Love in a Small Town (3 page)

Back in the bedroom, she snatched up pictures of Savannah, Boone, and Colter, grown now but her babies always, and tucked them in the big bag between jeans. She turned the picture of her and Tommy Lee, taken five years ago at their twentieth anniversary, downward with a hard bang. She grabbed up her daddy’s old Bible and her blue dumbbells and threw them into the overnight bag.

She stopped, looked at her wedding band. It was simple carved yellow gold, all they could afford when they were first married. Tommy Lee had talked of buying her a more expensive one, but she didn’t really care for diamonds or other jewels, and any ring other than the one Tommy Lee had put on her finger when they made their vows just wouldn’t be the same at all.

She tugged furiously at the band but couldn’t budge it over her knuckle. “Oh . . . dang!”

Giving up, she dragged the bags down the stairs, grabbed up her purse and briefcase, with her notebook computer, and in two trips hauled it all out to her El Camino and threw it into the truck bed. She went back inside, got the pet carrier, caught Ace, and put him in it.

She set Ace in beside the bags, slipped behind the wheel, jabbed on her sunglasses, and backed, weaving from side to side, down the drive to where her two-horse trailer sat. She had never before hooked it up alone, but she managed to get the job done. Just went to show that she could. One more thing she didn’t need Tommy Lee for.

Still moving like an oil pumper going at full speed, she got Marker from the pasture and loaded him up, and threw a bucket of grain in beside Ace. Then, breathing hard and with sweat trickling between her breasts, Molly headed back up the drive.

Tommy Lee, with the Coca-Cola in his hand, stood leaning in the big open doorway of his shop, watching her come. She stopped the El Camino and lowered the window. He sauntered forward. Molly’s heart was beating so hard, it was about to come out of her chest.

Tommy Lee said, “If anyone calls, you want me to give them Odessa’s phone number?” Cold and hard as frozen steel.

Molly said, “Yes.”

For an instant something shone in his eyes, something mean as she’d ever seen. Then he just stared at her, and it was as if a thick plate of glass had come down between them.

Molly shifted into gear and drove away, a lot more slowly than she wished because she had to think of Marker back there in the horse trailer—and because she was listening hard for Tommy Lee to stop her.

But he didn’t.

And then she was sobbing and driving along. The chickens were clucking around in the road when she passed Eulalee Harris’s place, but they had plenty of time to get out of the way, and Molly absolutely refused to think the F-word. Her life was falling to pieces, and she had to grasp control somewhere.

Chapter 2

Fallin’ Apart

Tommy Lee never had believed that Molly would really leave. As he stood there, gazing through the shop window, watching the dust cloud she raised on the road, he thought,
She took the dang horse.

Then he turned and flung his can of Coca-Cola at the wall. “Goddamn her!”

The can was still full enough to hit with a hard thunk right below the Pennzoil sign. It sprayed Coke on the wall, then landed, all dented, and dribbled the rest of its contents across the workbench. Tommy Lee grabbed a box and flung it on the floor. But it was only a box containing gaskets and didn’t give much satisfaction at all.

He stood there, breathing hard, wishing to tear the shop apart, looking around for something to punch and at the same time telling himself to calm down and not be an idiot. Besides, there wasn’t a thing to let go on that wouldn’t break his hand, and his hands were his livelihood. That he could think so rationally in the midst of his fury made him even madder. Made him feel like life had overtaken him and worn him down.

After another second of inner struggling, he grabbed up a steel mallet and smacked it through the wall. The act gave him a measure of satisfaction, although he immediately regretted the hole in the wall. Doing that was wasteful nonsense.

He tossed aside the mallet and jerked up shop towels and spray cleaner and started to clean up the Coke. He sure didn’t want it drying sticky and drawing flies and sweat bees. And he was particular about his shop and tools. A well-kept shop was the mark of a man’s quality work. Just because Molly had gone crazy was no reason for him to follow.

He should have called after her, he thought, scrubbing hard and breathing heavy. He should have stopped her.

He looked down to see Jake looking accusingly at him. “She’s gonna come back,” Tommy Lee said.

