The Dixie Belle's Guide to Love (23 page)

“You do it, please? I’m afraid if I head anywhere but for that door, it will take a backhoe to get me out of here.”

“You got it. But you know, even if you did leave some belongings behind, I think the new landlords wouldn’t mind you coming back now and then.”

“Careful what you wish for,” Rita warned, as her friend headed off toward the bedroom.

“Rita? Cozie? Y’all still up there?”

“Jillie?” Rita went to the stairway door. “What are you doing here? Are you lost?”

“Lost?” Jillie’s beautiful curls bounced as she climbed the steps.

“The grand reopening isn’t until tomorrow morning.”

“I know that.”

“Did you also know that people are working here?” Rita put her shoulder to the doorframe. “If
you come up, you may have to lift a carton or tote a suitcase back down.”

“I’ll risk it.” Jillie pressed by, taking long enough to eyeball Rita’s softer haircut and new color—which was actually her old color. “Where’s Cozette?”

“Right here.” She emerged from the other room with Rita’s old Dixie Belle Duchess crown in her hand. “Rita, don’t forget this. You left it hanging on the vanity mirror.”

“Thanks.” She took it and set it on top of her purse. “Well, one more load in the car and…”

“You’re not driving to Memphis tonight, are you?”

“Well, I was. Just to take a load of things to the new place. I’ll be back first thing tomorrow in plenty of time for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.”

“Oh, but you don’t want to go tonight.”

“Jillie, Rita’s on the brink of a whole new adventure. College in Memphis, a new apartment…why should she hang around Hellon another minute longer than she has to?”

“Be…cause…because…” Jillie’s dark eyes darted back and forth. “Um, because…”

Cozie put one hand on her hip and braced the other against the counter. “Yeah, we got that part.”

Rita crossed her arms. “Jillie, what are you up to?”

“Not a thing. Not one damn thing, Miss Suspicious. Can’t a person feel…can’t she…can’t I…”

“Oh. I get it.” Cozie pushed off from the counter
and put her hand on Jillie’s shoulder. “Without sarcasm you’re virtually speechless, aren’t you?”

Jillie glared at the older woman.

“Don’t you get it, Rita? Your oldest friend in the world just isn’t quite ready for you to leave.”

“Is that it, Jillie?”

She nodded her agreement. “That’ll do.”

“What this calls for is some kind of grand gesture. Something we can take away with us—to mark the occasion and celebrate the conclusions of what proved to be a life-altering summer.” Cozie spread her hands wide.

“We’re having a party tomorrow,” Rita reminded her.

“Not a party, a
ceremony
.”

Jillie slashed her hand through the air. “I refuse to dance naked in the moonlight.”

Naked in the moonlight.
The memories flooded back of joking with Cozie, Jillie, and Miss Peggy, then of the tender time with Will. Rita swallowed. Her eyelids fluttered to hold back the promise of tears. She could cry her eyes out all the way to Memphis and every night after she got there if that’s what it took. Tonight, Cozie was right. They needed ceremony, they needed to celebrate. “Jillie, why don’t you go see if your mama will join us?”

“My mother? Dancing in the moonlight? She’ll never do that, even in her best pegnoir, much less buck nekkid.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure.” Cozie laughed.

“Maybe she won’t dance, but she will drink champagne.” Rita wiggled her eyebrows. “Go get
her. Cozie, you go downstairs and steal a bottle of you know what from the kitchen.”

As they scrambled to their missions, Jillie asked, “What are you going to do?”

Rita plunked the glittering tiara on her head and smiled. “I am going to finish loading my car. That way when we all meet in the back parking lot—so nobody can see us and spread the word we’re up to no good—I will be ready to march headlong into my new life.”

“Well, we’ve toasted everything but marshmallows, what now, girls?” Miss Peggy, who was indeed wearing her best pegnoir as Jillie had roused her from an early bedtime, waited for a refill from Cozette.

“Think you’ve drunk enough to dance, Mama?”

“Who needs to drink for that?” Miss Peggy spread her arms and swayed gracefully from side to side.

They all laughed.

It felt good to laugh. It had been a while for Rita, ever since…“I want to thank you all for coming out here with me tonight. I needed this.”

“I needed this, too,” Miss Peggy announced. “No one ever comes to my door and invites me to come out under the stars anymore. Thank you girls for including a foolish old lady in your moment.” Hardly half a heartbeat went by before she added, “And if my daughter tries to tack ’Mama you’re not that old’ onto my charming old and
foolish lady remark, I will chase her through the street of Hellon with my cane flailing.”

