Home Is Where Your Boots Are (4 page)

Thirty minutes later I was still trying to calm my racing thoughts and jangled nerves when Tally burst through the door to my inner office and flung herself into one of the antique chairs Mama had found on one of her buying trips. I winced as those famously long legs with their thirty-six inch inseam to match her thirty-six inch bust settled over the arm of the too expensive chair.

“
What
in the hell was Cash Stetson doin’ in your office,” she said, her drawl laid on extra thick for drama’s sake. “Please Lord
,
don’t tell me that you’ve only been in town a week and y’all are at each other aga
in?
Y’
all are like two cats in a sack,
either scratchin’ at each other or scratchin’ each other’s itch.” Although Tally had always had a flair for the dramatic, her depiction was not too far off from reality. Cash and I had a tumultuous history
,
and Brooks still liked to reminisce about our many public displays of affectionate animosity.

Tally’s eyes, clear as a Tulsa sky (isn’t that another country song, Lord help me) flashed as she leaned forward, “So, tell me, Sissy,” referring to her childhood nickname for me, “Was there blood?”  I laughed. Lord knows how hard it was not to love my little sister, hard as it was to put up with her.

Tally l
oved Cash as much as I once had,
in a different sort of way. Cash was the brother Tally never had; and they understood each other in ways that Cash and I never could. They both liked keeping secrets, and both had the ability to make you love them, even while they were wreaking havoc.

“No,” I addressed her, “as much as you’d like to imagine us back to clawing at each other
again,
we weren’t.”
She eyed me skeptically with all the authority of the older sister she wasn’t.

“I can’t think of a time when y’all have been in the same room for more than five minutes and you haven’t been scratchin’ at each other. I’m gonna ask you one more time. What in the hell was Cash Stetson doing in your office?” Not to be intimidated, I met her stare.

“How do you know he was here for more than five minutes?” I countered. Not to be deterred, she shot me one eye under a raised brow.

“I was watching from Daddy’s office. You’re lucky Mama went to have her hair done or she’d have seen the show too
,
and Lord knows you’d be getting the
third degree from her by now as well
.” She fixed me with the unwavering look that had made her famous. “For the third and final time, quit stallin’ on me.
What
was Cash Stetson doin’ in your office?” I took a deep breath, looked from my window to Tally and said words I never thought I’d say in reference to the boy who’d been a stick in my romantic craw since the day we’d met thirteen years ago.

“He needs my help.”

“You’ve got to be shittin’ me. Please tell me you’re shittin’ me. You’re not a divorce lawyer. You do real estate transactions and wills and like, like, paperwork,”
Fae Lynn,
my skinny childhood best friend bellowed, dropping the bite of chicken fried steak she’d been ready to eat. The fork clattered to the floor
,
and I retrieved it, waving to the waitress for a new one. After the Cash incident, Tally had insisted my blood sugar was low, causing me to make decisions I wouldn’t normally make.
We’d headed across the street to Jerry’s
, an extra greasy spoon. I was currently surveying the mess of French fried sweet potatoes and ribs on my plate.

“That’s what I said,” Tally added, waving her ketchup-dripping fry in the air, slinging the condiment, “Not the
‘
you’re shittin’ me’ part, but the divorce lawyer part.”

I smiled at Fae Lynn and said more calmly than I felt.

“I assure you I shit you not, and I’ve studied family law as well, which includes divorce proceedings. I’m a little rusty, but we lawyers love research.” I waved my long fingers blandly
.
She regarded me with the same skepticism Tally had earlier, and her own added wariness.

“Lilly, you’re vehemently opposed to divorce, you wrote your senior thesis on the theory of how divorce mediation can turn into marriage counseling. Pl
ease tell me you didn’t say yes?
Agh
…
You did. When are you going to learn with him?” She turned to Tally before I could answer in the negative and tell her I’d only promised him to think about it. “This is senior year all over again. I swear, it’s the jackass and the dumbass all over again.”

I was the dumbass, in case you were confused.

“Him saying ‘I miss you, come visit,’ her running to Tulsa, him forgettin’ to call,
her cryin
.’
Do Lizzie and Nonnie know about this?” Tally responded before I could.

“
Hell no. You think we’d have been able to come to dinner if they did? It've been a damn intervention, although I can’t say we don’t need one.”

“That or an exorcism
,” Fae Lynn decided, as though I was still in Dallas and not sitting between the two of them. “Once she’s made up her mind, especially about him, there’s no changing her mind. Lord knows I’ve seen it before,” she sighed, annoyed.

