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His grades, however, had been spectacular. He’d pushed himself so hard that it had cut down on his participation in the wild social life that his other friends had enjoyed. Cal was an academic. He took everything super seriously and had gotten his doctorate in computer science by the time he was twenty-six. He had been the star quarterback for the Crimson Tide, leading them to a National Championship in his senior year. He was tough on himself.
That’s why he had never married. Not that all the gorgeous beauty queens and coeds couldn’t measure up. No. Cal was terrified of failing. His two older brothers had great marriages. His parents had been married for well over forty years. He looked at their success, and he realized he wasn’t sure he could ever be that great at it. He’d never met anyone who’d made him feel the things his brothers claimed to feel about their own wives. And he’d always been so focused on school and sports that he couldn’t even imagine having enough time left over to properly devote to another person. The last thing he wanted was to let anyone see that he wasn’t good enough. For Cal, failure at anything was not an option. Growing up, the minute he thought a relationship might not work forever, he ran. Now, at thirty-four, he still found himself more invested in work than in women.
From his spot in the sound booth, he could oversee some of the action on the stage below. And thanks to live mics, he could hear everything being said. Just now, he could hear Corey, the young production assistant, bringing Dallas her drink.
“Here you go, Ms. Dubois,” he said cheerfully.
Cal watched Dallas take the drink from him with a slight nod of her head. “Thanks, and make sure you stay close with that clipboard of yours. I can’t possibly write and talk at the same time.”
“I’ll do my best,” Corey said, though his mood had clearly been taken down a notch.
It made Cal sick to hear her unfriendly treatment of everyone. Her bossy behavior, flinging orders around as if she was throwing rice at a wedding, like this was just business as usual for her. As far as Cal knew, it was. This was the Dallas he’d always known. Cold, selfish and self-absorbed. It had been the reason why, despite how attracted he was to her, he’d never made an attempt to pursue her.
When rehearsal was over, and he was packing up the equipment for the day, he heard Dallas backstage as she gathered her things. Corey had run up the side stairs to say good-night. He knew he should turn off the mic, that he really shouldn’t listen in, but curiosity got the better of him.
“Okay, Ms. Dubois,” he heard Corey say. “That’s it for tonight. Need anything ’fore I leave?”
“No, that’s fine. Can I see your notes from today?”
“Oh, um, well...I didn’t really take notes. Nothing really changed, so I didn’t really have any...”
“God, are you an idiot, too? Why do I always work with idiots? I asked you to take notes of everything we did today.”
“Oh, I’m, uh...sorry, Ms. Dubois, but we didn’t really do anything but run over what we were already doing in the show. But, um...if you want, I can type up something and email it to you.”
“Just forget it. I’ll make up the notes myself. Next time just follow my directions.”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
Corey was a theater student at Alabama, and his professor was the flu-ridden Ms. Fairbanks, and Cal could bet he was really going to miss her not being at the Bama Theatre every day.
He’d heard about all he could take. He left the sound booth and headed down to the stage, running into Dallas as she headed back up the aisle to meet her ride outside.
“You are really something else. I can’t believe you,” he said, stopping right in front of her, his hands folded in front of him.
“Excuse me? I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I have to be back at the station for the newscast so I’m in a hurry.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are. But you need to hear a few things before you speed off to your high falutin’ TV job.”
At well over six feet tall, Cal towered over Dallas—despite the impossibly high heels she was wearing. He used his size to his advantage now, looking down at Dallas with disapproval.
“You haven’t changed a bit since high school. Some of us actually grew up but not you. You’re still just as full of yourself as you always were.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Dallas fought back. “You have no idea the stress I’m under. I don’t need this crap. You don’t know anything about me, Cal. You never did.”
“Well, there’s certainly no excuse to talk to everybody like they need to serve you. That’s disgusting.”
