Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [30]
“Not to those of us who know ye.”
We travel in silence for a moment. I dismiss the fact that folks are discussing my moods behind my back.
“There was something I meant to ask you a while ago.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you remember a woman with blond hair buying books at the Halloween Carnival? She was small?” I was going to use the word “petite” but that sounds too pretty.
“There were so many people there.”
“This one kind of had a tan?”
“Hon, I don’t remember.” Iva Lou looks at me. “Why do you ask?”
“I just never saw her before. I thought maybe you knew her.”
“No. I could ask James. Maybe he knows her.”
“No, no, that’s okay. It’s not important.”
“Are you sure? James is a bigger gossip than any woman I know. He’s carried more stories across this county than there are miles on the Bookmobile.”
“Nope. It’s okay.”
I have always loved bus rides. When you grow up in a small town, they really are your ticket to the outside world. I’ve been to Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, Nashville, Memphis, and Charlottesville by bus. Last year, I took Etta and two of her friends to Knoxville for “Holiday on Ice.” Theodore showed us the town, even let the kids run on the football field at the U.T. stadium. Jack stayed home. (You couldn’t pay him to go to an ice show—another one of those facts that surface after you marry someone.) I love ice shows: the cold stadium, the crowd, the smell of carmel popcorn, the pale blue ice rink, the crisscrossing beams of red and tangerine spotlights, and of course, the Stars of the Show, the skaters, lean and graceful, who shoot past in their glittering tulle skirts.
The bus is nearly empty tonight. I’m sitting behind the driver (my favorite seat), with my feet resting on the aluminum bar separating his area from the rest of the bus. As we speed along in the dark, the soft lights of the distant farms fade into the black, creating a hypnotic effect that begins to lull me to sleep. I am exhausted, so I take my duffel bag and place it on the seat next to me. As I begin to stretch out and lie down, a sudden thought causes me to bolt upright. Why did Jack rush me out of town so quickly? Does he have a date with that mysterious blond? The driver must have heard me shift quickly because he looks at me in the rearview. Honestly. Stop this, I tell myself. You’re making things up. I lean over onto the duffel bag. If I sleep, we’ll get to Knoxville all the faster.
“Hey. Sleepyhead. Wake up,” the familiar deep voice teases me.
“Theodore!” I sit up, refreshed from my nap. “God, you look great!” And he does. He is trim; I can see the cut of his biceps through his T-shirt. “What’s with the arms?”
“The beauty of working at a university is the free gym and trainers.”
“Get me a job here. Immediately.”
Theodore takes my bag, and I catch him up on everything as we charge through the bus station. We stop under a crosswalk light so I can show him Etta’s new school picture.
“Hungry?” he asks me as he loads the bag into his car.
“Starving.”
We go to a twenty-four-hour IHOP and settle into a booth, just like the old days. When Theodore lived in Big Stone Gap, we’d drive over to Kingsport after the football games and sit at Shoney’s all night dissecting the halftime show and everything else going on in our lives. How simple it was! How perfect.
In the bright, warm light I can see Theodore more clearly. We talk on the phone a lot, but I haven’t seen him in months. He still looks like the passionate pirate poet who moved to Big Stone Gap from Scranton, Pennsylvania, so many years ago. There is nothing boyish about him anymore, though. He is Lord of the Manor now, his strong jaw more chiseled, character and experience having given him a sort of nobility. His red hair is as full as ever, and there’s some white in it at the temples; the blue eyes are a little more crinkled, but not much; overall, his face is smooth and clear. Theodore looks like a man who loves his life, and that makes me very happy.
“Tell me everything,” he says.
“I’ve told you everything.” I laugh. “Etta is great. Jack started a new business.”