A Wild Red Rose (21 page)

Numbly, Renee took it and signed her name three times.

“Shall we go? The justice is waiting.” Gunter offered his crooked arm.

“I’d rather walk alone, thank you.”

He nodded sharply, as if he had just concluded a hostile takeover of a sauerkraut company, and marched off to join the wedding party clustered in Clint’s hospital room. Renee stilled her shaking hands and wobbly knees. She could leave right now and count on several miserable years of ugly litigation, or she could go through with the wedding because that would be best for Clint and the babies. Afterwards, she would be alone once more with her miserable self, no happy endings for those who did not deserve one.

Despite her turmoil, Renee managed to smile when she set eyes on Clint dressed in the top half of a tuxedo, yellow rose in his lapel, and any number of tubes and wires poking out from under the sheet that covered his bottom half. Snuffy had managed to get a rented tuxedo and a clean shave. Norma Jean kept watching the clock as if gauging the amount of time left until she could put her jeans back on. Lena Beck cried happy tears into a hankie. Gunter Beck presented a face of stone to the others.

The justice of the peace was bald, fat, and genial. Clearly, he would enjoy relating this extraordinary story over a nice meal served with wine. He strove to make the service a happy occasion peppered with short analogies equating marriage to bullfighting: its give and take, its need for finesse and great care. Renee heard very little of what the justice said until the he came to the vows. She repeated hers softly, “I, Renee Marie Niles Hayes, do take you, Clinton…”

Clint said his vows with gusto, pausing for a brief moment before stating his full name. “I, Clinton Odulf Beck—”

“Odulf!” The ridiculous name lifted Renee from her depression for an instant. She pressed her lips together, but the giggle came out.

Gunter Beck bristled. “Odulf is a fine Teutonic name meaning ‘the rich and heroic’. Odulf Beck founded our company along with his brother Wilhelm in—”

“
Ja, ja
, Odie and Villie had no talent for raising cattle, but they sure could bake a bean, Renee,” Clint quipped.

Snuffy nearly gagged on his chaw, which so far, he had kept discreetly stuffed in his cheek. Norma Jean sing-songed, “I know Cinton’s middle name, I’m gonna tell-elle.”

Madalena Beck laid calming hands on her red-faced husband, and the officiator begged, “Please, we are in the middle of a solemn ceremony.”

The service continued. Snuffy found the ring at the right moment and a water glass to spit into in the nick of time. Norma Jean did her duty by holding the bouquet. Somehow, they finally reached, “You may kiss the bride.”

Clint smiled up from the bed. “You’ll have to do the honors, Tiger.”

Renee raised the hand she had been holding and brushed his fingertips with her lips. Bending over the bed, she took her husband’s face between her hands and kissed him with such tenderness and longing that even the hardened Norma Jean sighed.

Lena Beck began snapping pictures with a digital camera she had kept hidden in a perky, red leather handbag. She arranged and rearranged the wedding party: the bride and groom with and without attendants, with the justice, with her and her husband, Snuffy taking that last picture. Several nurses hovering in the doorway took their own souvenir snapshots. Renee managed to curve her lips for each pose. When the photo frenzy ceased, she asked, “Are we through now?”

“I’ve made arrangements for a wedding dinner at a wonderful restaurant. My dear son, I wish you could come with us, but you must stay here and get better. When that day comes, we can have your vows repeated within the Church and will have a big fiesta with all our friends and relatives at the hacienda. You do look tired. We should go.”

“No, I feel fine, Mama. Can’t eat much of anything for a while, anyhow. Come back later with Renee.”

Meanwhile, his bride took off the heirloom veil and folded it neatly. She placed it on the foot of the bed. Then, she removed the Zuni parure, all but the ring, and laid the jewelry on top of the veil.

Zeroing in on Gunter Beck, Renee said, “I wouldn’t want to be accused of making off with any family treasures. You may pick up the babies in six months. They will be in Rainbow, Lousiana. Oh, and put me down for the least amount of alimony. I am sure I can live up to your lowest expectations.”

Out she walked, directly to the elevators. Chaos and discord exploded behind her. That was what Renee Niles Bouchard Hayes Beck did best—create havoc and misery. She heard the shouts, recognized the various voices, following her down the hall.

