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Authors: More Than Memory

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“You know why.”
“What does that make me, Lute? A whore?” she challenged in a choked voice.
“No! Whores are paid.”
“You want pay for taking care of me today?”
“Hush up that talk!” he shook her gently.
“Why are you here . . . in bed with me?” There was a sob in her voice.
“I’m here because you’re the most beautiful, desirable woman I’ve ever known. I want to grab you whenever I see you and lose myself in you. No woman feels like you feel, smells like you smell, tastes like you taste,” he said gruffly and pulled her on top of him. “Love me again. Take me to heaven one more time.” His words were a husky plea.
She put her arms around his neck and searched for his mouth. The feel of him was so good! Pride and logic fled her mind. Lute was here. This was now. She wanted to shout and scream for him to get the hell out of her bed, to stop torturing her. Instead, she kissed him, holding his mouth with hers for a long moment, trying to memorize the feel of firm lips. She caressed him, made sweet, slow motions over his body, trying not to rush, trying to make him hear her heart’s song.
Is this all you want of me?
She almost asked the question aloud, but she choked it back knowing it was just a fantasy to hope that he would respond with a passionate declaration of undying love.
It was over too soon. She nestled in his arms and listened to the rapid beat of his heart.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said, and kissed her tear-wet eyes. “If I had, I would have brought protection. I don’t want to get you pregnant.”
“Of course you don’t.”
I’d not be that lucky
.
Later Lute gently untangled his limbs from hers and without a word slipped out of the warm bed and picked up his clothes. Nelda watched him dress as the light of day invaded the bedroom.
“Lute.” He paused in the doorway when she called his name, then walked back to stand beside the bed, where her next words confused him. “Will you be back?”
He looked at her for a full minute, then walked out without answering. Kelly followed him downstairs, then returned to his rug after Lute let him back in the house following his morning relief.
Nelda moved her head over to where his had lain and let the tears roll down her cheeks. He had wanted her for only one thing, and she had accommodated him.

 

 

