One Track Mind (5 page)

She dabbed the antiseptic on, and he found that he was having trouble breathing. He swallowed and stared at the gooseberry bushes so hard he almost saw them double.

She smelled like chlorine and menthol and camphor and other medicinal stuff—oh, better than roses any day. And three times her fingers brushed his lips, making him half-dizzy with longing for more.

But then she took her hand away, and he had an eerie sensation of incompleteness. “I think that’s most of it,” she said, searching his face for any other damage.

He searched hers, too, but not for flaws. It was just so hard to resist looking. She glanced downward and picked up his T-shirt, which was wet from sweat and blood and the hose.

She unfolded it and clucked her tongue softly. “I don’t think this can be saved,” she murmured.

He looked at the pathetic, ruined thing in her manicured hands. He started to take it from her. But she hung on.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s a NASCAR shirt. I didn’t realize—”

She probably hadn’t realized because it was so faded. He’d bought it at the Salvation Army.

She looked into his eyes and gave him an enquiring little smile. “You’re a fan?”

He tried to act casual. “Well…yeah. Sure.”

“Do you ever go to the speedway?” she asked.

“Uh, yes,” he said with as much aplomb as he could. “I do, actually. From time to time.”

He knew of a gap beneath the wall he could sneak under, and he’d done so many times. He didn’t have money for tickets. He gave his mother some of his money, but he put the rest away, because someday soon he was going to take it and go far, far from here.

He took the shirt from her. “I’ll just throw it away.”

“Do you want another one? I could loan you one of my brother’s.”

“No,” he said and swallowed again. “I might bleed on it. I’m comfortable.”

But he wasn’t. He usually felt fine shirtless, but he usually wasn’t around a girl like this. He stole a glance at her body. Her bathing suit was damp, and on her chest he saw droplets of water, maybe from the pool or from perspiration.

He looked away quickly and saw her fallen book. He reached for it and looked at it. Then he looked at her in surprise.

“You’re reading a comic book?” he said in disbelief.

Her expression grew defensive. “It’s not a comic book. It’s a graphic novel.”

“It looks like a comic book to me,” he said dubiously. “It’s got a mouse on the cover.”

“It’s actually a very serious story,” she said, defensively. “It’s about war. And prejudice. And man’s cruelty to man.”

He looked at her in puzzlement. “And about mice?”

“All right,” she said with a little shrug that made her bosom move first up, then down. “Mice, too.”

“You’re going to have to explain that to me,” he said, studying how serious her expression had become.

And so she started to explain. And he listened, and he
understood what she was getting at, and she showed him some of the pictures, and he bent his head closer to hers.

“I’d loan it to you,” she said. “But it’s not mine. It’s my aunt’s.”

He allowed himself a small smile. “You must have some weird aunt.”

“Don’t you know her? She teaches at school. Mrs. Attwater.”

His heart gave another unexpected little buck. “Mrs. Attwater is your
aunt?
”

“Yes,” she said. “What’s wrong with that?”

Somehow, it just seemed too perfect to him. If she was going to be anybody in the world’s niece, she should be Mrs. Attwater’s.

“She’s my favorite teacher,” he said. That was true. He didn’t add that it was the first time he’d ever had a favorite teacher, and he generally didn’t have much use for teachers at all.

“I…I could ask her to loan it to you,” Lori suggested.

Why was she looking at him like that? He was having trouble breathing again. “Naw. That’s okay,” he said. “Listen, thanks and all, but I better get back to work.”

He squinted at the sky and was surprised to see it had become cloudy. When had that happened? Probably all the trees could have turned upside down and waved their roots in the air and he wouldn’t have noticed.

“And you—” he looked her up and down cautiously “—you should get back under your umbrella. You can get more sunburned when it’s cloudy, you know? Uh…” He felt it imperative to say something that sounded semi-intelligent. “Uh…the light’s UV rays can come through clouds.”

“I’ve learned that to my sorrow,” she said with a rueful dimple playing in her cheek.

She looked at him curiously. “Could I ask you something personal?”

He felt even more self-conscious. “I guess. What?”

“You’ve got those tattoos,” she said, nodding at his body. “What are those designs?”

“Oh.” He cocked his head as if the answer had no importance. “They’re mostly from the South Seas. Polynesia.”

“Why the South Seas?”

“I want to go there someday. Doesn’t everybody?”

