Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi

by Nanci Kincaid

  “I love her, man.”

  “Her?”

  “Meghan.”

  Truely felt a kick in the gut. He wanted to pounce on Hastings and slam his fist into Hastings’ arrogant face. “And Courtney — your wife? My sister? What about her?”

  “You know I love Courtney. I’ve always loved her and I still do. I’ve always been good to her too. But, you know, this thing with Meghan is totally different.”

  “Dare I ask?”

  “Court is a great lady. A great companion. I mean it. She plays a good game of golf. She loves to snow ski. She can throw a party or a fund-raiser like nobody’s business. She’s a talented artist. She’s smart as hell. She’s as beautiful as ever. There is nothing wrong with Courtney. You know that. I see her the same way you do. She’s like the sister I never had.”

  “Don’t go there, man. That’s bullshit.”

  “You’re right. You’re right. Look, Courtney is special and none of that has changed.”

  “But … ?” Truely asked.

  “I guess I’ve changed. Courtney would be a perfect partner to grow old with. But I’m not ready to grow old. I’m not ready to settle for predictable — no matter how good it looks from the outside.”

  “I guess Meghan helped you realize this.”

  “She doesn’t hold a candle to Courtney in a lot of ways — we both know that. She’s not well educated really. She lacks confidence sometimes. But she’s sweet, Truely. She’s oddly naive and a little unsophisticated — and I don’t know — I find it all really charming. She’s a single mom who has struggled long and hard and done a damn good job raising two great boys. I know it sounds corny, like some cliché garbage, but she makes me feel excited about life. We stop at the store to get some milk and a loaf of bread and I start thinking, man, how cool is this, the two of us buying some groceries. Every little thing — it all feels new and full of possibilities.”

  “And Courtney makes you feel old and bored with life? Come on, Hastings. You’re not that much of a simpleton.”

  “Sometimes things end, Truely. You know that better than most people. There are no guarantees. Isn’t that what Jesse said when you guys broke up?”

  “This is not about me,” Truely said. “Besides, as I recall, you and Jesus took issue with her point of view.”

  “Okay, maybe I was a jackass. But I think I’ve apologized for that. I was caught up in — look, I’ve tried to explain this — I thought the Holy Spirit was speaking through me. And maybe it was. But I’ve apologized for all that.”

  “Not really.”

  “Is that what you want, Truely? Another apology? I’m sorry I was such a self-righteous jerk. I glimpsed salvation, maybe for the first time in my life. A thing like that changes a man. I wanted you on board. Is that a crime? I was trying to reach out to you.”

  “Let’s get back to the reason you came.” Truely had long believed he wanted an apology from Hastings, a confession of the trouble Hastings had added to the trouble already in place in Truely’s disintegrating marriage at the time. But now that he’d heard Hastings speak the words I’m sorry, it was just as inadequate as the lack of an apology had been.

  “Look, we had a good run, Courtney and me,” Hastings continued. “We’ve pretty much been there and done that, Truely. No real surprises left.”

  That’s what you think, Truely thought. He imagined Courtney’s lifted and stitched face awaiting him in Saratoga. “Look,” Truely said. “I don’t need to hear all this. I don’t want to hear it. You’ve screwed over my sister and nothing you can say will make that okay with me.”

  “I don’t know how this will all play out, Truely. But I need to know that you’ll be there for Courtney. I know you like to keep your distance, you know, since the divorce and everything, but you’re her brother, man — her only real family. She loves you. I don’t want this to play out like some insipid triangle, two against one. If it’s over for us, I’ll do right by Courtney. I swear to you. You can be sure of that. The house … whatever. …”

  “You need to save this discussion.”

  “Right.”

  “If you’ve made up your mind, Hastings,” Truely said, “Courtney doesn’t need to be the last to know.”

  “If I follow my heart, I’m gone. I have to go.” He took a drink of his Diet Coke like it was straight-up whiskey and he was drowning his sorrows.

  “And if you follow your head and act like a mature adult — then what?”

