Jilted (17 page)

The kitchen in Clyde's trailer house was nothing more than two short counters with a gas stove and a tiny refrigerator, but the scents that swirled as I watched him chopping vegetables smelled like a five-star restaurant. “What are you making?” I asked.

“Salsa. To go with the enchiladas. They're in the oven.”

He had four tomatoes, two of them bright red and juicy, two of them still green, and he was slicing them quickly with a butcher knife.

I leaned my hip against the counter as I watched his movements. “How do you not chop your fingers?”

“I read a book once—”

“Of course you did.”

He paused, blinked, seemed to suppress a sigh. “Some famous chef explained it. See?” He shifted so I would have a better view of his paper-plate cutting board. “You let your knuckles guide the side of the blade, so your fingers don't get under the knife.”

His hands made the butcher knife appear small, and I recalled his demonstration the first time he took me to Pamela's shop. “Don't you mean a
shiv
? What other words are different in prison?”

He shook his head. “Again with the prison questions.”

“Never mind, then.”

He continued chopping. “Okay. Deodorant was
foo-foo
, and weights were the
iron pile
.”

“Do you ever slip and accidentally use a prison term?”

“Only once. One day at the Dairy Queen, I called Bernie Guthrie's cigarette a
fug
. He almost swallowed the silly thing when I told him they weren't allowed in the restaurant.” Clyde's head fell two inches, and his face warmed to a pale burgundy. “He thought I said something else.”

I bit my lip, picturing Old Man Guthrie's reaction. “By the way, I brought this.” I nudged a plastic container sitting on the counter next to two jalapeño peppers and a clove of garlic.

“Bean dip?” He chuckled. “You could have just brought it in the can. Didn't have to get all fancy with the Tupperware.”

After turning the dish upside down, I inspected its contents. “It's guacamole.”

“No kidding?”

“It's green with bright-red chunks of tomato.” I looked around the counter for a cookbook. “Don't you use a recipe?”

“Not for salsa. I just do it.” He reached for an onion, but before he started chopping, he pulled a small box of matches out of his pocket and clamped one between his teeth.

“Does that work?” I asked. “Does it keep the onion from burning your eyes?”

“Sort of.” He spoke around the match, then smiled as his eyes watered anyway.

“Dixie and me just chew spearmint gum.”

He spit the match on the counter. “Does it work?”

“Sort of.”

He put the matchbox back in his pocket, then tossed his vegetables in a large bowl and added a few leaves of parsley. When the oven timer buzzed, he removed the enchiladas and positioned my guacamole next to them on the stove. Finally he opened a bag of tortilla chips. “I've been thinking about you saying I need another place to live.”

“Praise the Lord.”

He leaned with both palms on the counter, looked me in the eye, and laughed. Loud. Then he pushed away and handed me a plate. “Help yourself.”

“Why did you just laugh like that?” Using a metal spatula, I placed a cheesy enchilada on my plate and added a scoop of guacamole and a small portion of his homemade salsa.

“I figured you might help me pick out a place.”

I pretended I didn't hear him, then lifted my plate and sniffed. “Have you ever thought about opening your own restaurant?”

“No. Why?”

“You cook good enough.” I sat down at the table. “And you obviously enjoy it, because you even cook on your days off.”

“I cook because I got to eat.”

“No. I have to eat, and I never cook.”

“You made guacamole.”

“Ruthie made it.”

He paused, then smiled slowly. “Sounds like you're the one who needs a new job.”

I forked a bite of enchilada and blew on it to cool it. “I guess I liked waitressing better than cooking. Talking to the customers, tending to their needs.” I shrugged.

Clyde scooped a dollop of salsa onto a chip and put the whole thing in his mouth, but then his chewing slowed, and he got a quizzical expression on his face. He swallowed, set his fork down, took a drink of his tea. “I make salsa all the time. Why would it turn out wrong the one time it matters?”

I smiled, partly because he cared what I thought about his cooking but also because he had given me the opportunity to razz him again. “Could it have been the green tomatoes?”

He stared at the salsa on his plate, poking it with a chip. “Seriously? They were green?”

“Only half of them.”

His huge shoulders slumped, and he looked as if he might cry.

