Kimberly Stuart (10 page)

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By the time plows had cleared the highway the next afternoon, I was regretting my kind gesture. As predicted, Cal put up a bit of a fuss when Jayne told him about the trip. The air at the dinner table that evening was wrought with tension, and my presence didn't help. I endured half my meatloaf before excusing myself to the attic. I gave Jayne a subtle thumbs-up on my way out and she sat up in her chair, eyes glinting with fresh resolve.

I stayed upstairs the entire evening, not wanting to interfere on any progress that might have been made. Cal seemed to be the type of man who wouldn't appreciate my meddling in an argument with his wife. He was also more stubborn than spilled merlot on white silk, so frankly, I wasn't holding out much hope that my impromptu idea would come to fruition.

The next morning the snow had stopped and the sun shone into every cell of the white earth. I stood at my window, wrapped in a quilt and squinting into the bright daylight. I watched as a stream of melting snow made its way down the roof. Mac had been right—March snow was likely in Iowa but at least it had the sense not to overstay its welcome.

I followed my nose downstairs to the pancakes, eggs, and bacon Jayne had whipped up in celebration of Saturday. When I rounded the corner into the kitchen, I was surprised to see the kitchen empty save for Cal and Jayne, who were canoodling in a very familiar way in front of the sink. Jayne saw me and pulled away from the smooch. She cleared her throat and Cal turned toward me. His hair, normally fit for military inspection, was unwashed and tousled, still bearing the imprint of a pillow. He nodded at me and ran a hand through his coif.

“Morning, Miss Sadie,” he said. “Sleep okay?”

“Why, yes, Cal, I did,” I said, fighting the corners of my mouth from upturning. “I slept just fine, but I'll bet not as well as you.” I raised my eyebrows and he blushed furiously.

Jayne put one hand over her mouth to hide her smile. Cal worked his mouth over to one side and bit his lower lip. Appearing to be at a total loss as to how to regain the safe, macho distance he'd worked so hard to build between us, he turned in his stocking feet and headed out the door. “I'll be in the shower.”

I walked to the cupboard to retrieve a cup for coffee. “Is that a suggestion that you join him?” I asked Jayne, who
tsk
ed at me.

“Sadie,” she said in her best scolding tone. By the nature of her job, she got much more scolding practice than I and would have been quite effective at it were it not for the goofy grin that accompanied her words. “Don't harass the poor man.”

“Me?” I said incredulously. “I can't help it if I find just a teeny-weeny bit of joy in watching the man who had to hoist my rear into his pickup during our first meeting squirm a little.”

Jayne handed me a plate heaped with food and pointed to the syrup on the table. “There's juice, too, when you're ready.”

After a few bites of pancakes, I looked up to see Jayne staring at me. She sat down carefully in the chair across from me and, after a scan of the room for any wayward CIA operatives, whispered, “He said yes!” All propriety out the window, she clapped her hands together in one hard smack. “I'll start packing today.”

And with that, Jayne proceeded to make the next ten days interminable. A host of problems arose. First was the List Problem. In a matter of hours, Jayne had bathed the rooms of her house with Post-it Notes declaring said room's importance in the daily life of the family. She didn't need to access the attic, thanks be to God, but the little fluorescent squares assaulted nearly every other corner of the house.

On the linen closet:

1. Towels for baths (Drew: red, Joel: blue, Emmy: pink)

2. Extra towels for Mac (dark green)

3. Emergency medical kit (Note: Band-Aids in downstairs med. chest.)

On the boys' bedroom door:

Bedtime ritual:

1. PJs (bottom drawer) and Pull-Ups (closet)

2. Brush teeth (Drew: Lightning McQueen toothbrush, blue. Joel: Tigger toothbrush, orange.)

3. Read two stories (they'll push for more)

4. Sing “Jesus Loves Me” twice

5. Pray

6. Humidifier to setting 2, lights out, door closed

On the back of Emmy's high chair:

Foods NOT allowed for baby:

1. PEANUT BUTTER

2. EGGS

3. POPCORN

4. NUTS

5. JAM WITH SEEDS

6. SODA, CANDY, EXCESSIVE SUGAR

This same list was posted on the refrigerator for backup.

By Wednesday, these things littered the kitchen, bedrooms, and bathrooms. I couldn't believe that Cal would actually peruse them instead of just opening the closet door or the Tupperware drawer to see what was inside, but the note-taking seemed to make Jayne feel better so the rest of us played along.

Then came the Phone Problem. The calls began before I finished my pancakes Saturday, lasted until we had to discontinue the use of all electronic devices on the plane, and involved copious amounts of screaming. Here's an example:

(Phone rings. Jayne runs to answer it.)

