CHAPTER 51
Lydia Dale was feeling frazzled. It was only the second day of summer vacation, and already she felt ready to take a switch to the kids. They’d been bickering since breakfast.
Jeb knew just how to push his baby sister’s buttons, and Cady, not old enough to realize that she was doing exactly what he wanted, came right back at him. Lydia Dale was so frustrated that she punished them both. She cut off their television privileges, took away Cady’s Barbies, and forbade Jeb from going out to help Graydon. Of course, this left them with nothing to do besides pick on each other even more. Taking away Jeb’s barn privileges seemed to be the only threat that got his attention, except today it hadn’t. After warning them both three times, she had no choice but to follow through.
She knew that Jeb was acting up because it was Friday and he was anxious and angry about having to go to Jack Benny’s that afternoon, but what could she do? Ignore the judge’s orders?
Taffy and Dutch went to Waco just before lunch. Dutch had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon, and they were going to get some new tires on Mary Dell’s car beforehand. The doctor was running late, so Taffy didn’t get back to watch the babies when she’d said she would. Lydia Dale would have brought them with her, but there wasn’t room for all five of them in the truck. So between all of that and the kids’ fighting and Jeb’s dawdling when they finally were able to leave, she was more than an hour late dropping the kids off at Jack Benny’s.
Cady kissed her good-bye before running to the house, but Jeb wouldn’t speak to her. He slammed the door when he got out of the truck, didn’t wave to her, and didn’t say anything to his daddy when Jack Benny strode past, heading toward the truck, holding a Lone Star and looking angry. But then, Jack Benny didn’t say anything to him either.
Jack Benny spat a brown stream of tobacco onto the ground as he approached the truck.
Wonderful, Lydia Dale thought as she rolled down the window. Because cigarettes weren’t disgusting enough.
Jack Benny stood right next to her door, spread his boot-shod feet, hooked his thumb into his belt, took a slug from his beer, and stood there, posing, not saying anything, just staring daggers at her.
He was trying to intimidate her, to get her to apologize, but Lydia Dale was done apologizing to Jack Benny, and she wasn’t going to let him or anyone intimidate her ever again.
“Where the hell have you been?” he finally asked. “I’ve got better things to do than sit around waiting for you to show up.”
“I doubt that. You haven’t worked in months.”
She couldn’t believe she’d actually said that. She knew from experience that there was no point in arguing with him, especially after he’d had a couple of beers, but the words just slipped out. Judging from the look on his face, Jack Benny couldn’t believe she’d said it either.
He started cussing, going through the entire long list of expletives that Lydia Dale figured made up a good 20 percent of his vocabulary, words she mostly hadn’t even known the meaning of until after they’d gotten married and had their first fight.
Lydia Dale turned the key in the ignition. “If you want to talk to me, then you need to clean up your language. Because I am not in the mood for this today, Jack Benny. I’m really not.”
“That’s nothing new,” he sneered. “When were you ever in the mood for anything?”
“With you? Never. But I managed to give you three children anyway. Why don’t you go back inside and play with them instead of standing out here trying to pick a fight with me?”
“Three?” He worked up another mouthful of spit, took aim, and let fly right on her front tire. “Don’t you mean two?”
Lydia Dale turned off the engine.
“What are you talking about?” she said in a flat voice. “Don’t tell me that you’ve heard Marlena tell that lie so many times you’ve actually started to believe it. Rob Lee is yours, and you know it.”
His eyes narrowed to slits, like he was taking aim down a gun barrel. “What I know is that we weren’t together but that one time in four months . . .”
“Because you were too busy drinking and bedding every sorry piece of trash in a fifty-mile radius to come home nights!”
“. . . and you turn up pregnant.” He held up his index finger. “One time. In four months. It took us a year to have Cady, and that was when we were trying. And you expect me to believe I knocked you up after one time?
“That kid’s not mine, and you know it. You got pregnant and then slept with me, lured me into bed so nobody would know what you’d done. You,” he said in a voice dripping with disgust. “Always so high and mighty, so pure, pushing me away, acting like you’re better than everybody else. Your family too. You’re nothing. Nothing.”
“Lured you? I lured you?” Lydia Dale laughed aloud. “You begged me to go to bed with you that night, Jack Benny. You fed me liquor and told me lies about how it was all over between you and Carla Jean. And then you cried. You bawled like a baby and begged me to take you back. And I believed you. I actually believed you!”
