Painted Dresses Read online

  Delia was happy again.

  The rental car dealer allowed us an extra day, so back we went into Houston in search of a car to keep. I told Delia, “We’re not far from Dallas. I’ll call Uncle Jackson and Aunt Noleen and see if they might take us in for a couple of days.” I would use Renni’s name and Daddy’s name and hope that would open their door to us. “That will give me time to think.” I was thinking of calling the Boiling Waters police but did not know how to tell Delia. Then I wondered if Jackson might help her find a job in Dallas. I could set her up with a bank account and a small amount of cash to get her started in a new life. Then I could tell Deputy Bob that she had run off and left me stranded.

  But as the scheme was hatching, it was not settling well. Braden once said that it was not possible for me to lie. I thought that was true, that I knew myself. But that was before Max. The lying took over for a while until I hated myself too much to continue. But running with Delia had turned over the dark side of me again, flipping me back and forth from good to bad like a pancake.

  Buying a used car in Texas was like picking shells off the beach. Every street corner, it seemed, blazed with the sales schmaltz of low auto deal claims. I drove onto a lot called The Texas Stampede. The sign was in the shape of a longhorn bull’s head. The front door on the mobile office flew open the instant we pulled onto the lot. Out walked a salesman wearing a brown suede vest and a ten-gallon hat. He sidled up next to Delia and handed her a shiny marshal’s badge. “It’s the law around here: every customer gets the best deal in Houston.” His name tag read Chris. “I’m the marshal of used cars,” he said.

  He handed me the keys to an orange sports car that Delia and I drove around until we were carsick. There was little room for our luggage. We tried out a second car, a Volkswagen that smelled like stale taco sauce and cigarette smoke.

  Delia begged, “Please, a pickup truck, Gaylen. I’ve always wanted one, and look, it’s marked down to twelve thousand, and it comes with a set of cookware.”

  “Any automobile you pick out today and drive off this lot comes with the nonstick Country Chef cookware,” said Marshal Chris. “And that’s a five cook-pot deal, lids included.” He pressed the truck keys into my hand. “Take ‘er to lunch, girls. Be our guest.” He handed Delia a coupon for a bucket of chicken at a cafe he called the Hungry Hen. Delia grabbed the keys and the coupon and clambered into the driver’s seat. I joined her inside the truck’s cab.

  She zipped onto the interstate, playing with the window buttons and the radio dial. “It’s got a five-CD changer and a cup holder big enough for a Big Gulp,” she said, a passionate connoisseur of 7-Eleven Slurpees. She spotted the Hungry Hen cafe sign and followed the arrows up the ramp and into the parking lot. She pulled the bright blue truck into a front-row parking slot. When a couple of men in cowboy hats glanced our way, she slid out of the truck, fake reptile boots hitting the parking lot pavement while she waved at the men as if she knew them. “Texas has a lot to offer a person,” she said, walking past me through the doors.

  I passed on the chicken and ordered a salad. We sat in an orange plastic booth under a sign that said “Boat on Beautiful Nacogdoches Lake.”

  She snuggled up next to a double-battered chicken leg, chewing and rolling her eyes. “Nobody ever give me anything for free. Except there was that time that Lee and me was down on the lake fishing. The bait shop gave us two bait cups for the price of one, seeing how the worms were going to dry up if he didn’t pass them on.” She smiled at the two Texans who took a booth across from us. She wiped her hands on a napkin and extended her hand across the aisle. “Name’s Delia,” she said to one.

  “Harrison Pew, Delia,” he smiled. “This is my cousin, Avery.”

  Avery smiled at me as if we were all being paired off by an unseen hand. He was younger and better suited to Delia. He reminded me of the type of boys at Boiling Waters High who hated school and loved shop class.

  “We’re test-driving that truck,” Delia told Harrison. “I don’t know much about trucks, like, knowing when you’re getting ripped off and when you’re getting a good deal.”