He threw the soiled paper towels into the trash, then jerked the
Hot Rod
calendar from its place on the wall and went to tack it up over the hole he’d made with the mallet.

Then he stalked back to the house. In the middle of the driveway, he stopped and stared at the entry, listened but didn’t hear the El Camino. It ran awfully quiet, though. He’d rebuilt the engine himself.

Jake had gone on ahead and was looking back. “You think you know so much,” Tommy Lee told the dog as he passed and went up the steps. He wiped his boots good on the bristly mat. He realized he was doing it and stalked on into the kitchen.

Molly’s kitchen radio was still playing. His gaze went over the room—the dirty dishes on the counter, a pile of damp dish towels, the dishwasher sitting open, and the trash can with the broom propped against it. All of it left there when Molly had stormed out.

Just like Molly, he thought. She was forever getting right in the middle of something, then going off and leaving it. She had more than once left the vacuum at the end of the stairway, where everyone could stumble over it.

Feeling an odd apprehension, he stepped over and looked in the sink. There were half a dozen big pieces of china—the remains of the yellow daisy plates.

Something sharp sliced across his chest. Clear out of nowhere, for an instant, he recalled Molly bringing those dishes home.

“We got them on sale, fifty percent off!” Green eyes all bright and shining, as if she’d just brought home the world. Molly never could pass up a sale sign, and the bigger the savings, the more excited she got, as if she’d won a prize. Tommy Lee sometimes thought she could sale them right into debt.

And then he remembered how Molly had looked at him when she’d said she had broken the plates. How her eyes had been cold and blaming, saying as clearly as spoken words,
Our marriage is in the toilet and it is all your fault.

The anger came churning and boiling up his chest like a storm out of the southwest, making him so mad that he couldn’t think. He stepped backward and jerked open the refrigerator, only to discover that there were no more Coca-Colas in there. There were two cans of cream soda and a bottle of vegetable juice, both of which he hated. One of the cans of cream soda was half full, and there was half a slice of peach pie, both Molly’s doing. Molly had the habit of eating half of things: half a cookie, half a doughnut, half a steak.

She’s coming back. She will get halfway to Hestie’s and turn around and come back.

He slammed the refrigerator door and stalked over to the pantry. There were two six-packs of Cokes sitting right in front, but he ignored those and bent down, reached far back, way back behind paper towels and extra bottles of vinegar, where his mother wouldn’t see it when she came to visit, and drew out a bottle of tequila. He unscrewed the cap, tipped the bottle to his lips and took a deep swig. It burned like fire going down and landed in his stomach like a bomb, even made him blow out a breath. He wasn’t much of a drinking man.

He took another good swig and then looked at the bottle. There was something about holding a bottle of Mexican liquor by the neck that made him feel tough and in control of the world.

The next instant the telephone there on the counter rang.

Tommy Lee froze and stared at the phone. It rang again.

His arm kind of pumped of its own accord, as he thought,
Answer it. . . .
no, don’t answer it
. It might be Molly calling on her cellular . . . but it could be one of the kids. He didn’t want to talk to one of the kids. He couldn’t quite hear himself saying “Your mother has left me.”

The answering machine clicked on and made him jump. After a few seconds, a voice said, “Mama, it’s me.” Savannah, their eldest, calling from Arkansas and sounding like she was right next door.

A cold chill cut down Tommy Lee’s back. He had the strange feeling that his daughter could see him standing there holding a bottle of tequila by its neck.

Savanna was saying, “Stephen found out yesterday for sure that he can get off, so we’ll be able to spend a few days there for yours and Daddy’s anniversary party. The doctor said it’s okay, as long as I get out and walk regular and . . ."

Tommy Lee capped the tequila bottle, slammed it down on the shelf, right in the front where anyone could see it, snatched up one of the six-packs of Coca Colas, and walked out of the kitchen. Savannah’s voice trailed after him—Savannah had a carrying sort of high-pitched voice—“Because the baby’s so close, though, we’re comin’ early and will have to leave right after the party. We’ll probably be there on Thursday. . . . ‘Course I know you’ll call me. . . ."

The screen door slammed behind him, and he left his daughter’s voice and Molly’s country music back there in the kitchen.

