Excerpt: The Love We All Wait For

Chapter 2

I sat on the edge of the tub, watching my mother get ready. Down the hall, King’s toenails tapped the hardwood floor in rapid fire. He’d been scratching for a good five minutes and still hadn’t gotten any relief. We’d tried various ointments, but the eczema persisted, a rare form Dr. Wong the vet had only seen in one other black Labrador.

My mother’s long fingers, her nails polished a frosted pink, roamed the top drawer of the bathroom vanity for the missing silver hoop earring. Its mate shone against her garden-tanned cheek. She held up a brush choked with my hair and hers and probably several of Annie’s brunette curls that had been tugged loose this morning when she and my mother had their daily battle trying to braid Annie’s fine, flyaway hair.

“Here it is,” my mother cried. The missing earring dangled precariously from a strand of my blond hair. She fastened the hoop to her right ear. “I’m only going by the shed, honey. George left some work papers here last night. You really want to come?”

I had spent the morning trying to figure out how I would “run into” Buck, and now I had my chance. The day before, I had overheard Sally Fratti, George and Will’s sister and my mother’s best friend, telling my mother that George had hired a new guy, “a handsome southerner with heartbreaker written all over him.”

“I need to get out of the house,” I said. “I can’t stand watching Josh pack anymore.”

She seemed to buy my reason for wanting to accompany her. She fluffed her auburn hair, which she’d recently started curling. Prior to falling in love with George, my mother had never so much as picked up a blow dryer. Now she’d gotten even prettier and looked ten years younger.

“You’re being very brave about this.” She smiled at me in the mirror.

“As if I had a choice,” I said.

“I suppose neither of us do,” she said. “Mind you, Josh will be fine. The structure will do him good.”

This morning, Josh had packed his books, clothes, and swimming trophies, meticulously labeling the boxes. He had tried to pass along the jar of pennies we had set on the railroad tracks when we were little. Annie had refused them. She said faceless pennies couldn’t be spent and were therefore worthless. I think it had more to do with the tracks and with what she knew in her heart about Daddy’s death.

I dabbed some of my mother’s rose-scented body lotion into my hands. Outside, the chimes under the pomegranate tree tinkled. Through the open window, I heard the gentle thunk of a blossom hitting the ground. The tree had never born fruit. Daddy had once explained the tree was male, and every summer the bright red-orange blossoms in their tight casings on the ground proved him right.

King appeared in the bathroom doorway. He circled his tail twice and settled on the threshold. Patches and scabs showed through his thinning black coat. He looked at my mother with a long face and grunted.

“Poor thing,” she said.

“Do you think he knows?” I asked. “Will Josh leaving do him in?”

“King will survive,” she said briskly. “It’s good for Josh to take a stand like this. You know how your father could be.”

The vanity drawer jammed when she tried to close it. She gave the handle a hard yank and carried the drawer over to the wastebasket. Jars of cold cream, several combs, and a tangled nest of bobby pins and hair tumbled into the wastebasket. King’s skinny, long black tail slapped the floor as if to punctuate my mother’s summer cleaning effort. She gave the overflowing wastebasket a satisfied nod.

“I’ve been meaning to do that for a long time,” she said, sliding the drawer back into the vanity.

“Dad was right, Mom,” I said. “About the war, I mean.”

“And now the war’s over, thank God. Anyway, you two always agreed.”

I watched her apply a satiny pink lipstick. My mother’s toiletry had previously consisted of lotion for her parched hands and Vaseline for her lips, which were always dry from all the time she spent in the garden and wind. People always said she was a natural beauty and didn’t require dolling herself up like most women. But now she matched the shade of nail polish with her lipstick. I still wasn’t quite used to how feminine she looked. Or that she cared about things she didn’t use to give two cents about.

“Mom, I was only a kid,” I said.

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said, blotting her lips with a tissue. “You and your father are cut from the same cloth. Glass always half empty.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors,” I said.

“I do love you, Sheila Lorraine.” She pressed her cool hands to my cheeks. “Even if you’re a pessimist. Fortunately, a sweet one and smart beyond your years. Shall we go?”

Hearing the word “go,” King scrambled to his feet.

“You stay,” my mother said, pointing to him. “We don’t want you wilting in the backseat.”

He padded after her down the hallway, looking disgruntled. His tail bounced from wall to wall like a metronome. I followed. After all of this, I hoped Buck would still be there working.

* * *

A blast of cold hit us when we entered the packing shed. The conveyor belts squeaked and groaned under the weight of harvested broccoli. Women in print dresses and sweatpants stuffed into rubber boots were yelling in Spanish over the noise of the spray. They looked up from their work as my mother and I passed. One of the women smiled and waved, her lips closing shyly over her silver front teeth, Mexican dentistry at its finest. I kept an eye out for Buck.

“That’s Rudy’s wife, Estella,” my mother said, beaming from the good turn she had done the couple. “This is her second day. Now they’ll be able to pay their mortgage.”

Rudy was the dishwasher at the Pit. My mother had been sneaking doggy bags of leftover prime rib and baked potatoes to him for years. They had six kids. When my mother had first broached the subject of George hiring Estella, George had said he didn’t want his workers to think he was doing favors for his fiancée.

“George would do anything for you,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Mom.”

“You’re not very tolerant of George,” she said, rolling in her lips.

“I’m trying,” I said. With Buck hopefully close by and about to show his gorgeous face, I couldn’t have cared less about getting along with George.

A forklift whipped around a corner, the lifting blades stopping inches from my mother’s sandaled feet. She jumped backwards. I grabbed her arm to steady her.

