Frustration finally took me outside to look up and down the street. The yard was a disaster that would have mortified Annalee. The grass had been mowed by the lawn service, but Annalee’s flower beds, which she’d always groomed herself, lay in ruin, her roses never pruned in the winter, and now unprepared for spring. Only the plants around the detached garage had been properly trimmed and cared for—no doubt by Terrence. Today he stood at the curb speaking with my next-door neighbor, Hanna Beth, and her mentally handicapped adult son, Teddy. All three of them turned my way at once, and then proceeded in my direction, Teddy helping his mother navigate the sidewalk with a walker and Terrence trailing behind them.
“Hallooo!” Teddy called, waving his arm in that enthusiastic, clumsy way of his. “Hallooo, Mis-ser Al-bird.”
Teddy’s mother waved as well. Terrence pushed his hands into his pockets, as if he were as uncomfortable with this invasion of my space as I was. A man should be able to stand in his own yard without being accosted by the neighbors.
I steeled myself for the inevitable social niceties—
how are you, we haven’t seen you, is there anything we can do for you, how are you feeling. . . .
These things were, in part, the reason I kept myself indoors.
I met them at the sidewalk, so as to discourage the idea of an invitation into the house or yard. Terrence shook my hand, Teddy waved shyly again, Hanna Beth greeted me with a sympathetic touch to my shoulder, and we cycled through a likewise uncomfortable conversational greeting. Terrence let me know that, so as not to bother me, he had given the recent repair bills for the apartment to Deborah. I nodded to confirm that I appreciated his efforts to stay out of my way. For the most part, he came and went from the property like a ghost. If not for his car lights and the occasional sound of a door closing on the garage building, I would never have known he was there.
“I’m just waiting for the girl who helps me around the house,” I said, to imply that this wasn’t a visit to the curb to catch up with the neighbors. “She’s late today.”
“Oh, Teddy and I met her a few days ago while Teddy was out pruning the roses,” Hanna Beth said, smiling. “Hard to believe it’s April already. The birds have come in. Teddy was out filling the feeders this morning. He’d be happy to come by and prune your roses, by the way. Terrence hired him to do the ones around the apartment.” She indicated the detached garage, and it occurred to me that Teddy must have spent a fair bit of time on those flower beds. Life was going on in the world, and I wasn’t a part of it. My mind was trapped in the winter, frozen in mid-November, when Annalee lay down to rest, feeling unwell, and never rose again.
“Send me the bill for the gardening,” I told Terrence. “It isn’t your responsibility.”
Terrence circled a hand, palm out, as if he were washing a window. “No, dude, it’s all right. It was my deal. Sesay, my helper, and my girlfriend, M.J., are plant freaks. M.J. has been on me about the rosebushes, you know?” He gave me the somewhat helpless look of a man under the spell of a woman. My mind wound back in time, and I recalled that feeling. Annalee and I had married only six months after we met, and I was so smitten that I’d made a flower bed for her outside our college apartment. It was her first summer not to go home to her parents’ farm in Maine, and she was homesick. I wanted her to be happy, as happy as I was. I had everything—a beautiful wife, my studies, job offers waiting, the promise of an exciting career ahead. Annalee and I basked in the glow of young love, and it was all I could see. But slowly, I’d let that dim. I’d buried it beneath the mortar and stone of building a life, let it go to seed like this yard, while my back was turned.
A stab of regret found some tender place inside me and drew blood. I didn’t want to be near anyone. I wanted to be alone in my house. “I should go back inside now. Send me the bill for the gardening.”
“No, no, it’s a gift,” Terrence countered.
Teddy added, “I gone come fill yer bird feeds, too, ’kay? Got lotta hungry bird. Got mornin’ dove, ’n’ meadow-ark, ’n’ rob-bin, ’n’ pretty red bird.”
“I don’t want any gifts.” My emotions threatened to tumble out of control, and just as quickly, I was angry. I was angry with life. I was angry with the neighbors. I was angry with Annalee for leaving. Even in the midst of it, my lack of ability to control the outburst was humiliating. “I don’t need sympathy, or plates of cookies, or neighbors knocking at my door. I am perfectly fine on my own.” I turned and started toward the house, so as not to make a greater spectacle of myself.
