June in August Read Free Page A

he pulled them out of reach.
    “You’re such a contradiction. Cool linen covering red-hot passion, innocence and wantonness. Have dinner with me.”
    “What? You want to have dinner with me?”
    “Well, I’m a bit worn out from all the drugs and group sex that I’ve been having as of late. So, thought I’d stick to just dinner for tonight.”
    “Are you making fun of me?”
    Wiley smiled and my anger immediately melted. It was a real smile, the kind he used to flash all the time.
    “I moved into the old Turner place just down the street. It’s small, and there isn’t much there in the way of furniture yet, but it’s mine.”
    He handed me a set of keys, not mine, his.
    “I’ll be home after closing, around six o’clock. I’d love it if you were there. I’ll stop at the market and pick up some steaks, maybe a bottle of wine.”
    “You drink now too?”
    “It’s kind of expected at all the orgies.”
    I rolled my eyes and turned to walk away, but Wiley was as quick as lightening.
    “Will you be there, June?” he asked as he entwined his fingers with mine.
    “Will you tell me about the orgies?”
    “There haven’t been any orgies, Junebug. There have been girls since I’ve been gone, a few. I won’t lie to you about that. But… They’ve all been you.”
    “Really?”
    “I think about you while I’m awake and I dream about you while I sleep. I ache inside with want. Wanting to know you’re all right. Wanting to know what you’re thinking. Wanting to know if you ever think of me, if you ever think of me the way that I sometimes think of you. For as far back as I can remember I could look out from my bedroom window into yours. I wonder, now, if you ever looked back. I miss your smile and your laughter. I miss seeing your light shining at night. It was warm and inviting and it called to me, drawing me in. I asked your momma if she wouldn’t mind leaving it on as a favor to me. I told her it helped me remember that you promised to come home. She started crying when I asked her and waved me off the front porch, but she’s obliged ever since. Come home to me, Wiley. I’m waiting for you.
    Love,
    June.”
    Tears welled up in my eyes. “You memorized my letters?”
    “Just the really good parts,” he said. “That was February 12, 1967. Will you be there when I get home?”
    “I’ve been waiting for you to come home to me for three years, Wiley Patton. I’ll be there.”
    I remember walking down the street and turning off at the dirt road that was the driveway to what used to be the Turner place. Sue Ellen, their only daughter now lived in Austin with her family. Old man Turner had died years back of a heart attack while he was mowing the lawn on a day like today. Mrs. Turner passed on about a year ago. Doc Lyons said she died in her sleep. The house had been for sale for a long while. The last time I had been by, the yard was overgrown and the house was sorely in need of a paint job.
    As I rounded the bend and it came into view, I stopped dead in my tracks. Although the paint on the house was still weathered and peeling, the front yard had been totally transformed. I remembered how Wiley had earned money all through high school, mowing lawns and weeding flowerbeds for the folks in town too lazy to do it themselves. He’d always had a knack for it. He claimed to love the smell of the dirt, the feel of moist, dark soil.
    Wiley had lined the path leading up to the house with rose bushes. The pink and white azaleas that were along the front of the house and had long been neglected were neatly trimmed back. There were now bright yellow hibiscuses behind them. The lawn was neatly manicured, the dried, brown grass cropped short and edged neatly. I stepped carefully onto the lawn, my suspicions confirmed when the heel of my white pump promptly sank into the earth. I knew within weeks Wiley’s yard would be lush and green again.
    I proceeded up the walkway to the front porch. I noticed that the hinges