Cold Tea On A Hot Day

Five

The Beauty of the World

It was bare first light of his first full day in his new town when Tate, dressed in brand-new, grey sweatpants, brand-new, bright-white T-shirt with the words Just Do It emblazoned on the front, and brand-new top-of-the-line jogging shoes, came out on his very own front porch.

Tate had jogged intermittently off and on for years, and had profited from it, too, but now he wanted to really make it routine. He was in the prime of his life and wanted to honor that by making the most of himself physically and mentally. That was the spirit!

Stretching his arms wide, he sucked in a deep breath. Ahh! The brisk morning, quite different from the heavily humid air of Houston.

He jogged down the steps and out to the sidewalk of the quiet street. As he turned along Porter Street, in the direction of Marilee James’s house, the yellow cat, Bubba, streaked out from beneath a lilac bush and joined him, bouncing along behind Tate, looking like an orange basketball with a tail.

Tate wanted to see Marilee’s house clearly in the light of day. He wondered if she was an early riser.

He had a sudden fantasy of her being on the porch and seeing him, jogging along manfully, her waving and him waving back. He smiled at his fanciful notion, although he did experience a little bit of disappointment when his gaze found her front porch, white gingerbread trim, and empty.

Not only was all quiet at the James house, but along most of the street. At the house on the corner, a young man wearing a UPS uniform was chinning himself with bulging arms on a beam across the middle of his porch ceiling. He dropped to his feet, headed for his car at the curb, casting Tate a wave as he came. Friendly fellow! Tate waved back.

Turning up First Street, heading for the commerce area of Main, Tate slowed. He had begun to breathe quite hard. He sure didn’t want to have a heart attack on his first day in town. He glanced back and saw that Bubba had deserted him.

Tate continued on, a sort of jog, meeting two ladies who were race walking, pumping arms, talking at the same rate they were walking. They exchanged swift hellos with Tate.

On Main Street, a woman was unlocking the door of her shop—Sweetie Cakes Bakery painted across the window. She nodded and slipped in the door. Further down the street, he looked across at The Valentine Voice building. By golly, it was his!

He was walking now.

Just then Charlotte came through the front doors of the Voice, surprising him somewhat, and put up the flag, setting it quickly and returning inside before Tate got close enough to holler a good morning.

He was perhaps breathing a little too hard to offer a hearty good morning.

For the past two weeks his attention and time had been taken up with his move to Valentine; that he had not been routinely jogging was telling on him now.

At the corner of the police station, from where he thought he smelled coffee brewing, he turned up Church Street, heading for home. The golden rays of the sun now streaked the horizon.

Funny how he had not realized that the street went up a hill.

Ah, there was another jogger coming toward him. Tate felt the need to push himself into a jog. Didn’t want to be out jogging and not doing it.

A minute later he was sure glad he was jogging, because the young man coming toward him turned out to be not quite so young, and to be Parker Lindsey. By golly, he looked all youthful male in a sleeveless shirt and jogging shorts that showed tanned hard thighs.

The two approached the intersection.

“Good mornin’.” Tate raised his voice and refused to sound breathless.

“’Mornin’,” Lindsey returned, cruising along at a good clip. He even wore a sweatband around his forehead, like a marathon runner.

Tate put some strength into his jog. He might have a few years on Lindsey, and a lot of grey in his hair, but where there was snow on the mountaintop, there was a fire in the furnace. He thought of the old saw as he continued on across the intersection toward his driveway, intent on at least jogging around to the back of the house, out of view.

Just then he saw, coming along down the hill, a shapely blond young woman in a skimpy exercise outfit, jogging and smiling at him. He might have stopped to talk to her, but the young woman’s attention was captured by Tate’s older neighbor on the opposite corner, who came from her house in walking shorts and shoes, waving and calling the blond woman by name.

The town was a haven for health enthusiasts!

He continued up his driveway, which had much more of an incline than he had before noted, and around to the back steps, where Bubba now lay, sunning himself. The cat gave Tate a yawn.

“I feed you…no comments.”

Tate dragged himself in the door and sank down upon the floor, going totally prostrate on the cool linoleum.

Marilee sat holding her coffee cup in both hands and thinking that she should have made it stronger. She had gotten used to Corrine’s brew and seemed not to be able to function well on a weaker variety.

