Cold Tea on a Hot Day (20 page)

The problem was that she felt guilty for not making a decision about marrying Parker and telling him one way or the other. That still hung over her, even if he had not mentioned it again.

She sprinkled pecans atop her sundae, then sprinkled a second helping. She had the feeling Tate was watching her and told herself this was foolishness on her part. She glanced up to check this out and saw him in conversation with Iris and Belinda, his eyes fully on Iris. Parker leaned over on the counter and joined in the conversation. They were talking about the merits of jogging.

Good Lord, Iris said she jogged six miles four times a week.

Again Marilee looked over at Tate, and this time his eyes came swinging around to hers.

Marilee averted her eyes and reached for a cloth to wipe her hands. The next instant, while getting a long-handled spoon from the container, she succeeded in sending two dozen stainless spoons clattering to the floor.
She had to get down on her knees to gather them up. Parker helped, and she thought that was nice of him, after she had behaved so sharply to him. This fact deepened her guilt.

She saved a spoon for herself and threw the rest into the dishwasher. When she turned around, she discovered Parker was helping himself to her sundae.

Snatching it from beneath his next scoop, she sat herself on Belinda’s stool and began to eat.

She had sampled one lovely taste of sweet cream and chocolate when Belinda, who had not noticed a body in her stool, backed up to sit herself down. Marilee saw it coming and let out a warning, but Belinda, intent on telling about the fifty-thousand dollars found in Fayrene’s ex-husband’s car, did not hear and ended up squashing the sundae all over Marilee’s bosom.

It was lucky that Aunt Vella was staying at her house, Marilee thought, observing the chocolate stains on her blouse in the filmy old rest room mirror. Aunt Vella was good at getting stains out of clothing. That mirror had to be the first one hung in here, probably at least sixty years old.

With a sigh, she threw the paper towel in the trash and emerged from the rest room. Looking down the narrow hallway, she saw Tate and Parker and Belinda at the soda fountain, silhouetted by the bright light through the big front window. Iris was just leaving.

She stood there a moment, staring.

Then she looked left, at the door leading to the rear room of the pharmacy. The drone of her uncle’s televi
sion came through the door. After a moment’s hesitation, she quietly turned the knob and entered. She apparently wasn’t going to get a sundae, but maybe she could have an influential word with her uncle.

“Uncle Perry?”

Her uncle’s eyes opened, and he made a mild effort to straighten himself. He nodded at Marilee.

“Are you doin’ all right?” she asked. He looked a little too pale to her, but admittedly, she had not paid her uncle any attention for quite some time.

“Yep. Fine. Somebody need a prescription?”

“No. I just wanted to say hello.”

He nodded and straightened some more. His gaze moved back to the television, as if drawn there by a string.

Marilee noticed that the early edition of the news was just going off, so it was about five o’clock. She needed to get on home if she was to get anything done on her newspaper article before Aunt Vella returned with the kids. She would be embarrassed not to have any writing done.

“Uncle Perry, aren’t you gonna call Aunt Vella?” Aggravation at thinking about being embarrassed had caused her to get short-tempered.

He looked at her. “I guess not,” he said, his jaw getting tight.

“Why not?” Marilee pressed.

“Vella’s made her decision. Don’t see any need to argue with it.”

“Don’t you miss her?”

“Nope.” He focused his eyes on the television screen.

Marilee looked at him and thought she was carrying on
the stupidest conversation in the world. She saw, too, that her uncle’s life had not changed one iota with her aunt not here.

Annoyed with the entire situation, Marilee said smartly, “You might want to know that while you’re sittin’ in here all day and half the night with the television, Aunt Vella is seein’ Winston Valentine. She is serious about going off in a new direction. You can sit here if you want, but you’re likely to be losin’ your house and a part of this store.”

While she said that, she searched his face for some reaction, no matter how small. But she did not see any. Her uncle sat there and looked like the lump Imperia had called him. An old man, as her Aunt Vella had said.

Marilee, feeling defeated, left him there and walked out, closing the door quietly behind her.

Pausing, she looked into the front of the store to see Tate and Parker and Belinda, still silhouetted against the light of the big front window.

Stepping out with purpose, Marilee glided out to the soda fountain.

“You’re not wearin’ a sundae anymore,” Parker said.

“No, it didn’t fit.” She cast him a grin because she felt it rude not to, then picked up her purse from the rear, saying, “I need to go home to write. Good evenin’, y’all,” and was out the door almost before she realized how coolly she had breezed out.

Whew.

She paused on the sidewalk to take a good breath. The air had become quite humid and heavy, indicating coming storms.

Then her gaze fell on Munro, sitting in front of her Cherokee.

“My goodness, where did you come from?” She had left him with the children and Aunt Vella.

She glanced quickly up and down the sidewalk, looking for familiar figures, wondering if some sort of emergency had happened.

The dog was regarding her with quiet eyes, and she seemed to hear him say,
I came to keep you company.

“Well, come on, and we’ll go home,” she told him and opened the door of the Cherokee for him to hop into the seat.

Munro was with her when she entered the empty house, and he curled beneath her desk, while she chewed on a fingernail and dredged up from memory the point of her article for next Sunday’s edition.

An hour and a half later, in a T-shirt and sweatpants and bare feet, Marilee had a rough draft written. She had written it in spurts between glancing at the clock and out the window, looking for her family, and then forcing herself to sit in the chair and put words down for ten minutes at a time. She was exhausted and well ready for Aunt Vella and Winston and the children to blow in with the rising wind of an evening thunderstorm. She greeted everyone with happy hugs.

“Well, he
is
here,” Aunt Vella said, upon seeing Munro. She stopped with the pizza box high in the air. “I was afraid I was going to have to tell you I had lost him.”

