One thing I was sure of as I put all the papers back in the box and the box back on its shelf—I wanted to get out of there, away from Johnny and his condo.
I went into the kitchen and ran a glass of water, trying to calm down. Of every bad thing I’d ever thought about Johnny, I’d never once thought he was corrupt. Okay, so I didn’t have any evidence that he actually had done anything illegal. But he owed his job to a couple of guys. He was owned. Once in the middle of a heated argument, I’d yelled that Johnny had bourgeois values. That had been the most cutting thing I could think of to say. My saying that had been the notification to both of us that it was over. It had been a much more final act than our acts of adultery, than even Johnny hitting me. It had been the real divorce between us, not the papers I got months later in the mail.
I realized that the only things I knew about how hard the cops had really searched for my pursuers, I knew from Johnny. I was standing at the sink, considering all this, while the glass I was holding filled with water.
About the same time I noticed the water flowing over the top of the glass, I heard footsteps on the front walkway. I turned off the spigot and held my breath. The doorbell rang, just briefly, and then I heard the key in the lock.
“Johnny?” I called.
“Just me,” he answered.
“Just a minute. I’ll be right there. I put on the chain lock.”
I ran and grabbed my clothes, started pulling them on.
I was buttoning my shirt when I heard the front door open. I looked up, surprised. Johnny walked in, smiling.
“You didn’t have to break it. I was going to let you in.”
“I didn’t break it. Those flimsy things are a cinch to open.”
“Then why did you bother to install it?” I was sitting on the carpet, pulling on my socks.
He shrugged. “Came with the place.”
I put on my boots, picked up my backpack. “I’m ready to go.”
He looked surprised. “What’s your hurry? I came home to take you to lunch. Thought we’d talk about what happened last night. What we can do about that. And about your girlfriend’s father, which folks might remember him. We’ve got to get organized.”
I didn’t like his proprietary manner. I’d asked for this, though, by coming to him for help in the first place. I should have known better. At that moment, it seemed to me the major pattern in my life was knowing better and going ahead anyway.
“Never mind me. You’re gonna be busy,” I said. I walked over to his telephone answering machine and hit one of the buttons.
On came the twittering voice. I held up my hands, waited until she got the part about her “own ten little fingers” and then wiggled mine in front of his face.
He just stood there. Didn’t say anything. Then he walked past me to the machine and pushed the reset button.
“Hi, it’s me,” I said in a Beverly Hillbillies accent, dancing around the kitchen, wiggling my fingers and laughing. I could just picture her, with bleached-blond hair, wrapped nails, fussy clothes. She was probably just dying for Johnny to marry her so she could move into his little condo with their color-coordinated wedding presents, registered at Burdines. I fell onto the couch, laughing, holding my stomach. To think I’d actually been in love with this guy once.
Eventually I got control of myself and lay on my back, trying to catch my breath.
“Are you finished?” Johnny asked, in a cold voice.
I sat up.
“Because if you’re finished, put on your boots and I’ll take you home. And put one of my shirts over yours. If your Momma sees you in that ripped blouse, she’s going to think I’m into rough stuff.”
“That’s not my home.”
“Fine. I’ll take you to your parents’ house, then.” His voice was rough with irritation.
I pulled on my boots, then went into his room and grabbed the first shirt I could find. I walked back into the living-room buttoning it up. “Thank you for your hospitality,
Chief
.”
He was already walking towards the door. He looked over his shoulder at me. “Just so you know... Emma’s a fine girl. Real class. She deserves better than me.”
“And I didn’t?” I snapped.
He was at the door, and opened it without looking at me, speaking so quietly I almost didn’t catch his words. I have never been completely sure that I heard him correctly. But I think what he said was, “We deserved each other, Laurie Marie.”
The mood in the car was frosty, in spite of the sticky, humid air. When Johnny pulled up in the driveway, I grabbed my backpack and opened the door before the car was completely stopped. I slammed the passenger door behind me and was half-way to the kitchen door before I realized that Johnny had shut off the ignition and was getting out, too. Ever the gentleman, I thought. Going to pay his respects to my mother.
