Beauty and the Mustache (9 page)

Momma woke up just briefly
when she was wheeled into the den. Her eyes were foggy and
unfocused as she glanced around the room.

She asked, “Where are
Mother’s things? Daddy’s desk?”

I leaned over her bed and held her hand. “We
moved them out so we could keep you on the first floor but also
give you some privacy.”

She nodded then stared at
me. “Ashley, I have to tell you something, and it’s really
important.”

I squeezed her hand and
braced myself. “I’m listening, Momma.”

“
The only thing that helps
a baby through teething pain is bourbon on the gums.” She then
closed her eyes and was asleep again within seconds.

I stared at her for a long
moment, replaying the words of wisdom in my head, and came to the
conclusion that she must’ve been half-dreaming.

“
Hi, I’m
Marissa.”

Still a little bewildered,
I turned and blinked at the very pretty, twenty-something woman
holding her hand out to me. She was in scrubs and comfy shoes, and
was obviously a nurse. She wore her dark brown hair in long, small
braids down her back, and her dark brown eyes were warm and
compassionate.

I took her hand. “Hi. I’m
Ashley, the daughter.”

“
Nice to meet you, Ashley.
I’ll be your mother’s day nurse Monday through Thursday. I’ll stop
in during the day. George comes on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
Tina and Joe will split the night shift.”

I nodded. “Okay. Just so
you know, I’m a nurse in Chicago—pediatric intensive
care.”

Her eyebrows lifted in
surprised delight. “I’m from Chicago! I grew up on the south side.
I just moved to Knoxville two months ago.”

Roscoe cleared his throat
from the place at my side where he’d suddenly appeared, drawing our
attention to him.

“
Hi. I’m Roscoe Winston.
Pleasure to meet you, Marissa.”

I lifted an eyebrow at the way he said her
name and the way he held her eyes and the way he leaned forward
with just a little too much swagger and southern charm.

She smiled at him like he
was a cute puppy and accepted his hand for a shake. “Nice to meet
you, Roscoe.” She turned her attention back to me. “I’m going to
get your mother settled and check her vitals.”

“
Sure. They should have
taken her to the den. It’s at the end of the hall.”

Marissa gave me a warm
smile then left to find the room where Momma would be
staying.

Roscoe turned his head and
watched her walk away. More precisely, he watched her bottom—in
baggy scrubs no less—as she walked away.

“
She’s new in town. I
wonder if I could show her around.”

I elbowed him in the side and gave him my
best disapproving scowl.

“
Ow! What did I
do?”

My voice was a harsh
whisper. “You’re flirting? With Momma’s nurse?”

He didn’t look at all
repentant. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

“
Why not?” I couldn’t
believe him. “Why not?! Aren’t you upset about Momma?”

Roscoe flinched and
appeared to be a little hurt by my words, but he held his ground.
“Of course I’m upset. Don’t be stupid. But that right there is an
exceptionally fine looking woman, and Momma being sick doesn’t mean
that I’m blind.”

“
Ugh! Men!” I shook my
head and turned to leave.

Roscoe caught me by the
arm and pulled me into the kitchen. “Now, hold your horses. Just
you listen for a sec.”

I pulled my elbow from his grip and crossed
my arms over my chest, glaring at him.

He didn’t appear to be
affected by my disapproving glower. “Who is it going to hurt, me
flirting with a pretty girl? Is Momma going to die faster?” I
flinched, but he pressed on. “Is it going to increase her pain?
Don’t give me that look, Ashley Austen Winston. You would have us
all dress in black and ring bells every fifteen minutes. I’m not
going to feel bad for admiring someone pretty. You were always too
serious for your own good.”

What he really meant was
that I was always too sensitive for my own good, and he was right.
But I’d toughened up over the last eight years. I’d fallen in love
twice, bludgeoned into it with all the bad sense of a girl with a
user for a father, and come out the other side determined to learn
from my mistakes.

I couldn’t flirt and have
it mean nothing, not like Roscoe could do. It was a defect in my
personality.

My neck became hot and
scratchy, and I felt tears gather behind my eyes.

He seemed to see or sense
that I was close to crying because he pulled me forward and wrapped
me in a hug. “Don’t cry. I always hated it when you
cried.”

I sniffled and squeezed my eyes shut. “You
did?”

“
Yes. Who do you think
left you bunches of wildflowers outside your door when Jethro or
the twins pissed you off?”

My arms came around his
torso and I rested my head against his shoulder. “That was you? I
always thought that was Momma.”

“
No, dummy, that was
me.”

I sucked in an unsteady breath and hugged
him tighter. “Thank you.”

“
You’re welcome.” He
kissed my hair then pushed me back a foot so he could look into my
eyes. “If you want to be miserable, there’s nothing I can do to
stop you. I’m miserable about losing her too, but I’m not going to
spend the next few weeks wringing my hands. I’m going to enjoy the
time she has left and live life like she always wanted us to do,
and that includes getting my flirt on with the scoop of chocolate
ice cream that just walked in the door.”

I choked out a laugh and
hit his shoulder. “Watch out, or I’ll tell Marissa you just called
her a scoop of chocolate ice cream.”

He shrugged. “That’s fine
with me. While you’re at it, find out what she thinks of
vanilla.”

***

I knew Sandra
and Elizabeth had arrived because I was awakened
from my nap by a sound, and it wasn’t one of those damn roosters
for once. It was a very specific kind of sound. It was the sound of
a man crying. And the sound woke me up.

I’d been dozing, curled up
on the recliner in the den next to my momma’s hospital bed. Judging
by the light outside, it looked to be close to sunset. The day’s
events had left me all the various kinds of tired: physically,
mentally, emotionally, and knitterly.

