Tessie D

I thought it was only going to be Thanksgiving dinner.

I just didn’t want to go home. That was all.

Let me go back and start from the beginning.

I called Momma on Monday, and she said she was going to be working all night on Wednesday, which means that she’d be sleeping all day Thursday. I’d be stuck cooking everything by myself since Annie was going to her new boyfriend’s parents’ house. Buying all the groceries and cooking all the food for just three of us didn’t sound like something I really wanted to do anyways.

So I decided to stay in Brownwood.

Mrs. Owens found out that I wasn’t going anywhere and invited me to her house to eat with her and the family. Several of the dairy hands were going to bring their wives and kids, too. The house would be full, and I felt happy just to be included.

Angel was supposed to be with his family in Fort Worth. But apparently, he changed his mind at the last minute and came to Thanksgiving at the Owens’.

I got there about just before lunch, coming in through the kitchen.

The Owens’ house is this old two-story farmhouse with a large living room with an overstuffed couch in large floral prints, sheer lace curtains, and an old piano in the corner with the music book open on the stand to “Thou Art the Everlasting Word.” The stairs creak and moan as if the old family photos going up the stairs were talking to you. Every square inch of the house is layered with knick-knacks. Stuffed dolls and toy bears. Children’s books. Quilts hanging from rods on the wall. Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, cherub angels, old washboards, and metal basins. Every corner and surface covered and filled, two and sometimes three layers deep. Everything is worn and aged, but nothing is dusty or dirty. In the back of the house is a large kitchen with wood-plank floors and an old butcher-block island in the center.

The men were in the living room watching football, and the women were in the kitchen getting everything ready to eat. Turkey and cornbread dressing with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, green bean casserole with crispy onions on top, candied sweet potatoes, golden rolls the size of fists. Pecan and pumpkin pies on the hutch in the corner.

I wasn’t paying attention and hadn’t noticed Angel in the house until he walked into the kitchen to hug Mrs. Owens. His body was lean and tight in his clean, starched Wranglers and an old Clint Black concert t-shirt.

Someone had suddenly turned on a light and the room looked different. My body turn toward him. As if cast by a spell. I couldn’t look away as he moved through the room. I couldn’t pretend anymore that I didn’t feel myself drawn to him.

I desperately wanted him to make eye contact with me. I wanted him to see me, walk over to me, talk to me. Jealousy crashed over me, watching him direct all of his attention to the other women in the room. But, if he did turn toward me? That might have been worse. I’d be left standing there, feeling so much desire and love toward him that he’d see it and I’d be exposed.

I had to get out of the kitchen. Even though it was November, the house was hot. And loud. I was beginning to feel lightheaded and reckless.

I stepped outside to get some air and sat on an old metal bench beneath the large pecan tree in the backyard.

I sat there looking out toward the fields, and Angel came up behind me. I turned around to look back at him, and he was standing above me, backlit from the noonday sun. My eyes watered, and I squinted. Black spots clouded my vision, and I couldn’t see his face for a few moments before he moved, and the brim of his hat cast a shadow across my face. He slowly came back into focus, smiling.

He sat down next to me. Neither of us said anything. I wanted to tell him the truth of what I felt, what I couldn’t pretend to ignore anymore. But my tongue thickened in my mouth. The words never coming. I couldn’t say what I was feeling and thinking about him. I was just beginning to feel something–anything–again after years of nothing. If he didn’t feel the same way. If he laughed. Told me I was desperate. Pathetic. Beneath him. It was all I could think about.

But, God, he was beautiful. Dark brown eyes with long lashes. I wanted to run my thumb along their feathery whisps. Red freckles across the bridge of his nose. Dark skin and hair.

I exhaled and focused my attention back on the pasture, watching the green and golden waves billowing across the horizon. I remembered that there would be one final cutting of hay for the fall next week, before winter arrived and the field lay dormant.

“Tess,” he said softly. He pulled me back into the moment, and I turned my head. A gust of wind picked up, and I absentmindedly pushed back a strand of curls that had blown across my face.

Time seemed to slow down and then stop all together. Our eyes had met and we were just sitting there looking at each other.

Then, Angel leaned in. He reached his hand up and let his fingers graze and lift the underside of my jaw. Looking up at him, I could see how full and pink his lips were. His smooth cheeks. His dark and heavily hooded eyes.

I leaned forward. I’d escaped his spell just moments before and here I was, drawn in again. Surrender. I closed my eyes and surrendered to him.

I waited. But, nothing happened.

I could feel my cheeks starting to burn, and when I opened my eyes, the bright sun left black spots in my vision. Angel came into focus, and he was just sitting there, staring at me. I’d given myself away. I pulled back, and his hand fell away from my face.

“Well, I have betrayed my feelings, at last,” he said and got up and went back into the house.