Softly and Tenderly (15 page)

June suggested a hotel in Paducah for the night. After the chocolate shake and burgers at the DQ, Beryl looked tired and June felt like a fading flower at the end of a long, hot summer.

She’d expected to field protests from Jade, who seemed determined to cover more road before stopping, but she’d readily agreed.

To June, Jade looked tired beyond sleeplessness. Her movements reflected her restlessness. One moment she was calm, smiling, the next fidgeting and distracted with a yearning in her eyes.

June realized she brought too much luggage. Dragging her three overstuffed Vuitton bags down the long hall to room 315 aggravated and enflamed her tennis elbow.

When she tried to hoist her tote bag onto the luggage rack, pain fired down her arm.

“June, you all right?” Beryl watched from her bed. The old gals were bunking together while young Jade booked her own room.

“Hurt my arm. Old tennis injury.” She tried to laugh, but pain tightened up her arm. “I can’t raise it above my waist.” Sitting on the side of the bed, June massaged her elbow and upper arm. Not anticipating this, she’d left her elbow brace at home.

“Can I do something for you?”

June laughed low, mashing her hair with her good hand. “The ride in the Caddy . . . I wanted to wash the road out of my hair, but I can’t lift my arm.”

She tried to make a fist. “Or open a shampoo bottle.”

“It’s okay to ask for help, you know.” Beryl headed into the bathroom. “Once in a while, sit back, kick your shoes off, relax, let someone else have a chance to serve you, June.”

June swallowed two Tylenol gelcaps with a sip from her water bottle. “You mean? Oh, no, Beryl, I couldn’t.”

“Why not? You let the women at the Whisper Hollow Suds and Bucket wash your hair.”

June laughed. “Whisper Hollow Style-n-Set. Suds and bucket. Wait until I tell Barbara Jean.”

“Please, let me do something nice for you.” Beryl flipped on the bathroom light. “Got us fancy bottles of shampoo and conditioner right here.”

June stood in the bathroom doorway. “A good hair washing would be lovely.”

“Good, let’s just drop this here . . .” Beryl tucked the folded hotel towel against the tub.

“Beryl, are you afraid to die?” June reached for her arm.

“Terrified.” Beryl took a second towel from the rack.

“Do you believe, Beryl? In Jesus? In heaven?”

“I’m considering my options.” She laughed, but it didn’t resonate with merriment. “It’s just, well . . . I think I’ll feel real stupid if I decide Jesus is all He claimed to be after living my entire life running in the opposite direction.”

June rubbed her elbow, gazing at the small square tile floor. “I’ve believed my whole life and still, in some ways, ran in the opposite direction.”

“Then tell me, is He true? The real deal?”

“Yes, Beryl, He is true.” June glanced at her friend. “The real deal. But don’t look to me and Reb as stellar examples of a Christian life. Look to Jesus.”

“Here. Kneel down.” Beryl motioned to the bathtub.

June started to bend her knees, but an odd bubble buoyed in her chest. “Beryl, are you sure? You don’t have to wash my hair.”

“And hear about road grime the rest of the trip?” Beryl sat on the toilet, leaned over the tub, and started the water. She made a pallet with the towels. “Now, be a good Christian and kneel.”

“Clean hair . . .” After a second of hesitation, June knelt on the towels. “This feels so awkward.”

Beryl gently guided June’s head under the water. “Letting folks help makes us vulnerable.”

“I suppose.” The warm water cascaded over June’s scalp. Relaxing chills ran down her back. She closed her eyes. “Thank you, Beryl.”

“I don’t have many credits of good deeds to my name.” Beryl’s hands gently massaged the water through June’s hair. “But I’ve washed hair and backs, even feet in my day.”

The tension eased out of June’s neck and shoulders. Even the throb in her arm lost some of its grip. The shampoo was soft and silky against her scalp.

“Rebel ever wash your hair?”

June shook her head, buttoning her lips, holding a sob prisoner.

“Harlan, my first husband, loved to wash my hair for me.” The tenor of Beryl’s soft laugh was the kind that came with reminiscing. “I can’t remember why he washed my hair for the first time, but hoo boy, it led to some passionate lovemaking.”

June peeked under the water cascading over her face. “Don’t get any ideas.”

Now Beryl laugh-laughed. “Never did swing that way. Even in my wildest days.”

