At the Corner of Love and Heartache Read online

  Willie Lee carefully lowered the blinds back into position, then glanced over his shoulder at Corrine. She was still beneath her covers.

  There was no way to be silent in trying to get on the other side of the blinds. He did the best he could. Nothing was going to stop him now, anyway. He got his feet out the window and his rear end positioned on the windowsill, holding to the frame on either side with a hard grip. Munro was sitting on the ground, looking up expectantly. “Come on!”

  Willie Lee braced his feet against the outside wall. Then he put his arms out in front, the way Superman did, took a breath, closed his eyes and imagined…jump!

  For an instant he was hurting through the air, with his cape flying out behind him.

  His feet hit the ground with a hard jolt, then his knees—something sharp stabbed his left knee—and he caught himself instinctively with his hands, only to lose balance and go rolling across the cold, wet ground.

  He found himself staring at the brick foundation three feet from his face. Munro came over to lick his face. “I am o-kay,” he told his dog.

  He sat up. Everything looked funny. Oh, his glasses. He straightened them on his face. He got to his feet and rubbed his hands on his coat. He had almost flown, he felt sure. Almost. Yes, his cape was okay.

  Turning, he looked up into the bare branches of the elm tree that stretched over toward the corner of the house. He looked at Munro. “May-be I need to be high-er…up in the tree.”

  Munro looked up at the tree and then at Willie Lee. “I don’t think so.”

  Willie Lee went over to the tree and walked around on the lumps of roots spreading out at the base. He felt the rough bark. He pressed his ear against the trunk, hearing the life running through the tree the same way he could sometimes hear it in the wind or in the ground.

  He looked upward again for a long minute. He raised both arms out in front and upward, hands together, closed his eyes and stood there, imagining, feeling himself begin to soar.

  But when he opened his eyes, he was still on the ground.

  Just then a door opened next door.

  Willie Lee dropped his arms and squished himself against the tree trunk. Munro moved close.

  Trash cans banged. Mr. Purvis putting out his garbage.

  Next came a small meow and then Mr. Purvis saying, “Git…git outta here!”

  Willie Lee risked peeking around the tree. He saw Mr. Purvis stamp one of his big boots at a small grey kitten, as if trying to smash it.

  The kitten scampered under the hedges that divided Mr. Purvis’s driveway from Willie Lee’s front yard.

  Mr. Purvis went back into his house.

  Willie Lee, crouching, went along the hedge, until he saw the little kitten.

  “Do you know him, Mun-ro?”

  “No.”

  Willie Lee said, “Here, kit-ty.”

  The kitten, frightened of everything, scampered farther along through the branches of the hedge. Munro went ahead and tried to speak with the kitten, while Willie Lee held back and watched. But the kitten just hissed at Munro.

  “Stupid cat.” Munro retreated.

  Then Mr. Purvis came back out to start his pickup, and at the roar of the engine—which Willie Lee’s mother and just about everyone else in their neighborhood complained of—the kitten zipped through the hedge, and then it was as if it shot out and up into the air, right out into the road, unfortunately at the exact moment that a little car came speeding past.

  Thud!

  Willie Lee saw and heard it. It looked as if the kitten hit the car and not the other way around.

  The next instant the car was gone, and the kitten lay in the road, like a dirty rag.

  Munro took off like a bullet for the street, and Willie Lee, forgetting to remain hidden, hurried as fast as he could after the dog.

  He stopped at the curb. He was not allowed in the street. But the kitten was only a little way into the street. Munro was sniffing it gingerly.

  Carefully Willie Lee stepped off the curb and over to the lifeless grey-striped form. Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he crouched with his hands on his knees for a closer look.

  “Road-kill,” Munro said.

  “Well, by golly, Willie Lee, is that your kitten that got run over there?” It was Mr. Purvis, looking over from scraping frost off his windshield. Puffs of white came out of his mouth, about like the dark puffs coming out of the tailpipe of his rumbling truck.

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, son, you had better get out of the street before a car comes and runs over you. I’m fixin’ to back out.”

