The Sweet Spot (21 page)

He raised his voice three octaves to disguise it. “Yeah, I was wondering, how
do
you collect semen, anyway?”

“James Benton, I don’t have all day to play games with you on the phone. I’m busy
here.”

“Hey, Charla Rae, have you seen my hat?”

“What hat?” Her voice went all skinny.

“You know, my champion softball cap. I’ve searched everywhere, and I can’t find it.”

“Um. I haven’t seen it recently.”

“Keep your eye open for it, will you?” He paused. “That’s not really why I called.
I wanted to ask you a favor.” At her sigh, he added, “Not for me. See, there’s this
kid at the feedlot. He wants to be a bull rider. He’s a bit unconventional and—”

“Why are you calling me?”

“Well, he’s embarrassed to buck in front of the high school team. He’s never been
on a bull. I thought I’d bring him out to the ranch and run a couple of practice bulls
under him, to see what he’s got. I didn’t know how you’d feel about having a kid on
the place. I don’t want to make you sad, or uncomfortable.”

“Who is it?”

“Nobody you know. His name is Travis, and he works in the feed store.”

“Oh, the Dumpster monkey!”

“Huh?”

“Never mind, I know him.”

Her throaty chuckle reminded him how long it’d been since he heard it. And how much
he missed it.

“You can bring him out, JB.”

“I appreciate it, Charla Rae. Underneath all the attitude, he’s a good kid.”

“Oh, and JB? Thanks for asking.”

Her voice was as soft as the
click
that followed it.

Char hung up the phone and, holding the material together, pressed the foot pedal
of her mother’s sewing machine. The garish pink-and-black tiger-striped cotton fabric
almost hurt her eyes. She held up the garment. A ruffle, maybe? Yes. Definitely.

Cutting a strip of material, she absorbed Jimmy’s call. The past handful of years,
he wouldn’t have given a thought to how his actions might affect her. The fact that
he had now was a balm to her chafed heart.
So sweet.

This would be good for Jimmy. He loved kids, and they gravitated to him, sensing that
a part of him had never grown up. It made him aggravating lots of times, but it was
also the source of his playful, fun side.

Dang it, if Jimmy could evolve to a point that he considered her feelings, what excuse
did she have for not growing up and facing her own sins? She snapped off the iron,
then the sewing machine. Her nerves jangled. The Valium’s tired one-note song ran
through her head, as it did whenever she contemplated the mess she’d made of her life.
Ignoring it, she strode the hall to the living room.

Rosa sat across the table from her dad, their heads bent over a jigsaw puzzle.

Char glanced at the clock on the mantel. “Rosa, don’t you need to get on the road?”

The round-faced woman looked up. “I’ve got another hour or so free today. I can stay.”

It’s an omen.
Char gritted her teeth. Once she committed herself, there was no going back. “Do
you mind if I step out for a bit? I promise I won’t be more than an hour.”

“We’re fine. Go, go.” Rosa waved a hand at her, attention already back to the puzzle.

Char walked to the kitchen, thanking God that she lived in a county with such a rich
support system for its residents. She’d have to remember not to complain, the next
time her property tax bill arrived in the mail.

Checking to be sure she had the address, and before she could talk herself out of
it, Char grabbed her purse and headed for the back door.

Ten minutes later, she turned in at an apartment complex on the older side of town.
She trolled the labyrinth of narrow drives, scanning the redbrick buildings for the
correct number. Within a few numbers of the building, she pulled into a parking space,
turned off the engine, and sat, marshalling her courage. She felt open, vulnerable,
as if her skin had been stripped off.

After the funeral, Reverend Mike had told her about the grief group offered by Saint
Luke’s Hospital. When Jimmy left, she’d become a robot: going through the motions
to get through each day. After a few weeks, the echoes of happier times rang through
the empty rooms, and the Valium stopped blocking it. She knew she had to do something
or go mad.

Not that she’d added to the discussions at group. She sat like a lump most days, tears
rolling down her cheeks.
Yet being there seemed to quiet the sounds in her head a bit. So she kept going every
day. They were typical group therapy sessions led by a gentle, sensitive young man
who taught them the stages of grief and how to get through the tough times. Members
stayed as long as they needed to, drifting away when they moved to the final stage:
acceptance.

