The Reading Circle (13 page)

“Here I am,” she called out softly, after closing the door behind her. “Maura Beth Mayhew, reporting for duty.”

“Don't say anything that'll make me laugh,” he said, flashing a smile her way. “I have this rib issue, you know.”

She moved to his bedside where she let go of a giggle or two. “So I've been told. I hope you're not in too much discomfort.”

“Only when I breathe.”

Maura Beth's expression went from sunny to taken aback. “I hope you're just kidding.”

“I am. Kinda.”

She decided to confront everything head-on, but with a bit of humor thrown in for good measure. “I hear Christmas came early out there on the historic Natchez Trace Parkway.”

He took a moment and then shrugged faintly. “You mean the deer? No, I don't think it was a reindeer trying out for Santa's sleigh. But it did fly through the air, and that's why I swerved off the road and landed in the woods.” He made the smallest of gestures with his index finger. “Why don't you relax and sit down? I assume you aren't in a hurry.”

“I was told not to tire you out, though,” she said, pulling up a nearby chair. “You do have some healing to do.”

“I promise to let you know if I feel like I'm fading.”

She was gathering her thoughts now, trying to get everything just right. “I just wanted you to know . . . that I appreciate the effort you made to come to the
Forrest Gump
review. You were thinking about us, after all, and that means a lot to me. It was practically just as good as you being there.”

“About that. I feel the need to apologize—” he began, but she wouldn't let him continue.

“No, I don't want this visit to be about that fallout we had. Let's just put it behind us. You eventually made the decision to attend, and except for that crazed deer, you would have been there in my library a few hours ago saying whatever it was you planned to say. Right now, just the image of that makes me very happy.”

“You're very easy to please,” he said. “Especially when I was very definitely in the wrong.”

She wagged a finger. “No, no. None of that.” The conversation lapsed for a while, but then she said, “Have you made a decision yet about your job at New Gallatin Academy?”

“I thought I had when I left my house this afternoon,” he told her. “I was determined to stick it out with Yelverton at the helm.” Then he started frowning, turning away from her slightly. “After this wreck, I'm not so sure. It's going to be hard for us to make this relationship work with us living so far apart, no matter how smoothly my job is going at New Gallatin.” He managed a short, forced laugh, obviously restrained by his rib injury. “I mean, we can't go on meeting like this.”

Maura Beth's laugh, however, was unrestrained. “You're so right, and I adore your sense of humor at a time like this.”

“Gotta have one these days,” he said. “But lying here in bed, I've been thinking that I have a darned good résumé. I'm no ordinary, rote teacher. Besides, New Gallatin Academy isn't the only school on the face of the planet. Rumor has it that they even have schools down here in Mississippi.”

“I've heard the same thing.” Maura Beth could feel the excitement rising inside of her. “Are you saying that you'd be willing to look for a job down here? Right here in little bitty Cherico? Or as the locals like to call it, Greater Cherico?”

He turned back toward her and raised an eyebrow. “I might. But it would depend on what's available. Teaching jobs are often a matter of timing, you know.”

She reached over and patted his hand gently. “But you will let me know if there's anything I can do at any time to help?”

“Of course.”

Then she remembered. She dug down into her purse, making all sorts of muted noises moving things around. “I have a present for you.”

“Aw, you shouldn't have.”

“I didn't,” she said. She produced a CD, holding it up so he could see what it was all about.

“The University of Michigan Spirit Package,” he said, his face lighting up immediately. “Cheers and Fight Songs.” He gave Maura Beth a quick wink and then read the neatly printed message on the Post-it note attached:
“Get well soon—Darlene and Malcolm Hayes. Go Blue!”

She nodded eagerly. “Your Aunt Connie said they stayed until you were transferred from the ER. They wanted to be sure you were okay. Then they had to be on their way. Something about not falling too far behind on their trip to New Orleans. They gave Connie this CD and told her it was something for you to remember them by, and she thought maybe I ought to be the one to give it to you.”

