Christmas in Cactus Flats and Other Holiday Romances

by Laura Briggs

  “A little,” she answered. “I miss my old life, that is. But that’s not coming back to me, even when I get home.”

  His body turned so the view of the band disappeared from her eyes, replaced by the stars visible from the open barn doors. “You ever think about sticking around here for awhile?” he asked.

  “Why?” she answered, blurting the word out before she could stop herself. “I mean, I don’t know why I would. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with this place —”

  “It’s got good land, good people,” said J.P., as if making a list of its qualities. “Decent school, lots of room for people with new ideas...”

  “I’m sure it does,” she answered. “But I don’t know if I want to give up all my roots just for the sake of hanging out with Arlene. We’d be at each other’s throats, probably, before a month was out.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t mean for Arlene...” he began. He got no further, however, because the woman in question’s voice was booming from the stage microphone.

  “Arlene Davis, everyone!” The band’s fiddle player gestured towards the woman bustling up onstage in her maroon attire. “She’s got a voice that can bring the roof down and she’s kindly agreed to do us a song.”

  Drew glanced from the stage to J.P. as Arlene took her place at the microphone; his face showed no signs of surprise.

  “She used to sing at some of the bars around here,” he answered, raising his voice to be heard over the cheers and applause. “She’s a little rough, but she knows how to stir up a crowd.”

  “I can imagine,” Drew answered, relaxing a little. Arlene waved her hand to the crowd, bending close to the mic as she spoke.

  “Thank you kindly, ladies and gents,” she said, “along with the not-so-ladylike and the rascals out there...” This statement produced a few hoots and cat calls from below as she grinned knowingly.

  “I’m gonna do a little country song for you tonight, but I don’t want to do it alone. Out there in the crowd’s my daughter Drew — Drew, come on up here!”

  A look of shock registered on Drew’s face as the crowd around her applauded enthusiastically.

  “No,” she said. “No way. She can’t do this —” Even as her protests began building, Arlene had already pointed her out to one of the band members, whose hand was now on her arm as he escorted her towards the stage.

  The lights seemed too bright, almost sizzling with electricity on the platform outside the dance floor. The faces seemed almost indiscernible in the dim light, although she could see J.P.’s white shirt below, his arms crossed as he watched from the crowd. Arlene’s face wore a big grin as she adjusted the microphone to her height.

  “I can’t sing,” Drew hissed in Arlene’s ear as she found herself thrust beside her at the microphone. Arlene’s arm wound around her shoulder, then perched a white cowboy hat atop Drew’s head as she drew her closer.

  “Nobody can,” Arlene whispered back, taking care not to speak into the mic. “You just smile and have a good time.” She squeezed Drew’s arm. “The only part you need to know’s the chorus line. It’s ‘if lonely hearts can dream, then so can I.’ All right?”

  The band struck up a song only vaguely familiar to Drew from the radio whenever she switched the dial in her car. A quick-paced tune with a line somewhere in it about leaving lonely hearts behind — which seemed right up Arlene’s alley, she thought, grimly.

  “I get tired of all those people dream-ing that there’s love so true,” crooned Arlene. “When at the end of every heartache, comes the pain...” Her voice was loud, although slightly off-key in places; it drew whistles from below as if she was Kitty Wells in concert.

  “Come and take your place in line,” she sang, “for a lonely heart’s good time. Spend it crying in your pillow, tell yourself it’s the last time...” She cast a significant glance at Drew with this line.

  Drew could resist. She could toss the hat onto the stage and climb down the platform into the darkness to escape. But something in Arlene’s glance rooted her to this spot, a little piece of herself in those eyes. The same flecks of golden brown in the depths of Arlene’s eyes as her own.

  “If lonely hearts can dream, than so can I...” Drew’s voice was wildly off-key as she pitched it higher than Arlene’s. The effect reminded her of cats wailing in the darkness, but she could barely hear herself after a moment. The cheers and whistles from below became deafening, drowning out her own voice in her ears.

