The Talk of the Town (10 page)

No longer tucked within the unsettling circle of his arm, Roxie regained enough of her senses to wonder what on earth had come over her. What would her parents say when she rode up with Luke Bauer? She might as well come home with that notorious criminal, Machine Gun Kelly! Why hadn’t she sensibly phoned them when he first suggested it?

Why hadn’t she, indeed? She opened her eyes and straightened in her seat, looking out the window at the water tower on which the town’s name was painted. Such questions were better left unanswered.

The wheels bumped over the road with agonizing slowness. She was certain she could have limped home more quickly. Surely this drive had never before taken so long, nor had her car ever been driven so carefully. She couldn’t believe they could be going at a normal speed and still be taking so long to get home. Each minute confined with him, locked in this weighty silence with her recriminating questions, seemed never-ending.

And then she saw the sign to her street and felt she barely had any time left with him at all. She rushed into speech, not even realizing that she’d been planning her apology all along. “Luke, I’m sorry about all this, about disrupting your evening, and—”

“You didn’t disrupt anything Roxie,” he told her truthfully. “Not this or any other evening.”

“I shouldn’t have bothered you,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I really do thank you for going out of your way like this for me.”

He couldn’t believe his ears. Didn’t she realize that he’d have done far more for her, carried her home on his back if necessary? He’d never felt such concern for anyone in his life as he had when he’d seen her face whiten with pain, and now she was actually apologizing to him. It affected him in a myriad of ways, ways he couldn’t begin to describe.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said in an offhand fashion that had nothing to do with what he was feeling.

“Here.” She pointed to a two-story Craftsman-style house that was set back from the street. “This is it.”

Luke parked in the private driveway behind a big black Packard. He let his hands slide from the wheel and heaved a sigh of relief at the realization that he’d made it without incident. When he got out of the car and cut around to help Roxie out, he could see the leafy oak trees standing on either side of the meticulously-manicured lawn. A Midwest cottage garden of more plants than he could name filled the space between the front walk and the foundation of the house, while fat pots of colorful blooms marched up the steps leading to the entry porch.

Looking around, he recognized this as one of the neighborhoods he used to cut through on his way to and from school. In his mind’s eye he could see the lonely little boy standing on the sidewalk looking at the beautiful houses located here. Houses where laughter rang and voices sang. Houses where mothers made hot breakfasts for their children on cold mornings and fathers returned from work of an evening full of the day’s news instead of booze.

Homes, he realized now as lights began winking on behind curtained windows, casting out their welcoming yellow glow as the tall old trees threw their shadows across the street and the yards that bordered it. These weren’t houses; they were homes. And recognizing that made him realize that he’d never had a home himself.

The lights were on in Roxie’s house, too, he noticed, but he wasn’t at all sure what kind of welcome he was going to receive. No matter. He’d brought her this far. He’d take her the rest of the way.

Roxie’s heartbeat accelerated as she again accepted his support. With his arm wrapped supportively around her, she staggered toward the front steps. Even the distraction of Luke’s touch couldn’t suppress her discomfort. The pain was worse now, shooting through her with each tiny jolt.

Luke took one look at her wan face and white-rimmed lips and didn’t hesitate. He swung her up in his arms and lithely mounted the steps.

Roxie didn’t protest. She didn’t want to. She felt secure, comforted, protected. Her only regret was that there were so few steps.

Once Luke reached the porch, she opened the heavy wood door and he shouldered through, into an oak-floored foyer that was almost bigger than his room in the boardinghouse.

The whirling blades of the ceiling fan provided a cool respite from the heat. He toed the front door closed as the grandfather clock in the corner of the entryway chimed the time. Six-fifteen. Which meant they were either a little early or a little late for dinner.

“Roxie? Is that you?” called her unseen mother. “Hurry up, we’ve just sat down.”

“Which way?” Luke asked, whispering.

Pointing left, Roxie whispered back, “They’re in the dining room.”

As he strode into the room with her firmly clasped in his arms, there was an absolutely still moment in which shock rippled down the table, from her mother at one end to her brother Frederick and his wife Nora sitting next to each other in the middle to her father at the other end.

