Part of her thought that if she had any brain at all, she’d tell him about her and Eddie right now. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she smiled. “Okay, so show me and tell me everything. If you leave anything out, I’m going to start quoting poetry.”
She saw the tension leave his body. He grabbed her about the waist, lifted her up and twirled her about. “You’re still my girl!” he said. “You always have been and always will be. Come on!” He put her down, then grabbed her hand and began to pull her through waist-high weeds toward a dilapidated old house that was a quarter of a mile from the garages.
It was a two-story farmhouse, tall and big and in need of major repairs. He pulled her up on the porch as she picked briars off her shirt. “Watch that board,” he said when she stepped to the side of the door.
He didn’t need a key as the door was swollen shut, but he knew how to open it by pulling up on the doorknob, then shoving hard. He had to hit the door with his shoulder three times before it opened, and when it did the doorknob stayed in his hand. “Have to fix that,” he mumbled as he went in ahead of her. She heard some rustling of feathers—birds living in the house—then he came back and held out his hand to her.
Inside, the house was dirty and some kids had spray-painted their names on the walls. Faith recognized the names of kids they’d gone to school with. She nodded toward one. “I could believe he’d spend his spare time vandalizing an old house.”
Ty ducked his head when she saw his name painted on a wall. Grinning, he led her through the house.
Faith looked at the house as an adult, thinking about how one could live here. It had large rooms with high ceilings and she thought that cool breezes would flow through it. There were beautiful ceiling moldings and, on one wall, under the paint, was what looked to be a splendid fireplace. In its day, it must have been grand.
He led her upstairs to see four bedrooms and a bathroom. “It could be remodeled up here to have more bathrooms,” he said, holding her hand and leading her from one dirty room to another. Layers of wallpaper were peeling off the walls and she could see the different patterns going back from the 1950s to, probably, before the Civil War.
“You aren’t thinking of living here,” she said. “If that highway is built it would be horrible.”
“No,” he said slowly. “Not here.”
She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He led her to the window of the master bedroom and showed her where the new highway was to go. It was only a few feet outside the house.
She thought about what he’d said. Not here, he’d said. “You’re thinking about moving this house to another location, aren’t you?”
Ty gave his shrug that she knew meant he didn’t want to tell something for fear of being ridiculed. His pride again. “You like the house?”
Faith drew in a breath. Again, she knew that he was planning for a life with her. This house could be hers, and she knew that Ty had the knowledge and experience to remodel it. “Yes, I like it,” she said honestly.
He started to take her in his arms then, but she pulled back. “Ty, I think there’s something I should tell you.”
He dropped his arms and took a few steps away. “You mean that you’re planning to marry Eddie?”
“How do you—?” she began, then took a breath. “You’ve talked to him, haven’t you?”
“No,” Ty said. “I haven’t talked to him any more than I’ve talked to you over the last four years. You two went off to college and dropped me, remember?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Faith said, but she could feel her face turning red.
“Yeah, it was just like that and I don’t blame you a bit. You two needed to get away from here, get away from Eddie’s mother. And you needed to get away from your mother.”
Faith felt her spine stiffen. “It’s not like you didn’t have some relatives that you needed to get away from.”
“Nah,” he said. “They never had any control over me. I always saw what they were, what we were, that is. I know how the town looked at us. I was always separate from them, but you and Eddie…” He trailed off and shook his head as though in disbelief. “You two were controlled. You two were ruled by your mothers.”
“I was not! The last two years of high school I was everything my mother didn’t want me to be. Remember how I ran around with you all the time?” As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t. It sounded as though Ty were the lowest of the low and she’d degraded herself by dating him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Ty grinned. “I know you didn’t. Your mother tried to make you into a snob, but she couldn’t. Although Eddie almost made you into a nun. When I first saw you yesterday, I thought I might as well set a torch to this house. I thought he’d overcome you and beaten you down into a replica of his mother.”
“He did no such thing!” Faith said, but she couldn’t help smiling. “So what made you think he didn’t succeed?”
“When you first got back, you didn’t see me, but I saw you. You were with Eddie and your mother, and so prim and proper that I hardly recognized you. At first I thought maybe you’d cut your hair, but then I saw you’d just tied it back. Anyway, you were standing outside with them and I told myself to go home, that you were a lost cause. But then a little yellow convertible drove by and I thought you were going to melt right there on the street. It was only for a second, but I saw the lust in your eyes.”
“Hardly lust,” she said as she remembered seeing the car. A girl was driving it. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse and her hair was flowing out behind her. Faith had been wearing what felt like twenty pounds of clothes and sweat was running down her back and under her bra. When she saw the girl in the car she’d envied her so much she’d wanted to run after her and jump in the passenger seat.
“Okay, so it was lust,” she said, smiling again. “It was hot and the girl looked cool. But really, Ty, I do have an unspoken arrangement with Eddie. He and I have talked about marriage for two years now.”
“But he ain’t told Mommy yet, has he?”
“No,” Faith said, “but you know what she’s like.”