  Mr. Purvis reached for the door handle.

  Willie Lee watched with alarm, and Munro pranced. “Pick him up, quick…hold him.”

  Willie Lee reached down to gather up the kitten’s limp body. His knuckles scraped the pavement. He always had such a hard time moving fast. He could never move as fast as everyone wanted him to.

  Then, holding the kitten close against his chest, he carried it up into his yard, stumbling on the curbing. He walked beneath the massive bare branches of the elm tree and stood there, feeling the kitten warm in his arms. He closed his eyes and imagined himself flying, and as Mr. Purvis’s pickup truck roared out of the driveway, he could feel himself lifting.

  Inside the house, Marilee had her face jutted toward her dresser mirror and, in the impossibly low light of the little crystal lamp, was applying lipstick, when Leon Purvis’s hot-rod pickup roared in the driveway next door. She jumped and shot red toward her cheek.

  Dang that man! Somebody ought to shoot him. She threw down the lipstick and headed for the bedroom door. Hearing her boot heels connect with the floor, she went up on tiptoe, lifting up the red silk nightgown as she raced across the short hallway to the children’s bedroom.

  She stood there, hearing her neighbor’s hot-rod truck fade away down the street and holding her breath as she studied the forms in the beds.

  The forms did not move. A bomb going off outside would not wake Willie Lee unless he wanted to wake, but Corrine could be awakened at times by the least thing.

  It occurred to Marilee that she would feel pretty foolish should her niece wake up and find her standing there in the sexy red negligee and tall taupe cowboy boots.

  She tiptoed back into her bedroom, where she stood for a moment, listening with the door cracked. Silence. No one stirred. She reassured herself that one could generally count on children sleeping more soundly on school days.

  Back again in front of the mirror, she took a tissue to the smudged lipstick, then reapplied it. A last study of her image, then she dropped the lipstick and strode to the closet, where the door sat open with clothes hung all over it, got out her long trench coat and put it on. She hadn’t worn it in years, usually opting for her practical and comfortable Pendleton barn coat.

  Standing in front of the full-length mirror, she tied the coat around her, leaving the buttons undone. It would be much easier to whip open the coat if it were just tied.

  She gave it a try, jerked the belt loose and flung open the coat and struck a provocative pose. Plunging neckline, skin shadowy beneath the filmy gown, high-heeled cowboy boots. Well. That was a picture to get attention, she would think.

  Sucking in a breath, she folded the coat closed and retied the belt. Taking advantage of a sudden leap of faith, she opened the bedroom door, tiptoed again to the door of the children’s room. The lumps remained still in the beds.

  Turning, she tiptoed through the house and out the back door into the cold morning, and hurried across the frosty yard shadowed by the trees. She was still on tiptoe, she realized, and let her feet down.

  The latch on the old back gate was frozen in place. She jiggled it, and it opened with a small squeak. She hurried through the gate and the line of cedars at the back of Tate’s yard, across the expanse of lawn and up the back steps. She felt like some sort of criminal sneaking through the neighborhood.

  The doorknob was cold beneath her hand. The door that had
not been locked since Tate moved in opened quietly.

  She stuck her head through and peered into the room. A light burned above the sink, but there was no aroma of coffee. Her nose twitched, detecting the acrid scent of old moldy wood.

  Listening carefully, she thought she detected water running through pipes. Maybe so, maybe not.

  She stepped into the kitchen and closed the door quietly behind her, leaned against it, catching her breath. Then she was struck with the boldness of her following through with her idea, and that the idea was actually rolling along.

  Pushing from the door with a bit of eagerness now, she went to the coffeemaker, pulled it forward on the counter, then looked at the cabinets, guessing the location of the coffee and opening the door directly above.

  She and Tate had been dating since last fall, and she had not spent enough time in his kitchen to know for certain the location of his coffee. This fact seemed to speak about a definite hole in their relationship. She didn’t know where his coffee was kept, and she had only made love with him four times. Four rather furtive times, stolen moments that had much more to do with passionate need than commitment, which they had now made.

