Love in a Small Town (26 page)

She regarded him intently. “I was talkin’ about us in the horse barn. When we made love for the first time.”

“I know that,” he said quickly. He looked at the barn again. The memory was fuzzy. The barn in memory had looked a lot bigger and more substantial. And the two people in his memory were distant strangers from the past.

Molly went to staring off into space again, and he looked down at his boot and toed the ground again. There they were, trapped in the fruitless silence.

“I thought you came to speak to me,” Molly said and in a tone that brought Tommy Lee’s head snapping up.

He said, “I am talkin’ to you. Are you in a hurry? . . . Have some place to go?”

“No. I just thought you ought to talk, if you came to talk.”

“Maybe I just came to stand here with you. Is that some sort of crime?”

“No. Except you did say you came to talk.”

He toed his boot, and Molly leaned against the fence, staring at the barn again. Then she said, “You didn’t remember the barn.”

“I remembered.”

She looked at him. “No, you didn’t. Would you just admit things? Just say things straight out? I never know where I stand with you because you won’t say things straight out.”

“When I say things straight out, you get mad at me. You ask a question and then you don’t like the answer. I don’t remember much of that time in the barn, okay? Geez, Molly, we’d necked hot and heavy a thousand times before, only that time it got out of hand. It happened twenty-five years ago and was over in about five seconds, and I was so horny and dizzy what memory I have is all fuzzy. I don’t count what happened in that barn all that much, not to times that came after.”

“Well . . . I’m glad you finally said exactly what you think.” She was righteous now.

He took a breath, raked a hand through his hair, and said, “Have you figured out anything yet—about us?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Have you?”

“I guess not.” He looked at her. “Do you want a divorce?”

“No,” Molly said breathlessly. “Do you?”

“No," he said hoarsely, and fell back into a steaming kind of silence, his mind casting around, having strange but powerful thoughts of grabbing Molly and shutting her up with his own lips and body, right there on the grass. Emotion tumbled and rolled inside him, like storm clouds trying to decide whether to erupt or blow over.

Molly felt the words coming and tried to hold them back—she shouldn’t do all the talking, she should listen, but her feelings were welling up, no matter that they didn’t seem coherent. She simply felt as if
she
were welling up.

“We used to talk,” she said. “We used to not be so afraid of what we said.”

Tommy Lee looked at her with a pained expression. “I guess we don’t have much in common to talk about anymore."

“Yes, we do. We have a lot in common.”

“What?”

He frowned. “I don’t know . . . lots of things. We both like to eat Mexican food.”

“You
like to eat Mexican food.
I
like to eat fajitas without hot sauce and sour cream, which you like a lot of. You like cars, I like horses. You like to work half the night, and I like to watch old movies.”

“So what?” he said. “We’ve been like that for twenty-five years, and it worked all that time.”

She looked sad. “It worked when we had the kids tying us together, but we don’t have them anymore.”

He shut his mouth tight and looked away from her. She wanted to reach for him and pull him to her. But she couldn’t, and she couldn’t stop her heart from pouring out, either.

“It just seems to me that I’m always trying to approach you,” she said, “and you back up from me. Oh, you give me anything I could want, the house, the El Camino . . . any amount of money . . . as much as we have, anyway. But when I reach for you, you back up. Then, when I find something else to fill my time and interest, you come after me, like you want me. But if I turn to you, back you go again.”

Her voice was rising, and she gestured. “Oh, I can’t put it into words. It’s like you want me, to have me around, but not too close. Like you don’t want me to need you . . . not the things you can do for me, like taking care of me, you don’t mind that, too much, but you don’t want me to need
you."

Tommy Lee felt a rope wrapping around him. He heard truth in her words and turned from it. Women sure could make a lot out of nothing, he thought, but he knew darn well he’d better not say it. That was honesty she sure wouldn’t want to hear, and sometimes honesty wasn’t the entire truth. But he couldn’t explain that, and he knew he’d better not say any of it, either. She was looking so forlorn, and any sense of power he had felt was turning into confusion. He wanted to have answers, and at the same time he wanted to run from it all.

“I’ve tried, Molly.”

