Chapter 15

Betty Lou relayed Otto’s message to Tommy that night at supper. Tommy smiled big at the thought of being able to buy the ranch without spending all his savings. Tommy promise to take everyone to visit the place before he committed to it, and the conversation shifted to the next thing on Betty Lou’s mind.

“So Regina, your birthday is less than a week away. It’s going to be difficult to find a gift for you after the haul you made at Christmas. Got any ideas?”

Regina smiled sweetly and fixed her eyes on Tommy.

“Actually, there is something I’ve had my eye on for a few months now, and it won’t cost much at all...”

It took Betty Lou a few seconds to catch Regina’s cryptic meaning. When it dawned on her, she looked at her step-daughter goggle-eyed.

“We’ll talk about that later!” Betty Lou yipped.

“Good idea, Mom,” Regina cheerfully agreed.

Even Tommy caught the gist of Regina’s meaning. He blushed furiously and turned his complete attention to the meat loaf on his plate.

Bucky was oblivious to anything other than wolfing down his food. He was in the middle of a growth-spurt, and puberty was on him like mange on a hound dog. Consequently, all he could think about was eating and pounding his pud. As a matter of fact, as soon as he finished supper, he had a hot date with his right hand and a fourteen by twenty inch poster of Conchita Delgado in a tiny yellow polka dot bikini.

The last member of the family was dozing on a rug next to the kitchen door. Every once in a while, his legs twitched as he dreamed about chasing big, fat, tabby cats up tall, skinny trees. Rex only had the good dreams when Tommy was in the same room. Funny, but Ruth and Connie shared that trait with the nondescript yellow dog.

Regina and Betty Lou retired to Regina’s room as soon as the supper dishes were washed and put away. Regina had decided a few days ago that she was not going to sneak behind her stepmother’s back in sleeping with Tommy.

“I am not going to college a virgin, Betty Lou, and I’m not losing my cherry to some grunting high school Romeo in the back seat of his father’s car. You’ve been a great Mom to me and I love you to death, but you might as well know that I am going to ask Tommy to be my first lover as soon as I’m eighteen. On the other hand, I’m not interested in being one of his girlfriends, like you, Connie and Ruth.”

Regina’s candidness left Betty Lou pretty much speechless. She finally forced out the first thought that came to mind.

“Then we need to start you on the pill right away.”

Regina nodded and smiled.

“Yeah, and Melody, too,” she replied.

Tuesday morning, Tommy excitedly told the Frickes about the message he received from Mister Mills about the ranch he wanted. Rita and Harold were both thrilled for him, and sent him over to the bank as soon as it opened.

Otto Mills confirmed everything Betty Lou told him. Tommy did not have the experience to doubt that paying his car note on time for three months qualified him as a good prospect for a mortgage. Mills even helped Tommy with the paperwork to transfer his money from the credit union to the Brantley Savings and Loan. While they were at it, they also did the forms to have his retirement check deposited into his Brantley account. Tommy was fine with the idea that it would be a week to ten days before the property was available.

Tommy kept busy that third week of January. On Monday and Wednesday, he worked late at the feed store, helping Bucky finish stocking the shelves.

Tuesday evening was spent at Ruth’s bungalow, working on his diction. Unlike Saturday night, the two women were all business.

The friendship between Ruth and Connie was growing by leaps and bounds. The more time they spent together, the more they liked each other. Also, every minute they spent together with Tommy reinforced the feeling that the three of them were made for each other. They were three people with completely opposite backgrounds and personalities, yet they complimented each other perfectly.

Thursday night was the first choir practice Tommy had been able to attend since the incident at the VFW hall. He almost didn’t make this one either, because he had a doozy of a headache. It took a six pack of Goody’s Headache Powders to ease the pain enough so he could go. Tommy had a headache of varying degrees of severity since he had been discharged from the hospital. Today’s was the first that was severe enough to concern him.

Tommy took his place in the choir loft next to Leo Dixon. He and Leo had just enough time to shake hands before Maddie Dixon started pounding out the intro to the first song to be practiced. They were two lines into Nearer My God to Thee, when Leo cocked his ear towards Tommy. He stopped singing to verify what he thought he was hearing. Tommy’s voice, normally a thin, slightly off pitch tenor, was suddenly a very pleasant baritone. Tommy raised his eyebrows at Leo’s antics. Leo grinned and leaned towards him.

“Sing louder, Tommy. You sound real good tonight,” the older man whispered.

That night, Tommy found out that the latest insult to his brain housing group had restored his normal singing voice, but had erased his ability to mimic other singers. That pretty much ended his solo career, which didn’t bother him a fig.

Friday night was another speech class with Connie and Ruth. Tommy’s headache was back with a vengeance before they’d been at it thirty minutes. Tommy stopped reading and opened a new packet of Goody’s.

Both women looked at him worriedly.

“What’s wrong, Baby?” Connie asked.

Tommy explained about the headaches. It was the first time he’d mentioned them to anyone.

Connie thought that Tommy needed to go back to the doctors as soon as possible, but Ruth just looked at him speculatively. Something in his explanation was giving her a different idea. Ruth picked up a Life Magazine off the coffee table and thumbed through it until she found a small print advertisement.

“Read this for me, Honey,” she said.

Tommy took the magazine and squinted at the small print. He leaned over so that the magazine was under the lamp on the side table and read the ad.

Ruth was standing by his shoulder as he read. She reached forward and covered his left eye. When she did that, Tommy stopped squinting. When she switched and covered his other eye, he held the magazine a little further in front of his face and continued to read. As a librarian, Ruth had been trained in resolving reading disorders, bad vision included.

