Chapter 16

After church on the Sunday following the visit to their new place, Connie and Tommy started cleaning the house. Ruth wasn't there, because she had to work at the library. They had not been at it more than thirty minutes, before the Frickes, Crawfords and Salazars showed up with cleaning equipment to help. Having such good friends plastered a smile on Tommy's face a mile wide.

With four couples working, the house was spic and span in only a few hours. Tommy enjoyed razzing the other men at how well they operated mops, brooms and dust rags.

Harold waited until they were out of earshot of the women before he replied, "Tommy-my-boyo, a dozen roses makes a woman feel well disposed towards you, but cleaning the kitchen will get you laid quicker than Spanish-fly."

Ben and Ramon nodded like a Greek chorus.

"It's a fact, Amigo," Ramon seconded. "My Theresa starts getting horny the minute I start up the vacuum cleaner."

"Windex does it for Cricket," Ben added. "If she comes home and I'm washing windows, she jumps my bones in the living room, even if the blinds are up."

Tommy took everything they said to heart, even though he thought they might be gilding the lily.

At the same time that the fellows were briefing Tommy, their wives were giving Connie the real scoop. When Connie mentioned how well the husbands cleaned, all three wives chuckled.

"Yeah," Rita said, "they are like those dogs that Russian guy Pavlov trained. If I put on a peek-a-boo blouse and high heels, Harold turns into Mr. Clean."

The following Monday was the grand opening of the Brantley Feed, Seed and Farm Supply. About everyone in the tri-county area dropped by to take a look. Harold had done a heck of a job lining up suppliers, most of them on consignment. His biggest coup was convincing John Deere to make him their official dealer for McCulloch County. The regional Deere representative even fronted Harold a couple of green and yellow tractors and some other machinery to display.

Business at the store increased dramatically as farmers and ranchers from neighboring Conch and Menard Counties started coming to Brantley instead of traveling twenty-five miles further up the road to Brownwood. Tommy was especially proud when the hunting and fishing supplies he'd lobbied for sold like hot cakes.

While Tommy was slaving away cooking hot dogs for the grand opening, Connie was at the Sears and Roebuck store at the Brownwood Mall. Her first stop was the furniture section, where she ordered a king-sized bed frame, foundation and mattress. The box springs and mattress were special order, because she wanted the new California King model that was six inches longer than the standard king.

Connie visited the home furnishing section next. She found everything she needed for the house, except for linen for the new bed. Those she ordered from the big Sears wish book, with a promise that they would arrive about the same time as the bed itself. Connie smiled as she threw in a set of red satin sheets with the order. She knew she looked good in red.

Later that afternoon, Tommy did his part for making the new place a home by hiring a handyman to do the repair work Harold said the house needed. The handyman was the uncle of Jose Luna, the delivery truck driver. Tommy hired the man, sight unseen, on Jose's recommendation.

"My uncle is old," Jose said. "He takes his time, but his work is most excellent. He is very busy, but I will ask him to do your work as a favor to me."

Jose Luna and his wife Belinda thought the world of Tommy. They became his friends for life when he and Rex showed up at Jose's modest house on Christmas Day with presents for them and their four children.

On Saturday, the last day of January, 1970, Otto Mills and Belly Lou hosted an eighteenth birthday party for Regina at the VFW Hall.

Otto was a member of the Post 9718 by virtue of his service with the 187^th Airborne Regimental Combat Team during the Korean War. The bashful, bespectacled, balding banker was the guy who proved the rule, "Don't judge a book by its cover." Mills was the most decorated soldier at the VFW post, and a veteran of two combat parachute jumps in Korea.

The birthday bash was held in one of the activity rooms of the hall. There were tubs full of sodas, plenty of food, a record player and thirty teenagers standing around yakking when Tommy walked in with Connie, and Regina's brother Bucky. Otto and Betty Lou were chaperoning and Rita Fricke was there, providing moral support for Betty Lou.

Tommy was not thrilled about being there with some of the high school crowd that had called him a retard and dummy, but it was Regina's night, so he plastered on a smile strictly for her. Regina and Melody made a fuss over him showing up, as they grabbed his arm and dragged him around to meet their friends. Tommy went around the room nodding politely to the young women and shaking hands with the men. When they were back at the record player, Regina whispered something to Melody, then tugged Tommy into the middle of the room. A few couples were on the dance floor, but most of the teens were standing around looking uncomfortable as Tommy and Rita took up station in the center of the floor.

Tommy grinned when Regina's phonograph dropped Jailhouse Rock onto the turntable. The song was Regina's favorite to dance to and Tommy was her favorite jitterbug partner. The other teens looked on in surprise as Tommy and Regina tore up the floor.