“Hello? … Hiiiieeeee! I know, can you believe it? I'm going to the Big Apple! (Screaming) … Thursday to Sunday … Mac and Cal. I'm leaving lots of instructions … (Speaking away from the phone) Sadie, Lisa says you are the greatest!”

I nod and agree, then take my coffee cup with me as I leave the room.

(Jayne continues) “I don't know. I'm thinking Regis and Kelly for sure and maybe the Today show one morning. (Quietly) I'm hoping to run into John Travolta or Tom Cruise—maybe Sadie can introduce me! I definitely want to go to a Broadway musical, nothing too racy …”

I tried escaping to my room with dubious success. Inevitably, Jayne would rap quickly at the door—even that mundane action cheery and optimistic.

“Yes?” I'd call.

Jayne would open the door and ask her question, hand cupped over the mouthpiece of the phone. “Sadie, so sorry to bother you, but is Manhattan really an island?”

Or, “Is it true that most New Yorkers don't do their own laundry?”

Or, “Should I take pepper spray?”

At my replies to these questions, some more patient than others, Jayne would immediately relay the information to Jenni or Natalie or whomever shared the phone line at that moment, accompanied by dreamy sighs, squeals, or hushed and worried tones, as was appropriate.

In addition to the Post-its and the incessant phone calls, the final and most taxing problem was Jayne's conversation loop. From the Saturday morning of Cal's yes until we left for the airport a week and a half later, Jayne was stuck on a track and could not, no matter how I tried, be deterred from her musings on the following:

1. The survival of her children.

2. What New Yorkers wore compared with the fine people of Maplewood.

3. Times Square, Ground Zero, and Planet Hollywood, not always in that order.

4. The subway.

I did my best to warn her that a few days was not much in the city that never sleeps. (She loved that—“the city that never sleeps”—and began dropping it into conversation as often as she could.) Under normal conditions, visiting every tourist destination from the Statue of Liberty to the Guggenheim in a weekend was insane if not physically impossible. Plus, I told Jayne, as I was not known for my sightseeing enthusiasm and would need to be in rehearsals much of Saturday, our fanny-pack time was to be limited. Jayne would nod slowly, appearing to think about the weight of these considerations. And then she'd start in on what shoes to bring (we'd walk a lot—probably Nikes, right?), whether she should freeze one lasagna or two, and if she should budget for subway rides or cabs.

The entire planning phase drained me of any enthusiasm I'd held in those brief moments after the attic miniconcert. And our feet were still firmly rooted on the frozen ground of Iowa.

Multiculturalism

Wednesday night finally arrived, the night before Jayne and I were scheduled to take Heartland Air 1098 from Maplewood to New York, with a layover in O'Hare. I was up in the attic, filling one of my large Louis Vuittons. After Jayne left Sunday to go back home, I'd remain for the rest of spring break week, luxuriating in the comforts of congestion, good food, and imported chocolate. I hummed to myself as I packed, imagining morning walks through the Park, flaky croissants as a reward for my physical exertion, and rehearsals with people who knew good coffee. It was nearly ten o'clock and the rest of the house was quiet with sleep. Youngest to oldest, the Hartleys had retired early that evening, the kids worn out at the end of the day, Cal exhausted from a debacle involving an infertile boar, and Jayne weary from all her Post-its, plans, and packing.

As I folded my pink cashmere turtleneck and laid it carefully on one side of the suitcase, I felt someone watching me. I looked up and saw a man in a ball cap standing in the shadows of the staircase, his eyes peeking over where the floor met the railing. In the split second before I let out a glass-shattering scream, Mac was up the rest of the stairs and pulling me to him.

“Just hush a minute,” he said. “It's only me. You want to wake up the whole house?” His eyes sparkled, even in the dark room.

I pulled away and stood with hands on my hips. “What, exactly, do you think you're doing, spying on me in my room? How did you get in here?”

He rolled his eyes. “People around here don't have six locks on their doors because we
trust
each other. And even if Cal did lock his door, don't you think his own brother would get an extra key?” He flopped down on the chair by the window and crossed one long leg over the other. He wore dark blue jeans and polished boots. Spring had made a tip-toed entrance that afternoon. Mac wore a long-sleeved dark green shirt but no coat.

“Please,” I said, the sarcasm dripping, “do make yourself at home, Mr. Hartley. Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Piece of pie?” I stood glaring at him, arms crossed over my worn Eastman sweatshirt.

Mac chuckled. “Let me assure you, Miss Sadie Maddox, if I were looking for a good piece of pie, you would not be my first stop.”