“I think you need glasses, Tommy. Your eyesight is probably giving you these headaches.”

Since more reading would only make Tommy’s headache worse, he decided to take his girlfriends to Duke’s Place for a change of pace. For Tommy Bledsoe, a trip to Duke’s with a pretty woman was a sort of therapy; it always cured what ailed him.

Ruth hurried into her bedroom and put on a nice cashmere skirt and silk blouse. She wiggled into a pair of smoky grey pantyhose, slipped on a pair of flats, and brushed out her curly black hair. A smear of frosty pink lipstick and she was ready to go.

Connie was wearing a pair of snug jeans and a green cable knit sweater that draped alluringly over her prominent breasts. Her hair was in a ponytail secured with a green ribbon that matched her sweater. Her make up was minimal, save for crimson lipstick and a dab of eye-liner.

Tommy thought they both looked fantastic.

There was a nice sized, Texas honky-tonk, Friday night crowd at Duke’s. Tommy received a rousing welcome from Duke and his patrons as they all greeted him and inquired about his health. Tommy greeted everyone in return and politely introduced Connie and Ruth, even though everyone probably knew them already. They strolled back to the pool room and found an empty high-top table.

It was Ruth’s first ever trip to a honky-tonk, so she wasn’t sure what she was in for.

Connie had never been in Duke’s Place, but she’d trolled for cowboy bed partners in dozens like it.

Ruth’s feelings of being out of place lasted only a couple of minutes as she was swept up in the fun everyone seemed to be having. Ruth was amazed at how much fun it was for her too. She was also gratified that everyone accepted her because she was there with Tommy. She somehow knew that showing up at Duke’s with Tommy was the first stage of her status changing from outsider to transplanted Texan. Soon enough, she was swilling down a deliciously sweet Long Island Iced Tea with a pool cue in her other hand. Ruth smiled to herself as she realized that shooting pool and flirting with Connie and Tommy in the nondescript Texas honky-tonk was more fun than an evening at the Copacabana in New York.

The three friends were at the pool table shooting a game of rotation, when Connie remarked, “Too bad you have a headache and we don’t have the word lists with us, because this is a perfect place to practice speaking. All this noise would help you develop your concentration.”

Ruth nodded in agreement, but Tommy just shrugged.

“We can still do that if you want, I remember the words on the lists,” Tommy replied matter-of-factly.

Both women gave him that look women reserve for husbands and boyfriends who say something stupid. Tommy was familiar with ‘the look’, and chuckled as he lined up his shot.

“There were four lists, Tommy, and over one hundred words. It would take hours to memorize them,” Ruth patiently explained.

Tommy sunk the seven ball and walked around the table to where the cue ball rested against the rail.

“ ... aardvark, Arapaho, Amarillo...” he recited in a sing-song voice.

“ ... badger, bison, Biloxi...” he continued.

Connie and Ruth looked at him in wonder as he kept talking and shooting. Tommy had a rhythm going between his pool shots and his recitation.

“ ... llama, languid, lexicon...” he flawlessly regurgitated.

Tommy was on a roll, both at the pool table and speaking the words from the list. He sank the last ball and finished the list at the same time, not missing a beat in either task.

“ ... zoology, zydeco, Zeus...” he finished with a flourish as the last ball dropped into the side pocket.

Ruth was the first of the gape-mouthed women to regain her tongue.

“That’s incredible, Tommy!” she exclaimed. “How in the world did you remember all those words?”

Tommy had a theory about that and was happy to share it with his friend.

“Momma Rita says that sometimes, when something is taken from us, the Lord makes up for it by giving us something else. I think that when all my memories were erased from my brains, it made lots of room for me to remember other stuff, so the empty places would have something in them. Only I don’t have as many brains as I use to have, so I don’t know how long remembering will be so easy.”

Ruth started to say something, then shrugged and nodded. For a second, it had been on the tip of her tongue to point out the illogic of Tommy’s assertion. She didn’t, though, because, with as little as was known about the inner workings of the human brain, Tommy’s theory was probably as good as anyone else’s.

Connie had a different take on the subject as she clapped her hands delightedly.

“That was marvelous, Tommy. Ruthie, did you notice that he didn’t stutter or stammer even once? I think when we get home, that he needs a big reward for that,” Connie raved.

Ruth, halfway through her second long Island Iced Tea, giggled and waggled her eyebrows.

“Or maybe one big reward,” Ruth said, staring pointedly at Connie’s generous bosom, “and one littler one,” she continued, looking down at her more modest décolletage.

Tommy gave her a grin, leaned towards the women, and whispered conspiratorially, “Good idea. And while we’re at it, maybe a little reward for Connie, too.”

Connie smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

Ruth shivered and took another gulp of her sweet, potent drink.

“I think that could be arranged,” she said huskily.

The trio headed to Ruth’s house as soon as they finished their drinks. This evening, Ruth and Connie were much more sober than they had been on the previous Saturday’s date with Tommy, and they planned on staying that way.

Ruth and Connie made hot chocolate when they arrived back at Ruth’s bungalow. While the women were busy in the kitchen, Tommy fiddled with Ruth’s stereo until he found a station playing romantic favorites from the fifties and sixties. Tommy figured the women might want to dance with him and each other, just like Regina and Melody.

The women walked into the living room, Ruth carrying a steaming mug of cocoa, Connie carrying two. They placed the mugs on the coffee table and sat down, one on each side of him. Tommy picked up his cocoa, blew across the top and took a sip. He was pleasantly surprised that it tasted of rum. He looked over the rim of his cup, looking back and forth at the women.