  “Take your letters and your memories, take your photo from my frame...tell all your friends that you and I are through...” As Arlene sang, her arm remained wrapped around Drew’s waist, one hand holding the microphone steady each time they swayed towards it for the chorus.

  It was insane. It was far from Drew’s idea of a good time; and yet, she was having one. Even as her heart pounded in her chest, her face flushing with the conviction that she looked like an idiot onstage, she felt the adrenaline of this moment rush through her veins. As if Arlene’s spirit was contagious, a fever that could sweep through a crowd and turn their hesitation into a headlong rush.

  On cue, she bent towards the microphone, until her cheek was almost against Arlene’s. “If lonely hearts can dream, than so can I...”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You’re not still mad, I hope?” Arlene glanced at Drew as they drove along in the darkness. The Feed Barn was now a distant gleam in the post-midnight world, far out of sight in their taillights as they headed home.

  “No,” Drew answered. “Although I won’t lie and say I wasn’t considering taking J.P. up on his offer to drive me home. After that little stunt you pulled, it was very tempting.”

  “You be careful,” said Arlene. This struck Drew as a funny thing to say about her reaction, until she realized what Arlene was talking about.

  “J.P.’s a good boy,” she continued. “But I’d think hard about what might happen if I were you. About the future and what you want. Not everybody’s destined to be a heartbreaker, Lord knows — but you should go into something with your eyes open.”

  Her tone was one of caution, causing Drew’s cheeks to redden.

  “What are you saying?” she asked. “Are you suggesting there’s something between me and J.P.?” she demanded.

  “I’m just saying what I’m saying, that’s all,” said Arlene, her tone softened somewhat. “You think about what your heart wants good and well before you jump over any barrels. Otherwise, that may be the horse that can’t make it. If you know what I mean.”

  Drew was silent in response. Arms crossed over her torso as much in resistance to Arlene’s words as against the cool air fanning across them with the convertible top down. It was too cool to be driving like this, she told herself — not that Arlene would notice something like that. The sheer romance of being free in the wind probably created this sort of irresponsibility.

  She caught herself amid this train of thought and felt guilty. She wasn’t any better in her own decisions. Packing a bag and driving cross-country to disrupt a stranger’s life and possibly ruin their holiday. What had she been thinking that moment in Boston when she found the address?

  They drove along in silence for a little while. Above, clouds momentarily obscured a section of the sky, the stars temporarily vanished from sight.

  “Tomorrow, there’s some place you should see,” said Arlene. “We’ll take a drive out there if you’re interested.”

  Her tone of voice piqued Drew’s curiosity. “What is it?” she asked.

  “You’ll see,” Arlene answered.

  *****

  The road Arlene’s car traveled was smoother than the one they drove the night before, although it led equally far from Cactus Flats in Drew’s estimation.

  She was spread out in the passenger’s seat, her feet propped on the dash as the world slipped by on either side of the car. Arlene’s foot tapped the petal as she gazed through the windshield at the long stretch of empty road.

  There was no radio today; jus
t the same dark sunglasses Arlene usually wore on a daytime drive. She hadn’t consulted a map, meaning the place they were going was somewhere familiar. She flicked on the turn signal as a paved road appeared, branching off in the direction of a distant town called “Wallender”, according to the road sign.

  “Is what we’re going to see part of this town?” asked Drew, hinting for an explanation.

  “Not really,” said Arlene, after a moment’s silent musing. “We’ll be passing through the town pretty quick, I assure you.” She winked at Drew, then turned her attention towards the road again.

  Wallender was small, with a handful of businesses scattered along the main street: a gas station, a diner, and a flea market separated by a series of small houses, their yards unkempt with the presence of scattered sagebrush and Christmas cacti.

  “Small place,” commented Drew.

  “It used to be bigger,” said Arlene. “Once, there used to be a rodeo ranch just over the way. There was a big livestock auction barn, too. But the times move on, as the world says.” She flipped on her signal again, turning onto a little dirt road branching off from the town.

