Lost Highways (A Valentine Novel) (27 page)

“Well…guess what I’m making? Tortilla soup. Daddy and Bill just love it, and they rave over my sopapillas, too. I’ll make both when you come up, and we’ll have a nice dinner before we go off to Lawton. Daddy and Bill are takin’ Jojo and having Larry Joe drive them up to Oklahoma City for the Quarter Horse Show finals, so they won’t be back here until late. Daddy won’t spend the night up there. He does not like to stay away from his own bed.”

“Rainey, I can’t get up there this weekend.”

“You can’t?”

“No, honey, I’m sorry. It turns out that Friday afternoon I have a meeting over at the med school to submit my application for the psychiatry residency program, and I’m pulling duty at the clinic Saturday. The guy who was supposed to be working just had a baby. Well, his wife did, early, and there are complications, and the only other doctor is getting married.”

“Oh.” Disappointment fell over her like wet wool. “Well, it’s good that you are gettin’ your application in to the school.” She pulled herself up straighter and tried to sound positive.

“Yes,” he said in a tired voice. “I’ll have to go through the interview, though, and get accepted.”

“Do you think there’ll be a problem?” He hadn’t mentioned this before.

“I don’t know. No. My dad has a lot of pull, but not so much he can keep me out of school forever. I’m just down right now. I had a woman in today whose mind is going, could be Alzheimer’s but possibly she’s getting overmedicated by her husband, who I’m pretty certain beats her. He admitted tying her to her bed. She’s sixty-two, appears ninety-two, and isn’t about to find any aid. The both of them have only each other, are ignorant and trapped there. It makes me feel helpless.”

“I’m sorry, Harry.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“I sure miss you, Rainey. I wish you were here. I think if you were here, I could believe, you know?”

She knew exactly what he was saying, but she didn’t understand how he could say that about her. She had such a hard time believing most of the time. How could it be that she could help him believe?

“I miss you, too, Harry. You help me believe. Can you come next weekend?”

“I think so. I’ll try for that.”

“I can’t come this weekend,” Harry said. “Fuel pump’s gone out in the Mustang.”

“Oh.”

“Rainey, I want you to consider marrying me. I want you with me. I love you, Rainey, and I believe you love me.”

Rainey didn’t know what to say. His frustrated and anxious voice echoed in her ears.

“Will you think about it, Rainey?”

“Yes.”

By and By

H
arry called and spoke about marriage a couple more times, and because they were both under strain, they had a few sharp words over the subject. Then Harry didn’t call for two days.

Rainey worried about this. She knew she had disappointed him in not saying yes immediately to his proposal. Her father, who since his heart attack had developed both a good ability to know what was going on and to speak his mind about it, said that men did not like to be held off.

He said, “You’d better know Harry takes your hemmin’ and hawin’ as rejection.”

“Daddy, I’m just bein’ practical. I don’t want to be rushed.”

To Rainey’s mind, love had only a small part in her decision, because love could die, she well knew. She did not intend for that to happen ever again. Any further marriage on her part was forever.

Then she began to believe she was being totally selfish, requiring Harry to be the one to travel up to Valentine, simply because she was most comfortable here now. And possibly she
was being very foolish, letting the chance of a lifetime pass her by because she was afraid of the future. She felt she and Harry needed some in-depth, face-to-face discussion about marriage.

After coming firmly to this conclusion Thursday morning, she went right in and asked Mr. Blaine if she could leave at noon and have Friday off, as well. As she had been steadily working past quitting time for some weeks, and he had once experienced what happened when he said no to such a request, he agreed. He would have his daughter come to fill in and pay her a pittance, saving the overtime he had been paying Rainey; he was thrilled with his idea.

“Daddy, I’m driving down to Houston to see Harry for the weekend,” she told her father when he stopped by on his daily walk, which was now up to a mile down to the drugstore, where he sat at the soda counter and had coffee before walking the mile back.

“It’s about time,” he said. “I’ll get your truck filled up and the oil checked.”

She waved to her father and Bill Yearwood and little Jojo standing side by side, with Roscoe sitting at their feet. “I’ll feed the horses,” Jojo said.

It was over six hours to Houston, windows rolled up tight, country music on the radio and a sack of snacks in the seat beside her. On leaving Valentine she ran the heater, but by Dallas she turned it off. She was heated by anxiety, she supposed, driving through the city at seventy and about bumper to bumper, too. Rainey thought no one worked in this city; they just drove around.

Upon stopping at a Texaco, she considered phoning Harry. She had planned to surprise him, but she worried a little about her sudden appearance being more of a complication to him. She decided against phoning, however, wanting to see his happy
surprise when she arrived. He would know she was not rejecting him then. That her reservations had nothing to do with not loving him, but that there was so much more to consider than that. It would be good for him to see her in his environment, to make certain he liked what he saw.

