Authors: Susan Wingate
“What does that mean?”
“It means Harold is in some sort
of coma.”
“I’ll be right over.”
I pushed the cat out of the way
and jumped up, pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt, called Vanessa
explained the situation and told her to meet me at the Pyle’s.
It hadn’t been so many weeks
since Bobby had died and I
understood
how fragile you become when submerged in a
crisis. The crying, pulling yourself together, putting on a
strong front, the eventual acquiescence into
emotional upheaval, but mostly the crying, the crying, the crying.
***
The night had taken on a misty
feel like one normally found around coastal settings. White, red, yellow, and
green halos
wrapped around stoplights
and looked eerie against the dark sky. Each changing light blurred in the humid
air, glowing orbs wrapped in undulating haze. Odd for the desert. I looked up
at the moon and saw an expanding ring around it. Rain’s coming. A spring rain
looked like it might be headed our way.
As I drove up to Helen’s, only
one fragmented light was lit, the one she kept on her kitchen table. The one
with yellow red and blue glass. The one that looked like a Picasso painting—her
writing lamp.
I could see two bodies inside as
I made my way into her drive. Helen’s car was visible in her garage which was
opened and looked like a big dark yawning mouth. When I got out of my car a
motion-sensing light clicked on that flooded the front of her house and lawn.
It glared unnaturally. Knowing Helen by now, I figured this must have been one
of Harold’s ideas. Helen wouldn’t dare add anything that garish to her
environment.
The meandering walkway of the
house took on blackened hues between the night sky and the bright spotlight
that angled off of bushes and trees and bent like a lurking monster in the
dark. By the time I got to Helen’s front door she was standing inside it behind
the screen.
“You really didn’t have to come
over, Georgie. It’s way beyond the call of duty, really.” She spoke quietly as
she let me in.
“It’s nothing.” I grabbed her
around the shoulders in an embrace and she held me tight while we stood in the
open door. For the first time in a long time someone held me longer than I’d
held them. When we pulled away from each other I could see Helen’s eyes had
been closed from the hug. She was opening them slowly.
“Come in. Have a glass of wine.”
She closed the door behind me and I heard someone getting another glass from
the cupboard and heard the glug of wine being poured into it.
“This
is
becoming
a
habit.”
The
voice,
the unmistakable voice, offered commentary to
the evening.
“Hi, Van.” I said.
“Hey. Helen and I decided to
partake. So, you’re going to too.” She never asked permissions, only gave
orders but they were mostly kind orders.
“Line me up.”
Helen seemed a bit out of kilter,
which I’d expected she would. Her floral purse sat on top of the counter and
was unlatched. There was an envelope sitting next to her purse with the flap side
up and when I walked in she moved ahead of me and slid it into her bag, then latched
it, and hung it off the back of her wooden chair. “Here.” Van handed me a
glass.
“How’d you get here? I didn’t see
your car.”
“I walked. Felt like I could use
the fresh air.” “Looks like rain.”
“Wouldn’t that be a sign the gods
cared about the little town of Sunnydale”
We fell in around the table. They
took their respective seats and I pulled out an unclaimed chair and sat down in
front of my wine glass.
“Hear anything more, Helen?” I
lifted my glass and took a sip.
“No. I’ve been waiting. Waiting
and writing. This seems so familiar. Like when Bobby…” Her thought trailed off
and she looked out the window onto some remembered
past within the arms of the black
scene outside.
Van and I made an unnoticeable
exchange.
“You just don’t worry. Sometimes
head injuries are like that.” Vanessa spoke with authority. “Miraculous things
have happened. The brain is an amazing piece of machinery. Try not to worry.”
“Oh, I’m not worried.” She looked
in our direction again. “More concerned than worried.”
We waited for her to continue.
“I’m tossed. Tossed between him
dying and… oh, god
save my soul for
saying this…” Her hands came up to cover her mouth. “And, me living.” She
covered her eyes and wept.
What do you say at a
confessional? Well, I’d never been much of a churchgoer, that’s for sure! But I
knew that although you might beg God for forgiveness, he might not always grant
it. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Vanessa
said something like, “There, there. You’re
just upset.” But then the words just fell out of my mouth. I’d neither the
inclination nor the desire to hold them
back and it was only after I’d spoken I realized how harshly they
sounded.
“If it’s so bad Helen why don’t
you just get a divorce?”
I was quick to anger and my chin
tightened and I could tell it was quivering.
They both looked at me stunned.
Vanessa particularly. I went on anyway. “Well really, Van, Jesus. You and I
both know things can get bad but I never wished Bobby dead, not once. Did you?”
Even as I spoke the words my thoughts
whipped back to my and Bobby’s last fight, our last night. Anger can
make a person wish the worst.
“Georgie, quiet.”
“Well, did you?” My eyes glared
at Vanessa, if for no other reason but some misplaced validation for this worst
of human emotions. Even so, I turned my ire back to Helen and went on. “You
should be ashamed of yourself Helen for even thinking something like that, let
alone saying it. I thought we were here to console you not devise some
catch-net in hopes of Harold’s passing. And,
you Van, to
accept this as “okay” is
beyond my sense of understanding.” I paused but only for a beat and started up again.
“Did you ever wish Bobby were
dead during your divorce?” I looked at her demanding an answer.
“You want to go at this now?”
My response was to stare her
down.
“Okay, okay. Let’s do it. Yes!
