CHAPTER 46
“Stop it, Jeb,” Cady said in a voice that was halfway between a giggle and whine. “Mom! Make Jeb stop!”
Lydia Dale turned around to face the backseat. “Jeb, stop throwing popcorn at your sister. And, Cady, you quit egging him on. Settle down and watch the movie.”
“She started it!”
“I did not!”
“I don’t care who started it,” Lydia Dale said in that particular tone of voice the children knew signaled imminent punishment. “Both of you, stop it. You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they chorused glumly.
Lydia Dale turned back to the movie. Mr. Miyagi was showing Daniel how to “wax on” and “wax off” his car, and Daniel was questioning what this had to do with learning karate. Keeping her eyes glued to the screen, Lydia Dale’s fingers crept across the front seat until they met Graydon’s, and he took hold of her hand.
Graydon glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Cady stick her tongue out at her brother. Jeb quickly returned the sentiment.
“You know what would taste good right now? A cherry slushie.” Graydon reached into the back pocket of his jeans. “Hey, kids. Would you run to the concession stand and buy me a slushie? Get yourselves one too.”
The children broke into cheers.
“You already bought them popcorn,” Lydia Dale reminded him.
“Popcorn makes you thirsty,” Graydon said as he handed a bill over the backseat to Jeb. “Besides, it’s the first day of summer vacation. We’re celebrating.”
“Could be a long summer,” Lydia Dale mumbled. Graydon scratched his nose and grinned.
“Get your momma a drink too. Lime, right?”
Lydia Dale nodded, wondering how he’d remembered.
“Okay, lime slushie for your momma. Cherry for me. While you’re at it, get some red licorice and Milk Duds, too. Got that, partner?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeb said. “Does Cady have to come?”
“Somebody’s got to help you carry it.”
Jeb sighed and opened the back door of the sedan. “Come on, runt.”
“Don’t call me runt. Mom!”
Lydia Dale turned around again. “Go!” she commanded.
The children got out of the car and scampered toward the concession stand at the back of the drive-in, weaving their way between the rows of parked cars, ducking their heads to avoid hitting the cables of the window speakers.
After they were gone, Graydon lifted his arm and rested it on the back of the seat. Lydia Dale slid a little closer.
“You know, when I told you I’d only go out with you if the kids could come too, I didn’t figure you’d actually take me up on it.” She looked up at him with a little smile. “Guess I have to give you points for bravery.”
“Not really. I always go to the drive-in on first dates,” Graydon said and reached into the popcorn bucket that sat on Lydia Dale’s lap.
“Oh, you do, do you?”
He tossed a few kernels of popcorn into his mouth. “Uh-huh. Of course, this is the first date I’ve been on in . . . let me think now . . . thirteen years.”
Graydon laughed. Lydia Dale slapped him playfully before taking a handful of popcorn for herself and settling back into the crook of his arm. He smelled good, like leather and new rope and shaving cream.
Jack Benny had smelled of shaving cream too, but also of cigarettes and beer. Or worse, of cigarettes and whiskey. Whenever she’d gotten that whiff of whiskey on his breath, she knew they were in for a bumpy night. And back in their dating days, whenever Jack Benny had got her alone, his arms coiled immediately around her, groping and searching, and he whispered in her ear, pleading with her to “be sweet” to him. It was like trying to fight off an octopus. Sometimes, she’d lost the fight. Not that he’d ever forced himself on her, but sometimes, just to keep him from crossing the line, she’d ended up doing things she’d rather not have done. It always made her feel so cheap. Why had she allowed it? Because she was young, she guessed, and because she didn’t know how to stand up for herself or to say no.
Thank heaven she’d outgrown that.
A lot had happened to her in the last year: She’d been betrayed, humiliated, abandoned, divorced, and left to fend for herself and her children. None of it had been easy or fun. But she’d learned from it, by gosh she had. And she was never going to let somebody mistreat her or her children again. She knew how to say no now.
But she didn’t have to say no to Graydon. He didn’t push. She didn’t feel manipulated or out of control when she was with him. She liked the way his arm felt around her shoulder, strong and solid and safe. She knew that he would like to kiss her if she’d let him, that all she had to do was lift her chin, look up at him with invitation in her eyes, and he would lower his lips to meet hers. She knew that he wanted to do just that. But that wasn’t all he wanted. He liked to talk to her too.
