Thu - January 22, 2004

The Lexus From Texas



The red sunlight bounced off the hood of Colleen Starbuck’s brand new Lexus and struck her right in the eyes. She pondered the odds of hitting, precisely at dawn, the short stretch of I- 35/80 running due east through Des Moines. As usual, she was in the right place at the wrong time. Just like when she’d met H.W. Starbuck.
The 2006 Lexus was, as the brochure had promised, fully loaded. And not just with upscale options like leather seats, an automatic sunroof and on-line GPS; it was stuffed with everything Colleen could fit into it.
Colleen was leaving H. W. Starbuck.
After driving all night, Colleen was grateful for the Lexus’s deluxe features. A mere flick of a button on her steering wheel adjusted the visor to get the sun out of her eyes. If only she could press a button to get H.W. out of her life. “Press here to delete twenty-three years of marriage.”
It would not be that easy.
H.W. probably didn’t even realize she was gone. He was passed out on the couch when Colleen left Dallas. He had been drinking all afternoon before the big party she’d organized for his newest corporate client and was already down for the count before the first guests were due to arrive.
Colleen remembered standing over him, staring at his moist, slack mouth as his eyes rolled back behind half-closed lids. Then she thought how easy it would be to turn off the central air and open up the valves on the gas stove ... Her momma had once said that if you start wondering what you would do with the body, then, it’s time to leave.
So she did. She didn’t bother changing her party clothes; she just calmly marched upstairs and packed, selecting only the things she absolutely couldn’t live without.
H.W. was not on the list.
Specks of gravel began hitting her windshield as she approached a construction truck laboring in her lane ahead. Its rear was marked with large, black letters: Caution: Do Not Follow Into Work Area. Wondering where the vehicle was going on Sunday morning, she tried to make sense of the warning. She could think of no reason on god’s green earth that anyone would follow a truck into a work area.
If only there had been such a sign on H.W. Starbuck’s rear end when she met him.
A yellow ‘Exit Only’ sign alerted her that I-80 and I-35 were about to diverge. As the truck rumbled and clattered east, toward Davenport, Colleen veered left and turned north, toward the Twin Cities.
The sun’s pink rays warmed Colleen’s right cheek. She stole a glance at the fields skimming past, where the breath of the tall, August corn hung between the green blades and the opal sky.
God help her, it was going to be a beautiful day.
And she still had a long drive to Saint Paul.
Not that she was in any hurry to get there. Her cousin David hadn’t seemed too excited to hear from her. Who could blame him? Even though she hadn’t told him the real reason she was coming, she suspected that his bachelor radar had detected her desperate woman vibe.
Colleen looked at the glowing digits of the trip meter. “I’ll swan,” she said aloud in her silky drawl, “have I gone seven hundred miles since suppertime?” She contracted the muscles of her numb fanny and raised it off the seat a few times. “I reckon if you drive seventy miles an hour for ten hours and only stop three times to pee, that’ll do it.” Colleen giggled. She’d said ‘pee.’ Out loud. H.W. would have a conniption. Oh, how she’d loved to have seen the guests’ faces when they arrived to find H.W. drunk and drooling and unaccompanied by his lovelywifeColleen, which – as she’d explained in her recently-published first novel – is a compound word in Texas.
Remembering the look in H.W.’s eyes before he passed out made her skin crawl. It was his “kiss my boots, honey, and never forget that you married above your assigned station in life” look. The look that said she should be tickled pink that he thought she was good enough for his shallow, greedy, mean, alcoholic do not follow into work area ass... Never mind that she was smarter and more talented than H.W. and she had scored 34 on her ACT and gone to the University of Texas at Austin on a full ride scholarship. And dang it, Colleen had let it go to her head when someone told her that she should try modeling, even though she was just weeks away from finishing her MFA. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s when she met H.W., a hotshot photographer, in a case of what amounted to being in the wrong place at the worst possible time. She’d followed him into the work area, and the rest was, as they way, history.
Colleen had been good enough for him then, an attractive accessory hanging off his arm at parties and corporate events. And she’d been good enough to manage his business, woo his clients and do just about everything but point and shoot the camera. He’d become the most sought-after commercial photographer in Forth Worth-Dallas, but he never gave Colleen any credit. And he never let her forget that her daddy was only a trucker and her momma was just a hairdresser, while H.W.’s daddy was an advertising executive who’d set him up in the photography business.
Colleen fingered a tender bruise on her upper arm. Even when he was drunk, H.W. managed to place his hands carefully so her sleeves would hide the marks. He’d always treated her like dirt, but he didn’t start hurting her until she went back to school and finished her Masters degree.
