Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (19 page)

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As they walked away, Isabel looked over her shoulder and stuck out her tongue. The gesture was childish. Henry Ann could have felt sorry for her if she had not made that vicious remark about her and Tom Dolan. She could feel the fire in her cheeks, and in order to cover her humiliation, she looked down at little Jay who had crawled into Karen’s lap. Her arms were wrapped around him. His face was hidden against her shoulder.
“Oh, my goodness!”
“He sensed the tension even before . . . what could loosely be considered a fight.” Karen glared at Grant. “While you were at it, why didn’t you knock his teeth out instead of giving him a little peck on the chin?”
“I promise to do better next time.” Grant grinned down at her, his eyes alight with amusement.
“Let’s not let this unpleasantness spoil the day.” Henry Ann’s voice was not quite steady. “Aunt Dozie, do you want anything else? If not, we can put away the food.”
“I had plenty. Jist let me get down from dis car an’ I pack it up.”
“Sit still. Karen and I can do it.”
One of the planes was preparing to take off by the time the picnic basket was stowed in the car. Henry Ann whispered to Jay, then took him behind the car and held up a blanket while the child relieved himself. Grant and Johnny walked away; Henry Ann and Karen settled down on the quilt with Jay to watch the show.
The plane took off, circled the field emitting red smoke, then climbed and began a rolling and looping routine. As the crowd watched, the plane swooped low over the field and then shot almost straight up. After another loop-the-loop, the plane straightened out and a man jumped. The crowd held its collective breath until the chute opened, then cheered his safe descent. The parachute, red with white stripes, floated the man gently to the ground.
While waiting for the other plane to take off, someone spoke on a loudspeaker, but it was difficult to understand what he was saying. Henry Ann determinedly tried to keep her mind on the show, but she found herself recalling Pete’s and Isabel’s hateful words.
“Don’t worry about it.” Karen’s words reached into her mind as if she knew what was there.
“I can’t help it.”
“Have you seen a lawyer?”
“O.B. Phillips. He didn’t think I’d have a problem.”
“Mr. Phillips is sixty if he’s a day, Henry Ann.”
“Daddy trusted him. He’s the one who told him to put the farm in my name. What makes me mad is the other things they said.”
“About Mr. Dolan?”
“He’s a terribly nice man, Karen, and he’s got a peck of trouble with that wife of his.”
“Trouble or not, she’s still his wife.” Karen reached over and squeezed Henry Ann’s hand.
“I know.”
“Isabel wanted to say something to get your goat. Forget about it.”
The second plane took off, and they turned their attention to it. Jay lay with his head in Henry Ann’s lap. She cooled him with a cardboard fan. The wing-walker put on a show that left the crowd gasping. Then it was time for the rides. Johnny and Grant were among the men lined up at the ticket stand.
Later, Henry Ann was grateful that she hadn’t known whether or not Johnny was in a plane when it took off. The rides lasted about ten minutes. First one plane went up and then the other.
Cars were leaving the field, and teams were being hitched to the wagons by the time Grant and Johnny came back to where Henry Ann and Karen waited. Johnny was excited.
“Did you ride? Oh, I don’t need to ask,” Henry Ann said.
“It was great, sis. Just great.”
He had never called her sis, had seldom even called her by name. Henry Ann felt a tide of affection for the slim boy and wished that her daddy could know how he had stood by her today.
“Were you afraid when you looked down?”
“Not a bit. Someday I’m going to fly one of those.”
“Took to it like a duck to water,” Grant said.
“I’d never have done it . . . if not for the bet,” Johnny admitted, unable to keep the grin off his face. “I wanted you to have to put out that two dollars.”
“Two dollars? Is that what it costs? Grant? You shouldn’t have—”
“Sure he should.” Karen fanned her face with the brim of her hat. “A gentleman never weasels on a debt.”
“Well, now, who ever heard of a bum’s being a gentleman.” Grant’s eyes teased her.
“Or a gentleman’s being a bum,” she countered.
“We’d better be going,” Henry Ann said. “Aunt Dozie is hot. We’ll drop Karen off on the way.”
Johnny picked up the sleeping child and placed him in Aunt Dozie’s lap. Henry Ann shook out the quilt, folded it, and got in the backseat leaving Karen to sit in the front seat between Johnny and Grant.
“I haven’t sat this close to a good-looking man in a long time.” Karen grinned at Johnny.
“Thanky, ma’am.”
“She was talking about me, Johnny boy,” Grant told him.
Karen’s gay laughter rang out.

 

