They give wings for things like this, but I think you have to be dead to be an angel. Or at least somebody who has never used a four-letter word.
—Gloria
Back home, Jenny looks up from the telephone and asks, “How did it go?”
“On a scale of one to ten?” I ask, and she nods, grinning. “Ten for me. Two for him. Maybe.”
“Even men like Tuck run scared after a really bad marriage. Give him time. He’s bound to see you’re nothing like his wife.”
“Maybe they should have X-rayed my head when I crashed into the light pole. What in the world am I thinking, anyway? I’ll be leaving as soon as my car’s fixed.”
“You forgot the barbecue.”
“I’ll be there.”
“So will Tuck.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Jenny.”
“Oh, but I do. And so should you.”
Jenny personifies my favorite lines from Emily Dickinson: “Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul…” I can almost see the trail of feathers she leaves in her wake.
I wish I had her innocent belief in the basic goodness of mankind, in endless possibilities, in the capacity of the spirit to rise up every day and not merely prevail but triumph.
I believe in working hard and charging forward and fighting tooth and toenail for what you want and never giving up, never. Maybe that’s the same as hope, only not quite as gentle as a thing with feathers perching in the soul.
“Show me what I can do to help.” I sit down beside her in the kitchen where papers are spread all over the tabletop.
“Nothing. Just keep me company while I categorize this list of cakes.”
“Where’s Angie?”
“Off with Jackson Tucker. And Rick is doing God knows what. I swear, I’d like to run away.”
“Drive back to California with me.”
My impromptu invitation stuns both of us. We’ve only known each other a few days, and yet extraordinary circumstances have created an extraordinary bond.
“It would be a nice vacation for you. And the least I can do after all you’ve done for me.”
“Oh, I can’t. Definitely not. Angie needs me here.”
“She can come, too.”
I can just hear Roberta. Are you out of your mind? How do you expect to regain your TV role if you’re entertaining guests?
The thing is, I don’t feel out of my mind at all. I feel better than I’ve felt in a very long time. I could be turning into somebody I’d like to know better.
How can you land on your feet if you’re in quicksand?
—Jenny
IT’S MIDNIGHT. Gloria’s asleep, and Angie’s finally back from heaven knows where with that wild buck, Jackson—thank goodness. And Rick’s not home. Again.
In spite of a wonderful day at the spa and Gloria’s advice, not to mention my own instincts screaming that I’ve lost my last marble, I sneak out of the house.
The dogs perk up, wanting to come, but I tell them I’m taking care of business and it’s their job to guard the house. It’s dark as pitch out here. I forgot my flashlight, and besides, I don’t think burglars use them.
Of course, I’m not a burglar. I’m just a wife on a mission. Is he or isn’t he? Cheating, that is.
I navigate my yard without a problem. Even in the dark I know and love very bush, tree, nook and cranny. It’s the vacant lot between my house and the restaurant that could be my Waterloo. The weeds are higher than my head and eager to tangle me up in their prickly fingers so the snakes lurking nearby can eat me alive.
I don’t know how Napoleon would deal with all this, but if I so much as spot a weed move, I’ll die on the spot. Nobody will ever find me. Angie will mourn and Rick will be sorry.
What am I doing out here defying death, anyway? I start to turn back, but the urge to find out what’s really keeping Rick at the restaurant night after night is so strong I press on.
Finally I get across the vacant lot, but my target is at the end of a long downhill slope. Full of overgrown briar patches. And small gullies. And big rocks.
If I scream will Rick leave Miss Pink Passion Notes and come to my rescue?
I consider creeping down on all fours, but that would put me closer to the snakes. Instead I turn sideways and inch down like a crab.
Halfway down, a rock waylays me and I end up on my butt, scooting and crashing along at what feels like the speed of light. And screaming. Did I mention screaming?
At the bottom I startle a stray cat who yowls as if the world has come to an end.
And maybe it has.
Rick’s in the doorway behind the restaurant backlit from the lamp in his office. And he’s training a flashlight into the night.
“What the hell?”
Worse. He trains it on me.
“Jenny?
“Hello, Rick.”
“What are you doing back here?”
“I was worried about you?”
When I’m in hot water I end every sentence as if it’s a question. Rick knows this. As he heads toward me, I figure my marriage is now as good as dead. Killed by suspicion and snakes wearing pink high heels.