“But the enchiladas are great,” I said, “and my bean dip ain't too shabby either.”

***

Thirty minutes later, we were still sitting at Clyde's kitchen table, and our paper plates had been pushed back to make room for sliced peaches. Clyde called the fruit a
light dessert
, but I called them
breakfast
. When he brought out a can of whipped cream and let me spray it over both our bowls, I decided the peaches might be dessert after all.

“This is good,” I said as I licked my spoon.

We ate in silence for a few minutes before I poked him for information.

“So,” I said, “it's Wednesday night.”

“It is.”

“You're not at church.”

He crouched over his bowl, pushing peaches from one side to the other, silently screaming for me to stop asking.

But I couldn't. “You don't want to face Neil.”

His eyes met mine.

“Does Fawn know he threatened you with a restraining order?”

He shrugged.

“You haven't talked to her.”

“No need.” He finished his last bite, then leaned back in his chair, watching me. “Want to go out to the wind fields later?”

“In the dark?”

“In the moonlight, they kind of remind me of a Mercedes-Benz commercial. Besides, you can see the red lights on top.”

It was sweet of him to want to take me out there, even in the dark, and I wondered if he didn't get a little strength from the whispering giants, too. I sighed, wishing I could magically become a windmill, standing quietly on the prairie while the breeze nudged me.

“You doing all right?” Clyde asked.

“I'd be better if I had more of that whipped cream.”

He didn't smile. Didn't look away. Just kept staring, but I didn't care. It felt good. Almost as though he had crawled inside my brain, and surprisingly, I liked him there.

I cleared my throat, wishing I was as good at
not talking
as he was. “I'm okay now, but the bad thoughts still come over me when I'm home alone.”

“Maybe you shouldn't live alone.”

My face warmed, but Clyde pulled his gaze away from me to look out the back window. Probably he didn't mean what it sounded like he meant, but I vividly remembered last Friday night after the football game when he told me we were too old to fiddle around with dating.

“I heard a rumor about Hoby,” Clyde said.

A dollop of whipped cream remained in my bowl, and I smashed it with my fork, swirling it until it looked more like milk than cream.

“They're saying there wasn't a body in the truck,” he said. “You heard anything like that?”

I tilted my head and nodded twice.

“Did Hector tell you not to tell me?”

“He told me not to tell anyone.” But I should have told Clyde.
Clyde doesn't count like everyone else.

“It's all right, you know.”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Hector seemed confident Hoby's dead, but I don't know what he's basing it on.”

“Everyone thinks it was suicide.”

I let my eyes wander to the backyard, where the chain-link fence was disappearing in the light of dusk. “You ever thought about suicide?”

One of his shoulders bunched into a shrug. “In prison, sure. Everybody thinks about it.”

“But not since you've been home.”

“Naw, not in years.”

“What made you stop thinking it?”

His eyes turned to slits as he formed an answer, but then they widened. “I just decided life was worth it. Whatever comes, I'll deal with it.” He yanked his sleeve to expose his tattoo. “Joshua 1:9.”

I shrugged a shoulder gently. “What is that verse?”

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. The Lord is with you wherever you go.”

I chuckled. “Hoby needed that tattoo. Maybe then he wouldn't have killed himself.” The breath in my lungs felt as if it might sap all the energy from my spirit, so I released it into the kitchen, feeling momentarily better because of it. I leaned my elbows on the table. “I can't blame him, though. Sometimes I think suicide might be nice.”

Clyde took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out slowly. “Are you thinking on doing something?”

Sometimes Clyde could be so daft. “For crying out loud, I'm not going to kill myself.” I stacked plates and bowls. “Besides, think what it would do to Velma. And Ruthie.”

He spoke so quietly I barely heard him. “And me.”

My mind had wandered as I thought about my sister and my daughter. “What?”

His eyebrows puckered. “Think what it would do to me.”

“You?”

Then he stared at me again. No words. Nothing but that same unbroken eye contact, so intense I had to look away, but when I did, his hand reached up to my hair, and he pushed a strand over my shoulder.

Thoughts and phrases and arguments spun through my brain like towels in a dryer, but I couldn't think quickly enough to snatch a complete sentence. “You?” I repeated.

