The Garden of Eden Page 2

  “He’ll tell everyone,” Anne put in. She wiped her tears away and looked at Hayden without sympathy. “We’re in for it. You might as well face it.”

  Hayden brought the car to a stop. He lowered his face onto the steering wheel and began crying. “He might have killed us back there.”

  “He still might,” Anne said, digging the needle in spitefully. “You heard him.”

  She dearly liked Hayden, but at times he was such a baby. So unlike Ed, who was all man all the time. Too much so, in fact. She needed a man who needed her. Ed was just so…well, he was Ed. Hayden’s soft spots stirred her womanly instincts, although at this moment he could do with a little more backbone. That was all right—she was perfectly capable of providing some.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “We might as well face Matilda and get it over with.”

  “I love her very much,” Hayden declared bravely, fighting back the tears. “I’m not going to divorce her.”

  “I didn’t ask you to,” his second wife told him. “She may have something to say about the matter, though.”

  When they broke the news to Matilda she fainted, to Anne’s disgust. Hayden caught her and chafed her wrists and kissed her and cuddled her in his arms until her eyes fluttered open. She started and stared around wildly. Her gaze fastened on Anne.

  “You hussy, you home wrecker, you man-stealing tramp! You—”

  “Now, dear…,” Hayden said soothingly.

  “Let go of me, you bastard.”

  Matilda fought free of her husband’s arms and got to her feet. She swayed slightly. “You tomcatting son of a bitch. I won’t have this hussy in my house.”

  “Dear, we don’t have a choice. Ed is crazy! He had a gun. He has a gun. He’s crazy enough to use it.”

  “By God,” his first wife declared, “if I had a gun I’d use it here and now. I’d shoot off your silly little weenie.” Matilda shook her fist in Anne’s face. “If your husband were a real man he’d have killed you both.”

  Anne kept her dignity. She bent over and picked up the two small suitcases. “I’ll put these in the guest bedroom. Bring the others in, won’t you, dear?”

  Hayden had to restrain Matilda as Anne ascended the stairs. Matilda was in a fine fury, spluttering with rage.

  When she had calmed down some, Hayden whispered, “I’m sorry, darling. You know how much I love you. I’m weak. It was just a flirtation that got out of hand.”

  “You and your damned peter!”

  “Darling, this will all be over soon. She’ll probably go home tomorrow when Ed cools off. Don’t do anything rash.”

  “I want her out of my house. Take her to the hotel in town.”

  “Then everyone will know,” Hayden wailed. He had seen the look on Ed Harris’ face and was truly afraid of him, so now he grasped at this straw. “Let’s keep silent and send her home tomorrow.”

  “Do you love me, Hayden?”

  “Oh, of course I do, darling. You know how much! I am so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. She’ll be gone in the morning.”

  “Our son! He’ll be home from school any minute—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him. He won’t tell anyone. This won’t get out.”

  “How long,” Matilda asked acidly, “has this little thing between you and Anne been going on?”

  “Today was the first time,” Hayden said. “The very first time.”

  “If only I could believe that.”

  “Matilda, for God’s sake. Let’s not let this wreck our lives. Our marriage. We have to think of our son, of our position in the community.”

  “The community? I don’t give a damn what the community thinks.”

  “Matilda! Darling! Don’t be rash. We have to live here. Our son has to live here. Anne will be gone in the morning. This whole thing will be just like a bad dream that’s forgotten in the morning. You’ll see.”

  Matilda was in the kitchen fixing supper and crying, and Anne was upstairs, when Billy Joe Elkins came home from school. He was a senior in high school this year and drove his own Jeep. His father heard it skid to a stop in the gravel outside. He opened the door and met the young man on the porch.

  “Son, we have a houseguest.”

  “Who?”

  “Anne Harris.”

  Billy Joe’s eyebrows went up toward his hairline. He drew back and scrutinized his father’s face. “Anne Harris?”

  “Anne Harris.”