“Well,” I said huffily, “how about you tell me why you
are
here, if it isn't for my hospitality.”

He stood and put his hands in his pockets. “Let's go.” He walked to the top of the stairs.

“Excuse me?”

“Time for you to get out of this house.”

I shook my head, utterly confused. “I'm perfectly happy in this house. I'm packing to go to New York tomorrow.”

Mac nodded quickly. “That's my point. How long have you been in Maplewood? Two months?”

I nodded. “About that.”

Mac walked over to me and took my hand, pulling me toward the stairs. “Exactly. Two months and all you've done is sing, eat, sleep, and aggravate your chauffeur service. I'm not letting you go back to your snooty New York friends and tell them there's nothing to do around here or that we're just a bunch of hicks.”

“But I'm not ready to go out.” I looked down at my ensemble: sweatshirt, jeans that were definitely past their prime, sporty shoes I'd gotten off a rack in Chinatown. In short, I was perfectly dressed to wash dishes.

Mac sized me up, taking his own sweet time and letting a smile creep across his face. “You look perfect. This isn't some hoity-toity Manhattan night club.” He started down the stairs, his hand still holding mine. “Now,” he said, turning to face me. His eyes, remarkable at this short distance, were level with mine. I took a sharp breath. “You think we can get out of here without waking the troops? I don't feel the need to include my little brother and his sweet wife in my nighttime wanderings.”

I nodded, my heart racing despite itself, and followed him in silence, straight out the door and toward an adventure.

The Roadhouse sat at the bottom of a hill on the edge of a neighboring town named Clayton. Mac pulled up to the rambling building sided with brown shingles and trimmed in a horrible orange-red. A blinking neon sign crowned the roof and featured a cowboy on a rearing bull.

Mac turned his truck into an empty space in the gravel parking lot and cut the engine. He turned to me, his face blinking red and blue in time to the sign. “Ready for some music education?”

I sighed. “Country dancing.”

He grinned, lips pushed out in a gesture of cocky victory.

“I'd hoped you were whisking me away to a little known hole-in-the-wall French restaurant, owned and run by a family known only to the discerning few and cherished for their world-class
coq au vin
.”

Mac let a puff of air escape his mouth in a gesture of disbelief or impatience, I couldn't tell which. “You sure seem to have an active inner life, as Oprah would say.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You watch Oprah.”

“Nah,” he said, hand on the door handle. “But sounding like I do impresses the ladies.” He winked and unfolded out of the cab.

I waited for him as he strode in front of the truck toward my door. When he opened it, I stood on the running board, happy to have a small moment where I could tower over him. I pointed my finger at his nose. “I'll participate in your uncouth form of dancing to music that demeans women and glorifies alcohol, cowboys, and trucks.”

Mac cocked his head and smiled. “Sounds perfect.”

“But.” I wagged my finger in his face. “I forbid you to make fun of my footwork, get me intoxicated, or otherwise humiliate me.” I lifted my chin and looked down on him. “And I might have to be taken somewhere else to use the restroom if the one here is as revolting as I suspect it to be.”

Mac lifted me up and set me down gently on the ground. He kept his arms around me, letting the warmth from his hands linger on my sweatshirt. He looked into my eyes, which were wide and much like a deer's in that moment.

“What's Eastman?” he asked softly, nodding at the lettering on my sweatshirt.

“A music school. Very prestigious,” I said quietly, lightheaded at being this close to him.

“Never heard of it,” he said, pulling away and turning me toward the neon. “Let's dance,” he said, and slapped me on the rear. Hard.

I walked slightly behind him, not sure whether I'd just been rebuffed or seduced. My rump hurt, in either case, and I hobbled along behind him, wincing at the sting.

Mac held the door for me. I stepped past him and into another realm of neon, this time a pantheon to cheap beer draped in signage above the bar. Mac stood next to me and hollered a greeting to the bartender, a hefty woman in a denim shirt with
Roadhouse
embroidered on the pocket. I expected it to blink if I stared long enough.

“Hey, Mac,” she said, ambling toward us. “How're things?”

“Good, good,” Mac said, taking off his cap and laying it on the bar. “How about yourself, Danelle?”

“Fine,” Danelle said. She wiped out a glass with a white towel, sizing me up in a most unhurried fashion.

I patted my hair, surprised anew that I'd been coerced out of my home looking this disheveled. Then again, Danelle in her denim wasn't exactly mugging for Fashion Week either.

She smacked her gum and placed the shiny clean glass on a shelf below the bar. “What can I get you two?”

“I'll have a Bud.” He turned to me.

I didn't think it productive to ask about the Roadhouse's wine cellar. “Yes. Right. I'll have cranberry juice, very little ice.”