He tossed the five remaining Cokes into the shop refrigerator, popped the lid on the one in his hand, no matter that it was warm, and turned the volume on his stereo back up. He threw himself back into working on the engine. It was something he could understand. It was his world.

But he couldn’t stop his mind. It kept spinning like a fly wheel. His hand slipped with the wrench and he scraped his knuckles bloody. He grabbed a rag and dabbed at the torn skin and cursed Molly. It occurred to him to wonder what he was most mad at—the argument with her, or all the things he hadn’t gotten said to her.

Tommy Lee didn’t know how it had come about between them, how they got to where they could hardly say a civil word to each other, how they couldn’t even look at each other, much less touch each other.

Molly seemed like she put up a wall around herself, and whenever he tried to reach through that wall, all he felt was cold. Most nights he would watch television until he couldn’t hold his eyes open, until he couldn’t think, because he didn’t want to think. Sometimes he’d lie there beside her and hear her soft breathing and feel her warmth, smell the woman scent of her. Molly had a certain scent all her own, a mixture of lavender and powder and woman scent, that could almost make him feel drugged. He’d know she wanted him, and he’d want her, but he’d be torn between wanting her and wanting to get the hell out of there, get up and drive off and be free from everything.

When he really thought about it, he thought that for most of his marriage he had been torn between wanting Molly and wanting to be free. The shadow of long-held guilt seeped over him. Lately he had been thinking more and more about being off by himself. Wondering and imagining what it would be like if he was on his own. He hadn’t wished to be on his own . . . but he had thought of it.

And now it had gone and happened.

The CD player stopped, and he went over and started it again, turned it up even louder until the music filled his ears, and he stood there recalling how he had once been a young, hotshot mechanic on Johnny Kemp’s racing team and he and Molly had been running on fire and dreams.

Lord, he said into the silence inside himself, where did all the fire and dreams go? Where in the world did eighteen turn into forty-three?

Chapter 3

Standing On The Edge Of Good-bye

Molly circled north, avoiding the town. She kept thinking that she couldn’t believe she had left Tommy Lee, that here she was just driving along, towing Marker, and her heart still beating and the sun still shining. She felt as if something had taken hold of her, some dark force, and was leading her down the highway, down her mother’s long, crushed gravel driveway and straight to her mother’s house.

When she caught sight of Aunt Hestie’s cottage sitting off to the right, a pain shot in her eyes and down to her chest. She averted her gaze and pulled around back of the big brown Collier home. She jumped out of the El Camino and raced up the steps and in the back door.

“I need to use your phone, Mama.”

She breezed past her mother, who stood at the kitchen sink in her fuchsia robe, her mouth open in surprise, and went to use the phone in the downstairs bathroom. Her mother had a phone in every single room of the house.

Molly had four sisters, but it was Rennie she called and Rennie she babbled to, certainly not making much sense. She knew she had awakened her sister, and she thought she heard whispering in the background, a man, which was a little embarrassing but not unusual. The more lonesome a man looked, the more susceptible Rennie was.

Rennie said, “I’ll be right down,” just as Molly had known she would. “I have to shower and get dressed. No more than an hour.” Rennie lived up in Lawton, was an economics teacher at the junior college there.

Molly hung up and sat there with her hand on the telephone, thinking of how she was going to have to call her children. The thought made her sick. Whatever in this world was she going to say to them? Whatever in the world was she
doing?

A scent caught her attention then, and she noticed the small bottle of Lysol sitting on the side of the sink with the cap off. Her mother did that sometimes because the room was an eighty-year-old converted closet with no window.

Suddenly, staring at that bottle and smelling that scent, Molly was remembering the first time she had ever seen the woman who was to be her mother-in-law. She had been about five and her daddy had taken her with him to the Hayeses’ farm to ask permission to fish in their pond. It had been at bare first light, and Virginia Hayes had been down on her knees and scrubbing her front porch with a brush and Lysol water. There was no mistaking that scent, and the little brown bottle sat right on the steps. Molly had thought that the strangest thing, someone scrubbing a wooden porch with Lysol, and by the front porch light, because the sun wasn’t up yet.