June faced down again, her emotions waxing over her thoughts. Maybe she’d lived her own way for the last forty years, but she didn’t have to spend the last decades of her life doing the same. She wasn’t too old for some kind of Lord’s work. Beryl didn’t claim many good deeds. June was quite sure she couldn’t either.

“I’ve always known about Reb, Beryl. He’s a good man. A loving father. A good man.”

“Are you telling me or yourself?” Beryl rinsed her hair, then shampooed again, humming softly.

“I’ve cried a lot of tears over him. Behind closed bedroom doors, under the cascade of a hot shower, while sitting in a dark garage bay.”

As Beryl’s fingers massaged June’s scalp, her song grew louder. Sharper. The notes flat and sour, but lively. Lyrics whispered from her lips. “I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair, I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair . . .”

What in the world .
. . June peered at her through the edge of her elbow. “What
did
you do with the money your mama gave you for singing lessons?”

“Spent it all on cigarettes.”

A snort slipped through June’s nose.

“I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair,” Beryl sang, rinsing June’s hair. “Get the picture, Junie?”

She snickered, then let go a good laugh. “If only we were on an island in the South Pacific.”

“I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair . . .” Beryl shut off the water, squeezed June’s hair, and handed her a towel. “I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair . . .”

“And send him on his way.” June turbaned her head with the thick hotel towel and did a jig into the bedroom. “I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair.” She spun in the middle of the room. “And send him on his way.”

Truth or dare? June didn’t know, but the lyrics sure felt good.

Thirteen

Eleven o’clock. Jade couldn’t sleep even though her eyes and her thoughts drifted along under a permanent fog.

For the tenth time in the last few minutes, she wondered what Max was doing but kept her iPhone on the far desk so she wouldn’t reach for it on impulse and call him.

They needed time apart. Space. She’d insisted. And Jade needed to pretend he was in Whisper Hollow pining for her.

Jade kicked off the covers. The boxy room was hot and claustrophobic. She’d adjusted the thermostat because the air had been chilly; now she roasted like a pig on a spit.

For the last hour she surfed the channels, bored with the same-old-same-old out of Hollywood. Was every producer or writer an overgrown geeky teenager?

She clicked off the television and tossed the remote to the end table.

Mama and June had been quiet for a while. Earlier she thought she heard them singing, but when she pressed her ear to the wall, she didn’t hear Mama’s pitchy melody and decided it must have been a movie.

Sigh
. Now what? She had to get out of the room. Changing into her jeans and top, Jade grabbed her coat and purse and jerked open the door.

The reception desk clerk lifted his head as she passed. “Heading out?”

“Heading somewhere.” Please, God, let her be heading somewhere.

Firing up the Caddy, Jade revved the engine, cranked the radio, powered the top down, and laughed with a glance toward heaven when Springsteen came over the speaker singing, “I love you for your pink Cadillac, crushed velvet seats . . .”

Divine intervention.

Springsteen’s voice picked up her emotions and carried Jade back to Prairie City, Dustin Colter, and the magic of first love. Now, at thirty-one, it all seemed like a dream. Even the bad times waxed good.

She cruised the pink “boat” down Hinkleville Road, aiming toward what she hoped was the Ohio River. The midnight sky was speckled with light.

Jade sang along with Bruce, “In your pink Cadillac, in your pink Cadillac,” drumming against the wheel. When her phone rang from her hip pocket, she turned down the radio to answer, and took the Y in the road.

“Hey.” Max’s voice filled her with warm familiarity. He sounded tired and burdened.

“Hey.” On first impulse, she wanted to ask what was wrong, share in his load. But he’d done this to himself. She’d learned from Daphne over the years that people need to feel the weight of their actions and consequences. Pain invokes change.

“Y’all haven’t killed each other yet?” he said after the moment of silence.

“Our mamas are having a great time.”

Jade rounded a corner and arrived in a dark downtown Paducah neighborhood. Maybe she should turn around? How’d she get on this one-way street?

“Lorelai and Gus were here tonight, and—”

“Max, please. For now, I don’t want to know. I want to live, for a few days, in a pretend world where my husband is faithful and honest. Where he doesn’t have a firstborn son without me. Because in my real world, none of that is true. In the real world, my mama is dying. In the real world, I have a shop with a big hole as the front door.”

