Samson and Sunset (12 page)

  “Well, that’s the one I liked, so when
we’re done here, we are going back to the Chevy garage and I’m
going to buy it for you.”

  “Really? Oh my gosh!”

  “Yep. But you are responsible for
keeping it in that condition.”

  “No problem!”

  “Also, remember that beautiful pickup;
the candy apple red one they were displaying with that big red and
white boat and trailer?”

  “Uh-huh.” I stirred a fry in some
ketchup.

  “I think I’m going to trade my boat in
and get that for us.”

  “Get it for you, Shay, not me. You
know I don’t like boats.”

  ***

We went back to the garage and Shay took care
of all the business on the car and the red pickup. Then we went to
get Kelly.

  She knew her mommy’s voice. The second
I walked through the door, saying “Hello?” she came running to my
arms. I visited with Mom and Dad, while Shay loaded Kelly’s things
into the car. Mom told me Daddy was having a real hard time with
Kelly leaving. He had raised her since she was born; she was his
whole world.

  I guess when you’re older you bond to
your babies in a different way. That’s why God lets us have them
when we’re younger, although the child is a major part of our life,
we are young enough to still be a little self-absorbed. I got this
little piece of wisdom having raised my own granddaughter since
birth—you just live and breathe every second for that child.

  As we got ready to leave, Daddy had
tears in his eyes. I told him he could come get her whenever he
wanted.

  “I’m not taking her from you,” I said,
although I felt like I was. “She can still have her room here and
this will always be her second home.”

  Kelly was anxious to get in the pickup
to go with us, but when she looked back at Mom and Dad, she started
crying. They were her security blanket. It took a while to settle
her down. I kept telling her she’d see them tomorrow, hoping in her
little world I could distract her enough to make several days fly
by and seem like less.

  Maggie told me I could decorate the
suite and the nursery however I liked, which was good because I had
big plans and my own taste. I was determined to make that little
area of the Big House feel like home for the next ten months.

  That would require new bedding—not
that Maggie’s wasn’t fancy; it just wasn’t mine—nick-knacks and
framed pictures for the walls. I didn’t want Shay’s mom to feel
bad, though, so I asked her to help me pick things out for the
nursery; new wallpaper, a new carpet, and a new bassinet (I wanted
to get Kelly a little bed of her own, as the baby would soon get
the crib.)

  I don’t know how many times Maggie
told me she hoped Shay and I didn’t have girls because they could
never look like Kelly, and that wouldn’t be fair to Shay. This is
when I got my first glimpse of how superficial Maggie could be.
This was her grandchild she was talking about. Was she saying she
couldn’t love the baby if it wasn’t pretty? Sure seemed like
it.

  “Well, Shay wants a girl,” I told her,
hoping this would conclude the conversation. “I want a boy. I think
Shay would love having a son, but he insists he wants a baby
girl.”

  ***

I truly enjoyed driving my new car. I got to
drive it to Larimer several times a week to get little things I
needed. Larimer was about seven miles away; all gravel roads. I
drove slowly, as I didn’t want rock pits in the new paint. This was
a little lesson I had learned from Shay—he always drove gravel
roads with his paint job in mind, except the time we were rushing
Karen to the hospital.

  ***

Two days after I’d settled in, Daddy came to
get Kelly for a few days. There was no way I’d deny him that. I
loved my parents so much; we were spiritually connected. We could
probably tell exactly how much money each of us had in our pockets;
there was an invisible thread that ran between us. When Daddy came
to take Kelly home, I wanted to go home too. Then I had to remind
myself that this was my home now.

  ***

Well, one day the pickup Shay used to drive
around the farm was in the shop. He hadn’t gotten the new red truck
yet, so he poked his head in the door and asked if he could use my
car to go to Hudson.

  “Fine with me,” I said, “you bought
it.

  Around 1 p.m. Maggie said, “Kathrine,
let’s go shopping and get some of the things you wanted for the
nursery.”

  Kelly was at Mom and Dad’s that day,
so I said, “that sounds good, but you’ll have to drive, because
Shay has my car.”

  “Oh dear,” Maggie said, “Sterling took
our car to a meeting. What about the Impala?”

  “Oh no, I’m not driving that without
permission.”

  “Well, do you have the car keys?”
asked Maggie.

  “Well, yes...”

