Laura Ray (Ray Series) (3 page)

Samantha smiled, “I think our kids are pretty unique, but you know what? We raised them to be. I’m going to take the optimistic view of it and say that no news is good news.”

“I’m feeling optimistic about it, too.” Laura agreed. “Just the same, when Christmas comes and I see her little skinny self walk through that door. I’ll feel better.”

Feeling relieved after hanging up with Samantha, Laura decided to put her mind on her own problems for a moment. She thought about John’s old truck that she had been driving. Probably seeing that Mrs. Nelson at
the PTO meeting Laura speculated brought it to mind that she really didn’t like to drive that old truck. Now was as good a time to do something about it as any other.

Saturday morning Laura drove the old truck to the used car dealership that Mrs. Nelson’s husband owned to see what might be available. A man met her in the front lot with a smile. Three hours later Laura emerged driving a used 1955
Chevy Bel Air, two door hardtop with a 350 V8 engine, four speed transmission, with a/c and heater, and India ivory and regal turquoise in color. They took John’s old truck plus two hundred of her savings and left her with a nice little car payment. She had never had a/c before and she felt good driving it. With her job she should have no trouble making the payments.

When Danny saw the car he was
ecstatic. “Wow! That’s the coolest car! Can I drive it?” He walked around the car admiring it.

Laura laughed. “Maybe
. Some day.”

Not to be deterred he asked, “Can we go for a ride?”

“Okay,” Laura readily agreed, anxious to get behind the wheel again.

She drove all the way to Claremore with the windows rolled up enjoying the air conditioner. Danny kept licking his lips, “Mom, I can almost taste the cold air like a drink of ice water.”

Laura laughed,
what a treat driving this car was
!

Then she thought, why not really treat them, “What do you think about eating at the
Hammet House?” She shrugged, “Since we’re here anyway.” She felt like being luxurious, something she had never done before. John always frowned on eating out when she could cook something at home.

As they were escorted to their table
Laura took a deep breath, relishing in the freedom to make her own choices. She looked around at the tables and saw real flowers on the tables. Large pictures adorned the walls all around them. Globed lights hung by a spindle from the ceiling over each table just giving enough light to eat but also providing the right amount of privacy for each set of guests. A waitress came to the table with cold glasses of water and took their orders. Laura and Danny both smiled at each other like naughty children. It was so exciting to eat food that someone else cooked and at the end you could walk out and leave them the dirty dishes.

Funny
, Laura thought after they got in the car and started home, I never felt oppressed by John when he was alive. We had so much love that all we wanted was to be together. Now I wonder what I have missed all these years. She thought for a minute, “Danny, I have never been to the drive-in to watch a movie. What do you think about having Aaron spend the night Friday night and the three of us go to the movies?”

“Yea, Mom! Wow! This is so cool!”

Samantha and Laura conferred with each other again later. They both had kept their fingers crossed for weeks waiting for the words that Nora was pregnant. Apparently they protected themselves because neither of them heard anything.

“I know that Nora and Jeremy will be coming home for Christmas,” Laura stated.

Laura laughed, “You’re right. All our curiosity will be satisfied then. By the way, I’ve been thinking.
If our kids are going to brush aside traditional conventions such as getting married before, well, you know what. I wondered if we should encourage them to get married before they go back to college.”

“I don’t know,” Laura said hesitantly, “I know that they can’t support themselves. They live clear across country from each other so there’s not a lot of danger except when they are home for breaks.”

“You’re right. I was just thinking, well, worrying anyway.” Samantha allowed. “As a mother, it’s hard to step back and let your children make their own decisions.”

“That’s for sure,” Laura agreed.

Laura said excitedly to Samantha, “Wait until you see me driving around town! I bought a new car!”

“Wow! Good for you. You needed a car instead of that old beat up pickup to drive. I hope you have many pleasurable hours driving that car,” Samantha declared, happy for her.

Danny came home one afternoon with a black eye and a few scrapes and bruises. He hurried to the bathroom before Laura had a chance to stop him and ask questions. He took a long bath and didn’t come out until Laura called him to supper. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it.

“Danny,” Laura began, “Are you okay?”

“Sure, Mom.”
Danny looked up at her with his sky blue eyes all guileless.

“What happened?”

He shifted his eyes to the right and then to the left before answering. He looked down at his plate. “I had a bike wreck.”

“What about
Aaron?” She asked, “Did he have a bike wreck, too?”

“Yes,” Danny answered.

Laura let the subject drop. If both of the boys had a bike wreck, there’s a whole lot more to this story.

After Danny went to bed, Laura called Mary, Aaron’s mother on the phone. “Did Aaron come home all scratched up?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he did,” Mary answered.

“What did he say happened?” Laura asked.

“He said that he had a bike wreck.”

“Well,” Laura responded, “Danny also said he had a bike wreck. He also has a bunch of scrapes and bruises and a black eye.”

“At that rate, I think our boys have some explaining to do,” Mary said. “It sounds like they agreed what their story should be.”

Mary told Harold, her husband what Laura said on the phone. Harold thought a minute and advised, “I think you should
give the boys a little room to work out their own problems.”

Mary called Laura back and told her what Harold said.

“Okay,” Laura answered. “He knows boys and their problems much better than I do. I’m willing to take his advice.”

“Okay, then,” Mary agreed
guardedly. “Me, too.”

When Laura went to work the next day,
she still had that worried look on her face. She put her purse in her bottom drawer and placed her jacket on the back of her chair and sat down to collect the papers she placed in her tray when she left the night before.

