LaVyrle Spencer - Small Town Girl

In the freezer, thank goodness, Tess found a bag of frozen broccoli. "Mom, do you mind if I cook this?" she asked.

Mary stared at her daughter as if her feelings were hurt. "There's vegetables in the hot dish."

Potatoes soaked in oil, plus rich cream of chicken soup.

"If you're saving it for something else-"

"No, no, go ahead and cook it!"

Tess did, but when the main dish was hot and bubbling it smelled so delicious and looked so tempting she dug into it like a soldier after a foot march. She guzzled the damned whole milk, too, because it was the only milk in the house, and had a half a piece of toast slathered with butter and jam. Mary smiled in satisfaction, watching her.

When their plates were clean, Mary began slicing a piece of pie. "I'll just cut you a small one."

"I can't, Momma, honest. It looks delicious, but I just can't."

"Oh, nonsense." Mary pulled Tess's plate over. "I made it just for you. What's one little piece of pie going to hurt? If you ask me, you look like a scarecrow. You could use a little meat on your bones."

"Please, Momma, no. I can't."

Mary slapped a wedge on Tess's plate anyway. "Just don't put any whipped cream on it, that way it won't be so fattening."

Tess was eating a single obligatory bite of pie when someone tapped on the back door and opened it without waiting for an answer.

"Mary?" he said and stepped inside, into the tiny back entry, no longer wearing a business suit but a red wind-breaker, no longer carrying a briefcase but hefting a forty-pound sack of pellet salt on his left shoulder.

"Oh, Kenny, it's you," Mary said, going joyful in an instant.

"I brought your softener salt," he said, turning slowly beneath his burden and opening the basement door. "I'll take it right down."

"Oh, thanks a million, Kenny. Tess, get that light for him, would you, honey?"

"I got it!" he called as the basement light switched on. His footsteps thumped down, there was a pause while he slit open the bag, then the salt rattled into the plastic softener vat, and he came back up. Fast, as if jogging. "Got one more. Be right back."

When the door slammed Tess whispered, "He comes right into your house without knocking?"

"Oh, Tess, this is Wintergreen, not Nashville."

He was back in a minute with the second sack, carried it downstairs and emptied it into the water softener before returning to the main level. When he closed the basement door and climbed the single step into the kitchen, Tess stuck a second bite of pie into her mouth and fixed her eyes on her plate, as if he'd heard all the nasty things she'd said about him only minutes ago. She needn't have worried, for he gave her not so much as a glance. He shuffled to a stop beside Mary's chair, looking directly down on her, brushing off his hands and making his windbreaker whistle. "There. All filled. Anything else you need while I'm here?"

"I don't think so. That'll hold me for a while. Kenny, you remember Tess, don't you?"

He gave Tess a negligible nod that dismissed her as if she were still back in Nashville. It was brusque enough to be rude, and accompanied by not so much as a single word of greeting. She wasn't sure if he still had pimples or not because she couldn't find the wherewithal to raise her eyes.

While she went on eating her pie, Mary said, "How much do I owe you, Kenny?"

He fished a receipt out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. "Seven-eighty."

Mary said to Tess, "Honey, could you get my purse? It's hanging on the closet doorknob in my bedroom."

Tess went gratefully. In her wake she heard Mary telling him what time Tess had arrived, and him changing the subject, asking her if everything was set for tomorrow morning. When Tess got back with the purse, he stepped out of her way and said nothing. Mary dug out the money and handed it to him while Tess resumed her chair.

"There you are. Seven dollars…" After the bills she counted out some coins into his palm. "And eighty cents."

"Thanks," he said, dropping the change into a tight side pocket of his blue jeans and reaching toward a rear pocket for his billfold. He had turned his shoulder on Tess again, and a quick glance gave her a view of his trim backside as the billfold slipped out of sight. "So everything's all set for tomorrow?" he asked Mary. "Blood work turned out fine? And you've got that walker all polished up?"

"Yes, sir, I'm all set."

"Scared?" he inquired with an easy casualness.

"Not much. Been through it before, so I know what to expect."

"So you don't need anything?"

"No. Tess is taking me to the hospital in the morning at six o'clock. That is, if I can get in that little car of hers. I don't know what it's called but it cost more than this house. Did you see it in the alley, Kenny?"

The room grew painfully silent. What could Kenny do but answer, still avoiding a direct glance at the younger woman.

"Yeah, Mary, I sure did."

"She drove all the way up from Nashville just to take care of me."

When he turned to level his impersonal gaze on Tess, what could she do but acknowledge him?

"Hello, Kenny," she said colorlessly.

"Tess," he said, so coolly she wished he hadn't spoken at all. The dorky hairdo was gone and so were the pimples. He wasn't a bad-looking man, taller than she'd have guessed, brown-eyed, dark-haired, with conservative lines everywhere. But so cold to Tess. After giving her the requisite hello, he turned back to Mary and dropped to a squat beside her chair, resting his fingertips lightly on her knees. "Well, now listen, you…" While he went on encouraging Mary with warmth and deep caring, Tess escaped from the table, ostensibly to get the coffeepot, actually to hide her mortification at being ignored. Tess McPhail, who'd had her picture on the cover of Time magazine, and who'd been invited to sing at the White House, and whose appearance on a stage made fans scream and chant and sometimes get held back by police. Tess McPhail got snubbed by that nerd upperclassman, Kenny Kronek.