“She’s a bully and people have to stand up to her. Eddie and you could never make her back down.”
“But I guess you could.”
“I can and I have,” he said matter-of-factly.
Faith turned away for a moment but she knew what he was talking about. Yes, Ty had stood up to Mrs. Wellman many times when they were growing up. Eddie and Faith were scared of her, but Ty never was. She remembered one time when he’d stood in her kitchen and looked her in the eye while she told him what he’d heard so many times before: that he was nothing and would never be anything. Ty calmly said how it was easier to put a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Mrs. Wellman grabbed a broom and chased Ty out of the house. Later, Eddie and Faith had sat by the lake with him and marveled at his audacity. Ty said, “What’s a broom? It’s when a person runs after you with a knife that you have to worry.” Eddie and Faith had looked at each other with wide eyes, but they’d asked no questions. Besides, they knew that Ty wouldn’t answer them.
“Okay, so I’m caught on every count,” Faith said. “I’m terrified of Eddie’s mother, only slightly less afraid of my own mother, and I like to ride in convertibles. What other onerous character flaws do I have?”
“Onerous, heh?” Ty said.
“It means—”
“I know what the word means,” he said. “Or I can guess. You know, Faith, you don’t have to have a college education to be worth something in the world.”
“Of course not,” she said quickly, but she could feel her face again turning red.
“Quit looking like you have pity for me,” he said as he started downstairs. “Ready to go to the lake?”
“Actually, I’ve been gone for quite a while already, and I didn’t leave a note for my mother, so maybe I should go home.”
“Okay,” he said quickly. “Whatever
you want.”
He went to the front door and waited for her to leave ahead of him. She stood on the porch for a minute while Ty wrestled with getting the door closed, and took a deep breath of the air. She had been cooped up inside for four long years, her nose always in a book. It seemed that she hadn’t been out of sight of concrete in that entire time. When she’d returned home, her mother had always had a long list of things for her to do. The last two summers Faith had gone with her mother to do beauty treatments. She’d hated every minute of it—especially giving pedicures.
“Maybe…” she began.
“Yes?” Ty asked, looking at her, his handsome face showing nothing.
“Well, since we’re so close to the lake and it is lunchtime, and since I am starving…”
“Go on,” Ty said.
“You can be a real jerk at times, you know that? So what did you bring for lunch? If it’s fried chitlins, I’m leaving now even if I have to walk back.”
“Corn pone,” he said seriously. “Possum. All the things I grew up on.”
“Then it’ll be McDonald’s,” she said, turning away from him.
“Come on. I’ll race you back to the car.” He took off running, Faith right behind him.
When they got to the car, she was drenched in sweat, but Ty looked as cool as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.
“Out of practice, aren’t you?”
“Completely. I haven’t raced a boy back to the car since I was…What? Ten?”
“I knew you’d missed me!” Ty said, smiling as he turned the ignition in the car.
As he pulled out, he stopped so she could see the house silhouetted against the bright blue sky. With some work, it could be a beauty. When she turned to look at Ty, he was smiling in a way that made her think that he knew she was a done deal. As he turned onto the road, she thought that she had to emphasize to him that she was going to marry Eddie and nothing would change that.
Ty drove them to the lake and she knew before he got there where he was going. It was “their” place. It was the place they’d gone with Eddie to catch fish, and later it was the place she and Ty went to make love.
She stood by the lake and looked out at the water as Ty unpacked the car. She made no effort to help him. In a way, it was as though she’d never been away from this tiny town. Today it felt as if all her time at college hadn’t happened. If it weren’t for the books that were rattling around in her head and for the many thousands she owed in student loans, she might think she’d never left.
Turning, she watched Ty spread the old blanket on the ground under the enormous willow tree that they had considered theirs. Like them, the tree had grown and aged. She could still see the place where they’d tried to carve their initials with the little penknife that Ty always carried. The blanket he was spreading was the same one that they’d made love on the first time.
He glanced up at her, and as he often did, he read her mind. “Don’t worry, it’s been washed.”
Smiling, she sat down on the edge of it while he emptied the cooler and put out the food. There were tuna salad sandwiches, cut-up fruit, and homemade cookies.
“You didn’t make this, so who did?”
“Mom.”
Faith looked at him with wide eyes. “Ah, the mother you rarely mention. You know, I don’t think I’ve seen your mother more than a dozen times in my life.” She was teasing, but she was serious also.
“She was there,” Ty said, his face solemn. “She and I’ve always been friends. She said we got along because I was like her and not like my dad.”
He stretched out on the blanket on the other side of the food and looked out at the lake.
“Is it true that all your family is gone?” she asked quietly as she stretched out across from him.
“My brothers are.” He picked up a sandwich half and glanced at her. “It was the oddest thing. After my dad died my three oldest brothers got job offers in Alaska.”
“In…?” she began, then grinned. “I see. That is indeed a coincidence. Imagine that. Three offers for three brothers.”
“It was extraordinary, wasn’t it?”