  “I’ll drive,” she said. “You just give
me the keys.”

  “Gosh, Maggie, do you think we
should?”

  “Well, how can he get mad at you if I
drive?”

  “Well, maybe if we get home before
they do.”

  I knew how Shay was about that car. He
treated it like pure gold. Come to think of it, it was a material
thing; maybe he was a lot like Maggie.

  “They’ll never know, come on, let’s go
for it,” she pushed.

  “Well, Shay’s in Hudson…”

  “So we’ll go to Watertown. That way we
won’t run into him.”

  “Okay…” I said, unconvinced.

  We both cleaned up, I got the keys and
we were off in the prize mobile. We had a nice late afternoon
lunch, and then went shopping.

  Around 5 p.m. I said, “We better get
the car home.”

  Maggie agreed. We put our things in
the trunk and I noticed the cars on either side of the Impala had
us blocked in pretty tight. Maggie backed out slowly, inch by inch.
We had just made it, feeling quite victorious, when we both heard a
loud and terrible scrape. We jumped out to see what had happened
and saw that Maggie had swung the right fender against the curb,
leaving a huge 6 to 7 inch scratch in the candy-apple-red
paint.

  “Oh, God, no!” yelled Maggie, “Shay’s
going to kill me! He’s going to be so upset!”

  “Well, just get in and drive, Maggie.
We can think about what to do on the way. We have to get this thing
back before he gets home.”

  She got back in, looking shaky. “Oh,
Kathrine.” She started up the car. “What are we going to do? He
won’t be mad at you, he’ll be mad at me.”

  “Oh, yes he will be upset with me—I’m
your accomplice! I gave you the keys. You didn’t force me into the
car. Let me think, just let me think a minute.”

  After sitting silently for a while, I
thought I’d come up with a plan. “Look Maggie, it’s a real hot day,
things dry quick.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Well, we’ll stop next to one of the
fields. We have some soda pop; we’ll make some mud, rub it around
the scratch so it looks like it was there from the night it rained
this week. The last time he drove it he went to town while it was
raining. He’ll think he didn’t notice it because of the mud!”

  “Oh gosh,” she said, looking relieved.
“I knew I liked you.”

  “We found a field, made a mud pile and
gobbed it on the fender so it looked natural. Then we put a gob or
two on the other side for good measure. When it dried, I was amazed
at what a good job we’d done. We rushed home. Shay and Sterling
weren’t back yet. We parked the Impala right where it had been
before, got our things out of the trunk in a hurry, locked the shop
and ran inside.

  We were home free! We’d pulled it off,
the big caper!

  ***

Shay and I had a great night. We ate dinner
with Sterling and Maggie (Maggie and I exchanging a few nervous,
knowing glances), went back up to our room, showered and made love,
watched a little television and were off to sleep.

  I never wanted to go through a day
like that again, even though it seemed like everything had worked
out. The stress was too much. When Shay woke in the morning, he
asked me if I was sick.

  “You tossed and turned all night,
honey. I heard you get up several times.”

  “No, I’m fine, just couldn’t
sleep.”

  I couldn’t tell him how bothered I was
keeping the car scratch from him. I came from a family where
honesty was everything. I’d been deceitful and I felt guilty as
hell. It was really bothering me. At one point in the middle of the
night, lying awake in the dark I thought for a moment about waking
Shay up and telling him everything. But then again, if we had
gotten away with it, what was the point of getting Maggie in
trouble?

  Instead, I prayed and asked God to
forgive me, saying I’d learned my lesson and would never do it
again. The next morning at breakfast, Maggie and I gave each other
several ‘we got away with it’ glances. It was our first real
bonding experience, even if it wasn’t the best thing to bond over.
Still, I was no tattletale. So I kept my mouth shut.

  Five days passed. I guess Maggie and I
were feeling pretty comfortable. Sunday lunch at the Westovers’ was
always a big meal, and while we were all sitting around eating, I
innocently asked Shay what we were going to do the rest of the
day.

  “Well,” he said, putting down his
fork. “They’re having race car time trials in Plymouth out at the
old airstrip this afternoon. Think we’ll run over and watch them.
But first I want to wash the car.”

  My stomach dropped, as I know Maggie’s
did as well; our eyes met in shared, secret terror. After the meal,
Shay jumped into his cut-offs and was out the door. He brought the
car up the circle drive and started hosing it down.