She laughed again, partly from disbelief at the extent of her previous gullibility and partly from the irony of it all. Was it really possible that her ex-husband, the biggest serial adulterer in Central Texas, was standing there accusing her of getting pregnant by another man and then seducing him to cover up her indiscretion? He couldn’t be serious. He knew what had happened the night Rob Lee had been conceived.
But as he always had when confronted with inconvenient truths or his own failings, Jack Benny simply disregarded the facts and shifted the blame.
“It’s not my kid,” he hissed. “You tried to trick me. You tried to pass that Bebee bastard off as mine.”
“That Bebee . . .” she stammered, incredulous. “Jack Benny, even you can’t be that stupid. Graydon Bebee didn’t even come to Too Much until after Rob Lee was born. He’s not the father of my child, you are. Believe me, I wish he was Graydon’s baby. I wish he was anyone’s but yours—”
Seething with jealousy for a woman he no longer wanted, Jack Benny piled his words on top of hers, listening to no one, acknowledging no facts, hearing nothing except that she wished that someone else had fathered her child.
“Momma warned me about you. And those Bebees . . . That damned Donny, always trying to boss me around, lording it over me. And his brother, coming after my wife, then trying to take my son, turning my children against me . . .”
Lydia Dale rolled her eyes, dismissing his drunken tirade. “Go inside, Jack Benny. Sleep it off.”
Infuriated, he shouted and threw his beer bottle down as hard as he could. It shattered, spraying beer and foam and bits of glass on the gravel. Jack Benny lunged toward the open truck window as if to strike her, but Lydia Dale pulled back, dodging him easily.
There was a squeak and a bang, the sound of the screen door opening and closing. Lydia Dale looked up and saw Jeb standing on the stoop with Carla Jean right behind him.
“Momma? You okay?”
Jack Benny spun around. “Go back inside!”
Lydia Dale shot Jack Benny a hateful look, then called out to her boy. “It’s all right, honey. I’m leaving in a second. Go on back inside now, okay?”
Jeb hesitated a moment. Carla Jean leaned down, put her hand gently on Jeb’s shoulder, and whispered something in his ear. Jeb frowned and went inside. Carla Jean followed him, but not before looking to the truck and letting her eyes meet Lydia Dale’s, silently letting her know that, whatever issues stood between the two of them, she’d keep an eye on the children. Lydia Dale lifted her chin, acknowledging the message.
Lydia Dale saw Jeb shadowed on the other side of the screen door, standing by, listening in, making sure she was all right.
Poor Jeb. Poor, confused child. He was a good boy. She shouldn’t have been so harsh with him that morning. She didn’t want to leave him here with Jack Benny in this condition, but she knew what kind of explosion would result if she told the kids to get back in the car. Even so, if Carla Jean hadn’t been on the scene, she’d have done exactly that. Strange to think that she was actually grateful for the presence of her husband’s mistress.
She turned on the ignition again and shifted into reverse.
“Jack Benny Benton, if you ever try to strike me again, I’ll call the sheriff so fast you won’t know what hit you. And the next time you’re drunk when I drop the kids off, I’ll take you back to court and get the judge to cancel your visitation rights.”
“I’m not drunk,” he snarled. “I had two beers.”
Her temples were starting to throb. She was worn out from arguing with him, and there was no point to it anyway. She glanced into the rearview mirror, looking for broken glass.
“I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to get to the dry goods store before it closes. I’ll pick the kids up at the usual time tomorrow. But I meant what I said about the judge. You hear me?”
He walked alongside the truck as she backed up, keeping close to the open window.
“The dry goods store? What do you need there?”
This being Too Much, he already knew that she and Mary Dell were buying the store. Everybody did. She answered, not because it was any of his business, but because she was tired.
“I have to drop off some paperwork from the lawyer. We’re closing the deal at the end of the month.”
He worked his mouth and spat.
“That right? I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I was you.”
He thumped the hood twice with his fist and swaggered toward the house with a smirk on his face.
“But we had a deal!”
Mr. Waterson walked away from her, toting a bolt of fabric across the shop, his eyes on the floor. The old man, usually so direct, hadn’t looked at her straight since she’d come in the door. He seemed embarrassed and ashamed, and he ought to be, Lydia Dale thought to herself. They’d had a deal.
“I never signed anything,” he said, grunting as he shoved the bolt of blue gingham into an already overcrowded shelf. “Marlena is offering me a lot more money. Four thousand more. And she’s willing to pay cash.”
“Because she’s willing to do anything to get her hands on this building!”
Lydia Dale closed her eyes and told herself to calm down. Shouting wasn’t going to get her anywhere, but she had to get through to him.
