by R. R. Banks
“You bought this from Cletus, didn’t you?” she asked.
I nodded.
“How much did he charge you for it?” she asked.
“Four thousand,” I told her, feeling a little bit of uncertainty in my voice.
Rue laughed, but quickly rolled her lips in and covered her mouth to try to muffle it. She shook her head.
“Oh, Richard. He added an extra zero when he saw you coming.” She glanced at the truck again. “Maybe an extra two zeroes.”
“Well, let’s go. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
She looked at me as if she wanted to make a snappy comeback, but at the same time she couldn’t really deny that she was hungry and wanted to get going as much as I did. We climbed into the truck and I waited while she wrestled her seatbelt into place around her belly. I had the compulsion to reach out and touch the full swell. It had been weeks since I had been able to touch her belly and feel the baby moving around within her. I knew that the baby would be bigger and stronger now, and I longed to feel her, but I didn’t push my luck. I had gotten Rue into the truck with me. That was the first step. I still felt like I needed to step lightly or risk her hopping out and heading back to the house, taking any hope right along with her.
“Where are we going to dinner?” Rue asked as the truck lurched somewhat reluctantly to life and started away from the house.
“That’s up to you,” I said. “We can go anywhere you like. Is there anything in particular you’re craving?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her tense slightly and turn to look out of her window without answering me. Something about the question had bothered her and I felt guilty for asking, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what I had done wrong. We continued on in silence for a few more minutes. She hadn’t given me any directions, so I was just driving toward town. I wanted so much to tell her everything that I was thinking, but I held back. I wanted to spend more time with her. I wanted to give her back the night that had been taken from us, but in a way that would show her what I was holding in my heart. Only then would I be ready to tell her everything, and feel confident that she was ready to hear it.
Suddenly I felt an ominous shake in the truck. I gripped the wheel harder and eased up on the gas a little, wondering if I might have offended it as well. The truck shook again, and I saw Rue reach up to grab onto the handle above her door. Her hand pressed to her belly and I knew things weren’t looking good for our road trip. Deciding it would be better to go ahead and swerve off of the road rather than having the truck die right in the middle of it, I turned slightly and let the truck glide into the field to our side. We had gotten a few yards in when the truck seemed to take one last shuddering breath and then stopped. I turned the key a few times, but it was completely futile. The engine didn’t even sputter. It was finished.
This is just getting along spectacularly well.
“I guess I can get out and push,” I said.
“If you were going to push, why did you come out in the middle of a field where the tires are going to sink into the dirt and make it virtually impossible to get out on your own, because I promise you that that is not the pushing that I’ve been preparing for?”
I peered out of the window at the ground below and then back at her.
“I don’t think that I really thought this all the way through,” I admitted.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said in acknowledgement and unhooked her seatbelt.
Well, that’s it. I had a good run. Actually, no. No, I didn’t. That was terribly unsuccessful.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
I figured at least if I knew where she was headed, it would be easier to follow her.
“I thought that you wanted to have dinner.”
“I do,” I said.
“Then come on.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Richard
I was so stunned and confused about what was happening that Rue had a bit of a head start getting out of the truck, but I quickly followed. By the time that I got around to the back, she had let down the tailgate and was doing her level best to climb up inside. Her belly was hampering her progress and the length of her skirt wasn’t helping her much, either. I tried to figure out the most diplomatic way that I could help her, but the best that I could do was get behind her and grab onto her hips so that when she tried to launch herself up again I could push her. As I took the position, however, I felt a shiver ripple through me, memories of another time that I had taken such a position behind her. I wasn’t helping her into a truck that time, and she certainly wasn’t wearing this much clothing.
Rue grunted as I pushed her up and she landed on her hands and knees in the bed of the truck. She crawled forward a few paces and then turned to look at me.
“Nailed it,” she said.
She pulled herself up to her knees and then got up so that she sat on one of the wheel wells. I climbed up after her and made my way to the tool box at the back of the bed. I had stocked it before driving to her house and now I was particularly happy that I had had the ideas that I had. Opening the box and leaning the lid back against the cabin, I reached in and pulled out two thick quilts. I spread one of them out on the bottom of the bed and then rolled up the other to create a pillow I positioned at the base of the tool box. Sitting down, I turned and rested my back against the makeshift pillow. It took a few seconds for all of my muscles to relax, as if the very concept of sitting in the back of a truck in secondhand clothing in the middle of an unknown field was so completely foreign to me that my body was attempting to reject it. I took a few breaths, however, allowing the warmth of the evening air and the fresh sweetness of the slight breeze that rippled over us relax me. I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky.
“I’ve never seen so many stars,” I murmured.
The sky looked so much bigger here, as if it had actually gotten larger and gained millions more stars.
“It’s beautiful,” Rue said.
I made an agreeing sound and a slow sigh, then lifted my head to look at her, thinking back to what she had said before getting out of the truck.