“You’re seriously going to be his
lawyer?” Tally asked, concern marring her usually comically arranged features. I sighed and nodded.

“I really am considering it. I need to get my mind off things. If nothing else
,
it’ll be entertaining. Barring any pulled punches from him, I think I’ll tell him yes. In all honesty, there’s nothing that would bring me more pleasure than to take Cash’s money.” Fae Lynn shook her head and a sugar packet at me.

“You know people will think you have something to do with the reason he’s getting divorced,” Fae told me, serious. I frowned at her, offended.

“Anyone that knows me knows that’s crap. I’m above that type of rumor.”

“Anyone that knows you knows you have
a
soft spot for one Cash Stetson. You’ve been trying your darndest to ruin your reputation with him since you were sixteen years old.”

I waved her off.

“I haven’t. And this is strictly professional.” She and Tally sighed again, united.

“I hate this. If he tries anything, I’m gonna hurt
the piece of shit.
He knows I can too,” Fae blustered
,
as I regarded her with a defensive eye roll. “He knows I work for the police department. I’ve had the training and I carry a gun. I’ll drop kick his ass into next Tuesday.” And she probably would. Fae Lynn was what one might call a “deputized dispatcher
,
” which basically meant her husband was a police detective
. I
f something came in on the scanner that she wanted to chec
k out, no one questioned her;
if they did, she deferred them to Scotty.

Tally and I left the restaurant and Fae Lynn and drove toward the ranch and the inevitable intervention everyone seemed to think I needed. No doubt my mother had heard the news by now, although no doubt hers was an elaborated version.

“You did what?” Mama and Nonnie screeched simultaneously, the decibel level rising dangerously. I physically recoiled from the attack across Mama’s kitchen island. Stupid Cash. And masochistic me. 

Now that the big jackass that had forever occupied a corner of my mind and a chunk of my heart had enlisted my help in matters of his own heart, the world wasn’t quite so stable. I was ignoring the questions Tally was doing a good job fielding, while I tried to come up with a plausible rationalization for actua
lly wanting to help the guy who
had driven me to
give up cake and take up running
. I couldn’t come up with anything good
,
so I just sat with my mouth shut.

In the midst of all the frenzied chatter, my cell phone rang as I was getting ready to defend my defenseless position. I glanced at the screen and answered.

“Yes ma’am?” I answered with a lilt, adopting a nonchalance I didn’t feel. I listened and shot to attention and my feet. Mama and Nonnie and Tally had already gone on point, alerted by my body language and tone. “We’ll be there in
a minute.” I turned to them
as I clicked off the phone, nodding at their questioning expressions. “Get dressed, black. Bring gloves. We’ve got twenty minutes.” I paused with a slight grimacing smile. “And we’re gonna need a dead animal.” 

Tally grinned
.

“I’ll get the gl
oves.”
Without questioning me, Mama and Nonnie sighed and exchanged glances, getting up to take action.

“I’ll get the cheese,” Mama offered.

“I think the gun’s at my house,” Nonnie remembered, “Pick me up.” She gathered her purse and the sweet tea she had been nursing, grabbing a cookie from the plate on the table that Mama had no doubt baked for two very different reasons. One, to calm herself down after hearing Cash had come to see me and two, in an attempt to encourage me to give up all the details.

“Twenty minutes!” I yelled at Nonnie’s back as she headed out the door to her golf cart bedecked in metallic and fringe. The golf cart had at one time been Daddy’s. He’d bought it when he’d taken up golfing to cure stress, and had given it to Nonnie after breaking his seven-iron over his knee on the fourteenth tee.

xxx

Forty-five minutes later we’d piled into Nonnie’s big SUV, me at the wheel, Nonnie riding shotgun in the passenger seat, Tally and Mama were in the back with the necessary supplies.

“Who is it now?” Mama finally asked as I turned onto the highway toward town and Fae Lynn’s house.

“Brandy,” I replied grimly.

“Well, hell,” Nonnie huffed, “I swear, I’ve told all you girls a hundred times. Any man that walks around calling every female
darlin,’
including his own mama, is probably screwing
them too. They can’t be trusted. I cannot believe I had to put that
skunk in a trash bag after I warned her ass.” Nonnie clapped her hands over her mouth in shock at her bawdiness, then giggled with glee. Let me reiterate one more time, she’s never been the same since the pacemaker.

“Oh, Nonnie, it wouldn’t matter who it was, you’d have gotten a skunk for any one of us girls, no questions asked,” Tally
said
. It was true.

