“Men don’t go in women’s bedrooms just to talk. Were you gonna put some moves on her?”
Ivy desperately wanted to know the rules in a world where men seemed to break them. At the moment she didn’t need a lesson in respecting other people’s privacy. I cleared my throat. “Sometimes men and women just talk.”
“Bullshit. I saw you kiss her.”
“That’s all it was. A kiss. Cathy needs a friend right now, not a boyfriend.”
“So you weren’t trying to get in bed with her? Trying to talk her into it? What if she put some moves on you?”
“Now, just wait . . .”
“Don’t you want her to?”
“You know, I don’t mind answering questions, but some things are private.”
“You do want her to. Men always want women to put the moves on them.”
There was no easy way to discuss basic sexual biology versus the rules of civilized courtship, especially not with a twelve-year-old who hadn’t seen much evidence of the latter. I set the quilt aside and looked at Ivy somberly. “You know what? It’s as simple as this: Most men are nice to women, and most women are nice to men. They treat each other with fairness and respect. They make each other feel good, not bad. If someone makes you feel bad, get away from him.”
“So if a man’s not nice to me, and I don’t run away fast enough, I was asking for it?”
Jesus. I shouldn’t be surprised that a kid like Ivy still hadn’t come to terms with being molested. After all, Cathy still harbored doubts about her own experience as a girl. What could I say that wouldn’t sound clumsy? “Ivy, nothing was your fault, and nothing you said or did was ‘asking for it.’ Now listen. I can’t tell you to forget what happened to you. And I can’t promise you that no one will ever try to take advantage of you again. But let’s get something straight between you and me. You’re safe around me. You and Cora. Always. In any circumstance, no matter what. And if you and Cora ever need me, if you’re ever in danger—anytime, anywhere, for any reason—I swear to you, all you have to do is call me. I will not let anyone or anything hurt you.”
Her blue eyes widened by tiny degrees during my short speech. Now the dark pupils became wide apertures of a camera set to catch any small lie in me. Men see everything through a lens of sex, Cathy had said. But so do women, even the half-grown ones. I wanted Ivy to focus on the basic truth, to snap the image of the one simple guarantee a male can offer a female of any age: I won’t hurt you, and I will protect you from other men.
“You understand?” I asked again. “You believe me?”
For a few seconds I wasn’t sure she’d answer at all. Then her eyes narrowed and the shield went back in place. “Yeah,” she said drily. “Sure.” She shrugged and headed toward the door, then halted. Ivy looked back at me with wary respect. “She kissed you. Cathy kissed you on the top of the head, while you were asleep. She’ll put some moves on you one day. Don’t worry.”
“Thanks. That’s good to know.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
After she left I sank back on the couch and exhaled. My simple life was getting more complicated by the day.
In the kitchen, Jeb, Becka, Bubba, and several of their respective kids gazed at me with fervent curiosity as they shoveled breakfast into their mouths around the big table. Delta pointed at a stove full of biscuits, center-cut bacon, cream gravy, salmon patties, and scrambled eggs covered in cheese. Just her usual low-cholesterol Sunday breakfast to gird the family for a morning’s work and worship. “Help yourself.” She shrugged into a coat and grinned. “Thanks to the wine, I overslept. It’s nearly seven. Cleo got the café kitchen up and running for my lazy butt. Time to go make the donuts.”
“Pike drove Cathy back to the ridge?”
“Yep. Took some gas, a battery charger, and I packed her a box of food that’d feed an army for a week. Plus I sent along a big air mattress so she doesn’t have to sleep on a cot. She’ll be fine.” Delta pointed to a note on the counter. “Cathy and I made a list of things she needs right away to make the place livable. Thomas, she’s trying her best to honor your idea of how her house ought to be outfitted, but you need to back off. First thing, I’m calling Lewey over at the propane company to set her up with a tank and a generator. Then she can hook up some extension chords. Have a little space heater and some lights. A microwave. It’s a start. She agreed to go shopping with me next week. To get some furniture.”
I grabbed the note. “I’ll take care of this.”
