Curtiss Matlock - Chin Up, Honey

“Okay, darlin’,” he said in his gentle tone. “But please don’t speed anymore. At least not anywhere near town.”

“I won’t, sugar,” she said, blowing him a kiss as the window slid up. “Until next time,” she whispered. Belinda knew herself well and without apology.

In her side-view mirror, she watched Lyle as he walked back to his patrol car, running her eyes from his broad shoulders downward over his lean hips. She had not married Lyle Midgett for his brains. It was for everything below his neck, all of which was quite large and strong, and that included his heart.

Then she turned her attention to Emma. In Belinda’s estimation, blue-eyed pale blondes were generally really high-strung, even if they were not natural blondes, which Belinda knew that Emma was not. Every six weeks, Emma came into the drugstore and bought L’Oreal No. 9.

“I’m all right. It’s nothin’…I was just…” Emma gave her a wan smile, then broke off, her gaze going to the radio. Her eyes widened, and then her face crumpled.

Belinda looked at the radio, which seemed innocent. Don William’s voice was singing out, “…another place, another time…”

She reached over and punched the Off button, then pulled tissues from a box in the backseat and shoved them at Emma, who was bent over and just boo-hooing her heart out.

A practical woman, Belinda checked her watch and waited. After a minute and a half, Emma was coming back to herself.

“You have mascara smears, sugar,” Belinda said. “Here’s some lotion. There’s a mirror over the sun visor.”

Emma repaired herself. “I’m sorry…it was hearin’ Don Williams. You see…John Cole…and I…went to see him in concert once for our…anniversary.”

Oh, dear, she might go again. Belinda handed over more tissues, and Emma took them but managed self-control, which Belinda both admired and appreciated. Displays of emotion wore on her nerves.

“John Cole and I have separated,” Emma said. “We’re gettin’ divorced.”

Belinda, who was rarely surprised about anything, was stunned. “Oh, honey… I’m so sorry to hear that.”

She shut up, not wanting to say anything to get Emma started again, and to calm her own emotions. Good Lord, if this could happen to Emma and John Cole, two simply lovely people who seemed like the perfect couple, what did that say about her own chances as a fairly new and somewhat reluctant married woman?

“Thirty-two years. We’ve been married thirty-two years.”

Emma’s voice was a hoarse whisper filled with so much sadness that Belinda felt struck to the core.

“Well, these things happen,” Belinda said at last, swallowing down a lump. “What is it? Another woman? Men just lose their minds when they get middle-aged.” She had seen it time and again, although she was quite certain her Lyle never would. It was the really intelligent ones who did. Women were so stupid about intelligent men.

“Oh, no! At least I don’t think so. John Cole isn’t like that.”

Belinda thought the wives were always the last to know.

Emma said, “It might be easier if it was another woman, because maybe I could fight that. It’s just that we don’t have anything in common anymore. We don’t talk. We don’t…relate.” She broke off and f lipped down the visor again to look in the mirror. “John Cole has decided to be married to his job, and I’ve decided I’ve had enough of being his cook and maid at home.”

Despite her good sense, Belinda felt depressed. The situation was exactly why she had resisted marrying Lyle for so long. She had feared that once they married, complacency and boredom would settle in. She had set herself not to let that happen, but maybe there was nothing she could do. Reality of life on earth was just too big.

Just then, Emma’s purse began ringing, startling them both. Emma dug for her cell phone. Immediately upon answering, her face brightened. “Hi, sweetie!”

A boyfriend? Belinda f lipped down the driver’s visor to check her own appearance and repair her lipstick, while keeping an ear tuned to the conversation. It wasn’t like she could help hearing. Everyone said she was nosy, but she wasn’t. All she did was pay attention to people.

She heard Emma tell whoever it was that she was heading home and would be there to meet “Honey,” whoever that was. She would make lunch for “us.” Belinda imagined a very handsome man, but then, as she f lipped her sun visor back up, her gaze went out the windshield to the main entry of the Valentine cemetery directly up ahead.

“That was Johnny,” Emma said. “He’s on his way. I have to get right home.”

Johnny was Emma’s son. Belinda was both relieved and let down at that mundane fact, but her attention was mainly on a sign to the right of the wrought-iron arched entry to the cemetery.

“Do you see that sign? I have never seen that before. I don’t think it was there when Daddy was buried.”

Emma looked in the direction Belinda pointed. “Well…my goodness.”

The two women looked at each other, and Emma laughed, her face just lighting up.

Belinda pulled out her own cell phone and called Winston.

“I have a sign for you, Winston. Out at the entrance to the Valentine cemetery, at the front. Yeah…it says…now, it’s right beside the entrance, and it says…All Donations Welcome.”

When Belinda let Emma off at her house, Emma said, “Belinda, please don’t tell anyone about me and John Cole.”

“I won’t, sugar.”

“I mean really. I don’t want a lot of talk to get back to Johnny until I have a chance to tell him myself.”

“Well, of course you don’t, and there’s no reason for me to say a thing to anyone.”

Belinda felt a little hurt that Emma would think even for a second that she would go and blab.

Many people considered Belinda a gossip, but she was not the one who blurted out anyone’s intimate secrets. Just as Emma had done, people were all the time telling her stuff. She didn’t know why. And she didn’t know why she would be called the gossip, when it was others who were the ones telling her everything.

Why, if she told even a fourth of what she knew, before nightfall there would be two marriages that would be broken up and several people losing their jobs and uncountable people fighting mad with each other.

Gracie rode in the passenger side of Johnny’s new Mustang convertible. Her left hand was captured in his, and she held her hair with the other. They came over a hill, and there was Johnny’s hometown. She looked ahead to read the town sign as they flew past: Valentine, OK, Small Town in a Great Big World.

Johnny pointed out the school he had attended—all grades in one group of connected buildings. Quite strange to Gracie, who had gone to enormous schools in Baltimore. And there, down a gravel lane, was the source of the program coming from the car radio. Gracie had never heard anything like it: jokes and people’s birthdays and really old-timey country music. And Johnny knew the lyrics to most of the songs.

He drove down Main Street and pointed out his family’s convenience store, reminding her that there were three stores, and that he and his father were planning to open a fourth next year.

Then right in the middle of Main Street, he stopped, jumped out and ran over to grab a bouquet from the bins of f lowers outside the florist shop. He did nothing more than call through the door to have it put on his bill, then returned to plunk the f lowers in Gracie’s hand. Traffic backed up behind the car, but no one honked. In fact, the guy driving a pickup truck that had to stop when Johnny ran in front of him waved and called hello.

Johnny drove on through town to the other side and down a road to show her an acreage they might consider buying to build a house. She liked it, and then she reminded him that his mother was waiting.