Love in a Small Town (15 page)

“No . . . usually when Sam’s in town, I guess.” He thought maybe he imagined how she looked at him. He wouldn’t let himself look at her breasts.

“I brought you a glass of water and catsup and steak sauce,” she said, pointing at each thing. “That steak sauce is Winn’s own recipe. It’s real good. Do you want anything else?”

“No . . . no, this is fine. Thanks.” He pulled out the chair but remained standing until she walked away.

He scooted his chair in place and looked at his plate a minute and felt dreary. The salad wasn’t anything more than a couple of cherry tomatoes sitting in lettuce. The T-bone steak laid across the oblong plate, and a thick piece of buttered toast lay atop part of it. They didn’t get fancy here at Rio’s.

At least they used cloth napkins; that had been his idea to Sam. Tommy Lee hated paper napkins.

He lifted the fork and shook out the napkin, and suddenly he was recalling what Molly had said to him about eating off forks in restaurants. He gazed at the fork and wondered who had used it before him. He had never thought about it before Molly had said what she did, and he wished she had never put that thought in his head, because now he felt a bit nervous about using it. He wiped it with the napkin, furtively, self-conscious in the action.

He suddenly had a powerful wish that Molly was with him . . . or that Sam was there. It was god-awful eating alone. He almost wished he hadn’t come, but the aroma of the steak was enticing. He threw off the thought about the fork and cut into the steak. After the first savory bite, he decided that he was glad he had come. Maybe Rio’s didn’t get fancy, but the steak was the best to be found anywhere. And he had seen Rio’s kitchen, and it was clean.

Tommy Lee considered that he might have to get used to eating alone. The big screen television helped a lot; he could see it easily. He reflected that a lot of people had to eat alone. Maybe a good many people chose to eat alone. Sam surely had to do it all the time. Although, maybe not. Sam tended to be a gregarious sort, and people just seemed to flock around him. Unless he was in a poor mood. Tommy Lee was one of the very few people who ever saw Sam’s bad moods; Sam didn’t go out of his house when he was in a poor mood. He would sit on the sofa and drink beer and eat pretzels, or he’d stay in bed and stare at the ceiling. Tommy Lee had seen Sam stay in bed for days in one of those moods.

Annette came to refill his water glass from a heavy pitcher and asked, “Do you need anything?”

“I don’t believe so.” He wiped his mouth with the napkin. “It’s all very good.”

“Winn gets his steaks from the Hancock place, and he’ll only take the best,” Annette said, sliding out a chair and setting herself down.

Tommy Lee was a little surprised, but he didn’t think he showed it. He was sort of glad, too.

But then Annette went and said, “I heard about you and Molly. I’m sorry. I went through a divorce, and it sure can be tough.” Her saying that was embarrassing, but she had a tender look on her face, and Tommy Lee appreciated her trying to be consoling.

He said, “We’re not divorced. Molly’s just stayin’ at the cottage for a while. It’s not anything legal.”

She looked at him for a moment and then said, “I’ve been divorced about three years now. I was married to Alvin Osborne.”

When she seemed to be waiting, Tommy Lee said he didn’t recall the man.

“He was in my class at school. We were four years behind you and Gordy. Alvin and I went together in high school, but after graduation, we went our separate ways. A couple of years later, I moved down to Houston to get away from my parents, and I ran into him. It was like fate, and we got married right off. Alvin was a nice guy for the first year or so, but then he got sour, and one day he was just gone.”

Tommy Lee gave a small shake of his head; he didn’t know what to say.

“You and Molly have been together for just about ever,” she said, and her eyes studied him.

“We’ve been married almost twenty-five years,” he said. He almost mentioned the anniversary party at the VFW hall, but he held that back. There was no need to mention it.

Annette said, “Gosh, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. I can’t imagine bein’ with a person so long.”

“I don’t think there’s any way to imagine it,” Tommy Lee said. He leaned forward and played with his beer glass. “Years go by and they add up, and they aren’t nearly as long as they sound.” Then he added, “We’re expectin’ our first grandchild this summer.”

“No kidding? You sure don’t look like a grandpa.” She laughed, and he chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling his face grow warm.

