Читать книгу A Coventry Wedding - Becky Cochrane - Страница 11

“If all of Texas looks like this, I’ll need that gun of yours to shoot myself,” Jandy broke the silence the next morning. She’d never seen more boring scenery in her life. She hadn’t been tempted even once to take her new camera out of her purse.

“You never said where you’re from,” Sam answered. He didn’t seem too upset by her criticism of his home state.

“That’s right. I didn’t,” she said.

His tendency to fight a grin whenever she was annoying was starting to grow on her. She turned around and looked at Sue, who was staring out the window with her tongue practically hanging to her knees. If dogs had knees.

“Do dogs have knees?”

“On their hind legs,” he said. “But it’s called a stifle, not a knee.”

“Right,” she said.

She wondered if his need to rename things was some kind of mental illness. He’d probably call his condition rabies. Or herpes. Or chick peas. Chick Pea Syndrome didn’t sound so bad. Almost healthy, in fact.

“The scenery will get better once we’re out of West Texas.”

Sam’s voice momentarily distracted her from her delirious interior rambling. Maybe she was suffering from whatever made people see mirages when they were trapped in the desert. Or were mirages caused by dehydration? She wasn’t particularly thirsty, just numbed by the unchanging landscape.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be out of West Texas,” she said and lapsed into silence again.

Silence didn’t really bother her. It never had. She’d been alone so much as a kid that she was used to it. Even with her friends—Hud’s friends—she preferred to stay quiet, which worked out well, since most of them liked nothing better than to be the center of attention. At least they never felt like she was stealing their spotlight.

She tried to remember if she’d ever been one of those little girls who chattered. At home, her parents mostly talked about business. Whenever she wasn’t in her room, or hanging out with Aunt Ruby—who was herself quite a talker—she kept her nose in a book. She learned that as long as she drew no attention to herself, her parents wouldn’t ask her too many questions or expect too much from her.

She was just as quiet at school. Even her sport had been a silent one. She’d figured out in seventh grade that swimming gave her a reason for getting out of the house before her parents’ alarm went off in the mornings. The swimming coach just as quickly figured out that Jandy didn’t have the competitive drive necessary for an athlete. Coach Sims didn’t mind if she practiced before school with the team, though. She also didn’t mind picking up Jandy on her way to the natatorium. In return, Jandy helped put away equipment and kept the locker room tidy. None of the other girls ever seemed curious about her presence. They just assumed she was one of the coach’s student assistants. Nor did her parents ever question why they never got asked to swim meets. They were probably glad she didn’t expect them to attend anything that would take them away from work.

It was depressing to think that her inability to find a profession that she loved was nothing more than rebellion against her parents’ workaholic tendencies. She’d quit college after three semesters. She’d started court reporting school and dropped out. The same went for her attempts at retail management, paralegal training—she didn’t want to think of all the programs she’d started and never finished over the past seven years. It worked out better for her to have temp positions. She could always leave when she got tired of a job or when an employer tried to hire her for something permanent.

Maybe she’d wanted to postpone the wedding because marriage had started feeling too much like a permanent, full-time job. That was a horrible thought. She loved Hud. She wanted to be his wife. It was the elaborate wedding, not the idea of marriage, that had spooked her.

She sighed. She wished she were swimming right then instead of riding through barren desert. In the water, no problem seemed insurmountable. Swimming made her feel like an efficient machine being pushed to its physical limits, and her mind cleared itself of thoughts that confused or troubled her. If only there were a way to be paid to do nothing but swim. Probably if she had to do it, though, she’d quit swimming, too.

“You’ve sighed about five times in three minutes,” Sam said. “I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

“Really? I’ve never been told I’m a good talker.” She was again rewarded with his half grin. “Do you like working on cars?”

He frowned and took his sunglasses from the visor. He didn’t turn to look at her when he said, “I need to make a confession.”

“If you’re about to tell me you’re not a mechanic, that’s not exactly news,” she said. “Before you offer to fix my truck’s Cuisinart with a pair of forceps, or whatever crazy concept you come up with, you may as well know that I’m on to you.”

“Did I go too far with the defibrillator?” he asked.

“You lost me at rotary beater. If it makes you feel any better, I also have a confession.”