  “What happened? Did her husband kick her out of the house?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  Billy Joe took another hard look at his father and snorted, trying to hold back the laughter. “What happened? Did ol’ man Harris catch you in bed with her or something?”

  His father sagged into the porch swing.

  “That is it, isn’t it?” the boy howled. “Dad, I can’t believe you did this. Anne Harris?”

  “It’s not so damned funny. Quit that laughing.”

  “Oh man, this is so far out!” The boy held his hands to his head and danced around in a circle. “I can’t believe this. My own father? What does Mom say?”

  “Well, she’s unhappy, but…” Hayden stopped because his son wasn’t there anymore. The boy darted through the door and made a beeline for the kitchen, where he knew he’d find his mother this time of day.

  “Dad and Anne Harris?” he demanded of his mother, who turned to face him with a large wooden spoon in her hand.

  “She’ll be gone in the morning, dear. Your father and I want you to say nothing about this outside the house.”

  Billy Joe couldn’t believe his ears. “You think no one else will hear about this? On the Eden road?”

  “She’ll be gone in the morning, dear.”

  “She’s upstairs, right?”

  “That’s right,” his mother confirmed. “And you are not to disturb…” She was talking to thin air. Billy Joe’s thunderous tread sounded on the staircase.

  He knocked on the door of the guest bedroom.

  “Come in.”

  He opened the door. Well, you had to give the old man credit, he acknowledged. Mrs. Harris was a dish. She still had a figure that would stun the guys over at school. Face wasn’t bad, either. Mrs. Harris was unpacking and stood before him now with a piece of filmy lingerie half folded in her hands.

  “Uh, Mrs. Harris, I didn’t mean to cause you any distress or anything…”

  “That’s quite all right.”

  “I heard…you and Dad?”

  “That’s correct,” Anne Harris said with simple dignity.

  “Hoo boy. Whew!” This was big, the biggest thing he had ever tried to handle in his seventeen and a half years. “Awesome,” he muttered, still staring at the lingerie in Mrs. Harris’ hands.

  “It must be a shock to you,” Anne said. She was always practical. She hated that quality in herself, but it was useless to try to change it this late in the game.

  “And you’re leaving in the morning?”

  “I don’t know what gave you that idea. No. I’m staying. This is my new home.”

  Billy Joe was overwhelmed. He mopped his brow and fell into a chair. From its depths he stared at the woman standing before him, who finished with the nightie and began working on folding a dress. “Uh, Mrs. Harris…”

  “Better call me Anne, since we’ll be seeing quite a lot of each other, I imagine.”

  “Anne.”

  “Yes?”

  “Uh, I don’t…I’m not sure I understand exactly…”

  “Well, I don’t quite know myself. My husband caught your father and me in bed together this afternoon. There was quite a scene, of course. Very distressing and embarrassing.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  “No use lying about it. The truth is impossible to deny.”

  “Of course.”

  “It will undoubtedly be talked about.”

  “Of course.”

  “So I’m here for a while.”

  “Of cou
rse.”

  “You understand?”

  “I understand. Of course.” Billy Joe pondered that answer for several seconds. “Understand what?”

  “Mr. Harris had a gun.”

  “A gun…”

  “A shotgun.”

  “Un-huh.”

  “He said that…” Anne Harris sighed. “Well, it wasn’t what he said. He implied that he would shoot your father if he didn’t take me home and care for me.”

  “Care for you?”

  “That’s right. He told your father that he had two wives now.”

  The boy’s mouth hung open.

  “Close your mouth, Billy Joe,” his father’s second wife said.

  The closing jaw made an audible noise. The boy opened his mouth several more times, closed it each time, scrutinized Mrs. Harris’ face, her figure, the clothes she was folding and stowing in the dresser…

  He stood, jerked open the door and shot through. He left the door standing open behind him.

  Anne closed it and sighed again.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Dad! How could you?”

  “Don’t use that kind of language to me,” Hayden Elkins told Billy Joe. He was still sitting in the porch swing.

