Big Cherry Holler (32 page)

“Linguini carbonara, with Virginia ham. Who’s Pete?” he asks casually.

“Pete who?” I try not to choke on the name.

“Pete Rutledge.”

“Oh, him. We met him in Italy.”

“Oh, the guy Etta talks about. The marble guy.”

“Really. She told you about him?” I say casually but my vocal tone gives me away: I squeak. That kid. Does she have to tell her father everything?

“Yeah.”

“Why do you ask?”

“He called.”

“That’s nice.”

“He’s in town.”

“What?”

“He’s here.”

I don’t know what to say. I figured the guy had a crush, we kissed, and that was it. What is he doing here?

“Ave, honey, tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on. I love you.” Man, if blurting “I love you” isn’t a dead giveaway for guilt developed after an Alpine make-out session, I don’t know what is.

“Here’s his number. He’s at the Trail.”

Jack puts the number on the table, as though I should call Pete Rutledge right here on our phone in this house, this house where we, a newly devoted married couple, live. I do not want to make this call.

“I’ll call tomorrow.”

“Call him now. Invite him to dinner. I’m making plenty.”

Jack stirs the garlic in the pan. My eyes bulge out of my head like rockets. Is he serious? Have him to dinner? He’s the enemy, you idiot. He wanted me to stay in Italy with him for all eternity. Tear up that number if you know what’s good for you.

“Go on. Call him.”

I drag myself to the phone and dial. It rings a billion times. Conley Barker, the night receptionist (as well as the airport cab driver), finally answers the phone and puts me through.

“Hello?” The sound of Pete’s voice makes me happy, but just for a second.

“Hi. This is Ave Maria.”

“Oh, hey, thanks for calling me back.”

“What are you doing here?” I say gaily.

“Hiking the Appalachian Trail. Remember? I told you I was coming through in the fall. Well, guess what? It’s fall.”

“Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah. I’d like to see you.”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Great. Where do you live?”

I decide that it’s easier for me to ride down into town and pick him up rather than give him the complicated directions to get here. When I get to the Trail, Pete is waiting for me out front. He leans up against one of the entry columns, reading the town paper. He looks like he belongs here. And he looks every bit as good in southwestern Virginia twilight as he did in the dusk of northern Italy.

“Hi!” I say too loudly and too long, with about eighteen overenthusiastic syllables.

“How are you, babe?” Pete gives me a big kiss on the cheek. “What a place you live in. It’s amazing. So beautiful.”

“Thank you. Can’t take any credit for it. These mountains were here long before I was.”

I point out a few sights on the way back to Cracker’s Neck. I am determined to be a tour guide, and determined that there will be no talk of Alpine kissing or dancing. Pete seems respectful, and I’m relieved. When we climb out of the Jeep, Etta is waiting for us on the porch.

“Pete!” she squeals, and runs down the field to meet us. She throws herself into his arms.

“Chiara’s not here. She’s in Italy. It’s only me here.”

And what is that on Etta’s mouth? Oh dear God, it’s my Gina Lollobrigida magenta lipstick from the Moderna beauty shop in Piccolo Lago. My daughter looks like a hooker.

Jack greets us at the door. I love how warm and gracious he is to Pete. Shoo the Cat runs out from under a chair, sinks his teeth into Pete’s ankle, and sprints off. We check Pete’s ankle, but there’s barely any blood. Between the attack cat and my trampy daughter, this is going to be a long night.

Jack takes Pete (and Etta, of course, who follows) into the kitchen.
Pete and Jack will have a beer, and the way this night is going, Etta may have her first Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. The phone rings; Etta rushes to answer it.

“She never used to run for the phone.” Jack Mac shrugs. “Now she’s either running to it or she’s on it.”

“It’s called being a girl, honey.”

“Ma, it’s Uncle Theodore.”

I excuse myself. I am relieved to be out of the hot kitchen. I close the bedroom door, pull the phone off the nightstand, and sit on the floor, so no one can hear me.

“Thank God it’s you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s here.”

“Who?”

“Pete.”

Theodore laughs. “The inamorata? No way.”

“It’s not funny! He’s hiking around here and he stopped and called and Jack invited him to dinner. I’d like to die.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It’s awful. I’m so embarrassed.”

“Imagine how Jack Mac feels.”