The second wave of reaction was more varied, including her parents’ clearly visible concern, her sister-in-law’s obvious curiosity, and her brother’s equally obvious antagonism. Roxie watched their changing expressions and felt her pleasure in Luke’s arms fade. She wiggled within his grasp, indicating she wanted to be set down, but he simply tightened his hold.

“Roxie twisted her ankle,” he announced to one and all. “It looks like it could be a bad sprain.”

Hearing the trace of aggression in his voice, she looked at him in sharp surprise. He’d never used that tone in her presence, not even tonight when he’d been so determined to bring her home. But the surprise she felt was nothing compared to her family’s. She could see it darkening the chandelier-lit room and decided the moment called for a quick explanation.

“It was just a silly accident,” she said. “I fell in the warehouse, and if Luke hadn’t been there to drive me home, I don’t know what I would have done. My ankle is already three times its normal size.”

Her mother rose with a series of brisk instructions. “Nora, get some towels from the upstairs bathroom. Frederick, bring up that small soaking tub from the basement. William, the footstool is in my sewing room.”

Chairs rasped, voices clashed, steps rapped over hardwood as the rest of the family jumped obediently to do her bidding. Mary briefly inspected Roxie’s ankle and told her to take her stocking and shoe off. Then she darted into the kitchen to get some ice and run some cold water.

Luke felt like he’d walked into the eye of a tornado.

Returning with the footstool, William recognized the look on his face and laughed, startling him. “You may have noticed that Mary is a regular whirlwind of efficiency. Even after thirty-five years together,” the older man added, “I still find the wind knocked out of me when she’s like this.”

“Yes, sir,” Luke said, feeling at a real loss. He’d expected hostility from William, or demands to unhand his daughter—at the very best a reserved thanks. He would have known how to handle any of those, but this left him dumfounded. He watched warily as the gray-haired man moved to the side of the table, pulled out a chair and set the footstool in front of it. Even in his open-collared white shirt and comfortable blue sweater, he conveyed an air of authority.

“Unless you’re of a mind to hold on to my daughter forever,” he said dryly, “I’d suggest you put her down here.”

“Yes, sir,” he repeated. He’d rather have held on to her, but he set Roxie on the chair and then backed into a shadowed corner.

Her father ruffled her hair with a gentle hand before he bent to remove her peep-toed pump, his body shielding her as she raised her skirt above her knee to release her stocking from the garter that kept it up and roll it down her leg. She began relating the accident in amusing detail and the two laughed together. The loving intimacy made Luke feel like an intruder. Beginning to wish he could simply vanish into thin air, he started edging his way out of the room.

Mary swept in from the kitchen, followed by a stony-faced Frederick, and within minutes Roxie’s bare foot was soaking in a small round tub of ice water. She let out a little yelp of distress at the frigidity, and her brother claimed she deserved it for being so reckless. Nora returned with the towel as well as a plump pillow for Roxie to rest her foot on after she’d soaked it. Nora had hardly set the two items on the sideboard when Mary sent her to fetch another place setting for Luke.

Hearing this, he stopped before he could make good his escape. He couldn’t possibly intrude any further. Already, he’d stayed too long. He didn’t belong in this beautiful home, at that family table, and he knew better than to wish he did.

“That’s not necessary, Mrs. Mitchell,” he said flatly.

“But of course you’re staying to dine, Mr. Bauer.”

“I don’t think I—”

“Have you eaten?”

“No, ma’am,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Then you’ll eat with us,” she declared in a tone that brooked no argument. “It’s the least we can do to repay you for your kindness to Roxie.”

“Oh, I was glad—”

“Sit down, please.”

A slender woman with her salt-and-pepper hair done in a series of close waves around her pretty, unlined face, Mary Mitchell looked a lot like her daughter. But she had an inexorable way of speaking that Luke didn’t think Roxie would ever cultivate. Perhaps being the mother of four and grandmother of three—soon to be four—had made it necessary for her to sound as if she meant whatever she said. But just the same, he couldn’t quite accept that she really meant for him to sit at her table and share her food. After all, he was a Bauer.

William cleared his throat. “The house rule is that Mary is never wrong at dinnertime. So I suggest you sit yourself down while you’re still able to do so.”