“I told them Mun-ro said he need-ed to come be with you,” Willie Lee said in his practical tone.

There came a knock, and Parker poked his head inside. “Anyone home?”

Marilee looked up from the computer screen to see him glancing around, still with only his head poking in the front door. His gaze found hers, and he regarded her uncertainly, no doubt because of her sharp behavior that afternoon. She felt immediately contrite.

“Come in.” Marilee rose and went to greet him warmly with a smile and swift kiss, and to more or less haul him inside.

His grin grew broader. “Just passed Winston. He said maybe I could get some pizza here.”

Willie Lee came racing in dog-fashion, on hands and knees, barking.

“Why is he doing that?” Parker asked.

“He’s pretending to be a dog.”

Willie Lee followed along, barking the entire way into the kitchen, where Marilee heated the last two pieces of pizza in the microwave.

“He’s really into this, isn’t he?” Parker said of Willie Lee, who was now sniffing at his shoes.

“Pretending is a normal part of childhood.” Marilee liked to point that out whenever Willie Lee was being perfectly normal.

“Uh-huh.” Parker raised an eyebrow and whispered, “I hope he isn’t gonna pee on my leg.”

Then he said to Willie Lee, “Have you had your rabies shot? I need to get Munro’s shots, I can get you one, too.”

Willie Lee raced away on hands and knees. This
tickled Parker, and his amusement pleased Marilee. For an instant their gazes met, and the fond look in his eyes caused warmth to wash over her.

“Sit,” she said, moving him to the table and setting the slices of pizza in front of him. Then she took the chair next to him and propped her chin in her hand and watched him eat. She could hear Aunt Vella in the children’s bedroom, reading them a bedtime story. Parker commented that the pizza was delicious and that he would starve if it wasn’t for microwave ovens and Marilee’s kitchen. She accepted this compliment graciously, and passed the credit on to Aunt Vella.

“It really is nice for me, having Aunt Vella here to help with the kids and meals and things,” she said.

“I’m surprised she hasn’t gone back to Perry,” Parker said.

“I am, too.” She thought of it sadly.

“Do you think she will?”

“I don’t know…I really don’t know.”

The situation confused and frightened her. If her aunt and uncle could get divorced after forty-five years of marriage, then it seemed there was no certain thing in life at all.

Possibly Parker was thinking along the same lines, as he was frowning and staring at the table. Marilee studied his face and thought how he was not only handsome but a good man who would help in a crisis, even if he had a little trouble with mundane, everyday living.

And he needed her to keep him decently fed. To give him a place to call home. A family, such as he had not had before. He needed that, even if he wasn’t aware of
needing it. The memory of their lovemaking once upon a time sliced through her mind and right down to her belly. Their lovemaking had been very good, and they had been close once.

Of course she should marry him. She should snatch him up. She almost popped out with, “I’ll marry you, Parker,” but hesitated, suddenly overcome with self-consciousness that maybe he had changed his mind.

She rose and took his hand. “Come on.”

“Wha…” He met her gaze and dropped his last bite of pizza, letting himself be dragged out on the back stoop, going with her with a growing grin.

Marilee closed the door behind them, putting them in the dimness of the step, where the only light was reflected through the window curtains. In a bold advance, she brought Parker’s head down, parting her lips in invitation to his very apparent enthusiasm.

“Parker…”

She whispered his name with longing and pushed her hands through the opening of his shirt at the base of his neck. His skin was warm and silky. His tongue tasted like pizza. She wrapped one leg around his.

In seconds they were all heavy breath and wet lips and tugging hands. Parker made her wild by kissing her neck and shoving a warm hand between her legs. He whispered for them to go to his truck, and she said she could not do that. In fact, in an instant her fertile imagination drew up a picture of them both, old enough to know better, getting caught right in the middle of the act by a curious neighbor coming to investigate the rocking truck. Added to that was the sudden thought that Tate could
come through the back gate and catch them making out on the back step.

Both mind pictures cooled her ardor a considerable amount, and she began to pull away, but Parker held her fast and kissed her deeply, seeking to draw her back into the passion.

Just then, as if coming to her aid, a loud clap of thunder reverberated, causing Marilee to jump and just about sending Parker backward off the stoop. He recovered and attempted to get back to business but was not able to overcome the rain that suddenly came in a downpour, as if someone had unstopped a sink.

“Damn!”

“Ohmygosh, Parker, you’re gettin’ soaked!”

Her hand fumbled with the screen door, which proved stubborn, but then she got it open, along with the inner door, and they threw themselves inside.

“Here…” She tossed Parker a towel from a fresh pile atop the dryer.

He rubbed his head, and she, with her own towel, dried her face. Then, clutching the towel, she looked at him.

He looked at her.

“Parker, do you still want to get married?”

His eyebrows went up. “Yeah.”

The answer was not fully satisfying.

She breathed deeply, summoning words to her tongue.

But then Willie Lee’s voice calling “Ma-ma” and running footsteps approaching abruptly ended further discussion. The next instant there came a loud thump, and then a pain-filled wail.

Marilee raced into the kitchen and found Willie Lee
had fallen against a kitchen chair and put his bottom teeth into his upper lip. She scooped him up, calling immediately for a cold cloth.

She sat and pressed Willie Lee, sobbing, against her, instinctively seeking to absorb her child’s pain.

Parker put a cloth in her hand.

Willie Lee cuddled close and sucked on the wet cloth. After a minute, Marilee had to pry his head from her bosom and force him to allow her to examine the wound. Then the others—Parker, Aunt Vella, and even Corrine, who seemed to have a great curiosity for bloody wounds—gave Willie Lee’s cut lip a thorough examination. Parker pronounced it not serious. Marilee finally concluded that Willie Lee did not need stitches, but he did need her to hold him and rock him back and forth.