A Forever Thing (27 page)

She packed long, loopy earrings with a matching bangle bracelet
and her makeup kit into a small bag, then carried her clothing to
the car and came back for Tina.

“What’s that?” Tina pointed to the shirt and jeans hanging on
the hook in the Camaro’s side window.

“We’re going to a restaurant for dinner tonight with your daddy.”

“Pizza?” she shouted.

“I don’t think so, princess. I think something a little fancier than
pizza,” Fancy said. She drove toward Main Street, made a right
turn, and then a left beside the courthouse.

She and Tina were dressed by the time Theron got home. They
looked alike in their jeans and shirts, belts cinched around their
waists, and boots. She’d swept her hair up to cover the bandage on
the back of her head.

“So are my girls ready for a night out on the town? I thought if
we had an early supper, we could go see that new Disney movie
that’s just coming out”

“I guess the days of R-rated and even PG-13 are over for you?”
Fancy said.

“Only if there’s a child with us,” he said.

Us? Now, exactly what did that mean? That there was even the
possibility that they’d have dinner and a movie without Tina?
There’d be angels wearing bikinis and selling snow cones in Hades before that happened.

“What’s a Dizzy?” Tina frowned.

“Disney,” Fancy corrected, gently. “Like The Little Mermaid or
Cinderella.”

Tina continued to look puzzled.

“It’ll be fun. You’ll see,” Fancy said.

Theron transferred the car seat back to the truck, belted Tina
safely into it, and started around to open the door for Fancy, only
to find her hopping into the truck without his help. He felt cheated.
Even though it wasn’t a formal date, he wanted it to be.

“So where’s this wagon train going tonight?” he asked.

“To Cracker Barrel. I’ve got a yearning for dumplings, and I
can’t make them,” she said.

A smile tickled the corners of Theron’s mouth. He’d rehearsed
his speech several times that day, but he didn’t want to deliver it
until after he’d taken Fancy to dinner.

“So what did the ladies talk about today?” he asked.

“Well, Pansy has a new beau. Tandy’s hairstyle brought lots of
compliments at her club meeting. Myrle’s decided to go less red
with highlights now so that maybe she can catch a square-dancin’
hot dude-her words, not mine. Other than that it was the regular
fare of who’s cheating on whom, who got caught, and all that smalltown stuff.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. Small-town stuff. Grapevine gossip. You
know what I’m talking about. Don’t the teachers in your school
gossip during recess and in the hallways?”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t know.”

“Well, they sure do in the beauty shop. But I’m talking when I
shouldn’t be. What’s said in the beauty shop stays in the beauty
shop. It’s a rule I cut my teeth on, and Granny really would rise
from her ashes if she heard me repeating a word of beauty-shop
talk. So let’s talk about something else. Did you … find a sitter?”
The words came out like bitter gall.

“I … well … I … ,” he stammered.

“You didn’t, did you?” She shot him a look. After another week
with Tina, it would take the Navy SEALS to separate her from
Fancy. Tonight was supposed to be the last one. She’d already allotted until dawn the next day to cry a river of tears.

Theron put on the right-turn blinker in Moran and took a small
state road to the west. “About that sitter?”

“Yes?” Fancy folded her arms over her chest. Her heart almost
stopped while she waited.

“I checked out the day care, and I can’t do it. She’s been in one
her whole life, and I want her to have something more personal.
One lady was recommended to me. She’s fifty or so. Sweet old girl
who keeps two kids, and one of hers moved away, so she’s got room
for another one. I went to her house. Her husband is a lot older. He sits in front of the television smoking cigarettes. And there were
roaches in the kitchen.”

Fancy shivered.

“I was going to wait until after we ate, but here’s the deal. Leaving her with you makes her happy, so please say you’ll work for me.
I can pay you. You can move all your things to the ranch and live
there, or we can keep things like they are. I think maybe we’re at
the point now where you could take Sunday off so you could have
your friends thing. Think about it. Don’t give me an answer right
now. But please say you’ll do this, even if it’s just until you get the
house sold and have to leave.”

She stared straight ahead.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

“You said to think about it. I’m thinking. You said I don’t have
to give you an answer right now, so I’m waiting until we have
dinner.”

“Fair enough.”

She laid the pros and cons out in lists in her mind.

Pros:

1. She wouldn’t have to cry all night.

2. She wouldn’t have to worry about Tina breathing secondhand
smoke.

3. She couldn’t stand the idea of a roach touching Tina.

4. She would have every evening with Theron to get over her
silly infatuation.

5. She could still keep her beauty-shop hours.

Cons:

She couldn’t think of one, but while she was thinking she did
add a dozen more items to the pros list. Other than dying from
acute heartache when the job was finished, she couldn’t think of a
single reason why she shouldn’t take him up on the offer.

He pushed a button, and George Strait began to sing about rolling on the river of love. In spite of her determination to think and
not listen, she started wiggling her foot to the tempo. When she
looked in the backseat, Tina was moving her shoulders and wiggling all over.

“You like that one?” Fancy asked.

“Like to dance,” Tina said.

“When she’s a little older, would you set her up with dance
classes?” she asked Theron.

“Begging you to keep taking care of my daughter is my priority
today. Dance classes never entered my mind. Isn’t she a little
young for that kind of thing?”

He caught 1-20 at Baird. She thought about asking him to stop at
Sophie’s for a minute and running the idea of caretaking Tina by
her, but she was starving and was sure Tina was also.

Serves him right to sit and wonder, she thought.

“You going to answer me?” he asked.

“About what? You said I had until after dinner.”

“About how old she needs to be for dance lessons. Look at her.”