“I never thought about it,” she said, looking interested. “But what about those two birds on either side of your chest? Are they Polynesian?”

“No,” he said and swallowed again. “They’re some kind of seagulls, I guess.”

“Do they mean something?”

He gave a short laugh. “When I get old, my chest’ll get sunken. And they’ll get closer and closer together.”

She looked into his eyes more closely. “And then?”

“And then, when they get so close that it looks like they’re going to crash into each other…”

“Yes?” she urged.

He laughed again. “Then I’ll know that at last it’s time for me to start behaving.”

She looked at him warily, as if unsure whether to believe him. But he’d told her the truth. His mother, Brenda, had told him so many times that he was going to Hell if he didn’t change his ways, he’d gotten the bird tattoos as a private sardonic joke to remind him when he should start repenting. He thought it was funny at the time. Lori didn’t seem to think so.

“Oh” was all she said.

But then raindrops began to fall around them, making a plopping sound on the concrete, jarring the grass blades.

“Don’t let your book get wet,” he cautioned her. “Thanks again. I’ve got to get back to work.”

“You can’t work if it rains,” she protested, but she hugged the book to her protectively.

“Sure I can. In this business, what’s a little more mud?”

“But—”

“I mean it,” he said. “I’ve done it before. I’ll quit if it gets too bad.”

The rain began to fall more steadily.

“Go on,” he said. “Go on inside. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?” she asked with concern.

“I’m sure. You’ve taken care of me. Now take care of yourself.”

She nodded. “’Bye,” she said softly. “See you around.”

“Yeah,” he said, drinking her in. “See you around.”

She turned, snatched up her flip-flops and ran toward the back door. He went into the shed into find stakes and twine.

When he came out, she was standing there, a little umbrella over her head. It had dogs and cats on it. She held a bright yellow plastic poncho out to him. It had a faded Halesboro Speedway logo on the front.

“Here,” she said, thrusting it at him. “Take this. I don’t want all that antiseptic washing off or those bandages coming loose.”

“No,” he protested. “I’ve got to work with those roses. It’ll get torn.”

“It’s already torn. I was going to throw it out. I’ve got a new one. Take it. I mean it. Take it. Put it on.”

He shook his head. “You are the bossiest little thing…”

“Yes, I am,” she told him. “Please. Just put it on. You can throw it away when you get home.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking it from her.

“Put it on,” she said.

He did.

“You’re welcome,” she told him, looking suddenly shy. Then she turned and fled back to the house.

He worked for forty minutes in the rain. He wore the poncho home. But he didn’t throw it away.

He didn’t believe he’d ever throw it away. He intended to keep it until the seagulls on his chest were ready to crash into each other. For as long as his heart kept beating.

“N
OW
,” C
LYDE WAS SAYING
as they walked the track, “Back when we had NASCAR races, drivers complained this was a one-groove track. Hard to drive on, hard to pass, especially on Turn Four.”

Kane studied it and nodded. “Transition to the front straightaway’s too abrupt.”

“Yup,” agreed Clyde, “So Andy Simmons tried to patch it. Added about five feet of pavement at the bottom of the exit of the turn. Drivers said they couldn’t tell a bit a difference.”

“It’s not the kind of problem you solve with a patch,” Kane said. He could visualize a solution, but it would cost and cost big.

Clyde looked at him with narrowed eyes, but was too polite to ask any leading questions. He just nodded at the track and said, “She’s a challenge, all right. ’Course, with faith, all things are possible.”

Kane gave a small, bitter smile. “In this town, it always seemed it was
money
that made all things possible.”

Clyde crossed his arms. “There’s a limit to what money can buy. Come on. I’ll walk you around the track, then show you pit road.”

Kane fell in step beside him, but often he took his eyes from the aging asphalt to steal a glance up at the empty stands. There was seating for 60,000 spectators. He gazed up at the VIP suites and wondered if there’d been any use for them lately.

That long ago summer when he’d been seventeen, he’d volunteered to help Clyde as a cleanup man on Sundays, the big race day. He’d volunteered the day after he’d talked to Lori by the pool.

He knew he looked screwy, with his scratched face and arms, his long hair, but he’d talked earnestly to Clyde, swearing he’d do any job, no matter how menial or dirty. He just wanted to be around racing, he’d said; he’d do anything, and he’d do it for nothing.

