15. TRINA
FIFTEEN
TRINA
One year later…
“ Whiteleaf !”
I poke my head out the window and scream back, “Coming!”
Laughing, I hurry to the mirror and give my hair one last fluffing out. Since I cut it to my shoulders it can’t be contained, and to be real, I kind of like it like that.
I snap up a tube of lipgloss– clear, modest– and give it a swipe over my lips. Should I wear those shoes? No; they make me look like a tree stump. A hat? No. Hell no. I put about three different pairs of earrings to my newly-pierced ears before I decide on some tiny, pretty pearls.
Then I slide my feet into something with a heel, just a small one.
Shawl? I don’t need a shawl. I do need the gum. Yes, some gum…can’t have hot breath in church. Also, if a certain somebody is talking close to me…Not like it should matter, since we are friends now. Just friends. But of course I want to look good and smell good when he’s around. As a friend. That’s perfectly normal.
I peek out the window.
“Coming!” I call again, biting my lip with excitement.
“Perfection is the enemy of progress,” his melodic drawl calls back.
I can see him down there looking at the robins’ nest in the pine tree by the driveway. Those little birds built the nest with all the random stuff you could think of: bits of pine, string, hair (not mine) and apparently sheep’s wool from the farm over the hill. They’re long gone, but the nest is still there and to Crash this is the most fascinating thing in the world.
After that owl messed him up I fully expected he would never want to hear a bird so much as tweet in his direction again. But if anything he just became more obsessed, and started writing this paper on the Ivory Barn Owl– or so he told me, ‘cause he refuses to let me read it.
When he’s not looking after Ruby or at his regular job (not bounty hunting), he’s attending Southwestern Virginia Ornithologist Association meetings down the mountain. I barely see him during the week, but I can’t say he’s avoiding me because he agreed to take me to church every weekend, rain or shine, and here he is today just like he promised.
For just a little while, I have him all to myself.
One last mirror check. I shake out my curls again, knowing how much he loves them, grab my Hermes purse and quickly lock the door.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Sarita,” I call to my neighbor.
“Goodbye, Sugar,” my neighbor calls back. “Tell that nice man he better marry you already.”
“I will,” I cringe, hoping Crash didn’t hear that. I nearly fall over myself getting down the stairs but when I get to the bottom I’m dignified, composed, cool.
We agreed to stay friends. It makes sense. We barely knew each other when we were messing around in Oklahoma. Now our lives have gone in different directions. Like they always would. He’s got Virginia, his daughter, his job. I’m living in California and have already sent my applications to Loyola Marymount, USC and UCLA.
This is just a short trip to see an old friend.
It just makes sense. This isn’t forever, and it can’t be.
Crash, waiting on the porch, turns when he hears me coming and opens the screen door. His face splits in a wide grin.
Lord…
When I first saw him at the airport I nearly tripped over my bags. Crash had put on twenty pounds since I last saw him. I mean, twenty pounds of muscle . He had a crazy tan, and his dark curls had grown back over his head injuries. And he was dressed.
Dressed for me.
Like right now.
“Hey,” he says.
I break my stare and step through. “Hi. S-sorry I kept you waiting.”
“You could barely call that wait. Everything good?”
“Oh, yes.”
He’s wearing blue jeans that aren’t ripped or faded, but crisp and blue. A white shirt, tucked in, with a broad leather belt and a silver concho. Gone is the ratty Trucker hat, and instead he’s wearing a pinch-front in the same color leather as his belt. His size and giant muscles are emphasized in all the right places (or the wrong ones) and I remember running my hands over those big burly arms while he sucked on my breasts.
Stop, brain!
Lord, where did he get those nice clothes? That hat? I only know it’s Crash and not some imposter by the state of his boots.
“You look nice,” we say at the same time, and laugh.
His eyes take me in from head to toe. “The color brown suits you.”
“It’s burnt Sienna, actually.”
His lip twitches. “Right.”
He gives me his arm and I take it. We walk formally to his truck and he helps me inside with a hand at the small of my back. Even those little touches send shivers down my spine. He almost never touches me now.
