“Maybe because you are.”
“I said humph,” he mumbled in his sleep. Then a small snore escaped from his parted lips
“Humph you, you egotistical bozo.”
Can’t help falling in love…
Clay awakened groggily from a deep sleep to find it was dark outside. He must have slept a good four hours or more.
For several moments, he didn’t move from his position on the high, maple, poster bed, where he lay on his stomach, presumably to protect the back of his aching head. He burrowed deeper beneath the warm cocoon of a homemade patchwork quilt and smiled to himself. So, this is how it feels to be one of the Waltons.
By the light of a bedside hurricane lamp, he studied his surroundings. It was a cozy room, with its slanted, dormer ceiling . . . hardly bigger than his walk-in closet at home. The only furniture, besides the bed, was a matching maple dresser and a blanket chest under the low double windows facing the front of the house. A well-worn easy chair of faded blue upholstery sat in one corner, flanked on one side by a floor lamp and on the other by a small side table on which sat a paperback book and a pile of magazines. A few photographs, which he couldn’t decipher from here, a high school pennant, and some cheaply framed prints of cows—What else!—adorned the pink rose-papered walls.
It had to belong to the Blessed Virgin Bimbo who’d brought him here. Unless the collection of Teddy Bears on the chest and the sweet-smelling toiletries on the bureau belonged to one of her brothers. Somehow, though, he didn’t think any of the virile young men he’d seen in that wacky Nativity scene were gay farmers.
Clay should have felt outrage at finding himself in this predicament. Instead, a strange sense of well-being filled him, as if he’d been running a marathon for a long, long time, and finally he’d reached the finish line.
Slowly he came fully awake as the sounds of the house, which had been deathly quiet before, seeped into his consciousness. The slamming of a door. The clomp, clomp, clomp of boots on hardwood floors. Laughter and male voices. Water running. The never-ending blare of Elvis music, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog . . .” Good Lord! People have the nerve to call that caterwauling music. Humph!
The cry of a baby emerged from down the hall . . . from one of the other second floor bedrooms, he presumed—mixed with the soft crooning voice of an adult male, a mixture of lullaby and words of comfort. “Shhh, Jason. You’ve had a long day. What a good boy you were! Just let me finish with this diaper, then you can have your bottle. Aaah, I know, I know. You’re sleepy.” Gradually, the crying died down to a slow whimper, then silence, except for the creak, creak, creak of a rocker.
From the deep recesses of Clay’s memory, an image emerged . . . flickering and ethereal. A woman sitting in a high-backed rocking chair, holding an infant in her tender embrace. He even imagined the scent of baby powder mixed with a flowery substance. Perfume? The woman was singing a sweet, silly song to the baby about a Sandman coming with his bag of magic sleepy-time dust.
A lump formed in Clay’s throat, and he could barely breathe.
Could it have been his mother . . . and him? No! His mother had left when he was barely one year old . . . and died not that long after. It was impossible that he could recall something from that age. Wasn’t it?
With a snort of disgust, Clay tossed the quilt aside and sat up on the edge of the bed. He gritted his teeth to fight off the wooziness that accompanied waves of pain assaulting him from the back of his head and his bandaged ankle. Once the worst of the pain passed, he took in the fact that he was clothed only in boxers. Had he undressed himself? No, it had been the woman, Annie Fallon, and her Aunt Liza, a wiry, ancient version of the grandma on the Waltons. God, I’ve got a thing about the Waltons today. They’d helped him remove his clothing, then encouraged him to take a half pill before tucking him into the big bed.
In fact, Clay had a distinct recollection of the old buzzard eyeballing his near nude body, cackling her appreciation, then telling Annie, “Not bad for a city slicker!”
He also had a distinct recollection of Annie’s response. “Don’t go there, Aunt Liza. He’s an egotistical bozo with ice in his veins and a Scrooge personality disorder.”
“Scrooge-smoodge. You could melt him down, sweetie. Might be a nifty idea for our Christmas good deed this year.”
Annie had giggled. “I can see it now. The Fallon Family Christmas Good Deed 2011: Bring a Scrooge Home for the Holidays.”
I am not a Scrooge. Not, not, not! I’m not icy, either. In fact, I’m hot, hot, hot . . . at least when the Tennessee Tart is around. Furthermore, nobody . . . especially not a bunch of hayseed farmers . . . better make me their good deed. I am not a pity case.
Clay wanted nothing more than to be back home where his life was orderly and sane. He was going to sue the pants off these crackpots, but he had more important things on his mind right now. An empty stomach—which rumbled at the delicious scents wafting up from downstairs—and a full bladder.
First things first. Clay pulled on his suit pants, gingerly, and made his way into the hall, using one crutch as a prop to avoid putting full weight on his injured ankle. Across the corridor, a boy of about thirteen . . . the one who’d been a shepherd in the Nativity scene . . . was propped against the pillows on one of the twin beds in the room, reading a biology book and writing in a class notebook. He wore jeans and a tee shirt that proclaimed, “Farmers Have Long Hoes.” His hair was wet from a recent shower and no longer sported the high pouf on top or duck’s ass in the back. The stereo to the side of his bed blared out the Elvis music he’d heard earlier.