She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could tell by the way the eyebrow went up that they probably contained the good humor she’d noticed the day before.

“If you’re about to tell me you don’t have a husband, that’s not exactly news,” he imitated her.

“What do you mean?”

“Your ring. You forgot to turn it around this morning.”

She grunted, frowned at her hand, and said, “Not everybody wears a—Oh, forget it. You’re right. No husband. A fiancé. I didn’t want you to be dazzled by the big diamond and dig too deeply inside my fake Fendi for money for the tow or the truck repair. Mechanics are always making up problems that cost a zillion dollars to fix. Especially when they think they’re dealing with some gullible woman who has no husband to question the repairs or the cost.”

“You won’t have that problem at Revere Auto,” Sam assured her.

“Is your last name even Revere?” she asked.

“Is your last name Taylor?” When she didn’t answer, he smiled again. “Yes. I’m really a Revere. It was my father’s business. Along with the fact that we’ve always prided ourselves on our ethics, it’s now run by my sister. She doesn’t cheat other women out of their money.”

“What do you do for Revere Auto? Troll the roads looking for business?”

“I help her out with an odd job now and then. She did an engine rehaul for a vintage car collector who lives in Phoenix, and I delivered the car to him. I was on my way home when you tried to take Sue away from me.”

“I have just as much right to that dog as you do,” she said. “I’m the one who got food for her. And toys. Don’t forget the toys.”

“It’s too late to buy her love. You need to accept that she adores me. We’ve bonded.”

“I’ve accepted that it’s you and everything you own that’ll be covered in Sue goo,” she said.

“Sue goo?”

“She slobbers. A lot. If you don’t tow cars for a living, what do you do? Are you a botanist?”

“What gave you that idea?”

“You knew the Latin name for black-eyed susans. At least I guess it was Latin. It was Greek to me.”

“Actually, I think it was named in honor of someone in Sweden. But I’m not a botanist, just a repository of completely useless information. My mother gardens. Maybe I learned that from her or one of her books.”

“Not a mechanic. Not a botanist. Not a veterinarian.” When he looked puzzled again, she said, “Stifle? The name of a dog’s knee?”

“That one’s true,” he swore. “My sister works for a vet.”

“She fixes cars and animals? That’s amazing.”

“Different sister. Robin is the mechanic. Swan’s the vet tech. The reason I wouldn’t have bought food for Sue at Target is because Swan will decide what to feed her. Swan believes in a raw diet for dogs.”

“I don’t think I want to know what that is,” Jandy said.

“See? That’s why I’m the right person for Sue. I won’t balk at hacking up turkey necks, chicken gizzards, and beef hearts or pigs’ feet—”

“Seriously, I don’t want to know,” she said, wondering if her face looked as nauseated as her stomach felt. “Don’t tell me any more things you don’t do. Just tell me what you do.”

“I guess you could say I’m between jobs.”

“Oh. You’re in the same profession as me. Unless you won the lottery or inherited a fortune. I haven’t done either of those.”

“I didn’t win the lottery,” he said.

“You inherited a fortune?”

“Not exactly.”

“Okay, one of the jobs I haven’t had? Is being a dentist. Could you stop making me pull teeth?”

“I wrote a book,” he said, making it sound like a shameful admission.

“It was a best seller, you made millions, and now you’re retired.”

“No. The book tanked. I have no idea how few copies it sold because I don’t understand my royalty statements, but trust me. It wasn’t a best seller.”

“What kind of book was it?”

“You know the Dummies books?”

“Like Auto Repair for Dummies?” she asked.

“Yeah, or Latin for Dummies?”

“Uh-huh, or Dogs for Dummies? Why? Did you write one of those?”

“No. I wrote a parody of them called Morality for Morons. Apparently I overestimated the public’s sense of humor.”

“Maybe your next book could be Humor for Half-wits.”

“That’s good,” he said.

“I’m sorry your book tanked.”

“Don’t be. Someone left a copy on a plane, where it fell into the hands of someone who knows someone in Hollywood. It ended up getting optioned. They want to make it into a Will Ferrell comedy. That may never happen. I’ve heard those Hollywood deals often don’t. But I made a boatload of money, and the publisher more than made back the advance, so everybody’s happy. Except my sister, whose misadventures with immoral people I may have exploited in the book.”

