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IN MY HUMBLE OPINION ROkie White FEATURED COLUMNIST R Ray Collins FICTION |
There are few secrets in a small town and the best kept secrets are those known only to one. I knew that scenario didn’t apply to my fiasco that morning, but like a guilty child, I tried to prolong the moments before Momma found out. I didn’t need another confrontation that morning. I sat on the steps of the front porch and slipped off my shoes. It was a porch from the years before people decided they needed the privacy of a backyard. Pots of begonias hung from the eaves; the red blooms accenting the pale pink clapboards. Unruly bridal wreath obscured the white porch railings and a wicker rocker flanked by a wobbly, three-legged table. It was a small green room, spanning the front of the house -- wide enough to sit in a rainstorm and not get wet, private enough to watch people pass without anyone seeing you. Was it any wonder I reverted to such childish behavior when nothing in this world had changed that I could remember? The screen door groaned a metallic protest when I pulled it open. That cantankerous door had caused me a lot of grief during my high school curfew years. I resolved to add oiling the hinges to my list of repairs. The stairs to my room faced the front door. Three steps from the front door to the stairs and I would be safely out of Momma’s sight. "Jayne, is that you?" "Yes, it’s me." I had my hand on the doorknob
to the stairs. One more step and I could have escaped. "Thought
I’d run upstairs and take a quick shower. I’ve been
out jogging." "Sounds good but promised I’d meet Bobby at Eva Mae’s for coffee and I’d really like to get a shower first. I fell down and got a little muddy." "Oh, my! Are you hurt?" "No. Really." I could hear her walking toward the front door, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on kitchen linoleum changing to soft thuds on the carpet in the dining room. "Just a couple of bruises maybe." I stood on the first step when she appeared. It looked like she had been awake for awhile. She wore jeans with a sharply ironed crease down each pants leg, a blue calico long-sleeved shirt and a spotless white chef’s apron. Her brownish-red hair, magnificently thick and shiny, was pulled away from her face, plaited into a French braid and tied at the end with a wide, crisp white ribbon. At sixty-four she looked only a few years older than me. I hoped I inherited some of her genes. She stared at me with pursed lips. Her green eyes widened.
I, for my part, clutched the stair railing and thought up plausible
excuses. She continued to stare at me. I could see the questions roiling behind her eyes. Which one to ask first? "Give me a couple of minutes." I pulled the door shut behind me and exhaled. The phone rang as I climbed the stairs. At this hour of the morning I suspected it could only be someone calling to relay the bad news about me. I better make the most of my few minutes of calm before the storm. Man, I missed Kansas City. News traveled faster in Aspire than a live-cam broadcast on the nightly news. I lingered in the shower. The warm water cascading over my aching muscles felt too good to rush. I stood under the jet and let the warmth work out the knots. As the water started to cool, I began to think again. Why on earth had I accepted a coffee invitation from Bobby? That "catching up on old times" seemed innocent enough at the time but we hadn’t needed to "catch up" on anything for the last two decades. Why now? Because I had the bad luck to get arrested? Maybe the last few weeks had made me suspicious of everyone. But somehow, I doubted it. I stepped out of the shower and allowed my intuition to lead. From downstairs the house next door is obscured by an eight foot honeysuckle hedge. It can only be seen from my bedroom window. I pulled back the lace curtains. The coffee invitation made sense when I spotted the shiny, yellow convertible in the driveway next door. Very expensive and very foreign, it wasn’t exactly a car the Love’s could afford. Add to that the license tag, which wasn’t Kansas blue. I wondered how long Crystal had been in town. Crystal was back in town. I didn’t quite believe it. She left Aspire during the middle of our senior year and, as far as I knew, hadn’t returned since. Her only communication was through her parents who filtered only good news back to her friends. She earned her nurses’ degree. She married a wealthy rancher in Montana. And the most recent news, her husband died – he was much older than she – and left her a rich widow. None of that seemed possible. I remembered her as my best pal since our sandbox days. Dubbed "Mumbles" and "Grumbles" by our third grade teacher, we were often mentioned together like salt and pepper or vinegar and oil – Jayne-Crystal, our name might have been hyphenated. At night, in separate houses, our bedroom windows facing each other, we continued the talk of the day by holding notes up to our windows which we read through binoculars. Remembering that, I stepped away from the window. Best I deal with Momma first. I put on my best casual outfit, khaki slacks and a long-sleeved cotton blouse to cover most of the damage from my fall -- the red places on my knees, hips and arms that would surely turn into nasty black and purple bruises. Momma was sitting at the kitchen table when I finally hobbled downstaris. "That was Nina on the phone," she said. Her hands, large-knuckled and bedecked with rings, encircled her coffee cup. "Oh?" I walked behind her before I winced and searched in the kitchen cabinet for my favorite blue and white coffee mug – the one from White Castle that we’d bought on a trip to St. Louis while Dad was still alive. My guess had been correct. I’d been ratted on. One could always count on the Disaster Sisters to spread the news – good or bad, but most preferably bad. I poured a cup of coffee, composed my face and sat across the table from Momma. "What did they have to say?" I took a sip of coffee to avoid looking at her and revealing anything from my expression. This might have been the wrong tact to take, but I guess at heart I’m a coward. Maybe I should have confessed outright – taken some of the wind out of Momma’s sails – got my version in first. "Are you trying to ruin me? Get me fired before I collect my retirement?" she asked. "Why didn’t you tell me you’d been arrested this morning? I was practically in shock when she told me. Made me sound like a complete idiot when I didn’t have the foggiest ides what she was talking about." "I wasn’t arrested. I got a ticket. That’s all." "For running on the highway with all the signs clearly posted. And assaulting a police officer which thanks to Bobby you didn’t get arrested for. But , of course, everyone will know." She took a deep breath and started in again. "It’s not the same here as when you were growing up. We’ve hired a new superintendent. He’s love to have a good excuse to fire me and hire a kid out of college at half my salary." Now this was probably true, but in my own defense the new
