Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] (8 page)

“You might want to put up a warning for folks to take special notice of their animals.”

“I'll do that and I'll spread the word about Andy. We'll hold a prayer vigil for him.”

“He would appreciate it. What does he owe you?”

Mr. White pulled a tin box from under the counter, thumbed through the tabs and pulled out one of them.

“Andy's good pay. Never lets his bill go over a couple months. Right now it's nineteen dollars and sixty-two cents. That's as high as it usually gets.”

“This will cover his back tab.” Yates pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off two ten-dollar bills. He then placed two more bills on the counter. “Leona will be in soon to buy some supplies. Cover it with this and put whatever is left over on an account for when she comes in again.”

Mr. White eyed the bills. “Why, that's mighty decent of ya, Mr. Yates.”

“Not at all. I owe Andy more than this. Oh, by the way. Don't tell Leona about the money on account until you fill her bill. Women can be pretty stiff-necked at times. If you know what I mean.”

“Yes, sir. I know what you mean.” Mr. White turned to place a can on the shelf behind him. “Miss Dawson charges very little to Andy's account. Andy and his girls usually come in with a list.”

Miss Dawson. So that's her name.

“How long has she been out there with Andy?”

“Let me see. It must be 'bout three years now. I don't rightly remember.” He reached for a paper sack, folded it and placed it in the holder.

Yates waited. It was obvious the man didn't want to discuss Leona Dawson. When it became apparent Mr. White would say no more, Yates picked up a pack of chewing gum and placed it on the counter.

“I'll take this and a dozen peppermint sticks.” After the candy was put in a sack, he paid Mr. White, thanked him and headed for the door. Before he reached it, Leona and the girls came into the store.

“Mr. Yates,” JoBeth yelled and ran to him. “What did you buy?”

“JoBeth!” Leona hissed. “That's not polite.”

“I bought chewing gum,” Yates said, ignoring Leona. “Want some?” He opened the package and offered it to each of the girls, who took a stick, then offered it to Leona, who shook her head.

He watched her chin lift and her eyes move away from him as he put the rest of the package in his shirt pocket. Today she wore a blue checked dress with puffed sleeves. It hugged her breasts and narrow waist. He didn't like the small-brimmed straw hat that sat at an angle on her head. It covered too much of her hair and offered practically no shade. He noticed a few freckles on her nose and that she had added a faint color to her lips, which were pressed so tightly together that the dimple in her cheek flirted with him.

“Where'er you goin now, Mr. Yates?” JoBeth was again pulling on his hand while Ruth Ann looked out the door, embarrassed by her sister's questions.

“I think I'll go back to the house and eat all the pralines that are left.” His twinkling eyes reluctantly left Leona to look down at the child. He saw that the smile had faded from her small face. “I'm kidding, honey. I'll not eat a bite of it until you get back.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. But don't tarry long. Your aunt promised me biscuits for dinner.”

“Don't worry. You'll have them,” Leona gritted between clenched teeth.

“See you back at the house, ladies.” Yates tipped his hat to Leona even though she had her face turned away.

Yates left the store wondering why the smile had left Mr. White's small pinched features when he spoke about Leona, and why she had looked like she had rather be any place in the world but where she was.

On the way down the street to his car he passed the hardware store, paused and wondered what she would say if he bought a tin oven to set on top of the kerosene burner she was using this morning. He stood looking into the window balancing the pros and cons.

When she built a fire in the cookstove and the temperature outside was in the nineties, the heat in the kitchen would be almost unbearable. She would be sure to bake biscuits every day because he had expressed a liking for them. He didn't like to think about her sweating over a hot cookstove. On the other hand, she would resent his buying the oven, not wanting to be further obligated to him.

What the hell.
Yates went into the hardware store. She was going to be mad as a wet hen anyway when Mr. White told her the grocery bill was paid. She might as well be mad about two things while she was at it.

Yates was changing a tire, and Mr. Oliver was putting gas in a car when Leona and the girls returned from town. In order to avoid Yates, Leona drove past the house and parked the car beside the barn. She and the girls went into the house by the back door.

