Uncertain Texas: Chapter Four

Dads, memories, and unfortunately... becoming interesting. (Audiobook linked below)

Previously… (Chapter Three - Read) or (Chapter Three - Audio) or start from the beginning. Audio file to follow (so you get that East Texas twang). Toggle on UNCERTAIN, TX in your subscription to ensure you don’t miss a thing!

CHAPTER FOUR

NOW

Dana, two cups of steaming coffee in her hands, used her hip to push open the heavy wooden door separating her dad’s back office from the noisy open mechanic’s bay where a few young guys she didn’t recognize worked on an engine. Bouncy, accordion-heavy Norteña music played over the loudspeakers. As soon as the door shut behind her, the music and the staccato sounds of the air drill cut off.

“There she is.” A lean man with stooped shoulders stood from his desk. Keith Folsom, a life spent bent under car hoods, had a pronounced hump high on his back. He moved stiffly, but his smile, buried under a truly spectacular grey beard, was bright.

“Hey, Dad.”

Keith took the coffees from her and placed them on the desk so he could wrap her in a hug.

“You get in okay?”

“Yeah. Staying in Jefferson.”

“Mm. Bit of a drive. Your mom okay?”

“No, and she said to tell you thanks for the cancer.”

Keith laughed as he fell into his chair. “You tell her it was payment for making my life a living hell.”

“Jesus, Dad.”

“Oh, she’ll know I’m joking. Mostly. Gabby went out there earlier this week to check on her. You should go see your sister.”

“Yeah.”

Keith’s smile slowly faded. “You doing okay, kid?”

“Yeah, yeah. You know me, workaholic. Got it from you.”

“Sure did. But I meant about Cherry.”

Dana shrugged, hiding a proper reaction with her coffee.

“Well, I guess there’s not much to say there, huh,” Keith said with a solemn nod.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I could have been a better father.”

Dana shrugged again. There wasn’t much to say about that, either.

“But you know how it is, being a businessperson yourself. New wife and baby, making this place a success… Time gets away from you.”

A sad, lonely part of her flared in bitterness for a moment. For all that Cherry was a nightmare of a human, she’d at least been there every day as Dana had grown up. True, she’d bitched about that fact as often as she took a breath, but at least she’d been there. Keith… well, a shiny new wife, shiny new life kept his attention focused and away from Uncertain and his eldest daughter, and she had to get confirmation of it from his own mouth, too. Fully grown, a successful life miles and miles away, and it still stung to hear it.

“Nothing to do about it now, though.” Dana forced a grin. “Place is hopping! You add a new bay?”

Keith happily pounced on the opportunity to show off his true baby, his auto shop. Once he got to walking, his stiff gait smoothed out. He showed Dana the new oil change bay and the rolling computer carts. “You can’t do anything on these new cars without one.” At the opposite end was a glass door, beyond which was a waiting room with a fancy coffee maker and a small TV mounted off the ceiling. “Folks don’t mind extra work on their cars if you keep them occupied,” he added, pointing at it.

A ticker-style news bulletin crawled along the bottom of the flat screen, an Amber alert. A thirteen-year-old girl named Francesca Gordon, “Frannie to her friends,” last seen wearing running shorts and a t-shirt, getting into a white luxury sedan at the local Walmart in Marshall.

A commercial for a shipping company followed the news alert, a Winn Industries-owned company.

Keith made a noise of disgust and switched the channel.

“Anyway, she’s looking pretty good, huh?”

Dana looked at the cracked vinyl sofa, the slightly stained arms on the lobby chairs, the fan of magazines—mostly likely Linda’s touch—and landed on her father’s proud face.

“She sure does, Dad.”

One of her dad’s employees stuck his head into the waiting room. “Órálé.”

“Gracias, Jorge.” Her dad pronounced it like “grassy ass.” The other kid in the work bay whistled and nodded at Jorge.

“Well, let’s see what these two knuckleheads managed.”

Jorge pulled his ballcap off when Dana came around to the back of her rental, and smoothed down his thick, glossy hair. “You are the other daughter?”

She nodded. “That’s me.”

“Guapa.”

“Grassy ass, Jorge,” Dana replied with a wink. The other kid laughed.

“I put on this hitch,” Jorge said, gesturing at the bumper. “You don’t tell the rental company, okay?”

“You got it.”

Keith chimed in, “When you need to go home, you come back here. Jorge and Luis will take it off and buff out any scratches so no one’s the wiser. Never seen anyone such a whizz with body work like Luis is.”

The other kid, apparently Luis, beamed. “Gracias, jefe.”

Keith widened his stance, arms crossed at his chest. “One day he’s gonna have his own shop, do all that custom stuff to cars them Mexicans like.”

“Wow, Dad,” Dana said, mortified.

“What?”

“Don’t say racist shit, what do you mean, ‘what’?”

Keith appeared genuinely confused. Jorge and Luis drifted to the back wall of Craftsman storage to put tools away. “Don’t say ‘all Mexicans like’ something. That’s racist. Ignorant, too.”

“I’m not racist. I’m married to a Mexican.”

“Oh, they have one of those tear off ‘get out of racist jail’ cards on mixed-marriage licenses now?” She looked over at Luis, who was muttering something to Jorge and laughing.

