A Beautiful Fall (16 page)

Christina turned to face him.

“How do you know
I
want to do that?” She feigned mock irritation.

“Christina, the word
hayride
has your name written all over it.”

“Yee-haw, you’ve got that right. Come on, baby!”

Christina pulled Bo up from the table. They grabbed their coats and bundled up for an extended ride in the cold night air. From her seat at the table, Emma watched Christina take Bo’s hand as they made their way outside. It was the smallest of romantic gestures, but something in it stirred her. She thought about how much Christina wanted what she couldn’t have, but she did have Bo for the dance.

“They are such a cute couple,” Emma said.

The music started again and the lights went down. Partygoers ambled back on to the dance floor illuminated entirely by strings of lights hung and wrapped around nails and rafters.

“They were made for each other,” Samantha said so that Emma could hear her. She locked eyes with Jim’s as if to tell him,
just like us.

o o o

The exhaust from Frank Whitfield’s John Deere tractor launched billowing smoky puffs away into the night air. The temperature had fallen to somewhere in the low forties. Bo and Christina felt the chill instantly as they left the comfort of the heated barn.

A flatbed trailer as tall as Bo’s chest was hitched to the tractor. Bales of straw lined the edges, and loose hay filled the middle two feet deep. An old wooden ladder had been propped up against the side of the trailer for riders to climb into the back, and as they did, they sank into the stacks of hay.

Bo and Christina found a spot in the front on Farmer Whitfield’s right. They sat and leaned against a bale of straw facing the others.

“I just love this kind of stuff, Bo. I don’t know why the others didn’t follow our lead.”

“Not everyone’s as adventurous as you are.” Bo pulled a piece of straw out of Christina’s hair.

She snuggled closer, tighter against Bo’s side for warmth. The tractor’s engine sputtered, and Farmer Whitfield, dressed in a thick armor of warm winter clothing—hat with flaps, wool scarf, thick gloves—shifted the tractor into first gear, jerking the trailer forward.

Bo saw from the expression of childlike delight on Christina’s face, it was the little things in life that made her the happiest. The faces of the other partygoers on the hayride were soon in shadows as the tractor moved them out into the fields.

“I’m glad you’re as adventurous as me,” she said, snuggling her face in the warmth of his neck.

“Christina,” Bo said, wrapping his arms around her. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world.”

They watched as the scenery around them changed, drawing them back to an older, simpler time. Red-painted barns and tall silos, white-roofed chicken coops and grain storage containers, cows standing in the fields, their breath looking like fog in the moonlight.

The rumbling chug of the tractor drowned out the sound of all other conversations aboard the hayride. It made the whispers between them private.

“You seem especially happy tonight,” Bo said.

“I love being outdoors. I love being with our friends, having us all together,” Christina breathed. “And I love being with you.”

She punctuated her response with a kiss to Bo’s cheek.

“Sounds like you’ve got everything you need,” he said.

Christina looked up at Bo, into eyes that were the color of faded denim. “I just want the one piece that’s missing.”

The hayride jostled over a bumpy trail that led into the shadowy orchard. The apple trees’ cragged branches stretched out to the trail as if to reach the riders. Moonlight perched the color of bone on the edges of leaves, illuminating them. The tractor turned wide, its headlights chasing rabbits off the orchard trail.

“Let me rephrase that,” she said in a soft voice of confidence. “I want to wake up every morning with you sleeping beside me.”

Christina lived with a conviction that if ideas could be expressed in words, they could be understood, but Bo liked things he could touch, see. He needed Christina to explain her feelings in ways he could wrap his mind around. He knew she was a jewel, long before his dad had pointed it out to him that first Thanksgiving. Christina was smart and beautiful and successful, but that wasn’t Bo’s attraction or his problem. He knew how rare a thing it was to really click with someone. He knew he loved Christina more than his own life, that he’d never stop loving her, and that he’d never be loved more by someone else. But Bo remembered the bitter marriage of his youth. How he’d invested himself heart, body, and soul to its continued existence, and how he eventually lost himself and then his son in the bargain.