A fast song by Whitney Duncan was playing on the country radio station, and Tina was bopping along to the music.

“Oh, that. I’ve had first-graders who are in their second year of
dance already. Based on that, I suppose she’s still a little too
young, but you need to keep it in mind. She definitely likes music
and moving to it.”

“That could be because she’s with us right now. If she was
tossed in with a bunch of other kids, she might retreat to a corner,”
he said, a parent’s worries etched into his fine features.

“It’s just something to keep in mind for the future,” Fancy said
gently, touched at his concern for Tina.

“Then I will,” he said firmly.

A deep-voiced singer started a song about the people in the
black-and-white picture he was showing his grandson, and he kept
saying that if it looked like they were scared to death, his grandson should have seen it in color. She thought of the black-andwhite picture of Hattie and Orville. What would those shades of
gray show if they’d been in color? Was Hattie a blushing bride?
Was Orville’s coloring high and proud?

Had someone asked Fancy to put her thoughts into words, she
couldn’t have done it, but in that moment she knew that she had to
keep Tina as long as she could. She couldn’t bear for the child to
be raised by an indifferent sitter the way her momma had been
raised by a once-happy but then embittered mother.

They pulled up into the Cracker Barrel parking lot, and Theron
looked across at her, and as if reading her mind, he asked, “Had
enough time to think?”

“I’m hungry. Is there macky cheese?” Tina asked.

“Yes, baby, there sure is,” Fancy said.

Fancy’s mind still said, “no, no, no ” But her heart delivered a
much different message. She nodded.

`And your answer is … ?”

“Yes, yes, yes, macky cheese” Tina wiggled against the seat belt.

“Yes, I’ll do it,” Fancy whispered.

Her heart leaped.

I will tell you “I told you so,” her conscience chided.

“Thank you,” he said quietly but with evident feeling. “You
figure out a salary, and I’ll pay it. You’ve made this whole thing a
lot less traumatizing for her and a lot less hectic for me. I can’t tell
you how much I appreciate your doing this, Fancy.”

“Let’s go eat,” she said.

They were seated right away. Tina sat in a booster chair beside
Fancy and tried to see everything at once. Fancy didn’t need a
menu. Cracker Barrel meant chicken and dumplings, pinto beans,
and fried okra. Afterward she would have an apple dumpling, and
if Theron didn’t want to share it, she’d take what she couldn’t eat
home for breakfast.

After they ordered, Theron looked across the table at Fancy and
asked, “So, do you have a price in mind?”

“Honey, I’ve told you before, you can’t afford me. But let’s get
this over with so you can enjoy your supper. One, I don’t do windows. I want room and board and …”

“Okay.” He nodded. “I expect we can have them cleaned if they
get so dirty we can’t see the birds through them. What else?”

“You have to take us out on Friday night. Our choice, and I want a cleaning woman twice a month to do deep cleaning so I have
more time to cook and play with Tina.”

“You got it”

“Okay, then that’s settled. Let’s eat.”

She didn’t really need the money and could not envision taking
a paycheck for caring for Tina.

Theron studied her. “And the money?”

“I told you my price. Friday night supper even when there’s a
ball game on television. A cleaning woman and room and board,
and remember, I eat a lot. Besides, what are you going to pay Tina
to keep me company?”

She heard her name and looked up. “Tina stay with Fanny.”

“Look, Fancy, I can pay you. I’m not broke. I’m trying to put
everything I can toward the bank note, so if times get tough, I’ll
own the place, but I can certainly pay you.”

“It’s settled. Tina is going to take care of me, and I’ll take care of
her. Any more arguing, and I swear I’ll change my mind,” she said.

“Thank you is so little.”

“Remember that when we tight.”

He threw back his head and laughed raucously right there in the
restaurant. Several people turned to look in their direction. Tina
caught the infectious laughter and giggled. Fancy had no choice
but to join them.

A blue norther hit Albany the week before Christmas. Pansy
said it might be unexpected but it was unavoidable, since there
wasn’t anything but barbwire fences and mesquite trees to stop the
blasted cold wind. On Friday night Tina had another bad dream,
so Fancy awoke on Saturday morning with big brown eyes staring
up at her from the pillow right next to her. The wind whistled
through the trees, and the metal chimes hanging on the end of the
porch tinkled out a melody.

“Mornin’,” Tina said.

“Good mornin’ to you, sweetheart. Bad dream?” Fancy asked.

She nodded.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Don’t ‘member now.”

“Well, then, it’s time to get up and have some breakfast. Your
daddy will eat with us today. What do you want?”

Tina had come a long way in the three weeks since she’d come
to Theron. She was slowly becoming more flexible in her schedule. Some mornings she actually slept past seven o’clock. This
morning was one of them. When Fancy looked at the clock, she
was surprised to see that it was eight thirty.

She heard the front door open and Theron stomping around.
She sat up in bed and frowned. He never came in and out the front
door when he did early-morning chores. He used the back door. If
he’d tracked dirt and mud in on the hardwood floor, then he was
getting a royal piece of her mind. Friday-night supper didn’t pay
for keeping the hardwood shining.

She bounded out of bed, found an old red plaid flannel robe that Uncle Joe had left hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and
started down the hallway, barefoot and with Tina right behind her.
She stopped in her tracks when she got to the end of the hall.

Theron looked up and grinned from behind the branches of the
biggest cedar tree she’d ever seen. He had already stuck a stand on
the bottom and was fastening three screws that held it fast. While
they watched, he set it upright. It was at least seven feet tall, with
barely room between the top and the ceiling for an angel.

Tina clapped her hands and ran to touch the branches. “Is Santa
coming to my new house?”

“Yes, he is,” Theron said.