I didn’t wait for him. I went on in to the kitchen and let that door slam behind me, too. Momma was—no surprise here—standing over the stove.
She looked at me, and I could read her confusion. She couldn’t make up her mind how she should react. I’d stayed out all night like the brazen hussy I was. I’d slept at the home of a man to whom I was not married. On the other hand, the man in question was Johnny Berry, whom she would dearly love to see me marry. Again.
Finally she chose. “Oh, Baby. I’m so happy for you. But honey, just remember if you keep giving away the milk, he won’t need to buy the cow.” She looked like she had a few more pearls of wisdom to toss in my direction when she saw him at the door. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and hurried to let him in.
“Why Johnny! I wondered why Baby Sister didn’t bring you in. Have a seat, sit right down here at the table. I was just putting on a pot of coffee, and I have some cinnamon buns here. I’m just gonna warm them up a bit.”
“Why, I can’t stay, Mrs. Coldwater, but I couldn’t drop off Laurie without stopping in to see how you and Mr. Coldwater are doing.”
“We’re doing just fine, Johnny, and how are your parents? I think of them so often. You know, your daddy was always partial to my fig preserves, why don’t you just take a jar of them and slip them to him next time you see him.” She was measuring coffee as she spoke, and putting some cinnamon rolls onto a plate and sticking them in the microwave. Momma used to bake them herself, but now she bought these with the texture of cardboard from the big franchise in the mall.
Thing is, I was contemptuous of her for spending most of her life in the kitchen. But I was also resentful when she took shortcuts. But it didn’t stop me from grabbing one off the plate that Momma took from the microwave. The cardboard was generously layered with fat and covered with cinnamon sugar. I took a big bite of it, standing there in the kitchen. The crumbs and little avalanches of sugar fell on the floor.
Johnny was sitting at the table. Momma had placed the rolls in front of him. She started setting out the milk, sugar, little pink envelopes of sweetener. I didn’t sit down at the place she’d set for me. Without excusing myself I walked over to the little table where the phone book was kept. I picked it up and headed down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. I wanted to make a phone call in privacy.
As I entered the room I turned on the light. I felt a shiver up my spine when I remembered how close I’d come to being shot by my own father just the night before. Wasn’t I supposed to want to kill him, not the other way around? No, I was getting my complexes mixed up. It was mother I was supposed to want to kill, to have my father to myself. Right, I thought. That’ll be the day.
I sat down cross-legged on the bed and opened the phone book. The name I was looking for was there. Or rather, her husband’s name. Thomas Dalman. I dialed it, and a child’s voice answered.
“Can I speak to your mother, please?”
There was no answer. A clattering noise that sounded like the phone had been dropped. Then a voice called shrilly, “Mom! Mom! Telephone!”
Eventually I heard a soft, feminine, “Hello?” Just that one word, in an accent deep and velvety, much richer than mine. In the difference I could measure the distance between our lives.
“This is Laurie Marie. How the hell are you, girl?”
She gasped and then Susan, my old best friend, and Forrest Miller’s daughter, cried out “Laurie Marie! I can’t believe it! Where are you?”
We talked for a while, both of us rushing, and laughing, and excited. I heard a child’s voice saying, “Who is it, Mommy?” Susan answered, “An old friend of Mommy’s. Go outside and play.”
Momma opened the door to the room and came in, carrying a stack of clean laundry. She put it away, shooting glares at me every chance she got.
“Listen, Susan, this telephone conversation isn’t working. Why don’t we meet somewhere? A diner? Better yet, a bar.”
There was a long silence on the other end. “I can’t leave the kids, Laurie.”
“Okay, how about tonight, then?”
There was a longer silence. “I don’t think I could go out at night without Tom.”
Particularly not to meet the infamous Laurie Marie Coldwater, I added silently.
“Right. Okay”
“Why don’t you come over here?” she said brightly.
“Okay. When?”
“Now?”
I agreed. She gave me directions. We hung up. I hopped off the bed to go and change clothes.
“See ya later, Momma,” I said, headed for the door.
“Just a minute, young lady.” She looked at me for a moment and then walked over to the bed, smoothing out the spread where I’d sat. And brushing off the sand that had come off my boots.
