The Hellion (5 page)

Staring at the bank, he thought, One woman would have been enough for me. But only one.

  
On his way to the eleven o'clock meeting at City Hall, Tommy Lee slowed the Cadillac to a crawl as he passed Panache, but nobody was about. When he emerged from the meeting with the assurance that the zoning restrictions had been lifted and the plans for the new apartment complex could go forward undeterred, he paused at the curb beside his car to light a cigarette and glance southward along the street. From here he could see the sign above the door of her store. A woman came out. Tommy Lee squinted, but from this distance couldn't tell if it was she or not. He sprinted around the car, hurriedly backed out, and made an illegal U-turn in the middle of Jackson Avenue, keeping his eyes riveted on the figure walking along the sidewalk ahead of him. He slowed as he pulled abreast, but even before he passed the woman, he realized it wasn't Rachel.

You damn fool, Gentry, you're acting the age of your own daughter! But the disappointment left him feeling deflated.

Back at the office, when he'd exchanged necessary messages with Liz, he went inside,

flung the building-code regulations on
   
49 his desk, then moved to the window behind it.

Again he studied the bank, a burning cigarette hooked in the curve of a finger, forgotten. The smoke curled up and he took a deep drag while his eyes remained fixed on the building a half-block away. Then he anchored the cigarette between his teeth, crossed to the door, and closed it.

Liz looked up in surprise, frowned, but decided it was none of her business.

Tommy Lee reached for a ballpoint pen and wrote the telephone number on a yellow legal pad--he knew it by heart. He stared at it through the smoke that drifted up past his nostrils. His heart seemed to have dropped into his guts. His palms were sweaty and his spine hurt. After a full minute, he thrust the pen onto the desktop and wilted back into his chair, trying to calm his breathing. Come on, Gentry, what're you scared of? How many women have you called in your life? How many have refused you?

He reached for the phone, but instead his hand veered to the pen. He grabbed it and wrote the number again. Twelve times he wrote it ... in the same

spot ... until it was pressed into eight sheets of the tablet.

The cigarette had burned low and he stubbed it out absently, reached for the phone, and actually picked up the receiver this time. But after five seconds he slammed it down without dialing, then ran four shaky fingers through his gray-black hair. Lord a'mighty, he hadn't faced anything this nerve-racking in years.

He grabbed the phone and punched out the numbers too quickly to give himself a chance to change his mind.

"Good afternoon, Panache."

Dammit, why couldn't she have answered?

"Is Ra---- Is Mrs. Hollis there?"

"I'm sorry, she's not. Can I help you?"

"No, thank you. I'll try again later."

He slammed the phone down as if it had bitten him. Then he sat with his face in his palms, shaking so hard his elbows rattled against the desktop. He dropped his forearms flat against the blotter, head drooped, while he sucked in huge gulps of air. Then his palms pressed his cheeks again and eight fingertips dug into his eyes beneath his glasses. You're insane, Gentry. Plumb nuts. What the hell would you have said if

she'd answered?
                     
51

But after two hours he felt less crazy and decided to give it another try. He went through the same ritual again, only this time he made sure he had a cigarette lit when he dialed, to steady himself.

"Good afternoon, Panache."

Goddammit, doesn't Verda ever go home? "Is Mrs. Hollis there?"

"No, I'm sorry. I don't expect her in today. Is there anything I can do?"

"No, thank you. I'll call again tomorrow."

"Can I tell her--was

Tommy Lee slammed down the receiver in frustration. No, you can't tell her anything! Just get the hell home so she'll have to answer her own damn phones!

When Tommy Lee lurched from his chair and flung the door open, Liz's head snapped up. But he only stormed past, throwing over his shoulder, "I won't be in till morning." A moment later tires squealed outside, and she shook her head.

Tommy Lee Gentry was a land developer. He knew every acre of every section of land within a

radius of fifty miles around Russellville. He'd owned the land on which Owen Hollis had built his house, had subdivided it into lots, contracted for the installation of improvements, then resold the lots to the builder who'd eventually put up the brick house where Rachel and Owen had lived. It was on the eastern edge of town in a hilly, wooded area called Village Square Addition, but there was nothing square about it. The streets curved and curled around the natural undulations of the land, making it highly desirable property lacking the dreary severity of rigidly perpendicular streets.

Hollis had done right by her, if the house was any indication. It was a rambling U-shaped thing of peach-colored brick, hugging a swimming pool in its two out-stretched arms. It had a hip roof that deeply overhung arched fanlight windows trimmed with eave-to-earth Wedgwood-blue shutters. At the base of each window an azalea bush formed a precisely carved mound, while between them the warm brick walls sported espaliered Virginia creepers, trained into faultless Belgian fence designs by a weekly gardener. At each corner and beside the

center door, Chinese holly bushes
     
53 stood guard while the shaded yard bore lush magnolias and live oaks, with not a fallen leaf to be seen anywhere. On either side of the house a high box-cut podocarpus hedge blocked out the sight of the backyard, overlapping at one point to create a hidden entrance, like that around a tennis court.

Tommy Lee knew the exact summer they'd had the pool put in. He'd been up at City Hall looking through some files when he'd come upon their application for a pool permit. As he approached the house now, he wondered if she might possibly have taken the day off and what she'd say if he simply presented himself at her door unannounced.

But in the end, he chickened out. Use your head, Gentry. She's only been a widow for a week.

He drove on by, made a U-turn in a circle at the end of her street, then left the area with a long lingering study of her house on his way out.

Once on the main road again, he angrily loosened his tie. Damn. He'd had such good

intentions of trying to make it through one night without any liquor. But he needed a drink worse than ever. Stinkin' dry Baptist county! He'd have to make the run up to Colbert County to buy his booze tonight.