Clearly, the girl wasn’t coming today. I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was a teenager, after all. Bound to be unreliable. Perhaps she’d found a new means by which to earn the money she was so interested in, and she would never come back here at all.
Chapter 8
Epiphany Jones
Sometimes it’s not till after you do something stupid that you see how dumb it was. I never should’ve gotten in DeRon’s car instead of waiting to catch the city bus over to J. Norm’s house. It was Saturday morning, though, and the buses would be slow and crowded. When DeRon pulled up and said he’d give me a ride, I figured that would be faster. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
So far, we’d cruised up and down Vista Street three times, been to that low-rent apartment complex where I’d left behind a night I really wanted to forget, gone by the furniture store to try to hustle some money from DeRon’s cousin who worked there, and picked up three of DeRon’s friends. Now we were sitting in front of some dumpy little house waiting on another friend, who I guessed was gonna be in somebody’s lap. There were a bunch of dudes on the porch, looking our way and leaning over, trying to see who was in the car. I pushed my hands between my knees and slid down in the seat, because I didn’t want them to see me. At least one of those dudes, the big white guy with the tattoos up and down his arm, Big Ray, was fresh out of jail for dealing crack, and the night of the party, he was bragging about it right before he asked me to go to the bedroom with him and smoke. He was the reason we’d headed off down the street with DeRon’s friends. After that, we passed by the church and got in trouble anyway.
Now Big Ray was looking at me through the car window and licking his nasty lips, like he hoped I was gonna come in there. No stinkin’ way.
The friend DeRon was waiting for stepped out on the porch and waved for us to come on. Big Ray grabbed him around the neck and wrestled him some, just messing with him, but really Ray looked like he oughta be on
The Ultimate Fighter
. He could probably break somebody’s neck. The three losers in DeRon’s backseat jumped out and ran on up to the house to get in on the action. I felt better without them in the car. Things had been getting a little weird, and I didn’t like how it felt.
They all started wrestling and goofing around on the porch, and DeRon reached for his door handle.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
He nudged me in the shoulder. “Let’s go chill a minute.”
“No
way
.” A sick feeling gurgled in my stomach, and all of a sudden, I wanted to be anyplace else. “C’mon, DeRon. I’ve gotta get to work. I’m late already.” I looked at the clock on the dash. After ten. I should’ve been at J. Norm’s at least an hour ago. So far, this morning had started bad and gotten worse. Russ and Mama were headed to camp out at one of their gun shows this weekend. Russ needed to make some money, because he’d spent the rent buying new inventory from some dude at the last gun show, and Mama was mad as a wet cat. Russ was supposed to have gotten his trailer all packed last night, but a bunch of his biker buddies came by while Mama was at work, and they’d hung out watching some game on TV. When they got done, the living room was trashed.
This morning, Russ’s trailer wasn’t ready, and Mama went off on him. Russ didn’t care at first, because he was still passed out, mostly. By the time Mama stomped out the door to work on the trailer, they’d had a big fight, like usual. Russ told me to clean up the mess in the house. I knew better than to argue with Russ when he was like that. It was easier to do what he said. So I cleaned up their stupid mess and then helped finish stocking the trailer. After that, I listened while Mama told me I was dead meat if I didn’t come straight home after work and lock myself in the house while her and Russ were gone. She acted like she was gonna check with the neighbors to see how I did, which was such a crock. Mama and Russ weren’t about to waste their weekend worrying about me, and it wasn’t like they could call the house, since we didn’t have a phone, except Russ’s
business
phone, which went wherever Russ went.
By the time they finally left, I was late heading for the bus stop. I’d missed the bus and was waiting for the next one when DeRon drove by. I figured nobody’d know about me getting in DeRon’s car. Besides, I needed the ride.
I didn’t think I was gonna end up stuck outside some crack house with Big Ray licking his lips at me. “You said you were gonna give me a ride to
work
, DeRon.”