Char got to know the members through their stories. Husbands, siblings, parents—a
phalanx of dead people, kept alive through the memories of those who loved them. Telling
the stories appeared to help the others. But for Char, panic welled at the thought
of speaking, and she’d find herself standing in the parking lot, hands shaking so
badly she scratched the paint on the car door, trying to get the key in the lock.

Typical too, she supposed, were the dynamics of the group. Most had been members long
enough to get comfortable. Sometimes that support took a harsh tone, to snap the person
out of a stuck place.

She shouldn’t have pushed me.

Looking back now, Char could hardly believe the crazed woman who’d stood screaming
into that old lady’s face had been her. She could hardly blame them for asking her
to leave and not return. Char snatched the scrap of paper with the address scribbled
on it and got out. Peering at apartment numbers, she rounded a corner to a quadrangle
of grass between buildings. A rusted swing set and neglected sandbox stood testament
that these buildings hadn’t always been retirement quarters. Dirty paper lay tangled
in the weeds, and grass sprang from the cracks in the sidewalk. Echoes of children’s
shouts from another time came to her in the wind drifting over the empty
playground. She hunched her shoulders and broke into a trot.

At the next building, breathless, she forced her feet to slow, then stop, before the
paint-chipped door.
I shouldn’t have come.
Pushing herself was one thing, but what if she pushed herself over the edge back
into the pit of Valium despair?

You’re made of sterner stuff than that, Charla Rae. Trust yourself.

“Thanks, Mom.” She smoothed her newly shortened hair behind her ears and took a deep
breath to slow her galloping heart. One hand in a death grip on her purse, she forced
the other to knock.

The sound echoed in the empty courtyard. She heard a rustling behind the door. The
woman who opened it looked smaller than Char remembered. Older too. Not a dragon,
just a bent, gray-haired old lady in a cheap lavender pantsuit, a hopeful look on
her face.

When the lady recognized her visitor, hope flashed to fear. She slammed the door.

Char stepped closer and leaned her ear to the door. “Ms. Armstrong?” In the quiet
beyond, she sensed the woman standing on the other side. “Please, Ms. Armstrong, I
just want to talk.”

Nothing.

The truth squirmed up from her chest and out of her throat. “To apologize.”

The knob turned, and the door opened a crack, displaying a red-rimmed eye and a sliver
of silver hair.

“Sincerely apologize.” Saying the words eased an ache that had been hurting in her
for so long, she’d forgotten it.

The door opened, and watching carefully, the woman ushered her in without a word.

It was a small space, full of the old-person smell of cough drops, stale breath, and
ancient dusting powder. Char walked into a living room of heavy drapes and dark corners.
The old woman sat in a hardwood rocker and gestured Char to an early-American print
sofa.

Expecting to be turned away, Char hadn’t planned past the front door. “Are you getting
on all right, Ms. Armstrong?”

“Miriam.” Her mouth pursed. “If you know me well enough to get up in my face and scream
me down, we’re on a first-name basis.”

Char sat, fingering the crocheted doily on the couch arm. “I don’t know what happened
that day, Miriam. I was not myself.” She made herself meet the old woman’s gaze. “I
had problems. We all did, but I had an extra one. I was addicted to Valium.” At Miriam’s
frown, she hurried on. “I’m not using that as an excuse. There is no excuse for what
I did. I’ve carried the shame of it ever since.” Char cleared her throat and sat up
straight. “I’m better now, though. I know you were only trying to help.” She took
a breath.

“I felt like if I put away the grieving and went on with life, I’d be abandoning my
son. I tuned out everyone, trying to stay in that place with him. Nothing was too
dear, even my husband.

“Then here you came, prodding and pushing, telling me to move on, go live my life.
I snapped.” Char looked down to see the doily wadded in her hands. She’d been picking
threads, one by one. She made herself smooth it back onto the arm of the couch and
put her hands in her
lap. “I hurt you. I ruined whatever good I had left in my life, all for the sake of
an impossible dream.”

