Samson and Sunset (3 page)

  I asked Shay to excuse me for a second
and went over and asked Rick if he’d decided on the surgery. He
said yes he had. Shay walked over to a table where five or six
couples were having dinner and drinking, and then—girls, girls
everywhere! They were coming up to the table, out of the
woodwork.

  “Hi Shay, want to dance?”

  “Shay, Shay, can I get you a
drink?”

  “Looking good tonight, Shay…”

  Sick. Why do girls act like that? As I
reached the table, a handsome, stately, dark-haired man sitting
next to a very pretty older woman verbally dressed me down in front
of everyone:

  “How dare you go over and talk to
another guy when you’re with my son? We won’t tolerate that
behavior. Shay deserves better. So, young lady, I’d see that it
never happens again!”

  I stood there for a second, stunned.
He then turned and told Shay to get two more chairs. While he did
that, I regrouped.

  “Mister,” I said. “I don’t know who
you are and I don’t give a rat’s ass, but you get this clear, and
watch my mouth as I’m saying it: I am not your son’s date. I am not
your son’s friend, and after meeting your son’s father, I never
want to see your son again. So he doesn’t have to find two chairs.
I wouldn’t break bread at the same table as you. Shay, you owe me a
ride to my car.”

  I turned on my heel and walked out the
door. It didn’t take long for Shay to follow me out. He unlocked my
side of the car and held the door as I got in. The first mile of
the ride was silent.

  Then he said, “Guess I’m not the only
one you use that smart mouth on.”

  Silence.

  Finally I said, “I think your dad was
out of line.”

  “Well, he’s not used to girls not
giving his son their undivided attention.” Shay chuckled. “But,
I’ll give you this; I don’t think anyone has ever taken him to the
mat like you just did. You know, you kind of earned my respect, the
way you took care of yourself back there.”

  I told him not to be impressed. I was
in no way brave. There were oh, so many things that frightened
me.

  “Such as…?”

  “Well, I would never fly. I don’t use
elevators; always take the stairs. Don’t go in water unless it’s a
pool. I don't like speed. Tornadoes terrify me. Being away from
home and my parents very long makes me sick, just plain
homesick…”

  “Gee whiz, is there anything else? How
do you exist, woman? And by the way, what
is
your name?”

  I finally told him as we reached my
car.

  “You know, we have a lake,” he said as
he helped me out of his car. “We water ski every Sunday using wet
suits…Oh wait, don’t tell me, you’re afraid of boats and skiing
too!”

  I gave him a dark look.

  “Well, you should just come and
sunbathe and hang out.”

  “Funny you brought it up,” I said.
“Susie already asked me to go there. She likes you,” I added. “So
don't go hurting her.”

  ***

Saturday night Shay called me and said they
weren’t taking the boat out on Sunday after all.

  “Okay, thank you,” I said and hung
up.

  He called right back. “What’s your
problem? You know what, smart mouth, would you like to go to a
movie Sunday night?

  I was quiet for a second. “Maybe.
Which one?”

  “Well it will have to be a late one. I
usually can’t get to town until 9 p.m. or later…”

  I told him I’d find a late movie.
Address exchange, etc.

  Sunday evening, 9 p.m. came and went.
At 10 p.m. the phone rang.

  “I was wondering, since I just got in
and have to shower yet, did you still want to go out?”

  Long silence.

  “I am dressed and ready to go,” I
said. “If you don’t come tonight, never ever call this number
again.”

  Short silence.

  “I’ll be in as soon as I can.”

  As I hung up the phone my mom came in
from the kitchen. “Weren’t you a little hard on him?”

  “You don’t know this guy, Mom. He’s so
into himself. And you can bet all he wants is sex, and is he in for
a shock. I am never doing
that
again. I didn’t even like it.
In fact, I think I hated it!”

  All I’d gotten from dear old Dane was
Wham Bam, without the Thank You Ma’am. No gentleness, no foreplay,
no letting me get to a point where I felt like I might want to go a
little further on my own.

  Shay picked me up at 11 p.m. “It’s too
late for a movie,” I said as we drove toward downtown. “Now
what?”

  “Well, we can go to the club and have
a drink.”

