Cold Tea on a Hot Day (30 page)

“Here’s the last of them, I think.” Leanne set the dishes on the counter and wiped her hands on her shorts.

“Thank you.”

There they were, just the three of them.

“Oh, Leanne…I think I have something that belongs to you.” Marilee reached into her pocket.

Leanne, who had already turned to leave, paused and cast Marilee a curious look.

Marilee held out the earrings on her palm.

“Oh.” Leanne said. Her face lit with recognition, and her hand reached out, then stopped in midair, as her eyes cut to Parker.

Parker, who had turned to look, averted his eyes.

“I found them on Parker’s bedside table. I believe they match your necklace, Leanne.”

She knew the truth of it, the same as if it had been stated aloud, although no one said a thing.

Leanne’s pale eyes studied Marilee, and Parker looked at the floor. She wondered if she had expected him to say anything. Surely she knew him better than to expect him to take his part.

Laying the earrings on the counter, she stepped past Leanne and went out to the patio to gather the tablecloth off the table that Ted and Ray were moving, in order to have room to dance.

Marilee and Parker danced and mingled and gave no indication there was a problem between them, other than that they did not say a direct word to each other, a fact no one seemed to notice. Leanne kept to herself, but no one seemed to notice that, either. A good time was had by all.

Afterward, after everyone had left, traipsing out to their respective vehicles and going away down the gravel drive in a cloud of dust rising in the evening heat, Marilee gave Parker back his ring.

He said, “It didn’t mean anything, Marilee…it just happened, and you and I weren’t engaged then. You wouldn’t even sleep with me. Leanne doesn’t mean anything to me. Don’t take it like this.”

She said, “It isn’t because of you and Leanne. I understand…I know it wasn’t anything. It is just that I suddenly realize we are not suited. I apologize that I just now see this. I should have seen it from the beginning. We are great as friends, but not as mates. We’ll kill each other in six months, if we live that close. I can’t stand it that you put up with mismatched colors.”

He was staring at her, possibly, she thought, because she had never dared speak so directly to him. She had never dared to speak so directly to herself.

Gathering her purse and the last bag of her stuff to take home, she headed for the door. He followed close behind her.

“Marilee, let’s talk about this.”

She was running away, she realized, but did not stop. “Let’s talk later, when we’ve thought this all out,” she tossed over her shoulder. That would have to do.

She strode out the door and down the walk to the Cherokee, where Corrine, given the keys, had the engine and air-conditioning running. She got behind the wheel, took a last look at Parker, standing there at his front door, and then turned the car and drove away.

Great emotion welled up in her. It was a great epiphany that seemed to ring out from above and wash all over her.

The incident had given her an out, she realized, experiencing relief. This was followed closely by seeping guilt, because she had basically led Parker on. She had led herself on. She had allowed the fear of loneliness, the desire for physical and financial ease, as well as desire for her mother’s approval, plus who knew what-all other motives, to make a fantasy out of a relationship that could be only what it was: friendship. Nothing more.

She had been trying to make herself fit where she was not going to fit, and further, she had been trying to make Parker fit into her image of what she wanted.

She caught sight of his neglected yard in her rearview mirror.

In the nick of time, she thought. In the nick of time.

It was dusk. Marilee walked with Aunt Vella in her aunt’s rose garden, where lights stuck in the ground emitted a soft glow. The children chased the first fireflies of the season across the lawn.

“I’m so ashamed,” Marilee told her aunt. “I was
making my relationship with Parker into something it just couldn’t ever be. I was trying to make him how I wanted him to be.” She shook her head. “I just saw myself getting older, and I didn’t want to be alone, I guess.”

“Ah, honey, I know.” Aunt Vella put her arm around Marilee and squeezed her tight. “There is nothing to be ashamed of. You had to go through this experience to learn…. That’s what these things are for. We learn, and we press on ahead, without looking back.