Across from her, Corrine, looking for all the world like she was about to be shot, played with her food. Willie Lee, who ate slowly, asked if Munro could go to school with him.

“He will be lone-ly with-out me,” he said.

Marilee, watching Corrine play the fork over her egg, thought, there are only three weeks left to the school year.

“I think we can have the ending of our school year today,” she said, suddenly getting up and taking her plate to the sink. “You two do not need to go back this year.”

She looked over her shoulder to see their reactions.

Willie Lee’s eyebrows went up. “I do not have to go to schoo-ool to-day?”

“No, not today, and no more until fall. We’ll see about it then.”

Corrine was looking at Marilee with a mixture of high hope and sharp distrust on her delicate features.

“I’ll call Principal Blankenship and see what we can do about you finishing your work at home,” Marilee told her.

The relief that swept the girl’s face struck Marilee so hard that she had to turn away and hide her own expression in her coffee cup. She thought of her sister, Anita. Corrine’s mother. She had the urge to toss the coffee cup right through the window.

Then Willie Lee was at her side and tapping her thigh. “Mun-ro needs breakfast.”

Looking into his sweet face, Marilee smiled. “He does, doesn’t he.”

“I can give him my egg,” Corrine said.

“Please, make him toast, too, Ma-ma.”

“Yes, darlin’…I’ll make toast for Munro.” She looked at the dog, now eating the egg very gently from Corrine’s plate.

Marilee’s reasoning mind told her to force the children to go to school and face what they would have to face sooner or later, a regimen and self-control, and those few cruel and mean and inept people one will come across on many an occasion. Life was a tough row of responsibility to hoe, and the sooner the children, even Willie Lee, learned this, the better.

She all but took out a gun and shot her reasoning mind. It wisely shut up.

Thinking of both the principal and her new boss, who she would now ask to let her work at home, she got herself dressed nicely in a slim knit skirt and top in soft blue, accented with a genuine silver concho belt from her more prosperous days of no children and a husband who earned quite good money as a world-renowned photojournalist. She managed to talk herself into doing a thorough makeup job and brushed her hair until it shone.

Then she sat at her cherry-wood desk to telephone Principal Blankenship and secure from the woman the promise that Corrine would be kept with her grade. The principal was surprisingly agreeable, even eager, at the idea of releasing the child, whom she all but labeled troubled straight out.

“Corrine has perfect straight A’s,” the principal said. “Her grades are not a question. She is a very bright girl. That is not at all her problem in class. I’m sure we can accommodate you in order to help Corrine have the rest she needs.” Then she tacked on, “Ah…I have the name of a child therapist you might want to consider.”

For Willie Lee, the principal promised to consult his teacher about work that might possibly help him. Marilee, who had from her teenage years been unable to shake her faith in her own mental capacity, told the principal not to bother Mrs. Reeves. “I’m going to pick out a curriculum for Willie Lee.”

The principal definitely disapproved of this action, labeling it risky, but stopped short of pressing, no doubt fearful Marilee would change her mind and bring the children back to school.

Marilee thanked Principal Blankenship for all her help and hung up, sitting there for some minutes, her hand on the telephone, gazing at nothing, until she realized she was gazing at a pattern on the Tibetan rug that fronted the couch. She remembered, then, buying it in Calcutta, on one of hers and Stuart’s trips. Her gaze moved about the room, noting a painting on the wall that had been purchased in New Orleans, and a pottery vase picked up in the Smoky Mountains.

Her eyes moved to the small picture of her ex-husband that she kept, still, on her desk.

Stuart James grinned at her from the photo. She picked it up, remembering how handsome she had found him the first time she had laid eyes on him, remembering how wonderful he had made her feel when he touched her body. Stuart was a man who greatly enjoyed making love.

Into these deep thoughts came the sound of childish voices. She blinked and got up, following the sound to the back door.

Willie Lee and Corrine, with the dog between them, sat on the back stairs in the dappled morning sunlight that shone through the trees. They did not hear her footsteps, and she was able to watch them for some minutes through the screen door.

Corrine was talking to the dog, right along with Willie Lee. And she was actually smiling.

“Ma-ma…Mun-ro needs to come, too.” He spoke as if scolding her for not remembering the dog.

