One More Knight

The butterflies in her stomach didn’t start in earnest, though, until she drove onto the courthouse square. It was still as pretty and quaint as she remembered, like something Norman Rockwell might paint, shaded by big old oak trees, with the white bandstand in the middle looking like something that belonged on the top of a wedding cake. And yes, there was still the blatantly phallic Confederate Memorial, rising out of the flower beds at the far end. And judging from the petunias and day lilies and the baskets of impatiens and ferns cascading from every light pole and street sign, the town’s two rival garden clubs were still trying hard to out-green-thumb one another.

Charly considered that pretty amazing. She’d have thought surely most of the old biddies would have died off by now.

Twice she drove past the redbrick courthouse with its imposing white columns, her heart pounding. Would he be there now? she wondered. It was after hours, but he’d often worked late in his office behind the second-floor courtroom, the one with the window that looked out toward the mountains, not down on the square. In the winter when the leaves were off the trees and the darkness came early, she’d been able to look out her own bedroom window and see the light shining in his.

Naw, she told herself, taking a deep, restorative breath. He wouldn’t be there. For all she knew, he might even have retired by now.

On her second pass around the square, Charly aimed the Taurus into one of the head-in parking places that faced the park and turned off the engine. Her palms were sweaty and her mouth was dry, and she had an idea that when she tried standing on them, her legs were going to be wobbly.

She was having major second thoughts about this whole thing. She’d been truly crazy to come. It was a bad idea. Foolish, at least.

But she’d done it, she was here and how was she going to face herself in the mirror if she didn’t go through with it now? It simply wasn’t in her to turn around and drive away without doing what she’d come here to do. Not after all this. She’d come too far, and not just in miles. She had to finish it. She owed herself that much… the closure, at least.

But before she faced him, she had to settle her emotions down. She was going to have to be calm, cool and adult about this. She couldn’t let him sense her vulnerability. She knew him. If she did, he’d go straight for the jugular.

Charly got out of the car and locked it after her-a habit born of living her entire adult life in L.A.-and then stood for a moment gazing in bemusement at the restaurant on the corner across the street. The sign above it still said Coffee Shop, in the same two-foot-high red plastic letters she remembered from twenty years ago. But in her day the smaller, hand-painted sign hanging in the big front window had said Dottie’s Diner. Now, in the identical style, it said Kelly’s Kitchen instead.

No way, Charly thought. Could it be? Emotions were tumbling around inside her like old gym shoes in a clothes dryer.

Finally, smiling for the first time since she’d passed that city-limits sign, she crossed the street to the restaurant, pushed the door open and went in.

For a moment or two the sense of deja vu was so overpowering she felt light-headed. There was the same black-and-white linoleum set in squares, like a checkerboard, and the same Formica-and-chrome tables and counter, the same red plastic seats. Four teenagers-two couples-were crowded into a booth toward the back, boisterously socializing, ignoring an Elton John song playing on the jukebox. In the alcove off to the right near the rest rooms, another teenager was punching and pinging away at a video game. In Charly’s day it had been a pinball machine, but everything else was just as she remembered it, including the fact that in spite of the ceiling fans whirling drunkenly overhead, the air was too warm, and heavy with the smell of frying grease.

Behind the counter a pretty woman with poufy blond hair was busy stocking the glass pie cabinet. When she heard Charly come in she turned half around, her face already lit up with an automatic smile of welcome, and sang out, “Hey, there! You just go on and have a seat, hon, and I’ll be with you in a sec, okay?”

What happened then made Charly feel as if aliens had taken over her body. All of a sudden she felt herself scrunch down and lean over to one side, as if she were trying to see out from behind an invisible obstacle. Those aliens must have taken over her voice, too, because when she spoke it seemed to have gotten a lot louder and higher pitched than her normal adult speaking voice, with a stronger Alabama accent than she’d heard coming out of her own mouth in almost twenty years. “Kelly? Kelly Grace, is that you?”