Regina's dance with Tommy broke the ice and soon enough, all the teens were on the floor gyrating wildly. Tommy danced once with almost every female there before the lights dimmed and the first slow dance started. Tommy turned to find Connie, only to see her leading a grinning Bucky Grimes out onto the floor. Tommy smiled and shrugged just as Regina caught his arm.

"My birthday, so I get first dibs," Regina said.

Tommy waltzed Regina around the room, just as they had practiced all those months ago. Tommy thought back to that time, and whispered into Regina's ear.

"Paying you to teach me to dance was the best investment I ever made," he said.

After about an hour of dancing, Betty Lou called a halt to the music for ice cream, cake and presents. Regina blew out the candles on her cake and started opening presents, as Betty Lou and the other adults passed out plates of cake and ice cream. After Regina had opened all the presents on the table and read aloud all the cards, Betty Lou pointed her daughter towards the side exit door.

"You might have one more gift out there," she said.

Sure enough, right outside the door, parked up on the grass was a cherry red 1966 Chevy II Nova. Betty Lou was probably as excited about the gift as Regina. Otto found the car at an auction barn, Ben Crawford tuned it up, and Ramon Salazar fixed a couple of dings. The six cylinder economy car had belonged to an elderly couple, and had less than twenty thousand miles on it. Betty Lou paid seven hundred dollars for it by taking out a loan secured by her savings account. Thanks to the college money from Tommy, the savings weren't committed to anything now.

Regina and Tommy shared another slow dance right before the party broke up. As they danced, Regina informed Tommy that she expected her special present from him in April. She and Melody had everything planned out to happen during their spring break from school.

"We are going to Dallas for a weekend and you are going with us," she whispered in his ear.

The two weeks between Regina's birthday and Valentines Day flew by. Tommy closed on the house on February the second, and Pablo Luna started working his magic on the third. Tommy did not even make the man a list, he just told him to fix what needed repairing. He gave Pablo a couple of hundred dollars for materials and let him have at it. Pablo became a Tommy fan when the young man stayed away from the house and let him work in peace. With carte blanche, Pablo lovingly restored the fifteen-hundred square foot house as if it were his own.

Pablo finished up on Wednesday the eleventh. Tommy, Connie and Ruth were all amazed at the transformation. Freshly varnished floors, new egg-shell paint on the walls, and gleaming white wood work made the inside sparkle. The exterior had received new white paint with green accents and trim. Pablo had even applied new silver paint to the house's metal roof.

The three lovers were standing in the yard, profusely thanking Pablo when Connie came up with an idea to finish the place off perfectly. She took Pablo by the arm and walked him out of earshot of the others.

"Mister Luna, the only thing lacking for this to be home is a white picket fence. Can you do something like that for me?" Connie asked.

Sears delivered and set up the bed the next day. Connie had picked up the linen a few days before. Ruth took Friday off from the Library so she and Connie could spend the day turning the house into a home.

Tommy worked Saturday morning and spent part of the afternoon moving his clothes and other possessions out of the Grimes's basement. Tommy's excitement about having his own place was tempered somewhat by a little sadness that he was moving away from Betty Lou, Bucky and Regina. It was tearful for all of them really, but they all realized that it was time. The year that Tommy spent with the Grimes had been good for all of them, and because of Tommy, everyone's circumstances had changed for the better. All four of them eagerly looked forward to their new futures. Besides, Tommy never forgot his friends, so they would all remain close, regardless of what happened down the road.

Moving was a much bigger deal for Connie and Ruth, and in the end they did not move completely into Tommy's new place. There needed to be some more discussion before that happened, but they did move some clothes, personal items and some furniture. They moved enough to make them comfortable. The reason they were keeping their own places was primarily to keep the gossip at bay as much as possible. In a town of four thousand and a county of eight, blending into the background was hard to do. It certainly didn't help that almost everyone either knew, or knew of, both women.

Tommy went out of his way to make Valentines Day special for Connie and Ruth. That night, on a slippery sea of scarlet satin, a simple and humble man showed two sophisticated women of the world what love was all about. The women's response to his efforts made the event fabulous for Tommy, and spurred him toward the performance of his life. The trio went at it until one in the morning, before dropping in exhaustion. They fell asleep as sated and as happy to be together as it was possible to be.

Tommy woke up at seven Sunday morning feeling great. Unfortunately, the only one who shared his joyful mood that morning was his buddy Rex. Neither Ruth nor Connie saw any reason to be out of bed before the chickens, so Tommy slipped into his clothes and took Rex for a walk.