He ran the back of his fingers under my chin but still didn't reply. Instead, he leaned over in slow motion and rubbed his lips softly against mine. It wasn't really a kiss. More of a nuzzle. Nothing like Friday night at the football game when we were angry. Nothing like the kiss in the kitchen. And nothing about it seemed spontaneous or accidental. This action felt premeditated and determined and purposeful. This kiss felt like Clyde had been thinking on it for quite a while.

His mouth met mine once more, and I thought he would merely brush against me again, so I didn't move. But instead he pulled my bottom lip with both of his. Gently, playfully, clearly asking a question.

When he leaned back slightly and peered into my eyes, I realized I could hear him even though he wasn't speaking. He was telling me so much without any words at all.

Clyde pulled away from his house, hoping Lynda would scoot over to the middle of the seat the way she'd done when he took her to the lake, but of course she didn't. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing and remembering the nightmare of watching Hoby's truck come up out of the water.

He felt like cursing that whole day. Why had he talked about it being their first date? Now she would forever tie negative memories of Hoby's death—or supposed death—to happy memories of their own time together. He wanted to give her another outing to remember. Something they could call their own.

He knew he ought to wait and give her more time to grieve, but he had waited a lifetime already, and now that he had experienced a few happy moments with Lynda, he couldn't bear to do without her much longer.

He coughed. “Seeing as how our first date ended up all strange-like, I decided we need a new first date.”

She shifted, and Clyde worried that he had made her uncomfortable. “Thanks for dinner,” she said. “It was nice.”

“I'm not talking about dinner, Lyn. I want to do something to take your mind off your worries.”

“That sounds good to me, but the windmills likely won't have the same effect, since it's pitch-black. There's not even a moon out tonight.”

He smiled to himself. Clouds may have covered the moon, hiding the three-hundred-foot giants behind a blanket of darkness, but above their heads, where stars should have shone, was a sea of blinking red lights, which disappeared into the distance. Clyde slowed at a county road and turned off the highway.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Maybe we can find a road that'll take us to the base of a turbine. You said you've never seen one up close and personal, right?”

“No.” She was quiet for a second. “No, I haven't.”

Clyde wasn't sure why, but it suddenly felt like the space between them in the car had doubled in distance. “I thought it would be fun,” he said.

“It's too dark to find a road, Clyde.”

She didn't say anything else, good or bad, but his spirits fell harder than a mallard shot out of the sky on one of his grandpappy's hunting trips.

In the distance, a bolt of lightning illuminated a bank of clouds, and for an instant, the towering giants were visible. Lynda gasped, then leaned forward with her hands on the dash. “That was cool.”

“Kinda creepy, if you ask me,” Clyde said. “Like monsters sneaking up on us in the dark.”

A flash swept the sky, revealing dozens of rotors surrounding the car.

“Now you see it, now you don't,” Lynda sing-songed. “I can't believe I've never been out here in a lightning storm. This is fun.”

Clyde laughed. “I was thinking it was sort of like a scary movie. You're thinking it's cool.”

“It is cool. Wait … for … it.” Another flash caused her to laugh. “This is better than a roller coaster.”

“No, it ain't.”

“Okay, maybe not, but it's a lot of fun for free.”

Clyde caught himself before he said it was a cheap date, worried he would send her cannonballing into silence again. He sighed and smiled and listened to her laugh, and he was incredibly glad he had brought her out there. Not only that, but he knew from now on, he would be driving her down Highway 84 during midnight thunderstorms. He would do almost anything to make her happy, to hear her laugh and see her smile.

He slowed, watching for road signs until he finally found what he was looking for, and then he turned and stopped in front of a metal gate. He put the car in park and reached for the door handle.

“What are you doing?” Lynda asked.

“Opening the gate.”

“But it's chained. And this is private property.” She leaned across the seat and called after him, but he kept walking, slipping the chain easily from the metal-pipe gate and swinging it against the side fence. As he walked back to the car, he could see her in the glow of the dome light, her mouth parted in curiosity. “Does this have anything to do with Troy Sanders?” she asked.

