Black Gold Chapter 9

9 Precipitate Action

"Yeah, she's on the warpath!" Tim muttered over his mobile to Nancy, still trembling mad at Runt's public dressing-down of Mary Catherine, angrily pacing the O'Doolan kitchen.  "For a nickel I'd get rooms at the Days, but the girls like hanging out with Ashley and Austin, and besides, I don't want to worry about them in a motel on top of worrying about Mom.  I'm telling you, Squirt, the staff at this so-called hospital can't tell its rear end from a hole in the ground!  They're misreading test results, the different specialists aren't even talking to each other, and Mom is going stir-crazy there!  I'm not sure she's even had a stroke at all, but I can't see any of the test data—hell, they can't even find half of it!  They ought to call the place Larry Moe and Curly General!"

"If anyone can sort it out, Tim, it's you," Nancy muttered.  "Meanwhile, I can try to get Janiece to calm down a little for the kids' sake."

"Wasting your time, Squirt!" Tim replied.  "The only one of your brood she can even be civil with is Abby, and that's only because she makes sure to bring Penny, Ella, and Aidenn along.  Even Runt doesn't like yelling at pregnant women!  No, you'll do much more good with me."  Which made Nancy gasp—

"With you?  Seeing Mom?  Why should I?"

"Because I expect at least one of us besides me to act like a grown-up," Tim scolded, "and it's a waste of time trying to say anything to Runt, and Mom's in no shape.  So just dry up and be ready to go at nine!  And yeah, bring Dave—maybe he can act like a grown-up too!"  And he switched off before Nancy could argue…

"I'm supposed to go see Mom tomorrow," Nancy muttered, out of countenance.  "What does he think that's going to accomplish?  Mom hates me, and that's not going to change!"

"Maybe she's changed," Dave suggested.  "Look, if worst comes to worst with her, you're not going to have to tell yourself you had a chance to reconcile and ditched it.  Just do it and don't think so much about it!"

"Yes, well, that's something I'm good at, aren't I?" Nancy muttered, seeking a bit of peace on the back deck…
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Nancy found she could not stop apologizing to Mary Catherine.  "Honest, I didn't know they'd go after you and Hadley!  You two were just up there to"—only then remembering that Lorelei was there at that sunny Dairy Queen picnic table with them—

"Woo baby!" Lorelei whooped at an incandescently blushing Mary Catherine.  "Getting it on with"—Lorelei's face took on a sickly cast—"with Hadley True?  You couldn't find a bigger nerd to go out with?"

'There's nothing wrong with Hadley, Lorelei!" Cat hissed in reply.  "So what if he's…well, studious?  He's sweet, and he cares about me, and…and…"

"And you can find his face on a plate at Pizza Hut…" Lorelei muttered wryly—Mary Catherine's face flushed angrily—

"That's cruel, Lorelei!" Nancy scolded.  "Okay, so Hadley's not Donnie Ray Lipscomb!  Considering how Donnie Ray behaves, that's not such a bad thing, is it?"  Donnie Ray Lipscomb was the Stoneville High football team's starting quarterback, and one of Lorelei's more recent exes…

"Okay, I'm sorry, Cat," Lorelei mewled, understanding Nancy's point.  Hadley True can probably control his hands better than Donnie Ray can, anyhow…  "But why were you up there anyway, Nancy?  You do remember what those burglars told us, don't you?"  Which, her voice lowered conspiratorially, sent Nancy once again into the tale of her discovery of Richie Dwight and his case…

"You two are both crazy!" Lorelei scoffed as Nancy finished another enthusiastic retelling of her discovery of Richie Dwight.  "A nerd and an Indian Springs boy!  I mean, don't either of you have any taste?  Do you"—and something over Nancy and Cat's shoulder caught Lorelei's stunned attention—"Oh—my—God!" Lorelei blurted.  "We're being invaded by Grizzly Adams!  He looks like he should be walking around with a pet bear!"  Nancy and Cat turned to see what had Lorelei so shocked—

"Richie!" Nancy cried with instant delight when she saw him edging up to the table, the tail of his flannel shirt—sleeves cut off short—hanging over the waist of his worn-down jeans—she jumped up to greet him while Cat giggled and Lorelei tried to hide in the collar of her top—"What brings you here?"  And for the briefest of moments, Nancy wished to throw herself into his arms and sun herself in a hug—then she remembered that nothing had as yet proceeded so far with him.  Talk about scaring him off!…  She mastered the naughty instinct, contenting herself with seizing his elbow and dragging him toward her table, where her friends awaited with amused faces.  Her own face, she knew without having to see, was incandescent with a pleased blush…  She introduced him, rather blushing himself, to her two friends.