He bought enough to get him through the weekend without having to make the trip again. Then he stopped and ate a fat filet mignon with all the trimmings, and hit the road again armed with an after-dinner drink in a plastic glass. He passed his office by rote, checking it cursorily before heading home. He timed his run, tossed out the empty glass just before the last turn, as usual, and pulled up before his black front doors showing a record time of eight minutes.

He gave a roaring rebel yell to celebrate.

But a minute later, when he entered the house, his jubilant mood vanished. The place was just as silent as ever, and just as disorderly. Even more so, for more garments had been added to the collection strewn across the sofa. I should clean it up. But for whom?

Instead, he mixed himself a double Manhattan in the hope that he'd get good and loose so that when

he picked up the phone and dialed her
     
55 number it wouldn't shake him in the least.

But his hand still trembled. His palm still sweat. And after seventeen rings it dawned on him that Rachel wasn't home.

Nor was she at Panache the next day when he called, or any of the days following that. But finally Verda McElroy disclosed that she'd gone to St. Thomas for two weeks, putting Tommy Lee out of his misery temporarily.

  
Rachel's father had been waiting at the Golden Triangle Airport, but even with him beside her, the house seemed eerie when she walked into it.

"Should I make us some tea?" she asked hopefully.

"It keeps me awake. I'd better not."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing. I'll carry your bags into the back, but it's late. I'm afraid I can't stay."

When he was gone, Rachel wandered listlessly from room to room, realizing that the trip to St. Thomas had only been a respite that delayed her acceptance of Owen's irreversible absence. Standing in the doorway of their bedroom, she chafed

her arms, shivering. Her nostrils narrowed. The room still seemed to smell of sickness. Perhaps it was only an illusion, but Owen had spent so much of his last months here and had slipped into death right there on the bed in the middle of the night while she lay beside him.

Again she shivered. Then she was besieged by guilt for dwelling more on the unpleasant memories created in this room than on the pleasant.

When the phone rang, she jumped and pressed a hand to her heart, then stared at the instrument on the bedside table. It rang again and she hurried to answer it, sure it must be Marshall.

"Hello."

But the low, masculine voice was not Marshall's. "Hello, Rachel."

"Hello," she repeated, hoping for a clue from his inflection.

"How are you?" Still she couldn't identify the caller and had a sudden wary prickling along her spine--might it be one of those obscene callers who preyed on new widows?

"Who is this?" she asked icily.

"It's Tommy Lee."

For a second she wished it had been only an

obscene call. She wrapped her free
   
57 hand around the mouthpiece and sank back onto the edge of the bed, her throat suddenly tight and dry.

"Tommy Lee ... I ..." I what? I went away to mourn my husband's death and thought more of you than I did of him? "I certainly wasn't expecting it to be you."

"Oh? Who were you expecting?"

"I ... nobody." After a breathless pause, she repeated, "Nobody."

"You've been gone."

"Yes, to St. Thomas."

"And how was St. Thomas?"

Her voice was falsely bright. "Oh, lovely. Lovely! March is their dryest month. No rain, and highs in the eighties." But once the weather report was finished she fell silent, that silence greeted by a matching one from the other end of the line. The strain grew between them until Rachel felt it between her shoulderblades. When her voice came again it was low and subdued. "I didn't expect to see you at the funeral."

Again there followed a long pause, as if he was measuring his reply. When it came, it was as tightly controlled as hers. "I didn't

expect to be there."

"You shouldn't have come, Tommy Lee."

"I know that now."

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful." She swallowed, eyes closed, both hands gripping the phone. "It did mean a lot to me to see you there."

A full fifteen seconds of silence followed, then, "Rachel, I want to talk to you." His voice sounded tightly controlled, and she could hear his raspy breathing now.

"I'm here."

"No, not on the phone. I want to see you."

The very idea brought fresh pain to Rachel, laced with a hint of panic. "What good would it do?"

"I don't know. I ..." He sighed deeply. "Don't you think it's time?"

She hugged her ribs tightly with one hand, bending forward slightly. "Tommy Lee, listen to me. It would be a mistake. What's done is done and there's no use reviving old regrets. We're different now. You ... I don't ..." But she was stammering, voicing hollow words, unable to reason very well. "Please, Tommy Lee, don't call me anymore. I have enough to deal with as

it is right now." She hadn't realized
     
59 tears had been welling in her eyes until they slipped over and darkened two spots on her skirt. Staring at them, she wasn't sure if they were for Owen or Tommy Lee.

"Rachel, I'm sorry." He sounded as if his lips were touching the mouthpiece of the phone. "Look, I didn't mean to upset you. I just called to see how you're doing and let you know I've been thinking about you ... and ..."

"Tommy Lee, I ... I have to go now."

They listened to each other breathe for endless seconds.

"Sure," he said at last, but it came out so softly she could scarcely hear the word.

"Good-bye, Tommy Lee." She waited, but he neither said good-bye nor hung up. Finally she replaced the receiver with utmost care, as if not to disturb it again. Huddled on the edge of the bed, she hugged herself harder, squeezing her eyes closed, rocking forward and back, seeking to blot out the loneliness that always stemmed from thoughts of what could have been. She saw Tommy Lee again as he'd looked at the cemetery. Older, so much older, just as she was. She fought against recalling the

facts she'd gleaned about him over the years, the events of his life that had aged him, those that had brought him happiness, wealth, sadness, hope.

You've got to stop thinking about him. Think of anything else ... anything at all. The bedroom! If the bedroom is difficult for you to face, have it redecorated. Think of colors, textures, furniture ... anything but Tommy Lee Gentry.