Where There's Smoke

Jody turned to him, her contempt at full throttle. “Like your opinion counts for something where Tackett Oil is concerned.”

“I wasn’t speaking as an expert on the oil business,” Key returned evenly. “Just as a guy who shook hands with another guy. Cato looked me straight in the eye, like he didn’t have anything to hide. I met him at the end of the day. He was sweaty and his clothes were dirty, which indicated to me that he’d been working his ass off outdoors in the heat.”

Jody sent a plume of cigarette smoke toward the ceiling. “Sounds as though you could learn a lesson or two about the work ethic from this Cato fellow. It wouldn’t hurt you to sweat a little, get dirty, do some work around here.”

“Key’s been working, Mama. He fixed the latch on the gate.”

“That’s tinkering. I’m talking about sweat-of-the-brow, damned hard work.”

“On your oil wells, you mean.” Despite his best intentions to hold his temper, Key’s voice was rising.

“It wouldn’t kill you, would it?”

“No. It wouldn’t kill me, but it isn’t my gig. It’s yours.”

“Ah, that’s why you never wanted to be part of the business. Because I was there first? You didn’t want to play second banana to a woman.”

Key, shaking his head, laughed ruefully. “No, Jody. I never wanted to be a part of the business

because I’m not interested in it.”

“Why not?”

Jody never accepted a simple answer at face value. He didn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been required to justify, explain, and account for his opinions, especially if they differed from hers. It was no wonder to him that his daddy had turned to other women. With Jody, everything was a contest to see who could best whom. It wouldn’t take long for a man to grow tired of that.

Forcing himself to remain calm, he said, “Maybe if we were still drilling for oil, if there was a challenge involved, I’d consider going into the business.”

“You crave excitement, is that it?”

“Routine holds no appeal for me.”

“Then you should have lived during the boom. It attracted your kind of people. East Texas was crawling with gamblers and con artists and crooks and whores. All living on a wing and a prayer. Taking high-stakes risks. Saying to hell with tomorrow, let the devil take it.

“That’s the life for you, isn’t it? You’re not happy unless you’re walking a tightrope with crocodiles on both sides ready to eat you if you fall. Just like your father, you thrive on adventure.”

Key was clenching his teeth so tightly that his jaw ached. “Think whatever you want, Jody.” Then, leaning forward, he stabbed the table with his index finger to emphasize each word. “But I never did and never will want to baby-sit a bunch of stinking oil wells.”

“Key,” Janellen groaned miserably.

She could barely be heard over Jody’s chair scraping back. Her face was florid. “Those stinking oil wells allowed you to live high on the hog all your life! They provided food for your belly, clothes for your back, bought you new cars, and paid your way through college!”

Key rose, too. “For which I’m grateful. But am I supposed to become an oilman just to pay you back for upholding your responsibilities as a parent? If you and Daddy had been plumbers, would I be obligated to shovel shit the rest of my life? It was never expected of Clark to go into the oil business, so why me?”

“Clark had other plans for his life.”

“How do you know? Did you ever ask him his ambitions? Or did he only follow your plans for his life?”

Jody drew herself up. “He had his career mapped out and would have followed it, had it not been for that whore of a doctor that you’ve been jockeying around the countryside.”

“That was an emergency situation, Mama,” Janellen interjected. “That little girl would have died if it hadn’t been for Key.”

Letty Leonard’s accident had been a headline story in the local newspaper.

“Thank you, Janellen,” Key said, “but I don’t need you to defend what I did. I would have done it for a dog, let alone a little girl.”

Jody was fixed on only one aspect of the drama. “I told you to stay away from Lara Porter.”

“I didn’t hightail it to the emergency room for her, for chrissake. I did it for the kid.”