“So I can’t to talk to you? My wife?”

“Max, you’re doing it again. Putting the success of us going forward on me. You’re upset, so you want to talk to me. Pardon me, but I don’t want to hear it. Sheesh, Max, how did you ever manage to keep Asa a secret for the last year and a half, dear?”

“It wasn’t easy. Do you want me to say it? I was a jerk. A world-class jerk. Someone hand me the trophy.”

“Check Rebel’s office. I think it’s in there.” Either from the cold or the confrontation, Jade wasn’t sure, but her legs began to tremble. The streetlights blended with the burnt amber glow firing up in her mind. Purple colored her emotions, and the Paducah streets began to narrow. A veil of anxiety eased down on her head. Weight from the unknown settled on her next heartbeat. She gripped the Caddy wheel tighter.

“You’re making me pay for what Dad did to Mom.”

“Now that’s laughable. First you blame Dustin, now you blame your dad. No, Max.” Jade held her phone right up to her lips. “I blame you. This. Is. All. You.”

“Stop screaming.”

“And stop trying to manipulate me into coming home, deflecting the fact that you brought this on.” The trembling worsened. Jade whipped the car into a parallel slot next to a park.

“Excuse me for wanting you to come home and work this out with me.”

“Max, I’ve been there for you; don’t you dare imply I haven’t been. I’ve looked the other way on your pill problem because it seemed to me that marriage is about commitment, sickness and health, for better or worse. And I loved you.”

“So the stakes go up and you run?”

“Let me finish. You’re the one who changed the game. Not me. So far, most of our marriage has been about you, what you want, children—”

“Who spent money to buy the River Street store? And was
happy
to do so? Who spent weekends going to estate sales with you,
gladly
?”

“Who went to benefits and banquets for Benson Law clients and business acquaintances? Who wanted children desperately, yes for me, but also for you? I wanted you to be happy, to have the family you wanted.”

“You want a family as much as I do, if not more. Jade, come home. You should know Lorelai and Gus—”

Jade pressed End and tossed her phone to the far side of the big Caddy’s front seat. Enough. She didn’t want to listen. Neither did he. This conversation could go on all night. Until the radio waves from the phone fried her brain.

For all his great qualities, Max could be so obtuse about people. Did she have
Welcome
imprinted on her forehead?
Come in, walk all over me
. Her phone rang and lit up. Jade stretched across the seat and snatched it up, silencing the ringer.

Sitting under an amber streetlight, Jade shifted into Park. The night cold draped around her shoulders. She’d heard something about spring snow flurries on the Weather Channel as she had exited the lobby. Reaching down under the dash, left of the wheel, she pressed the power button for the top.

The cold seeping beneath her skin, Jade hit the heat sliders and revved the idling engine. The trembling in her legs had crept into her torso. But she didn’t need to call Daphne to understand the nervous river flowed from within.

Closing her eyes, Jade touched the praying hands medallion and listened to the memory of Paps’s voice as he tied it around her neck when she was eight years old.
“Jesus is always with you
.”

The motor for the top crunched and whirred to a stop. Jade glanced up as she swerved around. The top was stuck, looking like a lazy canvas wink. “No, no, no, come on.”

She hit the switch again. The motor groaned and whirred, then grunted to a stop, leaving the top sticking a foot out of its bed, mocking her.

“Oh, come on. Work, you, you, you, man-car.”

Jade switched the button on. Nothing. Off. On. Nothing again. No sound, no motor groan, no movement. “Oh come on.” She hit the switch over and over, on, off, on, off.

She jumped into the backseat and leaned on the top. “You can’t win. I won’t let you beat me.” Leaning did nothing, so Jade grabbed hold and pulled, using her full body weight to free the top from its frozen mechanics. “Up, up, up, you stupid thing.”

Nothing doing. The crazy thing didn’t budge. Jade’s fingers slipped and she toppled backward over the front seat. Muttering, she crawled behind the wheel and jimmied the switch. The motor started. She exhaled relief. “Now you’re talking.” The top moved. “Come on, baby. Come on.”

With a grunt, the motor froze. “No!” She was on her feet, leaping over into the back. The canvas wink just grew a half foot.

“You’re going up or going down, but you’re not staying like this.” Jade pulled, then pushed, yanked, then mashed. The top was winning.