The Ladies Farm (15 page)

Then Della and Melissa sipped their sodas, and dug at their ice cream, and then the light lit Melissa’s eyes again and she giggled. “Anyway, you know that car Aunt Barbara drives?”

Della nodded.

“You know why she drives it?”

Della shook her head.

“Because she and Uncle Richard? When they were in college? He had a T-bird convertible, a red two-seater, and that’s where they first, you know, did it!”

Della propped her elbow on the table and rested her forehead in her hand. She rubbed a little, then lifted her gaze to Melissa. “And I thought I knew them!”

“I know,” Melissa laughed. “Isn’t that cool? She says, even though it’s not the same model or anything, it’s like Uncle Richard’s still there. I thought that was so sweet!”

Kat was leaning against a counter, staring at Barbara, who had changed into a jade pantsuit that billowed ridiculously for someone working in a kitchen. The jade and gold disks that dangled from her exposed ears gave her shorn head an odd balance and, despite its egg-like proportion to the rest of her body, a fluid dignity.

Barbara grinned at Della. “I think I’m getting used to it,” Barbara said.

“That’s because you can’t see yourself,” Kat threw at her.

“Kat!” Della said.

“Actually,” Kat tilted her head and studied Barbara, who hadn’t moved, “it’s kind of mesmerizing. Especially with your jewelry.”

Della agreed. Despite her size, Barbara had a sleek profile and, with so little hair, her eyes had become her dominant facial feature, bearing an expressiveness that had been overshadowed before.

“Melissa looks great,” Della commented.

“I just whacked about three inches of split ends off the bottom, did the highlights, styled and shaped the top, gave her a great facial, let her dish a little dirt about her brother—he’s really got an attitude toward his dad—and voilà! another happy customer,” Rita reported, sailing into the kitchen right on cue. She stopped to study Barbara for a moment. “God, I do good work!” she exclaimed.

“You did a good job changing her mind,” Della told Rita.

“She was saved by Barbara’s sacrifice,” Kat said, starting off sarcastically but ending with a limp acknowledgment of the effort.

Barbara, holding a bowl of gingered green beans for the evening’s dinner, froze in the center of the kitchen, then turned again to the counter on which she set the bowl. “Shouldn’t we grind some pepper onto these?” she asked with her back still to them.

“And a little salt,” Della instructed. “But just a little.”

It was amazing how quickly they got used to Barbara’s new look. Della would see her sorting through buttons for one of the jewelry-making classes and that smooth head and those lined eyes, visible in profile, would remind her of some brightly painted Egyptian relief adorning the tombs of the powerful. Barbara seemed less weepy, too, Della thought. Maybe it was because she stayed so busy those next few days, teaching a jewelry class and looking after the front desk.

At any rate, Della was only mildly surprised at herself when she agreed to accompany Barbara into Fort Worth to pick up jewelry-making supplies. “I can pick up my pictures from Tony,” she explained to Barbara, who insisted on taking the Thunderbird.

“I’ve got a few other errands,” Barbara replied, “but I’ll drop you at the shop and pick you up later.”

Della started to ask her just to wait, since it would take only a minute to get the prints from Tony, then thought better of it. I can hang out with Tony for a little while, she thought.

The specialist was one whose life had been changed by Richard. As she signed her name on the patient registration, Barbara noted that the counter separated her from an office staffed by five uniformed women, each of whom seemed to be preoccupied with one or two single functions regarding stacks of color-coded patient files which they moved from station to station.

Barbara sat on the pastel sofa, smiled slightly at the other patients, and picked up a magazine. In many cases, these doctors had regarded Richard as their only friend, the only one who understood their frustration at the growing mountain of paperwork and regulation that kept them from seeing more patients. “If you don’t manage your practice,” she could hear Richard lecture, “it will manage you.”

Richard had shown them how to manage, and the ones who had listened had thrived. Barbara sighed and patted the back of her neck, where her hair had been. The bare skin felt odd and Barbara smoothed the area over her collar to no avail. Tears sprang to her eyes and panic welled inside her. Quickly she withdrew her hand and raised her magazine in front of her face. Think of something else, Barbara ordered herself. Think of when your hair was long and brown.

The workshops had been her idea, and Richard had insisted that she be the one to greet the doctors who attended. “They like you, babe,” he would say. “You make them feel welcome, get them in the mood.”

At state and local medical conventions, the credits for continuing ed lured the ones who had a glimmer of understanding that they needed something more than technical expertise. And Richard … oh! How could anyone resist Richard? Barbara thought.

It was funny that thinking about Richard could leave her grinning like an idiot, but thinking about her short hair made her cry. She knew the tears were about Richard, and not the hair, but she still cried at the wrong times. And there was no point crying here. These people would misunderstand completely.