Clyde must have seen that he meant it. And Kane worked hard; he made himself welcome, and Clyde finally appreciated him enough to pay him $3.85 an hour.

Kane could have made the same money more easily by washing dishes or frying burgers. But he wanted to be at the
speedway, where from time to time he could look up at that center VIP suite, knowing that Lori was there.

He’d heard that she
had
to be there; her parents insisted on it. She and her brother could bring all the friends they wanted, but Sunday race time was
family
time.

So he’d pushed his broom, emptied the trash barrels and picked up the empties and other litter simply to be in her presence. He was certain she didn’t even know he was there.

But that was all right. She would.

The song about the gypsy kept running through his head all the time, an old, old song about a man winning the heart of a lady.

That was precisely what Kane meant to do, impossible as it might seem—win the love of a lady.

L
ORI COULD NOT BELIEVE
this was happening. There were just a few cars parked on the west end of Main Street. But one of them was a black sports car.

It could only belong to Kane. Two junior high school girls strolled past it, eyeing it as suspiciously as if it were a flying saucer. She didn’t blame them; it did seem utterly alien sitting in front of The Groove Café.

Lori parked the sputtering Mustang three spaces behind the sports car. Clyde had confirmed her worst fear this afternoon; her car’s transmission was going out. She needed to replace it as soon as possible.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. She’d washed her hair, so that it fell in bright, clean waves to her shoulders. But she hadn’t put on full makeup again. Let Kane see the freckles, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the faint ones starting to bracket her mouth.

Let him also see her green and white seersucker pants and matching blouse that were three years old and had been bought at the Value-Mart store in Asheville. Let him see her exactly as she was, and let him glory in how she’d changed.

She told herself she didn’t care. Not a bit. But her heart still hammered as she walked up the three concrete stairs of the café and opened the door.

She saw him sitting in the dark green leatherette booth, and her pulses accelerated even harder. He’d changed clothes. He wore a white NASCAR T-shirt with a picture of Kent Grosso on it. It was an old T-shirt, faded.

He slid out of the booth and stood when she stepped inside. He was wearing jeans and canvas shoes. The jeans, too, were faded. The shoes looked expensive but well-worn, even a bit tattered.

My God, she thought, her breath thickening in her throat. He looks almost the way he did twenty years ago—just a little older and not as thin. Suddenly it was as if he’d never left town. Somehow she’d blinked, two decades had passed and here he was.

The cheekbones were just as high and aristocratic. The dark eyes still pierced her with their alertness and a sense of anything but aristocracy. In them was the gleam of a born rebel. His lips turned up slightly in a smile that both welcomed her and challenged her.

He hadn’t gotten rid of his tattoos. Somehow, she found that embarrassing. He had enough money, obviously, why hadn’t he had the things taken off?

“Ah, Ms. Garland,” Kane now said with false enthusiasm. “How nice to see you again.”

He seized her hand, gave it a gentlemanly shake and then gestured for her to sit down. “Lovely weather we’re having,” he said. “So nice to be up in the mountains again.”

He was so patently insincere that she knew he was mocking her, and she wasn’t sure why he bothered. He held all the winning cards, didn’t he? He’d always had a talent for jibes, a gift for needling those who were pompous. Did he think
she
belonged in that category?

“Oh, act normal,” she said under her breath. “People are looking.”

His eyes widened as if she’d told him he’d just landed in Oz and was surrounded by hidden Munchkins. But he smiled more naturally and whispered back, “Let ’em.”

“Fine,” she said with a brisk nod. “Let ’em indeed.”

For people were eyeing them, the café’s few patrons and Clara, the heavyset waitress behind the counter, and the owner,
Otis Jr., sitting as usual in the front booth, so he could see what went on both outside and inside.

“So,” Kane said, “this is what it’s like. To be seen with you in public. I finally know, after all these years.”

“And so do I,” she said sweetly. “Hardly worth the wait, was it?”

“Depends on your vantage point, I’d say.”

His expression was one of cocky self-satisfaction and made her want to throttle him.

Clara materialized by her side, setting down water glasses before them. “Hi, hon,” she said to Lori. “You want a menu?”

“No. Just a glass of iced tea, please.”

“You?” Clara asked Kane.

“Tell me,” he said, “do you still make that hamburger steak with the fried onions and hash browns?”