He slid the gearshift into drive and eased off the brake, his headlights illuminating an arc on the white-rock road as he pulled forward, then stopped again. “Maybe.” He got out to shut the gate, and when he got back in, Lynda peppered him with questions.

“Maybe nothing. What did he do? Leave the gate unlocked?” She looked behind them. “He could lose his job for something like that. He's so reckless.”

“Troy ain't nearly as reckless as Pam makes him out to be.”

“I think his wife would know. She said he's just as irresponsible with the turbines as he is with the volunteer fire department. And we've both heard stories about that.”

Clyde held his next words. It would do no good to argue about something neither of them knew much about. Rumor had it that Troy was reckless, but rumor also had it that Pamela was a worry­wart, and Clyde figured both rumors were partially true. Another burst of lightning vibrated, but it was farther away now and didn't produce so much as a giggle from Lynda.

He followed the road straight back, and after a hundred yards or so, it curved to the right. His headlights shone starkly against the white base of a windmill, so close it was almost unrecognizable.

“Why are we here?” Lynda's voice monotoned as he killed the ignition.

He punched the headlights off, and the curved wall of the windmill disappeared. “Troy brought me out here and showed me around. He thought you might like to see inside.”

“He thought so, or you thought so?”

Clyde scratched his ear. “Both of us, I guess. We don't have to stay if you don't want to.”

He couldn't see her, but from the sound of it, he guessed she had crossed her arms and leaned against the passenger door. Resting his fist on the steering wheel, he leaned forward and peered high above the car where the rotors hummed mechanically, but he couldn't see them. From this angle, he couldn't even see the red light on top. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought they were parked in the middle of an empty field instead of directly beneath a two-million-dollar wind generator.

He reached for the ignition, then hesitated, confused. He had been so sure she would enjoy this little field trip, had thought it would be a happy memory to erase the bad one. He had even hoped for a few kisses, not to mention a lot more smiles. His hand dropped to his knee. “I don't get it, Lyn. Talk to me.”

She huffed. “When you said you planned a special date, I didn't think you meant to bring me out here and show me your dream job. Are you going to give me a sales pitch? Because no matter what you say, I'm not going to think you should get a job as a stinking turbine cowboy.”

Clyde's nerves settled instantly, and he almost laughed. “What are you saying?”

“Wind technician is one of the most dangerous jobs in West Texas, if not
the
most dangerous. Pam says Troy has to climb onto the very top of those blasted things and walk around up there, as high in the air as a football field is long, and she's terrified every single day.” Her voice rose slightly. “I'm sorry, Clyde, but I can't live like that … always worried that you won't make it home in the afternoons. I know I have a lot of baggage that you don't necessarily take into account, but I cannot be the wife of a wind tech.” Her voice got faster and faster, and more and more wobbly, and just when Clyde thought she might cry, Lynda shoved open the car door and climbed out, slamming it behind her.

In the brief time the dome light had been on, Clyde noticed her hands were trembling. He took a deep breath and tried to still his own hands. Most of what she had said had no effect on him at all, as though she were hurling cotton balls at him and expecting him to crumple. However, her last five words acted like a shot of adrenaline, peppering him with the possibility of a future.
Wife of a wind tech.
Had she really said that? In reference to the two of them?

He ran his fingers through his hair, then gripped the base of his neck, and an uncontrolled chuckle rose from deep in his throat, startling him into action. Surely she hadn't gone far. They were in the middle of a wind field, for heaven's sake.

He thrust the door open and then leaped to his feet, ready to scan the horizon, but she was leaning on the passenger side of the car, her back and neck glowing from the dome light.

“I didn't mean to say that,” she snapped.

Clyde shut his door. She was so cute. So determined. So fragile. He walked around the sedan, letting his fingers trail across the hood, and when he got to the passenger side, he stood in front of her for a few seconds before saying, “I never said I wanted to be a wind tech.”

She made a tiny sound but didn't speak.

“I guess I may have told you Troy was talking to me about it, but I never honestly considered it.” He put his hands on his hips, still trying to calm his pulse. “You know how it is, Lyn. I've missed too much of my life to go taking risks like that. Besides, they probably wouldn't hire me to do electrician work, since I'm color-blind.” He couldn't hold back a soft laugh. “Working the turbines ain't for me. Never was.”