It was dark and raining when she came into Houston. She peered at exit signs and eventually pulled off the highway to turn on the light in the cab to read the map. While she found her way to Harry’s apartment, the rain stopped.

It was the sort of town-house-style complex where one had to drive past an entry guard building, although there was no one in the building. The little building did not look terribly inviting, just a box, really, so possibly the apartment people had never been able to get a guard on a lasting basis and had simply given up. It would have been nice to have someone there to direct her, but eventually she found Harry’s apartment and pulled nose-in to the front curb.

Her truck did not at all fit in these surroundings, and love would not change that, she thought. It could overcome it, though, she told herself in a positive voice.

She didn’t see a red Mustang, which he’d said he was driving now. Maybe he parked it over beneath the shelters, and it was too dark over there to identify cars. Drapes were pulled over his front window, so she could not see any light within.

All during the drive down, her mind had drawn up in great detail how Harry would greet her with a happy cry and sweep her into his arms. She thought of this now, shaking, as she got out of her truck and went to his front door. There was a bell, and she rang it and waited.

She heard no sound from within. The door did not fly open. She checked her watch, saw it was before eight. Perhaps this was his night to work until nine at the clinic. She had known this could be the case but had dismissed it with a hope.

She rang the bell again, waited, and then went back to her truck, trying hard to hold her shoulders up.

With some difficulty, she backed her pickup, much too large for the small parking arena. She saw only two other pickup trucks, parked down at the end of the row of sporty, low-slung, expensive-type vehicles.

The thought that maybe she should not have come tried to take hold and she banished it.

At a 7-Eleven down the street she asked directions to Harry’s hospital, which entailed driving through quite a bit of the city and took her some time, as she made at least one wrong turn. At last, with great relief, she pulled into the lot in front of the clinic, where parking was a lot easier. That she did not see a red Mustang caused her some concern.

“Dr. Furneaux isn’t here,” the young woman at the desk told her and gazed at her curiously.

Rainey explained that she was a friend from out of town. “Do you happen to know where I might find him? I’ve tried his apartment.”

“I’ll see.” The young woman stepped out a rear doorway, calling someone named Charlie.

Rainey looked at the big clock, and then over at a man reading a
People
magazine. It was odd because the magazine was upside down. The waiting room was nicer than she had imagined.

The young woman returned and said that she could not say where Dr. Furneaux was. “All we know is that he isn’t on the schedule until Monday at noon.

“Oh. Thank you.”

She went back out to her truck, got into the seat and sat there for some minutes. She could not believe this had happened. He had off until Monday at noon. Why hadn’t he told her that?

She drove back over to his apartment, rang the bell again and
knocked hard. He could have been out to supper or shopping, or visiting a friend. There was no reason to panic.

But she
was
panicking. She could feel a tightness taking hold of her spine and spreading across her shoulders. Tears threatened, and she breathed deeply to stave them off.

When no one answered the door, she got back into her pickup and sat there for an hour. Then she drove back to the 7-Eleven and used the pay phone to call home. Bill Yearwood answered, and she had to yell into the receiver; she did not know why he insisted on answering the telephone. Bill put her father on the line, and Rainey asked if Harry happened to be there.

“Why, no.”

“Has he called?”

“No, he hasn’t called.”

“Did you check the answering machine? Maybe he called when no one was there and left a message.”

Her father checked. “Nope, no messages. Are you in Houston? Isn’t Harry there?”

“He wasn’t at his apartment. But he may come any time.”

When she hung up, she began to shake. She was very close to tears. She went back to her truck, wishing very much for Roscoe to be there waiting for her. Then she thought of calling Harry and went back to the phone.

When his answering machine picked up, she hung up, not knowing what to say. She got back into her truck and started off, not really knowing where she would go. She ended up going back to Harry’s apartment and sitting in the truck in front of it, hoping he would show up and forming a new picture in her mind of how it would go—unless he showed up with a woman, a horrible suspicion she wished would leave her alone. She began to wonder a little if one of the neighbors might call the police on her. After sitting there for an hour, she gathered what strength she had left and drove to a La Quinta she had seen on the way into the city.

From her room there, she telephoned Harry’s apartment and when his machine picked up, left a message that she was in town and gave the La Quinta phone number and her room. Then she telephoned home, her heart hoping that Harry himself would answer.

“I’m sorry, Little Bit, but Harry isn’t here, and he hasn’t phoned.”

“Did I get a letter from him today?”