“Mr. Waterson, Marlena isn’t interested in running a dry goods business. She just wants to keep my sister and me from going into business, any kind of business. She hates me, and she’s willing to spend any amount of money to hurt me and my family. Don’t you see that?”
He pushed past her and walked to the ribbon rack.
“Whatever feud you have going with Marlena Benton is none of my business.”
He turned his back to her, pulled out some yellow grosgrain ribbon, wound it tight on the spool, and secured the loose end with a straight pin.
“But don’t you see? If you sell to Marlena, not only will the Bentons have control of one of the last commercial buildings not already in their hands, but there will never be another yard of fabric or inch of ribbon sold in this store. The whole history of your family will disappear, like there’d never been any Water-sons in Too Much. Are you really willing to let that happen?”
He stopped what he was doing, clutching a spool of green rickrack in his aged hands, thinking. Lydia Dale held her breath.
“I can’t help that,” he said after a few seconds. “Marlena is offering more. She’s paying cash. I’ll give you back the money you paid me.”
“We don’t want the money. We want the store.”
Lydia Dale walked to the ribbon rack, blocking his path. He stared at the scuffed wooden floor, refusing to meet her gaze, but Lydia Dale would not be refused.
“We had a deal,” she said quietly. “You and Mary Dell shook on it. And in Texas, so my daddy says, a man’s handshake is better than a contract. A man’s handshake is his word.”
Mr. Waterson lifted his head, looked at her. His eyes were red.
“Your daddy is right. But I have to sell to Marlena. I don’t have a choice. The doctor called a few days ago, wanted us to come into his office. Mabel has the cancer.”
Lydia Dale clutched at her throat. “Oh, Mr. Waterson. I’m so sorry. Is there anything they can do?”
Mr. Waterson pulled a dingy handkerchief from his pocket, blew his nose, and shook his head.
“The doc doesn’t think so. He says she’s got six months, maybe a year.” Mr. Waterson turned his head, looking out the front window of the shop to the empty street.
“I’m sorry about backing out, Lydia Dale. I know how much your sister wants to open her quilt shop, and believe me, I’d much rather sell it to her than Marlena Benton. But I need money, and I need it now.
“I’m taking Mabel to Hawaii. And Paris. And anyplace else she wants to go. I’m going to be good to her, the way I should have been all along. And then, when she’s seen all she wants to see or can see, I’m going to bring her home to Texas, to our son’s house in Houston, so she can be with the children. And then . . . well, I’ll figure that out later. The only thing that matters right now is Mabel.”
He turned around, walked to the ribbon display, and began to rewind a spool of green rickrack, plunging the pin deep into the end so it would hold fast.
“I’m sorry, Lydia Dale, but I need that money now.”
Lydia Dale reached out and laid her hand on the old man’s arm.
“I know.”
She turned to go, her eyes brimming with tears for an old man filled with regrets, and an old woman coming to the end of her life, and for her sister who was somewhere on the road between Too Much and Dallas, whose dream was slipping away, though she didn’t even know it yet, stolen by a vindictive, black-hearted woman who liked to hurt people just because she could.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And it was her fault.
Marlena didn’t have anything against Mary Dell, other than she was Lydia Dale’s sister. She was only trying to hurt Mary Dell because she knew that nothing on earth would hurt Lydia Dale more. Lydia Dale reached out for the doorknob, clutching it so tight her knuckles went white.
“I can’t let her do this,” she whispered. “I’ve got to stop her. I’ve got to try.”
She turned around.
“What if we paid you cash?”
Mr. Waterson looked up from his ribbons. “What?”
She walked toward him, moving quickly, talking fast. “What if we paid you cash? We can’t match Marlena’s price, but if we paid you cash up front, very soon, ten days from now, would you sell it to us instead of her?”
“But,” he said, “where would you get that kind of money so fast?”
“That’s our worry,” she said, though she’d been asking herself the very same thing. “I just need to know if you’ll let us have the store if we pay cash. Will you?”
The old man looked vacantly across the room, took in a deep breath, let it out slowly.
“Well, I’d a darned sight rather see it in your hands than Marlena’s,” he mused. “There’d be enough, I think, without the extra four thousand. And we did have a deal.”
He sniffed, scratched his nose, and looked her in the eye.
“Yes. If you can pay me cash within ten days,” he said, emphasizing the last phrase, “I’ll sell to you and your sister.”
“And if Marlena comes back and offers you more?”
“I’ll tell her to go to hell,” the old man said.
Lydia Dale smiled. “Would you like to shake on that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and stuck out his hand. “I surely would.”