“And as for being alone, well, we all are really, for all of our days on this earth. We are all in this alone together.”

Moths were batting around streetlights when Marilee loaded the children and Munro into the Cherokee and headed down the street and around the corner to home.

The Porter house—Holloway house—was dark, the portico where Tate parked empty. He had his dinner with the mayor, she remembered.

And then she was turning into her own driveway. Home. Her porch light shone warmly. She unlocked the door and thought that she could never again enter her house and not be glad to be home. It might be small, but it was so very pleasant, and all the colors matched.

Filling in the Holes

T
ate waited until nine o’clock to telephone Charlotte. He was afraid he would either catch her too early and wake her up, or miss her if she went to church. He felt relief when she answered on the second ring, her voice as competent as ever.

“No, it isn’t too early. I do sleep in on Sunday mornings, don’t get up until seven.”

Tate could imagine. “I’m going out of town,” he told her. “Down to Houston to see some folks, and then on to Galveston to visit my mother. I’ll be back Friday or Saturday at the latest. I finished up my editorials for the next two editions, plus a couple extra pieces, and left them on my desk. I’ll be in touch by phone and e-mail. Oh, and tell Marilee not to worry about feeding the cat. I’m takin’ him with me.”

There wasn’t much to that, he thought, as he hung up and finished packing.

He threw his two bags in the back seat of the BMW, with its top down. Then he got Bubba and put him in a cat carrier he had found in the laundry room, and put the carrier in the front seat.

Bubba wasn’t happy. He growled. Continually.

A man and his cat. It appeared it had come to this, Tate thought, throwing a towel over Bubba, who then quit growling.

He turned the key, backed out of his drive and started away, thinking that his mother was probably at some healing revival or bridge tournament, and he would end up alone with Bubba, lying in her spare bed with a ceiling fan to look at for the next three days.

No matter. He needed a long drive. He could not stay and see Marilee engaged. Maybe getting away would give him a better perspective. He would come to accept what he could not change.

The sun was bright and warm when Marilee and the children and Munro walked to church. Out front of the parsonage, the sinkhole was still cordoned off with the yellow City Works tape. Holding securely to both children’s hands, Marilee took them over to join the small knot of observers. The hole had grown; the engineer at City Works was still working out the best way to deal with it.

Marilee looked at the hole and thought of her life.

Munro accompanied them up the steps and into church and into the back pew. He was accepted as routine now.

Marilee, sitting there gazing at the light playing on the altar and determinedly keeping to her no-worry status,
was suddenly jerked to awareness by whispers. People were whispering and looking at the group who had just passed Marilee’s pew.

It was Winston, with Ruthanne and Mildred on his arms, and Aunt Vella following them, sashaying in a bright floral dress and an enormous sweeping hat. Ramona Stidham, who sat with Norm and an entire pew of grandchildren in front of Marilee, turned and said, “Marilee, I don’t care what people say, Vella has sure gotten a life since she and Perry split up.”

Getting a life
was an apt phrase, Marilee thought, watching her aunt’s filmy dress sway as she slipped into the pew beside Winston Valentine. The poor man was somewhat squished, with Mildred leaning toward him on one side, and Aunt Vella smacking him with her hat on the other every time she turned her head.

They stood for the opening hymn. Willie Lee, standing on the pew, leaned on Marilee’s arm, his eyes on the hymnal while he tried to sing along as if reading the words. Corrine stood straight, holding open her own hymnal, singing in a faint voice. “’His eye is on the sparrow…’”

Tears of gratitude filled Marilee’s eyes. She looked with her blurry vision at the cross on the altar.
I’m sorry, Lord, for all this mess with Parker. I behaved poorly with him. Running on fear, not faith. Show me the way, Lord. I can’t do it on my own.

Just as Pastor Smith was giving the closing blessing, there came the sound of a crash from outside. Before he had properly finished, people were exiting the building, intent to see what had happened. Marilee guarded Corrine and Willie Lee, to keep them from being trampled.