Roxie patted the seat of the chair beside her. “Please, Luke, sit here.”

And still he just stood there, half in and half out of the dining room, wanting very much to stay but believing strongly that he shouldn’t.

Nora came in from the kitchen, her hands filled with a plate, silverware and a napkin, which she arranged on the embroidered tablecloth.

Luke glanced at Roxie’s brother. Frederick hadn’t spoken, but he didn’t need to. His narrowed eyes and the reproachful set of his lips beneath a thin mustache made it perfectly apparent that he’d prefer having the influenza in for dinner.

“Our meal is getting cold,” Mary pointed out.

He gave in. He’d wanted to, anyway, but now he could do so in good conscience. The brother could go hang. He sat down and bowed his head while William intoned grace. This is the way it is in real families, he thought. The way it might have been in his family if his mother hadn’t run off, if his father hadn’t been a drunk, if he could have lived with his grandfather. If, if, if.

A collective “amen” cut off his thoughts and told him it was time to eat.

Honey fried chicken, new potatoes creamed with freshly-shelled peas, and thick slices of red, ripe tomatoes picked from the backyard garden attracted his attention. He realized he was famished and dug in with relish.

For a few minutes the sound of a meal in progress dominated the room, but then the Mitchells got down to their nightly discussions. They spoke of general things—the ongoing drought, the withering crops, the depressed economy. And they spoke of specific things—the cute and clever antics of Bill and Marlene’s children, John’s decision to plant soybeans to replenish the soil and Lee’s pregnancy, Frederick and Nora’s upcoming trip to Clay Center, Kansas, to visit her parents and siblings.

Luke sat quietly, enwrapped in the loving comfort of their conversation. Emotions began churning within him, tender emotions he’d thought long dead, emotions that somehow centered on Roxie. He permitted himself a covert look at her. She unexpectedly looked his way. The clear blue of her gaze melted into the gray yearning of his. A moment passed, then another.

Their silent exchange didn’t go unnoticed. Luke suddenly became aware of the growing silence that surrounded them and glanced about the table. The questioning looks he saw had him averting his eyes to his empty plate.

“I think my foot has gone numb,” Roxie told her mother. “I can’t feel a thing, not even the water.”

“Just keep that foot where it is,” Mary ordered. “After dessert we’ll wrap it, and then you’ll elevate it a while.”

Roxie pretended to pout, and it was all Luke could do not to laugh.

A still-curious Nora poured coffee while Mary fetched cake from the kitchen.

“So what happened?” Nora asked as she resumed her seat.

“I knocked Roxie down,” Luke admitted.

“Actually, I ran into him,” she clarified. “I’d stayed late to finish typing up one last order and was hurrying to get out of there. I deserve a sprained ankle for not looking where I was going.”

“How will you get to work tomorrow?” Nora passed on dessert, patting her flat stomach to indicate she was too full from dinner, and then pointed out the obvious. “You can’t drive yourself. You wouldn’t have gotten home tonight if Luke hadn’t driven you.”

“Speaking of that,” Frederick intervened, and Luke tensed. He knew the note of trouble when he heard it. He knew the look, too, and Frederick definitely wore it. Now Frederick leaned back in his chair, narrowly scrutinizing Luke, as if he’d been waiting for his chance and was about to seize it. “Speaking of that,” he repeated, “it’s occurred to me that I haven’t seen you driving around town before. At least, not since you got back from prison.”

Hot color flooded into her cheeks as Roxie thought fleetingly of giving Frederick a swift under-the-table kick, sprained ankle and all.

“That’s probably because I don’t own a car,” Luke said in a measured tone.

“As I recall,” Frederick returned pointedly, “you stole a car before you robbed that gasoline station.”

“That’s right,” Luke clipped out.

An uncomfortable hush settled over the table. William and Mary exchanged a look. Ignoring her contentious husband, Nora patted her finger-waved hair. Roxie sat as still as a stone, not stirring by so much as a breath.

Well, all dreams come to an end, Luke thought. He’d felt all night as if he’d been in a dream, the sort of fantasy he hadn’t allowed himself to indulge in since he was a child. Realizing he’d overstayed his welcome, he started to push back his chair and excuse himself from the table.