Untrusting (Troubled) (20 page)

Miss Lili has the caddy out of the
garage and the trunk up.  “Put your suitcases in the trunk and go in to
say ‘bye to the boys.  They just got up.  We need to get started on
our first leg of this trip.  I’m so looking forward to this week with you girls.”

We do as we’re told with our
suitcases and go in to say ‘bye to the guys.  Bob and Maria go into the
living room and Steve and I stay in the kitchen.  “How’s your ankle? 
I feel so bad about it.”

“I’ll have to lounge around today,
but it’s not bad.  The pain pills help.”  He draws me to him and
kisses me.  “I’ll be glad when you’re back.  Grams is looking forward
to being accompanied by females this trip.  She’s used to Bob and I going
with her, so this will be different for her.  Take good care of her and
drive carefully, I want you all back in one piece.  Especially,
you.”  He kisses me again and this time it’s demanding, like last night,
but this time he’s leaning against the counter.  Just as we’re getting too
into the kiss we hear a crutch fall and start to snicker when we hear Bob
swearing.

We go running in to see Bob
stretched out on the couch cringing and clenching his teeth and Maria crying,
sitting beside him.  Miss Lili comes in holding her chest and almost
shouting, “What happened?  I could hear ya all the way out to the car.”

Steve looks at her and says, “The
same thing that happened to me last night.”  Bob looks up at him and they
start laughing and so do I.  Miss Lili and Maria are a little slower but
they join in, in time.

“You did this last night?  No
wonder ya honked for me when ya got there.  Man, I can’t believe how much
that hurt and in the middle of….”

Maria stops him, but Steve looks at
Bob saying “Yeah, me too.”  Bob started laughing again.  This time
Maria and Miss Lili are at a loss.  I start laughing, hanging onto
Steve.  Maria looks at me and I nod at her and she starts laughing.

Miss Lili’s starting to get ticked
at being left out.  “Are you four going mad or are ya gonna let me in on
the joke?”

Bob says, “It’s nothing, we were
just kissing and I dropped my crutch and stepped down on my cast and it hurt.”

“And that was funny?  You
young people are strange.”  Then she puts the conversation together with
what she knows of love, her eyes take on a shine and she says “Oh,” and starts
laughing, too.  When we catch our breath, she asks “Steve, ya said this
very thing happened to you last night?”  Steve nods his head.  “Well,
maybe you boys will behave yourselves the week we’re gone and heal a bit. 
Come on, girls, it’s time to hit the road.  If you’re gonna kiss the boys
‘bye again, I suggest they sit down for it.”  She walks out of the room
and we hear the back screen door slam shut.

We kiss our guys again and get
caught up in it, ‘til we hear the honking outside.  We laugh and the guys
walk us out to the car for one more, quick, kiss and wave as we back outta the
driveway, fifteen minutes late.

Miss Lili asks for the radio to be
turned on and Maria finds a country station that suits her.  Within an
hour Maria’s sleeping and Miss Lili, is curled up in the back seat
asleep.  I’m on my own and I’m almost as tired as they are.  Two
hours later, just before Austin, I pull over at a rest stop.  The other
two wake up and we go to the bathroom and take a break from the car.  Maria
takes over driving and I get to take a nap.  We stop at New Braunsfels for
a rest and lunch as Miss Lili instructed.

She tells us about a nice
restaurant and after the rest stop we lunch at the place she suggested. 
Everyone seems to know her and asks about Steve and Bob.  Maria and I
shrug and look at the menu.  “Order anything you like, the food is great
here, and I get a discount.”  She wasn’t kidding, the food was great and
her discount was amazing, she didn’t pay for anything.  But she did go
back into the kitchen and speak to the chef and the owner for about thirty
minutes.  Then she’s ready to go.