When he noticed Clay in the doorway, the boy set his school books aside and turned down the volume. “You’re up. Finally.”
“Where’s the bathroom?”
“Gotta take a leak, huh?” the boy inquired crudely. “My name’s Johnny,” he informed him cheerily. “You’re Clay, right? Annie says you’re gonna stay with us for a while. Cool. Do you like Elvis?” The boy never waited for answers to his questions, just chattered away as he led the way to the end of the hall.
By the time they got there, Clay was practically crossing his legs . . . not an easy feat when walking with a sprained ankle. Was there only one bathroom to serve more than a half dozen people? There were eight bathrooms in his home, and he was the sole inhabitant these days, except for the cook and gardener, Doris and George, and they lived over the old carriage house.
Clay soon found himself in the small bathroom with an old-fashioned claw-footed tub and pedestal porcelain sink. No shower stall here, just a showerhead and plastic curtain that hung from an oval aluminum rod, suspended from the ceiling and surrounding the tub on all sides. At least there was a toilet, Clay thought, releasing a long sigh of near ecstasy after relieving himself. He’d barely zipped up his pants and washed his hands when there was a knock on the door. “You decent?” a male voice called out.
Define decent. Hobbling around barefooted, decent? Wearing nothing but a knot on my head the size of a fist and a pair of wrinkled slacks, decent? Caught practically mid-leak, decent? Under the influence of drugs, decent? “Yeah, I’m decent.”
The door creaked open and the oldest brother, the father of the baby, stuck his head inside. He apparently hadn’t showered yet because he still had the Elvis hair-do, though the St. Joseph outfit was gone in favor of jeans and a sweatshirt. “Hi. My name’s Chet. Annie told me to give you these.” He shoved a pair of jeans, white undershirt, blue plaid flannel shirt, socks and raggedy sneakers at him. “You look about the same size as me.”
Clay took the items hesitantly. He was about to tell him that he wouldn’t need them since he intended to go back to the hotel, asap, and call his lawyer. Before he could speak, though, the man . . . about twenty-five years old . . . asked with genuine concern, “How ya feelin’? Your body must feel like a bulldozer ran over it.”
“Do you mean your sister?”
Chet threw his head back and laughed. “Annie does have that ef
fect sometimes, doesn’t she? No, I meant the boink to your head and your twisted ankle.”
Clay shrugged. “I’ll be all right.”
Just then Clay noticed the black satin bra hanging on the doorknob. The cups were full and enticingly feminine. He was pretty sure the wispy undergarment didn’t belong to Aunt Liza. Hmmm. It would seem the scarecrow Madonna was hiding something under her virgin robes.
“Hey, that’s my sister you’re having indecent thoughts about,” Chet protested, interrupting his reverie.
“I was not,” Clay lied, hoping his flushed face didn’t betray him.
“Yeah, right. Anyhow, dinner’s almost ready. Do you want me to bring a tray upstairs? Or can you make it downstairs?”
Clay debated briefly whether to eat here or wait till he got back to the hotel. The embarrassing rumble in his gut decided for him. Clay told him he’d be down shortly and went back to the bedroom to change clothes while Chet made use of the shower.
A short time later, he sat at the huge oak trestle table in the kitchen waiting for Annie to come in from the barn with two of her brothers, Roy, a twenty-two-year-old vet student, and Hank, a high school senior. They were completing the second milking of the day for the dairy herd. All this information was relayed by Aunt Liza. That’s what the woman had demanded that he call her after he’d addressed her as “ma’am” one too many times.
Had he ever eaten dinner in a kitchen? He didn’t think so.
Did he have a personal acquaintance with anyone who had ever milked a cow? He was fairly certain he didn’t.
Aunt Liza wore an apron that fit over her shoulders and hung to her knees where flesh-covered support hose bagged conspicuously under her housedress. She hustled about the commercial size stove off to one side of the kitchen. Sitting on benches that lined both sides of the table, chatting amiably with him as if it were perfectly normal for him to be there, were Chet, Johnny, whom he already met, and Jerry Lee, a fifteen-year-old. This family bred kids like rabbits, apparently. The baby was up in his crib, down for the night, Chet said hopefully.
A radio sitting on a counter was set on a twenty-four hour country music station. Surprise, surprise.
“Do you people honestly like that music?” Clay asked. It was probably a rude question to ask when he was in someone else’s home, but he really would like to understand the attraction this crap held for the masses.
“Yeah,” Chet, Jerry Lee, Johnny, and Aunt Liza said as one.
“But it’s so . . . so hokey,” Clay argued. “Listen to that one. `I Changed Her Oil, She Changed My Life.’“
They all laughed.
“That’s just it. Country music makes you feel good. You could be in a funky mood, and it makes you smile.” Jerry Lee thought about what he’d said for a moment, then chuckled. “One of my favorites is `She Got the Ring, I Got the Finger’.”
“Jerry Lee Fallon, I told you about using such vulgarities in this house,” Aunt Liza admonished. Then she chuckled, too. “I’m partial to `You Done Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat’.”