“Cal, I’m late. If you don’t like what you heard, then quit eavesdropping and turn the mics off when the conversation doesn’t concern you. Now, if you’ll kindly move out of my way, I have a newscast to get to.” Her face was red with anger and, Cal hoped, a little embarrassment at being called out.
He stepped aside, and she walked past him, her winter-white coat brushing against his pants, her nose in the air as if to let him know she didn’t care one bit.
Typical, Cal thought, and he stormed off in the opposite direction.
* * *
Dallas was fuming as she made her way up the theater aisle. She held her head up as though she didn’t care, but of course she did. She could feel her face growing hot as she made her way outside to Daniel and the van.
How could her entire world be falling off its axis in just one day? She rode in silence back to the station with Daniel, her eyes stinging, but she wasn’t fixin’ to let even one tear fall. Not until she was in private.
One more thing and her tough façade might become so damaged that the usual quick fix of puffing out her chest with a deep breath and lifting her nose in the air just wouldn’t work. Just one more thing and it would be too much for one day. But she had no time to think about falling apart. She had a story to introduce on set.
Dallas arrived back in the newsroom, the Christmas decorations twinkling on the station tree that stood in the corner. A frantic chatter filled the newsroom. It was typical for the time of day, reporters running around and edit bays full as late stories were still being filed. Dallas hurried in at a clip, her heels not slowing her down one bit. Daniel had already edited her story about Miss Peaches. She ran into an empty bay to voice it before it was time to sit on set next to the soon-to-be retiring female anchor and introduce the missing Baby Jesus statue story to the viewers.
Just as she was wrapping it up and preparing to walk into the live studio, the news assistant delivered a piece of paper with a message to her.
Please call me. I need to see you.—Mom
Dallas felt as if she had been pushed off a building. She hadn’t spoken to her mother in twenty years, and now, today of all days, she’d decided to call. Now. This was the “one more thing” that just might break her. How could she go on the air live in two minutes, right after unexpectedly hearing from the mother who had abandoned her so long ago? She shoved the note into her jacket pocket and marched into the studio smiling. Take control, she reminded herself. She knew how to shove down these emotions, and she’d just have to do it again.
Her mother. Wow. All she knew was that she had no time for her mother now. The same way LouAnn hadn’t had time for Dallas for the past twenty years. LouAnn had never even attempted to make contact with her. She had purely abandoned her. Dallas had no intention of seeing her now, not ever again.
Still, she was thrown for a loop, her stomach tightening with a painful grip, the years of hurt bubbling up. This was far worse than the confrontation with Cal back at the theater, and she couldn’t believe her bad luck.
She barely got through the story on TV, a strained smile pulled across her pretty face. When she returned to her seat in the newsroom, her phone on her desk was ringing. She picked it up without even thinking.
“Dallas Dubois,” she said into the receiver.
“Dallas, it’s your mother. Please don’t hang up.” LouAnn sounded nervous.
“Mother. Hi...” she began, then quickly decided there was no need for politeness. “What do you want? I’m really busy.”
“I need to see you.”
“I’m sorry. Your timing is really bad. Maybe another time.” Dallas kept her voice cold, showing no emotion.
This conversation had been years in rehearsal. Dallas had spent a long time imagining that her mother would call her, say she was sorry, maybe cry and beg forgiveness. As she grew older, the pretend conversation took on a different tone, as Dallas grew bitter and developed the hard exterior she’d soon be known for. Now that the moment was finally happening, somehow it wasn’t playing out just as she’d practiced.
“Please. It’s important,” LouAnn begged.
“I’m really sorry. But I’ve got important things going on, too. So, call me another time, okay? But not anytime soon.” And with that, Dallas hung up on her.
A lump swelled in her throat, and she made a beeline to the ladies’ room, locking herself in a stall. Finally alone for a moment, she allowed herself to cry silently into her hands, flushing the toilet over and over to cover the sounds of her anguish in case anyone walking by could hear her. All those years of not hearing her own mother’s voice, of wishing that she’d just come home and tell Dallas she hadn’t forgotten about her, suddenly made her feel as though she were that young, naïve girl once again. With everything she’d faced today, plus her own guilt of hanging up on a call that had been twenty years in the making, it all became too much. Even for Dallas.