I drive the two hours to San
Antonio and to a spot on the outskirts, according to Miss Lili’s
instructions.  We’re met there by a limo and two drivers.  One drives
the caddy to a garage and we’re driven to a hotel on the river.  We check
into a three bedroom suite and Miss Lili gives instructions to the limo
driver.  We have three hours before dinner.  We take showers and rest
for a while.  Then Miss Lili thinks we need to take a ride on the river.

The hotel has a pontoon boat for
tours of the River Walk.  It’s very nice and it’s cool.  The café’s
smells along the river has our stomach’s growling when we get back.  Miss
Lili says we need to dress for dinner, because right after dinner we’re going
to a concert.  Maria and I are stunned, “Miss Lili, what do you mean dress
for dinner?  We don’t have those kinda clothes.  We’ll eat in the
room and you can go to the concert.  We can’t afford clothes like that.”

“It’s all taken care of.  We
just need to go back to the room.”  Miss Lili doesn’t seem to
understand.  We go up to the room and find the sitting room full of racks
of clothes and women.  “Now, we need to choose three or four dresses and
the ladies here will do your makeup and hair.  And we don’t want to take
all evening, I’m starving and so are y’all.  So don’t argue.  Hurry
up, we have places to be.”  She went to a rack and chose four dresses to
try on.  When we hesitate, she comes over and starts walking us down racks
choosing dresses for us, handing them to two sales ladies and pointing to the
bedrooms.  When we stand there stunned she comes over and walks us to our
rooms and shuts the door behind us saying, “Hurry up.  We don’t have all
night.”

The sales ladies start showing us
what Miss Lili has chosen for us.  I like a couple of them so I try them
on and put them to one side.  The other two are switched for three others
that I like very much.  The sales ladies take them over to the closet and
hung them up in a garment bag.  Since we’d showered earlier we only have
to dress.

I hear Maria fussing with the sales
ladies and go next door in the dressing gown one of Miss Lili’s sales ladies
gave me.  She doesn’t want to take any of the dresses.  “Maria, I
didn’t have time to tell you, but Steve hinted this might happen.  So try
on the dresses and let’s get goin’.  I’ll help if you want me to.  I’ve
already picked out five.  Now let’s see you in this one.”

She looks at me like I have two
heads, but with a little coaxing she tries on the two dresses she likes and the
others are switched for three others, just like mine were.  Maria likes
them too and they fit.  They, too, were taken to the closet and hung in a
garment bag.

There are bags left on our beds
with panty hose and undergarments for the dresses.  We’re asked if we need
help dressing and we accept help getting the dresses on.  Then we walk out
to find matching shoes and evening bags for each dress, waiting, along with
hairdressers, makeup ladies, and manicure equipment.  We sit down in the
portable beauty salon and get the works.  When we’re through we don’t
recognize ourselves, nor are we allowed the time to get acquainted with our
looks.  Miss Lili’s looking like a million dollars and is shooing us down
to eat.  We have a table reserved and there’s food sitting on it.

“I called before we came down so
the appetizers would be waiting.  We only have forty five minutes ‘til we
have to leave for the theatre.  I hope ya like what I ordered.  Now
chow down, the rest of the dinner’s waiting and will get cold.”  We eat
like we aren’t going to eat for a week then leave because we’re informed our
car is waiting.

We sit through the concert ‘til
intermission and Miss Lili insists we go to the lobby for some air and to get
the kinks out.  Miss Lili is well known here, too, because we were mobbed
in the lobby.  We go back to the box and sit through the rest of the
concert.  Then Miss Lili informs us we’ve been invited to an “after”
party.  So we go to some mansion looking house and meet a lotta
people.  I can’t tell you their names because there are too many to
remember, but Miss Lili knows them all.  At two a.m. Maria and I are so
tired we can hardly stand and our feet are killing us.  We’re not used to
wearing heels, except to church where we’re sitting most of the time. 
Miss Lili notices we’re sitting a lot, just every chance we get, and decides
it’s time to go.  Thank goodness!

On the way to the hotel Miss Lili
asks if we’d had a good time.  “Miss Lili, we aren’t those kinda people,
but it was nice.”