Jack Benny had never been much of a talker. Well, no, that wasn’t quite right. He talked plenty, and he was always joking around. At first, she’d liked that. He seemed so energetic, and it was flattering, the way he pursued her. But before long, she realized that he never talked about things that mattered, never discussed his thoughts, or feelings, or plans with her. And he never listened to her. It was a one-way conversation. No, not even that. It was a monologue.
Now that she thought about it, if you measured on word count alone, Graydon talked considerably less than Jack Benny ever had. But he managed to say a whole lot more.
“You know,” Graydon said, looking out the windshield toward the bottom of the movie screen where a gang of kids were playing on a swing set, “we used to go to the drive-in when I was little.
“We didn’t have much money. But every now and again, the drive-in would have carload night, your whole car could get in for the price of one ticket.”
Graydon scratched his neck and smiled, remembering.
“We’d throw a bunch of blankets and pillows in the back of the pickup. Mom would mix up a pitcher of red Kool-Aid and pour it into mason jars, pop some corn, and put it into brown paper sacks. Best popcorn in the world,” he said wistfully. “She poured on so much butter it left grease stains on the paper. Donny and I, and sometimes some of the neighbor kids, would pile in the back and off we’d go. We’d swing on the swings, just like this bunch,” he said, nodding toward the playground beneath the big screen, “and we’d run back and forth to the bathrooms, and have fights with the pillows, just about everything but watch the movie. Sometimes Mom would get so mad she’d get out and spank whichever one of us she could catch hold of, not hard, just hard enough to get our attention. In the end, we’d all fall asleep in the back, curled up like a pack of pups.”
“Your mom sounds nice.”
“She was,” Graydon said slowly. “But those nights at the drive-in were some of the best memories I have of her. She was sweet but tired. Life just beat down on her. We were so poor, so busy working to survive that we barely had a chance to live.
“That’s why I started working the rodeo circuit. I entered a breakaway roping competition when I was eleven and won. The prize was ten dollars. More money than I’d ever seen in my life, so I got the crazy idea that rodeo work was the way to make money fast.”
“Why didn’t you go back to it when you got back from Vietnam?”
Graydon shook his head. “Partly because I was too old and out of shape by then. But mostly because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself. I gave up.”
“You still feel sorry for yourself?” she asked
He reached up his hand and stroked her hair. “Not very. Not now.”
She twisted toward him, lifted her eyes to his. His lips were soft and his kisses were sweet, just like she remembered. Better than she remembered. She pulled away. The kids might come back any moment, and if she didn’t stop now . . .
Lydia Dale scooted back across the seat a few inches, to a safe distance. “Mary Dell said that you’re staying until Christmas.”
He nodded and took another handful of popcorn from the bucket. “Maybe longer. If you want me to.”
“Graydon, I . . . I was married to Jack Benny for a long time. And I’m still trying to figure out . . .”
“It’s okay,” he said casually. “I’m in no hurry. I can wait till you’re ready.”
She looked down at her lap. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she didn’t want to give him false hope either. For his sake and her own, she had to be honest.
“I might never be ready. You should know that. I don’t want to waste your time.”
He munched his popcorn. “I was living in a shed in Kansas. You’re not wasting my time.”
“And now you’re living in a tack room in Texas. What’s the difference?”
He took her hand. “Everything. Before, I had nobody. Now I’ve got friends. I’ve got family. People who need me,” he said. “Mary Dell, Howard . . .”
And me, she thought but didn’t say so.
“And Jeb. He’s a different boy now,” she said.
“He’s a good boy.”
“You’re good with him.”
“Well, I like kids. Always did. In fact,” he said, “next time we go on a date, let’s bring the babies too.”
Lydia Dale laughed. “I think they’re better off at home with Momma and Daddy. Besides, you don’t think Mary Dell is going to let Howard go to the movies without her, do you? It’s only for one night, but we practically had to pry him out of her arms when she left.”
Outside, they heard the sound of two childish voices approaching, hissing and arguing about who was going to get the first crack at the Milk Duds. Graydon removed his arm from the back of the seat.
“Do you think she’s having fun in Dallas?”
Lydia Dale scooted all the way back to the passenger side of the seat as the kids clambered inside, handing off drink cups and candy boxes to Graydon.
“I don’t know. She hasn’t called yet. But I doubt it,” she said. “Mary Dell doesn’t like big cities.”