A Broom With a View (16 page)

L
iza blasted Christmas music all the way home, tunes from a station that played nothing but holiday tunes from country music singers. She sang along with the standards and hummed with the originals from people she didn’t know, like Clint Black and Randy Travis.

“I can’t believe you don’t know who Randy Travis is,” Colt had admonished her when he’d given her the ride home. “You know Eric Church but not
Randy Travis
?”

“I’m a new convert,” she explained, a little defensive. “Okay, I admit it, it was a revenge thing. My mother hates country, says it reminds her of here. And then I was trying to find something that was completely different from the yuppie stuff my husband likes. You know, just to irritate him. He manages this pop opera group and even though I like them well enough I wanted something of my own. And then I found out I liked this. Joke was kind of on me.”

“Joke’s on you, all right. You’re in need of a real country education lady,” he’d drawled.

She was kind of hoping he’d give it to her. Someday. Maybe soon. She sure was thinking of him a lot lately.

In fact, on one lonely night when she hadn’t been able to sleep she’d even thought of doing a little charm, just something to turn his eye to her.

But that would’ve been wrong. If it
had
worked, and it would have worked because she was
good
at what she did, then one day it would’ve backfired. He would’ve felt beholden to her and not known why and ended up resenting her.

Nope. She was going to get her divorce, wait a respectable amount of time, and then do it the old fashioned way…

With little dresses, cute shoes, a new haircut, and shaved legs.

Since it was already dark and the temperature said it was below freezing, Liza was surprised to see Jessie, her neighbor, walking along the side of the narrow country road.

She’d have
never
stopped and picked someone up where she used to live but it was different here and she knew Jessie. Sort of. Once someone had seen you move things around the room without touching them, you kind of developed a special bond.

“Hey!” Liza shouted above her Christmas music, slowing down beside the woman who was bundled in a puffer coat and long scarf. “You need a ride?”

Jessie hesitated at first but the lure of the heat coming from the window must have changed her mind because seconds later she hopped in and thanked Liza gratefully. “I was just up the road, visiting my mama,” Jessie explained as Liza turned the volume down. Some Garth Brooks Christmas song about a bird and a girl named Maria.

“Everything okay?” Liza asked, although it was clear that everything was
not
okay.

Jessie grew quiet and gazed out the window. The sadness stemming from her was almost tangible and Liza felt it as keenly as if it were her own. She had a bit of her sister’s sense of strong empathy herself. Liza decided not to press the issue hard, but tried to find a way to bring it up so as she passed her own driveway and headed towards Jessie’s farm she said lightly, “I’ve had a rough week myself. I was accused of murdering a dude.”

“Yeah, I heard about yours,” Jessie admitted with a small smile. “Did you do it?”

“I don’t think so,” Liza laughed. “But that’s going to be hard to explain.”

Jessie shook her head. “I’m real sorry about that. Anything I can do?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll be okay.”

And then Jessie began to talk. “It’s my husband. The factory laid him off, right here at Christmas too. I don’t know what we’ll do. We got three kids and hadn’t done no shopping yet. I
could
work, but we can’t afford no daycare. He can get a job up in Lexington but the gas it would take to get there and back ever day would about be as much as he got paid.”

“Geeze, I’m sorry Jessie,” Liza replied, and she was. She knew that Jessie’s husband worked hard and that they took care of her disabled parents and their three kids on top of that. Sometimes life just wasn’t fair.

“I went down to the food bank today. They can give us stuff for Christmas dinner. But it’s just so embarrassing, you know? And I filled out the Food Stamps forms? My husband’s about to die he’s so humiliated. We’ll figure something out, but it’s just stressful.”

“Geeze,” Liza replied. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to lay all my problems on you or nothin’,” Jessie said, shaking her head in frustration. “It just feels like if it’s not one thing it’s another. You know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean.”

“We just try so
hard
. He works like a dog anyway and the kids ain’t had new clothes in forever. I don’t shop for myself, we don’t go on no big vacations or nothing. It just don’t seem fair,” Jessie spat. “Just not fair.”

Liza dropped the other young woman off at a small farm house encircled by towering pine trees. At the sight of their mother climbing out of Liza’s truck, the three little faces that peered out from windows bordered with white flashing Christmas lights were nearly as bright as the bulbs.

ALTHOUGH SHE
was in the treatment room, changing sheets on the bed; Liza knew it was Colt walking through the doors as soon as she heard the jingling of the bells.

After the week she’d had, Liza was happy to see a friendly face.

“Be out in a second!” she called, giving the corners one last tug. Her new sheets would be in within the next few days, but so far nobody had complained about the Walmart quality sets she had on her table.

“How’s it goin?” he asked as she walked out into the main room. With his boots caked with mud and sap all over his brown coat, he kept a respectful distance and stayed on her “Welcome” doormat, not wanting to track in anything.