  “Avery will look under the hood for you,” said Harrison.

  “That’s not necessary,” I said, but no one listened to me.

  “I just knew you were the type of guys to help us out,” said Delia. “We’re not from Houston.”

  I knew that if I did not interject some sort of distraction into the conversation, Delia would next tell them that we were wealthy heiresses hiding out from the North Carolina state police. “Where’s a good place to visit around here?” I asked, figuring that Harrison and Avery were most likely not concerned with intellectual repartee.

  “I like the Houston Symphony,” said Harrison, glib and looking at me.

  “We’re not really from here either,” said Avery. “We flew here from North Carolina to get away before racing season. Harrison here is a race car driver. I’m his crew boss.”

  “Good. Then you know all about engines and such,” said Delia. She got up and walked to the door as if she knew that Avery would magically follow, and of course, he did.

  “I wasn’t kidding about the symphony,” said Harrison. He moved across the aisle and sat in the seat Delia had just left. “I’ve got tickets to the Christmas concert tonight. People give me things like that all the time, but a NASCAR guy like Avery is not likely to join me.”

  “You don’t want your tickets?” I asked him.

  “Avery doesn’t want his,” he said. “I know you don’t know me, but I’m a big fan of the Houston Symphony, a bit of a patron. I’d hate to go by myself, though.” He did not try to flirt or persuade me. He said, “You look like the kind of woman who’d like to hear a good orchestra.”

  Harrison’s eyes were not so dull and void of light. He removed his billed cap emblazoned with his name. He had a mass of blond curls that softened his looks. His temples were high, and in spite of his flannels and jeans, he looked as if he might own a black dress coat. I was about to open my mouth and tell him that I wasn’t dating since I was still carrying my unsigned divorce papers around in my suitcase next to my dead mother’s pictures. I said instead, “Tonight?”

  Delia and I checked into the less pricy La Quinta near the interstate. It was near a shopping mall, and I needed a new dress. I found a sheath dress that fell across my hips in as flattering a manner as possible. I had shed a few pounds while running from Delia’s demons.

  Delia rattled on about Avery and how he saved us a fortune when he discovered a bad gasket under the blue trucks hood that had been doctored, most likely, by Marshal Chris’s mechanic. He knew of a friend selling a good used sports car—a blue Miata—for a song. While Harrison and I went to the Houston Symphony, Avery would take Delia bowling, and the two of them would test-drive the friend’s car.

  Delia was ecstatic, not only for her bowling date, but that I had agreed. For one night, we were free of each other. But I was having second thoughts, feeling as if I was betraying Braden all over again.

  “He divorced you and then told you about it after the fact,” said Delia.

  I sat down on the bed. “It was my fault though, Delia. I initiated the train wreck.”

  We sat quietly staring into the motel television. There was a battle in Fallujah and two U.S. soldiers were killed. Delia slid on a pair of flip-flops and went out for ice and canned drinks. I changed channels several times but could not get away from the war.

  Harrison would come for me in one hour. He gave me his number, he said, in case I changed my mind. I showered, changed into the dress, changed out of it, reached for the phone, and then lay across the bed in my bathrobe.

  Delia came through the door expecting to find me dressed. “You look awful,” she said. “You having second thoughts?”

  “I’m getting dressed,” I said, reasoning, “I haven’t seen a symphony since Braden’s parents bought us
tickets for our first anniversary.” I burst into tears.

  Delia fished a box of tissues out of the bathroom console. She lay beside me on the bed, passing me fresh tissues and wadding up the ones I used. She rolled onto her back, staring at the overhead light. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved a man like that,” she said. “Not so I just about throw up when he’s gone. Lee, he did me dirty, but I liked revenge as much as I liked marriage.” Her face was drawn, the face that she wore when she wanted to convince me she could be serious. “Love is a pain I get rid of. But you hold on to it, like the pain is just part of it.”

  “So that’s what I’m left with? Love is a pain in the gut?”