He helps me up, wipes the leaves and twigs off my shirt and my jeans, then just looks at me as if I’m somebody he doesn’t even know. Just before I think I’m going to die of embarrassment if I don’t die of a splinter in my butt first, my husband says, “Let’s go home.”
“Okay.”
Sometimes it’s these small, tender mercies that hold the fabric of a marriage together.
Moonlight in Mississippi has improved exponentially.
—Gloria
MY NAME is all over the local papers this morning. Jenny has them spread across the kitchen table where she’s drinking coffee and looking as if she’s lost her last friend. I pour myself a cup—so much at home with the Millers I know where the cutlery and dishes are located—then slide in beside her.
“Good morning. What’s up?”
“I’m not sure you want to know.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.” She tells me about her misguided midnight mission.
“Maybe you need a break. Reconsider coming to California with me.”
“I’d have to talk to Rick. He didn’t say a word when we got home last night, and he was gone before I got out of bed this morning. So I guess we’re not speaking.”
“Why don’t I talk to Rick? I’ll make our trip seem very casual. You won’t have to burn bridges. It will just give you some breathing room.”
“You’re a saint, but I just don’t know yet what I’m going to do. Of course, the trip would give Angie a chance to see something beyond Mooreville and Jackson Tucker, but I’m not sure this is the right time for me to leave.”
I’m far from a saint, but what I’m about to do might qualify me. Either that, or label me certifiably insane.
“Even if you don’t go, Angie could ride home with me and I could buy her a ticket to fly back.”
“Are you sure? She can be a handful.”
I can take this graceful way out or I can be a friend and keep the hope alive on Jenny’s face.
“I’m sure.”
AFTER BREAKFAST Jenny lets me borrow her truck while she’s working in her rose garden. First I drive to the restaurant.
Rick is circulating with the coffeepot, greeting his customers. I don’t think for a minute he’s seeing another woman, and I told Jenny so before I left the house. I don’t think she believes me.
He pours two cups then joins me. I issue the invitation to take Angie to California before I chicken out.
“Angie will be thrilled. It has meant so much for all of us to have you here. Especially Jenny. She’s stuck in this little town.” Rick shakes his head, as if all things female confuse him. “I don’t know.”
Seized by a sudden inspiration, I say, “Why don’t the two of you visit me?” When he protests he can’t leave the restaurant long enough to drive cross-country, I offer to buy tickets for them to fly out. “Just for a weekend, if that’s all you can spare.”
I can picture the two of them away from the daily stress of running a business and raising a teenager. I imagine them drinking margaritas beside my pool, sitting in side-by-side deck chairs and holding hands, recapturing all the old feelings that first brought them together.
I’m no romantic. I know capturing magic is impossible for couples who have not only grown far apart but have eviscerated each other with barbed tongues and wounded each other’s spirits with cold silences. But Jenny and Rick are not like that. I think in the daily grind of living, they’ve simply lost sight of each other.
When Rick declines my invitation, I’m disappointed, but there’s nothing else I can do. Really.
Except drive over to the garage to check on my car. And talk to Jackson.
I can just hear Roberta saying, Are you out of your skinny mind? Who made you God?
“Roberta, you old sourpuss, you won’t even know me when I get home.” I say this aloud, pulling up into Tucker’s Garage, full of intentions to talk to Jackson about responsibility. And also full of hope that Jackson’s father might come riding down the hill on his black stallion. That he might whisk me off to his big barn that smells of sweet clover hay and do all manner of delicious things to me in the haystacks.
I know, I know. I said I wasn’t a romantic, but maybe this is Jillian talking. Maybe I’m turning into my TV persona. But only her better side.
I hope.
When I pull into the parking lot, Jackson looks up from the raised hood of a Ford Escort and waves.
“How’s it going, Miss Hart?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“The parts came.” He takes me inside to show me the Ferrari which is looking almost as good as new. “I’ve got a few more little dents to pull out, then do the paint job, and she’ll be ready.”
“You’ve done splendid work.”
He grins and says, “Thanks,” then I move into the hard stuff.
“Jackson, Angie is only seventeen.”
“Yeah. I know.”
I’m not about to give a big speech about the consequences of unplanned pregnancy. It’s not my job. Still, if I can help Jenny and her family, I’m willing to look like a meddler.