There was an unwritten, unmentioned code of the South that forced women of all ages to set aside petty differences to help out one of their own, not including white trash or the uppity, although the lines had been stretched a time or two. When a sister of the South needed support, that icon that encompasses all things southern and all things female reared its genteel head. The backbone of the steel magnolia snapped into place, and duty deferred to grievances past and squabbles present.

We parked at Fae Lynn’s beside a silver Lexus, a green minivan, and a red Mustang. We opened the door as Fae Lynn’s husband, Scott, came out, shoving his arms into a Carhartt barn jacket.

“I don’t want any part of this,” he muttered, shaking his head. He zipped his jacket over his stomach softened by beer and his wife’s cooking. “Y’all are crazy when you get like this. If Fae Lynn calls me one more time to bail y’all out, I’m not speaking to any of you until Christmas.”

“Cool down, sugar,” Tally retorted, “Lilly’s back. You know she can talk any officer out of arresting us.”

Scott eyed me suspiciously, “I’ve heard. I just hope you don’t have to prove it.”

“Tell you what Scotty, go stay with Lloyd and come back tomorrow morning before you have to be at the station. Everything will be fine,” I assured him with a wink. He shook his head skeptically but walked away toward his truck.

“Isn’t he in a twist,” Tally noted
as we followed the sound of a blender toward the kitchen and the beginning of tonight’s entertainment.

Ever kind, even if newly improper, Nonnie chastised Tally, “Mind your manners. He’s just upset he’s missing dinner.” Mama rolled her eyes and strolled ahead down the hall.

“Let’s take care of business.
I’ve got a rug being delivered at six a.m.”

We entered the kitchen to the scent of limes and baking chocolate. In the midst of five women sat a petite female with once mousy brown hair, now streaked
with strategic highlights. Tear-
stained cheeks held little remnants of once artfully applied makeup. The tears had ruined the mascara so necessary to southern beauty. Lipstick had been bitten off. Brandy’s small shoulders shook with sobs as she hiccupped and blubbered on, “Adam had such good hair. He took me to meet his mama. He said I was the perfect woman to have his children. Why would he do this?”

“Well,” drawled a tall, plump, dark-haired beauty of Indian descent, “he is from Texas, and you know what they say… steers and queers.”

“Hush, Charlotte. Everything’s supposed to be bigger and better too,” said a busty bl
ond of barroom hair and a heart-
shaped face with big grey eyes. “Now honey, don’t mind her, you know how she gets.”

“I get honest, Jacqueline, which is more than I can say for most women around here. God forbid we say the truth instead of sticking our heads in the sand and forgiving a man and taking him back every time he strays. It’s not like she’s married to him.”

I decided to enter the conversation with my usual diplomacy,

“Y’all calm down. There’s no use in us ganging up on each other when the real party who needs to be dealt with is out having a grand time. We don’t stick our heads in the sand, Char, we don’t sit around discussing it. We get proactive.”

“Holy hell, Lilly Atkins, I thought I’d never have to hear your hoity-toity vo
ice again. How the hell are you?
… A
nd what the hell was Cash Stetson doing in your office this afternoon?”

“We were just catching
up,” I tried to explain away the implication with a wave of my hand, “You know, old friends and all that.”

“Since when are y’all friends of any sort?” Fae Lynn’s mama, Grace snorted, “I swear, that man is still a heathen, no matter if he is Chief of Staff at the hospital. I still remember him peeing on my prize rosebush and killing it off before the contest.”

“He was nine, Grace,” I defended, as I usually did for Cash. Some things never changed.

“Exactly,” she asserted, “Old enough to know better.”

“
Can we get down to business?” Fae Lynn interrupted everyone. Fae Lynn already had all the gossip on me she needed and wasn’t one for wasting time on things she didn’t deem imminent. We all took one more gulp of sustenance and returned our attention to the task at hand. We exchanged
news and laughter
, trying to calm Brandy down with soothing pats while we plied her with
brownies
and tequila
. I got a round of hugs from everyone until Fae Lynn’s phone rang
,
and she confirmed we were set to go.

Char, Fae,
and Grace gathered up a variety of cheeses and stuffed them into a black cloth bag while I grabbed keys. Nonnie gathered up a tear-stained and tequila-soaked
Brandy and led her to the foyer, while Mama and Jacque flanked the rear.

“You brought the gun, right?” Fae Lynn questioned.

“Yes ma’am. You’ve got the tool don’t you?” I asked.