superintendent had been employed by the Aspire School District
for three years. And he didn’t seem to me like someone who
would fire Momma for my mistakes. "And just how would you know? You work for a huge system. You don’t have to worry about every little thing. Kansas City’s so big you could commit murder in the classroom and no one would ever know." "Shawnee Mission," I said. It was an instinctive reflex more than a correction although she didn’t take it as such. "Don’t you get snippy with me." She didn’t like to be corrected. A failure we both share, wanting to be the one with the correct answers. Maybe that’s one reason we became teachers. "I’m sorry," I said. It was 8:32 by the kitchen clock. If Bobby was on time, he would be waiting for me now. "Laws are not made to be obeyed only when we feel like it." "I know, Momma. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again." Repentance is sometimes the easiest policy. I flexed my knee under the table. It was starting to throb. I probably should have put an ice pack on it first thing when I came in. "I just didn’t think anybody would care. There’s practically no traffic on that highway – not a car passed me – and I was running on the shoulder where I wouldn’t be in anybody’s way." "Well….let’s just forget it for now. Can’t do anything about it anyhow, now that it’s done." We sat in silence. Through the open window I could hear heavy, slow-moving bumblebees drone as they took their fill of honeysuckle nectar. Momma began to tap her fingernails on the table, a sure sign that she was ready to change the subject. "So how is Bobby doing? Guess he told you Crystal sent her parents off the Europe for the summer." Momma’s mouth pinched in on itself until little vertical lines formed around her lips like stitches. "No. Really?" I hadn’t heard. Things were suddenly starting to make a little more sense. "Guess it’s kind of a pay back for all the hard times she gave them as a teenager. Catherine’s happy." Catherine is Crystal’s mother. Momma walked eggshells around Catherine when they talked about Crystal. "You know it’s like she planned this." "Catherine?" "No, not Catherine. Crystal. Who are we talking about? Crystal, of course. Too many coincidences for my peace of mind. Her marrying that old man, as old as Methuselah, and then him dying so sudden, leaving her all that money. Then Bobby leaving his wife and kids at about the same time, and now her coming back here to spend the summer. Supposedly house-sitting for her parents while they’re gone. Nice excuse she has for it, too, sending them off to Europe for the summer. At least Catharine won’t be exposed to any of that girl’s shenanigans while she’s gone." "Wait." I held up my hand like a student in a classroom. It was almost too much to digest. Momma told everything she knew and speculated about the rest. And she know most everything about everybody in town. It was amazing how much she heard. Not only had the news of her generation, but teaching Home Ec at the high school she gained a goodly spattering of what went on with the younger crowd. Momma didn’t disparage Crystal to anyone but me out of respect for Catherine’s feelings. They were best friends. Had been, ever since they moved next door to us when Crystal’s dad retired from the military and moved back to Catherine’s home town. "What does one have to do with the other?" I asked. "Crystal’s always had you fooled, even in high school when I thought for sure you’d figure her out. You’re much smarter than she is. Can’t you see she’s out to get him back after all these years? Catherine says she asks about him all the time. Never got over him." "Bobby?" "Of course, Bobby." I thought about Bobby as I’d seen him that morning. He maintained the wide shoulders, thick neck and bulging biceps he sported as captain of the high school football team. I also remembered the bulge covering his wide leather belt, wrinkles white-feathered at the corners of his blue eyes and the thinning blonde hair that covered much less of his shiny forehead. I found it hard to believe – no, I found it impossible to believe – Crystal, still beautiful and recently rich, could still want Bobby. It was so much new information at once that it took a minute for the accusation to register. "I thought Crystal’s husband died of a heart attack?" "He did but she’s a nurse. Don’t you think she could have saved him if she’d tried? She’s trained in CPR and all that other stuff. And now her coming to town right after Bobby left his wife and those two charming babies." "I thought Ginger threw him out?" "Only after he told her he wanted a divorce." "Then it sounds like a mutual separation. And CPR doesn’t always work. If he had a massive coronary they couldn’t have saved him even if he’d been in a hospital at the time." "Maybe. It still smells altogether too convenient for me." It only smelled like the same old story to me. Ginger was, after all, Bobby’s fourth wife. He had another three or four kids around town from his three other short marriages. But Momma never had a good opinion of Crystal. Which was something I could never figure out. For many years I saw it as jealousy. Being an only child, and a daughter, Momma expected us to be much closer than we ever were. She never understood why I wanted to spend so much time with my best friend. It only got worse after Dad died. "Speaking of Bobby," I interrupted, "I promised I’d meet him for a cup of coffee at Eva Mae’s about ten minutes ago." "Oh, well, fine. I have gardening to do anyhow. The tomatoes are choking with weeds." She grabbed my cup and dumped the cold coffee in the sink. "Oh, and I almost forgot, Collin called this morning. I promised you’d call him back." It was enough revelations for any one morning. I left before
she could get in another word. |