“There’s a possibility she will drive back to California with me, and if she does I think it’s important she knows it’s all right with you.”
“Jeez. I’d give my eyeteeth to drive this baby across the country.” He pats the hood of my car, then smiles, so much like his daddy I feel goose-bumps on my arm. “You’re cool, Miss Hart.”
“Call me Gloria.”
I glance up the hillside and see no sign of Tuck, then the cool Miss Hart does what she always does when life kicks her in the gut and her hopes are dashed. She gets into her borrowed truck and drives home.
It’s funny how quickly I’ve come to regard the Millers’ place as home. Funny, but wonderful.
Just a few days ago I would not have imagined a single good thing that could come of my accident. Now I see that nothing in this world is chance. Everything you do, everywhere you go, every person you meet is the Universe’s way of saying, Hey, be still, look, listen and learn.
“You missed a call from Tuck,” Jenny tells me when I walk in. “The number is on the hall table. He’s coming by at seven to take you out. Unless you have other plans.”
There are miracles, after all. For the first time in my life, I don’t mind that somebody else is taking charge.
“Did he say where?”
“No. Just to wear jeans.”
TUCK AND I are sitting on a patchwork quilt on a hilltop overlooking his paddocks and a large lake. A picnic basket with the remains of thick roast beef sandwiches sits on the grass beside us, and we’re holding two wineglasses filled with merlot.
The moon is the kind a set director might order, big and round and orange, so impossibly bright you’d think it’s fake if you didn’t know better.
Below, a horse as pale as moonlight drinks from the lake, then shakes her mane before she bounds off to join the others.
Tuck points all this out to me, calling their names and relating their racing history. Then he sits back and watches me.
“It’s a kind of heaven, isn’t it?” I tell him.
“Yes. I wanted you to see it. In the moonlight.”
I love this about Tuck—that he wants to share the things he treasures most with me. That he doesn’t apologize for not taking me to a fancy restaurant and some noisy place where the loud entertainment would make conversation impossible. That he chose the quiet panorama of a summer night where the water speaks of life, the stars speak of love and the moon speaks of eternity.
I can see why the news articles call him an authentic horse whisperer. If his deep, rich drawl has the same effect on horses it’s having on me, then he can get them to do anything he wants simply by speaking.
As I turn to watch the play of moonlight across his face, I marvel that wonder can be found in such simple pleasures—a man, a voice and a moon.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
He takes the wineglass from my hand, then kisses my palm. “You’re welcome.”
He draws me into his arms, and suddenly, I’ve found more than wonder. I’ve discovered passion and need and an urgency that can’t be denied.
Tuck doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t pause to ask permission, doesn’t ponder whether it’s too soon. He bares me to the moonlight, then covers my pale body like a sun-warmed blanket.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
—Angie
GLORIA HART just asked me to accompany her home.
Like Mom’s going to let me go on a road trip to California by myself. If I get off without Mom, I’ll guarantee you the world’s fixing to come to a screeching halt. St. Peter can forget about blowing his trumpet. If Mom stays in Mooreville, Mississippi, and lets me go a thousand miles away, the world will just stop.
I mean that. Last summer she wouldn’t even let me go to New York with the Drama Club. And she nearly died on the spot when I mentioned going to Paris with the French Club.
So you see my dilemma. When Gloria says, “I hope you’ll come, Angie,” I don’t start packing.
“Are you sure it’s okay with Mom?”
“You have her blessing.”
Then there must be a catch. I’m going out there to be an indentured servant. Or there’s some godawful little math and science camp she wants me to attend. I hate math and science. Oh, I make A’s in the subjects, but it’s only because I study my head off.
Or even worse. She and Dad are getting a divorce and she wants me out of the way until it’s all over.
“What about Dad? Is it okay with him?”
“He thought you’d like it. I invited him and your mom, too. They’re not coming for the entire two weeks, but I think they might fly out for a weekend.”
Gloria wouldn’t lie. So now I can breathe. I can start packing. Even better, I can tell Sally.
“That sounds great. Thank you, Gloria.”
As soon as she leaves I pick up the phone. “Sally, guess what?” When I tell her, you could hear her squeal all the way to the South Pacific. “You’ll have to watch after Jackson for me. Promise?”
The next thing is to tell Jackson. Of course, I want to do this in person, and I don’t want him to know how thrilled I am. Otherwise, he’s liable to get the idea I don’t care and start going out with that little twit, Nancy Wiggins. She thinks she owns the world just because she’s a cheerleader.