“Got you coffee,” he calls over his shoulder as he walks round to the driver’s side.
The sight of the giant cup full of foam, sugar, cream and caramel sauce is the best thing I’ve seen all morning after Crash in those blue jeans.
“Thank you,” I say reverently. “I already had two cups this morning but it just isn’t the same.”
“Addict,” he smiles. “The Blue Midge cafe got new ownership and now they make them girly Starbucks drinks and my plain black coffee cost four dollars. But for you it’s worth it.”
“How much did this cost?” The cup is nearly the size of my arm.
He clutches his heart and we both laugh.
“Buckle up,” he says, pushing the clutch and throwing the truck into first. We pull out of the sleepy little holler where I’m staying, a place called Belle Hills. The apartment I am subleasing is in a small white duplex, and I share the top with an old lady named Mrs. Sarita who thinks Crash is my boyfriend.
“How have you been?” I ask him as we pulls away from the house.
He clears his throat. “Good.”
“How is Ruby?”
“She’s great.”
“How is work?”
“Wonderful.”
Maybe he’s not in a talking mood. I twist my hands together.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“What? Um, nothing.”
“You do that with your hands when you’re nervous.”
“Er — my blood sugar must be low.”
“Okay, Trina.”
“Alright, Crash.”
He rubs his freshly-shaven jaw and I try to imagine what he’s thinking. This is the first time we’ve been alone together in a week. The last time I saw Crash he fixed the lock on my door, the latch on my window, the leak in my sink. I didn’t want to distract him while he worked so I just baked cookies, which he said were the best he ever tasted and he would be sure to share them with the other handyman at the library who was supposed to help him fix the fuse box. Then he fled, promising to come get me on the weekend. It was almost like he didn’t want to be alone with me.
Yes, by the way, Crash the bounty hunter is an electrician by trade.
Blue collar , Mama would have sneered.
Our hands reach for the radio at the same time.
“You first,” we say together. I laugh nervously; he takes his hand away, smiling.“Play whatever you want.”
I turn it to the country station. “Have you heard of this girl Harmony?” I ask him as my new favorite singer fills the car with sweet sweet tones. “I read she’s from Virginia.” She’s also one of the first black women to get an award at the CMAs.
“Good vocals,” acknowledges Crash, but I see his eyebrow lift. “Not very traditional, though. And kind of girly.”
“Sometimes we need a new tradition. And you said I could play what I wanted.”
“I did,” he admits. “How are you liking Florin? Second week impressions?”
“It’s very beautiful here.”
Understatement of the year. Virginia in the fall is something else. I don’t want the drive to end. Outside the vibrant colors of turning leaves are on display from trees of unimaginable size, their crowns of red and yellow and orange weaving over the top of the road like threads in an endless carpet.
Even the roads are incredible. Those curving, steep mountain tracks which drop down into great canyons of fir, cedar, maple and pine. I haven’t seen a flat piece of land anywhere. Everything twists and bends like the dark little stream running past my apartment. I never knew a place could be so beautiful. It’s more surreal than anywhere I’ve ever seen, even Mamie’s lush neighborhood in California with the palm trees and cactus gardens.
I can’t believe Crash grew up here in this wilderness. But I guess it makes sense a place like this would breed a man like him. For all its beauty, it’s also untamed and free. There’s nothing artificial about the buildings or the people; nature provides, and they live with it instead of struggling against it.
We sweep past homesteads and old farmhouses, hills of grazing Black Angus, and even a herd of wild horses. Leaves float down from above like golden rain.
“You can see why people don’t leave this place,” Crash says quietly.
I do see. I feel almost breathless. “Do you get used to this?”
“Never.”
“Is every season pretty like this?”
“Come back and find out,” he says, then gets quiet again.
I can’t come back. I’m going back to California in a week to interview at Loyola Marymount. Mamie has given me a whole suite of her house to myself and a plot in her garden. I just got my driver’s license set up to her address, and there’s a job waiting for me at her friend’s gallery.
I’m grateful to be taken care of. Spoiled. In her city there are so many people who have nothing and nobody.
