Chapter Sixteen

“Oh, Fawn, I would have been scared to death.”

I couldn’t look Ruthie in the eye when I said, “It helped to have Tyler there.”

Late Tuesday, the two of us sat on the edge of the cement holding tank in the side pasture at Ansel and Velma’s house. Our feet dangled in the hazy, green water while I replayed my horrible visit to Dr. Tubbs. “But when they did the ultrasound, everything looked normal. Dr. Tubbs said the lotion I used interfered with the Doppler.”

Ruthie became unexpectedly quiet, staring into the cold well water. “That must have been terrifying.” She lifted her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Her compassion startled me, and I blinked. Ever since I left the doctor’s office, my tears flowed easily, sometimes from the roar of heartbreak, sometimes from the echo of relief.

She squeezed my hand and slid into the shallow water, four feet deep. “Man, it’s hot today.” She moved slowly to the middle of the concrete tank, stirring up moss with each step. “I wish we were at the lake instead of here.”

Usually by the first of September, the temperatures in Trapp dipped into the nineties, but our little town continued to hit the century mark daily. The cement-sided cattle trough didn’t compare to the swimming pool I grew up using, or to Lake Alan Henry, where Ruthie spent countless summer Saturdays with the Picketts, but it cooled my feet nonetheless. I figured I would eventually get used to its murky water and the goldfish flicking past my ankles. In the meantime, I couldn’t bring myself to get all the way in. I told Ruthie I didn’t have a proper swimming suit, but truth be told, I didn’t want to get dirty.

“So, tell me about your date with Tyler. After the doctor’s appointment?” Ruthie floated on her back.

“It was not a date,” I insisted. “But he took me shopping afterward and bought me several maternity outfits.”

“Did he say why he’s acted like such a moron for the past year?”

I trickled water down my arms. “I’ve decided to forgive him.”

Her voice clipped, but I had a feeling most of her impatience lay with me, not Tyler. “You’re going to fall in the same trap again.”

“A child needs two parents.”

She looked away from me and squinted into the sun hanging low in the sky.

I shouldn’t have said that. Ruthie’s father left years before, and she still hadn’t healed from the damage he caused. “I’m sorry, Ruthie. I wasn’t thinking.”

She swam away from me, and then turned. “Okay, then. My tattered childhood is evidence that a child needs two parents, but your father daily proves not every man is sufficient for the job.”

“Tyler isn’t as bad as my father.”

“Tyler’s a mean drunk.”

I counted to ten. “You’re right, but when he’s sober, he’s not a bad person.”

She tilted her head back in the water, soaking her hair so it would fall smoothly down her back. “Are you just interested in him because the church expects you to be?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t care about that anymore.”

“Good.” Ruthie gave me the Who cares? sign. “But you’re still stuck in some kind of victim mentality.”

“You listen to too much talk radio.”

“You could call them and do a show.”

I wished we would talk about something else, because every time I thought about Tyler, I felt like I was riding the Ferris wheel at the tricounty fair. Only this time, instead of clinging to my mother’s hand, I was all alone.

“Can you help me out this week? Ansel had me take the Chevy to a mechanic in Lubbock.”

“Changing the subject, are we?”

I lifted a shoulder.

“What’s wrong with the Chevy?”

“The air conditioner is out. Something about a compressor. They said it’ll be ready Saturday.”

She frowned. “Dodd and I can take turns getting you to classes this week, but I don’t know about Saturday.”

A rustling sound behind me caught my attention, but before I could turn, a tanned male body barreled across the yard, whooping as loud as a Santa Fe train engine. He set one foot on the side of the holding tank and did a front flip, landing on his back and splashing water all over me.

Grady.

Dodd called from the barbed-wire fence where he and JohnScott were climbing over the metal stile. “Sorry about that, you guys. I try to leave him at home, but he keeps following me.”

I wiped water from my face while Ruthie laughed. “You can only do so much.”

She leaned out of the water and kissed him, causing Grady to make a gagging motion with his fingers. “Ruthie, you and Dodd are so cute, I could puke.”

I smiled at Dodd. “Congratulations on your engagement. Ruthie told me all about it. She’s a lucky girl.”

“I’m the lucky one.” He stepped into the water and stood behind Ruthie, wrapping his arms around her waist and leaning over to nuzzle her neck.

JohnScott, standing to the side with his hands on the wet cement, shook his head at me and shrugged.

“Dodd, you are not alone,” Grady said loudly.

“You’re just jealous.” JohnScott chuckled. “Get yourself a girlfriend.”

“Coach Pickett’s got a point.” Dodd pulled Ruthie to the side of the tank opposite JohnScott.

Her back was still pressed against him, and she giggled softly before focusing on me. “Fawn, Grady is going to be Dodd’s best man, and—”

“Because I am the manliest man in the world,” declared Grady.

“The manliest man without a girlfriend,” crooned JohnScott under his breath.

“You don’t have a girlfriend either, Coach. I thought we were united in this fact.”