“I wish they'd stayed a little longer,” he said, the emotion clearly registering in his voice. “It's possible I owe them my life. I might have died of shock out there if they hadn't come along in their Winnebago.”

He took the CD from her and brought it closer to his face. “I'll certainly never hear the Michigan Fight Song again without thinking of them. They'll always be heroes in my heart.”

B
ecca and her Stout Fella were having their usual breakfast of cereal, yogurt, and orange juice at the kitchen table. Without warning, Becca loudly chimed her spoon on her water glass several times, causing Justin to start noticeably and some of his Raisin Bran to go down the wrong pipe. He coughed a few times, his face turning pink. This was followed by an improvised ritual of alternating sips of water with vigorously trying to clear his throat.

“You all right?” she asked, but she hardly sounded concerned.

He was nodding and scowling at the same time. “What the hell did you do that for, Becca?”

“Sorry, I didn't mean for that to happen.” She was not about to leave it at that, however. “Justin, I want to talk to you about something very important. I thought that might get your attention, since I haven't been very successful at getting straight answers out of you these days.”

He took yet another sip of water and exhaled. “Yeah, well, there are other ways of getting my attention besides causing me to nearly choke to death.” He went back to eating his Raisin Bran as if nothing had happened. For a while Becca was content to sit and watch. Finally, he couldn't take the staring any longer, looked up, and said, “What? What did you want to talk to me about? I'm not a mind reader.”

She decided then and there not to back off as she had so often recently. She was going to tell him the truth. Then maybe he would level with her, and they would move on to some kind of understanding. “I wanted you to know that I went off the pill several months ago. I didn't tell you because . . . I want to get pregnant. I want us to start a family. It's way past the time we said we couldn't afford it. We've been riding high for years.”

He put his spoon down and wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “I see.”

“That's all you have to say?”

He glanced at his watch and offered more of the same evasive behavior she had come to despise. “Could we talk about this another time? Winston Barkeley's coming by the office around nine o'clock to discuss the new lake plat. This is gonna be my biggest deal yet.”

“Where have I heard that before?” she told him. “The last time you rushed off to see Winston Barkeley, you ordered a cup of coffee and the ‘heart attack special' at The Twinkle. Slowly but surely, you're getting right back into that pattern of letting your job run you instead of the other way around.” She brought her napkin up from her lap and haphazardly tossed it on the table so that it covered part of the bowl of cereal she had been picking at here and there. “Besides, my dear husband, I know we have a problem. Certainly one of us does.”

He focused on the two pills he had carefully placed beside his water glass at the beginning of breakfast. One was small, pink, and round; the other was larger, oval-shaped, and white. He was now on their schedule. “Let me take these first.”

She waited for him to finish with his medications and then cut to the chase. “I should have gotten pregnant by now, Justin. Once we started having sex again, I know for a fact I was ovulating several times.”

He stared her down and briefly gritted his teeth. “Okay, okay. You have a right to know. I was gonna tell you sooner or later, but this is not gonna be easy for me. We do need to clear the air, though, and I do want our marriage to work. I hope you believe me when I say that. I still love you, Becca. I always have.”

It was the first time he had said anything of substance to her about their relationship in months, but she didn't like the sound of what was coming. It flashed into her head that perhaps she would be better off not knowing whatever it was. Then he dropped the bomb.

“I'm
afraid
to make love to you. There, I said it.”

Becca sat stunned, wondering if she had heard him right.

“Say something, Becca.”

“I . . . I don't know where to start.” In truth, she didn't even know what he meant.

He filled up his big chest and exhaled. “It doesn't matter what Dr. Ligon says about what I can and can't do, or how the medications may affect me. It doesn't matter what anybody says, for that matter. The only thing that counts is, I'm afraid. I've been that way since I came home from Nashville last year. That first time after the angioplasty and I'd lost all that weight, I thought I might have another heart attack. Think about it from my point of view. The last thing I wanted to do was . . . well, to die on top of you. And that's the God's honest truth. After that first time when I didn't follow through, I didn't even want to try again. I kept putting you off, and that made you think maybe I was having an affair. But it wasn't anything like that. I'm a one-woman man. And then . . . and then lately, I've been—please don't laugh—I've been faking it.” He was shrugging his shoulders and chuckling, but it all came off as forced and uncomfortable.

