Slow Dollar

“Mmmm?”

As if paralleling my thoughts, he asked, “Did you mean it when you said you were tired of channel surfing?”

“Oh, God, yes,” I sighed. “I’m always clicking on the wrong guys. And now Minnie’s after me about my image. She thinks Paul Archdale may be planning to run against me next time and that I’m vulnerable to a whispering campaign.”

I’m a yellow-dog Democrat and Paul’s a Jesse Helms Republican, but that’s not the reason we dislike each other. We had a run-in over a dog once that could have gotten him disbarred and me reprimanded had we gone public with the situation. If he could get away with it, he’d smear me with the biggest creosote mop he could find.

“She keeps saying I need to just pick somebody respectable and settle down.”

“How about me?” said Dwight.

“Oh, I don’t think Minnie worries about your reputation. Men still get cut more slack these days. Even sheriff’s deputies.”

“No, I mean how about you and me get married?”

I looked at him in astonishment, expecting to see a big smile, hear a joking comment. Instead, the set of his jaw was serious in the glow of the dash lights and he kept his eyes fixed on the road.

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Dwight—”

He still wouldn’t look at me. “It’s really not that crazy. Think about it a minute before you say no, all right? We’ve known each other since you were born. Our families like each other. We like the same old movies. We know each other’s moods and bad habits. You like Cal. Cal likes you.”

I was speechless.

“I just want to be married, Deb’rah,” he said plaintively. “I’m tired of bars and pickup lines and trying to be funny. I’m tired of living in a bachelor apartment. I want a real home. I want to plant trees, cut the grass, buy family-size packs of meat at the grocery store. I want somebody beside me I can laugh with and enjoy coming home to every night, somebody who won’t be jealous because I love my son and like having him here whenever Jonna will let me.”

“But what about love?” I asked. “You’re not in love with me, Dwight.”

“So? You’re not in love with me, either, but we like each other, right? I mean, you don’t think I’m repulsive, do you? Or all that hard to be around?”

“Of course not. It’s just that I’ve never thought of you that way before.”

“Nothing will change. Except that neither of us’ll have to go home after the movie’s over.” This time, he did shoot me a grin before turning his eyes back to the line of cars coming at us.

“But what about—?” Suddenly I felt shy. “What about sex?”

“I like it,” he said promptly. “Don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Don’t tell me you were madly in love with every guy you ever slept with.”

“Maybe not to begin with, but I certainly meant to be or I wouldn’t have. And anyhow, just how many do you think there’ve been?” I asked indignantly, mentally counting up even as I spoke.

They would all fit comfortably on the fingers of one hand, so it’s not like my bed’s been a revolving door. All the same, Dwight had a point. In fact, he had several. He’s decent and caring. Takes his obligations seriously and he’s not exactly hard to look at either, not with that solid build and strong face. And yes, we were comfortable with each other... most of the time.

But marriage? Sex?

He kept glancing over at me as he drove, but now it was my turn to stare straight ahead as I considered the ramifications. My family would be over the moon, of course, but what about Cal? Dwight often brought him out to the farm when the child was down for a long weekend or for his summer vacation and he always seemed happy enough in my company. All the same, things would surely be different if his dad and I were married.

Married.

There was something awfully final to that word. Yet, wouldn’t it be a relief to be done with all the games? Playing the field sounds glamorous at seventeen, amusing at twenty-seven, but at thirty-seven the field was getting pretty damn thin and a lot less amusing with each passing year. Did I want to be like the friends who were still hanging at Miss Molly’s every weekend, hoping to get lucky, hoping not to spend the rest of their lives alone?

“How come you and Jonna really busted up?” I asked.

“No one big reason. She just didn’t want to be married anymore. What about you and Chapin?”

“He did want to be married. Only not to me.”

Again the silence stretched between us as we passed through Cotton Grove, along Possum Creek, and onto the road past the farm. The moon flicked in and out of the thick trees.

“Okay,” I said at last.

“Really?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes.”