Clint shouted, “Where the hell is my wife going!”

Lena Beck, who knew her husband well, said shrilly, “Gunter, what have you done?” She followed that up with a string of Spanish words, some of them not too nice.

“The patient’s blood pressure is spiking! Sedate him.” The nurses ordered everyone from the room. Renee stopped in her tracks. Should she return and explain, try to calm Clint with the icy logic of her decision? No, he remained in the best of hands with excellent medical care, family, and good friends by his side. She wasn’t part of all that. Never had been, never would be. Her past could not be erased by love, but perhaps by selfless acts, letting Clint raise the children who would not have a mother that shamed them. He’d find someone else, someone better to help raise them, someone he trusted enough to marry without a draconian prenup worse than any of her others.

Snuffy and Norma Jean and the justice started after her, calling her name, but by that time, the elevator doors were closing, shutting out the uproar. Renee stood in a void without sound thanking heaven no cheery elevator music played. If she could only maintain this same stillness for the next six months, she would survive yet another devastating crisis in her life. The wild red rose must spring from its roots after being chopped to the ground again.

****

Snuffy returned puffing. He’d taken the stairs down and come back in the elevator. Clint had already been stripped of his wedding finery by a nurse, the tubes he’d torn out trying to leave the bed put back into place, and wore a hospital gown once more. Whatever the staff had given the patient to calm him down went into effect. His eyelids fluttered. He stayed awake by sheer force of will.

“Where’s Renee?”

“Norma Jean caught up with her. She got those long legs, you know. She moved pretty fast considering the tight dress. They were talking it out when I started back. I figured it’s a woman thing, hormones or something. Your parents left?”

Clint nodded, sank farther into the pillows. “Arguing. Some mess.”

Norma Jean slunk in, two wilting bouquets still in her hands, and threw herself into a bedside chair.

“Renee?”

“Hell, Clint, when I heard what your father made her sign, I let her go. You’d better mend real fast, bullfighter, because you got one mean situation to handle.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Mrs. Renee Beck drove directly to the modest motel she had checked into that morning to be closer to the hospital. She hadn’t mentioned the shift from her plush digs to anyone. Changing into her jeans, one of Clint’s bullfighting jerseys with an advertising slogan splaying across her belly, and her scuffed boots, she gathered up the rest of her Walmart clothes in a bag and laid the wedding dress out on the bed, a gift for some lucky maid to find.

Then, she hesitated. The fabric was so beautiful, the lace wonderfully lavish. If one of the babies should be a girl, she might want the dress some day. Renee put the gown back on its padded hanger and slipped it inside the zippered bag. Even with this extra baggage hanging from a loop in the back seat, she traveled light. Renee stuck her straw hat on her head and put the toy tiger on the dashboard. Grateful she had the rental car with the big engine and wide leather seats Clint had leased upon their arrival and would not have to fight the gears of the Belly Nelle, Renee slipped the luxury vehicle into drive, set the cruise control at eighty, and began the three day drive back to Rainbow.

****

Just her luck that Rusty’s goody-goody wife, who had never slept with anyone but her own husband, was the only person available to come get Renee at the airport after she’d turned in the rental car. Renee got into the mom-mobile with three-year-old Katie of the coppery curls strapped into a car seat in the back, slouched down in the front seat, and hoping to avoid conversation, stared out the window. No luck with that either.

“So, how is Clint? We all saw him get hit by that bull. Everyone has prayed for him, even Bodey.”

“Must be working. He got out of ICU and was mending three days ago.”

“You and he are expecting twins. That’s wonderful.”

Renee closed her eyes and compressed her lips. She kept her eyes on the scenery. “How did you know?”

“Well, Eve and I thought you looked a little plump at the funeral, and we sort of guessed you might be expecting because you never let yourself go that way—unlike me. When Bodey got in touch with Snuffy to see how Clint was doing, we heard the news. He said you two were going to get married in the hospital.”

“We did—for the sake of the babies. It was a marriage of—what do they call it in those old novels? You’re the history major.”

“A marriage of convenience? I don’t believe that, not after the way Clint beat on Dewey for doing—you know.”