Marilee looked at her son and then the dog. “Okay, Munro…get in.”

As she backed the Jeep Cherokee from the drive, she gave thanks for the all-purpose vehicle. She supposed she might as well accept that the dog was destined to go everywhere with them. He could, in Valentine, America.

A new vehicle, a yellow convertible BMW, was parked in the block of spaces behind The Valentine Voice building. The top was down, and with a raised eyebrow, Marilee peered into the vehicle, noting the soft leather seats. Obviously, coming from Houston, Tate Holloway was unaware of how serious dust could be in this part of the country.

The two-story brick building that housed the newspaper had changed only marginally since it was first built in 1920. The back area of the first floor, which had once housed the printing press, had been converted into a garage and loading area. Printing was now done by a contract printer who did a number of small-town newspapers; The Valentine Voice was one of the last small-town dailies in the nation.

The front half of the first floor was pretty much as it had been built. The original bathroom had been enlarged and a small kitchen sink area added. Several offices had been made by adding glass partitions, one of which had dark-green shades all around and a door with a dark-green shade. The name on the glass of the door read: Zona Porter, No Relation, Comptroller. Everyone respected that Zona preferred privacy. One could go in and speak to Zona in the office, but Zona rarely came out. Had a bathroom been installed off her office, Zona would not have come out at all. She had her own refrigerator, coffeemaker, cups, glasses, tissues. She did not care to touch things after other people.

E. G. Porter’s original office remained at the right, with tall windows that looked out onto the corner of Main and Church Streets.

Entering through the rear door, Marilee felt a little like she was leading a parade, with the children and the dog Munro trailing behind her.

Leo Pahdocony, Sr., a handsome dark-haired Choctaw Indian who wore turquoise bolas, shiny snakeskin boots and sharply creased Wranglers, was pecking away at the keyboard of his computer and talking on the telephone at the same time, with the receiver tucked in his neck. He gave her a wave and a palm-up to Willie Lee.

His wife, Reggie, a petite redhead who handled news in the schools, churches and most of the photography, popped out of her swivel chair and came to greet them with delight. Reggie, who had for the past five years been trying to conceive another child, extended her arms to capture the children in a big hug. Corrine managed to sidestep her way to Marilee’s chair and sat herself firmly, but Willie Lee, always loveable, let Reggie lift him up and kiss him.

“You gave us a scare, young man, running off,” Charlotte told him, coming forward with messages for Marilee.

Willie Lee said, “I did not run off. I was coming home.”

“Uh-huh. Good thinking.” Charlotte turned her eyes on Marilee. “Tammy phoned. She’s got a horrible toothache.”

Marilee saw that Charlotte was thinking the same thing she was: that Tammy had a job interview elsewhere. Without Miss Porter’s money pouring in, no one expected the newspaper to continue much longer than a year, if that.

A pounding sounded from the office of the publisher. Marilee looked at the closed door and noticed that Muriel Porter’s name plaque was gone, leaving a dark rectangle on the oak.

Pounding again.

“He’s hangin’ pictures,” said Imperia Brown, smacking her phone receiver into the cradle. “It’s drivin’ me crazy. I’m outta here.” She grabbed up her purse and headed for the front door.

Charlotte strode over to the large, gilded frame of the newspaper’s founder’s portrait now propped on the floor against the copy machine, and said to Marilee, “He took down Mr. E. G. first thing.” Charlotte definitely disapproved.

“Might be one of us next,” Reggie said.

Marilee and Charlotte cast each other curious glances, and Reggie said she wondered if Ms. Porter might not be feeling her skin crawling at the removal of her daddy from the wall.

“I’ve been halfway waitin’ for the wall to cave in, E.G. having his say from the grave,” she said.

“The walls are apparently holding,” Charlotte said, “and he’s hanging them with all sorts of pictures. He has one of him with President Nixon. I don’t know why he’d want to advertise it,” she added.

“He has one of him with Reba,” Reggie put in with some excitement. “He did a feature piece on her for Parade Magazine.”

Reggie had every one of Reba McEntire’s albums. She suddenly grabbed up a pen to hold in front of her mouth like a microphone and began singing one of Reba’s songs. This was something she often did, pretending either to be a singer or a television commentator. Reggie was every bit pretty enough to be either; however, she could take clowning and showing off to the point of annoyance, as far as Marilee was concerned. Right then was one of those points, and Marilee felt her temper grow short as Reggie kept jutting her face in front of Marilee’s and singing about poor old Fancy.

