Book Cover  •  Table of Contents  •  < PREV Chapter  •  NEXT Chapter >

CHAPTER 18

Tom Tagg

      TRAIL ROAD was half mud, and Lucy had to pay close attention to not getting stuck.

      Once she had passed Cowboy Bob's, she was on paved road, and she cut north on Second Street to reach the back of Tagg's Feed Store. It was still early enough for her to have a good talk with Bobby before had to go back and start cooking.

      After Tagg had graduated from high school, he'd built himself a spacious apartment above the store. Bobby said it had a living room and two bedrooms and a fancy bathroom and a gorgeous kitchen loaded with gadgets and appliances. He was proud of the place, she knew, and the work he'd put into it. And although he sometimes talked about moving back into his parents' place, so far as Lucy knew, the house was still closed up.

      The apartment entrance was outside and around back, where they had poured a wide concrete parking lot so trucks could back up to the loading area. Sure enough, there was Tagg's truck in his marked parking space. She parked the pickup right next to it.

      She had to bang on the door a long time before Tagg answered. He peered out, blinking in the sunlight, and Lucy grinned at him. "Sun's up, lazybones."

      "Lucy . . . ?" Then, as if waking up, "You okay? Any trouble?" You could always depend on Tagg to ask something like that.

      "I'm fine," Lucy answered, giving the door a push. "But I need to talk to Bobby, so let me in. It's cold out here."

      Tagg blinked at her. "Bobby? Oh. Well, listen, he's — ohboy!" His head withdrew, and the door opened, and she went inside.

      They were standing in a bright hallway that led to the wide, comfortable living room. Through the open doorway on her right, she could see into his famous kitchen. It smelled of coffee, she noticed.

      He must have been in the shower, she thought, because he had a towel clutched around his waist, and his hair was still rough and wet. She couldn't help noticing how strong his arms looked, and how the years of hauling feed sacks had broadened his big handsome shoulders.

      She said, "Go wake up Bobby for me."

      He looked uneasy. "Bob's not here. I mean, not right now. He — went out."

      "This early? Where'd he go?"

      "He went — well . . . I think he went over to Clive's. To ask him something. Yeah, that's where he is — hang on, I'll call over there and get him for you. Okay?"

      His ears were now as pink as candy and Lucy gave him a suspicious look. Tagg had always been a most terrible liar, because his ears always got pink and gave him away. "Tommy, you're treading water. What's going on?"

      He looked miserable. "I can't say, Lucy."

      "You might as well," she persisted, "You know I'll get it out of you sooner or later."

      He looked her full in the face. "Yes, I know you can. Because I'll do anything in the world you ask me to; I always will. But I'm asking you not to ask me. Please."

      He looked so wretched that Lucy began to wonder just what kind of mess he and Bobby had gotten themselves into. He had, she thought, the same mournful look Rooster always gave her when he had eaten up Uncle Bob's slippers, or torn the clothes off the clothesline. It was a look that said, "Uh-oh, I'm going to get it now."

      But unlike Rooster, Lucy thought, Tagg hardly ever deserved the troubles Bobby kept getting him into. And now here he stood, his sandy hair dripping water on ears red as paint, waiting to catch it — again! — for something Bobby had done.

      Well, not this time, Lucy thought. And she was ready to cede and leave Bobby a message when Tagg said abruptly, "Lucy, what's happened?"

      "Well Tagg, I don't . . ."

      "Stop a minute," he said gently. "I'm talking about us. You and me."

      And then, when she sighed and started to explain, he put a hand to her lips and went on, "I know all about the promise to your mother, and your responsibilities and all that. You told me all about that years ago. And I told you years ago that none of it made any difference to me. That I'd wait as long as your wanted me to wait."

      "We were kids in high school." She turned away, but he caught her arm and spun her back to face him.

      "But my God, Lucy, we're not kids any more!" He was looking at her so intently that it was almost like a physical pressure against her body.

      "Listen," he said, "I've never pressed you. When I'd say something and you'd shake your head, or I'd want to hold you and you'd shrink back, and I'd start to say something — I'd stop and think — no, that you had it tough enough without me making it harder. God! When I think how tough —"

      The force of that look had made her back away until she bumped into the open kitchen door and almost fell. But for every step she took back, he advanced on her, until, when he stopped speaking, she was all the way across the kitchen with her back against the refrigerator.