Delta grabbed the list back. “Haven’t you ever heard that country song? ‘How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?’” She stuffed the note into her coat.
I grimly followed her outside into the gray half-light of the cold December morning. “I’m not trying to control how she renovates the house. I’m trying to offer unconditional support and friendship.”
Delta arched a brow. “She needs to be on her own for awhile. And you’ve got issues you haven’t settled yet. You need to quit drinking for good, not just a week or two. You need to get straight in your mind what you want to do with your life. You need to make peace with that truckload of self-blame you carry around. You need to bury what happened to your wife and son, Thomas, and say Amen over the past. Otherwise, you’re just gonna drag Cathy into your misery, and she’s got plenty of her own misery to still figure out.”
“I’m not trying to hurt her. I’m trying to help her.”
“You’re trying to get her in bed.” Delta headed up the tree-lined driveway that led to the café’s backyard, pumping her plump arms and short, plump legs energetically, daring me to keep up with her righteous attitude.
I fell in beside her, chewing my tongue. “This is not a fourth-grade crush.”
“I wish it were. Don’t go adding sex to this complicated recipe, mister. Turn your burners on low, let things simmer.”
“She needs me. And I’m glad to be needed. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Delta shook her head. “Making love too soon’s like trying to bake biscuits in an oven that’s not hot enough yet. Oh, sure, you can get the dough to rise and the crust to brown, but inside? Still raw.”
“I doubt I can get Cathy that close to my pilot light, so don’t worry.”
“Thomas, whether you realize it or not, when you’re around her you give off heat like a steam table. Good, sweet, sexy heat. And she inches as close to you as she can get without admitting she loves the warmth. But if you burn her—” Delta swiveled to shake a finger at me as we walked—“if you burn so much as a single hair on her head, she’s gonna have a hard time trusting you again. Now, ‘fess up about something. How come you’ve dodged women since your wife died? No bullshit, tell me the truth.”
I halted. So did she, peering up at me like a dark-haired owl. “I didn’t want to start a new life. Didn’t want to find someone new. I wasn’t ready to move on.”
“You’re a handsome man, you’ve got money, you’re not too long in the tooth. If you splashed on a little cologne and washed your truck, you could go over to Asheville any weekend and hook up with wild, tattooed, dope-smoking college students from UNC.”
“Male, female, or art majors?”
“Go ahead and joke. But nobody would fault you if you went lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, if you know what I mean.”
“I thought women appreciated a man who prefers his sex with a side helping of love.”
“Sure we do. I’m just asking. Are you ready to have a love life, again?”
“Cathy needs me.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m taking the idea of having a life one day at a time. It’s a new concept for me.”
Delta threw up her hands. “Here’s Cathy, wandering in the wilderness, scared of stoves, throwing up when people look at her, and you want to offer her a guiding hand when you don’t know which way you’re headed yourself! Talk about the blind leading the blind! Oh, yeah, you and her should just go to bed
together. That’ll make it all work out!”
“All I did last night was sit beside her bed and talk to her.”
“Must have been some mighty intense pillow talk, that’s all I can say. ’Cause she wanted out of here as fast as she could go this morning.”
“Not before she covered me with a quilt, trimmed my beard, and gave me a kiss on the head. My dastardly plan to seduce her seems to have backfired. She’s treating me like a new puppy. Delta, amazing though it may seem, women are not the only ones who can go years without a good ... companionship.”
“Who says women can go years? I can’t even go for days. Ask Pike.”
“I promise you, even a handsome, fully functional, worldly pervert such as myself is capable of profound romantic patience.”
“You take matters ‘in hand’ a lot, am I right? Oh, heck, why be coy? I hope you jerk off all the time.”
I scowled at her. “Never fear.”
“Good. Keep the pipeline primed and let Cathy settle in and stand on her own two feet. I’ll keep an eye on her, don’t worry. In the meantime, go find yourself a hobby. Go Christmas shopping. Hey, go up to Chicago and visit your brother.”