“I’m trying to compliment Luis. Luis?” Keith asked.

“¿Sí? Yes?”

“You know I think you’re a good kid, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Folsom. Thank you.”

Keith looked at Dana with triumph.

Dana rolled her eyes. “Jorge? Luis? Gracias por arreglar en mi coche.”

Luis, shock on his face, replied, “De nada, guapa. My pleasure.”

“You’re just like your mother.”

“What?” Dana asked, stepping aside so Jorge could back the car out of the garage.

“Trying to make an ass of me to lift yourself up.”

“That’s not what I—” Dana started, but Keith raised a hand, palm out, and she shut her mouth with a snap.

“If you damage the hitch, I’ll have to charge you parts.”

“I can pay now, Dad.”

“Just don’t damage it. Go stop in and see Gabby and Esteban before you fly back to California or wherever you’re living now.”

“I will. Thanks again for the help.”

Keith smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. She thanked Jorge again, climbed inside and adjusted the seat and rearview mirror. She could see inside the garage where Keith had his arm slung across Luis’s shoulder. It shouldn’t hurt after all these years, but knowing her dad was more at ease, was happier with other people still felt like a sucker punch.

THEN, 1986

Cherry pulled a section out of the Marshall Morning News and flipped to the horoscopes. “You hear they still haven’t heard bupkis about Divine Moore since her mama said she ran off?”

Dana talked around a mouth full of cereal. “Lavonda say she ran off?”

Cherry waved her hand. “What else could it be? Probably met a boy and took off. You know how those folks are.”

Dana frowned, drinking the milk out of the bowl. Divine was in her class, one of a handful of Black kids in Karnack. Smart. Pretty. Well-liked. She’d ended the school year with beautiful box braids that cascaded down her back, each ending in multi-colored plastic beads. She’d been on the track team, too. She walked the halls with her head high, shoulders back. Dana had always thought she looked like a queen, a girl who knew her worth. Dana thought about the unlikelihood of Divine running off to be with a boy at age fourteen, remembered seeing her mother, Lavonda, just the other day walking down Cypress Drive toward Lafitte’s with a stack of papers under one arm, a giant staple gun in her free hand.

The phone rang, drawing Dana from picturing the grim determination on Lavonda’s face as she went from telephone pole to telephone pole to ask passersby, “Have you seen me?” Midmorning wasn’t Cherry’s usual gossip on the phone time which could only mean…

“Folsoms’.”

“Crap. Mom!”

Cherry shot Dana an annoyed look. “Cherry Folsom speaking. …yes, Dana’s here. Why? Who’s this?”

Dana could have clawed her own face off.

“Addy? Why, you don’t mean Adelaide Winn? How lovely to meet you. Such polite phone manners, and you can tell your mother I said so. Yes, Dana’s here. You have a good day, darling.”

Cherry almost hung the phone up before Dana could grab it from her, glaring daggers at her mother.

“Addy?”

“I didn’t think your mom was home during the day, sorry.”

Dana sighed. “She got let go. She said they were downsizing—”

“Dana Folsom!” Cherry shouted. “Don’t go telling my business to people!”

“Sorry.” To the phone she said, “She’s just home today. You want to meet up?”

“Yeah. I’ll come to your side of the lake. Wayne’ll drop me off at the marina.”

“Okay, I’ll leave now.”

Cherry was on Dana the minute the phone was in the cradle. “You didn’t tell me you and Adelaide Winn were phone buddies!”

“I didn’t know I needed to.”

“Girl, you better lose that smart mouth of yours.”

Dana knew not to reply when her mom was building a head of steam.

“Have you been to their house?”

Dana shook her head. “No.”

“Thank god.”

“Well, what’s that supposed to mean?” Dana asked.

“Child, you know what you look like.” Cherry sighed. “I guess I’ll have to get you something nice to wear on the chance they invite you over. Do they have a tennis court or something? Lord, I don’t even know where to get you something like that. Or where the money for it would come from. Maybe your dad can get off his butt and chip in once in a while.”

“What are you talking about? Dad bought me my school clothes last year.”

“Oh, you only need clothes and things once a year? I’ll take care of it, like I do everything. Anyway, now I can talk to that Katherine Winn, tell her how polite her daughter is.”

“When are you ever going to talk to Mrs. Winn? Y’all don’t run in the same circles.”

“I’m getting tired of that mouth, Dana Folsom, I swear to Jesus.”

“Sorry,” Dana murmured. “Can I go? Addy is expecting me.”

Cherry narrowed her eyes. “What are you two doing?”

Dana shrugged. “Fishing. Hanging out.”

“You are not taking Adelaide Winn fishing!”

“I do that and more almost every day, what are you talking about?”

Cherry appeared to be completely horror-struck. “Dana Marie Folsom. Do you mean to tell me you’re taking the President of Junior League’s daughter, the heir to the Winn fortune, frog hunting?”

“God, no!”

“Oh, my lord in heaven. Thank goodn—”

“Frog hunting’s in the spring, come on, now.”

Dana ducked her mother’s hand, laughing. “We do whatever Addy wants to do. I’ll be home for dinner.” She ran out the door before her mother could insinuate herself any more into Dana’s life, now that apparently she’d gotten interesting.

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