Dust Devil (36 page)

“
Is
he—is he going to be mad at me, too, Mom? To—to hate me?”
her son asked anxiously, his eyes suddenly haunted by shadows.

“
Oh,
no, Alex. Regardless of whatever he may feel toward me, I know your
father will love
you
with
all his heart. That’s the kind of man he is. So from now on,
when the kids at school start teasing you, I want you not to fight
with them anymore. I want you to hold your head high instead, to look
them square in the eye and tell them your father is a man you can be
proud of. And don’t worry about what they say about me. I can
take it. Do you understand me?”

“
Yes,
Mom.”

“
Good.
Now, I’ll tell you what. How about my taking as much time off
as I can these next three days while you’re suspended? We’ll
wade in the creek, go fishing, cook our
catch
over a fire, maybe even camp out in the tree house or the tent or
something. What do you say to that, pal?”

“
I
say it’s a deal. And, Mom... thanks for telling me that stuff
about you and my dad, and all. I feel a whole lot better now, almost
as I though I actually know him. Maybe I’ll even recognize him
if I ever run into him now! Do you think I might? I’m real glad
lie didn’t turn out to be a convict or a crazy chump or
anything, like I was half afraid he would. Do you think
he'll
like
my saxophone playing, Mom?”

“
Oh,
yes, Son,” Sarah replied quietly, remembering Renzo’s
wild, heartrending playing last Friday night. “I think he’ll
like it very much indeed.”

Be
thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou
com’st in such a questionable shape

That
I will speak to thee.

Hamlet

—
William
Shakespeare

The
following morning, Sarah told J.D. that because of Alex having been
suspended from summer school, she absolutely had to have some time
off to spend with her son. As she had known he would, J.D. grumbled
and groused at some length about both his senatorial campaign and his
fertilizer plant. But eventually, he told her to go on home, and that
since she was taking Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off, she might
as well take Friday, too, making a week of it with her boy.

“
Thank
you, J.D. I surely appreciate it.”

“
Well,
I don’t,” Bubba complained peevishly the minute they had
left J.D.’s office, Bubba carrying a handful of
reports
that had required his father’s signature. “I need you
here, Sarah. Advertising and promotion for FYI have been in the
toilet ever since you started working on that damned senatorial
campaign. Nora just doesn’t have your style, your flair.”
FYI was short for Field-Yieid, Inc., while Nora Oliver was the
assistant director of the fertilizer plant’s
advertising-and-promotions department, and had temporarily assumed
several of Sarah’s duties.

“
Bubba,
I’m sorry, but I just can’t help it. Part of the reason
Alex has so many problems is because I’m hardly ever around
anymore—since I’m working ail the time for you and J.D.
both. And I just can’t afford to keep on doing that, especially
now.” .

“
What
do you mean, ‘especially now’?” Bubba asked,
puzzled and curious.

“
Just—just
Alex’s suspension, that’s all.” Sarah’s face
flushed at the half truth, because what she had really meant was that
if and when he found out about Alex, Renzo might use her job
situation, all her overtime hours, to say she wasn’t taking
proper care of their son. “Alex is going to have to repeat the
sixth grade if he doesn’t do well in summer school—and he
can’t do well if he can’t attend, can he?”

“
That
kid’s more trouble ’n he’s worth!” Bubba
growled. Then, seeing the expression on Sarah’s face, he
hastily changed his tune. “But I’ll tell you what—how’d
you like me to come out sometime this week, play a little touch
football with the boy or something? Part of the trouble, as I’ve
told you before, Sarah, is that Alex needs a father. Now, maybe you
don’t think I’m exactly cut out for that role—and
maybe I’m not—but the fact of the
matter
is that I’ve always offered, at least been willing to give it a
try. You’re the one who keeps on refusing to give me a chance,
and that’s not hardly fair, Sarah.”

She
sighed heavily, knowing his accusation was on target. “Maybe
you’re right, Bubba. Why don’t you plan on coming to
supper Wednesday night, then, and we’ll see how it goes?”

“
Okay,”
he agreed slowly, surprised but pleased. “That sounds good.
I’ll be there. You want me to bring some steaks? I can cook ’em
on your grill for us.”

“
That’d
be real nice, Bubba.” It was hard for Sarah when he was on his
best behavior, because then she knew be wasn’t really as bad as
he pretended. As she always had in the past, she wavered in her
feelings toward him at times like these, telling herself that even if
she wouldn’t be happy with Bubba, she would at least be
content, comfortable and cared for—which was actually a good
deal more than a lot of wives could say. Bubba had a roving eye, and
if she ever married him, or even slept with him, the sharp edge of
his interest would dull and he would stray. He probably wouldn’t
be as fastidiously discreet as J.D. was about cheating on ZoeAnn, but
Bubba wouldn’t flaunt his women in Sarah’s face,
either—unless she drove him to it. He had money, and he wasn’t
cheap, wouldn’t begrudge her any luxuries that wouldn’t
put him on the road to financial ruin. He would be a well-meaning but
inattentive father, showering love and presents carelessly on their
children, expecting that to make up for his absences.