  “Last time I’m telling you, I don’t
drink. Now that just must ruin your big plans, because, once again,
if you’re taking me out for sex, take me home. It’s just not
happening for you.”

  Shay pulled the car over to the curb
real fast and hit the breaks. I thought he was going to tell me to
get out and walk, but instead he just sat there. Then he turned to
me and said:

  “Do you think you’re just a sex
object?”

  I stared at him.

  “Because if I wanted to get laid
tonight—and what guy doesn’t—believe me, there are any number of
sure things I could have called. I don’t think you’re loosey goosey
just because you have a child, and even though I think I like you,
and you do sort of fascinate me, you don’t turn me on that much.
But I do like your company, so can we just find some stable ground
to meet on?”

  I blinked.

  “And another thing. I don't like guys
like Dane Dalton, so please don’t ever mention his name to me. I
will not call you Kathrine Dalton. I’ll call you Kathrine Mitchell.
Even though you seem more like a Callie to me.”

  Long pause.

  “Did you do your homework on me or
what? How do you know all this?”

  “I talked to Susie. Now there you have
it. Shall we go to the club? They do serve pop and tea ya
know.”

  “Well, okay then,” I said, kind of
stunned.

  ***

The next two weeks were a blur. We went out
every single night—movies, dancing, dinner, taking a blanket to the
park and just lying on the grass and looking at the stars. All this
time in my safe little world, he didn’t even hold my hand. Now,
wait just a minute—maybe I’m not desirable!

  One day Shay called and told me his
parents were leaving on the Amtrak to go see his grandmother in
California. They would be gone two weeks, and he would be
ramrodding the whole Westover operation. Some of his friends wanted
to water ski that Sunday—with wet suits, since it was winter. He
said he’d come and get me. I said okay.

  He picked me up that Sunday as
planned, and we got to the lake about 1 p.m. There was plenty of
beer flowing, which made me uneasy. Deep water and booze—didn’t
seem like a good combination to me. Around 3:30 Shay and his best
friend Kevin went on a beer run. I wanted to lie on the blanket and
sunbathe. Just as they were returning, there was a huge thud out on
the water. Kevin’s girlfriend, Karen, was waterskiing, and had
fallen. The stupid idiot driving the boat, drunk, had whirled the
boat around too sharply and hit her.

  Someone got her out real fast and
Kevin and Shay jumped out of the car. Karen couldn’t breath and
said she thought she was hit in the throat. Kevin carried her to
Shay’s car, Shay grabbed my arm, threw me in the front seat and we
were off to the nearest hospital. Kevin was saying, “Hurry, Shay,
hurry!” Five miles of loose gravel road. We must have been going 80
miles per hour, then we hit the two-lane highway 34 and I looked
over and Shay’s speedometer read 110.

  “Well, this is where I get off,” I
said, feeling faint. “Let me out. I told you I can’t handle speed.”
I panicked and began fumbling with the door handle. “Let me out! I
need to get out!”

  Poor Shay, he was holding me down with
one arm and keeping control of the car at the same time. We had
three patrol cars with sirens blaring behind us as we crossed the
overpass. Shay never slowed except for a few corners, coming up
under the emergency room entrance. He stopped the car, jumped out,
ran in, and help came running out immediately. We were all still in
our swimsuits.

  The officers got out, walked up and
said, “Just wondered what your hurry was, son. That was some
driving.”

  Shay gave them a quick, respectful
nod, then turned around and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Don’t you
ever try to jump from a moving car again, do you understand me? You
would have been killed. I was responsible for Karen. It was my boat
and my lake. I’m also responsible for you when you’re with me.”

  He was very upset. I nodded,
shaken.

  Well, it turned out Karen was okay, so
Shay settled down pretty fast, but I was still in shock. I told him
I wanted to go home.

  “We’ll go back and put the boat away
first. I have to check on everyone’s chores and then I’ll take you
home.”

  I noticed the water was a little
higher when we got to the boat. The water was touching my blanket
where I’d left it on the beach. No one said anything, but I saw
Shay and his friends exchange glances. The water was rising.

  A Day’s Work For A Day’s Food

  We took the boat to the grounds and
put it in the storage building. Anywhere else, this would have been
called a ranch, but in Nebraska, they were called farm
homesteads.

