The Older Woman (12 page)

Mrs. Bee slowly slid back her chair. “You know, I’m much more tired than I thought. I missed my nap this afternoon, and I think I’ll just wish the two of you goodnight and go on to bed now. Thank you both.”

“Thank

you,
Mrs. Bee,” Doyle said. “I’ve never had a better meal anywhere.”

“I’m glad, Calvin. Oh, the leftovers—”

“We’ll put the leftovers away,” Meehan said.

“All right. If you’re sure you don’t mind. I do hate to see food go to waste—but leave the dishes. I’ll see to those tomorrow.”

Meehan got up with Mrs. Bee, making sure she had her hand there just when Mrs. Bee needed it and walking with her to the back of the house. Doyle sat looking at the table. It was still raining, but gently now, a steady pattering he could hear along the edge of the porch. After a moment, he got to his feet and extinguished the candles. He’d been sitting too long. He’d gotten lost in the good eating and in Mrs. Bee’s sad story of Bud Gaffney—or, more accurately, in Meehan’s reaction to it. It had affected her, just as it had him, maybe because it was Mrs. Bee who was telling it.

Meehan came back. She immediately began to gather up bowls and take them into the kitchen. He carried what he could and followed along after her, neither of them talking as they began the cleanup.

He ran hot water into the sink and squirted in some dish detergent while she scraped plates and brought them to him. At one point his arm brushed hers. He felt it deep, but if she even noticed, it didn’t show—except that she left the room immediately and headed back to the dining room. In a moment the big band music started again, an orchestra playing something with…

What did they call it back then? Bounce? Jump?

It didn’t really matter. This was Bud Gaffney’s party; whatever it was was altogether appropriate.

Meehan returned carrying a few stray spoons and a glass. She put them on the counter next to the sink. Carefully. So she wouldn’t touch him again.

“I’ll do that,” she said of the dish washing.

“No, it’s okay. I can do it,” he said.

“Will you sit down? You’re hurting. You can dry.”

He was hurting, but he hesitated. Old habits died hard, regardless of what he’d said earlier about feeling free to give in to the pain in her presence.

After a moment he dried his hands and moved one of the kitchen chairs closer and sat down. She handed him a dish towel to use, but they didn’t talk. They simply worked on getting the kitchen squared away. Mrs. Bee was one of those cooks who washed the pans as soon as she put the food into the bowls, so it wouldn’t take long.

“How’s your other charity case?” he asked at one point, and he realized the minute he said it that her guard went up, he supposed because she thought that he was making some extremely obscure reference to her former boyfriend.

“Coyote Jane,” he said. “White fur. Low to the ground.”

“She’s fine. What did you mean ‘other’ charity case.”

“I meant me—I thought maybe you had something to do with my getting a Chain of Concern person.”

“I did,” she said, glancing at him. “You’ve got too much time on your hands.”

“Well, you’ve got me there,” he said. He picked up another wet plate and began to dry it. “How mad do you think Mrs. Bee is going to be?” he asked to keep the conversation going. “Because you washed the dishes.”

“She’s not going to be mad at
me,
” Meehan said. “I’m going to tell her
you
did it.”

He laughed. “Oh, thanks. She’ll believe you, too.”

The

conversation

immediately lagged, and he never was one to leave well enough alone.

“So, have you ever been married?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said without looking at him.

Yes.

He didn’t see how she couldn’t have been at some point—she was pretty and smart—but he still wasn’t all that happy to hear it.

“What

happened?”

“He

divorced

me.”

“What, is he crazy?” he said in all seriousness. He finished drying a dinner plate, and when he looked up, she had stopped washing dishes.

“One of us was,” she said after a moment.

“What

happened?”

“Nothing much,” she said, putting the silverware into the sink, and for once, he didn’t sense her internal struggle not to answer him. “I met him when I was in nursing school—he was a med student—a good one. We got married right after I graduated. We eloped—he said it would be better if his family heard about the marriage after the fact. It wasn’t better. His father was very upset and threatened all kinds of financial repercussions. But he said his family would get used to the idea, and he asked me to come back here and wait while he got it all straightened out. I didn’t have a job yet, so I did. While I was waiting, I was served with divorce papers—sued for divorce on the grounds of abandonment. And that, as they say, was that.”

