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Probably the worst of it all was that she was tempted.
He phoned in to Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, and said he was delayed. He was working on a problem. He would explain when he returned. He said his absence would be stimulating to the grad student who assisted him.
And the reply from Butler University was, “Is there any way we can help?”
Chad replied, “Thank you, no. This is a personal problem. I will solve it. But it might take several more days.”
“Call us if we can help.”
“Thank you.” And Chad hung up with a pleased smile.
They drove the rental car on down to Padre Island. There they could wade not only in the Gulf, but in the influx of Winter TEXANS. Before all the druggies, the farmers from the north wintering in TEXAS were called Snow Birds. The snow birds fly south, and so do the idle farmers. Well, actually they don’t all fly, they mostly just drive motor homes down. Now the Yankee farmers are called Winter TEXANS and they are included as citizens. Contributing citizens. They help the economy.
Without comment, the two idlers viewed the havoc wrought by intruding entrepreneurs on Padre Island. It was filled with high rise condos and hotels on either side of the sand island. And there were paved double highways down the middle of the sandbar. In all of that south TEXAS land, the buildings were a surprise. The rest of the area wasn’t so intruded upon.
The visiting pair drove over into Mexico and went through the shops. They bought wooden toys beautifully colored-tops, flutes and cups to catch an attached ball and yo-yos. They bought rawhide vests that were lined with sheep wool.
Chad bought Jo a designer watch, and a toad purse with a zipper on its stomach.
She was unsure about the zippered toad.
He explained in his class lecturing voice, “It’s a prince frog. When you kiss it, it will become a prince. For this metamorphosis, you have to take it to bed with you.”
She gave him a careful look.
Chad frowned with false impatience. “Don’t you remember the fairy tale?”
She said sober faced, “Yeah. Sure.”
“I’ll explain when we get home.”
He did keep mentioning they would be going “home” to Indiana.
But she knew better. They would part long before that could ever happen.
In Mexico, she bought a dress that was swirly and colorful, and she bought him a white, loose, cotton, beautifully embroidered pullover shirt. With it were slim black trousers.
They bought huaraches, the leather strip woven, flat shoes that are so squeaky and interesting. And comfortable.
She found a blue felt jacket that was embroidered with yarn. It was just right. There were two pockets for her hands. The edges of the sleeves and the jacket were cross-stitched with the yarn of the decorations. It was different.
They returned the short distance to the Rio Grande, crossed back over the river into their own country and drove back to their hotel on Padre Island.
They dressed for supper. They were so companionable and intimate that Jo thought of their marriage. Had they ever had this easy closeness? This comfortable silence?
In all that time, she’d wanted the companionship that was then between them. When had they ever had the time to be silent friends? They’d had just beensilent. Either that or talking about some student who worried Chad. Then the conversation had been his verbal thinking on how to help or alter directions for the troubled one.
At that time, why hadn’t she said to Chad, “I’m not oriented. I’m unsure. I need help.” She never had. She’d listened. She hadn’t even been old enough to have opinions to help. She hadn’t had the ideas to contribute. Nor had she known how to discuss her isolation.
He had felt he was sharing.
She had felt left out, left behind, lacking in experience.
So did she now have the experience to help out? To listen? To observe?
Jo looked at her ex-husband. He was miles away. He was thinking about something else altogether. She could not hold his attention, even now.
He caught her observation. He said, “What would you think about coming back to Indiana with me? You are so self-confident now, that I believe you could handle being a prof’s wife. Let’s see, shall we? I want you back. I’ve missed you like bloody hell.”
“How could anyone miss anything ‘like bloody hell’ and actually want it? That sounds quite awful.”
“That’s how it’s been for me since you left.”
“You’ve hidden it well.”
“I married you too soon. You needed some adult shine—that’s like city shine for a country boy.”
“You’ve been researching living with a student?”
“In all this time, I’ve talked to your dad. He’s told me where you are, what you’re doing and if you’re going with anyone very much. He’s kept me in touch.”
“You’ve actually, really been talking to Dad?”
“I like him.”
“What all has he said?”
“To be patient. You need to mature.”
She gasped in indignation, “He would never have told you that!”
Chad nodded and replied, “Actually, he said you’re immature. That you take after your mother who took years to become adult.”
“He did not say that!”
Chad laughed. “No, he didn’t. He’s hard-nosed and it took me forever to just get him to recognize that I love you, and I’d wait through anything to get you back.”
“Hah!”
“That ‘hah’ is proof you haven’t made it yet, but it’s better than ‘baloney’ or—”
She shrieked!
He frowned and complained, “Now what am I going to say when all the TEXANS come arunning to defend your honor?”
“You’ll think of something smooth. You’ll probably say I’m backing out on an agreement to, uh, cooperate.”
