“Oh, man.” Feeling for her, he shook his head, picked up his coffee and took a cautious sip. “That’s more ’n a thousand miles. You’re not gonna make that by Christmas.”
She looked at him and he could see the fury in her eyes, wanting to argue with him, not ready to accept it yet. Funny, how clear the workings of her mind were becoming to him, like words and pictures printed on the pages of a book, because somehow, as if he’d known her all his life, he knew what a careful planner she was and how she hated it when things’ didn’t work out her way.
“I thought… if I can just get through Texas-”
Jimmy Joe put his coffee mug down and reached for her hands. He took them and held them gently, making his voice gentle, too, saving all his steel for his eyes the way he did when he needed to get something straight with J.J. once and for all, and no room for dispute. “Don’t you even try it. You take it easy, now, y’hear? Your mama and daddy, they’ll understand. You know they’d rather have you late a thousand times than have any harm come to you or that baby.”
Oh, Lord, he could feel her fighting it. Feel it in the tension in those small-boned hands, see it in the anger burning dark in her eyes. How she did hate to give in! But then he saw the fire in her eyes cool behind a glaze of tears he knew she would die rather than shed, and she took a breath with a quiver in it and let it out along with the words, “I know.”
He waited a moment more before he released her hands. As soon as he let them go she straightened and used them to smooth invisible strands of hair away from her face, which he knew was just a way for her to get her poise back. It seemed to work, because her voice was steady when she went on, “I really wanted to spend this Christmas with my dad. He just had a heart attack-”
“Oh, Lord,” said Jimmy Joe. “I am sorry.” He was thinking of his own daddy, dead long before his time, and the second heart attack that had been his last. It was not an uncommon way for a man raised on Southern cooking to go.
“He’s going to be okay,” said Mirabella firmly. “But he can’t travel, obviously. My mom was going to come and stay with me until after the baby…but she can’t leave my dad, so that’s why I thought I’d go there instead. But I couldn’t get a flight on such short notice, so then I figured I’d just drive. Plenty of time, right? Or so I thought. And now…here we are.” She held out her hands, gamely smiling. “Looks like it’ll just be me and Junior this Christmas.”
Jimmy Joe laughed, although his heart was hurting for her. “Hey, you know, this kinda reminds me of a movie I saw once-funny as the dickens-about this guy tryin’ to get home for…Thanksgiving, I b’lieve it was.” He kept on talking-glib as a traveling preacher, telling her about all the crazy things that happened to the poor guy in the movie, wanting only to make her feel better somehow-until the waitress came to take their order.
While they waited for the food to arrive they tried talking about movies some more, but it was hard to find enough common ground to base a good discussion on. Jimmy Joe liked action movies and slapstick comedies, the kind Mirabella called “brainless.” She went for the type of films critics cooed over and nobody else had even heard of, until somebody in one of them got nominated for an Academy Award. That, and movies based on Shakespeare’s plays and Jane Austen’s novels, which always put Jimmy Joe straight to sleep. Then they found out they’d both seen every Walt Disney film ever made, and got into an argument about which was the greatest cartoon feature of all time that lasted all the way through breakfast.
The waitress came and refilled their coffee cups, slapped down the check and hurried away with a distracted, “You folks have a safe trip, now.” Silence fell. Jimmy Joe reached for the check, but Mirabella got there first.
“Let me buy you breakfast,” she said, although she didn’t sound nearly as bossy as he’d grown accustomed to. “It’s the least I can do, after all you’ve done for me.” She watched him with quiet, unreadable eyes.
Every Southern-bred instinct in him wanted to refuse, but he could see it was important to her, so even though it caused him embarrassment to do it he gave in and let her take the check. He sipped his coffee in uncomfortable silence while he watched her fish in her pocketbook for her wallet, then haul out a bottle of Tylenol and shake a couple into her hand. She swallowed them down without looking at him, but she didn’t have to, or say a word, either, for him to know she was hurting again. He was starting to recognize the signs.
