figured Ryker would show even if he hid the bike.
“So you not going?”
“Yes, I’m going. Just not interested in looking like a coward.”
A waitress appeared, and Ryker pointed at Dane’s bottle. “Times two.” When she left, he said, “I know that bullshit look in your eye.” He jerked his head toward the bar. “And nobody misses that yellow piece of shit that Bobby Ray drives.”
“I’m not looking for a fight.”
“You’re going to get one.” Ryker waved across the bar. “Damn it all if Darlene isn’t here too. What is it, a reunion?”
“I’m popular,” Dane muttered. He’d positioned himself with his back to the corner for a reason. Couldn’t have any of Bobby Ray’s weasels sticking him from behind again. He knew it was stupid to come, but he wasn’t up for looking chickenshit. Not if he was taking off. Ryker should appreciate that. He’d still be here. “I’m only thinking of you, brother,” he said.
The girl came back with the beers, and Ryker tossed some bills on her tray. He handed one to Dane. “Here’s to a clean getaway,” he said and clicked his bottle against Dane’s. “Not that I expect it.”
Dane tugged at the corner of the label. The burly woman bartender was gone, and in her place was a skinny old man, more than happy to hover beneath the girls who took turns gyrating on the broad counter.