“As long as I’m the last man you kiss before you go to sleep at night, we’re good. You aren’t seeing someone else after I drop you off, are you?” he joked, doing his best to fake a serious expression.

“Yes, Bo. I’m keeping him in my laundry room.”

Christina turned her soft, cold face toward him in the darkness. Her eyes closed in the dark night, and she kissed him.

Farmer Whitfield turned the tractor down the final loop of the shadow-filled trail, its headlights piercing into the apple trees like beams of daylight penetrating an unsuspecting night. Christina stretched to whisper in his ear again.

“Hey, after the dance why don’t we invite everyone back to the house? We can have hot chocolate or cider, anything warm.”

“Sure, if people still want to do things. I think you’re just getting cold.” Bo tilted his head back, staring into the night and gauging the distance back to the heated barn. Across a field of cold earth, he could see the lights in the distance. Not even Mrs. Whitfield was waiting for them.

“I am cold, Bo, but I think it could be fun. I love these times when we’re all together,” Christina confided. “And I love the times when it’s just the two of us. You know I love you, right?

“I think so.”

“You know so. I couldn’t make anything more clear.”

Bo kept silent. He enjoyed listening to Christina’s voice. The way she expressed her passion, her enthusiasm for life, feeling little puffs of breath on his neck when she spoke.

Bo looked into the deep pools of Christina’s eyes, almost certain he could see the pale clouds above reflected in them. Or maybe they, too, were like piercing beams of daylight penetrating into an unsuspecting night.

She remained still, a warm unblinking statue before him. He knew she wanted more from him, and even he believed she deserved it. In that moment, he allowed himself to wonder how it’d be, if he fell into her eyes. Would he drown there, or would they become the passageway to a marital island paradise he believed in once long ago?

He kissed her again, a deep long kiss, knowing full well the cost of falling into her, and the deepness of her love for him.

The tractor pulled under the bright outdoor lights of the farm. Farmer Whitfield shifted into neutral and stomped down the parking brake. He climbed down from the tall seat of the John Deere, stacking several bales into a makeshift staircase for the riders. Passengers debarked almost instantly, darting into the barn’s warmth and the company of friends happy to see them return.

Once inside, Christina walked up to Frank Whitfield, who was opening his wool burgundy scarf, coughing into his right hand. He looked like a 1950s movie actor, one of those foursquare men who acted in Westerns and who could survive harsh winters whether on film or in real life.

“Mr. Whitfield, that was by far the best hayride I have ever been on.” Christina extended her hand to shake his. The color returned to Frank’s face and he smiled like he’d just gotten a compliment from one of his granddaughters.

“Well, thank you, thank you,” he said. “I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”

Bo took Christina by the hand again. The party looked to be breaking up. The overhead lights were on now, Tommy had stepped away from the DJ table, and the music had stopped.

“Is anyone in the mood for a late-night hangout session at my place?” Christina asked, now that the three couples were back together again at the same table. “We can make it the first official lighting of the fireplace.”

Samantha looked at her watch.

“Oh, it’s so late, hon. We’ll see each other again tomorrow. You’re both still coming to our ladies tea party after church?” Samantha asked Christina and Emma.

“Oh, yes. What can we bring, Samantha?” Emma asked.

“Nothing at all. Just plan to meet over at my place around one o’clock.”

“Yes, it’s getting kind of late, Christina,” Emma said. “Maybe we should all call it a night. Who all are you expecting at the tea tomorrow, Samantha?”

“It’s just going to be a small group. You, Christina, my daughter Beth, my friend Janette, and me. Do you know Janette Kerr, our resident movie star?”

“She wasn’t a movie star, Samantha,” Jim said, tearing the corners off a paper napkin left on the table.

“She was too! She made movies in Hollywood. I’d say that’s a movie star.”

“I’ve never seen one of her movies.”

“Yes, you did,” Samantha said. “Remember that old Western you and Noel were watching with that gunfight in the saloon? She was the blonde who worked there.”

“Oh yeah, okay,” Jim said. “Did she have any speaking lines?”