“That’s okay, you girls made a good
impression on them.  They thought ya fit right in.  They aren’t
‘those kinda people’ either, except occasionally, like tonight.  Do you
know who ya met?  Only the most influential people in the region. 
But tomorrow they’ll be back in their work clothes and some of those’ll be
jeans and a straw hat.  So, ya are those kinda ‘people.’”

Back at the hotel we say good night
in the sitting room and go straight to bed, without even taking the hairpins
out.  We have about four to six hours to travel tomorrow.

Room service wakes us up at ten
with breakfast.  They let themselves in and knock on our doors to get us
up.  I have to pick hairpins outta my skin, where they embedded themselves
when I slept on them.  Miss Lili comes out looking fresh as a daisy while
Maria and I are gulping coffee to come to life with our hair half up and half
skragglin’ down, but all mess.  We have breakfast, a shower and get things
packed and ready to go.  When room service comes up for the trays, bell
boys come with them and take everything down.  We start to protest the
garment bags, but Miss Lili says those go, too.  We try to tell her
there’s an extra garment bag for each of us, but she says she knows she ordered
them and we have one more stop to make before we leave.

There’s a boutique in the lobby
with bathing suits and Miss Lili says we’re going to need two more bathing
suits each.  She doesn’t approve of the one piece bathing suits, insisting
we get a two piece, but not a bikini.  She doesn’t approve of that much
flesh showing, but we don’t, either, so we do as she says.  Then we’re out
the door and into the limo to drive us back to the caddy on the south side of
San Antonio so we don’t have to drive in the bumper to bumper traffic on the
expressways.  I think I love Miss Lili.  I’m not good at playing
chicken in a car when merging with bumper to bumper traffic going fifty miles
an hour.

We talk on the way down to Corpus,
stopping at Three Rivers for lunch.  Miss Lili paid for lunch and we got
back on the interstate to finish the trip.  At Corpus Christi we go to
another garage where the caddy will be stored ‘til the trip back.  There’s
a limo waiting for us that takes us to a marina where Miss Lili changes into
jeans, a sweatshirt and jacket.  We get on a golf cart to be taken to a
big motor boat.  Miss Lili gets on and motions us onto the boat. 
“Miss Lili, where are we going?” I ask.

“We’re going to the house. 
Where’d ya think we were going?”

“We have no idea, it’s all a
surprise to us.”  Maria’s not real sure she likes the idea of a boat ride
to the house.

I look at her, “Afraid of boats?”

“How would I know?  I’ve never
been on one in a big body of water.”

“Miss Lili, is there a bridge out
to wherever we’re going?”

“No, the only other transportation
across is a helicopter.”  Miss Lili is concerned about Maria’s
reluctance.  “Here put this life jacket on and come on.”  We put on
life jackets and get on the boat.  Miss Lili puts her life jacket on, too,
“It’s a law now, we have to wear life jackets or the Captain won’t even start
the boat.”  The engine roars and the boat moves slowly out of the slip and
the marina.  Once we’re outta the marina Maria and I hang on for dear
life.  The Captain’s acting like we’re going to a fire and we’re late,
rationalizing the need for speed, as we’re skimming over the water like its
glass.  We notice we’re slowing down about twenty minutes into the ride
and the boat is turning toward an island and a pier.  Maria and I don’t
care where we are, anymore, just that we’ll soon be off this boat.  Miss
Lili has sat next to us like it’s the most normal thing in the world, ‘til we
dock.  Then the Captain comes over to help her up and off the boat. 
There’re three men on the dock to help us.  It takes two to get Miss Lili
onto the dock and one each for Maria and me.

I ask one of the men if Miss Lili’s
okay.  “Yes, ma’am.  She’s just scared of the trip over.  She’ll
be fine as soon as she’s off the dock.”  Maria and I look at each other
and Maria asks why she doesn’t go by helicopter.  “Miss Lili is more
afraid to fly than come by boat.”  Maria and I grin at each other and give
our life jackets to the Captain and walk, rather rubber legged, down the dock
to terra firma.  Once we’re off the dock, some of the men go get our
luggage.

