The Widows of Wichita County

Saturday, December 11

12:30 p.m.

Helena's Choice

Helena unfolded from her car and headed for her first day of work since before Thanksgiving. She and J.D. decided she needed to take a few days off and rest. After all, the store could get by without her for a while. It had been great fun to sleep in and then watch movies all afternoon. They went for drives to nowhere and talked until dawn once. She finally laughed and said she had to go back to work to get some rest. No one would believe what a time they had enjoyed.

As Helena locked her car door, she noticed Anna's new white Range Rover circling, looking for a place to park. Helena stood and watched. It was always grand when the lot was full.

The Rover, after running over the curb, landed in a spot by the street. Meredith Allen and Anna Montano climbed out laughing.

Helena could not hide her smile. "What have the two of you been up to?"

"We've been picking out poles for Frankie's place. Which would have been a challenge even for Martha Stewart." Meredith tried to straighten up but a giggle crept into her voice. "The man's not only hairy, he's color blind. It's hard to talk paint with someone who only sees gray. At one point he was sure he wanted purple."

"It-it is not as easy as one might think choosing j -just the right lamp pole for a bar parking lot." Anna hooked her arm around Meredith's. "I-I was lucky to have help."

Meredith's eyes sparkled. "At one point, we were standing in the lot all acting like poles so Frankie could decide how far apart he wanted us."

Anna agreed. "I-I got-" she hesitated, looking for the right word "-hit on."

Helena could not think of any two people who would look less like they belonged in the local dive. Anna, in her black wool, calf-length coat and fine silk scarf. Meredith, with her jingle bell earrings and white bulky sweater that made her look like a polar bear.

"She did!" Meredith answered Helena's frown of disbelief. "If I hadn't been there to fight him off, some trucker from out of town would have found him a `good buddy' today. Anna would probably be halfway to the state line by now."

Both women burst out laughing.

Anna pretended she was lifting a huge belt around her waist. "I reckon," she tried to sound like a local, but was hopelessly lost. "I-I could take you for a ride, little lady. I will even let you blow the horn."

The women folded over in pain from laughing so hard.

"Have you two been drinking?" Helena found that hard to believe, but their behavior warranted her asking.

Meredith looked so guilty it would be a waste of time for her to lie. "I'm not due back at the courthouse for another half hour. I'll sober up by then."

Anna patted Meredith's arm. "We had to accept Frankie's offer. It would not have been polite to turn him down."

Helena pulled them inside and up the back stairs before half the town saw them. "Mary will have a pot of black coffee. You can drink it while I order sandwiches delivered from next door. That should sober up you barflies." She could not hide a smile as she thought of how she would tell J.D. tonight. He had learned all about Anna and Meredith from Helena. He told her once that Kevin Allen spoke of Meredith with respect, as if the little schoolteacher were the anchor in his life.

Helena followed as Meredith and Anna giggled all the way into the office, having a great time trying to imitate the voices of everyone in the bar. Helena could not believe the little schoolteacher and the fine lady were crazy enough to drink what Frankie gave them. She was tempted to stomp into his place and give him a piece of her mind. Maybe while she was there, she could pick up the two brains Anna and Meredith seemed to have left behind. They could not even tell her what they drank, only that it was green and tasted like frozen key lime pie.

The pair giggled their way through three cups of coffee and a sandwich each before they finally calmed down. Helena tried to look over her mail while she listened to them talk. Meredith promised to go out to Anna's place and see her art. Anna agreed to help Meredith paint a wall of her classroom to look like a forest.

"Well," Helena finally broke them up. "Did you get Frankie to agree on lamp poles?"

"We did," Meredith said, winking. "Or rather I did, while Anna flirted with the trucker."

"B-but he was so handsome." Both women laughed at her lie.

"We'll call the order in today." Meredith smiled at Helena. "Frankie should have the poles by Christmas."

She stood and set her cup down. "I have to be getting back to work, much as I hate to."

"I-I also must go. I've been gone for far too long." Anna joined Meredith at the door. "Thank you, Helena, for the lunch."

"Anytime," Helena answered, thinking how she had known both women for months and this was the first time she had heard them laugh. Maybe green-frozen-key-lime-pie drink was not so bad. "You girls be careful."

Helena stood at the window and watched the two widows walk down the front stairs and through the store. They wound through crowded aisles packed with racks of clothing and people.