“I was going to say you’re not that
foolish,
but now…” Jillie drew her mother into a sideways hug. “Oh, hell, you’re really not near as foolish as you pretend to be and nowhere near as foolish as I used to think you were.”

“Don’t you dare make me cry, young lady.” Miss Peggy sniffled.

“You’re all going to make me cry.” Since Rita expected to drive later that night, then turn around and come back at the crack of dawn, she had had only a few sips to drink. Still, her head was light and she felt warm in ways that had nothing to do with alcohol. She adjusted the tiara on her head and tipped her chin up. “Thank you again for this fitting end to an…interesting summer.”

“To all the summers yet to come, may they be as…memorable.” Miss Peggy lifted her champagne flute.

Rita’s pulse quickened. She didn’t think she could survive a summer more memorable than this. Of course, she was game to try. That much had changed about her.

“To summers.” Cozie’s glass joined Miss Peggy’s in the circle. “And to new endeavors—for all of us.”

“To new endeavors,” they echoed.

And Rita’s stomach knotted tighter.

“To caring friends,” Jillie stepped up.

A car’s headlights swerved across the front of
the Palace, and tires crunched on the gravel drive.

“Who’d be driving up at this time of night?” Cozie started to move out of their circle, but Jillie caught her arm and pulled her back.

“To caring friends,” she started again.

Rita drew in her breath and held it.

“And careless hearts.”

The car door slammed.

Rita curled her fingers around the narrow flute and put it to her chest. “No! You didn’t…”

“And the wild winds that rearrange the best-laid plans.” Jillie clinked the rim of her glass to Rita’s. “I think you’ve got company, girl, and nowhere left to run for cover.”

“I can’t believe you drove over here at this time of night expecting…well, heaven only knows what you were expecting.” Rita’s voice carried down the stairwell as he walked behind her.

He considered telling her to save it until they got all the way upstairs and could shut the door but he doubted she would take the advice kindly. He also held no illusion that the threesome who had met him in the dark parking lot, then rushed him upstairs after a retreating Rita, would let a little thing like doors keep them from listening in for whatever morsel they could hear.

“I can’t believe you’re here now, tonight. The timing is just so…” She made one of those female sounds of utter aggravation, a mix of a groan, a moan, and a sigh pressed through clenched teeth. “I just can’t believe it.”

“And I can’t believe…”

At the top of the stairs she turned and flipped on the light in the kitchen.

He stopped a scant three treads down from her and just took in the sight. He had not seen her in six weeks, had not spoken to her. And here she was.

She took his breath way.

“And I can’t believe,” he said as he moved up another step and reached out, “that you are wearing this thing again.”

“Oh, I forgot about that.” Her hand went to the sparkling crown to remove it.

He stopped her. “Don’t. It becomes you.”

“An old beauty-pageant crown? I don’t think so.”

“I was thinking more of a princess or—”

“A goddess?” She narrowed one eye, daring him to cross the line with her.

He took the next step up so there were only inches between them.

“Thought we determined that goddesses did their outdoor frolicking buck nekkid.”

The line of her mouth was grim, but there was a wavering deep in her lovely eyes. “When you look at me like that I
feel
naked.”

He wanted to touch her hair, her cheek, to take her hand. He grabbed the banister instead. “Rita, I…”

“Did you want to come in to talk or what?”

He wanted to “or what.” He wanted to “or what” with her until the whole town buzzed with
gossip about their staying locked in Rita’s apartment for days on end. He wanted to “or what” with her until neither of them could move another muscle and both of them understood that they truly belonged together.

“Well?” She tipped her head.

“I’d like for us to talk.”

She moved aside and motioned him to come in.

The place looked wrong.

She flipped on the lone light over the kitchen table.

It illuminated the familiar shabby rug, walls, and furnishings. Everything as he remembered it. But somehow it all seemed so impersonal now. Empty.

He glanced at the old refrigerator and realized the photos and colorful magnets were gone. “Where are your things? What’s going on?”

“Me.” She pulled a wooden chair out and sat down. “I’m going on.”

“Moving?”

She nodded.

“You can afford to do that after paying for the renovations? Wouldn’t it be wise to wait until the Palace started bringing in a real steady income to make that kind of move?”

She sat up straight. “You disapprove of my finally getting up the courage to change a few things?”

“Not disapproving.” He took the seat to the left of hers at the table. “I’m worried about you.”