Miss Lili is sitting on a bench
waiting for us.  She walks between us, arm in arm, to the house.  She
confides in us her fear of the boat and the trip, and her bigger fear of the
helicopter.  She doesn’t mind flying in a large airplane, but the
helicopter scares the breath out of her.  She, literally, can’t breath,
she says.  We’re at the door to the house and she opens it and walks
in.  “I love this house.  Buckley, my late husband, built it for us
for our tenth anniversary.  Its simple elegance and I love it.” 
We’re met by Mandy, the housekeeper, and shown to our rooms, across the hall
from Bob and Steve’s rooms.  We’re shown our bathroom, a Jill and Jill, in
this case, which Maria and I share.  We’re glad to have a way into each
other’s room without running down the hall.  We’re told we have time for a
shower and to change then dinner will be served.  It’s not a dinner we
need to “dress” for.  I asked.

We have a simple supper of a salad,
small steak, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob.  It’s nice to
relax.  The furnishings are expensive and the house is luxurious, but it’s
comfortable.  We go out to the patio to find a swimming pool at the end of
it.  Miss Lili says there’s a beach down the path to the right.  It’s
shared with the three other houses on the island, but we’re probably the only
ones on the island at this time of year.  There’s a gazebo across the yard
and there’s all kinds of flowers and trees.  Miss Lili says we’ll explore
the island tomorrow, but first we’re gonna sleep in.  This place is so
quiet it’ll be hard not to sleep in.  We can get up whenever we want to.

After tomorrow there’ll be things
that have to be seen to, but that’ll be here, at the house.  She does most
of her business here, because of the methods of travel, but she sees no reason
to stay in a hotel when she has the house.  We’ll be having guests almost
everyday ‘til Friday, that’s what the second garment bag is for.  We’ll
have to dress for two dinners and then a big party Saturday evening.

Now we have our itinerary for the
week and know what’s expected of us.  We sit on the veranda for about an
hour and talk about the guys and their quirks and ours.  Then Miss Lili
asks about the guys and what happened to get them to laughing about their
pain.  I tell my story and Maria tells hers and Miss Lili starts
laughing.  We tell her we still don’t understand the laughter.  When
she gets through explaining it, we understand and laugh at it, again. 
Mandy comes out with an offer of dessert and since its Miss Lili’s favorite,
Lemon Meringue pie, we have some with hot tea, it’s a little cooler this close
to the water at this time of day.  Miss Lili shows us where the kitchen
is, in case we get hungry, later, says goodnight and goes off to bed.  We
sit up a while longer then we’re off to bed.

Maria and I meet in the bathroom,
she misses Shay and Bob and I miss Steve.  “Sher, are ya in love with
Steve?”

“Steve explained love to me the
other night, but I still don’t know.  I feel all the things he said love
is, but I still can’t say I’m in love with him.  Yet, I don’t want anyone
else.  Maybe, I have commitment issues.  What about you?  I
wondered if ya said yes to Bob because ya felt pressured to.”

“No.  I love Bob, but I still
don’t know him well enough to marry him.  I need to know I can trust him
to be good to me and Shay.  And that includes not leaving us.”

“I made Steve mad at me because I
asked him about those things.  He says Bob loves you two and he’ll
stay.  Since he wanted to come home and his wife wouldn’t come with him,
he divorced her. I think he’s head strong, and determined when he knows what he
wants.  Can ya handle that?”

“As long as Shay and I are what he
wants, yes.”

“I asked Steve if maybe Bob was
anxious for a kid of his own.  He said Bob hadn’t wanted kids ‘til he met
you.  I guess that means he’s gonna stay, don’t you?”

“Sounds like it, but I want to be
sure.  I was fed a lotta crap before and believed it.  But I’m not
that naïve anymore.  I want time to be sure.”