  “Why keep it when it goes bad?” she asked. “I’m not one for punishment.”

  I came up onto my elbows. “When I married Braden, it felt as if I was being carried along into marriage and then there he was sleeping in my bed every night. It became an obligation. Maybe love has to get painful before you recognize it. It’s not like you think, not like you imagine.” I still did not have it right, but neither did Delia. “You don’t know what love feels like until you lose it.”

  “I’ll never get it,” she said. “Avery’s got nice eyes. I feel something when he looks at me. I used to call it love. But it’s always like that at first. Then one day I just look at a guy and there’s nothing, nothing at all that feels like that first look. Listening to you, though, I don’t know what else to expect. Did I ever know—with Lee, Freddy, and now with Avery?” She sat up, aimed the remote at the television, and turned it off. “Maybe I just want to have someone say nice things about me. Maybe to me that is my definition for love. Why does it have to turn so ugly?”

  I handed her back the tissue box.

  “You’re not going out with Harrison tonight, are you?” she asked. She slumped down onto the bed, burying her face in the linens.

  “I’ll go,” I said. “But we’re headed for Dallas tomorrow. So don’t grow too attached to Houston.” I washed my face and dressed.

  Delia found the gaming program on my phone and played solitaire.

  Harrison showed up at the door dressed in black, his blond curls combed back into a ponytail.

  Avery walked up behind him, his hair still wet from the shower. “You two look like you’re going to a banking convention. Delia, you ready?” he asked, bored with his NASCAR boss and our symphony date. “You’re missing a perfect opportunity to get creamed by me on the lanes,” he told Harrison.

  “I’m sure we’ll live to regret it,” said Harrison. He offered me his arm. We walked to the stairs, and he let me go first. Delia ran giggling around me. Avery walked around us, scratching his head. Delia would blow it with a guy like him pretty fast. That was one thing I could count on. Avery was sane enough that he would be history by morning.

  As for me, I wasn’t sure what I wanted.

  Harrison was driving a rented classic. Braden on occasion had reserved a car like that for a wealthy client. Harrison said, “It’s useless trying to eat before a concert. I hope it’s all right with you. I made reservations for dinner afterward. That’s a late evening.”

  He was so apologetic that I did not know how to take him. I wanted him to be pushy or boastful so that I would be glad for the evening to be finished. Harrison had the quiet demeanor of a monk. “I don’t mind,” I said.

  He knew his way around Houston. He drove right up to the parking deck across from Jones Hall in the theater district. He led me through the crowd that spilled across the street and swarmed into the lobby.

  “These are box seats,” he said. “A friend of mine keeps them but seldom attends.”

  “When did you get interested in the symphony?” I asked.

  “I play the violin. But it was hard to make a living at it. You have to keep five jobs going at once to keep the lights on,” he said.

  I must have stared at him.

  “Not many of the guys know, except Avery and one other. They give me a hard time about it,” he said. “Would you like a drink?” he asked.

  “Club soda is all,” I said.

  “I don’t drink either.” He ordered at the portable lobby bar.

  Symphony patrons—some in dress black and some in work clothes—gathered in clusters and streamed into Jones Hall.

  “How often do you come to Houston?” I asked.

  “My mother lives in Houston. She hates the racetrack, so I come here to see her,” he said. “She was happier when I studied violin.” He bought a pack of M&M’s. “My first wife liked the money of racing.”

  “I’m divorcing too,” I said.

  “My ex was a good manager. She managed everything, our money, my career,” he said. “But she never would just look at me and see me.”

  I wanted to know how long ago, but I was out of Harrison’s life in twelve hours. “I needed a night away from my sister,” I said. “But I don’t normally date.” He was still looking at me without commenting, so I said, “I hope you don’t think I get picked up in fast-food restaurants on a regular basis.”

  We had to step aside to let a man and woman pass through. The orchestra was warming up. We disposed of the cups. Then he led us across the lobby up a carpeted staircase and down the hallway leading to the box seats.