“Is that why you came back to Hellon tonight? Worry over me?”

“Actually I told myself I was coming because I missed my family. And because I had just realized that while I am still every bit the donkey head you once spotted me for, I am no longer a self-involved bastard.”

Her face paled. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know if I do either, except to say that when I told Jillie I wanted to come to Hellon tonight it was because I genuinely wanted to see my family, to come home.”

“Home? You think of Hellon as home?”

“I thought that was all it was, until she mentioned your name. Until I walked up those stairs and saw you standing there with the light behind you and that damned tiara on your head.”

Her hand shot up, but before her fingers brushed the headpiece, she sank them into her hair and blinked. “And?”

“And then I understood it wasn’t the place I wanted to come home to, it was
you
, Rita.” He held his hand out to her.

Her? He’d come back for her? How many times these last few weeks had she dreamed, even prayed for this very thing to happen?

Now it had. He’d done it. The ball was in her court. She shifted her head, and the Dixie Belle Duchess crown wobbled.
Stupid, stupid!
Once again he’d caught her looking a fool. Taking so long to come up with any kind of response to his
amazing statement only made it worse.
Stupid, Rita. Stupid, stupid…wait. No
!

She refused to beat herself up like that. She was not stupid! She was strong and resourceful. And she was not going to let someone who broke her heart, then had the gall to show up again talking about home, make her retreat into her worst fears.

“Well, if you’ve come to Hellon to make a home with me, Wild Billy, leaves-a-girl-all-alone-on-a-hotel-lounge-stage, West…” She stood, not caring that it made her crown slip to the back of her head. “You are too damn late.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“I’m not so self-centered that I’d think that I could walk back into your life armed with nothing but an apology and—as you said—a ‘too damn late’ profession of love and hope to make up for what I did.”

His what? She waved her hand in a slow, jerking motion. “Back that train up. Your profession of what?”

“Love. I love you, Rita.”

“Damn it, Will.” She whipped around so he would not see the tears in her eyes or read the emotions on her face. She had no idea what emotions he might see there, of course, and that made it all the more frightening. Would he pick up on her frustration? Her anger? Her joy? Her confusion? Or worst of all, would he see that despite the way he had behaved, she loved him right back? “Why are you doing this?”

“Maybe because I finally realized a taste of heaven wasn’t enough for me, Rita. That’s why I left you that night in Memphis. And that’s why I’ve come back.”

“It can’t be both!” She whirled around, her arms out. “It can’t be the reason you left
and
the reason you came back.”

“It sounds impossible, but that’s the truth of it.” He pulled at the knot in his tie, and his jacket rustled against his cotton shirt. “I left because by staying I knew I’d become another excuse for you to keep things the way they were. I left for your sake.”

“What made you think you could make that decision on my behalf?”

“It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, Rita, I swear it. Made more difficult by the fact that I knew the one thing you despised in this world was someone who didn’t stick around for the people he loved.”

“But you walked out anyway.”

“I had to. And I hope you’ll let me tell you why.”

“I’m listening.” She stood behind a chair, gripping its back so hard it felt like the wood grain was being burned into her palms.

He hung his head for a moment but as he talked, he raised it again and looked toward the curtainless kitchen window. “All my life people have wanted things of me—put their expectations on me.”

“The first son in the West family. I can believe that.”

“The first son. Not a West, though. Not by blood.”

“What are you saying?”

“Now, do not hold this against my mother, she’s done her penance in spades, and it’s a matter between her and my…my daddy.” He looked at his hands, then out the window again. “But Jillie and I have different fathers.”

“Things like that
do
happen.” She felt herself smiling, and for only an instant wondering if Will’s biological father had been one of those gentlemen callers who bade Miss Peggy to come out in the moonlight. “If Pernel hadn’t decided to marry me in high school, Lacey Marie might have called another man her father in time.”

He nodded without meeting her gaze. “Then there’s the whole Wild Billy, football-hero stage of my life. Suddenly I’m just a kid but I’m carrying the responsibility and reputation for even more names that were not rightly mine. You know there were times in the past I sort of wished we had lost that state championship.”

“Lost? You could never have held your head up in town again.”

“Naw, they’d have gotten over a loss quicker than they did that win, and you know it. Thing was I didn’t deserve to become a local legend. I was part of a team but when people talk about the championship, Wild Billy West is the one who gets the credit.”

“You felt guilty about that?”

