Troubled waters, p.9
Troubled Waters, page 9
Grandpa Porter’s grave caught her eye a second time, and her heart saddened at the thought of her being only ten and losing him. Then, with no warning, the anger overtook her, and there was a moment when she thought she might scream at the top of her lungs and release all the frustration that had built up over the last two decades.
At that instant an unexpected breeze swirled the tops of the trees and then dipped low, knocking off several of the two dozen or so roses that lay on top of the casket. Macey absently walked over to pick them up and place them back on the casket, but then she stopped. Her face burned with hot tears, and before she knew what she was doing, she’d gathered up all the roses off the casket, marched over to Grandpa Porter’s grave, and placed them carefully against his headstone.
Macey walked back to her car, started the engine, and let the air-conditioner blow the tears and sweat away. Heading home, thirsty and even a little hungry, she hoped there would be a vegetable tray.
———
She hadn’t expected the commotion. It was more like a twenty-year reunion than a funeral reception. People were talking loudly, and her mother seemed invigorated by the houseful of guests. She smiled and served coffee while everyone complained about how she should be sitting and resting, to which Evelyn remarked she wasn’t the one that died, and this caused quite a bit of laughter and nodding of heads.
For the next fifteen minutes or so, Macey managed to exist as a wallflower, munching on carrots and drinking cold glasses of water. But soon everyone’s coffee was filled, and suddenly her mother found her in the dark corner of the dining room. She took her hand, guiding her to the middle of a crowd.
“Twenty, I want you to meet my daughter, Macey.”
“Macey! My goodness!” the loud, boisterous man with short fuzzy hair and chubby cheeks exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you since you was a little girl. Aren’t you all grown up and just as purty as you can be.”
Macey blushed and looked her mother’s way, who laughed and patted the man on his back. “We call him Twenty because he lost a bet when he was a teenager—”
“My papa’s two favorite horses for twenty bucks,” Twenty butted in. “Boy, was he angry.” Macey smiled. The man’s charisma was a little contagious. “I hear you’re some big celebrity or something,” he said, his words muffled as he stuffed an entire finger sandwich into his mouth.
“Just an anchorwoman,” she replied, then wondered if she needed to explain what that was. She didn’t have a chance, because her mother had pulled another person in.
“And this is James Tomlin, but we call him Tom-Boy. He does all our plumbing, plus he’s been mowing our lawn.”
He shook Macey’s hand vigorously. “Pleased to meet ya, ma’am. I’m sorry for your loss. Your daddy was a good man. I served as an usher and deacon with him for fifteen years over at the church.”
“Tutie! Come over here!” Evelyn called, waving her hand above the crowd. “Come here and see my daughter.” A thin older woman, with silver hair and a cane to match, maneuvered around the people over to where Macey and her mom stood.
“I’m Tutie,” she said in a deep shaky voice. “Probably don’t remember me. But you sure have grown up. I used to do your mom’s hair before the arthritis got the best of my hands and I had to retire.”
“Oh.” Macey couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I’m called Tutie, but my name is Gertrude.”
“I can’t remember anymore how Tutie came about,” said Evelyn. “I’ve just always called you that.”
The old woman shrugged her bony shoulders. “Well, I guess you just have to live with some things. Can I get you something else to drink, dear?” She pointed to Macey’s empty water glass.
“Oh, no thank you. I’m fine.”
“How about some coffee? Cream or sugar?”
Evelyn urged her with a small nod of her head, so Macey smiled and asked for both sugar and cream. Tutie turned and headed toward the beverage table, and Evelyn whispered, “Don’t count on getting any. She always gets distracted on her way and forgets. I’ll go get you a cup.”
“Mom, that’s okay. I don’t need any coffee.”
“No trouble at all,” Evelyn replied as she began moving away. “Besides, I want you to meet Pepper.”
“Pepper?”
“Long story. I’ll be right back.”
Macey shook her head and mumbled, “Does anyone around here go by their real name?”
She heard a deep laugh and then, “I do.”
Looking up, she saw her tallest nightmare. There he was, long hair tied back, white shirt with no tie, smiling at her as if he knew something she didn’t.
He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure I got a chance to introduce myself the other day when you were trespassing. The name’s Noah.”
Macey put her guard up by crossing her arms, then said, “As in the whale?” She smiled to herself, glad she could at least remain witty around him.
He grinned. “Actually that’s Jonah. I’m more at home in an ark.”
Macey closed her eyes with embarrassment. How could she get the two mixed up? She’d had to practically memorize both stories in Sunday school. She was just nervous. “I knew that.”
His blue eyes sparkled with childlike defiance. Annoyed, Macey’s muscles tightened, but at the same time she couldn’t help notice how handsome he looked when he wasn’t in a pair of tattered overalls. She shrugged off the thought and avoided his eyes.
Just then two blond, brown-skinned little girls ran up squealing, “Daddy! Daddy!” Long shiny curls rolled down their backs. They looked identical, both with emerald green eyes. One wore a red summer dress, the other yellow. Macey guessed them to be five or six.