  The Westovers lived large. They had a
big house, a circle drive, several smaller houses on the property,
the workers’ houses, the bunkhouse, machinery buildings, a
helicopter hangar and take-off pad, a seasonal pool and tennis
court, the lake—big enough to ski on. Livestock barns, a milking
barn, horse barns, corrals, lots and lots of land surrounded by
lots and lots of water, fields, cattle and corn (lots of corn.)

  Most of the land south of Hudson, when
you exited off Highway 34, belonged to the Westovers. You drove
about five miles down the gravel road toward the river and turned
right at the fourth corner road. Then after about a mile and a half
you came to a black and gray cobblestone circle drive. If you
wanted to go to the Big House (sounds like jail, but that’s what
they called the main house,) you turned into the circle drive; if
you wanted to go on to the farmstead, you went straight.

  Turning into the circle drive was
magnificent. Lush green grass, beautiful flowers, elms, poplars and
old oaks surrounded the house, which was white with black shutters,
white pillars and ornate black double doors. A fountain centered
the grassy circle drive and several stone benches scattered the
grounds. Turn-of-the-century lampposts lined the walkway. I’d lived
in Hudson all my life and never known a place like this
existed.

  Shay told me to go on inside and
Rosie, their cook, would be inside.

  “Call her Cookie,” he said. “Everybody
does. Tell Cookie what you want for dinner and tell her I want my
usual.”

  I flashed him a
don’t-tell-me-what-to-do look and walked towards the house. As I
pushed open the beautiful scrolled double doors, my eyes widened
and time seemed to slow. I felt like I was stepping into another
dimension. Who lived like this?

  “Cookie, oh Cookie…” I called through
the house as I stepped into the grand entrance hall. Didn’t want to
scare the poor gal, coming up on a stranger in the house.

  I just had to stop in my tracks, my
feet sinking into the plush Persian rug. A giant crystal chandelier
hung from the ceiling in the center of the room, directly over a
round cherry wood table, on which stood a large glass vase of
lavish flowers. Two ornate cherry wood banisters circled upward,
mirroring one another, to an upper landing, where you could stand
and look down on everything.

  There were velvet benches, cherry-wood
tables with matching gold mirrors, gold-leaf accents everywhere,
glinting; a high, coffered, ivory ceiling. I felt like I had
stepped into a fairytale. Any minute now a princess would be
running down those stairs in glittering diamonds and rustling silk,
late for a ball.
Gone With The Wind
had nothing on this
place.

  After a while I pulled myself away
from gawking at the gilded room (I was glad I’d been alone my first
time seeing it all, it would have been hard to keep from staring
shamelessly at everything.) I found Cookie in the kitchen,
introduced myself and delivered Shay’s dinner request.

  “Don’t you want anything, honey?” she
asked. She had a kind, round face, with dark brown hair.

  “Oh, no thanks,” I said, “I’m going
home to eat with my family.”

  ***

Shay came in around 9 p.m. I had been reading
a book I’d found on the coffee table. He went over and flipped a
switch that started playing real sweet music through the house.

  “I have to take a shower,” he said,
and off he went.

  When he came back to the den, he asked
if Cookie had left dinner.

  “Yours is in the oven, I’m going home
to eat.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that.” He
sat down on the sofa opposite me. “Things are starting to look a
little rough out there.”

  “What do you mean, ‘rough’?”

  Just then the phone rang, four fast
rings. Shay answered and talked for a few minutes, asking questions
in a serious-sounding voice.

  “Okay, we’ll be alright. We’ll start
sandbagging tonight.” He hung up. “Callie,” he turned to me, “the
rivers are out of their banks and over the roads. We can’t get out
tonight.”

  “What?” I jumped up. “No! I have to go
home! Take me home right now, I can’t stay away from Kelly!”

  “Well, princess, this time you’re not
getting your way. There is no way to get out on those roads unless
you want to wash away.”

  I started sobbing like a baby. Shay
came over and put his arms around me. “I’m sorry, really I am. But
I’m responsible for you when you’re with me, and I will not let you
do anything that will endanger your life.”