Talk of the Town (15 page)

Rose went suddenly limp, hooked, so to speak, by his forethought. She was running out of logical arguments.

"Harley, honey," she said, taking a new approach, "I just don't feel easy about this. You're so young and—"

"You didn't feel easy the first time I crossed the street alone, or rode the bus to school, or went hiking with Grampa or rode my bike to Tommy's house or climbed a tree or went on a field trip at school or . . . or anything else I've ever done. Why don't you just lock me in my room and throw away the key? Would you be happy then? I can't wait to get out of this damned town. When I turn eighteen I'm gettin' the hell out of here.

And you can't stop me. I'll never come back. Ever. I'll . . . What?"

He had more to say, but stopped when the anger drained from his mother's face and her eyes glazed over as she stared at him.

If she looked absent, she was.
I'm gettin' the hell out of here. And you can't stop me. I'll never come back. Ever.
The words echoed in her mind, coming from a million miles away. But they weren't Harley's words. They were hers. She was fifteen, like Harley. Her father sat across the room from her in a drunken stupor. Blood trickled down her cheek from a gash on her temple. He'd backhanded her across the face—his most frequent gesture of affection—and she'd fallen, hitting her head on the coffee table. She'd run from the room crying, and by the time the pain had stopped and the anger had set in, he'd lapsed into semiconsciousness—her condition of choice for a confrontation. She'd screamed those exact same words at him and was gone before daylight,
years
ago, and yet the bitterness was as deep and fresh as if it happened yesterday.

"What?" he repeated, unfamiliar with this particular mother look.

She sat down at the kitchen table and rubbed her temples with two fingers as if she had a headache. She didn't often act against her instincts, and never did it if Harley started hounding her about something. But the vivid memory of being fifteen in Redgrove, even without a drunken father to contend with, was a powerful argument in his favor.

"Get me the aunt's phone number and let me think about it," she said, defeated.

This small ray of hope was enough for Harley. He grinned and did a little victory dance before he swaggered out of the room, giving Gary a high five as he passed.

Gary approached her with caution. He slid into the chair across the table from her and picked up the clump of fingers she had clutched tightly before her.

"And they say being a garbageman is a rotten job," he said, smiling his understanding when she looked up. "Letting go isn't easy, is it?"

She shook her head. Mother May I? she thought. He had asked and she had given her permission for every baby step he'd ever taken away from her. Now he was asking for giant steps.
Mother, may I leave you? Yes, you may.
She'd been expecting this since the day he was born, preparing for it. How could it be happening so soon? Why did it hurt more than she thought it would?

"He'll be back, Rose. He'll always come back. He loves you."

She looked at him. It wasn't fair that he always seemed to know what she was feeling and thinking. He had no right. He'd be leaving her, too, soon.

"It happens, I guess. Sooner or later. It's supposed to happen," she said, her heart scurrying back into the not-so-solid stronghold she'd built for herself.

And Gary opened the front door and  followed in, seeming not to notice that she'd locked it against him.

"You know what he told me about you once?" he asked, prying her fingers apart so he could hold a hand in each of his. "He said you were the only thing in his life he'd ever been able to count on. You were always there, never too busy for him, always willing to listen. It takes a very mature boy to see that in his mother, and a really good mom to inspire that in her son."

"You think so? He really said that?"

He nodded. "Told me, if I was looking for a good woman, you were the best."

"For crying out loud," she said, pushing his hands away and standing to start their dinner. "I wish he'd stop trying to pawn me off on you,"

He laughed. "And here I thought he was waiting for me to make a cash offer on you. Think he'd take my truck in trade?"

"Probably." She turned to the stove, away from him. Would he want his truck back when it was time for him to go too? Or would he want to trade her soul for something new?

"Rose," he said, unaware that he was being figured into the equation that would leave her with nothing. "It'll work out fine. He's a good kid with an excellent head on his shoulders. He just wants to spread his wings a little and test them out."

"I know what he wants to do," she said, peevish. "Could we, ah, change the subject, do you think? I'm getting a headache thinking about all this."