Not
for the first time, Sarah told herself she could, in fact, do a whole
hell of a lot worse than Bubba Holbrooke, and she wondered what was
wrong with her that
she
was so reluctant to settle for what he had to give. Was it possible
she had in her youth seen Renzo Cassavettes through a pair of
rose-colored shades? Had she, as a young, imaginative woman in the
throes of her first love, scripted a romantic fairy tale for
herself—and then put him in a suit of shining armor, whether or
not it had fit? Had she, over the years, taken the best of him and
magnified it in her mind, so he had loomed larger than life to her
and she had conveniently forgotten the fears and flaws that had made
him human? If their relationship had not been so suddenly, ruthlessly
and tragically severed, would the sense that he had been the other
half of her soul gradually have faded with time, to be replaced with
the proverbial familiarity that bred contempt? Had she, all these
years, loved only a dream? Or was it really and truly that regardless
of what a person called it—love, infatuation, animal
attraction, magic, fireworks, butterflies, bells, chimes, pheromones
or chemistry—Renzo was the one and only man who had, in the
words of so many love songs, ever thrilled her, sent her, turned her
on, done it for her? The one and only man who ever would?

Sarah
didn’t know. She knew only that something deep inside her
rebelled at settling for contentment in a world where ecstasy also
existed, at reconciling herself to the commonplace when the rare was
infinitely more precious. She would, she thought with a wry smile,
rather be dead than dull. And if she were honest with herself, she
must admit that the plain, simple truth of the matter was that Bubba
just didn’t excite her. And how did any woman ever explain that
to a man without injuring his pride and deflating his fragile male
ego? There was no way possible that
she
knew of—and because she also knew what it was to be hurt, Sarah
found it difficult to hurt others. So she shuffled along with Bubba,
offering him hope—when, in the end
,
it
would have been kinder to be cruel.

Still,
the supper she and Alex shared with Bubba passed pleasantly enough,
if a trifle stiltedly, with both the boy and the man on their best
behavior, studiously polite. But the best time of all was that which
Sarah spent with her son alone, tramping through the meadows, creeks
and woods, showing him all the secret, wondrous places that had been
special to her and Renzo in their youth and recounting to Alex one
story after another about his father—although she was careful
never to mention Renzo by name. In that week, Sarah found at least a
part of the loving little boy she had lost somewhere along the way—as
she had lost his father, too—and she and her son grew closer
than they had been in quite some time.

She
realized then that in working so many long, hard hours to provide him
with the financial security and material objects she had never had as
a child, she was depriving him of the far more important intangibles,
the things that would mold the boy someday into the man.

She
returned to Fieid-Yield, Inc. the following week, fiercely determined
somehow to cut her hectic schedule down to more manageable
proportions—only to discover her desk stacked high with
paperwork that had accumulated in her absence and Renzo Cassavettes
comfortably ensconced in a chair in her office.

“
What
are
you
doing
here?” she asked, startled.

“
I
believe it has something to do with the mountain coming to Muhammad.”

“
Yes,
well, as you can plainly see, I already have a mountain!” She
motioned toward her beleaguered desk. “And I don’t need
another one. So will you please leave so I can get on with my work?”

“
Sarah,
my girl,” he drawled as he stood and began one by one to close
the miniblinds that shielded the interior windows in her office from
the hallway beyond. “I
am
your
work—your nine o’clock appointment, to be precise.”
With a sharp little click, he firmly shot home the dead bolt that
locked her office door.

“
What—what
do you think you’re doing, Renzo?” Sarah stared at him,
aghast, at once horrified and excited by his actions. “Have you
completely lost your mind? This is my place of employment! Open those
miniblinds and my office door immediately, and then get out!”

“
Not
a chance. Sit down, Sary. Supper didn’t work, so this time,
I’ve brought breakfast instead.” Reaching down, he lifted
from the floor a woven picnic basket she hadn’t noticed earlier
and set it in the middle of her desk, flipping back the lid and
removing the tablecloth nestled inside to reveal an assortment of
fruits, cheeses, breads and a bottle of wine.

“
I
am calling security,” Sarah insisted, picking up the receiver
on her telephone and punching the intercom. To her shock, the line
was totally dead.