Once they left, it took Helena a few minutes to realize something was wrong. "Mary! Mary!"

Her assistant rushed to her side. "Yes?"

"The store!" Helena had to make herself slow down and brruthe. Her chest felt like an elephant sat atop it. "The store is packed with too much merchandise. People can't move aruund freely, especially the large women who are trying to shop. This is insane."

"I know we're crowded," Mary answered, "but we had to put all the new stuff somewhere. The back is packed with spring shipments the twins ordered while they could get them at a five percent discount."

"New stuff?"

"Paula and Patricia ordered women's sizes. They thought they were ordering by ones, not by the dozens. So everything they ordered one of, we got a dozen. Two, we got two dozen. Six, we got six dozen."

"I understand the principle, Mary. You don't need to continue to frighten me to death."

Helena could not breathe. She had nothing against women's sizes, those women needed clothes, too, but the larger sizes were not the image she wanted for Helena's Choice. Her patrons were willowy like her mannequin. Many times she did not order even the twelves and fourteen, in a style, because the dress would not hang right on a woman with much meat on her bones.

Helena's heart pounded when she thought of all the large sizes going out of the store in her high-quality Helena's Choice bags.

"Mary," Helena whispered, trying not to frighten her employee. "Would you be so kind as to get my pill box from my purse."

"Of course."

As Mary hurried on her mission, Helena slowly lowered herself to her chair. More than a week ago, she had stopped taking the third pill she had to swallow every day. She told herself she didn't need the digoxin for chest pain. If it go to bad, she had her nitroglycerin. There was no need in using both.

Mary handed her the small box and Helena took the fine pill, placed it beneath her tongue, then relaxed back in her chair.

"Are you all right?" Mary worried over her. "Should I call the doctor, or an ambulance?" People in Clifton Creek rarely called an ambulance; it was easier to get in the car and drive to the doctor. If someone did not have a car, they could always yell for a neighbor to drive them. An ambulance in front of a home usually meant someone died.

"No. I'll be fine in a minute. I've just been a little tired lately, can't seem to get enough sleep."

Mary did not look relieved. "Does your chest hurt? Are you short of breath? Do you have a pain in your arm?" She circled once more. "Or is it your leg? I can never remember."

Helena forced her hand to move away from her heart.

"It's only the angina acting up again. You know how it gets when I overdo it. I thought I was ready to return, but maybe I shuuld stay home a few more days. The holidays seem to be taking a toll on me this year."

Mary handed Helena a cup of water. "Don't worry about store. The twins will help me handle it. I couldn't believe when we put plus sizes out for the first time, but I've been surprised. Women I've never seen in here before are shopping. And I can't tell you the number of men who've been to buy their wives clothes who have never shopped at Helena's Choice before. They don't even want us to wrap the box. They want their wives to know where the gifts came from."

"How are the sales?" Helena took a deep breath, preparing for the worst.

Mary hesitated, then smiled. "The best we've ever done. It this holds, we'll have a record year."

Helena did not respond. Swiveling her chair, she looked out the window into her store. "Wait until I tell J.D.," she whispered as she watched the flow of customers. "He is not going to believe it."

Saturday, December 11

County Courthouse

By one-thirty that afternoon, the tuna sandwich and the drinks Frankie served were at war in Meredith Allen's stomach. The third time she ran down the hallway past Sherrif Farrington's office, she saw him glance up and frown.

A few moments later, with her head an inch above the toilet, she heard the ladies' room door open. If she thought there was any possibility of vanishing by flushing herself she would have tried. No one else was in the building. She knew who it was.

"Meredith?" he yelled. "Meredith, what's wrong?"

For a second she remained completely still, hoping he wouldn't notice her kneeling in the first stall.

"You're not supposed to be in here!" she finally said in her most authoritarian voice. "This is the women's rest room."

His hand touched her shoulder. "Are you ill?" he brushed her forehead with his fingers. "You're burning up. What's wrong?"

Meredith was positive that if wanting to die would get her there, she should at least be in purgatory by now.

Granger stepped to the sink and began soaking paper towels. "How long have you been ill? Do you think you caught something? I could take you to a doctor." He stopped talking while she vomited, then continued as if he had not heard the sound. "Maybe it's food poisoning. The truck deli's been passing that out with the two-for-one burritos lately."

lie handed her the first towel and Meredith wiped her mouth. She rocked back, sitting on the marble floor in a very unladylike sprawl. She did not even want to think about how she looked and knew she did not have the energy to stand.