She didn’t even tell him she was writing a book until an agent agreed to represent her. Instead of celebrating when her agent called with a publisher’s offer, she had spent the night in a Best Western hotel to escape H.W.’s drunken tirade.
The memory made Colleen’s empty stomach lurch. Why had she gone back to him? What kind of sick person was she to put up with his abuse? And what had given her the gumption to pack up and leave him this time?
Maybe it was the hot flashes and mood swings reminding her that she wasn’t a spring chicken anymore.
Maybe it was that look in H.W.’s eye. Like he was going to haul off and smack her in the face.
Maybe it was the cool, detached thoughts she had about doing away with him.
Or, maybe it was simply the advance from her novel, with which she’d bought the new Lexus.
“I’m drivin’ a Lexus from Texas!” she crooned, inventing a melody. “There’s got to be a country song somewhere in this situation.”
The smooth pavement beneath her wheels threatened to lull her to sleep. “Lawd, I need coffee!” Colleen rotated her shoulders and stretched her neck. Another flick of a switch on the control panel activated the on-line information system. “Find the best espresso shop within thirty miles,” she instructed. “Excluding Starbucks.” H.W. wasn’t connected to the Starbucks coffee empire, but Colleen didn’t want to do commerce with the name, anyway. She should take back her maiden name, Tierney, as quick as a hiccup, as her momma would say.
Would that require a divorce?
Panic rose in her chest at that thought, but Colleen swallowed it and took a deep breath. “Just shut up and drive your Lexus from Texas, darlin’,” she sang to herself as she waited for the on-line information system to respond to her request.
Beans and corn, alternating with corn and beans, whizzed by the car window. “I’m in Iowa,” she reminded herself. “What am I thinking? The nearest espresso shop is probably in the Twin Cities.”
As if on cue, a green highway sign rolled past, announcing: Minneapolis, 225 miles. Colleen was about to resign herself to a cup of sludge from the nearest BP station when the dulcet computerized voice from the on-line information system said, “Taraccino Coffee, rated the Best in Ames, Iowa. Twenty miles north, take Exit 111A west ...” A map flashed on the screen.
In Ames, the route to the coffee shop followed a business strip bristling with colorful franchise billboards. Traffic was sparse, but the shop’s parking lot was packed. Colleen eased the white Lexus between two hulking SUVs, turned off the engine and lowered the vanity mirror. Light brown, gold-flecked eyes looked back at her. Her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed by dark circles, but otherwise, she didn’t look so bad for a 48-year-old who’d been up all night. She opened her bag, dabbed concealer under her eyes, slicked her mouth with lipstick, and stepped out of the car.
The smartly appointed coffee shop was crowded. Every sofa, chair and table seemed to be occupied and a line of customers stretched beyond the case displaying pastries and muffins.
Heads turned and the buzz of conversation fell when Colleen stepped to the rear of the customer queue. Was everyone staring? No wonder. She was still dressed in the black, raw silk sheath and satin pumps she’d put on for H.W. Starbuck’s party. Fidgeting, she smoothed her champagne-blond bob and adjusted the little velvet wrap she’d thrown over her shoulders. She might as well have climbed up on the counter and announced, “I’m not from around here!”
Stepping up to the cashier when her turn came, Colleen met a frazzled, young brunette’s eyes. Though neatly dressed, the girl was pale and looked as if she’d crawled out of bed without combing her hair. College girls in Dallas wore the same style. If Colleen’s mama had been there, she would have lectured the girl on the woeful shortcomings of trendy haircuts. “Honey, let me do your hair so you won’t look like you lost a fight with a pair of dull pinking shears.” And Colleen’s daddy would have agreed. “Girl, you look like your head just blew up!” And if H.W. had been there, he would have rolled his eyes at Colleen’s parents and said, “See what I rescued you from, Colleen? Now, what are you thinking, running off and leaving me?”
In her head, their voices bickered among themselves, taunting her with the possibility that, no matter how you dressed her up, Colleen would always be just one slip of the tongue removed from the trailer park. It didn’t really matter, H.W.’s voice sneered, how educated or pretty or classy Colleen appeared to be. She would pale to insignificance if she ventured beyond his aura.
Colleen glanced outside at her Lexus, all pearly white with gold trim. “Understated elegance,” is what the slick brochure had said. And that’s what Colleen wanted to embody. But H.W. had made fun of her choice of vehicles. “Any wannabe can own a Lexus,” he’d said, swinging the keys to his Mercedes in her face.
Colleen tightened her wrap and hugged her arms where the bruises had begun to throb. “I’ll have a double shot of espresso in a regular cup,” she said. The girl looked at her blankly, fingers poised above the cash register. “I like to put cream in it,” Colleen sighed. “So please don’t put it in an espresso cup.” Colleen pulled a five-dollar bill from her bag. “Keep the change,” she said.

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