Joanna was stunned. “You and Jeff?” she asked.
“Yes, Jeff and I,” Marianne returned.
“But you never mentioned it. You never told me.”
“Because we worked it out, Joanna,” Marianne said. “We worked it out between us. Believe me, it would have been a whole lot harder if the whole world had known about it.”
“What are you saying?” Joanna asked.
“I’m saying you have a choice,” Marianne said. “It’s one of those two paths diverging in the woods that Robert Frost talks about. You can go home and tell Jim Bob and Eva Lou and Jenny that something terrible has happened between you and Butch and that you’re headed for divorce court. Do that, and you risk losing everything. Or, you can pull yourself together, drive your butt back to the hotel, go to that damned wedding with a smile on your face and your head held high, and see if you can fix things before they get any worse.”
“Swallow my pride and go back to the hotel?” Joanna repeated. “That’s right.”
“Go to the wedding?”
“Absolutely, and give Butch a chance to tell you what went on. What’s going on. If he wants to bail out on the marriage and if you want to as well, then you’re right. There’s nothing left to fix and you’d better come home and be with Jenny when her heart gets broken again. But if there is something to be salvaged, you’re a whole lot better off doing it sooner than later.”
“I thought you were my friend, Mari. How can you turn on me like this?”
“I am your friend,” Marianne replied. “A good enough friend that I’m prepared to risk telling you what you may not want to hear. A friend who cares enough to send the very worst. Some things are worth fighting for, Joanna. Your marriage is one of them.”
Soon after, a spent Joanna ended the call. Butch had evidently given up trying to call, since the phone didn’t ring again. Sitting in the mall, with the overheated but silent telephone still cradled in her hand, Joanna sat staring blindly at the carefree Sunday after-noon throng moving past her.
And then, sitting with her back to the noisy fountain, Joanna could almost hear her father’s voice. “Never run away from a fight, Little Hank,” D. H. Lathrop had told her.
Joanna was back in seventh grade. It was the morning after she had been suspended from school for two days for fighting with the boys who had been picking on her new friend, Marianne Maculyea.
“No matter what your mother says,” her father had counseled in his slow, East Texas drawl, “no matter what anyone says, you’re better off making a stand than you are running away “
“So other people won’t think you’re a coward?” Joanna had asked.
“No,” he had answered. “So you won’t think you’re a coward.”
The vivid memory left Joanna shaken. It was as though her father and Marianne were ganging up on her, with both of them telling her the exact same thing. They both wanted her to stop running and face whatever it was she was up against.
Standing up, Joanna stuffed the phone in her pocket and then headed for the mall entrance. Getting into the Crown Victoria was like climbing into an oven. The steering wheel scorched her fingertips, but she barely noticed. With both her father’s and Marianne’s words still ringing in her heart and head, she started the engine and went looking for the side road that would take her away from the mall.
As she drove, she felt like a modern-day Humpty Dumpty. She had no idea if what had been broken could be put back together, but D. H. Lathrop and Marianne were right. Joanna couldn’t give up without a fight. Wouldn’t give up without a fight. Maybe she didn’t owe that much to Butch Dixon or even to Jenny, but Joanna Brady sure as hell owed it to herself.
It was almost two by the time Joanna returned to the hotel. She pulled up to the door, where a florist van was disgorging a mountain of flowers. Dodging through the lobby, Joanna held her breath for fear of meeting up with some of the other wedding guests. In her current woebegone state, she didn’t want to see anyone she knew.
When she opened the door to their room, the blackout cur twins were pulled. Butch, fully clothed, was lying on top of the covers, sound asleep. She tried to close the door silently, but the click of the lock awakened him. “Joey?” he asked, sitting up. “Is that you?”
She switched on a light. “Yes,” she said.
“You’re back. Where did you go?”
“Someplace where I could think,” she told him.
Rather than going near the bed, Joanna walked over to the table on the far side of the room. Pulling out a chair, she sat down and folded her hands into her lap.
“What did you decide?” Butch asked.
“I talked to Marianne. She said I should cone back and hear what you have to say.”
“Nothing happened, Joey,” Butch said. “Between Lila and me, mean. Not now, anyway. Not last night.”
“But you used to be an item?”
“Yes, but that was a long time ago, before I met you. Still,” Butch added, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Joanna asked the question even though she feared what the answer might be. “If nothing happened, what do you have to be sorry for?”
“I shouldn’t have been with Lila in the first place,” Butch admitted at once. “After the rehearsal dinner, she offered me a ride back to the hotel. I should have come back with someone else, but I didn’t. I was pissed at you, and I’d had a few drinks. So I came back with Lila instead. At the time, it didn’t seem like that bad an idea.”
“I see,” Joanna returned stiffly.
“No,” Butch said. “I don’t think you see at all.”
“What I’m hearing is that your defense consists of your claiming that nothing happened, but even if it did happen, you’re not responsible because you were drunk at the time.”
“My defense is that nothing did happen,” he replied. “But it could have. It might have, and I shouldn’t have run that risk. She’s dying, you see.”
“Who’s dying?”
“Lila.”
“Of what?” Joanna scoffed derisively, remembering the willowy blonde who had accompanied Butch through the lobby. “She didn’t look sick to me.”
“But she is,” Butch replied. “She has ALS. Do you know what that is?”
Joanna thought for a minute. “Lou Gehrig’s disease?”
Butch nodded. “She just got the final diagnosis last week. She hasn’t told anyone yet, including Tammy and Roy. She didn’t want to spoil their wedding.”
“But, assuming it’s true, she went ahead and told you,” Joanna said. “How come?”
“I told you. Lila and I used to be an item, Joey. We broke up long before you and I ever met. She married somebody else and moved to San Diego, but the guy she married walked out on her two months ago,” Butch continued.
She got dumped and now she wants you back, Joanna thought. She felt as though she were listening to one of those interminable shaggy-dog stories with no hope of cutting straight to the punch line. “So this is a rebound thing for her?” Joanna asked. “Or is that what I was for you?” Her voice sounded brittle. There was a metallic taste in her mouth.
“Joey, please listen,” Butch pleaded. “What do you know about ALS?”
Joanna shrugged. “Not much. It’s incurable, I guess.”
“Right. Lila went to see her doctor because her back was bothering her. She thought maybe she’d pulled a muscle or something. The doctor gave her the bad news on Thursday. Even though she’s not that sick yet, she will be. It’ll get worse and worse. The doctor told her that most ALS patients die within two to five years of diagnosis. She’s putting her San Diego house on the market. She’s going to Texas to be close to her parents.