But I can’t shake the discomfort about my life being set up for me there while my heart stays here. With Crash. One day this man will be just a memory. For some reason I can’t accept that. But I have to accept it. This visit is just delaying the inevitable. As much as it hurts, it’s the truth.
I focus on the road, blinking quickly. “How is Ruby?”
“You asked me that already.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She’s good.” He pauses. “Zacky’s family got in touch. They want to visit with her.”
“And…how do you feel about that?”
“I don’t want Ruby to get hurt. They have a right to know her, but I don’t trust them.”
“I believe you’ll do the right thing by Ruby.”
“Thank you,” he says. He switches gears and we make a left to a different side of town. “Here we are, Trina.”
Too soon. What little time we have left is fading fast.
“Great,” I say, feeling that lump in my throat again.
He parks in the gravel lot outside the Faith Baptist Church. This is a Black Church, capital B, capital C. Crash told me with a twinkle in his eye that it might be a little different from what I’m used to. My old church was integrated but I don’t think that’s what he meant.
The cornerstone on this church dates back to 1929. I may or may not have gone to the local library and done some reading on it. The librarian, who actually attends this church, had even more information than the books did. It was built to serve the community, not the ambitions of one man. They recently got a new pastor after the old one ran off with a woman from Danville.
It’s a small, humble building that looks well cared for. Inside is quiet, the wooden benches comfortable, and the choir practicing right now needs no booming mics or artificial projection. The music is…I can’t even describe it. I feel it tugging at my soul and I can’t wait to go in.
I thank Crash for the ride. “Do you want to come in?” I ask him. “I don’t think anybody would mind. I talked to a woman who goes here — the veterinarian lady? — and she says her husband is white and comes sometimes.”
“Not this time,” Crash smiles. “I have to see a man about a dog.” He tweaks the curl dangling from my bun. “How about lunch after?”
“Yes– of course,” I say politely, hiding my excitement. Lunch with Crash? Hours of uninterrupted time? It’s what I’ve been waiting for.
Two hours later the service ends and I step into the crisp autumn air with a group of new friends. After about twenty minutes Crash’s truck pulls up, and I politely break off from the group of ladies and walk my little heels over to the Ranger. More than a few pairs of eyes follow me but I walk tall. The opinions of other people stopped being relevant the day I jumped in front of a train.
But I’m not trying to stunt on anybody either; the church people were all welcoming and friendly, especially older women with single sons. I got a few raised eyebrows when I said I was from California. I said I was visiting a friend of mine in town. Lots of the younger women were happy to talk to me about college.
I like it so much better than the church in Mamie’s neighborhood. Everybody just sits there and nobody talks to each other at all. Over there, people jump out of their seats as soon as the service ends and climb into their SUVs, barely talking to each other. They make it feel like just a pointless obligation.
“That’s why I don’t bother with it,” Mamie had told me. “I talk to God right here in my garden. See? He says I’m doing a mighty fine job with these tomatoes but I’m slacking with the cucumbers.”
“That’s blasphemy, Mamie.”
“That’s the truth ,” Mamie said, getting serious. “You can talk to God anywhere. You don’t need church for that. God is in all living things. For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens . He knows the secrets of our hearts. He sees the smallest sparrow fall. Remember that.”
“Make any friends?” Crash asks as I climb into the Ranger. He’s still wearing his nice clothes but I can tell by the rumpled state of his hair he’s been driving all around.
“Yes. Everybody was real nice.”
“Any marriage proposals?”
“Some,” I tease. His eyes narrow. “I’m just playing. This one lady Mrs. Mabel wanted to know all about where I’m from. She asked so many questions.”
“Naturally. Gave them something to talk about, I hope.”
“And I met some other girls that just came back from school– they go to Virginia Tech. They were telling me about an engineering program there...”
“It’s a good school,” says Crash carefully.
“Yeah. I heard. I’ll have to do my own research.”
“It’s a ways from here,” he says. “But not as far as Cali.”
“I know.” I have a crazy idea. I bite my lip. No. No way.
“What else?” Crash asks.
“Um, next week is the bake sale, so I have to remember the recipe for that cornbread Mama’s friend Mrs. Atherly used to make. Oh, and there’s a lady there with six little girls. Two sets of twins. Can you imagine that?”