Wait till she hears about me going to California in an Italian sports car with America’s TV goddess.
Why can’t love be as easy to serve as barbecue?
—Jenny
WELL, here we are at the benefit for the Volunteer Fire Department. Finally.
I’m so tied up in knots I could scream. Ever since I tried to sneak up behind Rick’s restaurant and find out what was going on, he’s been treating me like he was some polite stranger. It seems like four years ago instead of only four days.
To top it all off, my husband’s running around acting so busy he hasn’t said boo to me, and Tuck’s so preoccupied being a perfect host he hasn’t had a chance to speak to Gloria. A temporary condition, I’m sure, considering he’s taken her out every night since they had that picnic on the hill.
Of course, Gloria didn’t share particulars, but she didn’t have to. I know a lovestruck woman when I see one.
The only person in my household who is acting normal is Angie. She’s jumping up and down with excitement about going to California with Gloria.
If things get any frostier in my bedroom, I’ll go, myself.
First, though, I have to serve this barbecue and keep smiling.
“May I help you?” I ask the woman who is swathed in chiffon scarves and a hat as big as Texas. I know practically everybody in Lee County, but I can’t recall ever seeing her. She must be from Itawamba County. Or maybe Pontotoc.
People come from everywhere for almost any event that involves seeing Tuck’s Farms. Plus, folks are lined up nearly to Tuck’s barns in front of the green-and-white striped awning to see the nation’s reigning TV goddess.
“I’ll take the meat but now the slaw.” The woman speaks in an accent I’ve never heard. She’s definitely not from Mississippi. “It gives me indigestion. I want bread but for God’s sake, leave off the beans. You don’t want to hear what that does to me. Suffice it to say, I could clear this gathering.”
“You’re not from here.”
I heap her plate with extra meat and bread, then motion for the rest of the line to go around her to the next server. Most people would, anyhow. At gatherings like this everybody understands that people often strike up lengthy conversations with long-lost friends and relatives. Sometimes even perfect strangers.
“No. I’m from New Jersey.” She holds out a blue-veined hand loaded with diamonds. “Sylvia Comstock.”
I say, “Jenny Miller,” and she acts like I’m her favorite, long-lost niece rediscovered after a two-year bout of amnesia in the snake-infested jungles of the Amazon.
“Rick’s wife?” I nod, wondering how she knows my husband. “Lulu didn’t tell me you’d be here.”
“Lulu, my mother-in-law?”
“Yes.” Sylvia chuckles. “I see she’s been keeping secrets again. Lulu and I have been friends for years. I’ve been in town for a few days, visiting.”
I’d like to say she only keeps secrets from me, but I don’t want to spoil her opinion of Lulu. So far, Sylvia’s the only one of Godzilla’s friends who didn’t act like she had nails for breakfast followed by a cup of TNT. Strange, though, I never heard her mention anyone named Sylvia.
“Do you come often?”
“No, dear. This is my first visit in twenty-five years. I lived abroad until my husband passed away last year.”
“If you’re staying a while, do stop by the house for a visit. I’d like Angie to meet you.”
“Unfortunately, I’m leaving early in the morning. But let me give you my number. I’m planning a surprise birthday party for Lulu in October, and your husband has promised to help get her to Trenton without arousing her suspicions.”
Sylvia whips out her pen and scrawls her number on a little piece of paper. Pink. The color of love. The color of embarrassment.
This note is an exact match to the one I found in Rick’s pants. If memory serves, so is the number.
“Are you all right, my dear?”
“Yeah. Bug in my eye.” I’m so silly. I always cry when I’m overwhelmed with happiness.
“Yoohoo.” Nothing can spoil happiness quicker than Godzilla, and she’s heading this way. “There you are, Tootie. I thought I’d lost you.”
Tootie? Well, no wonder I’d never heard of her.
“You couldn’t lose me if you tried. Why didn’t you tell me you had such a sweet daughter-in-law, Puddin’?”
“Isn’t she a peach? Come on, Tootie, we’ve got to get you out of this sun before you have a heatstroke.”
I’ll bet Godzilla aka Puddin’ thinks I’m a peach—one with worms and black-spot blight.
Pulling another volunteer in to take my place, I race up the hill to tell Gloria my news.