Doyle didn’t say anything, and she went back to washing spoons and forks. They finished the rest of the dishes in silence.

He handed her the dish towel and got to his feet. “Meehan—”

“I’m going to check the dining room,” she said, stepping around him.

He thought that she’d already done that, but he didn’t say so. He followed her as far as the dim hallway and stood waiting for her to come back. She wasn’t gone long. The big band music changed to something slow and sad by the time she walked into the hallway again. She obviously didn’t expect to see him there.

“So,” he said. “You want to dance?”

“Sure.

Who

with?”

“
Me.
Are you trying to hurt my feelings here or what?”

“Oh, sorry. When I think of dancing, somehow you don’t automatically spring to mind.”

“I can dance. This kind of dancing anyway. Let me show you…”

He propped his cane against the wall, then took her by the hand and had her in dance position before she could protest. She wasn’t exactly relaxed, but she wasn’t exactly resisting. He was encouraged enough to go on with it.

A cool, rain-driven breeze came in through the front screen door, making the hallway perfect for this kind of thing—whatever this kind of thing might be.

The melancholy music swirled around them.

“I’ll Be Seeing You.”

The song sounded as if the recording had been done in a stairwell, and the echo quality made it seem even more lonely. He was getting the emotion behind it loud and clear. The guy was gone; the girl singer was miserable, in the same way Mrs. Bee must have been miserable.

Meehan’s hand relaxed in his. He couldn’t believe she was putting up with this. He got a whiff of the perfume she wore. He couldn’t identify it exactly; maybe it was some kind of flowers, maybe not.

But she smelled so good! Her hair, her skin. He didn’t dare bring her any closer, but, man, he wanted to. He wanted her head on his shoulder. He wanted to feel her body pressed against his. He swayed her gently to the music. Every now and then he even moved his feet. People passing on the street could probably see them. He wondered if Mrs. Bee and Bud Gaffney had ever danced like this. Incredible. After all this time she still missed the guy.

“She’s so sad tonight,” Meehan said, as if she had been thinking of Mrs. Bee, too.

“Yeah. But it’s not what you think. It’s just a scar.”

“Just a scar. I don’t know what that means.”

“It means scars can hurt sometimes—if you hit them hard enough—but they’re not the wound. That’s healed.”

“Are we talking about your surgery or Rita?”

“Both,” he said easily. “And maybe your ex-husband. I care about Rita. I always will. If she ever came to me for help, I’d help her. But she’s a scar, just like the scars on my legs. Scars don’t keep me from dancing—if I try hard enough—or you, either. See?”

She didn’t answer him; she looked up at him. Even in the dim light he could see her beautiful eyes. The song ended, but he didn’t immediately let her go.

She was still looking at him. He could kiss her now, he thought. He could kiss her, and she’d let him do it.

He leaned down. His hand slid to the center of her back.

Kate.

“Kate?” someone said at the screen door, and she immediately stepped away. He looked around to see. It was the sister—Scottie’s mother.

“Kate,” the sister said again. “I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”

“I have to go,” Meehan said, slipping past him. She walked quickly to the screen door, but she looked back at him once before she disappeared into the rainy summer night.

Chapter Seven

N
ow what?

He didn’t sleep much. His legs hurt, and he kept thinking about Meehan. Kate.

Not Katherine. Not Katie.

Kate.

The woman who was getting to him regardless of the fact that it was all wrong, and it was about as mismatched as it could get, and it was the kind of deal that could end up with good old Bugs Doyle getting left in the proverbial dirt.

But he was nothing if not a realist, and there was something going on here. He felt it every time he looked into her eyes, every time he got within ten feet of her. He had felt it when they danced. He could still feel it. He was willing to admit that when it came to women, he had had more than one occasion of being terminally dense—but this wasn’t one of them. He was
not
wrong about it. Which brought him back to his original question.

Now

what?

