22. Delilah
DELILAH
I was ready for Stella to head home. I needed the next week without my mother around to figure out how I felt about everything, especially Jasper. But before Stella left, I was determined to get to the bottom of whatever secret she’d been keeping.
I pulled up in front of the motel, expecting I’d have to humor my mother into a late brunch before she had to hit the road for the drive home. But as I brought the truck to a stop, Stella came out of the door like she’d been waiting.
“Good morning.” Stella slid into the front seat, her fingers wrapped around a book. Or maybe it was a photo album.
“What do you have there?” I asked.
“My high school yearbook. It’s not my copy. God only knows where my things ended up after I left home, but I borrowed it from someone I reconnected with at the wedding last night.”
“Do I get to see?” My fingers itched to flip through the pages, as if I could find answers from my mother’s past somewhere inside.
Stella slid her dark sunglasses into place. “I need coffee first. Lots and lots of coffee.”
“I know just the spot.” I didn’t press things until after Jojo had shown us to a table in the back at the Burger Bonanza.
Jasper hadn’t been joking when he said the place got busy on the weekends.
I might not be able to eat much off the menu since there were very few vegetarian options, but the coffee was strong, hot, and never ending.
“Where the hell have you brought me now?” Stella slid into the booth with her hands in the air, like she was afraid to touch anything.
“I’ve been told they serve an amazing breakfast here on Sunday mornings. I thought you might like to eat something substantial before you drive back.”
Stella pulled an antibacterial wipe from the pack in her purse and ran it over the table. “Here, do your side, too.”
“That’s not necessary. I happen to know the owner, and he runs a pretty tight ship.” The decor might look like it was from the past, but I’d seen Jojo go through her cleaning routine on more than one occasion and even if the tabletops were avocado green, I had no doubt they were sparkling clean.
Jojo stopped by with two empty mugs and a carafe of coffee. She jotted down our orders and headed back to the kitchen, leaving me to face my mother.
“Can I see your yearbook?” I held out my hand, expecting Stella to slide it across the table.
Instead, my mother held it close to her heart. “There are some things I haven’t told you about my past.”
Duh. Stella couldn’t be so obtuse that she didn’t realize I knew there was something missing. “Now would be a fine time to share them.”
Stella’s jaw set and she passed the book over. “I just want you to know that everything I’ve ever done was for your own protection.”
I frowned as I opened the front cover and began to flip through the pages. “Is this your senior year?”
Stella dumped three creamers into her coffee and slowly stirred. “Yes.”
I scanned the pictures, locating my mother on the page that showed the homecoming court taking the field during halftime at the football game. My heart squeezed as I read the caption. “You didn’t tell me you were on the homecoming court.”
Stella swallowed and focused on a spot just over my right shoulder. “It was a beautiful dress.”
The next page showed pictures from the dance. Stella stood onstage, a crown sitting lopsided on her head, her arm wrapped around the handsome man next to her. Both of them beamed into the camera.
“Who’s this?” I asked. The man had his arm wrapped possessively around Stella’s side.
His eyes looked familiar. Such an odd shade of green.
I shifted my gaze from the picture to Stella and back again.
“‘Homecoming queen Estelle Gardner and her king Helmut Schmidt’? You went to homecoming with Helmut?”
Stella’s face paled.
“Mom? Did you used to date him?” I glanced over my shoulder where Helmut had just come out of the kitchen.
Clasping her hand to her mouth, Stella slid from the booth, colliding with Jojo, who’d stopped by to deliver the veggie egg-substitute omelet I had ordered along with Stella’s platter of biscuits, gravy, and grits.
Dishes crashed to the floor, gravy splattered Stella’s blouse, and a glass of orange juice dumped directly into my lap.
Silence descended on the restaurant. Helmut turned his gaze our way. “What the hell was that?”
“Just a spill. Don’t have a coronary.” Jojo set the tray down on the table and began to collect pieces of broken plates and glasses.
Helmut peered over at us from behind the counter. He squinted, making his eyes crinkle. “Estelle?”
Stella didn’t respond, just stood there with her eyes almost closed, her body frozen.
I slid out of the booth, my brain working double time to try to sort through the information overload in my head.
“Helmut?” I zeroed in on the man standing behind the counter.
He bore little resemblance to the slim eighteen-year-old in the photographs.
His head was shaved, he’d put on at least fifty pounds of muscle, and his arms were now covered in tattoos.
I hadn’t paid much attention to them before, but now my gaze skimmed over the eagle on his forearm, the American flag peeking out from the V-neck T-shirt he seemed to favor when he worked behind the grill, and the curly script covering his arm.
I could make out a swirly E followed by an s and a t before it disappeared into the sleeve of his shirt.
“Oh my God.” I turned back to Stella. “Oh my God. What’s going on here? Did you two date? Is he the reason Daddy left?”
Stella finally moved. She gathered her purse and tossed a twenty onto the table. “Delilah, I’m not feeling well, please take me back to the motel.”
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
Stella glanced around and I tried to see the world through my mother’s cool blue eyes—the diners staring at us, Jojo continuing to pick up shards of glass from the floor, and Helmut, who stayed behind the counter, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. Just like he’d seen a ghost.
“This is neither the time nor the place.” Stella slid her strap over her shoulder and made a beeline for the door.
“Don’t walk away from me, Mom.” But my cries fell on deaf ears.
Stella’s ears. With my mother nearing the door, I lost it.
I needed to know the truth. I deserved it, and it was time my mother finally confronted whatever had driven her away from Bellsview.
“Stella Stone, did you have an affair with Helmut Schmidt?”