  “Two wives!”

  “Sssht! Don’t say that where your mother will hear. You’ll upset her.”

  “I’ll upset her? Me? I’m not the one who was caught with his pants down!”

  Hayden cringed. It was hard hearing those words from the boy. Very hard. “Son, you don’t seem to appreciate—”

  “You always told me to keep my pants zipped up. Don’t let your peter rule your life, you said.”

  “I know I said those things.”

  “Don’t do your thinking with the head of your dick, you said.”

  “I did say that,” the father admitted.

  “Should have followed your own advice, Dad.”

  “Son, there are complexities here that you don’t seem to appreciate. True, I used extremely poor judgment with Mrs. Harris and—”

  “Anne.”

  “Yes, Anne—”

  “Two wives, Dad! Two! Boy oh boy oh boy oh. Am I a lucky ducky or what. Should I call them both Mom?”

  “Young man, I—”

  “See you later, Dad. I’m going over to Tommy’s house.”

  “I think you should—” But the father found himself talking to the back of his quickly departing son. He drew in air to shout, then thought, The hell with it! Let him go!

  The kid dived into the Jeep and spun the wheels getting it under way. Gravel flew into the yard. At the end of the driveway the boy turned right and shot off down the Eden road.

  Hayden Elkins sagged back into the swing and lowered his face into his hands.

  His life was shattered. How could Ed Harris do this to his very best friend? Why, Hayden wondered, didn’t he just shoot me and get it over with?

  Anne Harris didn’t go home the next day. She arose at her usual hour and ate breakfast alone in the kitchen. One egg boiled, dry toast and tea. The house was quiet. Well, it was nine o’clock. After she washed her dishes and put them away, she ran some clothes through the washer and ironed several dresses that had gotten wrinkled in yesterday’s rushed packing.

  Last night Hayden had brought dinner to her room on a tray. He wanted to talk, but she refused, shooed him out. She had yet to speak to Matilda since the scene when she arrived.

  She finished the ironing and was waiting for the dryer to complete its cycle when a car pulled into the driveway in front of the house and Matilda Elkins got out. She came into the kitchen carrying a bag of groceries, saw Anne and stiffened.

  “When are you leaving?” she demanded as she placed the grocery bag on the kitchen table.

  “I’m not, Matilda. Not soon, anyway. Ed is going to need some time to get over this. I appreciate your hospitality.”

  “Do you realize what people will say about us? Are saying about us?” She lowered herself into a chair by the table. “I was at Doolin’s store. You should have heard them and seen the looks! I have never been so embarrassed in all my life. ‘Two wives.’ Amazing! Where that phrase came from I’ve no idea.”

  “Sharp tongues wagged by dirty minds,” said Anne Harris with finality. She had never been concerned about what other people thought. Perhaps she should have been, but the truth was she just didn’t care. “That’s inevitable,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Don’t play the plaster saint with me, lady,” Matilda snarled. “I certainly don’t think your going to bed with my husband was the right thing to do, and I haven’t forgiven you for it. I don’t know that I ever will.”

  “I apologize.”

  “Apologize? As if you sneezed in public? Seducing Hayden was a wee bit more than a sneeze.”

  “Seduced him? Hardly. He’d been eyeing me for years, flirting, stealing a feel when he thought no one was looking. I just…gave in. I wish I hadn’t. Still, if you had given him some decent loving he wouldn’t—”

  “How dare you! To stand in my house, in my kitchen, and tell me to my face that it’s my fault that you seduced my husband! Of all the nerve!”

  “I’m not suggesting it’s your fault. I’m merely pointing out that Hayden needs more loving than you’ve been giving him. That’s as obvious as the nose on your face.”

  “Don’t make cracks about my nose!”

  “I am not talking about your nose.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my nose.”

  “I concur. There is nothing wrong with your nose.”

  “I give him enough loving.”

  Anne Harris raised an eyebrow.

  Matilda Elkins collapsed in tears.