“Hi, girls,” Noah said, hugging each as they wrapped themselves around his legs. “What’ve you been up to?”
The one in the red dress replied, “Twenty took us out to see the chickens.”
“I miss Jess, Daddy,” the other one said.
Macey’s throat tightened in a painful lump, and then she realized Noah and both little girls were looking at her.
“This is Savannah and Stephanie,” he said, nodding first to the one with the red dress. “Girls, this is . . .” Noah waited for Macey to introduce herself.
She smiled tolerantly at him but then openly to the girls. “I’m Macey.”
“She’s Jess’s daughter,” Noah added, and Macey shot him a questioning look.
“Jess had a daughter?” Savannah said. Both girls stared up at her.
“Why didn’t we ever see you before?” Stephanie asked as she rocked on her heels.
Macey was about to explain how long and complicated it was, but Noah rescued her and said, “Why don’t you two go find Tutie. She was asking about you.”
The girls squealed again and ran through the crowd, disappearing within seconds. Macey had trouble finding words. Finally she said, “Those girls are yours?”
“The joy of my life,” he said, his tone pleasant, unassuming.
“They’re beautiful,” said Macey, now feeling extremely uncomfortable and wondering where his wife might be. “I should probably go find my mom.”
Noah looked across the room, his head towering above everyone else’s in the room. “She’s fine. She’s over there talking to Pepper.” He winked at Macey. “Who, incidentally, is nicknamed for her allergy to it.”
“Oh.”
“Macey—is that a nickname?”
“It’s short for Macille.”
“I see why you’d go by Macey.” He smiled and winked again. Macey was growing nervous as she was sensing an unlikely bit of chemistry forming between them, perhaps due to all the winking and grinning he was doing.
“Is your wife here?” She’d said it straightforwardly, just to make sure there was no miscommunication between them.
“She died,” he said, and his lively eyes dulled a little. “When the girls were born.”
The frustration of the day and the embarrassment of the moment came to a head for Macey, and her eyes suddenly teared. “I’m sorry.”
Noah nodded and rocked on his heels, just as his little girl had done. “It was a while back. I’m glad to have these two munchkins, though. I can’t imagine my world without them.”
Agitated and exhausted, Macey could no longer carry on the conversation. Everything that had exchanged between the two of them seemed to spark something else, and on this particular day her fuse was shorter than normal. So she nodded obligingly and said, “Well, I think I’ll find a quiet corner and drink a nice cup of coffee. I seem to be saying all the wrong things, and quite frankly I’m too tired to match wits with you.”
His lips fell into a straight line. Macey wasn’t sure if this was due to pity or indifference, but she didn’t care. She spun around in order to make her way through the thinning crowd when she heard, “One more thing.”
A small part of her told herself not to look back, to keep walking instead. But the vivaciousness of his blue eyes had a certain power over her, a power she was comfortable in denying existed. Nevertheless, she turned on her heel, her eyes meeting his.
“What?”
He bit his lower lip before saying, “You’ve got a tick the size of Detroit feasting off the blood of your scalp.”
Nine
Watch the fire, Pepper! You’re going to burn the poor girl to the ground!” Tutie’s voice screeched next to Macey’s ear. Macey closed her eyes, clutched the bottom of the chair she was sitting in, and counted backward like her psychiatrist had once taught her. She hated to think how many people were standing around staring at her scalp. Her ears burned as her blood pressure rose, creating a nice shade of red that crept slowly upward from her neck.
“I’m not sure the lighter is a good idea,” came another deep voice, this time Noah’s. “If someone’ll get me some tweezers, I’ll pluck the sucker right out.”
“Make sure you get the head. If you don’t get the head, it just keeps sucking and causing an infection,” an unfamiliar voice chimed in. “It’s just weird the little things don’t need a body. I guess the only thing the body’s used for is to hold the blood.”
“I can get some bleach,” her mother said. “Bleach kills pretty near anything.”
A sharp pain pierced Macey’s stomach, and at that moment she thought she would rather be dead than be the center of this crowd’s attention. “Mother, I don’t want to be a blonde.”
Pepper, whom she hadn’t officially met yet but who was leaning over her like a surgeon, replied, “I heard you’re supposed to burn them off. If you don’t use heat, a boil will form and you’ll lose your hair.”
She hadn’t noticed Noah had left until he returned with a pair of tweezers. “Pepper, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be playing with fire around this young woman’s hair. You know how your hands shake.”
Twenty pushed his way forward, saying, “Yeah. Remember when you ’bout burnt Peedley’s nose off trying to light his cigarette for him?”
The crowd laughed, and Macey could only be thankful it wasn’t at her. Her stomach grumbled with nausea at the thought of a tick sucking her blood. She began feeling clammy, and her palms started sweating. She closed her eyes for a moment to try to steady her spinning head. The next thing she knew, everything went black.
———
“You killed her! You killed her!”
Macey’s eyes flew open. A few of the women gasped as Macey came to realize she was lying on the hardwood floor near the dinner table. What looked like a hundred faces peered down at her, eyes wide and mouths open. A large hand took her shoulder and helped her to sit up.