  Maggie was watching out the window and
she yelled, “Kathrine, come here.” Then in a low voice, “Look. He’s
washing the fenders.”

  I came over and watched as he washed
the right fender. After washing the scratch, he stood up and just
stood there looking at the fender while the hose ran. Then he went
around the car and washed the other fender. We watched as he stood
in front of the Impala looking straight at the scratch. It looked
like he was summing up the little accident he must have had,
driving home in the rain after having a few beers at the Larimer
bar. We held our breath as he stood there, then he just continued
washing and shining the car and the chrome. Maggie and I breathed a
collective sigh of relief at the window.

  When the car was sparkling, Shay came
into our room and jumped in the shower. After he got out and dried
off he dressed in neat blue jeans, a t-shirt and white tennis
shoes. As he was putting his billfold in his pocket, he said:

  “Oh, Callie, we have to get up early
tomorrow. You need to follow me to Hudson. I’ve got to take the
Impala into the garage to get some bodywork done. Then we should go
pick up Kelly and bring her home. I miss her.”

  “So do I,” I answered, trying to sound
natural as I picked out my clothes. “Sounds good to me.”

  Both dressed sportily, with our
sunglasses on, we were out the door to the races. I could still
wear regular clothes; I never looked pregnant until my last month,
and even then, barely.

We had a fun time. I knew for sure now we’d
gotten away with our big caper, and I finally allowed myself to
relax. There were a lot of our couple friends there, and all the
wives gathered under the bleachers to gossip. I couldn’t believe
they asked so many questions about the honeymoon and sex with Shay.
Gosh! Some of these questions were very personal, but I realize now
that a lot of those girls had either dated him, slept with him, or
fantasized about him. I kept my answers limited, as I really didn’t
have anything to compare my sexual experiences to, except Dane, and
there was no comparison.

  Afterward, we stopped at a drive-in
for supper and headed home. All dusty, we spent our usual half hour
in the shower. When we got out, Shay dried us off and scooped me
off to bed for our usual steamy romp between the covers before
sleep. Later, when we were spooning and about to fall asleep, he
lifted his head and moved his mouth to my ear, kissing it very
tenderly. Then he said softly, almost a whisper:

  “Princess, next time you take the
Impala out without my permission, dent it, then hide it; expect to
be grounded from driving for a month. Your mud paint job was good,
but next time you get the urge to be all artistic, get a brush and
paint the barn.”

  Wild Woman

  By the end of the first week in
August, I’d finished decorating our suite and made it feel like
ours—not just another room in the Big House.

  It was a great space to work with;
there was a den, a master bedroom, a nice bathroom with two sinks
and a vanity, and a little room that would be perfect for the
nursery. I did all of the decorating myself. It was my project and
I took it seriously. Couldn’t have Maggie looking down her nose at
our part of the house. But it was more than that: this was our home
for the next nine months; I had to make it magnificent!

  Our suite was large, the den was 16’
by 20’, with the master bedroom about 16’ by 18’. There was a door
to the right in the bedroom and it went into an empty room about
13’ by 15’. What a great room this was for the kids, then on the
same wall, just further down was a door to the bathroom. It was big
and had a soaking tub, shower, ceramic tile floors, a long counter
with double sinks and a dressing vanity between the two sinks.

  When you opened the door to enter the
suite, you stepped into the den. The walls were already papered in
a silver sage flocked striped paper with a small coin-gold stripe
every 9 inches. The colors were a perfect green that would make
sage green pop—that was the color I worked from. The den floors
were beautiful shiny hardwood, so I bought three matching Persian
rugs in sage greens, reds, and golds. The 10’ by 12’ ran oblong in
front of the beautiful cherry-wood scrolled fireplace. Since I
liked the way Maggie had the two sofas at the ranch house in the
Sand Hills, I placed the two velvet sage green sofas facing each
other. I’d found a huge 50-inch round skirted ottoman with an
English hunt scene on it that brought out the reds, greens and
golds. I was able to get matching material so I had Maggie’s
seamstress make matching sofa pillows and lined drapes with plain
sage green puff valances with gold braid fringe draping down. The
tie backs were gold braided rope. I found a wonderful hunt scene
print, beautifully framed, that I hung above the fireplace.