Tommy went out the kitchen door and into the back yard. Since he had a few hours before church, he decided to walk his fence line and see what repairs it needed. Tommy opened the zinc-plated livestock gate that butted up against one exterior wall of the barn, and followed Rex through it. Once the gate was closed and latched, he turned left and set out. Before they had walked a hundred yards, Rex had flushed a covey of quail and two jack rabbits from a scrub oak thicket. The thicket was part of nature recovering the fallow fields. The thickets that dotted the once cultivated portion of the ranch would need to be cleared to graze his goats.

The fence on the south side of his property was in good shape, his neighbor on that side having maintained it. The west and north side fences were fairly stout as well, with only a few breaks and rotted posts in them. Those fences bordered the abandoned and unused parcel Mister Mills said he'd recently sold. Tommy figured he'd need about fifty fence posts and six rolls of barbed wire to fix everything. He'd pick the wire and posts up tomorrow at the feed store. Tommy had a running inventory of every item in his warehouse inside his head, so he knew exactly how many fence posts and rolls of wire were in stock.

The chilly early morning February air made Tommy feel especially alive. He and Rex explored for over an hour. A portion of that time was spent poking around in a ten acre stand of pines and hardwoods at the northwest corner of the property. Tommy and Rex both loved that little wooded corner. Tommy was going to leave it exactly as it was even if it meant he could graze fewer goats.

Tommy found another gate that let through the northern fence line. The gate split a rough-hewn road that ran south to north. Tommy guessed that the road led to cattle pens and loading chutes out in the big pastures.

Ruth and Connie were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking, when Tommy and Rex tumbled into the house a few minutes after nine. Both women wore terrycloth robes and fuzzy slippers. Tommy grinned at how domestic the scene looked. Ruth returned his smile as she popped up and checked the oven.

"I'm making some cheese toast," she explained.

Tommy nodded and poured himself a mug of coffee from the new Kenmore electric percolator Connie had picked up at Sears. He'd started the coffee brewing before he went for his walk. He pulled out the chair across from Connie and sat down.

"Good morning, Sunshine," he said happily.

Connie looked at him dolefully and gestured with her cup. Connie was not a morning person, but she was not really as grumpy as she pretended to be. She just acted that way as a counterpoint to Tommy's first thing in the morning cheerfulness.

Ruth pulled a cookie sheet out of the oven and frowned at the burnt edges of the pieces of toast. The loaf bread toasted much quicker than the bagels she normally fixed.

"I'll pick up some bagels at the Piggly-Wiggly," she thought, as she slid the toast onto three paper plates.

She placed the plates onto the table and sat down with her lovers.

Connie picked a burnt piece off her toast and took a bite. She didn't comment on the well done and seriously dry toast, because her cooking skills were even more limited than Ruth's.

Tommy munched on his toast and made a shopping list in his mind. He was used to a more substantial breakfast than a couple of slices of cheese toast, even if it was only a big Jethro Bodine bowl of Raisin Bran and Grape Nuts.

Tommy polished off his toast after slipping a corner of one piece under the table to Rex. Rex had a policy of never turning down people food, and burnt cheese toast was still a lot better than peas and carrots. Tommy put his paper plate in the trash, thanked Ruth for breakfast, and headed for the shower. He had to be down at First Baptist at ten, because he was helping teach Sunday school that morning. Rita Fricke taught a group of the younger children and had asked Tommy to help her because the class had grown.

Ruth and Connie were still sitting at the table when Tommy kissed them goodbye and rushed out the door. Connie's Mass at Saint Cecilia wasn't until eleven, and Ruth didn't have to open the library until noon on Sundays.

As soon as she heard his truck accelerate onto the highway, Ruth cleared her throat and looked over at Connie.

"I'm sorry about last night," she said, blushing beet red. "I don't know what possessed me; I've never done anything remotely like that."

It was Connie's turn to blush as she looked down at her coffee cup. The worldly and experience woman's cheeks were aflame as she recalled the way tiny Ruth had so aggressively dominated her the night before.

"No need to apologize," Connie said softly. "I enjoyed every minute of it. I can't believe how strong you are. What brought that on anyway?"

"I don't really know. You and Tommy had me so excited, I just decided to let go and do what I wanted."

Connie looked up at her friend and grinned crookedly.

"Well, I don't think I could stand that every night, but don't be surprised if I try to get you to do that again sometime."

Tommy made it to the church fifteen minutes early so he could help set up the classroom. Rita was already there, putting activity books, construction paper, glue, scissors and crayons on two banquet tables. She gave Tommy a hug and a buss on the cheek, then handed him the stack of art supplies.

"Finish passing these out, Tommy, then erase the chalkboard and clap the erasers."

