From Here to There (16 page)

 "Interesting country," Phillip grunted noncommittally, having decided he definitely did not like Wes Carlson but still uncertain as to why. His instincts though about people had served him well and he didn’t sense anything about Carlson that he would trust in a business deal... or was he just jealous?

 "You two really getting a divorce?" Wes turned his attention back to Helene, no doubt exerting all his charm as he added several liberal compliments to his question. Not that they weren't true. Helene looked particularly beautiful with sun shining on her hair, bringing out colors Phillip hadn't even been aware were mingled in the auburn. He regretted he hadn't thought to tell her first.

“Yes, we are,” she said.

“When we get around to it,” Phillip added.

Wes resumed his speculative look. "You two have one of the friendliest divorces I've ever seen. Usually folks are spitting mad at each other when they split."

 "We're being civilized about it," Helene said which Phillip found mildly surprising given the times he’d seen her spitting mad at him.

 At this point, Phillip was feeling anything but civilized about any part of it and surprised at his own feeling of jealousy. His thoughts were interrupted by Wes's next question.

 "How about having dinner with me down at Chico?" He was looking down at Helene, smiling confidently.

 "Hey, we'd love it," Phillip said with a grin of malicious satisfaction. "We're available just about any night, aren't we, hon?"

 If Phillip had been the sort of man to have his feelings easily hurt, the glare of anger from Helene's golden eyes might have discouraged him, caused him to back down on inviting himself on what Wes had clearly intended to be a date. Instead Phillip smiled broadly, his own eyes wide in an expression of seeming innocence--or as close to it as he was capable of coming.

 Wes looked at both of them, then again shook his head. "It's going to seem a little strange, but... sure if that's what you both want. How about Friday?"

 "Well, I don't--"

 Phillip cut her off. "Sounds great to us. See you then, Wes." He took Helene's arm and steered her down the street.

 "What did you think you were doing back there?" Helene hissed as they walked onto the main street of Livingston.

 "I thought you'd like to have dinner with good old Wes."

 "The invitation wasn't meant to include you."

 He pasted a hurt expression onto his face. "It wasn't? I guess if you don't want me to come, I could--"

 "Never mind," she snapped, "I have no reason for you not to come. Besides, it would only look more ridiculous to Wes than it already does, if you begged off so soon after inviting yourself. We'd both look like idiots."

 Phillip laughed. "And whose fault is that? Am I the one who requested an annulment less than an hour after getting married? After you do something like that, you can't expect people to not wonder... more than a little." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

 When no imaginative retort evidently came to her mind, Helene contented herself with a humph.

 "Where are we going now?" she asked, as they seemed to be walking with a purpose and it was not toward the truck.

 "If I'm going to fit into this country life I need some more practical gear." Still holding her arm, he turned them both into a small, narrow clothing and outdoor store. He needed a hat, flannel shirts, leather gloves, and a coat that would stand up to barbed wire.

 The store was dark after the bright sunshine on the street, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. As the distinct smell of leather, denim and oiled floors filled his nostrils, he knew this was the real McCoy. No soft and pretty cowboy shirts but the clothes and boots for working ranchers. The crowded shelves were high on all sides.

 Fitting into this Western community wasn't going to be solved merely by having the right garments, but it was a start. He pulled Helene from section to section demanding she help him pick out appropriate gear.

 He piled his choices on the counter. "Are you really going to be here long enough to need all of this?" Helene asked skeptically.

 He grinned, reaching for his wallet. "Who knows."

 Before they could go back to the truck, Helene insisted since she'd gone with Phillip, now it was his turn. She pointed to the art gallery. 

 He grimaced but let her pull him through the doorway. He wasn't interested in gimmicky, cutesy art, but this hollowed out old building held no kitsch. Huge, realistic canvases of Montana countryside adorned the walls, the love of the land showing in every stroke of the artist's brush. The colors were muted, yet full of light. Phillip was in no mood to collect art, but if he had been, these would have tempted him. It wasn't hard to visualize one against a huge stone fireplace, the centerpiece of a rustic living room. He shook his head ruefully to remove the image. Lord, he hoped this country wasn't going to become addictive.

 By the time they were back on the street, it was lunch time. "Where do you want to eat?" he asked, looking up and down the street and not seeing anything that looked like a restaurant.

 "There aren't a lot of choices, but the Long House is good," she said, not really caring. Shopping with Phillip had been an intimate, companionable activity and walking back out onto the street reminded her how temporary it was.

 The restaurant was half filled with customers when the waitress nodded them toward a booth. The menus were already propped between salt, pepper and sugar, and it only took a few moments to make a selection, attract the waitress's attention and place their order.

 "All right," Helene said as she sipped her fresh coffee, "now you will tell me about the missing years of your life. The ones you so cleverly forgot to mention before or during our engagement."

