Love in a Small Town (39 page)

He looked long at her, and she at him. He pressed his hand against her back, and she stroked the hair behind his ear. She blinked tears from her eyes and kept on looking at him and holding on to him.

The next moment the back screen door smacked and the back porch stairs creaked, drawing Tommy Lee around. Stephen came into view, shoulders slumped so that Molly’s heart tugged for him.

“Tommy Lee . . . speak to him.”

“No. I can’t stand him. You do it,” and he shoved from her and started away for his shop.

After a moment of absorbing that, Molly hopped down and walked over to where Stephen stood with his car door open, waiting for her. It struck her that Stephen’s car was a Mercedes sitting alongside the El Camino, Tommy Lee’s old Chevy pickup, and Savannah’s Taurus, which Tommy Lee had picked out for her. Stephen was as different from them all as Molly had been from Tommy Lee’s parents.

“Give her time to cool off, Stephen. You both need time to cool down.”

“She had no right to run off like that.”

“No more right than you have dictating to her,” Molly said.

Stephen got into his car and slammed the door. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Maybe. Until then, I’ll be stayin’ at my sister’s.”

Molly watched him drive away and thought,
I guess I handled that poorly.
She went back into the house to check on Savannah. Savannah’s door was closed but not locked. Molly simply twisted the knob and went in.

Savannah was propped up in the bed. She said, “Stephen never tried the knob. I never did lock it, and he never did try it.”

Molly couldn’t tell if Savannah was amazed or annoyed; perhaps a little of each. Molly thought that both Stephen and Tommy Lee underestimated Savannah.

She went about seeing to her daughter’s comfort, enjoying the hovering and comforting and protecting. She got Savannah another pillow, brewed her some chamomile tea, lowered the thermostat a notch.

“Mama, Stephen tells me everything to do . . . just like Daddy always has done you. But I can’t do what he says, like you always have done just exactly what Daddy says.”

Molly raised an eyebrow. “Oh, have I?”

Savannah nodded.

“Have I?” Molly said once more.

Savannah blinked, then frowned, thinking.

“Savannah, you are gonna have to learn to pay attention to what your husband says, and then do what you want, without making a big ruckus out of it, or you’re gonna either be divorced or wrung out in short order.” Then she conceded, “I have often done as your father said, but your father is
right
so very much of the time.” And it was always easier, she thought.

“I don’t want to play games.”

Molly breathed deeply. “I never did either, but maybe doing so comes natural to human beings. I’m coming to think that it isn’t so much playing games as being diplomatic and keeping life smooth and enjoyable all the way around. It’s like manners. Some people don’t see the point in them, but manners enable humans to live together in a civilized manner.”

“I’ve hurt his feelings,” Savannah said, looking pensive and slipping down further into the bed. “I wish I could feel more sorry.”

“I wish I could say that you and Stephen will never have another fight . . . but you will.”

Molly decided she needed to go then because she wasn’t being very positive. “You’ll feel better after you get a good night’s sleep.” Savannah’s eyes had already drooped shut.

Molly turned out the hall and stairway lights as she went through the house. She paused in the kitchen and looked around before taking up her purse.

Tommy Lee was standing beside the El Camino when she came out. He asked how Savannah was, and Molly said fine and sleeping. He opened the car door for her, closed it after she got inside, and stuck his head in the window to kiss her lightly.

Then she drove away, back to the cottage. She didn’t really ask herself why she had come back, until she walked into the kitchen and the heat and the scents closed around her.

She found her cellular phone and called across to talk to her mother.

“Well, hello honey,” Mama said. “What’s the story?”

Molly told her all of it, in the same manner that Savannah had come telling.

* * * *

Ruthann Johnson, Savannah’s childhood friend, came out early the next morning, and soon after she arrived, Stephen showed up. Savannah did speak to him this time, but she refused to return to Arkansas with him. She intended to have her baby in the bosom of her family. Tommy Lee heard her yelling that at Stephen all the way from outside: “I’m havin’ my baby in the bosom of my family!”

Savannah had the strength of her home behind her now, and she was standing firm. Tommy Lee felt Stephen was being run over, and this made him start to have sympathy for the boy.