Tommy, not much removed from being a kid himself, was a big hit with the youngsters. The kids didn't mind that Tommy had a speech impediment, because all of them were challenged in one way or another. Tommy made a particularly strong connection with two of the kids. The first connection was with a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel with a slightly cleft lip and worse cleft palate. The other was with a terribly reticent young boy who stuttered severely.

Rita watched Tommy work with the kids with a satisfied smile on her face. When Dell Spangler, the deacon in charge of the Sunday school program, had asked her to take over the 'slow' children's class, she jumped at the chance. After the first session the prior week, she knew Tommy could make a positive impact with her kids. And here he was, proving her right. Rita also knew that the children were good for her Tommy. She knew that it made Tommy feel good to help others; and what better way to do that than by working with these wonderful children? Looking at Tommy smiling and joshing with the children brought truth to the saying, "No man has ever stood so tall as when he stooped to help a child."

Between the end of Sunday school and the start of the church service, Tommy quizzed Rita about the little blond girl and the stuttering boy. Rita told him what she knew.

"The girl's name is Molly; she is the youngest of the six Snyder children. Ross Snyder drives a cement mixing truck for some outfit up in Brownwood. They aren't very well off, but they are a good Christian family. The boy is Jamie Dunn. He stays with his grandparents over on Austin Street. His mama was a classmate of Caroline. She had the boy at sixteen, then took off and no one has heard from her since. She never did say who fathered Jamie."

Rita stopped, faced Tommy and took his hands in hers.

"They are both bright children Tommy, but most folks think they are retarded because of how they speak. In that regard they remind me of you. I think being around you will help them immensely."

Tommy thought about Jamie and Molly all through the church service. As soon as Maddie dismissed the choir, Tommy jumped into his truck and sped over to the library. Ruth was just about to take her seat behind the circulation desk, when Tommy came bursting through the front door she'd just unlocked. He was so excited, his speech was atrocious. It took two tries for him to explain about meeting Rita's special kids. Ruth finally sat him down and made him take a couple of deep breaths. When he had calmed down some, she asked him how she could help.

"Molly has a hair lip and a hole in the top of her mouth, so I need to read up on that. Jamie stutters like me, only he has all his brains. Do you think the speech therapy you and Connie do with me could help them?"

Ruth smiled at Tommy's enthusiasm and pointed him toward the card file.

"Your new little friend has a cleft lip, Tommy, and probably a cleft palate as well. Hair lip is not a very nice way to describe her problem. Look those terms up in the reference card files, the books should be in the six-tens, under 'medical science'. Tomorrow I'll call the central library in Dallas, I'm sure they have speech therapy practice books for children."

Ruth shook her head bemusedly as Tommy pulled out the 'Ch-Cm' reference card drawer and took it over to the research table.

"What in the world is he up to now?" she wondered.

Monday morning, while Harold manned the sales floor, Rita called Tommy into the office for a chat. Talking to Tommy was something the Frickes had discussed the evening before. Seeing Tommy work with the Sunday school class brought to Rita's mind the troubles he'd faced, the progress he'd made, and the things he still needed to do. Rita seated Tommy on the old comfortable couch that Harold loved to nap on, fixed them both a cup of instant cocoa, and told him what was on her mind.

"You've been with us for almost a year, Tommy, and every day you've been here has been a pleasure for Harold and me."

Rita paused and beamed Tommy a misty-eyed adoring smile.

"So anyway," she continued, "before your year is up, you have eight days of vacation to use."

"Where would I go? Give it to Jose," Tommy responded with a shrug.

"Jose earns his own vacation, besides, you do have somewhere to go. You need to visit your poor sister in Florida. She worries about you, and a weekly phone call is not enough," Rita replied firmly.

Tommy half-heartedly protested, even though he knew she was right. Rita was determined, and she had an answer for his every objection. She gave Tommy his marching orders.

"Now that you're settled in your new place, there isn't any reason you can't go next week."

Rita's voice softened and she took Tommy's hand in hers.

"We all love you, Tommy. You have a family and home here, but Beth is your blood, you need to do this for both of you."

Ruth and Connie were one hundred percent behind Rita on Tommy visiting his sister, but they were not about to let him go alone. As much as she'd like to go herself, Ruth had used up her vacation at Christmas. Connie, though, did not have anything scheduled, so was elected by default.

With the women riding herd on the trip, planning and preparation happened quickly. Ten days later, at eight in the morning, Tommy and Connie pulled out onto Highway 836. They were riding in Tommy's freshly tuned up truck, their bags packed in the cargo bed under a tarp. Ruth was on the porch waving goodbye. Her new best friend Rex sat beside her, his tail thumping against the floor.