“Not at first.” He gave her a sheepish grin.
Then he sighed. “But later, yes, guilty and more than a little stifled. Spending your life under a mantle you don’t really believe you earned takes its toll, Rita.”

“I can see how it would.”

“As problems go, that one is petty, and I admit it. But it affected me in ways that worked themselves into the rest of my life. After I left Hellon, the reason I couldn’t come back is because I couldn’t let myself live under other people’s expectations anymore. Especially if those expectations were that anything I did was fine, even if it was foolish.”

“Like the story of Midas, having everything you touch turn golden is not as great as it sounds to others.”

He laughed, but his face reflected no joy. “I’ve spent a lot of time making sure no one put their expectations on me again. What I’ve realized is that meant I never had to strive to do things that I knew were beyond my reach.”

“Welcome to the club.” She put her hand on his chest.

“I never had to grow up as Wild Billy in Hellon, and in trying to escape that I created the same situation, only it was my own fears and stubbornness that kept me from growing. The one exception was when you told me off, Rita.”

She shut her eyes and groaned.

He touched her cheek. “There I was feeling sorry for myself for having another title thrust on me that I didn’t merit, feeling sorry for myself, hiding behind my past and you…”

“I never did anything like that before. I never have since, really. But I had always wanted more children, and there you were having a baby, not even caring about your own flesh-and-blood child.”

“He had my name. And he was
like
me.”

“Of course he was. He was your son.” She rested her hand on his shoulder.

He looked at her with those same, aching, haunted eyes he had the first day he’d come to the Palace. “He was like me because he had the name of a man who was not his blood father.”

“Will.” She started to sit again, then felt too restless for it. She walked the few steps to the counter, turned, and studied his weary expression.
One of the reasons Norrie never became Mrs. West was that she had a rather relaxed approach to fidelity.
Cozette’s tidbit of gossip rushed back into Rita’s mind. “And I said those awful things to you. I am so sor—”

“No.” He stood. “Don’t apologize for that. Never apologize for being the one person in my life who had just enough faith that I could do the right thing that she would dare to speak the truth to my face.”

“But I didn’t know the whole story. There I went on and on berating you for not being supportive of Norrie and putting your selfish pleasure above the needs of your unborn baby…”

“A baby who
needed
a decent father. You were right to do that, Rita. That tiny boy deserved a decent father more than anything on earth.”

She hung her head and sniffled.

“You gave me another kind of glimpse of heaven then, Rita.” He came to where she stood and lifted her chin with his finger. “By allowing me to know for even a preciously short time what it meant to be an innocent child’s daddy.”

Tears washed onto her cheeks, but she did nothing to wipe them away.

“After the baby passed, I understood more deeply than ever what it was I had lost. I had lost my one tiny sliver of heaven on earth.”

“That’s kind of what children are, aren’t they?”

“That’s what love is, true love,
unselfish
love.” He took her hand. “I didn’t know it when I came here, but that’s where I would find my peace of mind again. In loving you, physically, spiritually, and unselfishly.”

“This is all so much to take in, Will.” She drew her fingers out of his grasp so slowly that she felt every nerve tingle at the parting touch. “You say you love me, but that night in Memphis you walked out.”

“Because I realized that night that I wanted you too badly, that I cared about you too much to let you use me as another crutch to keep from going after your real dreams.”

“You did.” She sank into her chair again.

“Yes. I did.”

“No. I said ‘you did.’ Not a question. A statement of fact. When you walked out of that lounge and there was no one left around for me to play martyr to, I had to take a good long look at myself and my life at last.”

“And?”

“And I came back to Hellon the next day, got the paperwork to enroll in college in Memphis, and sold the Palace.”

“Sold it? That fast?”

“I had a motivated buyer.”

“Who?”

“Cozette and her husband. All this time they’ve been getting financial advice from your mother about how to invest money they made from selling off lots of the farmland.”

“My proper mother, who gave herself the name Peggy to honor Margaret Mitchell, still holds formal tea parties and rules this town’s social set with an iron cane, gave financial advice to aging bohemians? Telling them to buy a half-gutted pig rib restaurant?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Your mother was against them buying the Palace. But once Mouse heard about the stage he was sold. Being vegetarians, they did dump the whole rib thing. They’re calling the place the Java Palace and—” She sank into her chair and started to laugh.

“What?”

“Well, we started out talking about love and then you told me that incredible story about your son and finding peace again then I told you about Cozie and Mouse and now we’re onto the Palace.”

“The conversation has had more twists than—”

She held her hand up. “Don’t say it.”