Chapter Ten
All the way to town Tom regretted his decision to take Emmajean to the air show. She was too exuberant, too keyed up. She hadn’t even glanced at the Henry place when they passed it and had not been still for an instant since she got into the car. Her hands moved constantly in a fluttering motion, her feet beat a tattoo on the floor—and she hadn’t stopped talking.
“Did I tell you about Bob Crain? He had a terrible crush on me while we were in school. It was more than a crush—let me tell you. He was wild about me. He’d follow me around . . . like a stray puppy. It was so annoying! One night I let him take me to a dance at the Twilight—that’s a fancy ballroom in Wichita Falls—and afterward, ’cause he’d been so nice, I let him feel under my dress. Was I surprised! He knew just how to do
it
and he did
it
real good. When I found out he was so . . . ah experienced and all, I let him do anything he wanted to me. Oh my, it was the best I’d ever had, and I didn’t get home until dawn. Daddy was waiting on the porch madder than a hornet, and Mama was in a snit!” Emmajean giggled.
Lies, lies.
Tom felt a surge of pity for the woman beside him. She had dressed in ribbons and lace as if she were going to a party and had doused herself with toilet water. Her face was painted, her eyelashes coated with mascara, and her brows marked with a dark pencil. He had to keep reminding himself that she was his wife, the mother of his son.
Emmajean talked nonstop all the way to town, telling him that while she was still in school, she had gone on a church picnic and had slipped away with one of the deacons and the choir director. The three of them had made love all afternoon, and they had told her that they had never met a girl who could make them as horny as she could. She leaned close to Tom and looked him in the face to see his reaction to her words.
“I made you horny, too, didn’t I, big man?”
He glanced at her and away.
More lies.
He was alarmed that she was talking so freely about sex—telling him her sexual fantasies. She had never been with a man until the night she was with him. Her being a virgin had added to his guilt. Had she been a loose woman, he would never have felt obliged to marry her.
The town was crowded with cars and wagons. Men on horseback mingled among them. Tom drove by the doctor’s office. His car was gone, and the sign was in the window that said the office was closed. When they reached the field, cars were lined up along one side. Tom spotted the Henry car almost immediately. It was one of a few without tops. Aunt Dozie sat in the back with a big black umbrella over her head. He turned in the opposite direction and stopped at the far end of the field, making sure the tent where Marty Conroy would be was nearby so that Emmajean would have no reason to go near the Henrys.
He glanced at Emmajean to see if she had spotted Henry Ann and Johnny with Jay sitting astride Johnny’s neck, crossing the field toward their car. His heart lurched when he saw his son. He should be the one showing him the airplane for the first time. The group would pass the tent, so he placed his hand on Emmajean’s arm to hold her attention so that she wouldn’t look that way until after they had gone by.
“Look. I think that’s the man who will jump from the plane. He’s putting on his parachute.”
“Wouldn’t it be funny if it didn’t open?” She held up the floppy brim of her hat so that she could see.
“I don’t think it would be funny at all. The man would be killed.”
“Why do you care? You don’t know him . . . or do you?”
“No, I don’t know him.”
“Well—I guess it would spoil the day—for some. I think it would be exciting.”
Oh, Lord. What’s going to keep ME from going as crazy as she is?
When Henry Ann’s group had passed the tent, Tom let go Emmajean’s arm. She opened the door and bounced out.
“Ohhh . . . Damn!” She stooped and pulled the spike heel of one of her shoes out of a pile of cow manure. Tears flooded her eyes, and she began to cry. “What’ll I do?”
“Stand there by the car. I’ll wipe it off.”
Tom rummaged in the box that replaced the rumble seat of his Ford roadster and found a rag. He carefully wiped the heel and gave the shoe back to Emmajean.
“Be careful where you step; the ground is soft in places.”
“You’re sweet today.” Her tears had miraculously disappeared, leaving behind dark smears of mascara. She clung to his arm with both hands. “Why can’t you be this sweet all the time?” She laughed shrilly. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s because we’re alone, like it was before we got that unwelcome addition.”
“We’re not alone.” Tom wanted to ask her how she could talk that way about her child. Instead he said, “There must be several hundred people here.”
“You know what I mean.” She giggled happily and hooked her fingers in the fly of his trousers.
“Stop it!” He removed her hand.
“You’re an old fuddy-duddy. Nobody can see. You’re not any fun at all. Let’s go find Marty.”
“He’s busy now. Let’s look at the airplane first.”
Tom shook free of her clinging hands and gripped her elbow firmly to steer her out toward the plane. The crowd had thinned out, and he hoped not to see anyone to whom he would have to stop and speak. The first person they met was Christopher Austin. His gaze slid over Emmajean, and he nodded to Tom while his eyes searched the area.
“Hello, Dolan. Come to town to see the sights?”
“This should be worth seeing.”
“Yeah. If you’re looking for—”
“We’re going out to the plane. See you later.”
“We’ll see you later,” Emmajean echoed. “And what’s your name?”
Christopher paused and turned. “Christopher Austin.”
“My name’s Emmajean . . . Christopher.”
Christopher tipped his hat. “How do you do, ma’am?”
“Why don’t you ever come over to our house?”
He glanced at Tom, then said, “Well, ah . . . maybe I will sometime.”
“Come on, Emmajean.” Tom tried to move her, but she had dug in her heels.
“You’re awfully cute . . . for a sod-buster.”
Tom read the look of puzzlement on Christopher’s face before he turned and walked away.
“Where does he live?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Where did you meet him? Will he ever come to our house?”
“I don’t remember where I met him, and, no, he’ll not come to our house.”
“I wish he would. He’s so . . . cute.”
She clung to his arm as they went slowly toward the plane. Walking on the prairie sod was difficult in the spike-heeled shoes. Tom was becoming increasingly alarmed by her bizarre behavior. For almost a week she had said hardly anything to him, and now it was as if a dam had broken and she chattered continually. His hope was to get through the day and get her back home without a scene.
They reached the plane as the last of the sightseers were leaving and came face-to-face with Pete Perry and Isabel.
“Well, now, looky who’s here. The great man and his lady.” Pete’s admiring gaze moved over Emmajean. “Hello, pretty lady.”
“Hel . . . lo,” Emmajean said breathlessly, her eyes devouring Pete’s face. “I’ve seen you before.”
“Naw, ya couldn’t have—”
“Oh, yes, I have,” she said coyly. “And I know where. But . . . I won’t tell.”
“Come on, Emmajean.” Tom tugged on her arm to pull her along.
“Hold on, Dolan,” Pete said, stepping in front of them. “Come on back with us to Henry Ann’s picnic. You’re goin’ to eat with your kid, ain’t ya? There’ll be fried chicken and tater salad. She sent me a special invite to come eat. Don’t want to disappoint her, or I’d watch the show with this here pretty lady.” He chucked Emmajean beneath the chin.
“Get your hands off her and get the hell out of the way,” Tom gritted angrily.

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