 "What missing years?"

 "Oh, let’s say between birth and thirty-four."

 Phillip smiled dryly. "I didn't think you were interested."

 "Really or were you afraid I might be? I won't be put off longer, Phillip. I'm sure of it now. I thought so before but now am sure. You've been secretive about your past. What’s up with that?"

 "You're too suspicious."  Actually, he knew that wasn't the truth. She hadn't been suspicious enough, or she'd have inquired long before this into his background, into the family that had never appeared.

 The waitress interrupted them long enough to hand Phillip his bottle of cold beer. He upended it to give himself a moment to consider his options. There seemed no way around telling her. Besides, what did it matter now what she knew? "I told you I come from Philadelphia."

 "I do remember that much." She wasn't being helpful.

 "I suppose you thought some kind of blue bloods," he suggested.

 "I think you were right earlier. I never thought of you as a person with a history. You just seemed to pop up, success and everything all in place."

 "I wanted it that way. My life's been a little different than yours." He swallowed, then just told her the basics, the years of no money for anything, the frequent moves from one dump to another, temporary foster homes, the lack of a father, the murder of his brother, a mother who was old beyond her years, and the many step-fathers or whatever you called men who are here today and gone tomorrow. There was more, darker secrets in his past, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her all of it. He barely let himself remember it.

 Helene shook her head with disbelief. "You have brothers and sisters? A mother?"

 "Well, I wasn't hatched," he said.

 "I didn’t mean that. Only why didn't they come to our wedding?"

 "My mother didn’t want to come. I didn’t ask the others."

 "I'd have wanted to meet your family, that is if..."

 "You see," he said, misinterpreting her pause, "when you think about it, you know it's impossible. You'd know it even more if you had met them."

 "That isn't what I meant," she snapped. "I was only thinking if our marriage had been a real one, I'd have wanted to know your family."

 He scowled. "I'm not sure what kind of family you're referring to, but it certainly isn't mine. We were a long ways from the Brady Bunch. With all of us having different fathers, there wasn't a lot of closeness. With your family, I don't think you can relate to what I'm trying to tell you."

 "My family," she repeated with a tiny laugh. "What do you know about my family?"

 He remembered then about the divorce Amos had mentioned and wished he hadn't brought up any of this, but he could see Helene wasn't about to let him off the hook.

 "Well?"

 "I don't know much," he admitted.

 She ran her finger around the rim of her coffee cup. "I suppose you thought I had the ideal home life." She glared at him, daring him to say anything, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. After a moment, she went on, "When I left you that night, I got home to hear my parents were getting a divorce."

 "What a happy day for us all," he muttered.

 She smiled wryly. "It wasn't any surprise nor was it particularly traumatic, at least not for me. All I can remember, from the time I was old enough to understand much of anything, was that they weren't together anymore than they had to be. Separate vacations, separate friends, separate interests and that was probably just as well because if they were together, they were fighting."

 "I'm sorry." He didn't know why he said something so inane. Maybe because he couldn't think of anything that didn't sound equally trite.

 "Of course, you're the only one with a less than perfect childhood. The rich can't have problems in their homes, can they?"

 He took a deep breath and wished for a cigarette. "I know that's not so," he said finally when he saw she was waiting for his
mea culpa.
Then it made him mad. "It wasn't my fault your parents weren't happy," he growled.

 "I know that." She stopped and smiled reluctantly. "I
do
know that. It just made me mad when you acted like I'd be ashamed to meet your family. Family is something special to me. Maybe because I only experienced one here in Montana."

 "Your Uncle Amos and his wife."

 "They were more parents to me than my own. I was out here almost every summer for as far back as I can remember and many holidays. The rest of the time I went to boarding school. First in New England, then in Europe. The ideal education, you know, but I'd have given up all of it to have a home where my parents wanted me with them, where it was like the Rocking H."

 "I guess life doesn’t work out that way very often. I didn't understand about your family," he said, trying to apologize and not knowing how. "I did think you were kind of a princess with everything going your way."

 She shook her head. "I'd have traded most of the so-called advantages for parents who loved each other and me."

 That he found harder to believe but kept his reservations to himself. He knew what deprivation was like. Helene didn't.

 As though she'd read his mind, Helene said, "You might not have known your father, but you do have brothers and sisters. You have more than you think."

 "That might depend on who those brothers and sisters were, don’t you think?”

She could not argue with that.

“I'm not close to any of them, don't hear from them unless they need something."

 "You're helping them?"

 "I'm not sure the word
help
is applicable. My money isn't appreciated by them anymore than it was by you, but they sure do take it." He laughed. "I guess that old saw about money not being able to buy happiness is true. It can’t buy popularity either. It's something that's being driven home to me more graphically every day. Derek especially resents my help."