“What's that?” The first thing Ruth Ann saw on entering the kitchen was the shiny portable oven sitting on the kerosene stove. She opened the door, peered inside, then answered her own question. “It's an oven, Aunt Lee.”

Leona, taking off her hat, didn't answer. She was hammering down the anger that had bubbled up because she knew what it was and who had put it there.

“Where'd it come from?” JoBeth opened the door to the oven and closed it with a bang.

“Stop! You'll break it,” Ruth Ann said irritably. “Where'd it come from?” She repeated her sister's question.

“Maybe the tooth fairy left it?”

Leona's sarcasm didn't register with the girls. She was already so mad she could chew nails over the way Mr. White, with a sly smile, told her that Andy's
cousin
had left money on account at the store and how pleased she must be to have a man there to look after
her
while Andy was gone.

“Maybe Daddy came home!” JoBeth ran toward the front door.

“No, honey. Daddy didn't come home,” Leona said hurriedly. “It probably belongs to Mr. Yates, and he's going to let us use it for a while.”

“He's nice. I like him.”

“ 'Cause he gave her gum,” Ruth Ann said knowingly to her aunt.

“He didn't eat all the candy,” JoBeth said in Yates's defense after she peered beneath the cloth covering the platter.

“You can't have any now. It will spoil your dinner. Now change your dress and go out and play while I get it ready.”

“Do I have to change my dress?”

“Of course you do. That's your Sunday dress.”

Leona desperately wanted to be alone. Her nerves were usually strung tight after a trip into town. She would never get over the hurt and the humiliation of being shunned by people she had known all her life. Now that the news was out about Andy being in the hospital and a
cousin
staying with them, the gossips would have a heyday. They would be sure that she was sleeping with him, just as they were sure she had been sleeping with Andy.

She stood in the middle of the kitchen after the girls went out and pressed her palms to her hot cheeks. Heat had come up her neck to cover her face when she recalled that Mr. White had raised his brows when he told her that Andy's
cousin
had already paid for her purchases. Then, with his back to her, he had informed her that the
cousin
had wanted to know how long she had been
living
with Andy.

After she set the few items that she had chosen to buy back on the shelves, she squared her shoulders, looked him in the eye and told him that Andy's
cousin
would be taking them to Oklahoma City to see Andy, and that they would stop on their way back and do their grocery buying in Elk City.

She had been pleased to see that her words had shaken the narrow-minded, opinionated man. She hoped he stewed all day about what his loose words might have cost him. It had taken all the willpower Leona possessed to leave the store with her head up. Now, alone, she couldn't keep the tears from her eyes.

It was too much!
Cousin
had bought an oven to go on the kerosene stove.

“Aunt Lee! Aunt Lee!” The front door slammed behind JoBeth. “Mr. Yates fixed the swing. I'm playin with the camper kids.”

“That's good, honey.” Leona bent over the washdish in the dry sink. “Run along. I'll call you for dinner.”

Leona dabbed at her eyes with the towel, but the tears would not stop coming. Through a blur, she built a fire in the cookstove. Damned if she would use his darned old oven! She didn't know how to use it anyhow. Standing at the tin sink, she peeled several potatoes then sliced them into the iron skillet she had set directly over the flame after she had removed the round stove lid.

Cousin
would get the warmed-over pork chops he hadn't eaten last night, and she would make his damn biscuits.

In the large granite bowl, she made a well in the flour and added salt, baking powder and a lump of lard. After adding the buttermilk, she wiped her eyes before she began mixing in the flour with her hand. She had done this a million times and didn't even have to think about what she was doing. The dough was about ready to pinch off and put in the baking pan when Yates's voice came from the doorway.

“Leona?”

She straightened her shoulders quickly and made a hasty swipe at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“What?” Thank God, her back was to him.

“The ice man is here.”

“He knows what to do.”

“Do I pay him?”

“Pay him out of what you've taken in and write it down.” She pinched off dabs of dough and formed them with her hands before putting them in the pan. “I'll call you when dinner is ready.”

Silence. Her nerves screamed when she heard him leave the doorway and come toward her. He didn't stop until he was standing over her. She kept her head bent over the dough.