“Look, I don’t—”
“You’re trying to pretend January isn’t coming.” All the good humor and patience fled from her face. She stared up at me grimly. A chill went through me. January was always my low point. Worse than Ethan’s birthday, worse than the anniversary of nine-eleven. Delta knew it.
“Maybe this time I’ll stay in control. You have to admit it I’m doing better.”
“Better’s not good enough, Thomas. You know I’m right. If you get through January then you’ll know you’re ready to move on with your life. Until then you need to keep clear of Cathy. You don’t want her to get used to depending on you now, only to have you go down the drain after the first of the year.”
I hung my head. “I’ll make you a promise,” I said finally. “I’ll keep my distance, but I need to stay involved. Please. Let me take care Cathy my own way. Give me that list.”
Slowly, warily, she handed over Cathy’s to-do list. “Just how are you going to accomplish this without showing up in person?”
I gave her a rueful smile. “I’ll have a small army of minions do my evil bidding. Women who can’t resist my slightest whim. My harem.”
“Oh, my lord,” she said wryly. “You’re calling in the lesbians.”
PART FOUR
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
—Leo Tolstoy
A man has every season while a woman only has the right to spring.
—Jane Fonda
Chapter 18
Cathy The Log Splitter Girls
I woke to the sound of trucks coming up Wild Woman Ridge. Lots of them. For a few sleepy, horrifying seconds, as I staggered from my sleeping bag and quilts atop the gelatinous comfort of Delta’s loaned air mattress, I thought the entire press corp of The National Enquirer had found me. Images of my scarred face swam before my eyes in full color next to the latest pix of fat/thin/high actresses getting divorced/detoxed/nipped-and-tucked. I’d be a prize catch in a media buffet that fed on fallen women. But when I pushed back one of my homemade quilt-drapes and stared out the living room window I saw several late-model pickup trucks, a van, and a big flat-bed hauling a tractor and pulling a trailer loaded with a robin’s-egg blue portable toilet.
The toilet had been on my wish-list to Delta. Okay. But what was this crowd for? I hadn’t asked her to send strangers. In fact, I’d spent quite a bit of time telling her how few people I wanted to meet. So what had she done?
Sent a work crew, the portable toilet, and a tractor.
As I tugged hiking boots onto my socked feet, I hopped to another window and peered out. The light was dim; what uncivilized time was it? I checked my wristwatch. Did these people have an aversion to business hours? Only the first rays of cold winter sunshine had begun to slant into the yard. One pale glimmer hit the driver’s door of the lead pick-up, a big, hulking, burgundy model with a dual cab and a jacked-up chassis. I squinted and read: RAINBOW GODDESS BERRY FARM, Macy and Alberta Spruill-Groover, Crossroads, North Carolina. Macy and Alberta. The Log Splitter Girls.
“The Log Splitter Girls?” I said, astonished. “They raise berries, sing lesbian folk music, and deliver portable toilets?”
By the time I made it outside, wrapping my head in a scarf and puffing white clouds in front of me in nervous dread, nearly a dozen women, all dressed in burly workclothes, stood in my yard. I stared at them, and they stared back.
Two stepped forward. Though they were swaddled in matching quilted jackets and matching yarn caps, there was a definite personality difference. One smiled at me between long blond braids above an ankle-length khaki skirt while the other frowned at me under poofs of curly red hair above camo hunting pants. Both had the ruddy outdoorsiness of pioneer women. I felt like a show pony among mustangs. Recalling a photo on their CD, I realized who each was. Blonde braids: Macy. Red curls: Alberta. Seeing them in person, I refined that image. Macy: Smiling, sympathetic and friendly. Alberta: None of the above.
“We’re late,” Alberta grunted. “Your porta-shitter wasn’t ready to be loaded when we went to pick it up.”
Colorful. And she made it sound as if the portable toilet’s tardiness was my fault. As if I’d been a poor mother. I looked up at the boxy blue outhouse on the flatbed and scolded it loudly, “Bad porta-shitter. Bad.”