I winced. Another aggravating thing about growing up. I’m starting to recognize it when I engage in boorish adolescent behavior. At this rate, by the time I’m seventy-two, I’ll finally stop behaving like a boorish adolescent.
“Sorry.”
“Baby, I just want what’s best for you. I just want you to be happy. That’s all I want.”
I sighed, but prepared myself to hear her out. I owed her that, I thought.
“I blame myself for what’s happened to you, honey. I shouldn’t have let you have your way so much. I should have given you more guidance. Your father should have been more of a help to me. You needed your father to keep you in line.”
I was shocked to hear her blame my father for anything. It made me think she really did feel bad about the way I’d turned out. I also had to struggle to keep a straight face. Did she really believe it was more of her advice I’d needed? I’d had so much guidance that I’d had to run a thousand miles just to get a breath of air.
“Momma. Momma. It’s all right. Don’t worry about me.”
She looked at me with fierce determination in her eyes. “You
have
to listen to me. This might be your last chance. I can help you. You’ll never forgive yourself if you let Johnny get away again.”
“Momma...”
She was having none of my interruption. “No, you listen to me. I don’t know why any decent man would have you. But it’s plain to see that Johnny Berry still holds a candle for you. If you don’t straighten up and fly right, you could lose your last chance. For a husband. For children. For a real home. You’ll end up a lonely old woman.” Her determination had faded. She was pleading with me now, her stark fears for my future written across her face.
I caught her vision. For a moment, I pictured myself as an old, friendless, homeless woman. Dirty, dressed in rags, freezing to death on a street corner one winter night.
“I can’t stay here,” was what I said, and I left.
I tore up the roads on the short drive to Susan’s house. Or Tom’s house. That’s how I really thought of it, after all. I was pretty sure that was how Susan and Tom thought of it, too.
Their house was in a new subdivision less than a mile from my parents’ house. Smack in the middle of what used to be orange groves. Once Susan and I had “borrowed” my brothers’ mini-bikes and chased each other up and down the rows of trees, riding much faster than was safe, wheels sliding in the sand, laughing ourselves sick.
I pulled up in front of the sand-colored house. The yard was small, but meticulously maintained. Tidy azalea bushes, a few orange trees, some palms, a blooming hibiscus bush near the front door.
As I rang the doorbell, I could hear a TV blaring inside. The door was opened by a thin, tan woman with frosted hair, immaculate white shorts, and long, carefully manicured nails. Her face was artfully made-up, the kind of face that gets described as “attractive,” but which looked tense and controlled to me. Everything about Susan’s appearance seemed to plead, “Can’t you see how much I want to please you?” Standing there, the full implication of a “pleasing appearance” struck me.
There was a momentary awkwardness. How were we supposed to greet each other? If shaking hands was appropriate, I was incapable of it. A kiss and a hug—I wondered if that’s what old friends our age did in this place? But we had kissed before, Susan and me, and the memory of it was part of the tension between us now.
“Looking good, girl.” I meant it to come out loud and hearty, but my throat was tight, and it sounded low and wistful.
Susan smiled. That loosened things up a bit. But the smile fit the rest of her appearance. Neat, sweet, pleasing.
She led me through her living room where two teenagers slouched on the couch, staring at a large TV. Soda cans and candy wrappers littered the coffee table. Their pricey sneakers were parked in the middle of the mess.
Susan introduced the twins to me, but they only barely acknowledged our existence.
Tom must have incredible electric bills, I thought. The house was actually cold, the air-conditioning was turned up so high.
We walked back through the spotless kitchen into the Florida room. It was connected by sliding glass doors to a screened-in pool. The floor was covered with pink and purple plastic toys. A girl around Sarah’s age watched another TV in the corner, along with her baby sister, younger than Rachel, perched in a walker.
I wanted this to be real between me and Susan. Best way to achieve that, I thought, was to cut right through the bullshit. None of this pussyfooting around. I was just gonna act like we were the same old girls. The ones who went streaking through the bowling alley, wearing nothing but Walter and Seth’s motorcycle helmets.