  The other woman put her arms around her shoulders. “There, there, Matty. We must be brave. We’re in this together.”

  “I feel like a good cry.”

  Anne’s eyes were also tearing up. “So do I,” she admitted.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Eufala Davis, the preacher’s wife, that is, the wife of the retired preacher. “I don’t like to talk, but they say Hayden Elkins just moved her in. She’s there now.”

  “Oh, my dear. There’s so much more to it than that,” the widow Wilfred said breathlessly. She lived a half mile from Eden and often stopped in to see Mrs. Davis, her best friend. “Oh, my, yes. I just heard about it at Doolin’s. Why, they say that Anne Harris and Hayden Elkins have been having a torrid affair for years and years. No one knows just how long. And poor Ed fired a shot over there yesterday. Tried to kill that wretched wife of his.”

  “I heard about the shots,” Eufala said, squirming in delight. “My husband just called me from town. He had a dental appointment and heard the whole story there in the dentist’s office. So Ed tried to kill Anne?”

  “Of course. She was too quick for him, the brazen hussy, and is holed up with Hayden at his house.”

  “But poor Matilda!” Mrs. Davis cried. “What about her?”

  “To have that shameless creature under her own roof!” the widow Wilfred wailed.

  “You won’t believe this, dear,” Mrs. Davis said breathlessly. “The coincidence! Horrible. But I actually saw Ed Harris going home yesterday afternoon. He never does that. He must have stumbled onto Anne and Hayden in his very own bed.”

  “That must be what happened.”

  “What a horrific shock! Some men might have lost their minds, might have murdered both the guilty parties right in their bed of sin.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Wilfred agreed. “It’s good that Ed didn’t succumb to his animal passions.” This remark was made without enthusiasm. She brightened, remembering the shots. A picture formed in her imagination of serious, austere Ed Harris chasing his naked wife with a gun, blasting away.

  The widow Wilfred shivered deliciously and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I hear Hayden Elkins is going to keep Matilda and Anne as his wives.”

  Mrs. Davis twitched uncontrollably. This was really too much. Without a doubt, this was the
most exciting thing to happen on the Eden road since they found farmer Williams making love to his son’s pet sow. Poor depraved man—he was in a home now. And such a nice wife he had. The shock killed her, poor thing.

  She shook her head to rid herself of farmer Williams and his pig. She focused on Hayden Elkins. The evil of it! “Men!” she said nastily to the widow Wilfred, who nodded knowingly.

  “I’m going to see about this. It’s sinful and wicked.” Mrs. Davis rose from her chair and reached for her sweater.

  “But what are you going to do, Eufala? What can you do?”

  “I’m going to the police. I’m going to swear out a complaint.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Wilfred said. “I better go with you. You realize, Eufala, that if you swear out a complaint, you must go to court and testify?”

  Mrs. Davis stiffened. She drew back her shoulders. “Good people must raise their voices against depravity. It’s our Christian duty. And I will answer duty’s call.”

  “We had better hurry,” said Mrs. Wilfred, the soul of practicality, “before someone beats us to it.”

  The two women found Trooper Sam Neely in his office in the basement of the courthouse, his half-closed eyes focused on a calendar picture of the West, where Men could still be Men, where presumably honor and courage and straight shooting were occasionally still required.

  Trooper Neely shifted his gaze to the two ladies before him and regarded them without enthusiasm. What on earth could they want?

  “Yes.” It came out so deadpan that he forced himself to say it again, with feeling. “Yes?”

  “I want to swear out a warrant—”

  “Make a complaint,” the second lady said, correcting the first.

  “—Against Hayden Elkins.”

  The trooper took a very deep breath, sat up squarely in his chair, and drew a yellow legal pad around in front of him. He clicked his pen and waited.

  “He has two wives,” Eufala Davis began.

  “He’s living with them,” the widow Wilfred added. “At his house.”

  “He’s a bigamist. Living in sin, living with evil and wickedness,” Mrs. Davis gushed, “without shame, without remorse—”