“Reggie, would you keep an eye on Corrine and Willie Lee for me?” she said, thus diverting the woman to more quiet childishness, while Marilee went to their publisher’s solid oak door and knocked.

The sound of hammering drowned out her knock, and she had to try again, and when still no answer came, she poked her head in the door. “Mr. Holloway?” She was unable to address him as Tate, being at the office.

He turned from where he was hanging a picture. “Marilee! Come in…come in. Just the person I’ve been waitin’ for. You can come over here and help me get this picture in the right place.”

It was a picture of him with Billy Graham, black-and-white, as all the photographs appeared to be. He placed it against the wall and waited for her instructions, which she gave in the form of, “Higher…a little to the left…a little lower. Right there.”

Having, apparently, a high opinion of her ability to place a picture, he marked the spot and went to hammering in a nail.

In a flowing glance, Marilee, wondering how an accomplished journalist of Tate Holloway’s wide experience would manage in tiny Valentine, took in the room. The sedate, even antiquated office that had belonged to Ms. Porter was gone. Or perhaps a more accurate description was that it was being moved out, as pictures and books and boxes full of articles, a number of them antiques, were in a cluster by the door. Next to that, in a large heap, lay the heavy evergreen drapes, which had been ripped from the long windows, leaving only the wooden blinds through which bright light shone on the varied electronic additions: a small television, a radio scanner, a top speed computer and printer, a laptop computer, and one apparatus that Marilee, definitely behind the electronic times, could not identify.

The major change, however, was to the big walnut desk, which had been moved from where it had sat for eons in front of the windows, facing the wall with E. G. Porter’s portrait. Marilee had always had the impression that Ms. Porter would sit at the desk and look at her father on the wall and worship him. Or maybe throw mental darts at him.

Now the desk sat in front of that wall, looking away from it, and behind, where E.G.’s august portrait had hung, was an enormous black-and-white photograph of Marilyn Monroe in the famous shot with her dress blowing up.

After eyeing that for a startled moment, Marilee’s gaze moved on to the clusters of photographs already hung—the ones of Tate Holloway with Reba and President Nixon, and ones of him receiving awards, and with soldiers, and a curious one of a boy plowing with a mule. She stepped closer for a better look at that one. Next to the faded snapshot of the boy and the mule was one of a lovely blond woman in the front yard of an old house, her arms around two boys.

“That’s my mother,” Tate told her, coming up behind her. “With me and my brother, Hollis. I’m the older, skinnier one.”

“And that’s you, plowing with a mule?”

“Yep. Farmin’ in East Texas in the fifties. My mother took that picture. Mama liked to take pictures.”

He had come to stand very close behind her. Close enough for his breath to tickle her hair.

“This is Mama in front of the house me and Hollis bought her.” His arm brushed her shoulder as he pointed at another photograph. “And this is how my daddy wound up.”

He tapped a photograph of a mangled black car stuck to the front end of a Santa Fe Railroad engine.

“I like to see where I’ve come from and how far I’ve journeyed and remind myself where I don’t want to go,” he said with practicality. Then, the next second, “You smell awfully good, Miss Marilee.”

That comment jerked her mind away from the horror of the mangled car. She turned, and her shoulder bumped his chest, because he didn’t move but stood there gazing at her with a light in his clear, twinkling blue eyes that just about took every faithful breath out of her lungs.

His gaze flickered downward, and hers followed to stop and linger on his lips.

The next instant she stepped quickly away from him and said as casually as possible, “And just what does that picture mean in your journey?” She gestured at the photograph of Marilyn Monroe.

“Well—” he sauntered to the desk and laid down the hammer “—I like the touch Marilyn gives the place.”

“What touch are you going for, exactly?”

“Oh…I think a photograph like that sets people off balance, for one thing.” He folded his arms, and his strong shoulders stretched his shirt. “And it is lively. I might come in here feelin’ a little too serious about myself and things in general, and I’ll look up there at that beautiful woman—” he looked up at the picture and grinned “—with a laugh like that and those legs goin’ to heaven, and it makes me remember the true secret of life.” He gave a little wink.