He jerked away like he was trying to get a better look at me. “What you wanna be workin’ in that old white dude big house fo’? You know they jus’ gonna jump yo’ case at school fo’ that. They thinkin’ you a little Aunt Jemima.” He blinked at me and grinned, like it was all a joke. DeRon had a smile that could melt butter, I swear. “Come on, Epie. It Sat-aday. You too fine to be workin’ on Sat-aday.” He slid a hand over my shoulder and into my hair and tipped my chin up and kissed me, and I leaned into it. It felt so good to have somebody touch me like that. His thumb rubbed a soft circle over the hollow of my throat. Little tingles went through my skin, and for a minute, I couldn’t think.
DeRon kissed me again, harder this time.
On the porch, Big Ray thumbed toward the house and said he had a room in there, and we could use it. DeRon’s friends hollered something you wouldn’t say in front of your mama, and DeRon shot them the finger out the window; then he pulled me close and rested his forehead against mine. “Let’s ditch ’em and go someplace. Jus’ you and me.”
“Yeah, all right,” I heard myself say. Anywhere was better than here, with a half dozen guys acting crazy. Right then, I wanted to be alone with DeRon, anyway. I could tell myself twenty dozen times that DeRon was a bad idea, but when he was right there, with that big smile and those eyes, all I could think was that nobody’d ever looked at me like that before. I could see myself in the bleachers at the basketball games, cheering him on. If I worked at it a little, I could probably get away some and go do stuff with DeRon—maybe tell Mama I was staying late at J. Norm’s. If I kept putting DeRon off, that other girl he’d been crushin’ on was gonna have him wrapped around her finger, and everybody at school would be taking free shots at me again. Right now, they left me alone because DeRon said to.
DeRon started the car and stuck a hand out the window, waved, and hollered, “Catch y’all later.”
They hooted, and one of them stood on the edge of the porch and did something nasty. I pretended I didn’t see it, but a big ol’ lump came up in my throat. DeRon slid his hand over and put it on my thigh and started to rub. The muscles underneath went stiff, and then relaxed, but my mind was spinning ninety miles an hour, like the simulator car in driver’s ed class when it hits a water puddle. I couldn’t think that fast.
I wanted DeRon. I wanted to be his girlfriend, but I hadn’t ever
been
with anybody. In Mrs. Lora’s school, I was like a fly in a puddle of milk. Those lily-white farm boys didn’t want to be with me, and their mamas and daddies weren’t gonna let them, anyway. This thing with DeRon was a whole new deal. It’s not every day the guy all the girls want decides he wants you. I could picture how life could be a whole lot more fun with DeRon around.
“I hadn’t ever met anybody like you, Epie,” he said, and smiled on one side, and his hand slid up a little bit. The muscles went tight, then loose again. His fingers stopped for a minute while he was scoping the traffic to turn onto Vista Street. “How come you let them other girls push you around? They hadn’t got nothin’ on you, girl. You fine like you oughta be on a magazine cover or somethin’, and you smart.” He grinned and winked at me, and I felt like I could be on a magazine cover, right then. Nobody’d ever talked to me like that before.
“Those girls are stupid.” I leaned back in my seat, let my head turn toward DeRon, tried to look like I knew what I was doing. “I got no use for them.” I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth and chewed on it, because all of a sudden I was nervous again.
DeRon sucked in a breath and blew it out. “Man, Epie, you drivin’ me crazy.”
It felt good to drive somebody crazy—but at the same time, there was a knot in my throat so big, I could hardly get air past it. I knew where me and DeRon were headed—well, not where, exactly, but that look in his eyes told me what he had in mind.
Lust of the flesh
, Mrs. Lora would’ve called it. She was against it, and the preacher at her church was, too. There was stuff about it all through the Bible. They did a whole purity class for us girls when we were in the seventh grade. It was all about the reasons you shouldn’t have sex, and you should wait until you’re married and stuff. I didn’t listen much. I was skinny as the Feed the Children commercial back then and flat as a board. I just kept thinking,
Who’re they talkin’ to? Nobody’s ever gonna want me.