She said, “My aunt and uncle were married thirty years, and then they got a divorce. I guess there’s just no guarantees.”

“No, I guess not,” Tommy Lee said, feeling sadness wash over him, thick and heavy.

“Your kids are all grown, aren’t they? Me and Alvin only had one child—my girl. She’s twelve now. Of course, by the time her daddy took off, she hardly noticed. He hadn’t been home for most of the two years before he left.”

There really wasn’t anything to say to that. Tommy Lee nodded and took a drink of beer, which had grown lukewarm.

He was both flattered and nervous by the way Annette was looking at him. He kept wondering if he was imagining how she was looking at him. Maybe she looked at all men that way. Some women did—looked at every man as if measuring him and what was in his pants. He couldn’t quite believe she would be looking at him in an interested way. But she had been the one to sit herself down, without being asked.

They talked for a bit about this and that. Annette seemed to pick up that he didn’t want to talk any more about him and Molly and divorce. She seemed an intuitive person.

Annette scooted to the edge of her seat, drawing up and poking out her big breasts, saying, “Can I get you another beer?”

He shook his head. “No thanks.” He averted his eyes. She rose, and he said, “Thanks for the conversation.”

He watched her walk away and imagined himself taking her by the arm and suggesting they have a drink together, then drive . . . where? He certainly wouldn’t take her back to his and Molly’s house. Maybe they could go to hers, except she had that daughter. A motel . . . up in Lawton . . . and they’d likely run into people they knew.

Even as he thought these thoughts, he knew he wouldn’t ask her any of it. He wouldn’t know how to go off with Annette, which was bad enough, but the truth was that he didn’t
want
to go off with her. He knew that sharply and truly.

Lonesomeness clawed at his insides. He was familiar with the feeling, had learned how to battle it but felt himself losing the fight.

He hadn’t quite finished his meal, but his appetite was gone. He dug into his pocket, pulled out several bills and left them on the table. With a second thought, he set the plate on the edge of the bills, so that they wouldn’t accidentally drift to the floor and to make it more difficult for someone walking by to snatch them up. Tommy Lee had always wondered how many tips left on a table were snatched up by wandering hands.

Annette called good-bye and gave a little wave. He waved back and said thanks.

There was a red line on the western horizon. Rodeo Rio’s lights blinked brightly. Tommy Lee jumped over the door into the seat, turned the key, and listened with a measure of satisfaction to the powerful Corvette engine purr. With stars beginning to appear in the darkening sky, he headed down the blacktop, the cooling night breeze whipping at his hair. He circled town and drove past the Collier place. He told himself he was being really stupid.

There were lights on in the big house, but the little cottage was dark. In order to look closely in the darkness, he had to pause at the opening of the drive, and he hoped Molly didn’t chance to see him. He saw the dark shadow of Odessa’s Lincoln. Molly’s El Camino wasn’t there.

He pressed the accelerator and drove away, telling himself where Molly was didn’t matter. He called himself all kinds of a fool. Hadn’t Molly walked out? Didn’t that go to show that Molly didn’t care what he was doin’ right now? She herself had told him to do whatever he wanted.

He was so distracted by his thoughts that when he pulled down his driveway and saw the El Camino sitting there in the lights outside the garage the fact didn’t strike him. He simply thought,
Well, Molly’s home.

Then the fact did strike him.
Molly!
He was so surprised, was staring so hard at the El Camino, that he almost ran into it. Then he was out of the Corvette and running up the stairs. He paused in the kitchen. The light was on, but Molly wasn’t there. He heard motion upstairs. He took the stairs two at a time and strode down the hall to their bedroom, where light poured from the doorway.

He stopped. At a glance he saw a duffel bag on the bed and Molly stuffing things into it. For an instant the wedding band on her finger caught the light. She still had it on.

Then he and Molly were looking at each other, and it was awkward, neither of them knowing what to say. Oddly in that moment, he noticed how beautiful her eyes were; he’d always thought her eyes the most beautiful thing about her. They were big and green and sensual, and right that minute they were filled with a sensual kind of sadness, which in a perverse way made them even more alluring.