“I know that,” she said quickly. “I think we’ve both tried. You’re a very good husband, Tommy Lee.” She looked about to cry, and he sure hoped she wouldn’t. “It just seems like we don’t have anything in common anymore, and I . . . well, I can’t go on feeling like I’m tyin’ you down.”

“You aren’t tyin’ me down, Molly.” He felt her slipping away and himself blowing away.

She shook her head and chipped paint off the fence with her fingernail. “You had to marry me, and I know you had lots of hopes and dreams that never came to light because of that.”

“That isn’t the way it was.” But he felt guilt and a voice saying,
That is the way it was.
“I never felt like that, Molly—like I had to marry you.” Mostly he hadn’t.

“Yes you did.” Her eyes were steady.

“Okay, we had to get married. I’ve thought about it like that—that we both had to do that, and not only because of you gettin’ pregnant, but because it always seemed like we were supposed to get married. Maybe there have been times when I’ve wanted to go off and do somethin’ else, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to be married to you. I’ve always loved you, Molly.”

He saw doubt in her eyes, and it made him feel helpless . . . and like smashing the fence.

She said, “We have loved each other, but that hasn’t prevented us from growin’ apart.”

“Okay . . . so we’ve grown apart.” Tommy Lee gestured wildly. “You comin’ over here to Hestie’s cottage sure hasn’t helped that.”

“Well, me stayin’ at home wasn’t helpin’ it either.” Her words flashed through him, and Tommy Lee hit back with, “Well, even when you were at the house, you weren’t all that available to me, between the kids and your horse.”

To which she said, “Who do you think picked up after you, if it wasn’t me bein’ there for you?”

He couldn’t see that that had anything to do with the argument, or with anything at all, and he told her that and a lot more. Tommy Lee couldn’t recall ever being so angry in all his life, and he found himself dragging out every little thing he had held back for all the months, and in a couple of cases, years.

“You say I back away from you? Well, you don’t exactly step toward me, Molly. You want it all your way. You want us to be together, but you get your own office off in town, and you get a separate checking account. I guess that’s okay, as long as
you
decide to do it. Do you think I don’t feel left behind when you and your mother and sisters take off for Oklahoma City or somewhere? I don’t say anything then! I like my time alone, and so do you, so don’t be makin’ me out to be at fault because of it.”

He realized he was poking his finger at her, and she was staring at him, and suddenly his high emotions scared him. He clamped his mouth shut, and then Molly turned away from him.

He stared at her stiff back, then said, “I just don’t know what in the hell you want from me, Molly. Why don’t you just tell me that—
what do you want?”

She whirled on him. “I have told you. And what good is it when I have to tell you—to ask you? I want you to think of it on your own. I’m tired of beggin’ for you."

“You’re drivin’ me crazy. You know that?” And he shoved from the fence and stalked away to his Corvette.

Molly stood there and watched him go. She gripped the top plank of the wooden fence, and when the Corvette went up the hill onto the road, she turned and kicked the bottom plank with all her might, and the darn old thing splintered and fell in two.

She stalked into the cottage, changed her clothes, and without pause stalked out again to the garden shed for tools to fix the fence. She patched the break with an old piece of two-by-four, and when she finished hammering the last nail she went to hammering on the ground until her arm gave out.

Then her mother was there, bending over her. “Molly . . . Molly Jean, honey.”

“Oh, Mama, I’m just so stupid. I want Tommy Lee more than anything, and I just keep pushin’ him away. I can’t stop. What’s wrong with me? . . . Oh, Mama . . . what’s wrong with me?”

“Oh, baby, you’re just a woman.” Mama gathered her close. “A woman in love with a man.”

In Mama’s estimation there was no harder place on earth for a woman to be than in love with a man.

* * * *

As Tommy Lee drove, fast, over to beat up Sam, he reflected that he might not be thinking straight. He rebuked this thought. He was thinking straight and knew, for a change, exactly what he wanted to do.