Mr. Hudson came and noticed the worried look on her face. He said, “Is everything okay?”

Laura looked up at him with a smile on her face, “Sure, Mr. Hudson, everything’s fine.”

He walked back to his office knowing that everything wasn’t just fine. He wondered what he could do to give her some comfort.

Laura continued to work hard all day to keep her mind off Danny and his troubles. By the end of the day, she felt pretty cheerful.

She went home with a new resolve. Danny was a big boy now and he could handle this situation.

She went into the kitchen charged. She stirred up a cake and set it in the oven. She put some ribs in the oven to bake since she had the oven hot. Baked potatoes sounded nice and a broccoli casserole went in the oven next. The cake was done so she set on a potholder to cool on the cabinet. She stirred up some icing to set until the cake cooled enough to ice. Well, why not, she reasoned with herself. The oven is hot, so she made some homemade biscuits.

Danny came home while she was pulling out the biscuits.

“Whoa!” he said in shock when he saw what all she had cooked. “Are we having company?”

She nonchalantly rubbed her arm back and forth from her wrist to her elbow while she looked at what all she had cooked. “No.”

“Mom, we are going to have leftovers for a week!” Danny declared walking up and down the cabinet looking at all the goodies. He turned around and gave her a hug, “Really good leftovers.”

Chapter Three

Mary encouraged Laura to wear a costume to the Halloween carnival. She wracked her brain wondering what to wear. She hadn’t dressed up for Halloween in so many years she couldn’t remember when. She fretted about it for days looking in Nora closet, John’s clothes, which she reminded herself it was time to donate, and then through her own things again. Danny came to her rescue and suggested that she go as a boy.

At first she rejected the idea, “No, I don’t think I can do that.”

He became very persuasive stating, “Mom, you have lost so much weight since Dad died that you could wear my clothes. Here is a pair of shorts that I wear when I play sports and this is the tee shirt I wear with it. The shirt had emblems of football all over the back and a football on the left shoulder in the front. Tuck your hair up and wear my cap over it.” He pushed her hair up and stuck the cap on her head. “See like this,” he said. She looked in the mirror finally understanding what Danny was getting at.

She grinned and nodded. She could put some freckles on her face with a little eyebrow pencil and some long socks that reached to her knees. Yep, she was sure she could pull this off.

She walked to her booth on Saturday night ready to work her hour. Mary already stood in the booth assisting children with the games they were playing. Mary had placed a hat on her head and let her hair string down and had stuffed a small pillow under a belt which she must have borrowed from Harold. Laura walked into the booth to start working when Mary turned with a frown on her face ready to tell her to get out. Laura gave her a big smile when comprehension hit Mary.

It tickled Laura’s funny bone as she watched Mary’s frown turn to confusion to comprehension and to surprise. “Come right over here.” Mary said
recovering herself. “You look just like a boy. I thought I was going to have to call the principal over here to run you off.”

Before they left Aaron brought a man to their booth. “Look who I found walking around, Uncle
Arthur.” He stood near six feet tall, maybe an athletic man, lean and trim. He had a direct way of looking at you with his hazel eyes that either captivated you or turned you away.

Laura not sure what she thought
, felt a little of both. She wanted to keep looking but too embarrassed to do so. She glanced down at the game pieces on the table before them and began moving them around. Mary spoke up happily and said, “Laura, I would like for you to meet my brother, Arthur Bailey. Remember I told you one day at my house that he was my brother when you saw his picture?”

“Sure,” Laura remembered seeing a man in a soldier’s uniform but she didn’t pay much attention to it. She smiled and shook the man’s hand.
“So nice to meet you.”

Mary spoke up again, “Arthur plans to stay here in Pryor and open up a mechanic shop.”

“Very nice,” she said perfunctorily.

The next set of parents arrived to take over the booth. Mary and Laura started walking away when Mary said, “We’re having a barbeque at our house on Saturday. How about you and Danny come over?”

Laura stopped and said wiggling her finger back and forth, “You aren’t playing matchmaker between you know.”

“Oh, no,” Mary shook her head innocently. “I meant just your family and mine.”

“Okay, what do you want me to bring?”

“How about some cookies?”
Mary suggested.

The weather turned bad. It wasn’t so cold but it was rainy and the wind blew making it miserable to be outside. The barbeque was held inside with Harold running outside to the barbeque pit every few minutes to check on the meat. It smelled delicious. Laura showed up with a large platter of peanut and chocolate chip cookies.

Sure enough Arthur came. Laura cornered Mary in the kitchen and in a hoarse whisper she said, “You said that only your family and mine were coming.”

Mary defensively answered in a hoarse whisper, “So. Arthur is part of my family.”

Laura held up her pointy finger and said, “You tricked me.”

Mary ducked away from Laura and smiled, “So! Enjoy!”

Laura followed Mary back to the table trying to put her unwilling smile back on her face.

The dinner was delicious as they knew it would be in spite of the rain and wind. After the meal the boys found something to do in Aaron’s room and Harold pulled out a deck of cards. The women cleared the table and the game began.

Somewhere along the way Arthur mentioned that after he got his mechanic shop in full swing, he intended to start a Kuk Sool Won Karate class. He hoped that Aaron and Danny would like to join up.

Laura noncommittally answered for him to let her know when he had it ready and she would talk to Danny.

After a while Mary placed the cookies on the table and more sodas. They played until Danny came in complaining, “Mom, I’m tired. Do you mind if I spend the night with Aaron? I want to go to bed.”

Laura sat up straight as if awakened and looked at the clock.
She scrambled up from the table. “I apologize. I had no idea it was so late.”