  There was an open landscape, a handful of houses scattered across it. Arlene pulled up before one of them and parked.

  “This is it?” said Drew. She stared at the house, a plain clapboard structure with a rusted tin roof. There was no sign of current habitation, a handful of scraggly flowers spreading across its yard.

  “This is where I grew up,” said Arlene.

  Drew glanced at her with genuine surprise. “Here?” she said. “This is your childhood home?”

  “It is,” said Arlene. “Sixteen years in this place. Those were my grandmama’s flowers, that my mama planted there when she first moved in. I always meant to get a few of these, but I figured they wouldn’t survive with me moving around so much.” She paused, then continued speaking.

  “When my grandparents were first married, they called this their honeymoon house until my mama’s dad got his job at a factory about fifty miles from here. But they kept up this place and rented it, until after mama was married.” She stretched out behind the driver’s seat, but made no move to climb out of the car.

  “When I was a little girl, I used to dig holes in the dirt and bury my little colored tin dishes for dolls,” she said. “I called ‘em my buried treasure. I thought I’d come back and dig ‘em up someday and be surprised. Sometimes I buried little pieces of colored glass I found, old buttons that turned up from between the floorboards.”

  Drew gazed at the empty house, the breeze ruffling the flowers out front. She imagined a small version of herself digging holes and hiding miniature treasures in them. The Texas dirt the same as the sand in her play box, the removable brick in the side of her school where she used to hide pennies and bottle caps.

  “I couldn’t wait to leave this place,” said Arlene. “When I finally went, I felt free. Free as the wind, to go where I wanted and do whatever came to mind. And here I sit. Living a stone’s throw from this place about sixty miles down the road.” She smiled, a faint smirk on her lips.

  Drew glanced at her. “Are you sorry you left?” she asked. “Or that you came back?”

  “Both,” Arlene answered, with a faint laugh. “Maybe neither. I don’t know.” She shook her head, as if the opinion inside it was one of conflict.

  Reaching over, she patted Drew’s hand. “I do know that I ain’t sorry to see you,” she said. “I’m glad you came back.”

  Drew’s heart skipped a beat; a sense of surprise, of unexpected warmth, stole over her in response. Her own hand reached to press Arlene’s, covering it with her fingers so it was sandwiched between the two.

  “Thank you,” she said, a smile creeping across her face.

  This was what she had come to find, she realized. The moment the two of them were no longer an unknown connection; the moment they were glad to be part of each other’s lives.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sunlight streamed through the living room window of the trailer, bathing Drew in its rays, tempting her to pull the comforter over her head and sleep longer. The last night had been an early one compared to Arlene’s usual preference, but Drew was a sleeper by nature.

  Blinking her eyes open, she glanced at the clock on the table beside the sofa. Ten-fifteen. Later than usual, she noticed. Wondering why the sound of Arlene’s coffee-making ritual hadn’t awakened her sooner.

  Throwing back the cover, she pulled her robe on and moved lazily towards the kitchen. Yesterday’s newspaper was still scattered across the table, a pair of high-heeled shoes laying on the floor. The coffee pot was cold and silent on the counter when Drew touched the handle.

  Frowning, she stepped backwards towards the hallway. The door to Arlene’s room was ajar, the usual messy pile of clothes trailing across the floor and the bed. She pushed it open and peered inside.

  The closet was open. Several pants suits and blouses missing from the hangers, Arlene’s dress boots gone from the floor in front of it. The cardboard box of jewelry was missing from the dresser, along with the large can of hairspray and the makeup kit.

  Drew was frozen momentarily at the sight. She glanced towards the living room window, through the open slats of its blinds to the empty spot out front where the Cadillac was usually parked.

  Arlene was gone. She searched the counter, checked the door and the surface of every table — no note. No sign of any goodbye or explanation as she glanced wildly at the calendar on the wall and the notepad by the door.

