Down Home Dixie (19 page)

“Something like that.” Dixie tried to recall exactly what Kyle had said. She had a lot of things on her mind, the most upsetting of which was Lana's refusal to buy a house that was ideal for her. It was downright depressing, and she was in the mood for a hot bath, a glass of wine and Kyle, though not in that order. She probably wanted Kyle and his easy sense of humor most. He was the only one who was capable of raising her out of the funk she was in.

“Kyle said to tell you he had a horse emergency somewhere he hasn't been before. A town called Sumner? Is that right?”

“Sumter. Did he say when he'd be back?”

“No, he didn't. This may be a little presumptuous—”

Since when did that ever stop you?

“—but I believe he's totally in love with you.” Andrea seemed resigned.

Dixie took heart from her words. “That's good. I mean, I care about him, too.” Another understatement, but she wasn't about to elaborate. This was Kyle's ex-girlfriend she was talking to, for heaven's sake.

Andrea managed a brief smile. She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “I'm willing to accept that Kyle and I aren't right for each other. It's sad, but not so sad that I can't move on.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” Dixie said with the utmost sincerity. She wondered if Andrea was faking the brave smile.

Maybe not, because Andrea's next words indicated that she had another interest. A very peculiar interest, considering the diverse backgrounds of the two people involved.

Andrea leaned forward in her chair. “Dixie, I enjoyed the time I spent with Milo. He, well, he really listened to me.”

It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

Andrea knotted her forehead. Then she blurted, “Does he like going to the theater?”

Taken by surprise, Dixie was hard put to answer. “I'm not sure. He was in the Yewville Community Theater group when he was a kid.” Andrea brightened, so Dixie kept talking. “That tells you that Milo is certainly interested in theater. Why, he played, oh, let me think. A prince, in one play, a raccoon in another. Milo was a great raccoon, positively brilliant.” At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, she clamped her mouth shut.

“That's a positive sign. Excuse me for asking your advice, Dixie, but Milo said the two of you were good friends a long time ago.”

“It's okay,” she said.
I'm going to throw up,
she thought.

“Do you think Milo would come to visit me in Ohio? I'd like him to be my escort for the last community-theater play of the season. I mean, I won't ask him if there isn't a good chance that he'll accept.”

“Go for it,” Dixie said.

“Oh, Dixie, thanks. You've been such a big help.” Andrea beamed, and even though her eyes were watery and her nose resembled something a clown would wear, she was halfway pretty again.

It was time to leave before she and Andrea joined hands and started singing “Kumbayah.” She stood up, and Andrea's bathrobe pocket rang.

Andrea extracted her cell phone from its nest of multiple crumpled tissues. She glanced at the caller ID and mouthed the word
Milo
before Dixie fled the room.

When Dixie was on the way out of the house, Andrea, still on the phone, waved a silent goodbye. “Ask Kyle to phone me at my grandmother's,” she told Andrea, and Andrea nodded.

Dixie drove to Memaw's through the rapidly falling dusk, wishing she'd been a little more conciliatory with Kyle that morning. It didn't feel right to be on the outs with him. She'd skipped their morning goodbye kiss for the first time ever because she'd been mad at him. Since she'd left that morning, Voncille's words had been scrolling through her mind like the crawl line at the bottom of a TV screen: “Skeeter and I make it a point never to go to bed angry. We always reconcile before we go to sleep.”

Dixie was determined to make up with Kyle before bedtime. They'd kiss and hug and reclaim the happiness that always accompanied their being together. It suddenly struck her that this might not be so easy given that there was no chance on God's green earth that the two of them would be sharing a bedroom in her grandmother's house. Still, she could ask.

 

“O
F COURSE
I'
M
SUPPOSED
to be a prude,” Memaw said. Dixie and Memaw were working together in the kitchen cutting up vegetables for stew. “My generation was brought up to be circumspect.”

“I gathered,” Dixie said, suppressing a wistful sigh and wishing she hadn't posed the question about sleeping with Kyle so bluntly.

Memaw kept talking as if she hadn't heard. “My mother would have been scandalized if I'd so much as suggested that I was sleeping with your grandfather before we were married.”

Dixie was certain she hadn't heard correctly. “You were what?”

“Sleeping together,” Memaw said blithely, tossing several chunks of celery into the pot. “I haven't told a soul until now. You should be ashamed of yourself, Dixie, for prying it out of me.” Memaw's eyes twinkled mischievously.

“I didn't pry!” Dixie protested in amazement, regarding Memaw in a whole new light. “I only asked if you'd mind if Kyle and I did.”

“Do you think I haven't figured out what's going on between you two? It's as plain as the noses on your faces that you're madly in love with each other. I'm okay with that, it's just that he's a Yan—”

“Don't say it,” Dixie interrupted. “You said you could get over his being a Yankee.”

“I'm working on it. Getting back to your grandfather and me. You should have known him in his younger days, Dixie. He was a rake and a scoundrel, leaving broken hearts in his wake like withered stalks in a harvested field. Then he visited my church and our eyes met over our hymnals while the congregation was singing “Amazing Grace.” After the service, he asked me if my name was Grace, and I said yes. And he told me that he'd known it all along because I was amazing. Lordy, what a corny thing for him to say, but I sure did love him for it.”

“Your name is Frances,” Dixie said.

Memaw chuckled. “I lied. Your granddaddy took me for a ride in his car that evening, and soon we were meeting every night. He'd take me to an old tenant cabin on his family farm where he'd set up a bed and kept white lightning in the cupboard.”

Dixie was floored. “You and Granddaddy drank
moonshine
together?”