“Look, Noreen, you believe in soul mates and all that crap, and hell, Eve believes in miracles, but it’s not like that. I had to sign papers saying I’d give up the babies to the Becks. It’s the best for all of us. What kind of mother would I be anyhow?”

“A good one if you tried. Rusty and I will vouch for you, Eve and Bodey, too, if you want to fight for custody.”

Noreen had that pitying stare on her face, Renee knew without looking. “What would your testimony be—that I helped you sneak around with your boyfriend until you got pregnant—that I slept with Bodey at the age of seventeen and a few times after that.”

“You helped bring about a reconciliation between the Niles and Courville families.”

“I made trouble. That’s all I ever do. I’m no good. Stop praying for me. I cannot be redeemed.”

A small voice came from the backseat. “Auntie Renee, don’t cry. We can get some ice cream to make you feel better.”

“Thanks, Katie-bug, but ice cream won’t help this time.” Renee regarded her belly pushing against the fabric of Clint’s bullfighting shirt. “It will only make me bigger sooner.

****

The terrible drive over at last Renee refused any help with her scanty bags and let herself into her house. If Noreen got in the door, she’d insist on staying and talking. First thing she did was turn the thermostat down to seventy from its setting of eighty. Louisiana—still hot as Hades in September. She threw open the living room curtains hiding the view the garden. Le Grand Pisseur still tinkled mightily with his oversized dick into the birdbath, not as amusing as he used to be.

She straggled back to the bedroom past the parade of partially nude male portraits she’d done mostly of former lovers and into her lair. Instead of finding comfort in her home, all seemed wrong, unsuitable, out of joint. Renee jerked off her boots and stretched out on the tiger-striped comforter. She couldn’t rest. She’d had her own bedroom suite when married to the heart surgeon who came and went at odd hours. Dear, sweet Gerry had taken himself off to a snoring room after he completed his business. Except for Clint, men rarely spent the night with Renee. She missed his warmth, the steady sound of his breathing, the arm always ready to enfold her if she had one of those wretched dreams of Uncle Dewey entering her room.

Renee tossed, finally found a comfortable spot, and let her mind drift. Maybe if she got rid of the erotica, Clint would allow the children to visit sometimes. She closed her eyes. A short nap might help to banish such ridiculous sentimentality from her mind.

The doorbell rang. Someone persistent outside laid on the bell. She wished they would go away. Close to eight o’clock, darkness fell. Her stomach rumbled and her bladder ached. Pregnancy was a real pain in the—belly.

The visitor couldn’t be the one person she wanted to see. She’d seen him last tied to a hospital bed by tubes and wires a thousand miles away. A scowl on her face, Renee stalked down the hall and flung open the front door. There stood Eve Landrum, tall, pale and pure, the mother goddess holding a hot covered dish by its handles.

“If you’ve come to save me, you’re too late,” Renee snarled, ever ungrateful for pity and comfort.

“I believe you have to save yourself, Renee. I’ve only come to feed you because I know you rarely cook. Let me put this down. I have groceries in the car.”

Oh, how she wanted to slam the door in Eve’s face, but steam escaped from under the lid of the covered dish. A rich, cheesy aroma filled the air. Renee’s stomach betrayed her with a loud growl.

“Come in if you must. I have to pee.” She stalked away and let Eve do as she wanted.

By the time Renee returned to the kitchen, Eve had filled a dish with a generous portion of shrimp fettuccini, the kind made with cream cheese and Velveeta and featured at every church social. She had shaken salad from a bag and added a tall glass of milk poured from a gallon container for a beverage.

As Renee sucked up tiny pink shrimp embedded in noodles, Eve put away the contents of a dozen plastic bags from Rainbow Liquor and Groceries. She filled a bowl with fresh fruit: grapes, bananas, apples. She stocked the empty vegetable drawer with tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, and celery, and threw away a sealed bag of moldy cheese cubes.

Holding up a loaf of seven-grain bread from the Herbarium, Eve asked, “Should I leave this out, or do you want to refrigerate it? No preservatives. It goes bad fairly fast but makes great toast. I put a dozen eggs in the rack, and there’s sliced low-fat ham in the meat keeper. Say, your answering machine is blinking. Should I turn it on for you?”

“No! I’ll get to that later. Look, Eve, I appreciate this. I really do. But, don’t you have a baby to nurse or something?”