Beauty and the Mustache

“Okay, how about this one.” He cleared his throat and tried to flatten his smile. “What did God say at Nietzsche’s funeral?”

“What?”

“Nietzsche is dead.”

This one made me laugh. I closed my eyes and shook my head, allowing Drew to guide our steps. “That one is hilarious. Good job.”

We walked a ways in companionable silence, and I allowed myself to enjoy the comfort of his arm on my shoulders, being tucked into his side like I fit there; like a space had been made just for me. The late afternoon sun was at our back, and the first real autumn chill danced over my skin, making my shoulders shiver.

“Are you cold?” he asked, looking down at me.

“No. Not really. It feels good.”

Drew pulled his hat from my head and released my waist, instead holding my hand and tugging me toward a felled tree in the midst of wildflowers. Most of the blooms were gone as summer was giving way to cooler weather, but their stems came to our knees like tall grass.

“Come, sit.” He instructed, forgoing the tree trunk in favor of sitting on the ground amongst the flowers.

I plopped down next to him, and we sat in companionable silence for a while, absorbing the general splendor of the field. It was untouched, unlike the area around the house. My brothers and their hobbies and messiness had cluttered the acre or so nearby the house, but the rest of the fifteen acres were woods, fields, and wilderness.

The trees in Green Valley were still green, but the trees on the mountains were already changing color. Red, orange, and yellow-carpeted misty mountains reached to the blue sky. With the coronation of vivid fall colors, the mountains announced the change in seasons.

I felt Drew’s gaze on me, so I turned to face him, my expression open and questioning. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he just stared.

“What are you looking at?”

“You.”

“Yes. Obviously you’re looking at me, but why? Do I have food in my teeth? Lettuce in my hair?”

“Nope.”

“So, you’re just, what? Just looking at me?”

“Yes.”

I wrinkled my nose and wagged a finger at him. “There is something wrong with you…in the head. You’re odd.”

“Ash, there is nothing odd about me looking at you.”

“Keep your eyeballs to yourself.”

His mouth pulled to the side as he openly admired my face, and then he recited, “‘There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.’” He repeated this oft quoted Nietzsche-ism liltingly, almost coyly.

I rolled my eyes. If ever a Nietzsche quote had been misused, this was the time.

“Puh-lease. If you haven’t figured out by now that ninety-nine percent of females in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina admire you coming and going, then you’re an idiot. And I know you’re not an idiot.”

“You misunderstand.” His stony face cracked with a smile. “I don’t care about ninety-nine percent of females, Ash. I was referring to just one.”

I watched him, studied him, inspected him; and Drew watched me right back. My stomach twisted, and my chest was heavy with a growing disquiet.

I was feeling more than I should.

Drew, holding my gaze, tugged on my hand and lowered himself to the earth and me with him. He then spent a few seconds positioning us so that I was tucked into his side, his arm around me, my cheek on his chest.

I lay still for a full minute, staring forward with wide eyes, confused as to what was going on.

“Relax,” he said. “You’re all stiff.”

I lifted my head and looked at him, searching his face for clues; it gave me no hints. If anything, his expression made me more muddled. This was primarily because his eyes had gone all soft and were caressing my face. Furthermore, he’d threaded his fingers into my hair and was rubbing it with his fingertips like it was silk and he was enjoying the texture.

“What’s going on?” I blurted, my face and voice betraying a hint of panic, I’m sure. “What are we doing?”

“Lying here.” The side of his mouth hitched.

“But why? What did I miss?”

“I don’t think you miss much.”

“But I missed something. I definitely missed something….” I looked up and down the length of him. “I missed something big.”

His hand was still in my hair, his fingers moving in and out of the thick curtain and softly brushing my curls to one side then the other. My body began to relax, because what he was doing felt good.

“Drew….” I sighed his name, but when I heard the sound of it—what I sounded like saying it, like it was an invitation—I shook myself and refocused. “We’re laying in a field of wildflowers.”

“What do you have against wildflowers?”

“Nothing, except…we don’t even really know each other.”

“I know you.”

I tsked. “Well, I don’t know you.”

“What do you want to know?” He asked this softly, his cherishing eyes trailing a path from my forehead to my neck, shoulders, arms, stomach, then back up in an equivalent unhurried study.

I paused at that, because the answer to that question was so much. There was so much I wanted to know.

My mouth opened and closed and I blinked at him. I officially had a blinking problem. “I…I…I guess I’d like to know how you met my mom, how you met my family, where you come from.” I knew Momma’s point of view, but I was curious about Drew’s perspective. I also wanted to know how his sister knew my father.

He nodded, but didn’t stop playing with my hair or giving me his distracting, reverential looks. “My sister committed suicide after your father pretended to marry her when he was already married to your mother.”

My mouth?

The one that was already open?

Yeah, that one.

It dropped.

My eyes also blinked in rapid succession—big surprise!—and I shook my head, managing to say only, “Oh my God.”

I couldn’t believe that he just…said it. He said it like he was telling me about his first grade science project. I felt like a bomb had gone off. My ears were ringing.

But he continued like he hadn’t just said something completely life altering. “My sister basically raised me after my mother died; she died shortly after I was born. My sister, Christine, was fifteen years older, and she had a lot of mental health issues.” Drew shrugged, his eyes shifting to a passing cloud. “She was manic depressive.”

“Oh my God. Drew….” I placed my hand on his cheek and turned his face back to mine. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I couldn’t help myself; I shimmied up his body and gave him a quick kiss.

He swallowed, and his features hardened as if he’d willed them to. Yet, when he spoke, his tone was gentle, verging on indulgent. “You don’t need to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“My father is a bastard.”

“Yeah.” Drew nodded. “So is my father. Your dad and mine have a lot in common.”

I gave him a sad frown. “Is your dad a polygamist?”

“No. But he’s a US senator, and he seduces other men’s fiancées.”

The first part I remembered Roscoe telling me weeks ago.

“Other men’s fiancées?”

“Yep. Like mine for example. But, to be fair, she wanted to be seduced.”

Again, it was like a bomb had gone off. My breath left me on a whoosh and we stared at each other.

Well…isn’t that like shit on a shoe at a wedding.

I glanced at his lips then kissed him again. This time I made sure that the kiss conveyed how much I’d been thinking about him—and his kisses—over the last several days.

He responded immediately and we kissed for several minutes. When things started to escalate, he gently pushed me away, holding my face in his hands.

Drew gazed into my eyes as though searching them—or me—for the answer to life’s great questions. I met his stare straight on, held it, dared him to find one trace of pity or reluctance or regret.

I felt none of it.

Instead, I felt fierce loyalty and pride—in him for all he’d accomplished despite his family, and pride in my family for taking him in as one of their own.

I also might have been feeling desire. In fact, I was feeling desire. I’m not going to lie.

Whatever he found in me must’ve satisfied his implicit concerns, because Drew’s expression lost some of its severity and he sighed. “Ash.”

“Yes?”

“I wish we could….” He said this in a rush then stopped, licked his lips, and affixed his eyes to the sky. I sensed that he was holding himself back from speaking his mind. He seemed to be literally biting his tongue. Yes, literally. His tongue was between his teeth and he was biting it.

At length, looking pensive, Drew cleared his throat before starting again. “I looked up your father when I was in college, then I found out where he married your momma, and I discovered that she still lived here. I was curious about her. So when a game warden position opened up, I used the job interview as an opportunity to meet her.”