“I like `I Would Have Wrote You a Letter But I Couldn’t Spell Yuck’,” Johnny said.
“Well, the all-time best one,” Chet offered, “is `Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth ’Cause I’m Kissing You Good-Bye’.”
Some of the other titles tossed out then by one Fallon family member after another were: “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away,” “I’ve Been Flushed From the Bathroom Of Your Heart,” “If I Can’t Be Number One In Your Life, Then Number Two On You,” “You Can’t Have Your Cake and Edith Too,” and the one they all agreed was best, “I Shaved My Legs For This?”
Despite himself, Clay found himself laughing with the whole crazy bunch.
Just then, the back door could be heard opening onto a mudroom. Voices rang out with teasing banter.
“You better not have mooned any passersby, Hank? That’s all we need is a police citation on top of everything else,” Annie was chastising her brother.
“I didn’t say he mooned the girl,” another male said. It must be Roy, the vet student. “I said he was mooning over her.”
There was the sound of laughter then and running water as they presumably washed their hands in a utility sink.
Seconds later, two males entered the room, rubbing their hands briskly against the outside chill which they carried in with them. They nodded at him in greeting and sat down on the benches, maneuvering their long legs awkwardly under the table.
Only then did Clay notice the woman who stepped through the doorway. She was tall and thin. Her long, long legs that went from here to the Texas Panhandle were encased in soft, faded jeans, which were tucked into a pair of work boots. An oversized denim shirt . . . probably belonging to one of her brothers . . . covered her on the top, hanging down to her knees with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A swath of sandy brunette hair laid straight and thick to her shoulders. Not a lick of make-up covered her clear complexion. Even so, her lips were full . . . almost too full for her thin face . . . and parted over large, even white teeth. She resembled a thinner, younger, more beautiful version of Julia Roberts.
Clay put his forehead down on the table and groaned.
He knew everyone was probably gawking at him as if he’d lost his mind, but he couldn’t help himself. He knew even before the fever flooded his face and arms and legs and that particular hot zone in between . . . he knew exactly who this stranger was. It was, unbelievably, Annie Fallon.
He cracked his eyes open a bit, still with his face in his plate, and glanced sideways at her where she still stood, equally stunned, in the doorway. Neither of them seemed to notice the hooting voices surrounding them.
How could he have been so blind?
How could he not have seen what was happening here?
How could he not have listened to the cautionary voice of the bellhop who’d warned of destiny and God’s big toe?
All the pieces fit together now in the puzzle that had plagued Clay since he’d arrived in Memphis. God’s big toe had apparently delivered him a holy kick in the ass. Not to mention the fever He’d apparently sent to thaw his icy heart.
Clay, a sophisticated, wealthy venture capitalist, was falling head over heels in love at first sight with a farmer. Old McAnnie.
Donald Trump and Daisy Mae.
Hell! It will never work.
Will it?
He raised his head and took a longer look at the woman who was frozen in place, staring at him with equal incredulity. It was a sign of the madness that had overcome them both that the laughter rippling around them failed to penetrate their numbed consciousnesses.
He knew for sure that he was lost when a traitorous thought slipped out, and he actually spoke it aloud.
“Where’s the hayloft, honey?”
Chapter Three
A smart man isn’t above a little subterfuge…
Clay felt as if he’d landed smack dab in the middle of the Mad Hatter’s party. It was debatable who was the mad one, though . . . him or the rest of the inmates in this bucolic asylum.
Love? Me? Impossible!
Elvis music blared in the background—ironically, “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You”—and everyone talked at once, each louder than the other in order to be heard. A half-dozen strains of dialogue were going on simultaneously, but no one seemed to notice. Good thing, too. It gave him a chance to speculate in private over his monumental discovery of just a few moments ago.
I’m falling in love.
Impossible! Uh-uh, none of this falling business for me.
What other explanation is there for this fever that overtakes me every time I look at her? And, man, she is so beautiful. Well, not beautiful. Just perfect. Well, not perfect-perfect. Hell, the woman makes my knees sweat, just looking at her.
Maybe it’s not love. I’ve never been in love before. How do I know it’s love? Maybe it’s just lust.
Love, lust, whatever. I’m a goner.
But a farme
r? A farmer?
“How come you and Annie keep googley-eying each other?” Johnny asked.
“Shut your teeth and eat,” Aunt Liza responded, whacking Johnny on the shoulder with a long-handled wooden spoon.
“Ouch!”
Meantime, a myriad of platters and bowls were being set on the table. And Aunt Liza assured him this was an everyday meal, no special spread on his behalf.
Pot roast (about ten pounds, give or take a hind quarter) cut into half-inch slabs. Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Thick noodles cooked in beef broth. Creamed spinach. Pickled beets. Succotash (Whatever the hell that was!). Chow-chow (Whatever the hell that was, too!). Tossed salad. Coleslaw. Homemade biscuits and butter. Pitchers of cold, unhomogenized milk at either end of the table sporting a two-inch header of real cream. Canned pears. Chocolate layer cake and vanilla ice cream.