Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [31]
“I’ll give him a call tomorrow,” says Peggy.
“Could you do it right now, before I lose track of y’all?”
Louise’s sharp tone works. Peggy pulls away from Jerry and goes to the telephone.
While she is trying to find the number, she says, “I hate to mention it, Louise, but I gave you a whole month’s rent and it’s only been a week. Do you think …?”
While Peggy is on the telephone, Louise writes a check for seventy-five dollars. She writes boldly and decisively, with enlarged numbers. Her new bank balance is twelve dollars and eleven cents. If Flathead Wilson were her husband, she would show him the road.
“He said come over Tuesday afternoon,” says Peggy, taking the check. “I just know he’s going to love your pictures. He sounded thrilled.”
After Peggy and Jerry leave, Louise notices the mail, which Peggy has left on a lamp table—a circular, the water-and-light bill, and a letter from Tom, postmarked ten days before. Louise laughs with relief when she reads that Jim Yates went to Mexico City with a woman he met in Amarillo. Jim plans to work in adobe construction. “Can you imagine going to Mexico to work?” Tom writes. “Usually it’s the other way around.”
Happily Louise plays a Glen Campbell tape and washes the dishes Peggy has left. Peggy gave Louise all her cooking utensils—the cracked enamel pans and scratched Teflon. “Flathead’s going to buy me all new,” she said. Louise wishes Peggy hadn’t left before hearing the news from Tom. But she’s glad to be alone at last. While Glen Campbell sings longingly of Galveston, Louise for the first time imagines Tom doing chores on a ranch. Something like housework, no doubt, except out of doors.
She paints through the weekend, staying up late, eating TV dinners at random. It thrills her to step back from a picture and watch the sea of green turn into a watermelon. She loves the way the acrylics dry so easily; they are convenient, like Perma-Press clothing. After finishing several pictures, she discovers a trick about backgrounds: If she makes them hazier, the watermelons stand out in contrast, look less like balloons floating in space. With the new paints, she hits upon the right mix for the red interiors, and now the watermelon slices look good enough to eat.
—
On the day of Louise’s appointment with Herman Priddle, Tom suddenly walks in the door. Louise freezes. She’s standing in the center of the living room, as though she had been standing there all during his absence, waiting for his return. She can tell how time has passed by the way his jeans have faded. His hair has grown shaggy and he has a deep tan.
“Surprise!” he says with a grin. “I’m home.”
Louise manages to say, “What are you doing back here?”
“And why ain’t you at work?” Tom says.
“Laid off.”
“What’s going on here?” he asks, seeing the pictures.
Suddenly Louise is ashamed of them. She feels confused. “You picked a fine time to show up,” she says. She tries to explain about the paintings. Her explanation makes no sense.
For a long time Tom studies her pictures, squatting to see the ones on the floor. His jeans strain at the seams. He reaches out to touch one picture, as though for a moment he thought the watermelon might be real. Louise begins taking the paintings to her car, snatching them from under his gaze. He follows her, carrying some of the paintings.
Tom says, “I couldn’t wait to get back home.”
“You didn’t have to go off like that.”
“I’ve been thinking things over.”
“So have I.” She slams the rear hatch door of her car. “Where’s the pickup?”
“Totaled it north of Amarillo.”
“What? I thought all the roads were flat and straight out there.”
He shrugs. “I reckon they are.”
“Where’d you get that junk heap?” she asks. The car he has brought home is a rusted-out hulk.
“In Amarillo. It was the best I could do—cost me two hundred dollars. But it drives good.”
He opens the door of his car and takes out a McDonald’s sack from the front seat. “I brought you a Big Mac,” he says.
—
Later, when he insists on driving her in her car