Becca immediately felt as if she were going to melt into a puddle of some kind. It would probably contain equal parts empathy, love, and understanding, and she wanted nothing more than for her Stout Fella to bathe himself in it and begin the process of healing. “Oh, Justin, why didn't you talk to me about this before now? You've been shutting me out, and that's done terrible things to my head. You don't live in a vacuum, you know. What do you think I'm here for? I'm your wife—for better or worse, remember?” She moved to him quickly, standing over him, and he rose to embrace her warmly. All the tension that had been generated between them recently seemed to break like a high fever that had run its course. Now, finally, things would cool back down to normal.

He pulled back, and she could see that he was visibly shaken. She had felt the trembling while they were embracing.

“Are you disgusted with me?” he said, hanging his head. “I guess I'm disgusted with myself.”

“Of course I'm not, sweetheart. I truly understand. You just had no business keeping this to yourself. But now that it's out in the open, I'm sure we can get you back to the man I married. Have you told Dr. Ligon about this?”

He shook his head, trying his best not to bring forth his tears. But Becca could see clearly that he was on the verge.

“You must make an appointment and tell him about this, you know,” she said. “I can't imagine he won't have some advice for you. Other men have surely gone through this kind of thing.”

He sat back down, but Becca remained standing, massaging his shoulder while he let everything out. “Just the other day, Doug and I were having drinks out at The Marina Bar and Grill. He told me about Maura Beth's boyfriend, that teacher fella from Nashville who was in that bad wreck on the Natchez Trace. Doug said he was told by somebody at the hospital that no way should that guy have walked away from it alive. Said they still don't know how he managed it. I guess it was meant to be. But on the way home I thought I was having a panic attack when I kept thinking about that wreck. I just couldn't let go of it.”

Becca stopped her massaging for a moment and frowned. “Yes, I know about the accident. Connie told me over the phone, and I've talked to Maura Beth, too. She says Jeremy's doing just fine now. He'll be out of the hospital soon. But what does all that have to do with you?” Justin looked up at her with sad, puppy eyes, and it nearly took her breath away. “Why did that bother you so much?”

“Don't you see,” he told her, turning away. “That fella could've been gone just like that. A snap of the finger, and he's no longer walking the earth. And then I thought about myself. I could be here today, gone tomorrow—just doing an ordinary thing like making love to you. That's how messed up I've gotten.”

She leaned down and softly kissed his cheek. “It's out in the open now. And you listen to me, Justin Brachle, you're not going anywhere anytime soon. You're going to stay right here with me, and we'll raise a wonderful family together before it's all said and done.”

He managed a genuine smile, and she was pleased that she had coaxed it out of him.

“You promise?” he said.

She started talking out of the side of her mouth, sounding like a character from an old black-and-white gangster movie. “You just stick with Becca Broccoli, kiddo, and you'll be in high cotton!”

 

“The profession is just nothing like it was when I first started teaching way back when,” Miss Voncille was saying, clucking her tongue. She and Maura Beth were enjoying coffee and her famous biscuits with green pepper jelly in her bright yellow breakfast nook. “We were dedicated to our craft when I was coming along. Until I fell in love with Frank Gibbons, there was nothing else in the world I thought I would rather do than teach history. At least I can say I had that to fall back on when my personal life didn't work out the way I wanted.”

Maura Beth drained the last of her coffee and gestured broadly. “All the book club members you taught swear by you.”

Miss Voncille leaned in with an air of confidentiality. “As well they should. Although Durden Sparks probably doesn't. He was the most conceited boy I ever taught. He never wanted others to win or be the best at anything. Oh, no—that was his exclusive bailiwick. And he's just carried that conceit into adulthood. Of course, I'll admit it. With those looks, he should have gone to Hollywood and gotten his name in lights as a leading man. But as for me, there's nothing phonier than false modesty, so I'll take full credit for at least a smidgen of the success all my pupils have enjoyed.”