  “Not a lot of women are as quick to accept a date to the symphony. It’s not your typical pick-up line,” he said, a smile still fresh on his face. “Just shows you got some taste. Don’t feel like you have to keep explaining yourself to me. We’re two people away from home. No need to sit around in front of the television with a perfectly good city waiting on us.”

  Harrison was a man of easeful nature, not one to start off compartmentalizing people into categories, it seemed. He had a bit of crease around each eye, like a man ten years older than me. But he didn’t talk down to me like Max had done our last night together.

  I asked, “Are you Buddhist by any chance? You don’t have to answer if that’s too personal.”

  “That’s all right. I’m not.”

  “My husband’s friend is a Buddhist. He has your quiet demeanor. That’s the only reason I asked,” I said.

  He escorted me into the hall. The red seating was less formal than most symphony halls. An usher led us to a box seat almost directly over the orchestra pit. “My mother’s friend from school keeps this box seat because his mother left it to him. But they never come and enjoy it.” The lights dimmed, and we sat in the padded chairs.

  I reached into my purse to turn off my phone, but the phone pocket was empty. I had left it back in the room. The conductor walked out onto the stage. He introduced the pianist who would play Rachmaninoff’s Third. The audience responded with high approval.

  “You said your mother’s friend from school,’” I said. “Is she a teacher?”

  “Retired professor. That was what she wanted for me, to be a musician and teach college.”

  “Race car driving and violin playing are strange bed mates,” I said.

  “I know.”

  I settled into the concert music, trying to get out of my head the thought that this was the silliest date I’d ever had. Going on a date to be away from Delia was like going to the men’s bathroom to avoid the graffiti scrawled on the pink women’s stalls.

  Halfway through the concert, Harrison cupped his hand over mine on the chair arm. I knew it was simply a gesture from a man away from home who needed human touch and meant nothing more. I turned my hand up and let his fingers close around mine. I felt twelve and hiding behind the cafeteria at Boiling Waters High to make out.

  An older man in front of me was nodding off to sleep. I imagined his wife, who was caught up in the rapture of Rachmaninoff, had dragged him to the symphony. Harrison glanced toward him and then fixed his eyes again on the pianist.

  Braden would have said something about the sleepy husband. He would have made me laugh. But Harrison a
ctually liked the music and was most likely judging the man for his lack of musical savoir-faire.

  The whole time Harrison held my hand, I could picture Braden flying through the air, through the fringes of clouds, barely visible by night. I closed my eyes and remembered the large mass of fingers taking my hand the first time. My life with him flashed forward to that night when, at a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I considered for the first time the picket-fence-and-kids scenario, but nothing beyond the matrimonial pipe dream because I was a marriage critic. My mother had married three times, cautioning me it was for the birds. Conflict was the warning meter in the sensitive mechanism of marriage, according to my mother. If she and my father went to battle, then there was something irrevocably wrong between them. It was only because she was aging and failing in her health that she stuck it out with my dad, husband number three.

  This was the handbook of my marriage schooling.

  Braden was as plain as peanut butter. He seldom read a book, knew nothing about music except the songs he listened to on Carolina Country 104.2. But I sat thinking about him and how bored he would be and the tension he would bring to the evening. I sat in the pounding driving storm of Rachmaninoff’s Third, willing the clash and the fracas of Braden Boatwright back into my life. There was something inherently disturbing about me, I decided.

  My first date with Braden was a night of almosts. I almost told him that I normally did not feel anything for any guy on a date. But instead I asked him if he liked his shrimp. He kissed me right inside my apartment door and almost kissed me again, but I backed away. I wanted Braden to come inside and stay because for that whole evening I never tired of the sound of his voice, even the way he repeated the punch line to a story. I never could get the words just right to make a guy want to make me the one he would take out again. Braden had almost made it out to his car when I ran after him and said, “I’ve had the best time tonight that I’ve ever had with a guy.”