“Goodness,” she said, straightening.

“Hi,” I breathed.

It was Buck. His eyes were velvet green in the dim light of the packing shed. Fortunately, my mother was too busy recovering from being nearly run over to hear me say hello.

“Sorry, ma’am.” He tipped his Fratti Farms cap at my mother and turned to me as if he’d been expecting me. “Hello, Sheila.”

“You’ve met?” my mother asked, her mouth tight.

“I was a little lost the other day,” Buck explained. “But Sheila and her brother--Joe, is it?--set me on the right path.”

“Josh,” I said, correcting him. I turned to my mother and forced myself to look her in the eye. “It was when we were buying cigarettes at Kim’s.”

“I’m Alice O’Connor,” she said in a businesslike tone I’d never heard before. The princess-cut diamond on her engagement ring twinkled. “Mr. Fratti’s fiancée.”

“I figured,” Buck said, climbing out of the forklift. He gave her a little bow. “Mrs. O’Connor, it’s a pleasure.”

Over at the sprayers, a woman with a braid the color of a moonless night whispered in Estella’s ear. They smiled behind their hands. Buck could have anyone he wanted. And it wouldn’t be me, not with my mother hanging around.

“Sorry again for the scare,” Buck said and hopped back into the forklift.

The forklift whirred down an aisle of boxes. My mother shot me her “I’m-on-to-you” look and steered me towards the office. I felt the pull of Buck from across the shed. Two minutes of him had only made me want him more.

“Now I know why you wanted to come,” she said. “Let’s pray he’s not interested in you.”

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” I said. “And we don’t pray in our family.”

“It’s an expression, honey,” she said, giving her wrap-around skirt a smart tug.

* * *

George was on the phone with a fertilizer sales rep. He pointed at the receiver and flapped his fingers like a duck’s bill opening and closing. He motioned for us to take a seat on the vinyl baby-shit-brown couch. The glasses he wore in the office made him look studious.

Daddy had distrusted men like George. One night after fetching my mother from work at the Pit, he had called George and his dice-throwing buddies Republican phonies. There was no worse an insult from my father.

Framed photographs covered the wall over George’s desk. His sister Sally on horseback, brother Will bronco-riding, George and Will in matching cowboy outfits. George stood straight and tall, and Will was slumped, his mouth a knot of dissatisfaction. In a very faded photo of George Sr. and his wife Dottie, Dottie’s hair was pulled into a severe bun, accentuating the same high cheekbones and brooding eyes that Will had.

George picked up a crystal tractor paperweight, re-positioning it on a stack of paper. He covered the receiver.

“This guy’s a motor-mouth,” he said to my mother.

“No rush.” She smiled and set a folder of his papers on the desk. “I almost forgot.”

“Fine.” George spoke into the phone. “Bring us some to try on the pinto crops.”

In his hand, he turned the pencil-and-pen holder he kept on his desk. Annie had glued on the cup pictures of horses cut from an equestrian magazine. George had claimed it was the nicest gift he’d ever received. I didn’t know who had who wrapped around their finger.

Bored, I got up to look at the map of California above the couch. Someone had circled Tristes and drawn an arrow to the words “Home Sweet Home,” written in the margin. I followed the Sierra Nevadas with my index finger, touched the blue dot of Lake Tahoe, and moved west and down the coast to Imperial Beach, where Josh would do basic training. He wasn’t even gone yet, and already I missed him.

George hung up. He came out from behind the desk, combing his fingers through his coarse black hair to cover his receding hairline. My mother lifted her face to meet his kiss.

George leaned against the front of the desk and crossed his ankles. He was wearing bumblebee laces on his work boots. They looked ridiculous.

“We just ran into Buck Hanson,” my mother said. “Rather, he almost ran into us.”

“Damn hard worker.” George polished the crystal paperweight against his shirt. “I’ll talk to him about the driving. He gets working and forgets other people are around.”

“Sheila has a little crush on him,” my mother said. She crossed her legs and straightened the front flap of her denim wrap-around skirt over her knees.

“Stop it, Mom.” I felt my face go scarlet.

“I’m sure he’d be flattered,” George said. He nudged my mother’s sandal with his boot. “We still on for dinner? We have 8:30 reservations at the Grove Inn.”

“If I can find something to wear,” she said.

“You look fine the way you are,” George said. He picked up Annie’s pencil jar again and chuckled. He looked at me, glanced at my mother, and cleared his throat. “Just so you know, Sheila, Buck Hanson is twenty-six.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

“I’m only looking out for you, Sheila,” he said.

“I don’t need looking out for,” I said.

I wanted to scream. George uncrossed his ankles and stood up to his full six foot two.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Alice, what do you think?”

“I think we all need looking out for,” she said. She smoothed her skirt. “I’d better see how Josh’s packing is progressing. Come on, Sheila.”

“Three more days,” George said. “Time’s flying.” He held the door open for us. “Less chance of getting run over if you use the back entrance.” He patted my shoulder. “Bye, now.”

“Hardy har har,” I muttered.

My mother shot me a look.

The wind was blowing so hard it snapped open the back door of the shed and nearly carried us to the car. When we got into the VW, my mother wiped the wind-tears and mascara from her eyes.

“George is trying,” she said.

“I don’t care,” I said, fighting tears. “My life is none of his business.”

She took my chin firmly in her hand. When I pulled away, she sighed.

“You’re wrong, Sheila Lorraine,” she said. “Your life is his business.” She repositioned the rearview mirror for driving. Her voice softened. “It will be soon, anyway.”

© 2008 Lee Doyle, All Rights Reserved

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