  “My head says stay. My finances say stay. My friends, when they find out, will want me to stay. Hell, even my lawyer says stay.”

  “You’ve already spoken to your lawyer?”

  “He works for me, Truely. You know that. He’s on the Littleton payroll.”

  “One thing I want to say, Hastings.”

  “Of course. God knows I need you to say something.”

  “Don’t lie to Courtney. I mean it. Don’t jerk her around. No false hope. No more broken promises. Tell her the God’s honest truth. You hear me?”

  “Done,” he said.

  “I ought to kick your sorry butt.”

  “I almost wish you would.”

  “When Courtney married you I always thought she could do a hell of a lot better.”

  Hastings actually laughed. “I know.”

  “And I was right.”

  “I guess you were.”

  “Shit, man.”

  “Can I count on you to come though for Court, Truely? She’s got Myra, but she’ll need you.”

  “Fuck you, Hastings.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  Before Hastings finished his drink and left, his mood noticeably worsened, he said, “One more thing, Truely.”

  “What is it?”

  “Meghan needs me. Her boys do too. You know how it feels to be needed?”

  “Courtney doesn’t need you? That’s what you’re saying?” Truely wasn’t going to let himself think about the question. How much sleep had he lost asking himself how he had come to need Jesse so badly — and now Shauna — and they had seemed not to need him. Despite his clumsy efforts in that general direction he had no real experience with being needed. “Courtney doesn’t need you. Is that what you’re telling yourself? Is that your out?”

  “Your sister never has needed me. I used to love that about her too. She was always independent — a free spirit. It was a turn-on.” Hastings shook his head like a man only now realizing how fundamentally wrong he had been about something so basic as the need to be needed.

  “You’re messed up, man,” Truely said. “You know that, right?”

  “This is not easy, Truely. I was counting on you — of everybody — to understand that.”

  “I think you’re making a big mistake,” Truely said. “You’re going to regret all this.”

  “Maybe,” Hastings said. “But it’s gone too far now. I need to see this thing to the end.”

  “To the end, then.” Truely raised his glass of Diet Coke. “So be it.”

  AFTER HASTINGS LEFT his apartment, Truely turned up the volume on the TV again. Rumsfeld was holding a press conference, taking a defensive stance, a replay from earlier in the day, but Truely didn’t want to listen to any more talking heads of any persuasion. He switched the channels until he found a news station with actual soldiers in the streets of Iraq, young heroes going about their business. He wanted to spot Gordo driving along in a U.S. Army food service truck before the detonating bomb ripped off both his feet and most of one leg. Truely wanted to warn him, to scream, Gordo, no, man. Turn back! Turn back!

  IT DIDN’T SEEM that long ago that Courtney’s happiness was the most important thing to Hastings. He had allowed himself to suffer an assortment of small humiliations at the hands of her family because he had loved her so much. And then, over time, something had happened. Something had gone wrong. Now his own happiness was as important to Hastings as Courtney’s was. And he was not apologizing for that either.

  Truely’s daddy had never un
derstood Courtney really. Her dramatic tendencies always embarrassed him, her high-spiritedness, her irritating independent streak, her awkward courage in the face of pain or disappointment, but still Truely always thought that in his own way his daddy had admired Courtney. In time he had tired of trying to change her into the daughter he had assumed she should be, that he assumed he deserved. He had, in the end, allowed her not to fit his idea of who she should be, who she should marry, where and how she should live her unpredictable life. Truely saw that letting go as a great act of love on his daddy’s part. The present situation with Hastings would not have surprised his daddy. Considering Mrs. Seacrest, how could it? It would disturb him — but he would have quietly stepped aside and allowed it to play out without offering any remedies or advice, without saying, “I told you so.”