She did love a man with manners.

“Well, let’s see,” Liza began. “My business was trashed, the police laughed off my story, and then the guy I accused of trashing it wound up dead the day after I yelled at him in front of half the town at a BP station. So my week has been better. How about yours?”

Colt tried to smuggle a laugh but failed. The rich, vibrant sound rang through the room like music and unloosened a knot in her tummy she didn’t know she had.

“Well, someone stole some trees from me. Just came up in the middle night and took some of my finest Douglas Firs. I don’t grow them; I bring them in from the Carolinas. So that kind of pissed me off. Threw in some of the swags Filly made, too. That really got her goat. She’s madder than an old wet hen ‘bout it.”

“People suck,” Liza decided. “Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, well, I tried to tell myself that maybe their kids needed a tree and they couldn’t afford one.”

He looked so sincere that Liza decided right then and there that she needed to become more like the Bluevine.

“At any rate, I’m looking forward to dinner tonight,” she said with a smile.

And she really,
really
was.

“Listen,” he began, his face turning a slight shade of pink and his hands twisting in front of him. “I want to say something to you but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”

Great
, Liza thought,
I am going to be dis-invited to dinner because I killed a townsperson. Probably an uncle or cousin or grandpa or something.

“May as well go ahead and say it; I’m a big girl.”

But inside she was frantically searching out his mind, trying to probe whatever he was thinking. She failed. He moved too quickly for her to keep up.

“Well,” he drawled, removing the hat from his head and fiddling with it like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. “It’s my sister, Bridle. She’s sick. She’s had the cancer of the, er, female parts for a little while now. Had a rough time of it. Got divorced in the middle of the worst of it. If you could do anything to make things easier for her…”

He stopped then and his face turned an ashy white.

“I mean, you’ll have to meet her first of course. If when you meet her tonight. If you could decide then. And I swear that’s not the reason I invited you,” he said in a hurry, looking up at Liza. “I swear. I wanted you to come an awful lot. I just thought about this part last night.”

Liza felt a pang of remorse for Colt’s sister, someone he clearly loved. And as she closed her eyes she caught a momentary glimpse of Bridle now, a lithe blond wrapped up in a quilt on a front porch swing, rocking back and forth and watching the bluish mountains in the distance. Her cheeks were pale and sunken, dark shadows hollowing out under her eyes. Her hair was gone but, if anything, it made her beauty shine through even more.

“Colt, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I can’t
do
things like that. I’m not that…

(“Good” was what she wanted to say, but it didn’t feel like the right word.)

“I know, I figured,” he said hurriedly, humiliation staining his handsome cheeks. “And I surely didn’t want you to think I was using you because I’m not. I sure do like you a lot, Liza Jane. Probably more than I should, seeing as to how you’re still married and all. But Bridle? She’s staying with me and you’ll meet her at dinner. I was just hoping that when you meet her, maybe there’s something you could say or do. Even if it’s just to ease her pain a little. It’s–“

His voice dropped off then and he looked down at his feet, abashed at his forwardness. “It’s the last thing I could think of.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” Liza promised him. “I’ll talk to her.”

“And please, if you need
anything
else done to the business, I’m handy with a hammer and nail. I can do just about anything,” he said.

Liza smiled. “I think the whole town came in and helped. God forbid anything else should happen. I don’t think it will though, since…”

Neither one had to finish that sentence; they knew what she meant.

L
iza was running late. She knew she couldn’t go to Colt’s house empty handed, not for her first dinner, but she highly doubted a bowl of Ramen noodles would be appropriate. And crackers and cheese, even on her grandmother’s fine china, would’ve been tacky.

Not that the discount grocery story had much to offer in the form of pre-made gourmet meals or party dishes. She finally settled on a cheese ball, crackers, and a bottle of wine.

And then she worried that his family was religious or something and didn’t drink so she went back and exchanged it for a bottle of sparkling apple cider. She didn’t want to walk into a dry house with alcohol and have everyone think she was a drunk. She’d have to save the drinking for home.

At first, as Liza pushed her cart up and down the aisles she was concerned that people were watching her and whispering about her behind her back.

“Girlfriend, you are super paranoid,” she told herself.

Then she convinced herself that they were just jealous of her long black wool skirt, heels, and soft red infinity scarf. She looked nice; it was okay for people to look at her. She could dig that.

But then she knew without a doubt that it wasn’t her fashion sense drawing their stares and gossip.

When a heavyset man in khakis and a Polo shirt approached her and called her by name, everyone on that side of the store turned and looked at her.

“Miss Merriweather?” he asked hesitantly.

Eh, close enough
, she figured.

“Yes?”

His face paled a little but then he remembered what he was there for and jumped right into his speech. “Hi, nice to meetcha. I’m Tommy McIntosh, high school basketball coach. I don’t know what-all you know about our team, but we’ve had us some bad luck these past few seasons.”