“Well, look at that.”

“My Lord.”

“Marilee, you’d better get over here for a story.”

The pastor’s wife’s little green Toyota, which had been parked several yards distant from the sinkhole, was now sitting very nearly nose first in the hole that had widened in all directions.

“This is good,” said Winston, causing people to look at him. “This thing has probably hit bottom, so there’s nowhere to go with it but up.”

It was a daunting thought that now she would have to go tell everyone that she and Parker were not getting married after all. She managed to get away from church without one person asking her about it, and her Sunday was spent blissfully alone with the children, but on Monday, the prospect loomed over her head.

“I do not want to go down-town,” Willie Lee stated, when she told him they were going down to the
Voice
offices.

“You don’t?” she said, surprised. Willie Lee was always so agreeable. “I need to take some articles to the paper, honey, and afterward I will take you to get ice cream. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“Yes. I like ice cream.”

“Then come on. Let’s get your shoes on.”

Willie Lee shook his head. “Mun-ro and I want to stay home.” He climbed on the couch and sat there, looking at her from behind his thick glasses.

“Are you sick, honey?” She felt his forehead. It felt fine.

He looked at her. “No. I am not sick. I want to stay home.”

Marilee looked over at Corrine, who sat in the big chair with a book. “I want to stay home, too,” Corrine said.

Marilee called Aunt Vella, who readily and eagerly agreed to come stay with the children. “They are probably tired of you draggin’ them around everywhere with you,” Aunt Vella said.

Likely this was true, Marilee reflected. She needed to find a way to get them interacting with other children.

She decided to walk downtown, and along the way she rehearsed several ways of nonchalantly telling Tate, “Parker and I are not engaged. We have called it off.”

She had seen Tate only once since the night she and Parker had gotten officially engaged, when he had taken care of Willie Lee and Corrine. He had kissed her quickly, in congratulations. She was disappointed that he had not come to her house with a pitcher of iced tea since then. Perhaps he had found some other woman upon whom to bestow his tea. And of course that was just fine. She did not want anything special to do with Tate Holloway. In fact, thinking of it further, she was torn between wanting to tell him that the engagement with Parker was off and being quite reluctant to admit it. Tate had been the one to be adamant that Parker was not the one for her. Now she would have to admit he had been right.

Tate’s office door was closed, she saw first thing upon coming into the newspaper offices. She had not seen the door closed in some time. Perhaps he was having a private
meeting, maybe with Leo, who was the only one not in evidence.

She went to her desk, plopped down her tote and purse, and stated in a loud voice, to get it over in one fell swoop, “Parker and I are not getting married. We have called it off.”

There were the expected surprise and condolences. Reggie, bless her heart, came over and hugged Marilee hard and long.

“I’m here, if you want to talk,” Reggie said.

“Thank you, Regg.” Her heart warmed. Reggie gave her another quick hug, Imperia kissed her cheek, and June laid a handful of Hershey’s chocolate Kisses on her desk.

She looked at the closed door to Zona’s office; she did not want to leave the woman out of the goings-on, so she went over and knocked.

When Zona’s faint, “Come in,” sounded, Marilee poked her head in the door and said, “I just wanted to let you know I won’t be marrying Parker after all.”

“Oh.” Zona blinked behind her glasses.

Marilee withdrew and was closing the door, when Zona said, “I’m sorry for your disappointment, Marilee.”

She put her head back in again. “I’m okay.”

“Good.”

Marilee withdrew again, and Zona said, “Maybe you had better leave the door open…just a crack.”

“Oh, okay. How’s that?”

“That’s fine. Thank you.”

Marilee stood there looking at the crack in Zona’s door, the crack in her secure wall.

Then she went back to her desk. Well, she had dispensed with a necessary responsibility, and everyone was back to work at their desks, evidence that her private life had little effect on others.

Her editor’s door was still closed. She debated about whether to go knock on it.