“He’s the head coach,” Dodd said. “That gives him an automatic man card, with or without a woman by his side.”

“Anyway …” Ruthie looked at me. “I wanted to wait until Dodd was here before I asked you. Would you be my maid of honor?”

I felt my mouth curve upward in a smile, and I thanked God for the reflex action. I felt numb. I had planned on being a bride, not a bridesmaid, but so much had happened in the last year, my heart didn’t know what to feel. But numb was good. Numb was easy. Numb was safe. “I’d be honored, Ruthie.” I cringed as I pictured myself in a tent-sized maternity gown. “When is the date?”

“Sometime in November. After your baby comes. Ansel and Velma’s yard will be awful that time of year, but there’s no way we’re waiting for spring.”

Dodd buried his face in her neck again. “We’re certainly not.”

“Please. That’s disgusting.” Grady groaned and went underwater.

When he resurfaced, Ruthie spoke softly to Dodd but loud enough the others could hear. “Fawn was just telling me about her doctor’s appointment. The baby’s heartbeat sounded irregular at first, but when the doctor ordered an ultrasound, everything checked out good. It was just a problem with her lotion.”

“Oh, man,” Grady said. “I’m sorry.”

Dodd nodded. “Glad everything’s all right.”

The coach turned his back to us and sat on the edge of the holding tank, staring across the pasture. If he heard the discussion, he gave no indication, and a noticeable lag in conversation followed. Apparently he didn’t care to hear the boring details about my office visit.

Grady’s eyebrows bounced three times, and then he eased toward JohnScott with only his head above the water, a mischievous grin on his face.

JohnScott glanced over his shoulder right as Grady pulled him backward into the water, dunking him as though in baptism.

The coach came up coughing, then stood and shook his head twice, slinging water out of his curls. “Grady, be glad you’re not playing football under me anymore, because you’d be running laps for a year.”

“I thank the good Lord for that every day.”

“That bad?” JohnScott asked.

“Worst experience of my life.”

I smiled, knowing Grady had idolized Coach Pickett since the day they met. “We don’t believe that, Grady. Not for a second.”

“Fawn?” Grady stood straighter and peered at me. “It’s about time you got in the water too.”

I held out my palms. “I’m good right here.”

“Okay.” All four of us looked at him, surprised he backed off so quickly, but then he cocked his head to the side. “You don’t want to get in. Fine.” He swept his hand through the water and splashed me full in the face, taking away my breath. “But you didn’t say anything about getting wet.”

“Stop it, Grady. She’s pregnant.” Ruthie splashed him, and Dodd joined her.

Soon water was hitting me from every direction, and I held up my arms to shield myself. After a few seconds, I realized I would be less of a target in the water, and I slid off the wall. The skin on the back of my legs hurt from being pressed against the cement for so long, but the water felt good. Someone, probably Grady, kept splashing me in the face, so I submerged and swam a few feet to the left, hoping he would give someone else his attention. I surfaced and wiped water from my eyes, only to receive another faceful. I submerged again and swam farther around.

With five adults in the small tank, I kept nudging into legs. I groped for the cement side, careful not to bump my head on the rough hardness, then rose out of the water, but only so far as my nose.

I found myself looking directly into Coach Pickett’s eyes, inches away from me. His nearness embarrassed me, and I desperately wanted to look away, to hide behind something so I could escape his penetrating gaze, which seemed to expose my faults. But I couldn’t move.

The flurry continued around us as we both looked at each other in surprise. We were so close, I could see drops of water on his eyelashes. I clutched the cement with my fingertips, as he rose slightly above the water. His eyes roamed down to my mouth, in and then out of the waves, and I held my breath.

JohnScott looked like a different person. Wet and startled and no longer my history teacher or the head coach or my friend’s cousin. But someone else.

Someone interesting.

He pushed off the cement wall and swam away from me.

When the splashing settled, I crouched at the far side of the tank, trying to calm the butterflies flittering in my stomach. I stood up, pulling my wet T-shirt away from me, then once again perched on the edge of the tank. I avoided eye contact with all of them and wondered if any of them had seen.

Grady flipped in the water, attempting to stand on his hands, and Dodd and Ruthie laughed together on the other side of the tank, sharing a few kisses. Apparently they hadn’t noticed.

I couldn’t look at the coach.

But maybe I’d read more into it than I ought to. Maybe he hadn’t noticed anything peculiar. Maybe we simply bumped into each other.

Probably, it was nothing. Nothing at all.

I swung my legs over the side and stepped toward a lawn chair to retrieve my sandals. “I better get home.”

As Ruthie voiced her objections, I finally glanced at the coach, but when my eyes met his, he turned away.

Shame settled over me like a warm mist, and stifling heat pressed against my chest, reminding me of a sauna Mother and I had sat in too long on vacation one year. By the time we left the room, I was light-headed and almost fainted.

I wanted to faint now, to succumb to blessed unconsciousness. Because whatever happened between JohnScott and me in the water was definitely not nothing.