It seemed to him that all of life was one big confusion, and that too many times he had not acted on those rare times when he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He had had the brief inclination to toss Molly to the ground and screw her so that she had to shut up. That had seemed one way to drag her past all this crap she kept throwing in the way. But the certainty of that course had passed before he could make up his mind to act on it. He knew now he should have done exactly that. He felt certain now, deep in his bones, that no matter what the experts said, sex could melt a lot of resentments.

He wished he could make up his mind more easily and stick to it. His poor inability to make up his mind struck him, in that moment, as a great failing. And it was simply one more reason for him to beat the shit out of Sam. At least he had made up his mind on that score. Sam deserved it, and Tommy Lee wanted to do it.

Sam answered, barefoot and shirt open, threw the door wide and told Tommy Lee to come on in, which seemed a really stupid thing to do for a man who had been flirting with another man’s wife.

Tommy Lee said, “You asshole,” and sprang at him, giving release to the ball of frustration in his gut. Sam managed to block his punch but went stumbling backward, over a counter stool. Tommy Lee jumped on him, and they went grunting, grappling, and punching around the small living room, knocking over lamps and vases and books, collapsing a drawing table.

At last, spent, they broke apart. Sam’s nose was bleeding. Tommy Lee tasted blood and tongued a crack in his bottom lip. He hauled himself to his feet.

“It’s a low thing to do,” he said, his swelling lip causing the words to sound strange, “goin’ after a best friend’s wife.”

Sam, rising up on his knees, said, “You threw her away, man, so don’t go blamin’ me for your own mistakes.” Sniffing, he got to his feet and wiped his nose with his T-shirt. Then he lifted his eyes to Tommy Lee. “I’ve loved Molly for a long time, but you never did see it. Why? Damn, T.L., I’m your best friend, and you know everything else about me. Why didn’t you see how I felt about Molly?” He shook his head. “I guess you never could believe that she might look at someone else besides you. I guess you thought she’d be there whenever you decided to look her way. Well, I feel for you, buddy, but I think I have a chance now, and I’m not givin’ it up. I think I can make her happy.”

“I saw it all along,” Tommy Lee said flatly. “I just ignored it because I figured our friendship was more important than bein’ jealous. I thought our friendship was . . . ah, hell . . ."

Going for the door, he caught sight of a picture hanging there beside it. It was a drawing Sam had done of the old Chevy Tommy Lee had had when they were teens. Lifting it off its hook, Tommy Lee smashed it on the floor and then walked out.

Chapter 18

What I Meant to Say

When Sam called, Molly was across the hall in the tiny storage room-kitchen, at the coffeemaker that she shared with Jaydee and his secretary, Sophia. Even while she poured herself a cup of coffee, she had one foot turned toward the door, one ear listening for the telephone in her office.

Molly had been expecting Tommy Lee to call ever since their awful quarrel. Hoping, feeling foolish, grasping at expectation, she had carried the telephone around the cottage with her. She had taken it into the bathroom with her and as far out the door as it would go when she’d given Marker his grain, and then into bed with her. Ace got into such a fit over it being in the bed, he wouldn’t come lie with her.

Rennie had called to chat. Walter had called, wanting to know the possibility of all the new clothes Kaye was buying being a tax deduction, since she had started selling Country Interior Designs. When Molly said no, Kaye had to take over and argue the point for ten minutes, until Molly said, “I don’t make the laws, Kaye. Call the IRS,” which infuriated Kaye so much she hung up. Shortly afterward, Season had called to simply give her love and Lillybeth’s, too. First thing in the morning, before eight o’clock, a man had called selling light bulbs guaranteed to last ten years.

Tommy Lee had not called, after they had had the worst fight of all their years together.

“Why don’t you call him?” Mama suggested when she came over bright and early that morning, dressed this time, bringing cinnamon-raisin biscuits she’d gotten up at Hardee’s.

“Well, because,” Molly said. She had tried to get herself to call Tommy Lee, but each time she got no further than lifting the receiver before she quickly hung up. “He should call me. He’s the one who never cared enough to stop me from leaving, and he hasn’t asked me to come home, and he is the one who stalked away mad yesterday. I don’t think he wants to hear from me."

“That’s pride talking.”

Molly gave her a look that said: You are stepping on dangerous ground.