  Nothing. Nothing at all.

  *****

  “She’s just gone, J.P. Gone without any reason why — I mean, I woke up this morning and the place was empty except for me.” Drew was on the verge of tears, pacing as she held the phone.

  “Drew...” Something in J.P.’s gentle tone, akin to reluctance, made her heart drop. “Look — that’s just how she is. That’s Arlene...it’s nothing to do with you.”

  “What do you mean, nothing to do with me?” Drew countered. “J.P., only yesterday we were together, she seemed fine. She showed me the house where her parents used to live.”

  “And probably started thinking about how this place ties her down,” J.P. answered. “Arlene doesn’t stick around here. She’s gone half the time, no one ever knows when or where until she’s back...I thought you realized that. The way everybody was surprised she’d have someone visit her, with the way she is.”

  “I just thought it was because she was lonely.” The first tear escaped, sliding down Drew’s cheek. “I thought maybe I was reason enough for her to stay here — that we were close enough that she would at least tell me instead of packing her bags and sneaking off at dawn.”

  “Listen —” said J.P., but Drew interrupted.

  “Forget it,” she said. “Just forget it.” She hung up the phone without waiting for the rest of his words. Her elbow bumped the box of mementos sitting on the counter beside the stove for some unknown reason. With a feeling of anger, Drew shoved it off, letting it fall to the floor and scatter the newspaper clippings and photos amidst the classified section and unpaid bills.

  *****

  She was crouched on the sofa, sulking, when J.P. drove up in his truck. Through the window, she watched him climb out and approach the trailer. He rapped on the door once, then twice.

  She was tempted to stay silent and wait for him to leave. At the last possible moment, she spoke up.

  “Come in.” Grumpy, reluctant in her tone. He pushed open the door and peered inside.

  “Dinner,” he said, holding up a paper sack. He must have been working at the Dry Street Barbecue this afternoon, she surmised.

  “Brought Arlene’s mail, too,” he said. Giving a cursory glance at the table’s mess, he added a stack of envelopes to the pile. The mementos on the floor from the overturned box caught his eye. Bending down, he picked up the photos, setting the box upright again.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Drew. “I’ll pick them up be
fore I go.” Her voice sounded stiff, still clogged with tears from her cry earlier.

  He glanced at her. “Go?” he repeated.

  “To Boston,” she said. “Guess there’s no reason for me to stick around. Now that Arlene’s gone back to her life.” She uncurled her legs, letting her bare feet touch the floor.

  J.P. squatted back on his heels. “You don’t have to go,” he said. “She’d want you to stay around here for awhile.”

  “Like her?” asked Drew. “I don’t think it matters. I found out what I wanted to know, so it’s time to go.” She shrugged, then let her shoulders slump into a posture of defeat again.

  “She doesn’t mean it like you think, Drew,” J.P. answered, gently. “She doesn’t think of it the way you do. You were used to having somebody stick around for you; Arlene isn’t — doesn’t think of people that way.”

  “I’m not looking for an excuse,” Drew answered. She pressed her fingers against her forehead, trying to block out the sound of his reassuring tones. “I’m just really tired. I need to go somewhere and clear my head again.”

  He didn’t say anything. She could see him hesitate, glancing at her as if there was something on his mind. “All right,” he said, finally. He shoved the box’s lid back into place, over the piles of photos and clippings inside.

  Rising, he dusted off his hands. “You need anything, you call,” he said. “All right?”

  She nodded. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll remember that Texas code.”

  He smiled, although it wasn’t the open one she remembered from before. He pushed open the door and stepped outside again. The reflection of sunlight from his driver’s side door flashed across the wall, followed by the sound of his truck’s ignition a moment later.

  Drew rose and entered the kitchen. She tossed the open carton of milk into the trash, its top giving off the rancid smell of several days of sunlight exposure. She placed the random dishes scattered around the room in the sink. She collected her robe from the bathroom, her shampoo and soap from the shower.