C
hapter
F
ourteen
T
HE NEXT TWO WEEKS PASSED SO QUICKLY THAT
Nelda wondered later how she had filled them. Her unknown tormentor had called twice. After the first call, she remembered to place the whistle she had purchased beside the telephone, and as soon as she heard the hated voice, had blown it as close and as loud as she could before she hung up the phone.
The work of getting screens ready for block-printing the patterns on the scarves she wanted to make occupied her time. After she had made several buying trips to Mason City, the dining-room table, where she had moved her supplies for the winter, was littered with cans of textile dye and screens set around a table equipped with the frame and clamps for holding the cloth. Her artwork had been completed, and now she was down to the next part of the project.
She’d also had several dates with Norris and found him to be an enjoyable companion. Outside of a few chaste kisses when he brought her home, he had made no move to plunge their friendship into an affair. Nelda strongly suspected that the image he projected was a
cover-up for a man who was lonely—who missed the children who remained with their mother after his divorce and who knew their father mostly as the man who sent support money.
Norris had taken her to Shady Beach, a local nightspot on the lakeshore. They had danced to the tunes on the jukebox and had drunk tap beer with an inch of foam on the top. One afternoon they had driven to Pilot Knob, the highest spot in north Iowa, where they saw a large number of pheasants and a small herd of deer.
On the way back, they had passed Lute’s farm. The house was large, fronting on a wide lawn that sloped down to the road. His mailbox was set atop a freshly painted post surrounded by dried hollyhock stalks. A wide glassed-in porch spread across the front of the house, and behind it was a cluster of well-kept outbuildings. Nelda had avoided passing the house lest she see Meredith McDaniel there.
Nelda had been queasy every morning for a week when she sat down with the calendar and tried to figure out when last she’d had her monthly period. She had always been regular, about every twenty-eight days, and never suffered anything but inconvenience at that time of month. The box of tampons she had bought the day she met Linda and her husband on the street was unopened. Then she remembered that the last time she’d had a period was the day she had ridden on the tractor with Lute. She’d had none since.
She began to get excited. Was it possible that Lute had made her pregnant the night they spent on the couch beside the cookstove? His sperm had poured
into her twice in the night and once during the early-morning hours. When they were young they had been together more than a dozen times before she became pregnant. They had been so crazy about each other in those days, they’d made love at every opportunity.
Nelda counted the days since the ice storm. Six weeks.
Oh, God, don’t raise my hopes to heaven and then dash them to pieces
. Nearly every hour on the hour for several days Nelda went to the bathroom, hoping against hope that she would not see color.
A mood of peace settled over her. She lay in bed at night and planned her future. She vowed that if she was pregnant, she’d not tell Lute. He would insist upon marrying her and then for the rest of his life consider himself trapped. Thanks to her grandparents, she could manage alone financially.
Oh, Lord. She had to stop thinking about it or she might, by her very wishing it to be true, reverse the situation.
Rhetta had proven to be a good friend. She nudged and pushed until Nelda volunteered a few hours work at the library, addressed envelopes for the swimming-pool committee when they sent out a mailing requesting donations, and went with Rhetta to deliver “meals on wheels” to shut-ins. But she absolutely drew the line when Rhetta tried to get her involved in politics.
Nelda stayed firm and resisted her friend’s pleas to join the Republican Women. To make up for it, she agreed to a shopping trip to Minneapolis on Saturday, a week before Christmas.
Nelda had heard nothing from Linda and believed
that her husband’s dislike of her probably was the reason.
Norris had been gone for almost ten days when he called one morning.
“You’re back!” Nelda greeted him happily. “Did you turn the manufacturing world inside out with my idea to paint all your farm machinery robin’s-egg blue?”
He laughed. “No. But they’re still considering your idea of covering them with art deco tulip decals. Did you miss me?”
“Grieved every hour you were away.”
“If only that were true,” he groaned. “You sound awfully chipper.”
“My work is going well.”
“I’m glad. Want to take in a basketball game? The Lions are seven and 0.”
“Sure. Will you buy me a hot dog?”
“Better than that, I’ll pick you up at six-thirty and we’ll go by the Lake Crest Cafe; and, if you’re nice to me, I’ll buy you a hamburger before the game.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Smithfield.”
“Wear your snow boots, it’s snowing again.”
Her coat was on the chair, and she was waiting for Norris when the phone rang.
“Yo’re nothin’, but a goddamn slut—” The phone clicked before she could reach for the whistle.
Shaking, her heart racing, she hung up the phone. Who hated her so much as to want to do this to her?
When she saw the lights from Norris’s car come down the lane, she put on her coat. Leaving the light and the radio on, for Kelly, she waited for Norris to stop beside the porch.
“Ho, ho, ho!” he said cheerfully and helped her down the steps and into the car singing, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”
Nelda’s laugh rang out in the still, cold night. “I love you dearly, but you’re no Perry Como.”
“You wound me! How about, “Don’t be cruel?”
“Give it up, Norris. I hate to give you this bad news. But you’re no Elvis either.”
Being with Norris pushed aside thoughts of everything but the pleasure of being with him. She asked him about his trip.
“Business, all business. All work and no play makes Norris a dull boy.”
“Norris, you’ll never be dull.”
When they arrived at the restaurant, they had to wait while a black pickup backed out before they could park. It was Lute, and with him was Miss Home Ec. She waved. Nelda lifted a hand and let it fall to her lap. That was the first glimpse she’d had of Lute since he walked out of her house the morning after Thanksgiving.
Determined not to allow herself to dwell on Lute or his relationship with Miss Home Ec, she turned and smiled at a silent Norris, who was looking at her with a slight frown.
“He’ll not marry her. She’s a balm to his ego.”
“Dear friend.” Nelda put her hand on his. “I’m not going to let the fact that he doesn’t want me ruin my life.” She smiled brightly.
“Attagirl. Let’s go eat.”
Later, sitting with Norris on the crowded bleachers in the high-school gym, the thought struck Nelda
that here was small-town USA, the grass roots of America. Mothers and fathers sat alongside businessmen like Norris who had no children in school. The support for the team was a community effort.
I want my child to grow up in a community like this, not in a high-rise apartment in Chicago.
Good Lord, what was she thinking of? She wasn’t even sure . . . yet, but almost.
Please God. Please, God, let me have this part of him. It looks as though it’s all I’ll ever have.
• • •
From high up on the bleachers, Lute had seen Nelda come in with Norris. Meredith had seen them, too. She snuggled her hand into the crook of Lute’s arm but didn’t speak until the couple sat down several rows below them.
“They’ve become quite friendly. I heard they were at Shady Beach the other night.”
“Does anything go on around here that you don’t know about?” he said without looking at her.
“I’m with a bunch of high-school kids all day, Lute. They know things, and I can’t help but overhear.”
“High-school kids don’t go to Shady Beach.” He looked down at her with a frown.
“You’re out of touch, Lute. You’d be surprised where high school kids go and what they do.”
“I suppose I would.”
The band began to play, and the teams ran out onto the floor. Lute was relieved that it was too noisy to continue the conversation.
The game was close until the last, but Lute
couldn’t work up any enthusiasm. When it was over the Lions had won, and their standing was now eight wins and zero losses. Lute lingered to allow Norris and Nelda time to leave the bleachers before he stood.
Meredith had been quiet. Lute knew that it wasn’t fair to her to continue keeping company with her. At times he could hardly stand to touch her. She wanted to go to bed with him and had become quite forward about letting him know it. He had been tempted before Nelda came back. Now the thought was utterly repulsive to him.
When he took her home, he didn’t get out of the car immediately. Since leaving the school, he had tried to think of a kind way to break with her.
“Meredith, I want to be fair with you. We both know that our relationship is going nowhere. It isn’t fair to you to spend time with me when you could be dating someone else.”
She didn’t say anything for a while. Then she said, “You didn’t used to think that.”
“I’ve always thought that,” he said kindly. “I enjoy your company as a friend—”
“—That’s about as insulting as you can get. Friends,” she scoffed. “There’s no such thing as a virile man and a passionate woman being
friends
. It’s utterly ridiculous to say so.”

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