“You can’t be forcing a Collier woman to do anything, you know,” he told Stephen, breaking down and offering the boy a Coca-Cola and trying to help by explaining some of the facts of the family.

But Stephen said, “Savannah is now Savannah Locke—and she never has even carried the Collier name.”

Tommy Lee shut his mouth on further advice as to how Stephen should progress. If the young man would not listen to the facts of the case, he wasn’t about to listen to how Tommy Lee had learned to go about bending those facts. Tommy Lee figured there was no profit in trying to help a fool. He began to think it best that Savannah stay home and that he had been mistaken in giving her hand in matrimony to this senseless boy who didn’t know enough to admit what he didn’t know.

Savannah was causing Tommy Lee considerable consternation. He worried about how she waddled around.

“Should she be going up and down those stairs?” he asked Molly.

“The doctor says she is in very good health and that a little bit of exertion is good for her.”

“I don’t recall you gettin’ that big. Isn’t she gettin’ too big?”

“She has gained too much—she’s been unhappy and just kept eating. And Mama says she was too thin before and that her body is making up for that in order to provide for the baby."

Whatever was the cause, it was hard for Tommy Lee to watch his daughter struggle to get up from a chair and sigh in relief when she sat down and to keep holding her back all the time. Savannah was his firstborn, his only girl, and he began to get even more irritated at Stephen for getting her into this shape.

That afternoon Molly and Odessa and Savannah and Ruthann held a powwow on the front porch, discussing prospective doctors and getting an appointment set up for Savannah for the following day. Stephen returned that night but left a bent young man. A young man who was trying to make a dent in a brick wall with his head, instead of a decent tool. Tommy wondered if there would be a decent tool for the matter.

Most of that day and those that followed Tommy Lee kept to himself in his shop, kept his music turned up and his attention focused on building one engine and rebuilding another. He thought how Molly thought he kept himself separated out in the shop, and quite often he would have to admit to the truth of that. This time, however, he was keeping to himself and observing, too. He observed everyone coming and going and that Savannah appeared just fine where she was. He observed that Molly was totally taken up with her daughter and appeared to have all but forgotten him. He observed that he was, for the moment, somewhat content with that, although not totally.

By Wednesday, Tommy Lee had grown decidedly discontented with the entire situation. It seemed to him that there were a lot of people at his house and that not one of them was the one person who was supposed to be there, which was his wife.

Ruthann Johnson was now residing in the guest room, and Stephen had taken it upon himself to move into the boys’ room. Tommy Lee’s estimation of the young man rose with that happening, although it meant he had to keep running into Stephen, and this worked on his nerves. Also, friends of all three of the young people were coming and going. Molly herself came and went several times a day, and her mother and each one of her sisters paid a visit, too. Kaye came, bringing Country Interior Designs for the baby that wasn’t even here yet. Hard rock music played through the house, and at least once a day Stephen and Savannah got into a fight.

Then, one evening after a hard day’s work, Tommy Lee came in hot and tired and thirsty for a cold Coca-Cola, only to discover that the case of soft drink he had purchased only three days before had been drunk up. Right that minute five people—three of them whom he didn’t know and who kept calling him "sir" —were drinking the last of
his
Cokes right then in his living room.

Tommy Lee slammed the refrigerator closed. Twenty minutes later, showered and shaved and carrying a small bag, he left the house of people he barely knew. He hopped in the Corvette and took off down the road, letting the wind blow his damp hair. By feel, he pulled out a tape and stuck it in the cassette player, turned the volume up loud. Country music, sultry songs, Molly’s favorites, and he hummed along and drove faster.

Chapter 27

Once Upon A Lifetime

When Tommy Lee came driving in, Molly was over in her mother’s dining room, with Kaye and Rennie and Mama, planning the baby shower for Savannah. Kaye had insisted she needed to be in charge, since she specialized in events of such a nature, as she put it. Rennie was so intent on being in on the plans that she had told Sam she would have to meet him later.

“Molly, that’s Tommy Lee who just drove up.” Mama had the sheers pulled back and was peering out the window.

“Hummm . . ." Molly was working on the list of people to invite to the shower. “Tommy Lee?” She realized then that she had heard a car. The faint sound of music came to her.