“What about dinner?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Can I use your phone?”
I reached into my pocket and withdrew my phone, handing it over to her. She took it and touched the screen, then reached over and grabbed my hand, pressing the sensor on to the back to my fingertip to unlock the device. I laughed as she dropped my hand and brought the phone closer to her. Rue dialed and then held the phone to her ear.
“Hey, Bubba Ray, it’s Rue…. I’m doing just fine, how are you?...That’s good to hear. Listen…. No, no baby yet. I still have a couple of weeks yet…. Thank you. I’m hoping for a nice smooth delivery, too…. No, Bubba Ray, I can’t change my mind. That’s not how it works. Listen…Thank you for the offer, but I don’t know how Marge would feel about that…No, I don’t think that a Dixie cup and a turkey baster would actually work. Listen, I have found myself in a little bit of an awkward situation this evening and I think that you could help me out…. Yeah, Richard is here with me. He’s kind of why I’m in the awkward situation…No, I’m not talking about the baby, but that is definitely feeling more awkward by the moment…Yeah, I heard that Cletus sold him a truck.”
“Who are you talking to?” I whispered.
Rue held up a finger and turned slightly away from me.
“Yeah, it’s that bad. Totally took him for a ride. That’s actually kind of the problem…. Yeah, it’s not running anymore…. The big field behind the MacGregor place. I was hoping that you’d maybe send some supper this way…Whatever looks good tonight…Thank you, Bubba Ray. I’ll be looking for him.”
She ended the call and handed the phone back to me casually, apparently not seeing the stony look that I was giving her. I tucked it back into my pocket and leaned back against the pillow again.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“You said that you wanted to have dinner,�
� she said. “I figured this is where you brought us, so we’ll have dinner here. Our very dedicated waiter will be here in just a few minutes.”
“What are we having?” I asked.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” she said. There were a few moments of silence as we both enjoyed the evening around us and then she turned back to me. “Look, I’m sorry about all of those things that I said to you that night.”
“It’s alright,” I said.
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry about all the screaming and embarrassing you in front of, well, everyone.”
“It’s alright.”
“No. I’m sorry about the dick-in-the-mouth-thing, and the pig pen thing, and the blow it up your ass thing.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“Oh. Well, I meant to, and I’m sorry for that.”
I wanted to laugh. Even though those few minutes in the restaurant were some of the most mortifying that I had ever experienced in my life, thinking back on them made me realize just how hilarious it actually was. These were people who were mortified by people who wore the wrong color to social events or didn’t know the proper etiquette for a thank you note, and there Rue was yelling about my dick. I kind of loved it.
“It’s alright,” I said again. “You did what you felt that you needed to do.”
She nodded, and we fell silent again for another few seconds.
“I guess you came to talk about the baby,” she said.
“What?” I said.
“The baby,” Rue said, running her hands along the sides of her belly as if she thought that I had somehow forgotten. “I’m guessing since I’m so close to my due date that you want to talk about everything so that we have a plan in place.” I tried to stop her, but she just kept on talking. “I’ve been thinking more about the whole induction thing that the doctor talked about. I’m still not sure that that’s something that I want to do, but if you would rather go ahead and schedule a time that would be convenient for you and Flora, I understand. I have a doctor’s appointment Tuesday, so I can talk to her about it then if that’s something you’ve been considering.”
“Rue,” I said, finally able to get my voice in. “That’s not what I came here to talk to you about.”
“Oh,” she said, looking taken aback, but not asking anything further.
****
Rue
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. I had been bracing myself to have that conversation with him. I knew that we needed to talk about the logistics of the birth and what was going to happen afterwards. We had gone over the basic procedure with the lawyer at the beginning of the process, but we hadn’t gone over the details yet. Little things that seemed like details that we could figure out later, early in the pregnancy were suddenly pressing and we needed to figure out things like if he expected to be in the room with me during delivery and how long I was going to stay in the hospital. Even smaller issues like how I was going to get to the hospital when I went into labor and what I was supposed to bring with me in my hospital bag suddenly seemed tremendously important and I figured that he felt the same way. Why else would he want to come all this way to talk to me?
I leaned closer to him to get a better look at the shirt he was wearing, wanting to get past this strange moment. The shirt he was wearing was definitely a mechanic’s shirt and I could see the name embroidered on it.
“That’s Jeb’s shirt,” I said.
“What?” Richard asked.
“That shirt,” I said. “It says ‘Jeb’ on it. It’s Jeb Montaigne’s shirt.”
Richard grabbed the embroidered section of the shirt and tilted it up, tucking his chin as far in as he could so he could look down at it.
“Do you know Jeb?” he asked.
“Of course, I know Jeb. Everybody with a car knows Jeb. He’s the best mechanic around. Brilliant with vehicles, not so much with anything else. That’s probably how you ended up with his shirt.”
“What do you mean?”