Granger knelt down to her level. "Meredith! Is there any chance you're…?"

If she'd felt better, she would have laughed. He looked even paler than she felt. "No, Sheriff. No little deputies." She giggled at her own joke, then frowned. "I can't have children."

"Then what?"

Meredith raised her eyebrows and addressed the class idlot. "I'm drunk." She wondered if being drunk in a public restroom was a misdemeanor or a felony. She felt sure it was some kind of crime.

He stood. "You're what?" His voice echoed off the walls of the tile room, making her head pound.

"Anna Montano and I went to see Frankie about the lamp pole Randi knocked over. He was kind enough to serve us his special for lunch."

"I may have to shoot Frankie," Granger said calmly as he leaned down and pulled Meredith to her feet. "But first I need to take you home."

"No, I can work." Before she could issue her declaration, she jerked away and leaned above the toilet once more.

When she finished, he waited with a clean set of wet towels.

"I'm sorry." She flushed the toilet.

He helped her up again. "Meredith, you're not the first drunk I've seen, and you probably won't be the last. Thing you can make it home?"

She nodded. Surely there was nothing left in her stomarh to lose.

He put his arm around her shoulders and walked her down the hall. At his office, he picked up his keys off the desk and the pager from its nest. He flipped a switch on the phone.Then he helped Meredith out the door and to his police car. He opened the passenger door. "I make most drunks ride in back, but if you swear not to mess up my car, you can ride in front."

She looked up at him as she slid in. He showed no sign of kidding.

They were almost to her house when she remembered she had forgotten her purse.

He promised to lock the office and bring her things by later when he made his rounds. If she felt better by then, he said she could ride downtown and pick up her car; otherwise he would have one of the deputies who came on duty at five help him get it back to her house.

"That's not necessary," she replied.

"Adam won't mind. Where are your keys?"

"They're in the car."

He glared at her. "Meredith, you shouldn't leave your keys in your car. That's just asking for a crime to happen "Nobody would steal my car parked at the courthouse and if they did, they'd better be a mechanic or they'll be sorry."

"You need to get rid of that pile of junk."

"It gets me to work and back." She resented him calling her car names. The pile of junk had been hers since college They did not say a word to one another for the rest of the way. He drove and she concentrated on not throwing up on his clean car.

He walked her to her door, but did not offer to come in. She was glad. Meredith had been so humiliated she didn't care if she never saw Granger Farrington again.

Reaching for her house key in the huge pocket of her sweater, Meredith opened the door and faced him. "Thank you, Sheriff. It was nice of you." She had to tell him how she felt. "But you don't have to look after me. You don't have to check on me if you see me in a bar, or start my car, or make sure I'm warm, or anything else. I'm not your responsibility."

Meredith closed her eyes. If he said he was just doing his job, she swore she would club him with her hatchet.

"Get some sleep. You'll feel better."

He acted as if he hadn't heard a word she said. He just turned around and walked back to his car like she was numher 247 on his list of official duties for the day.

Meredith wanted to scream, but her head might explode of the sound. So she went into her house, crawled onto her unmade bed and took the sheriff's advice. She fell asleep.

Dreams haunted her. Not nightmares of monsters and torture. Worse. Dreams of Kevin, burned and calling for her. but she couldn't find him. She could hear him, smell the mixture of oil and burning flesh, but she could not reach him.

In her dream she ran and ran, calling his name, fighting vines and roadblocks and chains, but never reaching him, never able to help.

Suddenly, the dream was over and Meredith found herself alone in her dark bedroom. Her huge sweater was twisted around her as tight as a straitjacket.

She stood and fought her way out of the wool, then stripped off all her wrinkled clothes and headed toward the shower. For a long while, she let the water run over her face and body and wondered if she could have made any bigger fool of herself today. Granger had only been trying to help and she had snapped at him. He was right about her car. li was a piece of junk.

She dried off and put on Kevin's old high school jersey. It almost hit her at the knee.

Wandering into the kitchen, Meredith searched for something to eat… An old apple. Half a sandwich. The bread was hard, but the chicken salad still smelled good. There was also a quart of orange juice that had aged at least one season in her refrigerator.

Nothing sounded good. She glanced at the clock. Too late for the stores, and drive-throughs were beyond her budget for this month.