“Why aren't you using the oven I bought?”

“Because I don't want to!” she snapped.

He reached out and cupped her chin in his palm and turned her face to him. “Why are you crying?”

“That's none of your damn business!” She spoke from between clenched teeth because of his grasp on her jaw. Dammit, she wished she could deny that she was crying, but she couldn't with tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Are you crying over the oven?”

“Get out of this kitchen,
Cousin.”
Her eyes, bright with tears and anger, glared at him. Tears had spiked her lashes.

“It's just a loan. I'll take it when I go.”

“You just had to impress Mr. White, didn't you,
Cousin?
I'm sure you did the same when you bought that
thing
from Mr. Hayes at the hardware.”

“I thought claiming to be Andy's cousin would give some legitimacy to my being here.”

“Oh, yeah! That helped
me
a lot. Now …get the hell away from me or … or I'll hit you with this dough!” She lifted the ball of dough she was holding.

“You don't seem the type of woman to swear.” His voice was barely above a whisper. His eyes stared into hers, because she was too proud to look away.

“You don't know anything about me, but if you hang around long enough you'll find out. Turn loose of me and don't put your hands on me again!” Tears that rolled down her cheeks now rolled over the hand beneath her chin. She was so humiliated she wanted to die.

“I only wanted to make things easier for you.” He released her chin and walked quickly out of the room.

Leona dropped the dough back in the bowl and grabbed a towel to wipe her face. She was disgusted with herself for crying and hated herself for doing it in front of
him.
With worry over Andy and having to deal with that exasperating man, the trip to the grocery store had been too much for Leona.

Long ago she had stopped going to church. She took the girls, dropped them off, then returned for them. If they were ever questioned about their daddy living in “sin” with
that
woman, they never mentioned it.

Maybe she should have married Andy when he asked her a couple of years ago. She cared for Andy as she cared for his children. He was the best friend she'd had since her sister died. She was sure that he felt the same about her. He had asked her to marry him when they first heard the gossip about them although they both knew that they didn't love each other like a man and woman who wanted to marry. He was trying to protect her reputation, but it was already too late.

She had urged him to wait and see what happened. Most folks didn't treat Andy any differently. They realized that he needed someone to take care of his girls. So as time passed, with Virgil's constant harping on her living here with an unmarried man, she had become the “scarlet woman” of Sayre, Oklahoma.

Working automatically, she put the biscuits in the oven and, with her tin-can chopper, chopped an onion in with the potatoes frying in the skillet. While they cooked, she set the table for Yates and the two girls. When the biscuits were almost ready to take from the oven, she went to the door and called to the girls.

“Tell Mr. Yates his dinner is ready, then come in and wash.”

The girls were all smiles. They had been playing on the swing with the camper's children. They went to the basin in the tin sink. A little later, as Leona was putting the last of the food on the table, she looked out the window to see that Yates was at the wash bench on the back porch. Just as she had done for Andy, she had put warm water in the basin, a cake of lye soap in the soap dish and a towel nearby.

Leona was leaving the room when Yates came in the back door. “I'll tend the gas pump while you're eating.”

“Mr. Oliver is out there.”

“Mr. Oliver doesn't work here. We don't even know him.”

When she left the room he was still standing in the doorway. The girls were standing behind their places at the table, wide-eyed and silent.

Leona went down the path and into the back door of the garage and out the big double doors. Mr. Oliver was pumping air in a tire tube.

“Howdy, ma'am.” He put his fingers to his hat brim.

“Hello. This breeze feels good. I'm glad to get out of that hot kitchen for a while.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I see that Mrs. Oliver got her washing done.” She nodded toward the campground, where the woman was taking dried clothes from the bushes where she had spread them to dry.

“Yes, ma'am. Don't take long to dry on a day like this.” Mr. Oliver came to Leona and held out a folded bill he took from a pocket in his overalls. “I found this over by the gas pump this mornin', ma'am. Mr. Yates said it weren't his. He counted his money to be sure then told me to keep it, but I don't feel right about it.”