“My friend Jeremy McShay feels the same way you did about teaching,” Maura Beth said, artfully switching the focus of their conversation. “It's a special mission to him. We all saw that demonstrated when he brought those bright students of his down with him from Nashville for the
To Kill a Mockingbird
review. Why, the poem that Burke Williams recited for us nearly had me in tears!”

Never slow on the uptake, Miss Voncille raised an eyebrow smartly as she split open another biscuit and slathered both halves with butter and green pepper jelly. “So I gather Mr. McShay is the reason for this little get-together of ours you requested. Over the phone you said it had something to do with teaching, but I'm guessing there's a little something more involved here.” Then she pointed to the biscuit she had just fixed up so expertly. “How about I take the bottom and you take the top?”

“No, thank you, really I couldn't. The two I've already had are more than enough. But you're correct about Jeremy. He and I have become an item, at least in our own minds.”

“That's a very clever way of describing it,” Miss Voncille said, touching a finger to her temple. “You both have to get to the same place at the same time, and that's not always the easiest thing to pull off. Locke and I are working on that right now. Well, to tell the truth, I'm doing most of the work. I'm slowly letting it dawn on him that he simply has to marry me. I've been pulling out all the stops.”

Maura Beth laughed, raising her coffee cup in tribute. “Good for you. Is he almost there?”

“Almost, but I've still got to close the deal.”

“Don't let him get away, now,” Maura Beth added with a wink. “Meanwhile, I have something you might be able to help me with regarding Jeremy. He's thinking about giving up his teaching position in Nashville and trying to get one down here in Cherico—or at least reasonably near. Do you still stay in touch with your contacts at Cherico High?”

Miss Voncille's sigh was accompanied by a distinct sadness around her eyes. “It's getting harder and harder. Many of the friends I started out with have died, and others have retired and moved away. But I still keep in touch with a couple. Mainly, Johnnie-Dell Crews. She's a few years younger than I am, but this may be her last year.” Miss Voncille began counting on her fingers but soon threw her hands up.

“Oh, I forget how long she has to go. Of course, she doesn't realize it yet, but she's not going to know what to do with herself. She'll miss telling people what to do all day. She won't be able to grade them anymore, and there's so much behavior out there today that desperately needs grading. If it were up to me, I'd flunk most people for their appearance in public alone. The way they dress, the careless language they use. I'm honest enough to admit that I missed all the regimentation of dividing the day into neat little periods of activity. Spontaneity? I had no use for it. Fortunately, my interest in genealogy saved me. My brain just lapped up all those deeds and records and such.” She gave a little gasp as she noticed Maura Beth's empty cup. “More coffee?”

Maura Beth nodded and waited for the refill before she spoke. “About Mrs. Crews. Would she be in a position to know about any openings?”

Miss Voncille's reaction was emphatic. “Indeed, she would. She knows as much about Cherico High as I do about the history of Cherico. You should hear how she goes on and on about the young teachers nowadays. But she's right, you know. These sweet-talking young things out of college aren't looking for a career like Johnnie-Dell and I were. So many of them get married after a year or two, and then there's another group who are already married who get pregnant and have to go on maternity leave. Many never come back. It was a lifelong commitment for us, but now . . . they're just here today, gone tomorrow.”

“Well, I know Jeremy would stick around if he got a job there. He'd bring so much to the position, too. Maybe Mrs. Crews could let you know if something opens up.”

There was a gleam in Miss Voncille's eye that was difficult to ignore. Whenever people saw it, they knew she meant business. “I'm sure she'd be delighted to help. Both of us were all for stability on the faculty, but we rarely seemed to achieve it.”

“Maybe we can do something about that by rounding up a dedicated teacher for Cherico High,” Maura Beth said.