Page 27 of Tangled Memories
Janelle smiled. “It sure is. And even if plants and animals are different, they all have sex.”
“Rocks don’t,” put in Liane.
Janelle rolled her eyes. “That’s because rocks are minerals, silly.”
Stormy made a strangled sound. “Miss Evans talks about sex?”
“Not exactly. We get to start sex education in the fifth grade, but see…” Janelle pointed to a shredded flower part. “That’s the pistil. It’s the female part of the flower. And that part over there, that’s the stamen—the man part. It has the pollen, and when a bee comes along, it takes the pollen from the stamen to the pistil, so pretty soon, you get a baby plant. Of course, in humans, the girl has an egg, and the boy has sperm. That’s what makes a human baby. A sperm is extra, extra tiny, but it looks like a tadpole.” The seven-year-old mistook Stormy’s appalled expression for confusion. “It’s okay if you don’t understand. I know all this ’cause I’m scientific. Miss Evans thinks I’m gifted. I might even get to skip third grade.”
In order to keep from clamping her hands over Liane’s ears, Stormy had to remind herself that this was the pair that had made a pact not to have periods.
It was Liane who was confused. “How does a bee get the pollen from the sperm to the egg? Everybody I know runs from bees.”
“I don’t know yet,” Janelle admitted. “We’ll probably learn that part next year.”
“I bet Mom can tell us,” Liane volunteered.
Stormy wiped paste from her fingers. “Listen, girls, why don’t you finish your project while I start the cookie dough? And afterward, you two can help me finish up in the attic.”
The seven-year-olds exchanged looks.
“Is that a stall?” Liane asked her friend.
Janelle nodded. “I told you—mothers are all alike.”
“And after that,” Stormy continued, ignoring the fact that she was being discussed sotto voce by the imps, “I’ll treat us to banana splits at the Dairy Queen.”
“Then can we stay up late and watch scary movies?” Liane asked.
Stormy smiled. “Sure, as long as they’re about giant plants that eat up impertinent little girls.”
Liane turned to her friend. “That means no.”
Tyler feltlousy even though he’d just had a delightful if lonely meal at an oceanfront restaurant and a perfect stroll back to his motel in the March evening.
Usually, when he had what he calledThe Miseries, he could retire to the comfort of his cabin tucked away on the Ocklawaha River on the edge of the Ocala National Forest. It was a world away from what passed for civilization these days. And somehow, after a few days of fishing or canoeing in the river, a good adventure novel read in front of the fireplace, or puttering about repairing cedar shingles on the roof or weeding the purple hydrangeas his great-grandmother had planted, he’d feel restored.
Misery, he decided, was best suffered in the warmth of the predictable and familiar. It was where he’d gone every summer as a youngster and as a teenager to lick his wounds.
His great grandfather had been a Cracker Cowboy herding cattle by dog and whip in the palmetto, swamp, and pine scrub.
The old man had died when Tyler was about four, but Nana Mangus kept the old place going for a few more years until she, too, passed. Every summer, she enthralled Tyler with stories of the early Florida cowboys and Florida history when Florida was separated into only two counties.
She reminisced about how she and Grampa Mangus formed the pilings for the house out of oyster shell and lime, bragged about every shingle that was hand carved out of cedar. They never went hungry. She tended to the fish traps in the river, her garden, and was a fair shot to put squirrels or possums in the cooking pot. She once shot a wild boar ravaging her kitchen garden. Just telling Tyler about it made her mad.
He smiled at the memory. Great Grampa’s whip still hung on a nail by the back door. The old homestead had been used as a hunting and fishing camp by Tyler’s dad until Tyler co-opted it for his refuge after his marriage fell apart.
He stood on the curb at the beach road, waiting for a break in traffic to cross, and gave himself up to what he’d been avoiding all evening—daydreaming about Stormy. In his fantasy, he brushed a lock of hair from her cheek, the gesture a prelude to the slow and delicious discovery of her mouth, her neck, her legs, her…
When the oncoming headlights swept beyond him, he saw Stormy whiz around the curb in her old Ford.
For a moment, he froze on the roadside, stunned. Then he sprinted through the traffic and ran the half block to his car.Damn! He’d lost her in the night.
See? he told himself.Let yourself get soft on the woman, and what does she do? Pulls a fast one on you.
He fumbled with his keys, cursed, finally got them into the ignition, and jockeyed his way into the slow-moving line of traffic. The angels were not on his side. He’d never catch up to her now.
The traffic came to a full stop. Tyler groaned. The drawbridge had gone up.