"All right," he said, leaning back in the chair. "That Arts Council Tea you wanted to go to is next week. I have to go down Wednesday, so I thought I'd stay the weekend and wait for you. We can go together."

"You want to go to an Arts Council Tea?"

"Not really, but I thought afterward we could go out to dinner somewhere nice, stay in a fancy hotel. On the way back I could show you my place in Fairfield, if you'd like to see it."

"That sounds . . . nice. Great, in fact. But you don't have to go to the tea. You'd be bored silly," she said. And Justin was already anti-Gary for the time he was taking away from Rose's sculptures … and the Arts Council. Gary would be like an oil slick in this particular sea of society; he simply wouldn't mix well. He was so down-to-earth, and they were so . . . lofty, high-minded, and complicated. "And I've already promised Justin that I'd have dinner with him afterward. To discuss my work."

When there was no invitation extended to him, he nodded and tried to hide his disappointment . . . and jealousy.

"I'm sorry," she said, feeling terrible but knowing it was for the best. She went back to peeling the potatoes.

"No. That's okay. I understand," he said. "I need to hit on a couple of lobbyists in Sacramento anyway. I'll go ahead and stay the weekend and then bop over to Sacramento for a couple days. That'll be a good time to do it. We can meet back here on Wednesday."

"A week," she said aloud, her hands going still mid-peel. A week was a long time. Gary had been traveling back and forth to San Francisco and Sacramento and Fairfield for the past two months, but they hadn't been apart for more than two or three days at a time—and three days was a strain, though their reunions always alleviated that. Still, maybe a week without him would be good practice for when he was away two weeks. And then three. Then a month. Eventually more.

"A week's a long time" he said, startling her with her own words. "Will you miss me?"

She turned to face him. His knowing smirk didn't bother her one bit.

"Yes. With every inch of me, I'll miss you."

~*~

That said, but having very little effect on the dread of seven whole days apart—Rose accepting it as a dry run for the day he never came back, and Gary tortured with thoughts of Rose spending time with another man —the strain of being apart started immediately.

"I told you when I started that there was a chance I might have to miss a few games on account of business. This'll be the first game I've missed, and Joe Spencer can sub for me."

"But this is the Eureka Eagles game," she said, still miffed that he'd felt compelled to point out that she wasn't following through on her swings during practice. "You know how important it is to beat them this year."

"Look, the team won't be any worse off than it was last year when you took second place. We've already beat the Eagles once. If we lose this game, the worst that could happen is that we'll tie for first."

"That's not good enough. We need to beat them."

"Rosemary, I told you," he said, sighing impatiently. "If I could reschedule, I would. But this is my incinerator we're talking about. The Greenpeace people have agreed to meet with us and listen to our proposal. If we can get their support, and if my people in Sacramento do what they're supposed to do, we can start building by Thanksgiving."

"
You couldn't tell them that Fridays weren't good for you?"

"For crissake, it's one game. The pitcher's been out twice with menstrual cramps, and Lester missed a game because his mother-in-law's car broke down and he had to go pick her up somewhere. What's the big deal?"

"Nothing. Forget it. Miss the game," she said, walking away, dragging her bat.

They won the game that Gary missed. Lost the next two he played in, and took second place to the Eagles at the end of the season. Again.

~*~

"What do you think of this?" she asked, making a grand entrance wearing the dress she'd shopped for all afternoon.

Gary's face lit with approval. It was a simple black sheath dress with spaghetti straps and a short black lace jacket. It was cut low to show a tempting suggestion of her breasts, and high to show off her very shapely legs. With her mother's double strand of faux pearls, she thought the outfit chic, tasteful.

He thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

"I like it," he said, getting to his feet, aching to touch her. "I like it a lot. What's it for?"

"The tea, silly."

"I hate it." He sat down again.

"Why?"

"
You shouldn't wear a dress like that unless you're with your grandfather, your son, or me."

She smiled. "You're not jealous, are you?"

"Of course I am." He was serious.

"Really?"