The firewall was down, and Dallas was desperate to put it back together as fast as she could.
4
That evening, Dallas went home to her empty house. It was a little place near the university that she was renting. If she got that anchor seat, maybe she could afford to buy herself a real place of her own. Maybe she could finally afford to stop running to Atlanta to hide the fact that she shopped at consignment stores. Everyone in town just assumed she had lots of money. She worked hard to make it look that way. But the truth was that reporters didn’t make that much. She had bills to pay and, unlike Blake and Vivi, she didn’t come from family money. But that wouldn’t hold her back. She’d just have to keep climbing her way to the top. Anchors made much more, a lot more. That’s what she had her eye on.
She made her way to the shower, petting her big white cat, Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina was her only companion since she had broken up with Dan Donohugh, Harry Heart’s campaign manager, right after the election. Both of them had really been using each other, hoping to benefit from Harry’s run for the senate, so the brief fling had ended soon after.
Here in her home, Dallas was finally in her safe haven. Just she and Wilhelmina.
Dallas stood under the hot water of her shower thinking of her mother, but trying not to. Why would she be calling after all these years? Dallas had tried to make contact with her when she was still just a teenager. She’d hated living with her father, and she’d really hated living with Blake when her dad had married Blake’s mother, Kitty. Blake had let her know immediately it was her house, so Dallas hadn’t wasted a minute of her time trying to be sisters with her.
Instead, she’d spent her time trying to prove herself worthy of her mother’s love. She’d become a high school cheerleader just as her mother had been when she was young. She’d worked hard to become the most popular—and that had sometimes been nasty work. You didn’t always become popular by being nice, so she’d had to crush a few hearts along the way. Eventually, she had been named the salutatorian of her class. Cal was the valedictorian and had gotten a football scholarship. But Dallas, after receiving a small scholarship of just a thousand dollars, had still been asked to give one of the speeches. She’d pulled together all her courage to call her mother when she found out, but no one had answered the phone. She’d left a message, asking her mother to please come and hear her speak, that it would mean a lot to Dallas to show her what she’d accomplished. She’d never heard back from her mother. Maybe she didn’t get my messages, she always thought to herself. But she knew it wasn’t true.
Eventually, Dallas quit trying to make contact.
As she stood in the shower, the memories of what happened all those years ago haunted her warm oasis.
When Dallas had been only three and her brother, Houston, had been eleven, their father had walked out on their family. He’d left them to marry his secretary, the woman he’d been with just before he’d married Blake’s mother, Kitty. As they’d grown up, Houston had stepped up to become the man of the house and their mother, LouAnn, had leaned on him in that role. The three of them had been an incredibly close, tight-knit family—and, yes, her mother had a thing for Texas and had named her children after her two favorite cities there.
As they grew up, Dallas had loved her brother like no one else in her life. He had been her hero. They had always had an incredibly close relationship. Houston always told her that whoever married her would be the luckiest young man in history, since he would get to have Dallas forever. To say she put him on a pedestal was a major understatement. She used to tell him he was her favorite person in the world. And he’d let her know she was the most special person in his life, too. Even when he’d moved out to campus, they’d still talked all the time and he’d taken her to the movies and out for ice cream once a month. She’d loved him more than anyone. He had been her security.
When Dallas was in the ninth grade, she was basically living life like most teenaged girls her age. Makeup, boys, fashion and cheerleading practice filled her days. Houston, meanwhile, was twenty-two, gorgeous and fixin’ to graduate from Alabama.