"I'll be thinking of you in the morning," he said quietly to Mary, "and I'll be up to see you as soon as you're feeling up to it. Casey says to tell you hi and good luck and she'll be coming up, too, when she can. Now, you be good, and no dancing till the doctor tells you to, okay?"

Mary patted his hands and laughed. "My dancing days aren't over yet, Kenny, so you better keep your eye on me."

He laughed, too, and rose. "Good luck, Mary," he said quietly, then took her by both jaws, leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"Thanks, dear."

The kitchen was small. He turned to leave and found Tess in his way, the coffeepot clutched in her right hand, her eyes bulging with anger. '"Excuse me," he said, and moved around her as if she were a stranger on an elevator. When the screen door closed, she was left behind, blushing.

Tess McPhail was unaccustomed to being treated like a tree stump. Where she moved, people paid attention. Fans loved her. Radio stations vied for her interviews. People in restaurants asked for her autograph. Her agent thought she was the greatest female talent he had represented in his career. Her producer said she had an ear for a hit and the talent to perform it that had elevated his status to that of star in his own right simply for having worked with her. She had the business and home telephone numbers of all the hierarchy from MCA Records, who picked up their phones the moment they learned she was on the other end of the line.

Yet if Kenny Kronek had been a dog with a natural urge, he'd have raised his leg on her ankle.

The moment he left she slammed the coffeepot on the burner, spun to the table and began throwing some dishes into stacks. "Well!" she exploded, marching to the sink and whacking them down. "Since when did he become the man of the house?"

"Now, Tess, don't be ungrateful. There are lots of times when one of the kids can't get over here to help me, and Kenny is more than willing. I don't know what I'd do without him."

"I could see that."

"Why, Tess, what are you so upset about?"

"I'm not upset! But he comes right in here like he owns the place! And who's Casey?"

"His daughter, and will you stop throwing my dishes around?"

"I suppose she walks in here without knocking, too!"

The truth hit Mary. "Why, Tess, you're upset because he didn't pay any attention to you!"

"Oh, Mother… really. Give me a little credit."

"I give you all the credit in the world when you deserve it, but not when you criticize Kenny. And I said to quit throwing my dishes around. You're going to break them."

"If I do I'll buy you some new ones. Just look at these old pieces of junk anyway! They're all chipped and the gold color is worn right off the edges! Why don't you buy some new ones with the money I send you? Come to think of it, why don't you buy anything with the money I send you?"

"I like those old dishes. They've been around since your dad was alive, so please take some care."

"Mother, you shouldn't let a man just come walking into your house whenever he pleases!"

"Oh, Tess, just listen to yourself. He's my neighbor. What are you getting all worked up about? I knew his mother for forty years."

"He's rude."

"Not to me he's not."

"No, just to me!"

"Can you blame him? You just got done telling me how awful you used to treat him."

Tess made no reply. She turned on the tap, filled the sink with soapy water and began washing the dishes, a job she abhorred. Five years ago she'd offered to build her mother a new house with a dishwasher and air-conditioning and anything she wanted! Five years! But would Mary say yes? Of course not. Instead here was Tess, washing dishes by hand and glaring out a window at Kenny Kronek's house!

"All right! So he aggravated me, but the man is a complete boor!"

Her mother found a dish towel hanging inside a cupboard door and picked up a wet plate. "I don't want to argue with you, Tess. You never thought much of Kenny, I don't expect that to change now. But he has been good to me, and it makes me feel good to know he's right across the alley anytime I need him."

Tess took the towel and plate out of her mother's hands. "I'll do the dishes. You go do whatever you want to-lie down and rest, read, get your things ready for tomorrow."

Mary glanced wistfully toward the living room. "Well… the nurse did give me some special soap that I'm supposed to take a bath with tonight, and then again in the morning."

"Go ahead, take your bath while I clean up the kitchen. Do you need help with anything?"

"No… no, I can manage."

When Mary was gone, Tess gripped both ends of the dish towel and snapped it into a straight line, staring again out the window. Four weeks, she thought. I'll be crazy before two. A moment later the water could be heard running in the bathroom and Tess continued cleaning up the kitchen, trying to ignore the presence of the house across the alley and the fact that its owner had just snubbed her royally.

She could see his kitchen window through this one, and occasionally a head moving past it. The glass porch, which had been added to the back of the house in the sixties, was also lit up, though nobody was in it. Tess had dim memories of playing in it with Kenny when they were both toddlers and their mothers were having coffee together. More clearly she remembered balking at going there to play with him as she grew older.

She was nearly finished washing dishes when the front door opened and a familiar female voice called, "Tess, you here?"

Renee. Tess's heart gladdened at the sound of her other sister's voice, even as she quashed the instinct to run toward her with a hug. Instead, she waited for Renee to appear in the kitchen doorway. Momentarily Renee did-a dark-haired, tall and classically pretty woman with a face composed of smooth lines, like a Walt Disney drawing of a princess. The middle of the three McPhail girls, Renee was thirty-eight but looked thirty. She was dressed in a pastel blue skirt and blouse with a white sweater tied over her shoulders. Her collar-length auburn hair looked as if she'd been driving with her windows down.

"You are here!" she rejoiced, opening her arms and smiling broadly.

"Hi, you little shit."

Renee laughed, got Tess in a hug and rocked her like a bowling pin. "What do you mean, little shit?"

"You know what I mean, ordering me to come home and take care of Momma. I'm so mad at you I could choke you."