At that, the blond woman sort of scrunched down herself, and stared at Charly for a second or two. Suddenly her mouth fell open, and she pressed both hands to her chest and gasped, “Oh, my Lawd, I don’t believe it!”

She advanced on Charly with open arms, at the same time cutting loose with a blood-curdling squeal that would have prompted anyone within earshot to immediately dial 911 anywhere in the world, that is, except in the South, where they’re used to that sort of carrying on. It was, in fact, completely ignored by the teenage couples in the back booth and the boy playing video games three feet away.

“Charlene Elizabeth Phelps, is that really you? Oh, my stars, I swear I’m gon’ die. You just come here an’ let me look at you-why, you haven’t changed a bit, not one little bit. Where in the world have you been all these years? Oh, God-my poor heart’s just goin’ like a freight train. Why didn’t you evah write? Oh-oh my, I b’lieve I’m just gon’ have to sit down ’fore I fall down. Charlene Phelps, I swear I could just kill you…”

Although this was all delivered with the accompaniment of laughter, tears and hugs and at a decibel level rivaling that of a factory whistle, and was certainly all the welcome any prodigal son-or daughter-could have asked for and more, Charly didn’t let it go to her head. Since Kelly Grace had been her best friend all those years ago and was prone to emotional outbursts even then, it was pretty much what she’d expected.

“It’s Charly now,” she said when she could get a word in edgewise. “I’m sorry I didn’t write…” Well. okay, she couldn’t help but be a little choked up.

Kelly Grace waved that away as if it were just an old fly making a nuisance of itself. “Oh, hey, don’t you say a thing, not a thing. I know how it is, I really do-I’m terrible about that myself. But you coulda let me know you were comin’!”

“Well,” Charly mumbled, “it was kind of on the spur of the moment.”

Kelly Grace wiped her own hands on her apron and grabbed for Charly’s. “Well, you just tell me all about everything, this minute. Charly, you say? Oh, that’s cute, I really do like that-but you know I am never goin’ be able to call you anything but Charlene. Come on over here and sit. Are you hungry? Can I get you something to drink? How ’bout some sweet tea? Oh, Lord-you used to like cherry Cokes, remember? Do you still drink those things?”

“Maybe if you put a little bourbon in it,” Charly said, not entirely facetiously.

Kelly Grace laughed and fanned herself with her hand. “Oh, my, you haven’t changed a bit.” She cocked her head sideways and studied Charly with the frankly critical appraisal permitted lifelong friends. “But look at you, there’s not a gray hair on your head!”

“And never will be,” declared Charly, “while there’s breath left in my body.”

Kelly Grace laughed some more. “Well, now, I hear that. Let’s hear it for Clairol. No, but I swear, you look just the same as you did back in high school.”

“So do you,” Charly lied as she slid into a booth.

“Go on, I do not. I’ve put on at least twenty pounds since the divorce-”

“Oh, Kelly, I’m sorry.”

“Well, yeah, me too. It’s been a while, now, though. I’m okay with it-things work out for the best, you know?”

“Did you and…?” Charly made a rotating motion with her hand.

“Bobby Hanratty,” Kelly Grace filled in for her, leaning against the opposite bench with her arms folded across her plump waist. Her smile, the dimples, were the ones Charly remembered. It was her eyes that were older- reminiscent and a little sad. She shrugged. “Yeah…you know how it was. We got married right after we graduated. Probably shouldn’t have-we were real young and stupid. Had our babies right away, too…” Her eyes suddenly darkened, and she caught herself and blurted, “Oh, God, Charlene, I’m just so sorry. I didn’t mean-”

Charly grimaced. “Jeez, Kelly Grace, it’s okay. It was years and years ago.” She put a bright smile on her face. “So, you have kids? What kind, how many, tell me all about it.”

It was the right thing to say. Kelly Grace was all sparkles and dimples again. “Oh, yeah, got two, one of each.