“Specialty of the house,” she said, studying him carefully. “And to drink?”

“Same as the lady,” he said.

She nodded and lumbered off.

“I looked over the contract,” Lori said. “I have it in my bag.” She reached for her oversized white tote. “I had my lawyer review it.”

“No, no,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “Business later. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Do we?” She met his gaze and held it.

But suddenly the derision in his eyes disappeared, and his face became so tightly controlled she couldn’t read it. “I know you’ve had a hard time,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

This took her aback. For a moment she could summon no words. But then she changed the tack of the conversation. “But you’ve had a very good run. Tell me about it. I didn’t know for the longest time what happened to you—”

“Did you wonder?” he interrupted. He asked the words with no expression at all.

“Of course, I wondered,” she said. “I wondered for years. And then I heard you were a…a lawyer.”

He held up his hand as a signal to stop. “Yes. And I’ve heard every lawyer joke in the world, so spare me.”

She studied him more closely.
This is the boy that I loved. This is a stranger. Who is this man, really?
“I never thought it was a joke. I was glad for you. And proud of you. S-so you obviously finished high school. Where? In Charlotte?”

“Yeah,” he said in the same tone. “Went to Charlotte. Did odd jobs. Worked as a cleanup man at the Motorworks store and got my GED. Then took any kind of job I could to make it through college. And law school.”

“You always were smart. Aileen said you were brilliant.”

His face softened slightly at the mention of her aunt’s name. “Aileen. How is she?”

“Fine, thank God,” Lori said. Aileen was the only family she had left. “She still lives in that little cottage on Ingalls Street. She walks a mile a day, still has her garden. She drives over to the county seat and works one day a week as a volunteer at the pet shelter.”

He nodded. “Good for her. I want to see her.”

“And she’ll want to see you,” said Lori. “And she’ll ask me all about you. So tell. After law school, what?”

He raised one eyebrow as if he himself didn’t quite understand how it had all come about. “I was interested in contract law. I went to work as a consultant for a firm of sports agents in Atlanta. Then I went with an agency back in Charlotte. A kid from here got in touch with me. A basketball player.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Roman McCandless?
You
worked with Roman McCandless?”

McCandless was the most famous person ever to come out of Halesboro. He was six feet ten inches tall, and some said the best small forward in decades. He was a great player, and Halesboro had renamed a street for him.

Kane allowed himself a crooked grin. “My first client. My agency was going to sell him short. Literally. I told him,
‘Don’t sign. it. You can do better.’ He said, ‘Can you help me?’ And, all of a sudden, I was an agent.”

“And one client led to another?”

“North Carolina produces good roundball players. I got a reputation for treating them right. Then a NASCAR driver asked me to represent him. I branched out.”

“I don’t think anybody here ever knew that you and Roman worked together,” she mused.

“It’s only in the movies that people know the names of sports agents,” Kane said. “Besides, Rome’s family left here. They went to Florida. They’ve both passed on now.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” she said. “But you have NASCAR connections, too? Who?”

“The best known’s probably Kent Grosso.”

“Kent Grosso?” she cried. “The 2007 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion?”

“And Dean Grosso,” he added.

“The
2008
champion?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yeah. Those wins helped pay for the sports car.”

“The sports car,” she said, with a little frown. “I think I ought to talk to you about that. I mean, isn’t it sort of—”

“Over the top? Yeah. That’s why I like it. What? You think it’s ostentatious?”

“Actually, the word that came to mind is
gauche.
But
ostentatious
will do.”

He gave a harsh sigh of frustration. “You’re still sassy. Life hasn’t knocked that out of you.”

She wasn’t so sure. She said nothing.

Clara came to the booth and thudded down two tall glasses of tea, then left.

Kane stared at his but didn’t touch it. He said, “I heard about your mother. I’m sorry.”

She took a deep, painful breath. Her mother had died of a heart attack ten years after Kane left town. There’d been no warning—none. That morning Kitty Simmons had played two sets of tennis. She came home, changed her clothes, sat
down in the living room with the newspaper and died, her pen in hand, the newspaper crossword puzzle half-finished.

“It happened fast,” Lori said. “The doctor said she didn’t suffer. I’m just sorry nobody was with her. I don’t know what happened to your mother after she left here. Is she all right?”

“Brenda? I’ve got no idea where she is or how she is,” he said coldly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said.