She stood beside her mother and looked out. The sun had dropped but there was enough light to see the dust the Corvette stirred. Tommy Lee went clear to the end of the drive out beneath the tall elms. The engine noise stopped, but the music continued.

Molly’s heartbeat fluttered. She hadn’t been thinking a lot about Tommy Lee lately. She had been so taken up with Savannah. Well, she had thought of Tommy Lee, but it was to think they would have to put their difficulties off for the time being, although several nights she had wished for him.

“Oh!” she said now, whirling from the window, “maybe somethin’ happened with Savannah.”

“Nothing has happened with Savannah,” Mama said, letting the sheer curtain fall back in place.

Molly looked into Mama’s eyes. Then she put a hand to her hair and turned to Rennie.

“Do I look okay? Oh, gosh, Rennie, can I use your lipstick?” She was glad she was freshly showered and wore a dress.
Why
was she so nervous? Was it some special knowledge in Mama’s eyes? Mama
knew
about these things.

Rennie said, “You don’t want lipstick. . . . It’ll just get all smeared,” laughed, and waved Molly away. “Go see what he’s come for.”

“Well, I don’t know why Tommy Lee can’t come to the door and ask for Molly,” Kaye said, digging into her purse. “That’s the gentlemanly thing. But wait a minute. Here . . ."

Somewhat to Molly’s amazement, Kaye handed across a small spray of White Diamonds cologne. Molly spritzed several times on her neck, and Kaye, saying, “Oh, here, let me do it,” sprayed a bunch more and then made Molly lift her dress so she could spray the backs of Molly’s knees, "just in case.” Apparently Kaye had been doing some investigation in the seduction department.

Then Molly was going out through the kitchen, out the back door and into the night, thinking that by the time she got over there Tommy Lee would be gone.

He wasn’t. The Corvette sat in the deepening shadows beneath the trees, music coming from it, and Tommy Lee leaned against the front fender, waiting. Seeing him there, watching her come like he did, caused a warmth to shimmer up through Molly and burn on her cheeks. Her steps faltered, but Tommy Lee just kept on watching her, and she couldn’t quit looking at him. It was as if he drew her to him. Without one word, while she was about to say hello, he stretched out an arm, took hold of her and pulled her against him.

He turned her, pressed her backside against him, and pointed. “Look there.”

“Oh!”

It was the moon. Big and round, just like God had polished a gold coin and placed it in the sky.

Then Tommy Lee shifted, pulled her face around and kissed her.

“Oh!” she said again when he lifted his head.

He didn’t let go of her, though. He pressed himself against her, and he had grown hard, and Molly was growing damp.

“They’re watchin’ from the window,” she said, feeling her mind sort of melting.

“I don’t suppose they’ll see anything they haven’t seen before,” he said and kissed her again, a soft, seductive kiss.

Molly trembled, and eagerness took hold of her. She truly hoped, however, that Tommy Lee did not intend to retire to the barn because as romantic as that was, she would so much rather have him in a soft bed, without sticky grasses or mosquitoes. These thoughts were very jumbled and frayed, positioned as she was, feeling the hardness of his body and inhaling the male scent of him.

The next instant Tommy Lee straightened, took hold of her, and waltzed her out into the deeper darkness beneath the trees.

Molly was so surprised that she stumbled, but only for an instant, and then there she was, dancing with Tommy Lee in the sultry night over the cooling ground. Around and around they went, flowing to their own steps, laughing and savoring the silliness. The song ended, and they fell together, gasping for breath.

Then the music began again, the tones filtering to them through the darkness. A familiar, favorite song.

“Once upon a lifetime . . ."

Molly and Tommy Lee gazed at each other, as if each was judging whether to take hold, or even to breathe. Their hands met at the same instant. Again, this time with sureness and grace, they waltzed across the cooling earth, letting the music have its way with them.

The song floated out into the night, as golden as the moon, coming over them like the moon did, flickering down through the elm leaves. Tommy Lee’s hand was warm upon her back, his breath caressing her ear, his scent and that of the sweet summer earth filling her. She saw the moonlight flicker in his eyes, saw the strong line of his jaw. She listened to the music and recalled the two frightened children staring out from their wedding photograph.