She opened up her wallet and took out a couple of dollar bills and tucked them neatly under her coffee cup, then gave him a bright look and said, “Ready?”
Jimmy Joe said, “Let’s roll,” and scooted out of the booth ahead of her so he would be ready to give her a hand-if she would let him. He had a funny feeling in his chest as if he’d gotten a wad of food stuck way down deep in his esophagus, right under his breastbone. It was the kind of lump he got when J.J. was sick and he had to leave him anyway; the same lump that had been there when he’d left the hospital after visiting his daddy for the last time. He told himself the lady really wasn’t any of his business, that she was just a passing stranger he’d happened to lend a helping hand to, and now it was time to go his way and let her go hers.
He was a little surprised when she took the hand he offered her and let him help her out of the booth. She let go of it in a hurry, though, and tugged the silky sweater down over her belly and fooled with her hair and her pocketbook in nervous little gestures as she said in a voice as bright and false as her smile, “Well, I guess this is goodbye.”
He shook his head. “I want to see you to your car.”
“I, uh, have to make a stop first.”
“That’s okay, I’ll wait.”
He tried to avoid it, but she pressed some money into his hand and went off to the rest room one more time, leaving him no choice but to wait in line at the cash register. In a way, though, he was glad to have something to do so he wouldn’t have to watch her walk away from him, moving as if every bone in her body hurt.
When she came out he was waiting for her near the main entrance. He gave her her change, then held her pocketbook for her while he helped her on with her coat. He thought how natural it was beginning to feel to help her like that, and how she seemed to be getting used to having him do it.
They made the slow walk to her car without saying anything. It was still cold, with a slate-gray overcast that looked like snow. But the wind smelled of fuel and the air vibrated not with thunder but with the indescribable roar of several hundred big diesel engines growling through their gears as they headed out onto the highway like giant beasts joining a vast migration. Hearing that sound, seeing the rigs moving slowly past him, Jimmy Joe could feel his heart begin to beat faster.
She unlocked her car with a little gadget on her key chain that chirped like a cricket when she pressed on it. He reached past her and opened the door for her and then stood so he was shielding her as well as he could from the wind while she eased in under the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition and fired it up. All this, while he was being careful not to touch her and she was being just as careful not to look at him, and both of them were wondering who was going to be the first to say it.
“Well,” she said, her voice sounding dry and breathless, “at least it started, huh?” She looked up at him then, with dark, fierce eyes, almost as if she was angry with him about something. Funny how he knew that wasn’t it at all.
“You got enough gas?” he asked, dragging it out even though he was restless and anxious to be on his way.
She glanced at her gauge. “Half a tank. I thought I’d fill up in Amarillo.”
He nodded and straightened, looking out across the roof of her car. “Well, then. Guess you’re all set to go.” He took a deep breath and ducked back down like somebody bobbing for apples in a barrel of water. “You take care now, y’hear? Drive safely.” His voice sounded garbled to him, as if maybe it
“I will.” She sounded impatient, a little annoyed with him for doubting her. Then she gripped the wheel with both hands, and as if it was the hardest thing she’d ever done, looked up at him and croaked, “Ah…thanks. For everything. For…you know, letting me use your sleeper, and…everything. It was really nice of you.”
“No problem.” He cleared his throat. “My pleasure…” And he could tell by the ghost of a smile that quivered the corner of her mouth that she knew how close he’d come to saying “ma’am.”
She squinted up at him, still thinking about smiling but not quite doing it. “I hope you make it home to your little boy in time for Christmas.”
“Yeah,” said Jimmy Joe. “Me, too. And I hope your daddy gets to feelin’ better real soon.”
She laughed on a shaky breath. “Yeah, me, too.” Then, reaching out for the door handle, she said, “Well…okay. Thanks. Again. See ya. Oh-and Merry Christmas.”