One day he’d brought a woman, Eleanor Walsh, home with him to meet his family. As smart and charming as Houston was, they weren’t at all surprised that he’d found someone special. But when Eleanor walked in the door, she was definitely a surprise, all right. She was about thirty years old, though Houston was just barely twenty-two. He was defensive right away, explaining to LouAnn and Dallas that they were in love and that it was serious. He told them he was planning on marrying her. Dallas, being so young, was actually really excited and wanted to get to know her new “older sister” right away. She trusted her brother’s instincts on everything, so if he said this woman was the right one, Dallas was happy to accept it.
As they continued dating, Houston made sure that she and Eleanor became close. They’d take shopping trips together, go to movies and the couple made a real effort to spend time at the house with Dallas and her mother. So one day, Dallas and Eleanor went to Eleanor’s house to get ready to go out to a movie together with Houston. It was the first time she’d been invited to Eleanor’s place, so she was both nervous and excited. When Dallas entered the house, she immediately was shocked at the mess. The home was filthy—dirty pots and pans on the stove, so much old grease on the floor she couldn’t even see the color of the tile. As she moved through the house, following closely behind Eleanor, she heard noises coming from the laundry room. As they passed by, heading up the hall to Eleanor’s bedroom, Dallas caught a figure out of the corner of her eye.
A man was sitting on the floor, surrounded by parts from the washing machine, along with screwdrivers and other tools spread out around him. The man glanced up as Dallas walked by. He locked eyes with young Dallas, and instantly she felt a pang in her stomach: that uh-oh feeling you got when things weren’t quite right. She had a feeling that Houston might not know this woman as well as he thought.
“Who’s that?” she asked Eleanor.
“No one. Just the repairman,” she answered casually.
Dallas still felt that feeling. From another bedroom up the hall, Dallas could hear the sounds of children. One was crying. One was arguing with an older woman. As they walked toward the open door, she could see that the older woman was sitting in a small chair designed for a child. She was smoking a cigarette and staring out the window as she “babysat” the kids. As they walked past the door, the older of the two little boys ran out of the room and latched himself on to Eleanor’s leg, wrapping himself around her. “Mommy! Hi! Will you stay home tonight?”
Dallas was stunned. The child was about four years old and the other looked to be only two. They were Eleanor’s kids. Eleanor had kids! In all the time she’d known her, there had never, not once, been mention of her sons.
“Momma, can’t you do something with them?” Eleanor said to the older woman.
“Y’all get off of your momma now,” the woman said, ashing her cigarette on the windowsill. “She’s goin’ out. Go in there and see what yer daddy’s doin’.”
Dallas couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was the man with the washing machine the father? She froze in place, trying to take this news in for a second. Several seconds.
Dallas got an instant stomachache. She was afraid she had stumbled onto a secret. Surely her beloved brother had no idea he was dating a married woman, with children. Not dating, but fixin’ to marry!
Dallas didn’t want to go to the movies anymore. She wanted to rush home to save her brother from this horrible woman. She wanted to protect him now. She absolutely knew her brother would never be involved with her if he knew the truth. But as she stood there trying to imagine how she’d break the news, Eleanor shuffled her off to her bedroom and began chatting away as she got ready, as though none of this were out of the ordinary. In shock, Dallas wasn’t able to do much but follow along and wait for the right opportunity to speak up.
Houston, Eleanor and Dallas made it to the movies anyway, but late that night, after they’d dropped Eleanor off, Dallas decided she had to tell Houston what she’d found out. When they pulled into the driveway of her mother’s house, she just blurted it all out in one breath, thinking it might be better to rip it off like a Band-Aid.
“Yeah, I know,” he answered, once Dallas had finished.
“What? You know she’s married and has kids? How could you still want to marry her?”
“I just do, Dallas. You have no idea what the situation really is. Her husband doesn’t love her, and they are getting a divorce.”
“When? I mean he was there fixing the washing machine and her kids were screaming and crying for her to stay home.”
But rather than listen to her concern, rather than talking things out with her as he always did, Houston seemed to have grown cold. “You need to stay out of this. It’s none of your business. She thought no one would be home when she took you there today. I’m sorry you had to see all that.”