  At the thought of her commitment, Marilee’s mind did a sharp jog back to the preparation of coffee. Just to be ready in case Tate appeared, she untied the belt of her coat and did a quick practice seductive flash. Okay, that would do.

  The next instant the back door swung inward.

  Marilee whirled around. She had thought Tate was upstairs. What was he doing coming in the back door? Grab the edges of her coat, pose and flash.

  She had her coat whipped open when she realized the figure stepping into the kitchen was not Tate but…a woman.

  Yes, a woman coming in the door. A small woman, in a bright pink-and-purple silk jogging suit, who gazed at Marilee with equal surprise.

  Marilee wrapped her coat closed.

  The woman said, “Oh, honey, I’m sorry to startle you. I guess you weren’t expectin’ me.” She laughed. “And I wasn’t you, either.”

  Who was this woman?

  As if in answer to the unspoken question, the woman said, “I’m Tate’s mother, Franny. I got in late last night.” Lowering her voice, she leaned forward and held up a pack of Virginia Slims. “I took my smoke outside, before Tate got up. He will take me to task if he finds out I still smoke a cigarette on occasion. I do take care of myself, and one little cigarette isn’t going to kill me, and I like to have it while I do my mornin’ meditations. But I thought it best to go outside…. I don’t want to do anything to make Tate start up again.” She put a hand over her heart. “Heaven knows he had such a hard time quit-tin’. And I do not want to be any temptation in the wrong direction for my son.”

  The entire time the woman spoke, Marilee stood frozen, holding her coat around her and taking in the woman’s bright green eyes, pixie-styled, carrot-red hair, dangling earrings and bangle bracelets that tingled, noticing that her features greatly resembled Tate’s, although surely she was too young to be his mother, and she looked not at all like her picture on his office wall. Her accent, too, was very much like his; she said the word direction with a long i, and there was a brightness about her that was arresting, as if she glowed.

  Then the woman said, “You’re Marilee, aren’t you? If you’re not, Tate has a lot more problems than startin’ up smokin’ again.” She gave a throaty chuckle.

  “Oh, yes, I’m Marilee.” Clutching her coat together with one hand, she extended the other. “Hello.”

  “Hello, my dear.” The woman took Marilee’s hand, but instead of a shake, she came forward and pressed her cheek against Marilee’s in a warm manner. “It is a delight to at last meet the love of my son’s life.”

  Then she drew back and was again assessing Marilee, who said, “I…I was just…well, I thought I’d make Tate some coffee this morning.”

  “Ahh…” The woman’s gaze traveled up and down Marilee, and then she turned to reach into a cabinet for a mug, which she stuck beneath the water faucet. “I always have a cup of hot water before my coffee. I don’t make very good coffee, so I’m awfully glad you can.” Popping the cup into the microwave, she pushed buttons.

  Marilee decided she had to get out of there.

  “I need to be getting back home. The children are alone. I just left them for a few minutes.” She didn’t want Tate’s mother to think her careless as a parent. No doubt the woman was already having plenty of skeptical thoughts about her. She moved toward the door, remembering at last to tie her belt and not keep clutching her coat together like an insane woman.

  “But, honey, you haven’t seen Tate.”

  “I’ll see him later.” She opened the door.

  “Now, I don’t want to be an interruption to you and Tate and y’all’s routine. I’m takin’ my hot water right up to my room and leavin’ you two alone to do…whatever.”

  “We don’t have a routine,” Marilee said instantly, taking the woman’s “whatever” to be something like making mad, passionate love on the floor. “I just…well, I have to get back.”

  At that minute Tate entered. He was pulling a T-shirt over his head. Marilee saw his bare chest, blue flannel lounge pants and bare feet. When her gaze came up from his feet, she found his head out of his shirt and his eyes staring at her in surprise.

  “Marilee?”

  “Good mornin’, dear,” his mother said as the microwave oven beeped. “I think Marilee has a surprise for you.” And then, bearing her cup of hot water, the woman swept out of the room in a swish of her silk jogging suit.