  Truely’s mother, though — although she had found Courtney to be a handful at times — had eventually come to love the surprising ways that Courtney lived and the way Courtney had drawn her into unknown realms. California, gracious living, big money, fine food and wine, art, travel, prosperity and philanthropy — all were totally foreign to their mother, but intriguing. His mother had been grateful for all the vicarious thrills Courtney provided her in her late life. His mother would know just what to do to help Courtney now too. She would know the things to say. At the very least she could bake a sugar-drizzled prune cake, Courtney’s favorite, with jars of baby food and a box of confectioners’ sugar. Maybe his mother had lived the sort of boxed life that Courtney refused to live, but the best Truely could tell she had never seemed to resent it.

  Fourteen

  WHEN THE CALL from Shauna finally came Truely was almost giddy with gratitude. She had left several short messages on his home machine in recent weeks, all disturbing in detail and lack thereof. All disappointing in the impersonal nature in which they were delivered. She sounded weary, as if she could be speaking to almost anyone on her list of obligatory calls.

  “It’s you, Shauna. Thank God.” He was practically shouting.

  “Hey True.”

  “I’ve been out of my mind with worry. I’m afraid to leave my house for fear of missing another call.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Shauna. Just talk to me. What’s going on?”

  “Well … Daddy is drinking.”

  He wasn’t sure he’d understood her. “Did you say drinking?”

  “Sometimes he doesn’t come back to the hotel until nearly morning. I don’t even know where he’s been. He sleeps most of the day. He doesn’t even go to the hospital with me anymore. He is so angry he scares me, True.”

  “Damn, Shauna. I hate to hear that.” Truely had never known Jerry to be anything but a take-charge kingpin sort of guy.

  “I tried to get him to go back home to San Diego, let me stay here and deal with things, but he won’t listen. His heart is broken. You can just see it in his face. It’s not just Gordo, you know. It’s all the soldiers they keep bringing in, their faces burned, their limbs gone, the fear in their eyes — or the courage. It’s too much for him. He’s not strong enough to stand it. Nobody is.”

  “But you are?” Truely asked.

  “Somebody has to be, True. In my family, that’s me.”

  “I can fly over, Shauna. I could be there tomorrow.”

  “No, True. I don’t want you to come. I’m just tired. I haven’t been sleeping. Gordo is not showing much progress. They want to schedule him to come back to the States. They’re saying Walter Reed first and later maybe San Antonio. But they need to get him stabilized enough to travel. He’s still in ICU. It’s awful. You wouldn’t recognize him, True.”

  “You shouldn’t be going through this alone, Shauna.”

  “It’s changed me, True. You should know that. I’m not the same. I don’t know if I can ever go back to who I used to be.”

  “I understand that,” he said. “Just know this, Shauna — whoever you are I’m with you. I’m in your corner. I just wish I could help you.”

  “Well, there is one thing you could do, True.”

  “Anything,” he said. “Name it. It’s done.”

  “It’s the dogs. They’re driving Doug crazy.”

  “The dogs?”

  “They probably think I’ve deserted them.” She paused as if she might cry. “You know?”

  Truely waited for her to continue. His mind was racing.

  “Do you think you could go over to Doug’s and get them and maybe drive them down to San Diego? Mother said she’d keep them for me until I get back. And if she had the dogs, then maybe she would let Shelly go back home. Mother doesn’t like to be alone at night. She gets scared. The dogs would be good company.”

  The request took Truely by surprise.

  “True, are you there?”

  “Yes, sure. I’m here.”

  “Do you think you could do that? Take the dogs to Mother. I hate to ask.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll call Doug. I’ll drive them down this weekend.”

  “Thanks, Truely. I knew I could count on you.” Her voice was soft and distant. “Miss you, True.”

  “I miss you too,” he said.

  After he hung up the distance between them began to ricochet at an even higher frequency. It was one of the most unsatisfactory conversations of Truely’s life. It left him agitated.

  HE CALLED JAXON, to meet him at the gym. It was not because he needed somebody to talk to, but because he and Jaxon had developed a ritual where on an as-needed basis they would meet at the gym, no questions asked, and compete like madmen for an hour or two to see who could do the most reps on the weights circuit before reaching exhaustion. There was not much talking involved. It was the pursuit of exhaustion that was compelling.