      He began pacing back and forth across the kitchen. "It's a crime! You've been an unpaid slave for Bob Vance for ten years now, doing all his housework at home, working all hours at the bar, taking on every kind of thing and getting nothing for it. Nothing! Not a kind word. And I've had to stand back and watch that happen. There were times I could have killed him!"

      "Tommy," she said faintly. "You never . . ."

      "What could I do?" he demanded. "I know what you're like. You'd stick it out till it killed you. Make a promise, keep a promise, that's you. But where's your promise to me, Lucy? What about the promise you made to me all those years ago?"

      "P-promise? I never . . ."

      He whirled and those grey-green-blue eyes of his pushed her back against the refrigerator again. "You said to me, 'Don't go. Don't ever leave me.' and I swore I'd stay with you and look after you all my life, if you'd let me. And after that, you let me kiss you. And you kissed me back. Wasn't that a kind of promise? Wasn't it, Lucy? I took it to be a promise. I gave you mine and you gave me yours, and it's been ten years and I'm asking you what happened."

      Lucy felt breathless, helpless, terrified. He was close enough to touch her now. But he didn't touch her.

      If he had, she couldn't have resisted him. He was so close to her that she could feel the heat of his body. She could tell that his breath smelled of mint, like clean, minty toothpaste. A drop of water fell on her arm from his wet hair, and she knew it was as clear and sweet as the rest of him. One touch and it would have been all over.

      So it was Tagg's fault for not touching her. For not opening his arms for her and drawing her close. But he played fair. He gave her time. He simply stood there, intent, damp, sweet-smelling, warm, earnest, and strong, towering over her and pressing her against the cold metal of the refrigerator with the force of his electric-chair eyes.

      But it was Lucy's fault too, for not taking that tiny step toward him that would have brought his arms around her, for not closing her eyes and lifting her face for him to kiss, for not speaking the word he wanted to hear. It was her own fault that she wouldn't answer him until she could bring herself to say, "Life happened, Tagg. Reality happened. We're adults in a world that doesn't give out fairy-tale endings."

      Why on earth did she say that?

      She said it because Uncle Bob was sick, and Normalade was an irresponsible baby, and Bobby was not much better. She said it because there was nobody else to do the cooking while Gene was gone. She said it because she'd promised Mama to stay as long as they needed her, and they needed her still. Maybe she said it partly because of that dream about Gallatin. Maybe she said it because she had not thought it through. She had not thought what he was going to feel when she said it.

      As the blow went home, Tagg closed his eyes for a second. It was hardly more time than it takes to blink, but in that second Lucy saw all the warm, eager light go out of him. When he opened his eyes, their electric energy was gone and they were a clear gray. "I guess I've made a big mistake, then. I've been really dumb here. Sorry." He stepped away from her, his bare feet soundless on the cold, clean floor. He stepped aside and made a little, courtly gesture, as if offering to open the way for her, to give her the right-of-way out of the room and out of his life.

      He didn't say she'd been faithless and impossibly cruel, or that she'd shamed him after he opened his heart to her. He didn't say he was disappointed in her. He didn't say anything at all. Didn't need to. That one little gesture said it all.

      Looking at him, Lucy felt her heart beating. "Tagg . . ."

      He shook his head. But even now he didn't answer her brusquely. His voice and manner were gentle; he was kind to her. "I'm sorry I detained you, Lucy. I know how busy you are." But once again he made that small ushering-out gesture.

      "Tommy, I really want to . . ."

      "Come on, let it go. I made a mistake. I embarrassed you. And I'm sorry."

      And when she tried again to say she was the one who was sorry, that she hadn't meant to hurt him, that maybe she had gone too far, and that she really was so very fond of him — when those words were trembling on her lips to take back what she had said and go to him and put her arms around him and make it right again — he came up with a big, false grin and said, "Give me a break here, Luce. I don't mean to be Mr. No-Hospitality, but I'm standing here wrapped in a towel freezing to death. And I got to get dressed and open up the store."

      So of course she had to leave then. And that made it all Tagg's fault that they had quarreled.

      Because, Lucy told herself, that's all it was. Tommy had been unreasonable, and they'd had a little quarrel that was all his fault, and nothing important had happened at all.

      She told herself this several times as she went down the steep stairs and got in the truck and gunned it back into gasping life. Now where had he said Bobby went? Oh yes, Clive's.

Cover  •  Contents  •  < PREV Chapter  •  NEXT Chapter >  •  Page Top