Someone tapped on her door. Meredith straightened from rummaging in the crisper as Granger let himself in.

He looked surprised to see her awake. "I'm sorry I thought you'd be asleep. I was just dropping off your purse, and some soup." He set the bags down on the chair near to the door and backed out.

"Wait…"

He hesitated.

"You brought soup?"

He smiled, realizing she wasn't still mad at him. "Soup,crackers and cookies. I figured when you finally sobered up you'd be starving."

"I am." She moved to within a few feet of him."I'm sorry about the way I acted when you were only trying to help."

"Forget it."

"Would you stay for soup?"

"All right, but I cook." He lifted the bag and waited for her to lead the way to the kitchen. Handing her the cookies, he removed his coat and unpacked groceries. He'd also brought along milk with three different kinds of soup.

"I didn't know what you liked," he shrugged, offering her the choice.

Meredith was busy fighting with the cookie package. "Any kind," she finally said as she broke the cookies open And glanced up in time to catch him watching her.

"Want one?"

He shook his head. While she ate four, he warmed tomato soup and poured them both a glass of milk.

They ate at the bar, with their knees accidentally bumping together from time to time. She told him all about the agreement made with Frankie. There was something very comforting about being with a person that you've already made a fool of yourself around. She had no more false pride to lose. Even the fact that she was only wearing an old jersey didn't worry her. After all, he'd seen her in far less.

When they finished, he did their dishes, along with several others sitting in the sink. She watched him, thinking how out of place he looked in her little kitchen in his spotless uniform. She liked the gray at his temples and the solidness of his body. An ounce of fat wouldn't dare land on Granger.

She wondered what he would say if she told him she wanted a king's x from all the things she had said to him. Like the kids on the playground, she wanted to cross her first two fingers and suddenly have all the rules not apply. She wanted to say she needed more than his once-in-a-while lovemaking, and part of her wanted him tonight. If she had to play his game and not touch him when he made love to her, she would. She just wanted him to lie beside her and hold her, just for tonight.

But if she begged him to stay, she would have to face tomorrow and the next day and the next. She did not want to be his midnight lover whom he came to see when he thought no one was looking.

Something she remembered a teacher saying to a collage class drifted through her mind. The best example you will ever give your students, is the way you live your life. The professor was trying to tell future teachers that they cannot live one way and teach another. The "do as I say and not as I do" was never much of an example.

If Meredith continued to live an honest life, she would have to be honest with herself. She was not like the women on TV who sleep with a man whom they had known for hours, then move on to another. Meredith knew that if she gave her heart it would have to be all or nothing. That's how it had been with Kevin despite their problems. That's how it would have to be if she loved again.

She wanted a man to stand beside her, to grow old with her. If it was that or being alone, then she would have to be willing to accept solitude.

"Thanks for the supper, Sheriff."

"You're welcome." He dried his hands.

"Do you think we could be friends?"

"I'd like that." He grinned. "Would that mean I could call you if I had car trouble?"

Meredith smiled. "You bet."

"And if I needed a friend to, say, walk into Frankie's place with me, you wouldn't mind tagging along?"

She fought to keep from laughing. "I'd do that for a friend, and I'd be sure to keep my mouth closed and not try to interfere. And I'd try to keep from bossing you around d we were friends, even if you were drunk."

Granger shook his head. "That might be a hard one, since I seem to need a lot of direction." He studied her closely "But I'd try not to leave my keys in my car, my back dour unlocked, my purse in plain sight…"

"You're making a real effort." Meredith stopped him belure he listed all her shortcomings. "Now, if you'll just promise to curb the drinking, I think we could be buddies."

He winked at her. "It's a deal."

She started to offer her hand, then reconsidered. "Well, good night, Sheriff." She moved to the door as she spoke.

"Do you think since we're friends, and I'm making all this effort, that you could call me Granger?"

She opened the door. "Good night, Granger."

"Good night, Meredith." He stepped past her and walked at his car without a backward glance.

She watched him pull away, wondering if they could ever he friends when she could still feel his hands stroking her breasts. The memory of their night together was so vivid that now it made her ache inside. But one night could be written off as a lapse in judgment. Any more would be an addiction that would tear her apart with its limitations.

Roughnecks worked no matter what the weather. If it got bad they might all be served a "fifty cent overcoat"-a long draw of corn whiskey.