“Your dream come true,” he grins.
“I want three kids,” I tell him firmly. “ Not six.”
“Noted. Boys?”
“Girls.” I settle back in the seat and sigh. It was actually a lovely service. The theme was Love. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. It was hard to stay focused when I thought of Crash the entire time. Every thing about him, I love, past the point of sense.
“Where are we going for lunch?”
He looks at me quickly. “I was thinking my house.”
I hide my surprise. “Oh. Wonderful.”
“I know you’ve been itching to see it,” he teases.
“Me? No, not at all.”
Of course I’ve been dying to see Crash’s house. When I first came, he picked me up from the Rowanville airport and drove me straight to the Florin Hotel. The apartment I meant to sublease fell through so I had to look for a different one. Crash brought breakfast for me the next day but I was still perturbed he seemed reluctant to be alone with me. If I didn’t know better I’d say he wished I hadn’t come to Virginia at all.
His wife is long gone, the divorce granted in absentia since she never bothered showing up to court. So it wasn’t that. I thought maybe he lived in a house like the ones on that show Mamie and I are obsessed with .
“Is the reason you haven’t brought me to your house because you hoard things?” I ask him.
He laughs. “That’s not the reason I didn’t bring you to my house.”
“Okay.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be staying in town,” he admits after a long pause. “I, uh, thought you’d change your mind.”
“Why would you think that? I’ve looked forward to coming here for months. I told you I could have bought my own ticket and paid for the apartment myself and—”
“Trina it’s not about the money,” he cuts me off. “I thought since you’ve been living it up in California, you’d have gone all L.A. You’d show up here with big sunglasses and a big purse with some little dog inside it, take one look at my house and, you know.”
“Crash, even if you lived in a trailer–”
“And I don’t.”
“Even if,” I press, “I wouldn’t care.”
“Alright,” he says, looking at me sideways. “Well, my place ain’t like your grandmother’s.”
“Good!”
He reaches across the gearshift as if to take my hand, then seems to think better of it, and I pretend I didn’t see. I fight with the hurt. After what we went through, the feelings we both had for each other, I hate just pretending it never happened.
But his life is complicated enough, and so is mine.
I should just live with that.
We drive down a tangle of roads, then cut a sharp left down a pitted path that has me bouncing in the seat. “This is the scenic route,” Crash calls over the sound of the road doing its best to tear his Ranger apart.
The mountain drops away to a stunning view of the valley and the river snaking through it. Crash halts, keeping his foot on the clutch and looking over at me to see my face. He’s grinning ear to ear. “Like it?”
“It’s beautiful !”
“I know. Come on– we’re only halfway there.”
“Wait! I need to take a picture.” I jump out of the car and hurrying to the edge.
“They don’t have mountains in California?”
“Not like this.” Not any I want to remember.
I pull out my phone and snap a few shots. Crash turns off the vehicle and gets out. “Watch your step, darlin’.”
“I am,” I reply.
Suddenly I feel two hands on my waist. He walks me back two steps. One, two. “There,” he says, one hand moving for just one fragile moment to rest on my stomach. There’s that lump in my throat again. He hasn’t touched me since I came to Virginia. Or called me darlin ’.
“I’m not scared.”
“You never are,” he murmurs.
I get back in the truck, heart thumping. Crash works through the gears to guide the vehicle up a steep hill. And then, suddenly, a flat plain of tall grass opens up before us. Nestled in the sea of autumn-baked grass, under a huge weeping willow is a small red house. Crash’s house. It looks like a log cabin from a fairy tale.
“This is where you live ?”
“Family land. I rebuilt it when I got back from my last tour.”
“It’s incredible!”
He rubs the back of his neck.
“It’s so…peaceful.” It’s like a dream. A cardinal flies past us, into a maple tree.
There are bird feeders everywhere .
Of course.
“Look behind you,” Crash suggests, cutting off the engine.
The view up here is even better than the one I nearly risked my butt to photograph. The surrounding trees on Crash’s property enclose us in a protected, secret world.