Mrs. Bee seemed to be her usual chipper self today. She’d gone someplace several times in Thelma and Louise, and she’d even had the energy to get after him for ignoring her orders about leaving the dirty dishes. Even so, he made a point of hanging around downstairs in the Bee Library. Mrs. Bee came through a time or two—she even stopped to chat, but she made no mention of Meehan. He had no idea what kind of work schedule Meehan was on now, but it was clear to him that he was just going to have to

“hunt the hill,” and that’s all there was to it.

“Mrs. Bee, have you seen Meehan today?” he asked when she was dusting the little china dogs on the mantel.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Bee said without missing a dog.

But that was all she said.

“You’ve…known her a long time, I guess.”

“A long time,” she agreed, still dusting. “That was her parents’ house next door. Mr. Bee and I were living here when the family moved in. There were four girls. Let’s see now. Katie and Arley—Arley’s the youngest. And Gwen—she’s older than they are. And Grace—she’s the oldest. Katie is the one who looks after everybody. Grace is the bossy one. Gwen is the timid one. Arley is the handful.”

“Which one belongs to Scottie?”

“Arley.”

Figures, Doyle thought, his earlier, “poor old Scottie” opinion now reaffirmed.

“What about Meehan’s ex-husband?” he asked, getting to the point of the conversation. “Did you know him?”

“Oh, my, no,” Mrs. Bee said. “I don’t think I would have wanted to. Katie doesn’t talk about him to anyone, and I would never ask.”

Unlike some people he could name.

A car horn honked in the driveway.

“That’s Lula Mae,” Mrs. Bee said. “I’ll be at the church until I don’t know when. If you leave, will you lock the house, Calvin?”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Bee.”

“And,

Calvin?”

“Yeah, Mrs. Bee?”

He waited for her to say something—she obviously wanted to—but she sighed instead.

“You’re a good boy, Calvin,” she said, hurrying away.

He stood for a moment, thinking.

Meehan didn’t talk about the ex-husband to anyone—but she’d told him. Of course, he’d asked about it, but she didn’t have to oblige. And she’d danced with him. She might have even done more if the sister—Arley—hadn’t crashed the party. There had to be a next logical step to take here—only he had no idea what it was.

He decided to go outside to see if Meehan was right, if nothing else. Maybe he was getting around better.

Mrs. Bee hadn’t put Thelma and Louise back into the shed after her final run. The vintage car sat in the driveway, mud-spattered from last night’s rain. He stood on the porch for a moment, then went back inside and into the kitchen. It didn’t take him long to locate Mrs. Bee’s all-purpose enamel bucket and some clean rags in the pantry. The least he could do was spiff up her car a little. It would give him something to do to pass the time—right where he could see Meehan if she came back.

It took him a while to get the garden hose out of the tomato patch and dragged to the car, but he managed eventually. The car was mostly in the shade, which was a good thing. It was hot outside. Somebody close by was playing the radio—a country-western station, which suited him just fine.

He worked slowly and methodically at rinsing the mud off the fenders, trying to keep his mind on the job and not on anything else, singing along with the radio whenever anything caught his fancy. At one point he took off his T-shirt—and heard a small gasp.

He looked around. Three women stood at the edge of Meehan’s backyard—

huddled together—staring. He had the sudden sense that the only thing missing was the cauldron. He’d never seen such an array of facial expressions—one annoyed, one worried and one very appreciative of his buff bare chest.

He didn’t see any cars in the drive—he could only assume that they had either arrived by broom or they had parked on the street. And, big sunglasses or not, he recognized one of them—the handful, Arley.

The women immediately got busy looking busy. He nodded in their direction, but he didn’t say anything, and neither did they. He went back to washing Mrs. Bee’s car.

Apparently, women, no matter what age they were, had no idea how well a man could hear—when he wanted to.

“Is that him?” one of them whispered.

“Yes,”

someone—Arley—answered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ve seen him more than once, you know.”

“How old do you think he is?”

“Well, how should I know? I didn’t ask him—and I sure didn’t ask Kate.”

“What happened to him?”

“Helicopter

crash,

she
said.”

“Are you sure he and Kate were—”

“I’m

sure!”