“Does Mom know?” she asked.
“Yeah, and she understands,” he said pointedly. “She knows Eleanor loves me and I love her.”
“But what about her kids? They were dirty, and her mother was smoking while she was taking care of them. I mean—” she paused and swallowed hard “—is this the kind of woman you really want to marry? Someone who cares so little about her family? Think about how Dad—”
He cut her off midsentence by hitting his fist on the wheel. Houston had had about all he could take from what he suddenly saw as a meddling little sister.
“Don’t imply she’s not good enough, Dallas. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Now just get out, okay?”
She was brokenhearted as she slowly climbed out of his car and went into the house. Her hero had fallen off his pedestal.
The next morning, she asked her mom all about it, and LouAnn confirmed her worst fears. It was all true. But Dallas wasn’t going to give up that easily. She’d always thought her mom was far too easy with Houston, trying to make up for the fact that she had depended on him to take their father’s place for so much of his life.
“He’s happy and that’s all that matters,” LouAnn said.
“But he won’t be for long. He just likes the attention right now. She’s older. That’s all it is,” Dallas reasoned. “You have to know that. Even I know that.”
“That’s enough,” LouAnn snapped, stopping the conversation cold. She’d walked out of the room, leaving Dallas alone with her worry.
Over the next few weeks, Dallas continued to try in vain to save her precious brother. Her tears and pleas fell on blind eyes and deaf ears. Until one day it reached the boiling point.
“Dallas, you have to stop this,” LouAnn shouted.
“Please, don’t let him ruin his life like this,” she begged through tears. It was just after Houston had graduated from Alabama. He was standing in the hallway, LouAnn in the kitchen with Dallas.
“I’ve had enough of this. I can’t be around her anymore. She’s messing up my life. She’s calling Eleanor at home and asking her to leave me alone,” Houston shouted. He walked into the kitchen and faced his mother. “Get her away from me or you won’t see me anymore.”
One threat to LouAnn and that’s all it took. She’d already lost one man in her life, and she was not going to let that happen twice.
“That’s it, Dallas,” her mother said, turning to look at her. “You’ve been nothing but selfish. Look around! Because of you, my family is falling apart all over again. I will not let you drive my son out of my life. You’re going to live with your father. Pack your things right now.”
“What? No, Mom, please,” Dallas begged. “Please, don’t send me away. Look, I’m sorry. I just love Houston and I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. But...just give me another chance. I promise I won’t say anything else.” Dallas was overwhelmed, hysterical that her mother could really do something like this, that she would lose her home and her mother along with her brother.
“No, I’m sorry, that’s it,” LouAnn said, sitting down in a chair at the kitchen table. She looked older, suddenly. Worn out. Exhausted. And done with Dallas. “I can’t take this anymore. I just can’t...I’m callin’ your daddy. I’m sorry,” LouAnn said, head in her hands.
Houston went storming out the front door and jumped in his car. Dallas cried as she packed, as she heard her mother on the phone with her father. On the drive over, her mother looked like a different person. Like the shell of the mother she’d grown up knowing.
At her father’s that night, she cried herself to sleep and skipped school the next day. Her eyes nearly swollen shut from tears, she began writing what would be the first of many letters to her brother over the next year. She wouldn’t be able to go back to school for several days. Her world had collapsed, snatched away from her by the very people she’d trusted the most, and she couldn’t do a thing about it. She thought of running away, but in the end, she developed a coping mechanism. If the people she loved could be so cold and cruel, then so could she. And the armor and the firewalls began to take shape.
She never even knew what became of her brother after all that. She thought he might still be in Alabama somewhere, but she hadn’t seen him or looked for him. And he had never tried to contact her.
She took in a deep breath and turned off the water, exhausted from reliving the memories she’d buried so deep and tried to forget. Wilhelmina was sitting at her water dish in the bathroom.
“I do love you, little girl,” she said as she reached down to pet her. After drying off, she and Wilhelmina crawled into bed.