He smiled and said, “Great! I knew you’d come up with the perfect defense. Thank—”
“I’ll tell the truth.”
He was disgusted. “You’ve always been a stickler.”
“What did my mother say in all these conversations?”
“She won’t speak to me. She thinks I’m a rat.”
Jo laughed. “Really? I misjudged her! I thought she’d be on your side.”
“What does she say to you?”
“That I’m a fool to let you get away.”
He nodded again. “With parents as logical as yours, how did you get the way you are?”
“Dad says I’m not his, and mother claims I’m a throwback.”
“Thrown away?”
She enunciated clearly as she finished the sentence, “—of another time.”
Three
It was very interesting how Chad could manuever Jo. She was trusting. She was used to computer hacks who were open, honest and sharing. It never really entered her head that Chad was sly.
On their way back north, they did not drive through one single place that had a commercial airport. It was incredible, especially in TEXAS where the distances are far.
Once she said, “I’d no idea the land in TEXAS was so isolated.”
And he’d had the gall to reply, “Yeah.”
They were going up the west side of the state so that, he said, he could see the “real West” for comparison as to the progress in the rest of the country. That was exactly what Chad told Jo.
Chad would go into a filling station miles from nowhere and come back to say to Jo, “Darn, we passed the turnoff too far back.”
Jo would look at the map and hunt. Then she’d look up and ask, “Where is this place on the map?”
And he’d study it and point out a vacant space. “We’re here.”
She’d study it from all angles while she bit her lip and ruffled her hair as she searched the minute dots in that great blank area. She was so diligent that she’d always find something, and she’d tell Chad, “Here’s one. It might just be a double seater, but it could get me to another airport.”
With interest, he’d reply, “Let me see. Yeah, but that’s out of our way. See? There’s a Council Bluff there. It’s an Indian meeting place.”
The sides of her mouth turned down as she retorted, “It seems to me those Indians did a lot of meeting.”
He nodded and agreed, “Probably trying to figure a way to get rid of us.”
With some interest, she asked, “Since you teach World History, how did Europeans manage to ‘discover’ all the virgin lands? I understand there were nine hundred tribes of Indians living just in TEXAS at the time the Spanish landed and ‘discovered’ this ‘uninhabited’ country.”
“It’s attitude,” he explained kindly. “It’s like your inability to see mice.”
She disagreed, “It was the traps I couldn’t empty.”
“You threw the trap away with the poor little, limp, dead body still trapped and you bought new traps.”
She observed, “You’re very knowledgeable. I hadn’t realized you were aware of that problem. When did you notice?”
“You kept a neat stack of receipts. They were fascinating reading.”
She slid a sideways look at him. “You were a snoop.”
As he drove along, he moved out his one arm in an entirely open communication of fact with no secrets. “I had to know how our money was being spent so quickly. It was mostly on mousetraps.”
Prissily, she retorted, “I bought an occasional lipstick.”
“A hussy.” He agreed with the label for her.
She tilted back her head and lifted her eyebrows. “I curled my own hair.”
He smiled.
She mentioned, “You’re a tightwad.”
He watched the road kindly. Since he’d lured her attention from the map, he continued his distraction. “In your checking account at home is something close to six thousand dollars, that’s with interest, which is the accumulation of your pin money.”
“Is that what’s paying for this car?”
He licked his smile. “No.”
She reminded him, “We are divorced. You have no responsibility toward me. The money is yours.”
He corrected her, “We’re not divorced, we’re just separated. You’ve had to have room to stretch, and you needed to be away from me to do that because I tend to control.” He elaborated in an aside, “The need to control is just part of being a teacher.”
“I hadn’t noticed control as much as absence.”
He chided her, “You sent my checks back.”
“For almost six years, you’d paid for my room and board, and it was because of your teaching position that I also have my master’s.”
He watched the road as he bit his lower lip in thought. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I thought of you as more than a bedmate. If I’d known you were lending me your body in exchange for your education, I’d have felt more—What are you doing? Stop that!” He grabbed her arm as he swerved the car on the isolated road and pulled to a stop. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
With the door half-open, furiously rigid, her eyes shooting sparks, she said at him over her shoulder, “I was your wife!”
“Aw, honey, I know that. I was teasing.”
“You lecher!”
“Well, yes. But I’m also your husband.” He smiled at the angry woman and soothed. “I was teasing. Honest.”
But she started to cry.
He was stunned. With the car stopped, he turned to her, gentled and concerned. “Did I hurt you?”
She gulped and her trembling voice retorted, “For years.”
He was silent for a while as she barely allowed him to hold her. Her softness was squashed by the smoothed planes of his male body. He rubbed his chest just a bit against her movable breasts, and he groaned.
Then he said in a rather foggy manner, “I hadn’t really understood how young you were.” He moved his face around on hers and his breathing became different. His hands were a little careless.
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