“No…let me look at the mail again. No, hon. Are you all right?”

She told him that she was, using a very capable tone of voice, and gave him the number of the La Quinta.

Then she flopped down on the bed and cried. Eventually she lay there wondering where Harry was and going back over their last conversation, which had been tense. But they hadn’t fought. If he had been going on a trip, surely he would have told her. Maybe he started up for Valentine and his car had broken down. Or maybe he’d had another wreck. What if it had been a bad wreck and he’d been killed? Who would know to tell her? Had he told anyone about her?

She got the phone book out to look for Furneauxs. There were four, but she did not call any. Midnight was not a time to be calling people, and likely, if any of them turned out to be Harry’s family, they would think she was nuts.

If he had gone off without telling her, she supposed he hadn’t wanted to tell her. What if she had needed him for something? What if she had suffered a car wreck or turned up with some serious disease? If they had a relationship close enough to speak about marriage, wasn’t the relationship close enough to keep in touch, just in case something like that happened? It seemed that if that was the case, he should have called her and apprised her of his plans.

If she didn’t hear from him by Monday, she would call the clinic, just to make certain he was alive. But she would not speak to him. She would never speak to him again.

Sometime in the night she fell asleep, still in her clothes, and when she awoke the next morning, well after eight, her eyes were nearly swollen shut from crying. After placing a cold cloth over her eyes for five minutes, she was able to dial Harry’s phone number but only got his answering machine again. She didn’t leave a message.

She showered, got dressed and touched up the chipped paint on a thumbnail, and went to the restaurant next door for breakfast. There was no message waiting on her return. Still, she called Harry’s apartment once more, and then called home, where her father again said that Harry had not called.

“I guess I’ll come home, Daddy,” she said.

She drove straight home without calling again. From down the street, she saw there was no red Mustang in her drive. When she pulled into the driveway, Roscoe came to greet her. Her father came out the door with an anxious expression on his face, so she didn’t have to ask if Harry called.

Telling him she was very tired, she went straight to her room and went to bed. Maybe Harry felt rejected because she had not immediately accepted his proposal, but she did not think he needed to behave in this fashion. This just showed his true colors. The least he could have done was call her.

She hoped he had not been killed in a car wreck.

She could not believe that she had driven round-trip to Houston for a man.

“Oh, Mama, I am heartbroken. I wish you were here.” She wondered if she would ever get over longing for her mother.

She wondered if she would ever get over Harry.

Late the following morning, Charlene came into her room with a cup of tea and told Rainey to sit up. “Drink this tea, and I will give you a manicure.” Charlene did beautiful nails.

“There’s no need to think the worst, Rainey,” Charlene admonished her.

Rainey simply looked at her, which didn’t stop Charlene from expounding on how Harry had not known she was coming, and he might have done something as simple as gone fishing.

Rainey acknowledged that this was true, but she could not imagine Harry fishing.

After Charlene was done with her nails, Rainey felt sufficiently capable to take Jojo out back for a lesson on the filly. Later, when Charlene and Jojo had left, her father came into the kitchen with two yellow roses. He told her they were the last ones for the year and remarked on how the roses seemed to produce heavily and long this year.

“Your mother always said smelling roses lifted her spirit,” he said, putting the roses right under her nose.

Rainey obligingly inhaled. “Thank you, Daddy.”

She listened for the telephone, but it did not ring, not even once for Daddy or Bill Yearwood, or even a wrong number. She thought of telephoning Harry’s apartment but refused to allow herself to do so.

Harry never did call.

He came, at sunset.

She was out at the corral, feeding Lulu and the filly, when something caused her to look up. There he came, walking toward her across the dead grass. She had to look twice to make certain she truly saw him and that he was not a figment of her imagination, like one of those scenes out of a romantic movie. When she saw Roscoe run to meet him and then dance in circles around him, she knew he was real.

He wore a sweater and jeans, and his hat, which she did not allow her gaze to light on. She noticed his easy stride, a saunter, really, which sparked her anger.

He said, of all things, “Hello, beautiful lady.”

She tossed aside the empty bucket of grain and strode past him and straight for the house.

“Rainey? What’d I say?”

She did not answer, let the screen door bang, passed her father gaping at her and went on up to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Flopping down on the side of the bed, she stared at the rug. She had been rude. She was being ugly and crazy and petulant. But she was filled with emotions that she couldn’t sort out.

She heard Harry’s footsteps come up the stairs; she could tell them from her father’s footsteps.

He knocked at the door. “Rainey?”

After a moment, she said, “I can’t talk to you now.”

He hovered outside the door. “Your dad told me about you going down to Houston. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Rainey, come out and let me talk to you.”