The storm had proven somewhat bogus as well, fizzling out by the end of the show; a stroke of blue was beginning to split the cantankerous sky. Stripping off her parka, Victoria walked with Diana back to the vehicles, noticing as she passed Bobby’s truck that the effigy of Billy Bassman had been removed. She scoured the line of vehicles already making a slow exit down the driveway, squinting to focus on the figures bouncing roughly along in the backs of the trucks. Unable to accurately pick out his grizzled form, she could only hope he’d passed out somewhere else, and someone would haul him back into town.
She stood and watched with amazement as Diana gathered her children and somehow shuffled them all back into the car. Waving them goodbye, she turned to find Rose sitting on the trailer step, secretively waving her over.
“You okay?” she asked, walking over to join Rose.
“Oh yes. Of course. Just a scratch, really. But it could have been worse. I’m just glad she didn’t hurt the baby.”
Victoria nodded, thinking about how truly disastrous the situation could have been.
“What painting was she talking about?”
Victoria braced herself. “No idea.”
“I’d forgot about that.”
“What?”
“That she used to clean the hotel. Pearl told me sometimes they find her in there at night wandering around.”
Victoria shook her head, her thoughts on the unnecessary stress and conflict the old woman’s actions had inflicted on herself and Elliot.
“What?”
“Umm . . . nothing. It’s just sad, right?”
Rose eyed her a question, then let it go.
“He’s gone you know.”
“Who’s gone? Bassman?”
“Bassman? Who gives a shit about Bassman?” She flicked his name away from her like a squashed fly. “Elliot. He’s gone. Did you know?”
“Gone? No. What do you mean, gone?”
“Dog to neighbor left, cat to neighbor right, exit center stage . . . gone. Just like I said. Didn’t you know?”
“No. I didn’t hear anything. When?”
“Couple months ago. Just after that big blowup between him and Bobby out at the sale.”
“Are you sure, Rose?”
“Well, I’m sure Millie’s watching his house till it sells, and I’m sure she said it was going to be almost impossible to keep in contact with him because he just stuck a pin in the map to decide where he was going to. Have you ever heard of anything so bizarre? Didn’t he even call you? Least he could’ve done. Knew he was too good to be true. They always are.”
“Shit. I can’t believe it.” She sat down absently on a rotting stair. “He didn’t even say . . . unless.” She stopped, looked as if someone had reached down her throat and crushed her heart.
“What? Unless what, Vic?”
“I got a call a while ago . . . two of them, actually, but they were different somehow.”
“Same guy?”
“Yeah. But it was different. He said some things—”
“You think it was him? Elliot?”
“I didn’t, no. Not really. But he said a couple of things the one time, and that was unusual because usually he doesn’t say much at all. And then the last call he didn’t say anything. Just listened like maybe he was waiting for something.” She flushed as she remembered the intimacies she’d laid out before him.
“Vic!” Rose demanded. “What did he say? Tell me!”
“Well, it’s hard to be sure. The line is always bad, static-y, and he speaks so seldom I’m never prepared for it and then I always have to try and fit the pieces together.”
“Why don’t you just ask him to repeat himself?”
“He won’t. I’ve tried. I guess he knows I would be listening then and maybe I’d recognize his voice. He never repeats himself.”
“Never?”
“No. Except for that one call. He did just once.”
“What did he say?”
“Not sure. The damn line is always so broke up.”
“Well, what do you think he said?”
“Well, we were just kind of talking about whatever, or I was anyhow, and all of a sudden he says—” She hesitated, the unexpected words still flooding her with hot emotion.
“What? Said what?” Rose prodded impatiently.
“He said . . . or I thought he said . . . that he wanted me—”
“Whoo . . . you little sexpot you. You were probably driving him bonkers. No wonder he had to leave.”
“Rose,” Victoria turned to her serious, tears rising in her eyes. “Rose, what if he was asking me to go with him? What if he’d said that he wanted me to come with him and I just didn’t hear him because of all the static?”
“Come on, Vic. Assuming it was him, if that was what he had wanted, wouldn’t he just come straight out and ask you?”
“But maybe he thought he did, Rose. Twice. He said it twice. And he’s never done that before. Never. Maybe that’s why he phoned back, to hear what my answer was—”
“Oh.” Rose laid a warm hand over her friend’s cold one. “But that wouldn’t have been fair. How the hell could he expect you to know who was phoning? Could have been anyone asking you to run off. Even Bassman, for all you knew.”
“No. I told him that I knew who he was.”
“You did?”
Victoria nodded.
“Did you?”
“No. Not really. Well, kinda. It just didn’t seem important anymore.” Her voice fell off to a whisper. She didn’t want to talk. She felt utterly defeated. How could things always turn out so wrong for her? It was as if life itself held her a grudge.
“Maybe it wasn’t even him, Vic. Maybe it’ll turn out to be someone else after all. Someone who just doesn’t up and leave without even saying good-bye.”
“No. It was him, Rose. It was Elliot.”
“How do you know? You can’t be certain.”
Her silence affirmed she could be.
“How?”
“He hasn’t called, Rose. He hasn’t called since spring.”
Perceiving the anguish in her voice, Rose swung an arm around Victoria’s shoulders and rocked her gently. “Shh. It’s okay, Vic. It’ll be okay.”
“What am I going to do, Rose? Everything is such a mess.”
“Come on now, Vic. It’s not all bad. You still have Bobby, your place.”
“I don’t want Bobby, Rose. And I hate this place . . . hate it. At least when I had the studio I had something to look forward to every week. Now he’s taken that away from me too.”
“Well, maybe it’s time to leave then.”
Victoria shook her head despondently.
“Well, why not? If you hate it here that much, why stay?”