Danelle raised one eyebrow, still chomping on her gum, but obediently turned to retrieve our drinks. I took stock of our company. Two older men sat at the end of the bar, gray-haired, in farmer caps, and watching us in silence. At a small table near the dance floor sat a couple, the woman in her twenties with a profusion of red curls and the man, in his fifties or so, looking like a smug cat as she leaned over the table and whispered in his ear. I felt a strong urge to inform the woman that those ears likely grew long, bristly hairs that she would be called upon to pluck, should she stick around. But I was pulled back by Danelle's husky voice.

“Here you go,” she said, sliding a full tumbler of juice toward me.

Mac cleared his throat before anybody got too nosy. “We're here to dance, even if nobody else is.” He slapped a five down on the bar. “Turn up the music when you get a chance, will you?” He smiled at Danelle and picked up his beer.

I followed him to a table opposite the mature man and his trophy. I nodded over to them. “I'm assuming she's not his niece.”

Mac took a swig of his beer and watched them over the lip of the glass. His eyes were very serious, taking in the scene as if it were an early Botticelli. “He's a fool,” he said finally, cupping one hand around his glass.

My heart swelled with joy at having heard such words from an attractive man in my age group. There was hope! All was not lost in the world!

“If I was gonna get a young one like that, I'd at least make sure she was good-looking.”

“You are an infuriating man.”

He burrowed his hand into the small snack bowl between us and popped a handful of the orange-hued mix into his mouth. Even in the dismal lighting in the Roadhouse, I could see his eyes twinkling with mirth.

“And you are likely eating something prepared in 1998 in the bowels of a New Jersey snack mix plant.” I shook my head, not even trying to fend off the blanket of despair that was beginning to cloak me.
How has it come to this?
I chastised myself. So I hadn't been on a date in awhile. Did that mean I had to settle for fossilized peanuts with a man who drank Budweiser?

Mac threw back his head, pushed his chair back until he balanced on only two legs, and laughed with such gusto it took him a moment to compose himself. I sat with my arms crossed, watching the redhead trace circles on the palm of pimp daddy's hand.

“Now, now,” Mac said, letting his chair regain its rightful pose and leaning over the table to me. He waited until I looked him in the eye. “You and I both know that man is looking to embarrass himself.”

“He is?” I said, fiddling with the cocktail napkin under my cranberry juice.

“Yes, he is.” He reached over and detracted my busy fingers from the napkin. He ran one finger slowly along each of mine.
If only he'd waited one more week
, I thought, entranced. Then I would have had a decent manicure.

“Not only that,” he said, “but it is the humble opinion of this man that a woman becomes more beautiful with age, so that poor chap is missing the boat.”

I looked at him skeptically, waiting for the shoe to drop. “But?” I said and pulled my hand away. I narrowed my eyes. “She's probably a good romp in the meantime?”

“Sadie Maddox!” Mac said, his eyes bulging in feigned offense. “Such language coming from a world famous opera star! You charm your public with that mouth?”

As much as I would have liked to deny him the pleasure, I could not contain my laughter.

He pushed away from the table. “Enough chitchat, sweetheart. All this verbalizing of feelings is wearing me out.” He offered me his hand to help me up. “Time for your first lesson in the two-step.”

We hit the floor during a song that praised in no uncertain terms the full-figured woman. I found this to be exceptionally heartening and made myself teachable under the capable tutelage of Mac. Having no other experience with which to compare him and as we were the only couple on the floor, I hated to be too impressed, but he did appear to be a very good dancer. As with other forms of dance accepted by more civilized people, the man's role in the dance was crucial. A good lead could make or break every single eight-count. But I was in good hands, literally. Mac spun me, whirled me, dipped me, twirled me, and I laughed like a schoolgirl for the first time in a long time.

“You have very good rhythm,” he yelled over the music.

“Thank you,” I yelled back. “Could you call the Met and put in a good word?”

He chuckled, which I took to mean he'd at least heard of the Met. After two more wild songs, one about going fishing and ditching the wife to do it and the other about getting revenge on a boyfriend by torching his house, we slowed down and danced to a ballad.

A woman sang in a lush alto about a man who loved her despite her cheating heart. We moved slowly back and forth, Mac's arms around me and our feet barely shifting on the floor. I felt a happy exhaustion settling in and allowed myself the deliciousness of resting my head on his chest. My hair, I assumed, hung in dreadful, limp strands anyway by that point, not only because of my unexpected foray to the honky-tonk but also because I hadn't let it be touched by any of the “stylists” in Maplewood. Going to my salon in New York and letting Jack get his hands on the disaster was one of the first items on the next week's agenda.