She blinked and looked away, gesturing toward the dresser. “I need some things I forgot. I didn’t take hardly any underwear."

“You might need some, I guess,” Tommy Lee said.

She looked very sad, and as if she were waiting for him to say something else, but his mind was blank on what that something might be. Anger seeped into his chest with frightening power. He felt she required something of him, but he didn’t want to give it, no matter that he didn’t exactly know what it was she wanted.

He turned and walked back down the hall and down the stairs.

* * * *

Molly went over and sat on the bed. She felt as if all her energy had drained right out her feet. She told herself she shouldn’t have come. She had simply gotten carried away, the same as she had when she’d left. She’d just been carried along by her emotions, wanting to see Tommy Lee and thinking maybe a few words would wipe out the wall that was between them.

When she felt she could move, she zipped the duffle bag. There was more she might have packed, but she didn’t care about any of it anymore. She was having trouble caring about breathing. She didn’t want to leave yet, though, so she made the bed. Spread the top sheet that was in a wad like a rag, picked up the summer quilt from the floor and smoothed it, then turned it down in an inviting manner. Maybe Tommy Lee would appreciate finding the bedcovers all smoothed and waiting, she thought, as she fluffed the pillows and put them in place. Then her eyes filled with tears because she thought that now that she was gone, he was sleeping in the bed.

Turning from the bed, she picked up the duffel bag and went downstairs.

Tommy Lee was propped on a stool at the breakfast bar, a bottle of tequila in front of him and a half-filled glass in his hand. That was a somewhat shocking sight.

He glanced at her, then returned his gaze to his glass. Molly stared at the bottle of tequila. She guessed it was the one from the pantry, which had been in there for about two years. Unless Tommy Lee had drunk that one and gotten another.

She was turning this disturbing thought over in her mind, when he said, “Savannah was tryin’ to reach you today. She was upset, and not being able to get you made her even more so.” He spoke with his back to her.

“I know. Mama and I called her just before I came over here. We called Boone and Colter, too. Boone wasn’t in, but Colter is doing fine. He made two twenty-dollar tips Sunday night at that part-time job he has at the Steak and Ale.”

Tommy Lee nodded and took a deep drink out of the glass. Molly swallowed, then walked through into the small office and got some forms and a computer disk. When she came out, she said, “I needed to get the tax forms.” She paused and added, “I figured I’d go on handlin’ your business accounts . . . unless you didn’t want me to.”

“Why wouldn’t I want you to?” He turned and looked at her. “And why do you call it my business? I always thought of it as
our
business.”

The questions, thrown at her like that, confused her. “Because it is your business,” she said. “You started it, you run it. I do what I can for it because I want to help you do what interests you. I started keepin’ the books in the first place because you needed someone to do it. It was something—it
is
something I can do for you. That is my only interest in your business—doing somethin’ to help you.”

“I can get someone else to do it if you don’t want to,” Tommy Lee said.

“I know that.” Privately Molly thought that he would be in a pretty big mess without her help. He didn’t know the half of what she did. “But now I’m all settled in and everything, so I might as well keep doin’ it. And anyway, now this part of your business has become my business.” She reached over and took the check and receipt from Cormac lying on the counter and tucked them into the folder she held in her hand. “I’ll put this in the bank tomorrow.”

“But you used to hate it,” he said, worrying the subject like a dog with a bone. “You did it, but you hated every minute of doing it, right?”

“I certainly told you that often enough,” Molly said, matching his annoyed tone. “It was hard to like it when I had to learn how to do it in the first place, and I had to do it with kids underfoot. But I don’t hate it anymore. I like doing the books now.”

He looked downward, and she stood there a long minute, for some reason looking at his hands. There were nicks on the back of them, like always. They were so strong.

Then she said in a softer tone, “I just always think of it as your business, but keepin’ the accounts is my part in it. That’s how I think of it, so in that sense it is
our
business.”

Staring at the glass in his hands, he nodded. Molly wished he wasn’t drinking tequila like that. His doing that made her a little scared. He didn’t seem like Tommy Lee while he was doing that. She supposed she didn’t seem much like herself these days, either.