  On this night Jaxon was no match for Truely. For an hour and forty-five minutes Truely was a freak of nature. “Damn,” Jaxon said. “What are you on?”

  “Nothing,” Truely said.

  “Okay. Either you’re in love and you’ve got it bad — or you’ve just been kicked to the curb.”

  “What? Now you’re a psychic?”

  Afterward, they went out to a hole-in-the-wall bar not far from the gym for a couple of icy beers. It was Truely’s idea. He didn’t really want to talk. He simply didn’t want to go home.

  “You okay, man?” Jaxon asked him.

  “Never better.”

  ON FRIDAY NIGHT Truely swung by Doug’s place after work to pick up Foxie and Fred. When they went into a barking frenzy he couldn’t tell if they were actually glad to see him or just totally confused. Foxie ran in circles chasing her own nub of a tail. Doug was obviously relieved to see Shauna’s dogs go, although he was appropriately apologetic for his blatant sense of relief. He had the dog cages from Shauna’s apartment ready to go. He and Truely carried them out and loaded them in the back of Truely’s car. Then they carried Foxie and Fred out and put them in their respective cages. It was like putting a couple of genies back in their bottles. The dogs always rode in their cages whether they liked it or not because otherwise they tended to leap nonstop from front seat to back barking hysterically and generally threatening to cause a major accident. “Thanks, man.” Truely shook Doug’s hand when the mission was accomplished.

  “Have a safe trip, guys,” Doug called out as Truely and the dogs drove away.

  Truely’s plan was to take the dogs back to his place for the night, then get up early on Saturday morning and make the trip down to San Diego, spend one night, and drive back on Sunday. Now that the trip was inevitable Truely was almost looking forward to it. He did some of his best thinking while driving long distances alone, listening to music. He could use the distraction.

  Back at his own building he got both dogs on their leashes, no easy task, and took the elevator up to his loft, where — to his surprise — a couple of uninvited guests paced outside his door. “Truely,” Courtney called to him. “Thank goodness you’re home.”

  The dogs began to bark and
strain against their leashes.

  “This is a surprise,” he said. He saw that Myra was waiting for him to unlock the door, carrying what looked like a heavy overnight bag.

  “Myra and I just decided we needed to get away for the weekend,” Courtney said, “so we thought we’d surprise you. Come up here and try a little city life.”

  “Let me get these dogs inside.” He fumbled to unlock the door. Foxie was jumping all over Myra, who seemed oblivious. “You guys come on in.”

  “You’re not mad are you?” Courtney asked. “I know we should have called.”

  “Actually,” he said, “I can use all the help I can get. It may take all three of us to keep the lid on Foxie and Fred here.”

  Courtney and Myra followed him inside. He took the dogs to the bathroom and closed them in there and turned off the light. Shauna had taught him this trick when she used to bring them with her for the weekend. It settled them down almost instantly. Truely returned to Courtney and Myra, hugged them both properly and brought their bags inside. While he poured wine for everybody he got his first good look at Courtney’s new face-in-progress. “Nice,” he said. “You’re practically healed.”

  “Just a little swelling still.” She touched her hand to her face.

  “So you’re happy?” he asked.

  “I feel great,” she said.

  “Mr. Hastings tell her she look great too,” Myra spoke up.

  “So Hastings liked the big reveal?”

  “Well, great was not what he actually said,” Courtney corrected. “What he said was that I look ten years younger. So, you know, I’ll take that as practically great.”

  “Mr. Hastings move his things out the house this weekend,” Myra explained. “We get out his way.”

  “Hastings is moving out?” Truely had an annoying way of asking the obvious.

  “He’s rented an apartment in San Jose. I’m about to be a free woman!” Courtney waved her hands in mock celebration.

  “Well, look out world.” Truely knew he sounded falsely happy. “Here’s to being a free woman!” He raised his wineglass and they joined him.