Stella held her head high and turned around. Her eyes were so cold I shivered as my mother’s gaze swept over me. “Don’t talk about that man like that. He’s your father.”
“I don’t understand.” I cupped my chin in my hand and stirred another spoonful of sugar into my already-sweetened sweet tea. “How could she do this to me? To us?”
Helmut sat across the table from me, a cup of coffee in front of him. “I’m sure she had her reasons. I can only imagine what she must have been going through.”
“Well, I can’t.” I took a long draw through my straw. “All these years. Why would she lie?”
“She was alone.” Helmut shrugged. “I shipped out to basic training the day after our high school graduation. After my time at Fort Benning I was on a plane to the Middle East. Her parents never wanted us to be together. I wrote to her every day, but then the letters started coming back.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell you she was pregnant?” I had never pretended to understand my mother’s motives, but there had to have been some reason behind her decision to leave her hometown.
“What was I going to do? It would have been a couple of years before I could have come back and married her. If only I’d known.” Helmut put his head in his hands and those huge shoulders shook.
I reached across the table and tried to convey some comfort through my touch. “Everything was a lie.”
“I know one thing that can’t be a lie.” Helmut looked up at me, and I felt like I was looking into my own gaze. How had I not noticed his eyes were the same exact shape and color as my own?
“What’s that? Not that it will make me feel any better or give me any reason to forgive her.”
“She must love you very, very much, and that’s not an easy thing for her.
Your grandparents, her parents, were so strict with her.
I know they loved her in their own way, but they never showed it.
I think that’s one of the reasons she fell for me.
” He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I’m a hugger.”
So many emotions bubbled up inside, all I wanted to do was take some space. I needed to go somewhere where I could sort through my feelings. About Stella, the father I’d never known, and more.
I needed Jasper. He was the one I wanted to talk to, to bare my heart and soul to. But I’d sent him a couple of texts already and he hadn’t responded. He’d said something about being tied up all day making preparations for the Fall Festival.
I didn’t want to go back to my empty trailer. I sure as hell didn’t want to go after my mother.
“I’ve got to get back to the kitchen.” Helmut tapped his hands on the table. “I don’t know how this works, but could I maybe call you sometime? I’d love to get to know you better.”
“Of course.” I might be unsure about where things would go with my mother, but I’d never turn down the chance to get to know my family.
“Can I get a hug?” He stood, towering over the booth. He looked so out of place, the tatted Army vet with a sheepish smile.
“I’d like that.” I buried myself in his arms, trying to breathe through my mouth since the scent of fried onions and fish clung to him. That might take a little getting used to, but I’d gladly suffer through a year full of Smoker Saturdays for the chance to get to know my dad.
Helmut returned to behind the counter and I was about to get up to leave when the woman sitting in the booth next to me cleared her throat.
“Rough day?” Adeline twisted around, peering over the back of the booth.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” That’s all I needed was Adeline using my personal drama to cause another stink online.
Adeline slid out of her booth and onto the seat across from me. “Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear.”
“And I’m sure my personal family drama will be all over Swynton’s website within the next fifteen minutes.”
“Hey, even I have some lines I won’t cross.” Adeline shook her head and refilled her coffee mug with the carafe in the middle of the table.
“No offense, but that’s not what I heard.” I studied the woman sitting across the table. “What are you even doing here? I thought you were too good to come slumming over in Ido?”
“I never said that. Swynton’s for sure more romantic. But Helmut makes the best pineapple milkshakes in the world.”
“You’re having a pineapple milkshake for breakfast?” I sat up straighter and caught a glimpse of a tall, empty glass sitting on the table next to us.
“Hubby and I had a fight. It was stupid, really.”
I wondered what would constitute a fight in Adeline’s world. “What happened?”
“Well, seeing you here, representing the Miss Lovin’ Texas pageant, it made me wonder about competing in a pageant, too. Not like I want to go up against you personally—”
“Don’t worry about that. My pageant days are over.” I shook my head. If my experience today had taught me anything, it was that I was done putting my mother’s needs before my own. It was time for me to step back and start doing something for myself.
“Roman doesn’t think we can afford it. I read somewhere the pageant dresses can cost up to a few thousand dollars. Is that true?”
“I’ve never paid more than five hundred. But Stella’s got connections, as in major connections. I’d be happy to share some names with you if you’d like.”
Adeline’s lips split, revealing the kind of smile that I was sure would charm the judges of any pageant I entered. “That would be amazing. I’d be so grateful.”
As long as I was trying to get to the bottom of things, I decided to test that gratefulness with a question. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” Adeline scooted closer to the table.
“Did you put crickets in my trailer?”
“What?” Her eyes rounded. “Why, I’d never do something as disgusting as that. What would make you think that?”
Either she’d majored in lying in college or she was telling the truth. “Someone filled my trailer with crickets on my second night in town. Are you sure you didn’t have anything to do with that?”
“I swear on the lives of my sorority sisters.” Adeline did some complicated hand gesture, then plastered her palm over her heart. “I’d never use bugs against a fellow woman.”
“Okay then.” I had been sitting on the vinyl booth so long that when I tried to stand, the backs of my legs stuck to the surface.
I pulled a business card out of my purse and handed it to Adeline.
“I need to go. But send me a text with your contact info, and I’ll follow up with some introductions to some people you probably ought to meet. ”
Adeline bounced out of the booth and pulled me into a hug. She hadn’t been lying about that pineapple shake. I could smell it on her. With a final squeeze, I peeled myself away. I needed to find Jasper. He was the only one who might be able to help me sort out the mess swirling around in my head.