There I said it. I wished he were dead instead of with another woman. Yes.” Her
face softened and looked at Helen. “Yes, god damn you, Georgette. I’m so
ashamed of it now. When he did die all I could think was that I’d brought it on
somehow. I know it’s ridiculous, but…”
Then, Helen chimed in. “How did
this evening get to be about the two of you?” She stood and when she did her
chair scuffed noisily on the tile floor. “How dare you judge me.” She glared at
me. “How dare you.” She turned her wrath on Vanessa. “Bob was a good man.
You two had been having trouble
for a long time Vanessa. Why do you think you have the right to wish him dead?
He was a good man. Honest. Caring. Gentle. “I knew a man like him once.” We
both looked up as she continued her tirade. “Yes, after I was married to
Harold. We had an affair, a one-night stand once. It all happened so suddenly
and sweetly. I told Harold— asked him
for a divorce.” When she said divorce she looked at me sternly. “He
wouldn’t hear of it!” Her arms flew up. “I thought it was my way out. Then,
Harold starting laying down laws, new laws—that I ‘must be home by three in the
afternoon and that I wasn’t to go out ‘with the girls’…” As she continued
Vanessa
sat back in her chair and
crossed her arms. Her mouth had dropped slightly in what I took as her
disbelief in Helen’s sudden burst of backbone. “So, don’t either one of you
decide what you think is right and wrong for Helen. Little Miss
Helen Pyle can make her own decisions, don’t
think
otherwise.” She sat stiffly and
abruptly back into her seat. Her arms like her mood were crossed. “Now, I think
it’s time you both leave.
I’m up early tomorrow to go to
Phoenix.”
Apologizing at this point would
have seemed sleazy, teenage. I pushed my chair in under the table and smacked
Vanessa on the arm. She seemed to be taking too long to stand.
“Helen, honestly, I’m sorry.”
Vanessa said it as sincerely as she could under the circumstances. I knew she
was trying to think of how badly Helen was feeling at the moment. But, it still
sounded cheap.
“Jesus, Van, come on.” I hit her
arm again. This time she moved.
Outside the night had become
windy while we sat inside discussing life and death and our husbands. You could
feel the mugginess wrap around your skin like a wetsuit. The air smelled of
creosote and honeysuckle. It smelled as though someone left a sprinkler on a
dry dusty road. I could almost taste mud pie.
We were definitely in for some
bad weather.
CHAPTER 24
The next night ended like a bad
dream, with monsters and spiders, a horrible recurring nightmare. But, this
time it was worse, much, much worse.
It had been pissing down rain
ever since around seven in the morning. Roads were flooded and there had been a
rumor they might even close the school until it cleared up a bit.
The diner was closed and Vanessa
went A-W-O-L.
Everyone was looking for her. I’d
called her house, Roberta, the diner, the only places Vanessa seemed to
frequent these days and she was nowhere, it was like she’d vanished. I even
called Helen. But, after the phone rang and rang I remembered she had planned
to go see Harold in Phoenix. When Roberta got my call it must have upset her
because she started on a search of her own. José called me that morning too and
I told him if he saw her anywhere to tell her to call. He was going in to check
on the garden and he said if she came by he would relay the message.
The morning sun lifted high into
the sky and began its descent. By then, around two o’clock, my inner voice
began to tell me things I didn’t want to hear.
Something is wrong, go to her
house, start walking the streets calling her name like you would if you lost
Gangster, just do something!
When I drove up and Roberta’s car
was already parked in her driveway. She came out of the kitchen door and walked
slowly up the walk toward me. She was shaking her head and looking down as she
walked. My heart started to pound.
Roberta leaned into the window.
“She’s not here.”
“Oh, Christ, Roberta. You scared
me, shakin’ your head and all. I didn’t know what to think.”
“Sorry.” Roberta answered curtly.
She never talked kindly to me.
“Well, I guess we better keep
lookin’, huh?”
“She’ll turn up.”
“She’s never been gone this long
without telling someone.” Roberta sneered at my whining voice.
“You’ve known her now for how
long? And, you’re telling me, her daughter, she’s never done this before. Is
that it, Georgette?” She hated me.
“I didn’t, I didn’t mean…” My
head was shaking and I was trying to think up something to say.
She stood up straight and looked
down on me.
“If I hear from her I’ll tell her
you’ve been looking for her.” I moved out of the way as she walked between me
and her car. She opened it and got in.
As I stood by the driveway I
realized I’d lulled myself into believing Roberta was accepting me somehow but
had forgotten how deeply the divorce cut her. I
was the other woman, deeply imbued in her mother’s life, her life. The
hum of her motor buzzed
in the
background of my thoughts. She pushed her horn, just once, short. It jolted me
from my thoughts. My car blocked her. I hurried to get in and I pulled out far
enough for her to pull out in front of me. She did and drove off.
***
By three, the diner looked
closed, which it was—lights off, no cars in front, lifeless. José was out in
the back on his knees
yanking
out weeds and busily working in the soil.
“Seen Vanessa?” He jerked when I
spoke, I’d startled him.
“Oh, Mrs. Carlisle, you scared
me.” “Sorry, José. Has Vanessa been by?”
“Haven’t seen her.” He looked
around out to the north, then east, then south. “What’s up, José?”
“Oh, a man was walking around
here earlier. I didn’t recognize him.”
“What did he look like?”
“Big, I didn’t get a good look at
him, like I said I didn’t recognize him. He was wearing dark sunglasses. He was
only here for just a second. I saw him over there.” José pointed to the
side of the diner. “But, then he was gone.”
Sweat poured down José’s face and he wiped it with the upper part of his
sleeve. “Maybe he wanted to eat.”