“Is this the mechanic or the vet tech?”

“Neither. It’s Dove.”

“Robin. Swan. Dove. Were you raised in an aviary?”

“I haven’t even told you about my fourth sister.”

“Let me guess. Goose. No, Wren. Sparrow!”

“Lark,” he said. “The stay-at-home mom.”

“What’s with the bird names?”

“My mother’s maiden name was Finch. I guess she decided to go with a theme.”

“How did you manage to avoid being named Eagle? Or Hawk?”

“It’s Samuel Finch Revere,” he said.

“I’m sorry. So what does Dove do?”

“No one’s sure. She seems to always have money but no apparent means of support. We don’t ask.”

“I surrender. I totally can’t tell if you’re making all this up.”

“Every word is true,” he insisted. “Now that you know I’m a failed writer and a fake mechanic, you have to tell me something equally bad about you.”

“You already know too much,” she said.

“I know nothing.”

“You call the Beatle Barbies nothing? That’s good stuff.”

“That was when you were a kid. Or did you buy a new batch of Barbies at Target last night?”

“I did not.”

When she didn’t say anything else, he prodded, “There must be something. What would someone who knows you best say about you?”

She thought it over and finally said, “Remember how you said a woman’s purse holds clues about who she is? You could be right. That novel in my purse is good, but I’m sure I’ll never finish it. When I was little, Grandpa used to call me the girl who never finishes anything. He said it because I always left food on my plate—”

“You still do,” Sam interrupted.

“Are you judging me on the basis of a piece of toast?”

“A piece of toast this morning. Most of your fries last night.”

“Maybe I just don’t eat carbs. Who’s telling the story of my flaws, you or me?”

“Point taken,” Sam said, and again she saw the quick smile. He really was cute. The gay ones always were.

“Anyway,” she said, sounding more exasperated than she felt, “it’s more than food. It’s an awful trait. I’ve started a zillion things in my life that I never finished.”

“A zillion seems to be your standard unit of measurement. I’m beginning to distrust it. Name five things you didn’t finish.”

“Piano lessons. Quit before my first recital. Brownies. Quit before I ever earned a single badge. Culinary school. Court reporting school. This conversation—it bores even me. What’s one of your worst traits?”

“That I don’t let people make me say bad things about myself. Do you think you’ve got attention deficit disorder?” He glanced over with surprise when she yelped.

“I hate that. Everyone I know is always wearing their little acronyms like they’re—they’re—Brownie badges that they earned. One night I was sitting with a group of my fiancé’s friends and they were all, ‘I’m ADD, I’m OCD, I’m ADHD, I have CFS, I’ve got SAD, well I’ve got PTSD….’ Isn’t anyone just normal anymore? It makes me crazy.”

“Maybe you’ve got PMS.”

She glared at him and said, “That’s another sad fact about me. I never come up with the punch line, just the setup.”

“You came up with Humor for Half-wits.”

“See? When you say it, it has a double meaning. You’re funnier.”

“Is this a competition? Like with the dog?”

“No. I’m not competitive. That’s another flaw. Are we finished cataloging them now?”

“No, because you—”

“Never finish anything.” She stared out the window at the barren landscape. “It isn’t like I’ve never driven through a desert before. Just not one that never ends. It’s such a wasteland.”

“It’s teeming with life,” Sam assured her.

“Like what?”

“I have no idea. That’s just what everybody says. It’s all dirt, rocks, and tumbleweeds to me.”

“Tell me about Coventry. I should know something about where I’m staying.”

“Won’t you be staying in Dallas? I assumed your husband—or rather, your fiancé—would pick you up once we got to Coventry.”

The problem with telling lies was keeping up with them.

“I figured I could stay there overnight until the truck was fixed, then I’d drive to Dallas.”

“I don’t think even my sister can get the parts to repair your truck that fast,” he said. “Also, there won’t be a vacancy anywhere near Coventry until after the Fourth of July.”

“That’s over a month from now!”

“Coventry’s tourist season is from the beginning of June until Independence Day. It’s because of the Godiva Festival.”

“Godiva has a manufacturing plant in Texas? I had no idea.”

Sam seemed puzzled and said, “A manufacturing—oh. You’re thinking of the chocolates. The Godiva Festival has nothing to do with candy, although I think both names came from Lady Godiva.”