  Tate looked at Marilee, who said, “I just came to make your coffee. See you later.”

  Turning, she left him there with his confused expression, going out without so much as a kiss on the cheek, closing the door to the aroma of coffee, descending down the steps with the cold crisp air blowing up her coat and gown, a painful reminder of her foolish, audacious actions. As she hurried across the frosty grass that crunched under her feet, she listened for Tate to follow. But he did not. Bitter disappointment brought tears to her eyes.

  She should have known better than to try something silly. She had never been very good at silly.

  In the bathroom, Corrine heard a noise and opened the door a crack, peeking out. Light poured in the living-room windows now. She heard her aunt Marilee’s steps through the house, coming from the kitchen. The question of where her aunt had been so early in the morning flitted through Corrine’s mind but was pushed out by the immediacy of her situation.

  Her aunt, just entering the hallway, stopped on sight of Corrine, who said, “I…I started,” and thrust her panties out through the cracked door.

  “What?” Aunt Marilee looked puzzled.

  Corrine closed her eyes and shook the panties, which Aunt Marilee took and looked at. Corrine opened her eyes to check her aunt’s response.

  Aunt Marilee’s bottom lip quivered, and her eyes went all soft and warm, and Corrine could breathe again.

  “Oh, sugar,” Aunt Marilee said, pushing open the door and pulling Corrine out. She pressed Corrine against her, saying again, “Oh, sweetheart,” and Corrine had to turn her head to the side to keep from being smothered. Aunt Marilee led them into her room and sat on her big bed, all the while saying how Corrine had taken a big step into womanhood.

  “Remember all I told you? All we learned?” her aunt asked.

  In her dedicated effort to school Corrine and Willie Lee at home last summer, Aunt Marilee had taught Corrine all about the human body. Aunt Marilee had done such a thorough job that when her teacher this year at school had addressed a lot of the same facts, Corrine had felt she could have taught the class.

  Corrine nodded that she did remember.

  “Do you have any questions?” asked Aunt Marilee, who had tears flowing down her cheeks even while she smiled.

  Corrine didn’t think the smile reached her aunt’s eyes. She wondered what her aunt was really thinking, but she was not about to ask.
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  Then Aunt Marilee was stroking Corrine’s hair. “I wish sometimes that I could keep you from growin’ up…. Life just gets more complicated from here,” her aunt said in a sighing voice.

  Corrine thought life was pretty complicated now, but she was glad to be growing up, and it couldn’t happen soon enough for her. She believed that when she grew up she would know all that she needed to know, and that she would never act as stupid as all the adults she saw.

  Just then Aunt Marilee got to her feet. “We need to call your mother, and you can tell her. She’ll want to share this time with you. Wouldn’t you like to tell her of your big day?”

  Corrine read the assumption on her aunt’s face and said the expected “Yes.” She watched as her aunt reached for the telephone on the nightstand. Her stomach tightened, and uncertainty tumbled over her body. Apparently Aunt Marilee had forgotten that early mornings were not a good time to call her mother, who was never, even when not hung over, in a good mood first thing in the morning. When Corrine had lived at home, she had learned not to wake her mother and in the mornings to make coffee so that her mother could have a cup as soon as possible upon awaking. One never spoke to Corrine’s mother before she had her coffee. And one generally didn’t speak of private things at all with her mother, who did not like to speak of bodily functions.

  “Oh, this phone doesn’t have your mother’s number,” Aunt Marilee said, and Corrine felt an instant of relief, but then Aunt Marilee was heading for the phone on her desk in the living room.

  Corrine followed, for the first time noting that her aunt had on a long coat she had not before seen, and boots. Curiosity over her aunt’s dress and where her aunt had been so early in the morning flitted through her mind but was replaced by wondering if she should remind her aunt that morning was not a good time to call her mother.

  She threw herself into the big chair, to hide, but then she poked up on her knees and said in a sudden, hurried whisper, “You tell her, Aunt Marilee.”

  Aunt Marilee cupped Corrine’s chin with her hand, which was cool and smooth.