She picked up a sandwich. “Only three brothers? What about the rest of them?”
“They all decided to try their luck in Alaska, so they all went. I gave them my double-cab truck and off they drove.”
“But I guess they write often.”
“Every week. And they call Mom and me every Sunday evening.”
Faith laughed. “You’re terrible!”
He smiled at her in agreement as he reached for another sandwich.
Faith opened the plastic container of fruit salad. “So who cut this up? Your mother?”
Ty nodded. “I think you should spend some time with her. She’s a nice woman.”
For a moment her mouth hung open in shock. Was he inviting her to his home? In all her life she’d never been to his house. She’d seen his father and his brothers around town, but she, like everyone else, gave them a wide berth. “Okay,” she said at last. “I’d love to.”
Ty said nothing as he turned to look at the lake. But she knew he was pleased. “So tell me about that college you went to,” he said.
An hour later, they had eaten every bite of food and cleared it all away. They were lying on the blanket, their hands behind their heads, and looking up into the willow tree.
“How about a swim?” Ty asked.
“No suit,” Faith said, then before he could speak, she said, “and I don’t do skinny-dipping.”
Ty rolled to his feet and went to the car. He returned with a canvas bag and tossed it to her. “See if you can find anything in there.”
She unzipped the case to see four swimsuits in different sizes. One was a tiny bikini, but the other three were one-piece. One looked old and too big, but a red one was her size. “If I asked you where these came from, would you tell me?”
“What do you think?”
“I think I don’t want to know.” She picked up the red suit and went into a little grove of trees to put it on. When she emerged, she had the pleasure of seeing Ty’s face show what he thought of her in a swimsuit. In college she’d found out that her tomboy childhood had helped for the required sports courses. By her senior year, she’d earned a minor in physical education. All the exercise had toned her body and she knew she looked good.
Ty had on a pair of trunks and was waiting for her, but when he saw her in the swimsuit, his eyes widened. “Your legs,” he managed to choke out.
“What about them?” she asked innocently. She’d been told many times that she had the long, lean legs of a dancer. “Too fat?” she asked facetiously as she turned around. “Too thin? Too long?”
Ty recovered himself enough to shake his head at her. “I bet you gave those Yankees a hard time.”
“Actually, I did what I could to become one of them.”
“A lost cause if I ever heard one,” he said as he held out his hand to her, and they ran into the lake.
The water was just as cool and as calm as she remembered it from childhood. But even better, Ty was just as playful and fun. He swam underwater and chased her. She climbed on his shoulders and dove off. They had a major splashing match that Ty won easily. When they saw a motorboat approaching and it was a family with four young children, Ty stood on the bottom just so his head was under, while Faith climbed on his shoulders and stood there and waved to the wide-eyed, pointing children. Faith looked to be standing on top of the water.
“You nearly drowned me,” Ty said when the boat had passed and she let him up.
“You never could hold your breath for very long,” she said, splashing him as she swam out into the middle of the big lake. Ty was right behind her.
When she got to the middle, she turned and treaded water as she waited for him to catch up with her. When they were kids, Ty had always been the strong one, but Faith had been a natural swimmer and, in water, she’d won every race. When Ty reached her, they both turned to look ba
ck at the shore and she half expected to see Eddie standing there. When they were kids, she and Ty often swam far out into the lake, then they’d turn and look back at Eddie and wave. Whenever she and Ty got too rowdy or too energetic, Eddie always stayed behind. He’d lie on the blanket, a book in his hand, as Faith and Ty tumbled over each other in the water like a couple of dolphins.
“I miss him too,” Ty said, treading water beside her. “I didn’t see him any more than I saw you in the last years. You two left town for college and you left everything, including me, behind.”
She looked at him. “Are those tears of self-pity I see?”
“Pity, but not for me. I feel sorry for ol’ Ed when you marry me and not him. Think he’ll be my best man?”
The idea was so preposterous that Faith splashed him with water. “Marry you?” she said. “Of course I won’t marry you. How can I live in a shack in the woods?” She regretted the words the second she spoke them, and when she saw Ty’s face, she was almost frightened. Turning, she started to swim back to shore, but he caught her arm and pulled her to him.
“I’m not the scum you’ve been made to think I am.” His face was close to hers, their bodies together. “Just because you spent a lot of time with snobs doesn’t change who you are.”
She struggled against him, but it was a halfhearted attempt to be released. His body was so familiar to her, and she’d had long years of frustration with no relief.
He held her to him and when he put his lips to hers, she hugged him back. His kiss was long and hard. She clung to him and it was as if the last years hadn’t happened. She was once again seventeen years old and she and Ty were alone and about to make love.
They forgot about treading water and began to sink down into the water. They were holding each other, their bodies close, legs wrapped around each other, their arms entwined, their lips together.
It was Ty who saw the bottom of the motorboat that was fast approaching them. If they stayed where they were, the propeller would cut through both of them. Ty kicked out, and, still holding Faith, he dragged her down deeper into the water.