“She did in other movies,” Samantha added, standing. “Anyway, she’s the nicest lady and she goes to our church so I invited her to come.”

Jim fished his keys out of his pocket.

Samantha reached for her purse on the floor beside her.

“Sorry if we’re being party poopers,” she said. “I don’t go very long without running out of steam anymore.”

“Oh, we totally understand,” Christina said, summing up the feelings of the group. The three couples made their way out the way they’d come in. They thanked Mrs. Whitfield as a group, shaking her hand, before walking out into the cold, dark fields together.

The night air felt colder after being inside the barn all night. Jim put his arm around Samantha while they walked, stepping over the ankle-tall grass that was wet with fog and rain. Christina and Bo laughed and held hands. Emma and Michael walked side by side, talking in a quiet, private conversation. Christina looked back and thought she saw Emma reaching out to hold Michael’s hand, but it was impossible to be certain in the misty, dark fog.

o o o

Michael parked his truck in the dirt driveway underneath a grand oak tree that swayed and creaked above them, shaking and dropping its leaves in the autumn night. The dashboard lights gave off a soft glow and the heater hummed warmth into the cab. Emma clicked on the radio and turned the volume down, the country music becoming a quiet accompaniment to their good night.

“So, did you enjoy your refresher course in South Carolina good times?” Michael asked.

“I did,” Emma said, turning toward him.

“I’m glad we went. It may have been because—like square dancing—everyone needs a partner, but it was nice.”

Michael studied her face, tinted blue by the dashboard lights, trying to read her thoughts. It had been twelve years since he last thought he knew what she was thinking, but then he’d been proven wrong. Twelve years. They’d lived such different lives. “It’s been nice having you home. Your dad is glad to have you back. Samantha and Christina seem to feel the same way.”

“Everyone’s been so good to me.”

Emma reached for Michael’s hand.

“Especially you. You’re helping my dad, you made me dinner, you took me to the dance. Thank you, Michael.”

“You’re welcome. It’s no big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal, Michael.”

Emma folded one leg under her and leaned toward him. “I didn’t know what to expect when I came here, but everyone’s made me feel welcome. No, that’s not the right word,” she said, pressing her index finger against her lips. “They’ve overlooked my sudden departure and been gracious in a way that’s more than what I deserve. Why are they doing that? Why are you?”

Michael rested his left hand on the steering wheel, leaned against the driver’s door. He sighed.

“Do you really not know?” he finally said, letting his question hang in the air like a ball tossed up that wasn’t going to fall back down.

“I …” she said, when she realized he was finished with his answer. “No, I don’t. It doesn’t make sense. Tell me why.”

“No.”

“No? Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because you need to figure it out for yourself.”

“Okay, I can accept that. But there is an answer, right?”

“Yeah, definitely.” Michael was quietly tapping his fingers against the steering wheel along with the background music. “You’ll figure it out. Eventually you’ll understand.”

Emma drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“What can I say? I’ll try to figure it out. You’re right, I mean, that’s the least I can do.”

Emma reached her hand over to adjust the truck’s thermostat. She spun the knob with the tip of her finger, dialing the temperature back several degrees. “Seems like I have a lot to figure out these days. Too much.”

“You want to talk about it?” Michael said, directing the air to the window defroster.

“Well …” she began. “My office has called every day, upset that I’m still here. Yesterday, I was ordered to take part in a conference call with a potential client—all part of being a partner, I know, and it’s an important client and how do they not understand that I ‘get’ that anyway? It’s not like I haven’t lived out the credo that ‘the firm comes first’ for the past nine years. The thing is, they’re making it sound like I signed some sort of agreement to prioritize my life that way. I don’t remember signing that agreement. Things change, right? I’ve come to realize it takes only four days of making family a priority to lose nine years of equity at work.

“I needed to come to Juneberry. I understand that. And since I’ve been here I realize how things have changed so much in so many ways—Dad’s getting older, two of Samantha’s kids are practically all grown up and they’ve got another on the way, Christina’s got her dream career. I’ve missed so much, you know? It’s not like I can just pretend all the years didn’t happen.”