Macy laughed, and the other women either smiled or at least only stared at me curiously, as if they’d never expected an ex-movie star to say “porta-shitter.” Alberta, however, grunted again and thrust out a hand, then scowled harder when I squeezed it with my left hand instead of shaking it with my scarred right. “You need a job done. We’re here to do it. This is our farm’s down-time, so we’ve got the hours. The cash income’ll make a big difference to our women. Nicer Christmas presents for their kids, money for savings accounts. They’ll earn every penny you pay. We can give you two full weeks before Christmas, sun-up to sun-down. Macy handles our accounts. She’ll negotiate our rates with you. I’ll expect a check from you for all our labor and materials on each Friday. Thomas said you’ll pay top dollar for top-quality work. That’s what our crew will give you. If you think there’s any chore around here a female crew can’t handle, admit your ignorance right now and we’ll debate it.”
She halted, waiting defiantly, as if I were dumb enough to step into that snake-pit of gender-baited politics. Besides, I’d stopped listening at the words, Thomas said.
“Thomas sent you?”
“Yep. Delta told him you had work that needed doing, so he called us. You got a problem with that? You don’t want ‘our kind’ doing the job? For the record, Macy and I are the only card-carrying lesboes in the group.” A sardonic smile curled her upper lip. “The rest of these women are ‘normal.’ Nobody’ll hit on you, steal your jewelry, or snap a picture of you when you’re not looking. All these women live and work at Rainbow Farm because it’s a safe house, you get it? They don’t want the world to find them or you.”
Thomas sent his friends to keep an eye on me, I was thinking in a separate universe from Alberta’s. Maybe he wants to make sure I don’t do anything he doesn’t want done to the house.
“Welcome to my home,” I announced grimly, ignoring Alberta and addressing the group. “It’s not a museum; it’s not a historic site. It’s a sweet old house that needs a makeover. I know what I want done and how I want it done. If that suits you, let’s get to work. If you disapprove of my plans, don’t call Thomas and rat on me. I’m going to renovate this place the way I see fit, and that’s that.”
“Are you paranoid?” Alberta asked. “Thomas gave us your to-do list. That’s all. Do you think we’d toady up to him and sell out a sister? God.”
My face grew warm. “Well, whatever.”
Macy added gently, “Thomas isn’t even here. He’s gone to Chicago to visit his
brother. That’s a big step forward for him. This is the first time he’s left these mountains since he arrived four years ago.”
“Ah.” A shock. Thomas, my fellow recluse, had left our mutual ridge. I’d never driven a man out-of-state by kissing him before. Surprise and a strange, sinking sensation of dread chilled my skin. Thomas wasn’t at his cabin. Thomas wasn’t nearby. Thomas was several states away. Fear trickled down the center of my stomach, and I knew I’d have to go inside and take a pill. Oh, my God. He’d truly become my safe place, my sanctuary, along with this farm. This was not good.
Suck it up, Alberta can probably smell weakness like a buzzard smells roadkill. Look at that sneer. She’s practically circling overhead with her beak sharpened already.
I cleared my throat. “All right, as long as we all understand the deal, then . . . good. Who’d like a cold cup of instant coffee and a protein bar?”
Silence. Alberta scrutinized me as if I were a puzzle missing a few pieces, and Macy bit back a worried smile. Behind them, one of the women raised a hand. “If that’s what they serve for breakfast in Hollywood,” she said politely, “it’s no wonder all the women out there look like sticks with eyeballs.”
“I’ll set up a campfire kitchen under the trees,” Macy said. “How do you feel about a breakfast of herbal tea, tofu-and-turkey sausage, and homemade wheat bread covered in fresh farm butter and homegrown strawberry preserves?”
“Screw the protein bars.”
Everyone laughed and relaxed, except Alberta. She faced the crew like a drill sergeant. “Get moving, team. Greta Garbo’s not paying us to flap our labias in the breeze. We’re on the clock.”
Labias? Greta Garbo? So I was the recluse of the vaginal silver screen? Oh, this was going to be fun. Alberta’s obedient lackeys headed for their tool belts and tractor keys. Fingerlings of sunlight spread the good news to the yard, the trees, the frosted air of morning: The Log Splitter Girls and their coven were here to work some magic.