She took the update on the sinkhole and the obituary write-ups to Charlotte’s desk and said in an offhand manner, “His door is closed. Is he in some sort of meeting?”

Charlotte shook her head. “Nope. Gone for the week, be back Friday or Saturday.”

“Oh.”

When she recovered enough from this surprise to speak, she said to Charlotte, “I guess you’re off the hook for standin’ up with me at my wedding.”

“I never felt on the hook. I just wasn’t too thrilled about you marrying Parker.” Charlotte sat back and turned her computer screen to the side.

Marilee looked into the woman’s dark eyes. “You knew about him and Leanne.”

“Yes.”

“Does everyone know?”

“Not everyone, but enough people. Julia Jenkins-Tinsley knows and told.”

Marilee let out a large sigh.

“I didn’t think it was my place to tell you,” Charlotte said, looking apologetic. “Telling just never seems to make anything…well, work out.”

Marilee nodded, at once touched by Charlotte’s caring, and hurt that the woman had held such a secret about her life.

“I never thought you two were suited. You don’t match. You are a woman who…” Charlotte paused, as if thinking.

“A woman who what?”
A woman like you.

Charlotte shrugged. “A woman who needs someone different than Parker.”

That did not at all satisfy, but Marilee decided she would rather let the subject drop. “I guess I’ll go over to the post office and let Julia know the engagement is off. If I tell her and Belinda, I won’t have to tell another soul.”

“Well, you’re probably right there,” Charlotte said. Then, as Marilee went out the door, she called, “Oh…you don’t have to feed Tate’s cat. He took it with him.”

“Well, my goodness, he must have gotten fond of it.”

“A man and his cat,” Charlotte said, casting a wave and picking up her glasses to again focus on her computer screen. It was wearing to be involved in people’s private lives; she preferred books that she could put down at will.

The phone on her desk rang. Without taking her gaze off the computer screen, she reached to answer. It was her boss.

“Hi, is Marilee there? I just called her house and Vella said she was down there.”

“She’s already gone…just this minute.” Charlotte spoke loudly; there was a lot of noise coming across the line.

“Oh.” Pause. “Well, how is everything there?”

“The same as always…too much for the few of us to do but none of it earthshaking. Oh, except I suppose the sinkhole is earthshaking—it just about ate the pastor’s wife’s car yesterday morning.” She was again raising her
voice over background noise on her editor’s end, and this made her peevish. “Where are you? What’s all that noise?” People should know trying to talk and listen over noise was impolite.

“That’s just some friends…we’re at a bar for lunch.”

Now Tate had raised his voice, and Charlotte’s mind went into visions that caused some disapproval, and worry. Maybe, because of all the strain of changing the
Voice
around, their editor was going to stray into all manner of irresponsible behavior. He’d just up and left on this trip, like he was running off.

The noise abated. “There, that’s better,” he said. “Put Reggie on the sinkhole. Tell her just to take a picture and write a caption. No need for an article. We’ll begin following it with pictures.”

“Marilee took care of it.”

“Oh, okay.” Pause. “Then everyone is fine.”

“Yes, everything is going along fine.” Then, because he sounded a little disappointed and she wanted him to feel responsibility, she added, “But you’ve only been gone a day. You never can tell what emergency might happen. You’d better stay ready.”

The visit to Julia Jenkins-Tinsley was short. Marilee poked her head in the door, saw Julia at the counter and said, “Julia, Parker and I have broken off our engagement.”

Julia’s eyes went round. She opened her mouth, but Marilee pulled her head back out of the doorway and headed down the sidewalk for the drugstore. She required an enormous chocolate sundae.

Just as she entered the store, the door opened and there came Winston, being hustled out the door by Uncle Perry. Marilee had to back up.

“I’ll thank you to go use the new Rexall out on the highway,” said Uncle Perry, who then shut the door.

Winston straightened himself, smoothing his shirt and adjusting his belt.