Still she didn't say anything, and he searched for what might be holding her back. Then he realized she was embarrassed. She had shown him a teeny part of herself that he hadn't seen before, a frightened, timid part that was desperately afraid of being abandoned. Then she had topped it all off by blubbering about marriage, something Clyde knew she would never deliberately talk about.

He took a step away. “So anyway. You want to see inside now? Troy left it open. We can't do any climbing, of course, but we could look around just the same. Here, I'll show you.” He stepped around the front bumper, fumbled with the car door, and then pulled on the headlights. “The door's around at the side.”

He walked away from the car, unable to hear her steps over the hum of the rotors, but when he opened the door, she was behind him a few steps, looking away from him like a scared rabbit. “Troy could lose his job for this,” she mumbled. “Reckless.”

“There's a light in here somewhere, but I don't rightly remember where it is.”

Lynda turned on the flashlight app on her cell phone and lit up the circular interior of the tower. Instead of looking for a light switch, her gaze fell on the vertical ladder, and she shone her light straight up, revealing a fraction of the rungs disappearing into the darkness above their heads. “Now that's creepy,” she whispered. “Knowing it goes on and on and not being able to see. I feel like someone's up there, spying on us.”

“You watch too many scary shows.” Clyde found the switch, and when the lights came on, they both startled, and Lynda gasped.

“Man, that's taller than I expected.” She laughed. “I feel so small, don't you?”

“I reckon I do, for once in my life.”

They stood side by side, Lynda gazing upward at the enormity of the monster's belly they had crawled into, and Clyde gazing downward at the smile on her face. When she noticed him, she blushed. “So did Troy let you climb?”

“He took me up to the first landing. See it there?” He pointed. “But I made sure that reckless rascal used all the appropriate safety precautions.”

Her gaze bounced around the enclosure. “Like what?”

“Harnesses, lines, locks, hooks.” He shrugged. “I'm not sure what all the stuff was.”

She bit her lip, then timidly put a hand on the ladder. “Can I?”

“You're kidding me,” he said. “How far?”

“As far as I can.” She gripped the metal and started climbing up the rungs, one after another, hand over hand, not quickly but fast enough that Clyde got nervous. She seemed to be climbing up a swinging bell rope. Her giggles echoed to the top of the tower and back down again.

“Uh … Lyn?”

She slowed to a stop, then looked down at him. “Whoa.” She clung to the side rail. “I see why they say don't look down. I think that's far enough.”

Her Converse sneakers were just above Clyde's head, and he moved to the other side of the ladder and climbed the first two rungs so he could rest his hand on her thigh. “Go slow.” She stepped down, and his hand met her waist before they backed down together.

When Lynda was safely on the bottom rung, she stopped there and looked through the ladder where he stood opposite her. Their faces were level with each other, and she smiled. “This is a good date, Clyde. Thanks for bringing me here.”

He shook his head, feigning exasperation. “I would've left you at the trailer if I'd known how reckless you were going to be.”

She reached through the ladder, hooked her finger on the neck of his T-shirt, and tugged, and when she covered her mouth with his, he felt her smile again. Silly girl, what on earth had given her the impression he wanted to work with Troy? He had never told her that, but then again, there were a lot of things he had never told her.

She pulled away, then stepped off the ladder, and he felt the distance as if it were a solid wall of steel, but then she came to him and melted into his embrace. She pressed her cheek against his chest and slipped her arms around his waist. Even though he couldn't see her face, he thought she might still be smiling, because everything felt so natural, as if for once she wasn't holding anything back.

She looked up at him. “You know what I said before?”

He wasn't entirely sure which thing she meant, but he imagined it was the five words that were still exploding in his head. Or really just the one word.
Wife.
Because the others were irrelevant now. “Yeah?”

“Can you just forget I said that?”

Her eyes drooped on the edges, and she looked like a woman who had been through hell over the past week—exhausted, unsure, and afraid. But also happy.

Without a doubt, Clyde would remember those five words as long as he lived, but he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “I can forget you said it, Lyn … but only for a while.”