They called her name eventually, and she checked her watch as she walked back to meet with the doctor. She would take her time in this consultation, Barbara decided. She would ask every question she needed answered, glean every bit of information, every detail to aid in the decisions she still needed to make. She had time, Barbara thought. Every moment she spent here would be an extra moment that Della would spend with Tony. And then, during the ride home, she and Della could talk about the Ladies Farm.

The young clerk knew Della this time, and greeted her as Mrs. Brewer before he led her back. Tony rose and approached when she entered, then stood awkwardly as if he weren’t sure whether to step forward and embrace her or shake her hand. Della touched his shoulder, and he put his arms around her. “Here,” he said, keeping his arm around her. “Sit down. Want a Dr Pepper?”

“Diet,” she said, and he nodded toward the clerk, who disappeared and reappeared with two sodas. Tony reached to a shelf over his desk and retrieved a packet of photos, and they spent a few minutes going through them again.

“I wish we’d made another one of these,” she said when she got to the two boys in their Alamo costumes. “For Robbie.”

“Oh, I did,” Tony said. “I had a whole set made for him; we can give it to him when he visits.”

It was like him, she tho ught, to duplicate the whole set when there were only one or two prints Robbie would want. But she said nothing about that. Instead, she asked how the house was.

“Fine,” he replied. “You ready for your interest?”

“Is it that apparent?”

They had left her equity unsettled, agreeing to have the property appraised and do an even split in return for her not pressing him to buy her out at the time of the divorce. But she wanted cash for at least part of her purchase of the Ladies Farm. The idea of a loan for the whole amount overwhelmed her.

“I figured you weren’t coming in for just the pictures. Not twice in one month.”

“Kat and I need to buy Pauline’s interest in the Ladies Farm,” she said. “I don’t want to pressure you, but it’s been a few years, and you look like you can manage it now.”

Tony smiled, studied the top of his desk. “I guess I can. I guess I ought to sell that barn anyway.”

“It would make sense,” Della agreed. “Unless you’ve found some young honey who wants to start a whole new family with you.”

He shook his head, pushed at some imagined stone on the floor with his foot. Finally he looked at her. “I guess I always thought you’d come back home.”

There were too many answers to respond at once: that they couldn’t go back, that she certainly couldn’t live in that house again, that she had a different life now, that she was needed at the Ladies Farm. Not to mention that she still loved Richard, that Tony had lived in that house with another wife, that she and Tony weren’t in love anymore.

Besides, what right did he have putting her on the spot like this? We went through all this when we split up, Della thought. Why do we have to go through it all over again?

Still, she didn’t speak. Tony was, after all, the person who had loved her most. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t love him the same way.

He was a good father, she thought. And a devoted husband. He just wasn’t—What? she wondered. Just wasn’t what? Exciting? Who would be exciting after twenty-five years?

It’s not excitement, she told herself, looking at him looking back at her. It’s Jamie. He turned away from me when Jamie died.

Della fixed on Jamie’s death and the loneliness that followed. Where had Tony been then?

He never understood the way Richard did. No matter what else—or who else—Richard did, he did that.

“Oh, Tony,” she said finally. “You’re just lonely since Suzanne left.”

“It’s not Suzanne I’m missing,” Tony said. He sat down, pulling up a chair next to hers. “It’s our life together. That’s why I married her, I think. That’s why she left, too. She knew it way before I did.”

“Tony, you only miss it because you don’t have it. You didn’t like it much when you were in it.” She smiled to show him she was just stating facts, not blaming him. “You thought it interfered with your business. And you were right in some ways; you weren’t nearly as successful before we split up.”

“Yes I was,” Tony insisted. “We had already turned the corner here. I just was too inexperienced to know it. Look,” he shook his hands in the air, “I didn’t mean to spring it on you. You want your interest in the house. Fair enough. I’ll call the real estate agent. But tell me you’ll keep an open mind; that you’ll at least see me.” He paused. “You know. That we can go out.”

“Go out?” For Della, going out conjured up sweaty-palmed teenagers at the movies and nervous introductions to hovering parents. Going out was a prelude to sex or marriage. We’ve already done that, she thought. Why would we go out?

“I’d just like to have dinner with you,” Tony said. “Just the two of us.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Della teased. “My parents don’t like me going out on school nights.”

“Then try Friday nights,” Tony suggested. “This Friday. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“In Sydonia?”

“In Sydonia. At the Ladies Farm.”

Della had had only a few male visitors at the Ladies Farm, and they had not led to much. The most interesting had been Eli Castleburg, who had called on her after his wife ran off with one of the county commissioners. It had been strained, at best, with most of their time together spent in his description of how important a wife was on a dairy farm, particularly the wife of the oldest son.

At least Tony knows everybody, Della thought. There won’t be any silly giggling, the way there was with Eli.

“So you and Kat are buying the Ladies Farm,” Tony said.