"Hi," Richie nodded with a smile, and Nancy caught herself instinctively gauging the smile with which he favored her friends, already nervous that he might see something more desirable in either Lorelei or Mary Catherine—"And I left my pet bear home," he grinned, "'cause he messes in my truck cab when I ain't there to watch him!"  Lorelei cringed—he heard me!—but his laugh was good-natured still.

"Don't mind Lorelei," Nancy dismissed her friend, her hand on his elbow urging him to take a seat beside her at the picnic table.  "She doesn't mean any offense."  If you blow this for me, Lorelei, so help me I'll…

"Didn't take any," he smiled at Nancy, and the quick light in his deep brown eyes beckoned her to edge closer to him on the bench, her heart thrilling in her chest.  "Guess I ain't something you see in Stoneville much!"

"Well, no," Mary Catherine agreed genially, "but I'm really glad to meet you.  Nancy can't say enough about you!"  A nice way of saying she won't shut up about you, she congratulated herself on not saying…  "So what brings you down here today?" she inquired brightly, already completely comfortable with the big burly young man.  "Couldn't bear to stay away from Nancy?"

"Well, that too," he blushed, and Nancy's sudden giddiness allowed her an airy giggle.  "But I wanted to talk to her about—well…" he suddenly stammered, uncertain whether he should be discussing the business in front of Nancy's friends.

"They know all about it, Richie," Nancy interjected with a smile.  "In fact, we were just talking about the case!  How you wanted to find out about your dad, what you were told about him"—

"Not to mention discussing the burglars that grabbed Cat and her boyfriend over it last night!" Lorelei smirked—Richie started—

"What?"

"Well, yes," Mary Catherine affirmed guilelessly, instantly comfortable around the young man.  "Those burglars that broke into your house, Nancy, I'm sure of it!  The way they sounded…"  And Mary Catherine was off, retelling the adventure of the previous night—doubly entertaining now that the immediate danger was past—quite unaware of the horrified amazement spreading over Richie's face, and equally unaware of Nancy's silent but frantic efforts to get her to stop…
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"I did not do it on purpose, Nancy!" Mary Catherine protested over the O'Doolan breakfast table.  Jimmy was, even at that early hour, off to his law practice in Powhatan—like most O'Doolans, James O'Doolan was a convinced workaholic—while he left his "sister the sister" to play hostess to her friends, particularly a very on-edge Nancy.  "I…well, I just felt at ease with him, and"—

"And you were getting back at Mom for breaking up your little party with Hadley, weren't you?" Abbie—another inveterate early riser—sniggered.  "Don't tell me you weren't!"

"Actually," Lorelei, just dropped in from her old homestead where Mom and Dad were still both alive and surprisingly vigorous in their very late sixties, after a very pointed hint from Tim that she might be very useful today, tittered, "she had something else in mind, didn't you, Cat?"

"Well," Nancy groused over the first of what would be far too many coffees that day, "it got our first fight over with in a hurry!"

"And you should thank me, Nancy," Lorelei replied brightly, "for keeping it from being your last fight, too!"
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Richie sat vacillating between consternation and defiance after Nancy had stormed off in the general direction of the high school a mile away, incensed at his firm declaration that he would not allow her to keep looking into his case.  Shocked protests had morphed into angry, arms-folded pouting, then finally into a white-hot, red-faced tirade complete with shrieks that she hated him and never ever wanted to see him again, leaving Richie in his current predicament, consternation that he may already have lost Nancy and defiance that he was doing what was necessary to protect her.  "But I don't want to see her get hurt!" he blustered with a voice on the edge of panic.  "I didn't know this was gonna be dangerous!  I wouldn't have even asked her if I'd thought she could get hurt!  I just want to protect her!  Don't she see that?"