“You could hire someone to find her, couldn’t you?”

“Why would I want to?”

Lori nodded and stared at the table top. He’d told her of the fights they had. The vicious things she’d say, her threats.

“Your little sister?” she asked.

“Stacy? Doing well. Very well. We’re in touch.” He paused. “And I read about your brother. In Afghanistan. Sorry.”

She gave him a sharp look. Her brother’s friends had held Kane while A.J. battered and bloodied his face for seeing Lori. He’d helped drive Kane out of Halesboro. How could Kane feel any sympathy for A.J.?

Again Kane showed the old, uncanny ability to read her thoughts. He said, “I’m sorry for
you.
War’s hell.”

“Yes, but he didn’t die in combat,” she said, her jaw tightening. “It was an accident. A stupid accident. A road collision with another armored vehicle. It never should have happened. But Daddy took it hard, and he was already ailing.”

“So Clyde told me.”

“A.J. was supposed to take over the speedway,” she said. “Then he was gone. Daddy asked me to do it. But I wasn’t trained for it like A.J. was.”

“You were teaching,” he said, and she wondered how he knew.

“Right. Trying to make high school kids like literature. I don’t think I competed very well with video games or the Internet.”

“I doubt that.”

She shrugged and they were both silent a moment. She sipped her tea. He still hadn’t touched his glass.

He sat back farther in his seat. “Your marriage to the boy hero didn’t work out.”

So he knew that, too. He must have stayed in touch with somebody in Halesboro, after all. Scott, the “boy hero” had been the homecoming king the year that Kane dropped out. She shook her head sadly. “No. It didn’t work out.”

“You had no kids.” Again, he said it, didn’t ask it.

“No children. It wasn’t meant to be. Probably just as well.” She ran her hand through her hair. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“What?” he asked, leaning his crossed arms on the table in front of him.

“Why you came here,” she said, raising her chin. “Business. I can believe you studied contract law, all right. Your offer’s a good one. I’ll sign it. The speedway will be yours. And it stays a speedway.”

“I agreed to it. It’s in writing.”

She smiled at him in sad puzzlement. “That means you’ll try to save it. And, frankly, I’m not sure it can be saved. I need to tell you that. To be honest.”

“Maybe you underestimate me,” he said.

“Or maybe the time’s come round for the phoenixes to rise out of their ashes,” she said, almost flippantly. “The speedway. McCorkle Castle. It finally sold. Or have you heard that, too?”

“I’ve heard,” he said. “Do you know who bought it?”

“Nobody seems to know.” She looked at him, feeling a sudden chill of apprehension. “I hope it wasn’t
you.
”

He laughed. “What in hell would I do with a castle?”

“Sell tickets for people to see it?” she suggested. “So Halesboro has a tourist attraction besides the track?”

“Sorry,” he said, “I’ve only got one small fortune to gamble. No castle.”

Clara set his plate in front of him. The air was suddenly fragrant with the sizzling beef and the tang of onions and fried
potatoes. Kane looked at Lori. “I wish you’d eat. I invited you here to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said. Or if she was, she couldn’t feel it. Perhaps the day’s events had overloaded her brain, and her sensory system was out of whack. Except concerning Kane. Somehow, she was very aware of Kane, in a sensory and sensuous way.

He still looked good in a T-shirt and jeans. He looked marvelous. All right, he looked sexy. And his voice, after all these years, still did things to her. And so did the way he could look at her.

“You know what?” he said after half a dozen bites. “I’m not hungry, either. Let’s go somewhere more private. You’re right. It’s like being on display here.”

She’d only been half aware of it, but the café had filled up, mostly with people sipping their coffee or tea or soft drink. Most of them furtively watched her and Kane. They recognized him, but he was the other. The one who didn’t belong. They were wary, suspicious. That was the curse of a small town for you.

“More private?” she asked doubtfully. “Where?”

“Let’s go up to your Uncle June’s,” he said.

“The castle? We can’t. I told you, it’s been sold.”

“We’ll sneak onto the grounds like we used to. By the carriage house. Like old times.”

No, no, no,
her mind warned. “These are new times,” she said. “The old times are over.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” he said.

H
E LEFT ENOUGH MONEY
on the table to pay the bill and leave a flamboyantly large tip. He knew he was showing off. But if people wanted to stare at him, he’d give them something to see.