Spellbound, I follow him to the cabin past a garden gone to seed, except for some very robust pumpkins. A deer, seeing us coming, leaps away into the forest.
“Ruby’s with my sister until six,” Crash explains. “I’ve been trying to find a babysitter. Most of ‘em are too young.” He frowns. “I don’t want teenage girls up here when it’s just me. I get enough weird stuff from the waggin’ tongues about Ruby.”
“I was hoping to meet her.”
“I promise you will,” he says firmly. “It’s just hard to coordinate. I don’t want to bother you.”
“Crash,” I tell him. “You never bother me.”
His cheeks darken as he pulls out the keys. “Uh—you like chicken?”
“Yes, Crash. I like chicken.”
“Well — good.”
Is it just me or is he blushing? He’s nervous…why? Why is he acting so funny, ever since I came…
He opens the door.
I hold my breath.
A smell of pine wood and baked bread washes over me.
How do I describe Crash’s house? My eyes can’t decide what to land on. Wooden furniture, wooden walls. Red gingham wallpaper in the kitchen. The dark, comfortable, cozy kitchen. Different bottles of all colors line the walls, cloudy with age. Everywhere I see antiques and knick-knacks arranged by theme: a shelf of tiny ceramic pigs. A collection of iron tow-hooks. Another shelf of old cookbooks with a couple new ones stuffed at the end. A collection of quartz, geodes, and apache tears. About a dozen Corningware dishes stacked carefully on a shelf. And a rifle resting against the hardwood table which looks handmade as everything else. The table, I mean.
Mesmerized, I take my shoes off and set them neatly next to his garden boots. I’ve painted my toenails hot pink. He glances at them briefly and smiles to himself, thinking I don’t see it.
Every thing I do, every change, he sees it. He sees me.
“You can hang out in the living room for a minute, I have to heat up some stuff.”
“Okay.”
“To your left,” he says. I turn to my left to a living room with the softest looking couches, a small TV, and a playpen with some soft toys scattered inside it. Ruby.
I step closer to inspect the photographs running up and down the walls. Photographs of Crash.
His mother was a tiny woman with dark hair and a somber face. I don’t see any pictures of his dad. Every picture he has with his mother he’s holding her like a protective son. His first communion picture stands out. It’s the only picture she looks happy in. He told me she died of cancer before he went on tour.
Young Crash had messy hair and a mischievous smile until his first official army photo. In uniform the smile is gone, the hair shaved. His eyes are piercing. The hair comes back in a later photograph but the smile doesn’t.
“Is that Ruby?” I ask, pointing to a newer photo on the TV stand. It’s the cutest little baby with a pink bow in her curly hair.
“Yeah,” He says proudly. “She said her first word the other day. ‘Bye’.”
“Wow. She’s so cute.”
“I know, right? I can’t wait for you to meet her.”
I go over to the couch and on impulse I throw myself into it spread-eagle.
Whoosh!
Oh it’s sooo soft….
I hear Crash knocking around in the kitchen.
“What you got cooking?” I call.
“Chicken parm, rolls, a salad…”
“Okay, chef .”
“Hardly.”
That sounds like typical Crash modesty. Of course he’s probably an amazing cook. And his Mama was Italian?
“Fugheddaboutit,” I say out loud. It’s this new TV show I’m watching on my own since I think it’s too innapropriate even for Mamie’s crazy self.
“What?” Crash calls.
“Er— nothing.”
The oven door opens and closes. I shut my eyes and sink into the soft couch, a sudden wave of sleepiness washing over me.
“You cold?” Crash asks. “I can build a fire.”
“No, I’m just fine.”
After a minute Crash leaves the kitchen and walks over to me, flicking his hat onto the opposite love seat and settling in right next to me. There’s more light in this room than the kitchen, and it rings the back of his head into a reddish halo. He tickles my ribs and I slap his hand away, giggling.
We stare at each other. He pushes hair off my forehead.
Ba-dump.
“I missed you,” he says.
“I missed you too,” I breathe.
Our fingers tangle together. He strokes the back of my hand with his thumb.
“Hungry?”
I smell bread and roasting chicken. My stomach growls.
“Starving.”