“What choice do I have, Rose?”
“As much choice as anyone does.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Oh, come on, Vic. You think he’d actually do it?”
“Don’t you?”
“Well, maybe you guys can get some help, try to work things out.”
“There’s nothing left to work out. He doesn’t even like me anymore, much less love me.”
“That’s not true.” Rose pulled a package of tissue from her pocket and offered them to Victoria. “Not true at all, Vic. He does love you . . . he does.”
“Well, he has a crappy way of showing it.”
“I know. You’re right. He does, but it’s because he’s worried about you. Scared he’ll lose you.”
“Rose—” Victoria objected.
“It’s true, Vic. He told me so himself.”
“He told you? When?”
“Oh, we talk sometimes.”
This caught Victoria completely blind side, and she turned to assess Rose’s face, her own a page full of questions.
“You do? When?”
“Oh, just the odd time we bump into each other around town. Relax, Vic. I’m not after your husband. Just trying to help out. Give me a little credit, will you?”
They laughed politely to erase the suggestion, and then Rose turned serious again. “Vic, you don’t have to worry about him on that end.”
“I don’t?”
Rose shook her head.
“But, I thought you said he was—”
“Bobby? I didn’t say that. When did I say that?”
Victoria’s mind raced to bring back the conversation, but she couldn’t hold the thoughts as they raced past her and all she could snap were remnants of what she’d assumed Rose had been alluding to.
“I thought you said . . . I guess I . . . shit, I don’t even remember why I thought that you said that.”
“Vic, listen to me. I mean obviously Bobby’s got his things, right? But, if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that your husband is faithful to you and will be as long as you live under his roof. You’re lucky that way, you know. The man is faithful to a fault.”
Victoria laid her fingers against her temples and pressed hard to slow the tornado spinning in her mind. How could her timing be so completely wretched? Discovering it had been none other than crazy old Mrs. Spiller who had destroyed their painting was a giant swath of bittersweet relief. Although she was ecstatic to know their secret was safe, the knowledge had come far too late. Suddenly it all fell clear in front of her. It became obvious to her that Elliot had been on the other end of those calls. She’d told him things about herself he shouldn’t know, and it had poisoned his opinion of her. Of course it had. Who would want someone who was willing to deceive their own husband by getting married when they were pregnant with Bassman’s bastard child? Someone who wished her own husband dead? She’d thought, carelessly, that somehow he would understand. But he hadn’t. Who could? She’d been a fool to think such a possibility could exist.
“I have to go in. I don’t feel well . . . want to lie down a bit.”
“Of course you do. Poor girl. Here, let me help you up. I’ve got to go anyhow, Millie’s watching the girls for me, and she’ll be driving them nuts by now.”
* * *
Victoria laid her head on the pillow, but it refused to stay there. She popped a couple of Bobby’s sleeping pills, but each time the gift of sleep began to filter through her a dull, insistent ringing cried dimly through the haze. Drawing herself onto her knees, her head fought to connect the noise into reality and, failing to do so, she collapsed in despair onto the bed. A sullen darkness filled her eyes when she finally awoke, and she sensed that night had fallen. She blinked at the red-eyed clock beside the bed. Half past eleven. She closed her eyes and listened for noises in the trailer, but it was dead. Bobby hadn’t come home. For the first Saturday in twenty years the orangutan crew had not descended on the trailer to play poker. Elation should have filled her, but a dread uncertainty stole its place. She pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to squeeze away the pain inside her, but it broke free and she cried into the pillow until her hair clung to her face in strands.
Shuffling through the dark to the kitchen, she poured herself a whiskey and dumped it down her throat. The harsh liquid ran like lava, igniting her unaccustomed stomach, erupting her eyes to tears. She shuddered, caught her breath and delivered herself another blow. The hot, centered pain felt good. So easy to identify. She drank another and another until the liquid ran clear and cool down her throat and floated her into euphoria. A movement caught her eye, and she turned to see her reflection watching her. She stared back, became aware of Bobby’s black sweatshirt covering her and fired the glass into the window, cracking the pane from side to side. Ripping the sweatshirt off, she grabbed the bottle of whiskey and paraded naked through the trailer, stumbling and cursing between drinks. A thought occurred to her, and she stumbled purposefully into the bedroom, dumping the contents of the closet onto the floor, once more exhuming her dress and pulling it on.
Turning on the light she admired the several images of herself that floated in the mirror and laughed.
“You see. Plenty of me to go around. One Victoria for each of you. All you had to do was ask . . . all you had to do was ask. Elliot, I would have gone with you. I would have. Just phone again, just one more time. I’ll go, I promise. Just phone again.” She sank onto the bed, her images sinking with her as they slowly wove back and forth listening for the phone. “Forget it, then,” she hollered down the hall. “Don’t ever phone. Don’t ever come back. Don’t ever even think of me again. I hate you! I hate all of you! All you ever do . . . all any of you have ever done is let me down. And I don’t need you, anyhow. You think I do, but I don’t. I know who I am. Don’t need you to leave this shit-hole of a place.”
Invigorated by her own pep rally she roughly navigated the hallway grabbed her keys and a pack of Bobby’s cigarettes from the drawer and headed out the door. Tonight it seemed the car would be an ally and sputtered more or less instantly to life, and she pulled a cigarette from the package, burning her finger as she struggled to light it. The last cigarette she’d smoked had been a stolen butt out behind her father’s woodshed. Pulling a huge drag into her lungs, she perversely savored the coarse harshness of it. Spilling across the edges of the driveway as she drove, she rolled her window wide open even though the night was cool. Singing at the top of her lungs, she yelled out words to songs, supplemented her own additions when memory failed to supply the originals and basically created a whole new tune.