"Richie," Lorelei replied reasonably, allowing herself a quiet observation that he was actually very cute, especially for an Indian Springs hick, "you have to understand that Nancy's been fighting her folks over her mysteries since, well, ever since she started working on them!  Her mom and dad told her she wasn't allowed to work on this case at all, so when you told her the same thing, well…"  Lorelei discreetly left the sequel unspoken; it all made perfect sense to Lorelei, anyhow…

"But they're her folks!" Richie protested.  "You don't go against your folks!  It sounds to me like they just don't want to see her get hurt by it!  Ain't nothing wrong with that!  Heck, I don't want to see her get hurt either!  Don't she see that?  They just want to protect her 'cause they love her, just like I"—and only then did Richie realize what he had just said—
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"He said that?" Nancy breathed, Lorelei's words—no, Richie's words—transporting her back to that hot early-summer day in 1981—"He really said that?  That very day?"

"He made me promise to never tell you," Lorelei replied gently, letting Nancy savor his words.  No, you've never really gotten over him, have you, Nance?…  "He didn't want you to think he was fickle, just fell in love at the drop of a hat.  But yes, he said it, and he meant it.  He loved you even then."

"It's just the way you are, you know!" Dave smiled, squeezing Nancy's hand.  "That's why Tim's right, hon—you ought to give your mom a chance.  Maybe all that's happened might have made her re-think a few things."  Especially if I have my way…

"Not like you haven't needed that yourself, you know, Nancy!" Mary Catherine observed.  "Especially that day!"  Strange that so much of everything that's happened to us depended on that one day…
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"Nancy!" Mary Catherine cried breathlessly, having finally overtaken her livid friend at the front lawn of Stoneville High, her shorter legs screaming in indignation at the hot pursuit.  "He didn't mean anything by it except that he cares about you!"  Nancy, seemingly as unheeding of Cat's plea as she had been of every other plea Cat had made on that angry walk, kept storming off toward the football field, most likely heading for the shade of the woods beyond, where she had often found herself a private place to think.  "I'd think you'd like that he already cares about you that much!"

"He cares!" Nancy hissed sarcastically, whirling to face a winded Cat.  "He cares so much that he decided to act just like—like—like…like my stupid husband or something!  Bossing me around!  Telling me I'm not allowed to"—and finally she'd gotten angry enough to choke on her own white-hot words—

"Nancy," Cat mewled, suddenly worried lest her best friend give herself a coronary, "would you rather he not care if you hurt yourself?"  Which finally provoked a spark of desperately-needed reason into Nancy's still-blazing eyes—"He's not your parents, Nancy, and no, he's not your husband!"  At least not yet, she couldn't help but note to herself wryly…  "He's not trying to boss you around, he's trying to protect you!"

"But"—

"No, he doesn't understand about you and your family," Cat allowed gently.  "But he came all the way down from Indian Springs just to see you!  Yeah, I know he said it was about your case, but he didn't have to come all the way down here to check up on that!  Besides, you told me about his mom being sick—think about it!  His dad's just died, his mom's sick, and he still came down here, just to see you!"  The blaze started to die down in Nancy's eyes—"Are you going to blow it with him just because you're mad at him trying to protect you?  Nancy, he cares so much about you, just like any boyfr"—and Nancy's sudden gasp stopped Cat in her tracks.

"Cat!" Nancy gaped, breathlessly turning on Mary Catherine again, "Do you mean…do you think he maybe—that he really"—

'You heard what I said, Nancy," Mary Catherine replied, her voice gentle but distinctly pointed.  "Could it possibly be anything else?"  And finally you get it! Cat sighed as Nancy's eyes rounded and her lip dropped—

"And I left him there with Lorelei!" Nancy squeaked.  "What if he—he—come on, Cat!" she suddenly urged, her feet frantically retracing their steps back toward the Dairy Queen and a Richie Dwight she desperately hoped was still there and un-seduced by Lorelei…
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"As if you needed to worry!" Lorelei tittered sweetly from the center seat where she sat ensconced among Richie Junior staring out the side, Abbie entertaining Mia and Mikey in their car seats in the back window while Dave piloted the van toward Powhatan behind Tim's Audi carrying himself and Lainie. "The only thing he wanted to talk about was you!  He was terrified he'd blown it with you!  All he wanted was a second chance!"