I sat down, leaned back into the floral print couch and put my feet up on the coffee table. It was one of those glass-topped wicker ones. A flicker of distress crossed Susan’s face. I put my feet back on the ground and sat up straight. I was trying to think of Plan B.
Susan asked me if I wanted something to drink. I said, “Yeah, I could sure use a beer.” Tension settled in her eyes again. “No,” I said, “On second thought, what I’d really like is a nice cold glass of water.”
While she disappeared into the kitchen, I stared at the children, at the room, out at the pool. Boy, was I depressed. And the thing was, I wasn’t sure why. If this life was what Susan wanted, why couldn’t I be happy for her?
She came back with a tray containing two tall glasses of ice, two cans of diet sodas, and two pastel paper napkins, monogrammed. I didn’t really believe that this was what she wanted. I couldn’t. Let me tell you something. There was a time when, if Susan was chewing gum and I asked for some, she’d give me half the piece she had in her mouth. And vice versa.
Susan flashed me that smile. She poured soda into my glass, handed it to me.
“Nice house,” I said. I hate myself when I talk bullshit like that.
“Thank you. We’re happy here.” Did she think I meant the compliment? Did she really mean that she was happy? Why the hell was I convinced she wasn’t? Why was it that deep down, at the bottom of everything, I smugly believed that I was the only one living an authentic life?
“Nice kids,” I said.
She smiled again. “Yes, they are. They drive me crazy sometimes, of course, but they are my whole life. And the twins. We’re so proud of them. Tom has his heart set on both of them playing football at Alabama.”
I couldn’t picture the two lumps I’d seen on the couch in the living room engaging in any movement that was not necessary to sustain life.
The excitement and warmth Susan and I had shared on the phone had completely evaporated. I tried to think of a sentence that didn’t have “nice” in it.
Susan spoke first. “I’ve missed you. I’ve thought about you so much. Tell me everything.”
She sounded honest. I tried to tell her about my work and my ambitions, as best I could. She seemed slightly dubious, as if I’d told her I wanted to be a movie star, but also truly interested.
She asked if I had a boyfriend. I said no, I had a woman friend, a beautiful woman named Sammy. I was surprised at how good it felt to say Sammy’s name. Blood rose to my cheeks. I smiled like an idiot.
Susan smiled in that pleasant way again as if she hadn’t really heard, but her lips were tense, stretched in her all-purpose response. It shouldn’t have been news to her, not really. After all, I remembered the time I’d kissed Susan, or she’d kissed me. I guess we’d kissed each other.
Never more than that. And never again. Just that one kiss. It had not been enough; leaving me consumed with longing. Not sure if it was Susan I wanted or just a girl, any girl. Even then, I knew there was a chance that it was just the forbiddenness I wanted to taste. I already knew I’d have a long struggle over my fascination with everything I was told I could not have.
Not long after that, I had met Zack, fell in love with his motorcycles, hard drugs and guitar. We went to concerts all over the state, me on the back of his cycle. So far gone with drugs and alcohol that I never remembered the ride home. Life was everything I had wanted. Dangerous, intense, real. Incredibly sexy. I ran away to live with him right after my high school graduation, just for the hell of it.
One morning, I woke up alone in a scuzzy little trailer, way down a dirt road, within smelling distance of a dairy. The car didn’t run. It needed fixing, and it wasn’t likely that we’d have the money for the parts any time soon. Zack had taken the cycle to work. My wild man was an assistant butcher at the A&P.
I hadn’t learned about his ex-wife and the child support payments until after moving in. And then he told me what he expected from his live-in girlfriend. I thought it was a joke. He really couldn’t expect me to keep house and cook and wait for him in that hell-hole while he worked and then went out with his friends to the places we used to go together. It wasn’t until he slapped me across the face a few times that I realized how serious he was.
Up until I’d started spending time with Zack, Susan and I had been inseparable. We’d slept over at each other’s house a couple of times a week. Once I met Zack, I saw Susan only at school, where she’d whisper progress reports about her latest project. She was trying desperately to get pregnant. She wanted to get knocked up so she could get married. She said she had to get away from home, didn’t I understand, she had to get away.