The people who gathered around, pretending not to listen, nodded their heads in agreement.

“We got ourselves our first game right after Christmas. It would be real nice, for the morale of the team and the whole town really, if we could win that game. Now, you don’t have to do anything to hurt the other boys. We’re not into that. You don’t have to do what happened to Cotton…”

The rest of the crowd shook their heads vehemently. Liza dropped her head in defeat.

“We just want our boys to feel
good
again. You know, to boost their confidence.”

“Well, I understand what you mean,” Liza said slowly. “But I don’t know much about basketball so it would be hard to–“

“Oh, just some good luck’s all we need. Just a little luck,” Tommy winked.

After he had walked off, Liza was left scratching her head. They weren’t going to ride her out of town on a rail because they’d thought she killed Cotton Hashagen–they were using it as proof that she might be of use to the rest of them.

She’d have to think about that.

C
olt’s house looked like Santa’s workshop, all wooden logs and glossy windows, and winding wooden decks, and puffs of smoke coming from the two chimneys.

If only there had been snow on the ground, it would’ve been perfect.

The house, concealed from the road by the long meandering driveway, was all but suspended at the top of a mountain, surrounded by trees of all shapes and sizes. From the porch, it had a gorgeous view of all the valleys below. Liza thought it looked like a doll’s house. She could see the tree farm below, acres and acres of Christmas trees, all planted in straight little rows, just waiting to be decorated and loved.

Liza had barely knocked on the door when it was flung open by a pixie of a girl who immediately threw her arms around Liza and kept hold of her in a vise, so tight Liza lost her breath. “It’s so nice to meet you Liza!” she squealed.

Liza’s muffled reply was something comparable in her captor’s shoulder before she slowly detangled herself. “You must be Filly,” she said at last.

“You ARE a witch!” she squealed again, clapping her hands together.

“Um, Colt showed me your picture, and I’ve seen the others so…”

Filly, undeterred, grabbed Liza by the arm and dragged her inside where the rest of the family waited in the living room.

Enamored of the stunning woodwork at once, Liza couldn't stop staring. With the exposed beams, elaborately carved mantle over a roaring fire, polished hardwood floors, exquisite crown molding–Liza could have looked for hours.

“My son did all of that,” Whinny’s voice came from the other side of the room. “Took him years. Did most of it himself.”

Colt was nowhere in sight.

“It’s a gorgeous place,” Liza replied in appreciation, “But is Christmas tree farming really so…?”

“It’s not from the trees,” came a quiet voice from behind her.

Liza turned and saw the one sister she’d yet to meet yet, Bridle.

The beautiful, red silk Christmas scarf adorned with tiny candy canes wrapped snuggly around her head did little to hide the pale face and hollows under her eyes. She was thin, so thin that her bones in her cheeks and jawline were pronounced so that the skin stretched across them resembled tissue paper. Liza could see the tiny broken blood vessels and the purplish blood pumping below.

Still, she was beautiful.

Her eyes might have held shadows and bruises, but they were wide and alive, and she still held her full, pink lips and thick lashes.

“The tree farm is his passion,” Bridle explained in a soft, brittle voice as she weakly made her way with tottering baby steps to an overstuffed chair. Liza immediately held out her arm and the other woman accepted it with gratitude. When their eyes met, Liza looked deep into the other woman and saw such goodness and joy there that Liza thought she’d do just about anything to help her. Anything at all. She understood Colt's near panic in her store.

“It’s his music that pays for most everything,” Bridle said, once she’d settled into the chair, and Liza had wrapped a blanket over her bony knees.

“His music?” Liza asked in surprise.

“He’s a songwriter,” Filly piped up. “He writes all kinds of country music songs for big artists. You’ve probably heard of them.” She then proceeded to rattle off some hits that even Mode and Mabel’s husband Gene (who didn’t know anyone outside of Patsy Cline) would’ve recognized.

Liza was shocked.

“But why is he not living in Nashville or someplace else? Someplace with a music industry?”

“He
was
,” Mare replied as she entered the room with a plate of Liza’s cheeseball and crackers, taken from Filly when Liza first entered the house. “He lived there for seven years. Moved back here when Dad died.”

“And when I first got sick,” Bridle added.

“Not my kind of town,” Colt smiled.

Liza turned and saw him standing in the door. He wore a silly-looking apron with a big smiling snowman surrounded by snowflakes and silver glitter. Flour coated his arms all the way up to his rolled-up shirtsleeves.  Some had managed to get on his nose. He had a big grin on his face, though, and Liza watched as every female in the room, including her, regarded him with adoration. Without hesitation, he walked over to Bridle, bent down, kissed her forehead, and then lovingly straightened her scarf.

“Y’all hungry? Because I am starving,” he announced.

She didn’t think any man had ever looked more attractive.