“I once heard Jeb mention that his wife Lula went to the dry cleaner every Wednesday. I couldn’t figure out what the hell he could possibly be talking about since the only dry cleaner around is also a key grinder, locksmith, bait and tackle shop, and bakery. Not a good bakery. Mostly molasses cookies. But the dry cleaner part hadn’t really been in operation for years since no one around here is big on clothing that needs to be dry cleaned. Anyway, I asked why he thought that and he told me that she did her errands in town every Wednesday and that every time she came back she had pants and shirts and skirts with her, and all the ones that he had torn up or stained were missing. He figured that they were cleaning and mending his clothes and she was going to get them every week. Of course, I knew for a fact that she was going to the thrift store because I saw her in there two weeks in a row and she told me that she always went on Wednesdays because that was the day of the week when they would change up the colors on the tags that indicated how much each of the items was discounted. She’d get there early so that she could be the first one to go through the good stuff.”
“So, what was happening to his shirts?”
“Lula was going through his closet and the hampers every week and weeding out the ones that were too stained or torn up and either tearing them up for rags or throwing them away. Then she would go to the thrift store and replace them. She convinced him that they needed to be dry cleaned because that would make them last longer. For some reason he never questioned why she was washing them in her usual laundry, too.”
“So how did I end up with this?” Richard asked, indicating his shirt again.
“He must have thought that if he brought it in and dropped it off, it would be ready for Lula when she went on Wednesday.”
Richard laughed, his chest seeming to open up with the sound as it came out.
“You know,” he said, “come to think of it, I think I might have had the honor of making Jeb’s acquaintance when I bought this truck.”
“You did?” I asked.
“I took it by his shop to look it over. He recommended that I bring it back for a full inspection tomorrow.”
I nodded, trying hard not to laugh at him again. I looked down at the quilt we were sitting on and ran my hand along it, feeling the soft fabric and the tiny stitches that went through it.
“This looks like one of Norma’s quilts,” I said.
“It is,” he told me. “Both of them are.”
I lifted my eyes to him sharply.
“What did you do? Come here and hit every business you possibly could before coming to my house?”
“Yes,” he answered matter-of-factly.
“Why would you do that?”
“I know that I wasn’t the most open and adaptable person in the world when I first came here, and that that hurt you. I wanted to show you that I’m sorry, that I would never purposely insult you or make you feel bad. I wanted to show you that I’m willing to do this. To do all of this.”
“Do all of what?” I asked.
My lungs were starting to feel smaller and my heart was trembling in my chest. I didn’t understand what he was saying, and I didn’t know how to react.
“This,” he said again, gesturing around him as if to encompass all of Whiskey Hollow. “I don’t have to live my life in the city. I don’t have to have the mansion, the cars, the tailors, all of that. I want to show you that I can be here, with you, and live this life if that’s what you want.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Was he seriously suggesting that he and Flora were going to come live in the Hollow and raise the baby? Why in the living fuck would they do that?
Before I could answer I heard the puttering of a tractor approaching and I turned to see Clive coming toward us through the moonlight. He was like the least impressive knight in shining armor ever, but I had never been more relieved to see him. One hand was gripping the steering wheel and the other was trying desperately to hold onto a large picnic basket that was sittin
g beside him on the edge of the seat. He drove up alongside the truck and heaved the basket into the bed so that Richard could grab it and set it down on the quilt.
“How are you doing tonight, Clive?” I asked.
“Doing great,” the ancient man said. “I’ve never been a delivery driver before. I didn’t know that Bubba Ray was thinking of offering this service.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” I said. “I have a feeling this is just a one-time thing. Kind of an emergency roadside assistance situation.”
“What do I owe you?” Richard asked.
“How should I know?” Clive asked in a husky voice that sounded like it held half the state’s tobacco production in it. “I just hauled the basket. I don’t even know what’s in there.”
There was a hint of suspicion in his voice, as if somewhere in his mind he thought that he had gotten himself embroiled in some sort of unscrupulous espionage work and he wasn’t sure if he was appalled or intrigued.
“Just check the basket,” I said. “Bubba Ray puts a list inside his bags, so you know he’s charging you right. It’ll have the total on it.”
Richard opened the basket and the warm, somewhat confusing, smells of Bubba Ray’s food came out. I filled my lungs with them and smiled. It had been so long before I came home permanently since I had eaten this food and it was comforting and familiar. He reached in and pulled out a list, scribbled on the back of a menu, and checked the total. Taking out his wallet, Richard handed Clive a bill and then reached for another.
“For you,” he said. “Thank you for your prompt and friendly service.”
Clive beamed and tucked the tip into the pocket of a pair of jeans that looked almost as worn as the one’s Richard had on. He waved and started off, puttering into the night back toward Bubba Ray’s restaurant where he sometimes helped with the cooking, sometimes did a few dishes, and sometimes just sat at the bar waiting for time to go by.