"There's a lesson in that, hon!" Dave added pointedly…
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Mary Catherine's exhausted legs were quivering jelly by the time she and Nancy had practically run their way back to the Dairy Queen.  The entire way there, Nancy had been in a squealing dither that she had ruined everything with Richie before they'd even gotten together, and by the time they rounded the corner to the DQ she was ready to fall on her knees and beg forgiveness of him if only he'd give her a second chance—

A feeling which animated Richie to jump to his feet as soon as he spotted Nancy rounding the corner, determined to let her do anything she wanted—check out his case, hunt down Jimmy Hoffa, or even run off to the circus if she wanted—with nothing from him but one proviso which itself turned his knees to jelly but would not stop him—"Nancy!" Richie cried when she returned, "I—I only wanted to protect y"—

"Richie!" Nancy interrupted earnestly, restraining herself from flinging herself at him only by the hardest, "I'm sorry!  I shouldn't have flown off the handle!  I know you're just thinking about what's best for me, and"—

"And I know how much it means to you to solve the mystery, Nancy," Richie interrupted feverishly in his turn, "now that Lorelei's explained it to me, and"—

"And you're more important to me than any mystery, Richie!" Nancy implored, reaching out and seizing his hands.  "So I promise I'll"—

"I'll let you figure out my case, Nancy," Richie promised, his body thrilling at the touch of Nancy's hands on his, "I promise…"  He steeled himself to say what he knew had to be said.  "On one condition."

Nancy's old temper flared, but she crushed it ruthlessly—"What's that?"

"That you let me help you, Nancy," Richie advanced, firmness in his voice masking the fear in his heart that he was about to blow it again.  "I don't want to see you get hurt by this, and that's the only way I know to keep that from happening.  You have to"—no, Richie, don't put it that way!—"Please, Nancy," he asked, "let me help you, okay?  I want to help you!  I…"  The thought trembled on his lips—found words—"I want to be with you, Nancy, all the time, okay?  At least if you—well, if you'd…you'd like to…"

"Yes, Richie, I would," Nancy mewled, her heart radiant inside her.  "I'd love it if you'd help me."  And her heart seemed to stop as he smiled down into her face and wrapped her hands up into his…
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As if Sister Mary Catherine had needed an excuse to attend weekday Mass at Powhatan's St. Dismas Church, the chance to pray for Nancy to find reconciliation with her mother would have been more than sufficient.  Nancy's broken family life had always seemed a tragedy to her; as poor as her family had been, Mary Catherine had grown into womanhood always secure that her family would love and support her no matter what.  It was that love, that support which had let her find the courage to enter the Church, take up her vows and her burden as a Sister of Charity, and she could still not imagine how a family could withhold that from one of their own.  How can someone just decide to stop loving a sister or a daughter—or anybody—no matter what?…

Such thoughts oppressed her as she edged into the old familiar sanctuary, dipped her fingers into the fount at the end of the nave and crossed herself, walked down the nave with a soft step which still managed to echo off the walls of the sparsely-occupied sanctuary.  Perhaps a dozen parishioners were sitting in wait for the Mass, mostly elderly, but one or two younger heads visible.  She found a pew close to the front, only a discreet couple of rows behind one of the younger heads, a man seemingly in his late forties sitting quietly in his pew, his face declined discreetly toward some sort of reading material.  She genuflected with a quick bob and shuffled into the row—dropped the prayer rail to the floor with her foot—the hollow thump echoed in the sanctuary as she bobbed to her knees for prayer—the man's head began to turn as Mary Catherine prepared a quick apology for disturbing him—the face turned—a hint of glittering wire-frame glasses—a bright, intelligent eye—it's impossible!-—and her heart skipped a beat—now the eyes were full upon her—

And her heart skipped several more beats—