“Oh, sure. His papa made it. The white lightning gave me the courage to go through with my decision to make love with him, and guess what? Your daddy was the result. Everyone said I was a beautiful bride, and nobody said one mean word about your father being born seven months after the wedding. I was twenty-one years old and never regretted not waiting for marriage. You shouldn't, either, sweetie.” Memaw clapped the cover on the stew pot and turned down the heat on the burner.

Dixie, still openmouthed in astonishment, followed her grandmother into the living room. “I, um, guess I'll take my things up to the guest room,” she stammered, completely unhinged by the tale she'd been told.

“Go right ahead. Oh, here comes Bubba, and he's brought somebody with him. It's been a while since I've seen that boy. He used to drop in all the time to say hello and find out if I'd baked anything lately, and now I hear he and his wife are expecting a young one. People do get married and have children later these days. Must be because everyone uses those condiments.”

“You mean condoms,” Dixie said, suppressing a giggle.

“Condoms. I hope you and Kyle do.”

“Mmm,” Dixie said. She wasn't about to discuss this with Memaw.

At the top of the stairs, Dixie turned for one last perplexed glance at her grandmother. Memaw Frances was as cool as they come, fluffing her perfectly coiffed white hair and straightening her apron before she greeted her guests.

Dixie continued into the guest room, closed the door and indulged in one good long bout of silent, hysterical laughter. When she finished, tears were streaming down her cheeks and she had to splash her face with cool water before she could welcome Bubba.

Her own grandmother a wild young woman? Drinking moonshine and sneaking around to indulge in illicit sex? It was almost more than a body could stand.

 

A
S TWILIGHT SETTLED IN
, Kyle drove home from Sumter with the morning's disagreement with Dixie fresh in his mind. Worst of all, he believed everything was his fault. Maybe that wasn't fair. Andrea hadn't caught a cold on purpose, and she seemed okay about their breakup now. When he'd brought her the throat spray, she'd interrogated him relentlessly about Milo. Kyle had stated that he really didn't know the guy, but if Dixie liked him, that meant he was okay.

He had little patience for Andrea's grilling when he was concerned about the way things were going with Dixie. He realized that he should have apologized to her for his abruptness that morning before she went to work. He should have made sure they kissed goodbye. She wasn't exactly angry with him. But she was miffed. Upset. And life was too short to let that sort of thing interfere with their lives.

Hell, they'd never even discussed their relationship except in, well,
excerpts
. Dixie had made it clear that this rankled, and such a talk was overdue. Now he resolved to initiate it. Maybe it was even time to spring for the engagement ring. He liked the idea of watching it sparkle on her finger, and he grinned to himself. He enjoyed making her happy.

His mind ranged over the past few weeks, yearning for the warm aura of acceptance surrounding Dixie and wanting her certainty and contentment. Dixie's relatives were always lively, sometimes amusing and a real treat for someone who had no extended family whatsoever. By now he couldn't imagine living in a house that didn't contain Dixie. When he was away from her, it was as if an important part of him was missing. All day, knowing that she wasn't in a good mood, he'd felt as if something had been gnawing on his heart. Like Twinkle chewing his pants legs or his shoes, which the Yorkie had savaged more than once.

Kyle didn't like that feeling at all. He preferred the pleasure of coming home to Dixie and being welcomed with open arms. He cherished their nights in bed when they turned to each other in the dark and held each other tight, and he was captivated by how she sometimes murmured his name in her sleep. She was the strong independent woman he'd always wanted, but she made it clear that she depended on him, as well. He appreciated her cooking and her ambition, and he admired her churchgoing habits. His life since he'd met her had been filled with kisses, with laughter, with lovemaking. They'd built something warm and solid between them. He had grown as a result of knowing her, and he never cared to go back to the emptiness of his old life. For his own sake, he needed to tell Dixie all of that. Soon.

He punched the radio tuner to WYEW and listened idly to Kenny Rogers singing “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?” A few sprinkles from the sky turned into a steady rainfall, and he switched on the windshield wipers. Their steady swish seemed to speak the name that had become so dear…
Dix-ie, Dix-ie, Dix-ie.
She was the most important person in his life now, maybe for all time.

The song on the radio ended, and the deejay cleared his throat. He proceeded to read a news flash.

“The county sheriff's office has issued a bulletin about an accident on the Allentown Road near Lyndale Crossroads. All drivers are urged to avoid the intersection due to a collision that has blocked the passage of vehicles until the road can be cleared.” There was more, but Kyle didn't hear it.

He was driving on the Allentown Road, and if his memory was correct, the highway crossing it up ahead was in the small hamlet called Lyndale. He might be approaching that accident, and he'd needed to find an alternate route. He recalled a narrow cutoff that followed a power-line easement, and he believed it circled around and reentered the Allentown Road not far from Dixie's grandmother's house.

Sure enough, as he rounded the curve, he spotted the Day-Glo vest of a deputy who was redirecting traffic at an intersection. There was one truck ahead of him, and it was full of unsettled chickens on their way to market. He was paying more attention to the plight of the chickens than to the accident, the view of which was blocked by the trunks of several big trees.

The deputy, looking at his truck, signaled him to pull over. Kyle rolled down his window.

“You the coroner?” the deputy asked.

His truck had been mistaken for a coroner's van before. “No, I'm not.” He gestured toward the wreck. “How's it going?”

The deputy, a dour, long-faced fellow, shook his head. “It's a bad one. A tanker truck skidded on the curve and hit a convertible.”

“Survivors?”

The deputy shrugged. “Can't say. Detour to your left, please.”

Kyle swiveled his head in the direction of the accident as he made the turn. All he saw was a mangled mass of debris. He couldn't make out shapes, but then maybe there weren't any left. The scene was illuminated by flashing red and blue emergency lights and the shouts of rescue workers. He spared a thought for the accident victims' loved ones who would be waiting at home unaware that wives or husbands or children wouldn't be there for dinner.