"Yes, really." He stood again, pacing a little. "What? You think I want my woman running all over San Francisco in a skimpy little dress with some other man? Some guy I've never even met?"

"Your woman?" It wasn't that she minded being his woman as much as she minded the way he said it—as if she were his dog or his horse or his piece of meat.

"Some guy I've never met with more in common with her than baseball and books?" he went on. "Some guy I've never met who owns an art gallery, for crissake?

"I am not your woman."

"What?"

"Well, you make it sound as if you own me. And you don't."

"That's not what I meant. What I meant was—"

"I know what you meant. But you're going to have to trust me. You remember trust, don't you?"

There was nothing worse than falling on your own knife.

He looked away for a second to collect himself.

"I remember trust. But I still wish it were going to be me with you in that dress."

~*~

It was the longest Wednesday-to-Wednesday week Rose could remember. And in the end, she'd wished more than anything that she'd taken Gary with her.

However, that wasn't the first thing she told him when he walked into the diner Wednesday evening, just before closing.

The bells over the front door tinkled his tinkle. They rang fifty or sixty times a day, more on the weekend, and they always sounded the same, except when Gary walked in.

Rose hurried from the kitchen to greet him, stopping short when she saw him. Goodness. How could someone get better looking in a week? He seemed bigger too. His presence dominated everything in the room.

He'd stopped to talk to Floyd Bracken, a highway patrol officer who cruised in regularly to fill his thermos with coffee. He was on what he referred to as the Maytag shift, the loneliest shift in the world, patrolling the bleak stretch of Highway 101 from Eureka to the Oregon coast from nine P.M. to nine A.M. He'd pulled Gary over for a burnt-out brake light one night on his way home from her house. They'd hung out together on the side of the road, talking for hours, and had become good friends.

He smiled at something Floyd said, and Rose went weak with longing. When he glanced her way and his smile brightened to a blinding intensity, her heart wiggled and shimmied like a joyful puppy.

"Hi," he said, saying so much more, with his eyes.

"Hi," she said, agreeing with him totally.

"How are you?" he asked, making it sound like: I need to touch you. Right now. Let me make love to you. Here on the floor in front of God and everyone.

"Fine." Yes, yes!

"How was your trip?" he asked. Which was really: Hurry and finish so we can leave. I can't wait any longer to be alone with you.

"All right. I'll tell you about it later."
Right now I'm in a rush.

If no one noticed the sweltering looks that passed between them or the way their bodies squirmed with excitement when they came within ten feet of each other, they were bound to suspect something was going on when their half-full coffee cups disappeared ten minutes before closing or when Rose stood holding the door open, telling them it was time to close up when the clock on the wall clearly read five minutes to ten. If not at those times, then positively when Gary took them by the arm, smiling and patting them cordially on the back, and all but threw them into the street.

Of course, it was Gladys Ford who reported the next morning that she'd seen Gary's truck streaking away at an incredible speed the night before, and it hadn't returned until after she'd had breakfast.

Still, it was only the two of them who knew that Rose had Gary's shirt open and his fly undone before they pulled onto the dirt road leading to the old farmhouse. He put on the brake and turned off the engine in the front yard, his hands pulling at the buttons on her shirt before the night went silent around them. He pushed her back in the seat, his lips everywhere he could find warm flesh, one hand snaking its way into her blue jeans. She tugged at his khaki slacks, then pushed from the top with both hands pressed to the hot, hot skin of his pelvis.

Their hands groped, their muscles trembled with need. Their breaths mingled in small excited gasps. Finally, when he had but one leg free of her pants, he pulled her forward, lilting her onto his lap and his urgent desire. There was a simultaneous moan of relief and a moment of utter ecstasy before the tiniest movement excited them again. He lifted his head from the back of the seat to suckle first one breast, then the other, dragging one pleasured groan after another from deep in her chest. She held his head close, her fingers fisted in his thick dark hair as she impaled herself again and again, harder and harder, deeper and deeper until the clamor within her exploded in the night, scattering tiny fragments of her in the wind, to float weightless.