“Get her a glass of water,” the voice instructed. Macey identified it as Noah’s. “And step back. She needs some air.”
Macey rubbed her eyes. “I passed out?”
“For only a minute.”
The water came quickly, and she sipped it as best she could.
“I didn’t get that fire anywhere near her!” A sharp voice rose over the mumbling crowd. Everyone turned to see Pepper, middle-aged and over six feet tall, and Tutie glaring at each other.
“Why else would the poor girl faint like that?” Tutie was leaning forward on her cane and using her free hand to point at Macey.
“Well, do you see her head smokin’?” Pepper shot back.
“Ladies, ladies,” Noah said. “Do you mind?”
The two gave each other one more hateful glance before shifting their attention back to Macey, who was feeling her part on the top of her head.
“I got the little critter while you were passed out,” Noah said. “I thought it’d be easier that way. You’ll have a scab.”
Macey swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Macey, dear, are you okay?” her mother asked, and Macey looked up. She couldn’t quite get herself to nod. Physically she was fine. Emotionally she wasn’t sure yet.
Noah’s firm grip raised her to her feet and then moved her through the group of people, out the back door, and onto the porch. Macey leaned against the rail and was actually thankful to be out in the heat. It felt cooler than what she’d been feeling inside. She looked at Noah, who was smiling.
“That was one of the most humiliating things ever to happen to me,” she said, then walked down the steps and sat in a lawn chair, her knees shaking. Noah followed her.
“Listen, it happens all the time in these parts. We just know to check for ticks when we’ve been out in the grass, that’s all.”
“Yeah, I guess I forgot. You’d never know I grew up here.” She shook her head, then looked at the sky. “The last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself. So, what horrible disease can I contract from a tick?”
“Well, it’s unlikely, but if you start feeling like you have the flu, we should probably get you to a doctor.”
“Nausea? Headache? Hot flashes? I’m already feeling that way!”
Noah handed her the water she’d set down, and she sipped it absently. She would pack her bags and leave tomorrow. She needed the comfort of the hectic insanity that was her life back in Dallas. The fact that a bloodsucking tick could cause this much excitement perplexed and annoyed her.
Her mother would be fine. She’d probably relish a few phone calls and cards. But each additional hour she was here, things just got worse. She’d buried her father and supported her mother, and now it was time to go home.
Before she knew it, the water in her glass was gone and only a couple of soft ice cubes remained in the bottom. She noticed then that Noah was staring at her.
“What? You see another tick?”
He laughed and shook his head. “I just think you need a break from all these people. How about you walk across the bridge with me? I’ll show you my house.”
Macey’s eyes grew large. Could she step inside that house? Looking at it from the outside was one thing, to go in quite another.
Noah must’ve read her expression, because he said, “I’m inviting you, which means you’ll not be trespassing, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Macey gazed across the river at the old house. “It was so run down as I remember it. You must’ve done a lot to it to make it livable.”
He nodded. “It was almost a yearlong project. My wife and I worked on it together, before she had the girls. It has three bedrooms now, a nice kitchen and dining area, and even a playroom.”
She was just about to decline the offer when the back porch door flew open and Pepper stepped out. “Macey! I found some peroxide and cotton balls. We need to do a good soakin’ of your scalp or else an infection could start and you could lose all your hair. We have a nice wig shop in town, but nobody wants to have to see you use it.”
Macey looked at Noah. “I’d love a tour.”
The front door creaked open as Macey waited for Noah to enter before she did. Her feet, heavy with fear, barely lifted at her command. Noah looked back and waited. Finally Macey stepped forward, across the threshold and into the main entryway.
The inside of the old farmhouse looked brand-new. The walls of the entryway had been painted a country blue and decorated with family pictures. From the entry she could see the breakfast area, large kitchen, and dining and living rooms. She followed him in and noticed a stairwell, lushly carpeted in beige.
She stopped and oriented herself for a moment. As she remembered it, the stairwell had caved in, and the bottom level was divided by one long wall that apparently had been knocked down. There were very few windows before, though now several allowed the sun to glow in a beautiful crisscross pattern throughout the open rooms.
Artwork hung on the walls above the sofa and up the staircase. The one above the sofa was an impressively large landscape depicting a desert storm. Other pieces were smaller and varied from portraits to impressionistic paintings. Noah turned around to watch her.
“I don’t normally pass out,” she said. The statement came from nowhere, making her feel like a bumbling idiot. Noah’s tolerant, steady smile only served to reinforce the feeling. “I’m just saying I don’t do that. I don’t pass out. I’ve never passed out in my whole life.” Again, he only smiled. “What? You’re looking at me like you don’t believe me.”
“No. I’m only looking at you. You read more into my expression than is there.”
“You’re trying to tell me that mischievous, smug expression on your face is normal and everyday for you?”
Noah shook his head and walked toward his kitchen. “You are something else, Macey Steigel. What can I get you to drink? Coke, tea?”