“He doesn’t know anything.”

“Right, you’re hiding under the bed whispering on the phone, and he doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“No, he doesn’t. It would be nice if you could make me feel better in this situation.”

“How does he look?”

“Oh God. Even better than he looked in Italy.”

“You’re in trouble.”

“It’s like tenth grade. Why couldn’t I go through this nonsense at an age-appropriate level? No, here I am now, in middle age, dealing with this stupidity.”

“It wasn’t that stupid up in the cockerbells.”

“Bluebells.”

“You’ll have to tell Jack.”

“I will never tell him! Never.”

“Don’t you think he’s going to wonder why you’re acting like a fool?”

“I’ll tell him I’m sick or something.”

“Sexual tension isn’t a disease.”

“You’re not helping.”

“Call me later.” He laughs. “Good luck.”

I cannot believe how weird it is to eat dinner with my husband and my summer almost-boyfriend, who with some amazing kisses could have brought down the House of MacChesney entirely. I look across the table at the two of them, doing a compare-and-contrast. They are different, and yet there is an all-boy quality to both of them. They instantly like each other (how bizarre is that!), and they seem to have lots to talk about. Etta interrupts whenever she can think of ways to get Pete’s attention. My daughter is never going to be the town spinster, that’s for sure. She can’t wait to be a grown-up woman. She awaits her first period like it’s the Preakness of Womanhood.

Headlights flash across the living room; we see the end of the beams against the wall outside the kitchen. Jack looks at me.

“Expecting anybody?”

I shake my head and take a look out the window. It’s Iva Lou.

“Sorry to barge in,” Iva Lou says as she throws open the door without knocking.

“Hi, honey. We have company. Pete Rutledge.”

Iva Lou’s eyes roll around as she tries to place the name, and when she does, it’s her turn to have her eyeballs bulge out of her head like rockets. I quickly motion for her to act casual (my first mistake) as she puts a frozen smile on her face that borders on ghoulish.

“Hi-dee. Pleased to meet you, Pete.”

“I spent a lot of time with Peter in Italy this summer, Iva Lou,” Etta
says in an accent no one has heard since Grace Kelly used it in
High Society
.

“Yeah, well, I would’ve too.” Iva Lou winks at Pete.

“Iva, can we get you something to eat?”

“No, no. I just had a chili dog at the Mutual’s. I just stopped by on my way home to tell y’all about Spec.”

“Something wrong?”

“He’s having an emergency triple bypass tomorrow at Holston Valley Heart Center.”

“Oh my God.”

“Don’t worry. He’s okay for now. In fact, he drove himself over there in the Rescue Squad. He said if it got rough, he could give himself his own oxygen. Well, I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

Iva Lou says her good nights and meets me in the hallway.

“Man alive, and I mean man alive!” she whispers. I motion for her to hush until we get outside.

“What is he
doing
here?”

“He’s hiking the Appalachian Trail.”

“Well, you tell him to get himself down to the trailer park and practice on Mount Iva Lou.”

I push Iva Lou out the door; when she’s worked up like this, there is no telling what she’ll say or do.

I drive Pete back to the motel; I wanted Etta to come along, but Jack made her stay behind to do her homework. I didn’t want to look suspicious, so I didn’t press it. I cannot explain how strange it feels to be in my Jeep with Pete Rutledge. I am not comfortable entertaining him here at home; he is strictly a European vacation fantasy.

I pull up in front of the hotel. I can see the top of Conley Barker’s crew cut behind the desk.

“Well, have a great hike.”

“Thanks.”

“You want to come in?” Pete asks.

“No,” I tell him so loudly it’s a shout.

“You don’t have to.”

“I can’t. But thank you.” I say this with a cool I didn’t think I had.

“Have you thought about me at all?”

“Pete.”

“Just a little?”

“Here’s the only way I can explain it. I live in a holler here in these mountains, where the weather is pretty good most of the time. And once in a while, a hell of a storm comes through, and it stirs everything up. When it’s over, this amazing blue sky appears, and things become so clear and clean that I actually see better; and from my field in Cracker’s Neck Holler, I can see as far as Tennessee, in such detail that I can make out the veins on the leaves. Without that storm passing through, you’d never get that crystal-clear vision that follows. You came through my life like a hurricane. You stirred me up and made me look at myself. You made me look at what I wanted and what I needed to choose. And there is a part of me that wishes I had thrown you down in that field of bluebells and had the wildest sex I could imagine, just for the thrill of it. But a thrill comes and goes, and we both know that. We did the right thing. I’m happy with Jack MacChesney. I really love the man. And I’m really happy that you’re my friend.”