Char looked up. The old lady’s chin wobbled, her shoulders shaking. Char reached across
the gulf between them and laid her hand over Miriam’s.

The little woman’s tremulous whisper was fierce. “And I
wanted
to prod you. There you sat, shedding all the tears that I couldn’t. I’m hardly one
to lecture about denial.” She took the tissue that Char offered and dabbed at her
eyes. “Burt died so suddenly. I was alone.” She raised her destroyed face to Char.
“How could I survive in a world where something like that could happen?”

Char nodded in understanding.

“In some twisted way, I thought that by controlling you, I’d get some control over
what was happening to me.”

Two cups of coffee and many words later, Char stood in the hall, saying her good-byes.
“You know, when I was a little girl, if something went wrong in a game, we asked for
a do-over.” She stood, hand on the doorknob. “I often wish I could call a do-over
for the entire past year and a half.”

Miriam went still, her hand on Char’s arm. “Charla, are you a churchgoing woman?”

She lifted the strap of her purse over her shoulder, gently shrugging off the woman’s
touch. “I used to be.”

“I ask, because that’s what got me through. There’s something about sitting in church,
letting the peace settle over you. It helps.” She smiled. “Okay, I’m not prodding.
It’s just something to think about.”

When the door closed behind her, Char squinted into the brutal sunshine, feeling as
if she’d stepped out of a cave. Somehow lighter, cleaner. She took in a deep breath
of fresh Texas air and followed the sidewalk back to her car.

As she rounded the corner, no voices whispered in the breeze that swept through the
grass of the quadrangle.

Maybe every day is a do-over.

C
har walked out of the barn, dusting her hands. At the sound of an engine backfire,
she looked up. An old beater rounded the side of the house in a fog of oily smoke.
She guessed the paint color had once been blue. Or maybe silver. The driver shut down
the engine, but it fought, chugging, coughing, and sputtering as he opened the door
and stepped out.

She walked over. “Hello, Travis. Are you here for your first lesson?”

He had to lift the door to close it. “Hey, Ms. Denny.”

They both watched as the car completed theatrical death throes, rattling and huffing,
until, with a last burp, it settled. She waited for a few seconds longer, just to
be sure. “You may want to get that looked at.”

He smiled. “Nah, it’s all good. It always does that.” His fingers beat a cadence against
his leg as his gaze scanned the yard. And the three bulls standing in corral. “JB
around?”

She smiled. “He’s in the tack room, waiting. I’m not going to watch and make you more
nervous, but I want you to know that I’m rooting for you, Travis.”

“Thanks, Ms. Denny.” He took a few steps, turned, and, walking backward, added, “And
thanks for letting me come out.”

JB lifted his old bull rope from the peg in the tack room and shook the dust off.
He ran his hand over it, looking for weak spots. The leather-covered hand grip was
worn, and the rope was stiff with decade-old stickum, but it would do. He picked up
a flank rope on his way out the door.

Travis strode toward him, looking as riled as a Thoroughbred before a race. JB was
glad to see the kid owned Wranglers and a pair of boots. No, not his. JB realized
the boots were several sizes too big as the kid clumped toward him. “We’re going to
need to get you a decent hat.”

Travis snugged the backward baseball cap tighter over his bleached-white hair. “Is
there some rule says I’ve got to wear one?”

“Nope. In fact, rules say you’ve got to wear this.” JB pulled his surprise from inside
the tack room: a state-of-the-art bull rider’s helmet. It looked like a football helmet,
but with a metal cage over the face.

Travis backed up a step. “I’m not wearing that.”

“You will if you want to ride on my property.”

The boy shot JB a defiant stare. “You never did.”

“They didn’t have them when I was riding. If they had, I would have.” He turned his
head, to display his profile. “Do you think I was born with this nose? I broke it
more times than I remember. And my cheekbone, twice.”

Travis winced.

“No reason to be stupid about it. Are those the only boots you own?”

“My mom’s last boyfriend forgot them when he left.” His look dared JB to say anything.

“They’ll do, for now.” JB handed Travis the ropes and gathered his old bull-riding
chaps, spurs, and padded flack vest from the shelf.