Knitterly tired is when
you’re too tired to knit. It’s a depressing and desperate place to
be.

I stretched, blinked the
tired haze from my eyes, and glanced around the room. A male
nurse—who I guessed was Joe —was sitting in the other recliner. It
had been pushed back a distance from the bed. He seemed to be
reading a newspaper in the dwindling light of the window. He was
older, maybe in his fifties, and looked more like an orderly than a
nurse. His head was bald, his neck was thick, his shoulders were
wide, and he had a tattoo of a dragon on his forearm.

Then, to my astonishment,
when I turned my head the other way, I found Drew sitting in a
wooden chair pulled up next to mine.

I frowned at
him.

He wasn’t looking at me.
He was looking at the book in his hands, which he was reading
aloud. I wondered for a split second that his voice hadn’t woken
me, but then I realized why. As much as I wanted everything about
him to be repugnant, his voice—especially while he read—was nice.
It was soothing, yet as I listened, I discovered it was also well
inflected. He enriched the text as he read.

This was terribly
inconvenient, as I’d promised myself I would leave Tennessee with
no admiration for Drew Runous.

“‘
Just that,’ said the
fox. ‘To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is
just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need
of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am
nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.’ Drew
glanced up, his eyes immediately finding mine. They flickered over
my face, taking in my sleepy appearance. Then, with no visible
change in his expression, he returned his attention to the book.
“‘But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you
will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all
the world.’”

He stopped reading, his
eyes lingering on the page before he closed the book, though he
held his place with a finger. I studied him unabashedly, likely
because I was still half-asleep, and it didn’t occur to me that
staring at him was weird.

Drew’s gaze lifted to
where Momma lay asleep in the bed. His expression was warm and
affectionate, and his voice gentle as he said, “Bethany, Ashley is
awake.”

I started, blinked at him,
then looked at my mother just in time to see her open her eyes. She
lifted her hand and gave me a little wave.

“
Hi, Baby,” she said with
a smile. “Did we wake you up?”

“
No. Something else did…I
think.” My voice was raspy from sleep.

Just then, the sound of a
sob sprang into the room, and I remembered that men were crying
someplace in the house. This, of course, reminded me that Sandra
had arrived.

Momma laughed lightly, her
grin growing as she looked at me. “I like your friends. Sandra is a
hoot.”

I returned her smile and reached for her
hand. “How long have you been up?”

“
Oh…a few hours I guess.
We’re good in here if you want to go say hi and visit. Your doctor
friend, Elizabeth, made everyone ravioli. It was real good. She
said her husband owns an Italian restaurant.”

“
Her mother-in-law owns
the restaurant.” I frowned because my mother knew all about
Elizabeth. I’d told her all about how Elizabeth had grown up with
Nico Moretti—now a famous comedian—and how they’d been married last
year in Las Vegas.

“
No matter who owns it,
she knows how to make really fine Italian food.”

“
It was really good.” This
came from the nurse in the corner.

My attention shifted to
him and I gave him a little wave. “Hi, you must be Joe. I’m
Ashley.”

He nodded, smiled. “Hey,
Ashley. You’re the nurse, right?”

“
Yep. That’s
me.”

“
Let me know if you have
any questions. I just checked your momma; she’s doing real good.”
Joe’s brown eyes shifted from mine to where my mother was sitting
up. He gave her a warm smile.

“
Thank
you, I will.” I said, considering this Joe
who was a nurse with a tattoo of a
dragon.

“
You should go thank her
for making dinner for your family,” Momma said. “I know she wants
to see you.”

I nodded, distracted by
Drew and the suspicion that my mother was losing her memory. Or
rather, I suspected the pain medication was making her
recollections fuzzy. I shifted to stand and noticed that a blanket
had been placed over me.

I frowned at the blanket then at Drew.

It seemed everything was
earning my frown of confusion.

“
Go on, get.” Momma
prompted, squeezing my hand then letting it go.

Drew didn’t move as I stood
to depart, so I was forced to walk past him in the tight space made
by our chairs, my bottom brushing his shoulder. Nor did he meet my
eyes. Instead, he opened the book, which I recognized as
The
Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and started again
where he’d left off—with talk of taming and need.

I shook off the lingering
Drew-disquiet, and my stomach rumbled as I walked. It was a
reminder that food was needed in order to function, and thankfully,
the smell of good food—garlic and fried onions—was wafting toward
me. I followed the smell of Italian food and the sound of crying
through the kitchen and into the dining room.

The scene that greeted me
was not unlike something from a Dr. Phil episode.

Sandra had Cletus and the
twins arranged in the family room—which was just off the dining
room—and was holding some kind of impromptu counseling session. Her
face was clear of expression, neither cool nor warm but rather
accepting, open, and interested.

The loud sobbing, I
realized almost immediately, was coming from Cleatus. He was
sitting in the chair closest to Sandra, and his face was buried in
his hands. She was rubbing his back, but her attention was affixed
to Beau, who also looked like he’d been crying at one point, but
now he seemed to have his expressions of sorrow under
control.

I didn’t want to interrupt
them. Sandra was an excellent psychiatrist, though she usually
treated only pediatric patients. It was obvious that my brothers
were receiving something from her that they needed, some kind of
catharsis. This was her modus operandi.

A throat cleared behind me
and caused me to jump. I turned and found Elizabeth standing at my
shoulder, an affectionate and sympathetic smile on her
face.

“
Hey, girl,” she
said.

“
Hey,” I said.

Then she pulled me into a
wrap-and-hold hug.