“Okay, babe. I know when I’m licked.” Pete opens the door of the Jeep and swings his long legs out to the ground. He swivels and looks at me. “Thanks for dinner. And Etta. And Jack. I really like Jack.” Pete leans over and kisses me on the cheek. Then he gets out of the Jeep.

“Pete?” I call after him. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” He smiles and waves.

I watch him walk into the lobby of the Trail Motel. He has to drop his head under the walkway awning. And he looks to me a little like the great Gary Cooper—Pete sort of rode into town, set things straight, and is gone.

When I get home, the kitchen is clean, Etta is in bed, and Jack is in our bedroom, in the overstuffed old club chair, reading
The Post
.

“He’s taking off tomorrow morning. He’s meeting the hikers in Asheville.”

“Great.” Jack puts his newspaper down. “How come you were so nervous?”

“Oh, the news about Spec really threw me.”

“No, it was before that. You didn’t want to call Pete at the hotel. How come?” Jack looks at me, and I’m thinking, this is what marriage is. It’s like a giant washing machine. You throw everything in there, and you pour on the soap, and the water gushes in, and you think you’re gonna wash it all away. But no matter what, even after it’s spun around, you open that tub and right there at the top is the thing you tried to bury at the bottom. The thing you tried to deny and walk away from. The truth about Pete Rutledge was bound to come out, because I am not a good liar. And more importantly, I don’t want to keep anything from my husband anymore. The truth is so much easier. (Another thing Mama taught me that has turned out to be true.)

“Honey, when I was over in Italy with Etta, I was trying to forget about you. It was just too painful. I’m not proud of that. I got so tired of the knife in my gut that I just wanted it out. And so I got a haircut.”

Jack laughs. “Okay.”

“It’s insane, I know, but it transformed me. I heard the scissors and I saw the clumps of my hair on the floor and it changed me.”

“How?” Jack leans in and listens.

“I went out that night, and that’s when I met Pete. I felt so good, I forgot about our troubles and danced. Pete saw me in that moment. And he sort of fell for me. But I wouldn’t get involved with him.”

“Why?” Jack asks me this with a catch in his voice.

“The truth?”

“The truth.”

“I’d like to say that it was something noble, like our marriage vows. But the truth is, I didn’t go to bed with him because he thought I was
perfect. And as someone who worked her whole life to be perfect, I didn’t want to shatter the illusion. If I had the affair it would have made me a cheater. And I wanted to stay on that pedestal; otherwise I’d just be another summer lay for an American in Italy.”

“Honey?” Jack gets up and sits with me on the bed.

“What?”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Me too.” I put my arms around my husband. “Do you want to know why you … went with Karen? Because I made you feel bad about yourself. I wasn’t there for you when the mines closed, I didn’t get behind your business; I didn’t think that what was happening to you was serious. I treated your crisis like a glitch. And I was holding on to stuff, holding you accountable for things that you had no control over, because I had to blame somebody. Like when Joe got sick, I blamed you, because I wanted you to be the hero who comes in and fixes everything so I didn’t have to worry about it. I was horrible to you. But now I understand what I did. And it won’t happen again.”

“If it did happen again, we’d be able to name it. For the longest time, we just couldn’t name it.” Jack kisses me tenderly. “So that’s the story of Pete, huh? How about a cup of tea?”

“How about Jack Daniel’s? Or did Etta finish the bottle?”

“I meant to ask you, what was with the lipstick?”

“Welcome to womanhood.”

“Great.” Jack groans. He puts his arm around me as we go into the kitchen.

Spec’s triple bypass became a quintuple. When Doc Turner got inside, he “found enough goo to fill a shoe box.” (That’s Spec’s description, not mine.) So as I tiptoe through the halls of the Holston Valley Heart Center, I am expecting the worst. The get-well balloons I bought at L. J. Horton Florists keep getting caught on the pressboard ceiling ducts overhead. I hold them down by my waist. Finally, Room 456.