“Oh, shit
, I forgot that and the go
ldfish,” she turned back toward
the kitchen.

“We should get the tequila,” Nonnie volunteered as she followed Fae Lynn. They both returned a minute later, Fae Lynn carrying a small metal tool that looked like a tire gauge and a plastic baggie of what appeared to be dead goldfish. Nonnie held up the thermos triumphantly, “Got it!” she chortled.

“What in heaven’s name is in that bag and where did you get that?” I gasped at Fae Lynn.

“Goldfish.
I overfed them and they died real quick. I figured I’d go get some more before Hazzard missed them.” Fae Lynn and Scotty’s son was named Hazzard, which is a story in and of itself.

“You murdered your son’s goldfish?!”

“It’s for a good cause, Lilly. Don’t get on your high horse. You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first,” she snapped defensively, “He’ll never miss them. I’ll just go get new ones tomorrow.” I shook my head and headed out the door after everyone.

In Dallas I used to go out and have a glass of wine with my girlfriends. I come home and all of a sudden I’m an accessory to knocking off goldfish. It
was
for a good cause.

We piled into the car and checked seatbelts. We were dressed in a variety of black, from Saks to Wal-Mart. Black slacks, stretch pants, jeans, yoga pants; black tops, sweaters, blouses and boots, tennis shoes, and heels were our intermingled outfits. Our one common accessory
:
the dark maroon cotton gloves we all sported. It was obvious we’d been in this same situation before, as we all knew the drill. Never let it be said that a man got the best of a respectable woman in Brooks, Oklahoma. I headed toward main street and the only bar in town.

Chester’s was a karaoke bar with a small stage, a big bar, and a room off the back where patrons played pool. My uncl
e actually owned the bar;
Chester
was actually his name
; and yes, much to my father’s dismay, we actually claimed him as family. Chester was a character. He had thick white hair and a beard the same color, along with his ruddy nose and broken capillary complexion. This gave hi
m the appearance of Santa Claus,
save for the pearl snap shirts, chest hair and gold bling hanging from his neck.

He was married to Nonnie’s sister, Jewel, who taught third grade Sunday school at the First Baptist Church.

I swung onto Main Street and the car chatter went silent. We all searched the street for our prey.

“There it is,” Tally started, almost leaping out of her seat. The white Envoy sat, for all to see, parked in front of Chester’s. Any self-respecting man with a significant other knew to park in back of the bar and not advertise their presence and start the gossip grapevine.

“Well that is a fine piece of horse shit,” Char harrumphed, “Look at the man, parked on the street, like the uppity asshole that he is. Honey, if he’s not any smarter’n that, you don’t want him.”

“He’s not a manly man, you can tell that. Any man that drives a soccer mom car isn’t worth the toilet paper he wipes his butt with,” Tally agreed.

“I’m parking around back, y’al
l get ready. Remember the drill. D
o it fast, do it silent, and get out of there. We got a five-minute limit. Everybody got their stuff?” I was back to taking charge. My adrenaline was hyped. I’m t
elling y’all, don’t get therapy. G
et even.

Fae Lynn passed the dead goldfish back to Char and held up the small metal tool. Grace passed out the cheese to Mama and Jacqueline. Nonnie gathered up her sack of dead varmint and handed me the gun. Tally turned in the back seat and produced a small white bag.

“What is that?” I drawled, warily.

“Dog shit,” Tally grinned. Man
if she wasn’t evil, “and a spatula, to spread it around.”

“Shit,” Fae Lynn smiled, shaking her head at Tally and her antics.

“Exactly,” Tally said slyly. I parked behind the bar
,
and we all took a collective deep breath.

“Let’s do it,” I placed my hand on the door handle. ”Go!”

We piled out of the car and scurried around the building. Grace, Mama and Jacque went to work stuffing goat, Gouda and Muenster in the tailpipe. Fae Lynn went to work on the tires, while Tally opened her sack and took up her spatula. Char popped the hood and emptied the sack of fish into the engine as Nonnie tied the dead skunk around the antenna. I took up the gun and made short work of my assignment. Four minutes and seventeen seconds later we were back in the car where we had left Brandy. I envisioned the look on Adam’s face when he walked out of Chester’s
and saw his new white Envoy smeared with dog shit on the hood and ‘Die Bitch’ spelled out down both sides with neon splats from a paintball gun, smells of dead fish and cheese emanating from the interior and a dead skunk dangling from the antenna, not to mention the four flat tires. Fae Lynn turned and handed Brandy four small rubber pieces.