“Who’s Lady Godiva?”

He glanced at her and said, “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I know Lady Madonna. Lady Diana. Lady Marmalade. I know the lady is a tramp. But not Lady Godiva.”

“Lady Godiva lived in England about a thousand years ago. That’s just under a zillion. She was married to a nobleman whose subjects were suffering under the steep taxes he made them pay. She took pity on them and asked her husband to lower their taxes. When he refused, saying the people didn’t deserve her help, she bet him that she could ride through the streets naked and no one would shame her by looking at her. If she was right, her husband had to do as she’d asked.”

“Did it work?”

“Legend has it that she rode through the town on horseback covered only by her long hair. When all the townspeople stayed inside so they wouldn’t see her, her husband gave in. There’s no proof that any of this happened, although Lady Godiva and her husband were real people. Another part of the story has it that one man—his name was Tom—looked at her as she rode by.”

“So he was the first peeping Tom?”

“Exactly.”

“What does an Englishwoman from the Middle Ages have to do with Coventry, Texas?”

“Lady Godiva was from the city of Coventry in England. Although our town’s founder wasn’t from there, he borrowed the name. During World War Two, we declared ourselves twin cities and sent relief supplies to Coventry, which was heavily bombed. Later, as a thank-you, someone from England sent us a replica of their Lady Godiva statue.”

“What happens during the Godiva Festival?”

“All year long, the Godiva Society raises money for worthy causes. They hand out checks and honor the fund-raisers in June. The town’s merchants and civic groups host medieval festivities throughout the month: music, dancing, jousting, feasts, craftspeople, artists. Even though most of that happens on the weekends, people stay in our inns and bed-and-breakfasts while they enjoy other things around Coventry.”

“Like what?”

“Hiking and riding horses and bikes in the national parks. There are several lakes where people swim, ski, fish, and boat. Since people can stay in other towns in the area, hosting a monthlong festival helps draw them to Coventry. We also try to appeal to the tourists who visit Dallas and Fort Worth.”

“The festival sounds a little like a Renaissance fair.”

“With a few Texas twists. For instance, the kids get to rescue a damsel in distress from a dragon that’s actually a very bored Texas longhorn. There’s the Godiva chili cook-off. I doubt fiery hot chili was a popular dish among the lords and ladies of the English nobility. We have a dog show, hot air balloon rides, all kinds of things. The last big event of the month is the crowning of the new Daughter of Godiva at the Medieval Ball. Traditionally, something always goes wrong during the festival. Half the fun is how stories of the mishaps get embellished during the winter whenever the townsfolk get together, until the next year when we start all over again.”

“Coventry must be small,” she said, trying to figure out what it would be like to live in a place where everyone knew everybody else. Long Beach, where she’d grown up, not only had over four hundred thousand people, but was part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

“Around twenty thousand residents if you include Old and New Coventry.”

She smiled; the entire town was half the size of Silver Lake, her section of L.A.

“What’s the difference between the two?”

“Old Coventry is the original town. It’s mostly residential with a few office buildings and small businesses. New Coventry has chain stores, newer housing developments, and apartment complexes. A lot of people like living close to a small town and commuting to work in Fort Worth or Dallas. Anyway, because of the festival, our lodging is pretty much booked until the second week of July. But I’m sure your fiancé will want you with him, even if your pickup stays in Coventry at Revere Auto.”

She made a noncommittal sound, trying to figure out her next move. Not being able to stay in Coventry was a problem only because she had no way to go anywhere else until Grandpa’s truck was repaired.

“Of course, I did promise to deliver you safely into his arms. Once we drop off the truck and get an idea what’s wrong with it from Robin, I’ll be happy to drive you to—”

“I have another confession,” she interrupted. “I do have a fiancé, but he’s not in Dallas. I don’t know anybody there. I was just taking a little vacation, and Dallas seemed like as good a place as anywhere. I had no idea it was a zillion miles from where you picked me up.”

“As an engaged woman, you might want to be careful about saying that I picked you up,” Sam said, keeping his eyes on the road even though his stupid grin was back.

“It’s not like anyone could get the wrong idea,” she said. “After all, you’re—”

“Not gay,” Sam said. “That’s my second confession.”