Trailer Park Noir (10 page)

“Mommy, when are you going to let me stay here by myself when you go out?” Kendra asked.

“I don’t know, honey.”

“I’m old enough. I’m sixteen.”

“I know, sweetheart, but we’ve talked about this. You’re sixteen, but ... you’re not like other sixteen-year-olds.”

The heavy aroma of buttermilk pancakes and coffee filled the trailer. There was a radio on the kitchen counter and Anna had it tuned to a soft rock station. She didn’t believe in having the television on during mealtime, but music was nice. Anna wore a pink T-shirt and blue shorts, feet bare.

“But I’m old enough to take care of myself while you’re gone,” Kendra said. “I promise I won’t even leave the trailer. I can even feed myself. You’ve seen me. I can make cereal and sandwiches – I can even cook eggs and bacon, you’ve seen me, and I can make a grilled cheese sandwich, too. And soup, I can make soup. I’d be fine if you weren’t here.”

Anna sighed. It was a discussion that came up frequently. Kendra wanted some independence, some control over her own life. She wanted to prove that she could take care of herself, if only for a little while.

“Okay, look,” Anna said. “We’ll see. Okay? Maybe it would be okay to leave you here for a little while sometime. But that’s not a definitive yes. We’ll see.”

“But that’s what you
always
say,” Kendra said. She sounded frustrated.

“Your breakfast is getting cold,” Anna said as she sat down with her own breakfast.

Kendra chewed a mouthful of pancake, gulped it down, then said, “You
always
say ‘
we’ll see, we’ll see,’
– so
when
, Mommy? When do we get to
see
?”

Anna sighed as she poured syrup over her pancakes. How could she argue with that? Kendra was right. She said “we’ll see” a
lot
– Kendra had every right to be sick of hearing it. Anna had never heard that when she was a girl. Her parents were more the “shut up,” “go to your room,” and “You want me to hit you again?” type and had none of the gentility or basic good nature of a “we’ll see.” At least Kendra would never hear any of those things. If “we’ll see” was the worst thing Anna ever said to Kendra, she was doing okay.

“I’ll tell you what,” Anna said. “Next time the temp agency calls on me, I’ll seriously consider it. Okay?”

Kendra beamed. Her eyes grew wide, as did her smile.

“Thank you, Mommy!” Kendra said, her voice breathy. It was an important victory for her, and it took her a moment to absorb it. During that moment, her face held a childlike glow that almost concealed her true age. Almost. There was no concealing those breasts, those legs.

Anna noticed men staring when they went to the Safeway for groceries – not boys Kendra’s age, but middle-aged men with wives and kids. Oh, sure, other teenagers noticed her, too, but that was natural. But mostly, Anna noticed the grown men. Something came up in their eyes as they looked at her. Like some creature rising up out of the deep shadows of a moonlit forest, this thing rose up in their eyes and first widened, then narrowed them. Sometimes the men licked their lips without seeming to realize it. Maybe the jaw jutted a bit, or the chest puffed up and the gut sucked in as a deep breath was inhaled. While their heads usually remained facing front, their eyes – their
darkened
eyes with that new
thing
in them – followed Kendra. Sometimes the men were bold in watching her pass, as if they didn’t give a damn if their wives saw them do it. They all reacted a little differently – but they all had the same look on their faces, in their eyes. They were hungry animals, hungry for her daughter’s flesh. That darkness that rose up in their eyes was the malignant onyx-flash of lust. Their eyes dwelled on her breasts, her ass, her legs. Some hungered for her individual parts, others for her whole body.

Anna remembered a time when men looked at her that way, and she’d liked it. If Kendra were a normal sixteen-year-old girl, she wouldn’t be so concerned. But she was a little girl with a big handicap – that face, that body. Those parts.

Anna could almost hear the camera-click of their minds snapping pictures of Kendra, of those parts, taking mental pictures that could be pored over in their minds later.

That was why she was so wary of leaving Kendra home alone. She was so vulnerable. There were some shady people living in the Riverside Mobile Home Park. Of course, shady as they were, none of those people had ever been any trouble, and there was no reason to think they would be. She was just making excuses, she knew that.

Kendra deserved a little independence.

“Mommy, can I have a little doggy?” Kendra said.

Anna chuckled. “You’re full of demands this morning, aren’t you?”

“Demands?” Kendra said, her eyebrows rising high.

“Nothing. A little doggy?”

“Yeah, like Marc’s.”

They ate as they talked. Sometimes Anna sipped her coffee.

“You should call him Mr. Reznick.”

Kendra shrugged. “He told me to call him Marc.”

“Oh? When?”

“This morning. I was talking to him outside.”

“Oh. Well, if
he
wants you to call him Marc, then I guess it’s okay. You like his dog, huh?”

“Oh, Conan is such an adorable little doggy! Can’t I have one, please? He’d be able to keep me company when you leave me alone here.”

Kendra laughed. “You’re very ambitious this morning.”

“Ambitious?”

“That means you’re covering a lot of ground. First you want me to leave you here alone, then you want a little dog, and somehow, you manage to successfully tie the two together. Kendra, I think you should go into advertising.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, you’d be a big hit.”

Kendra laughed, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what her mother meant.

Anna finished her breakfast. Her purse hung from the back of her chair. She reached into it and removed her cheap GNC cigarettes and a lighter, and she lit one up.

“Well, Kendra,” she said, “if you had a dog, no matter
how
little he was, he’d have to be fed and watered every day. He would have to get plenty of love. And you would be responsible for all that. You’d have to house train him, if he isn’t already, and you’d have to clean up after all his little accidents.”

Again, Kendra’s eyebrows rose high, this time with excitement. “Oh, I would, I would. I’d take
good
care of him, and I’d do
everything
.”

“Hm. Well, I wouldn’t mind having a little dog in the house myself. It’s been a long time since I had a pet around. I miss it.”

Kendra’s fork dropped onto her plate with a sharp clatter and she clapped her hands together rapidly a few times. “Oh,
yaaay
!” she said. “Thank you so much, Mommy! Can we get one today?”

“Today?” Anna said, smoke fluttering out of her mouth and nose. “Well, as far as a dog goes, we’ll – “ She stopped herself. She’d been about to say,
We’ll see
. “We have to run some errands today. We’ll stop by the Haven Humane Society and see if we can find a little doggy to take home.”

Nine

Dressed in a dark blue suit with a red-and-black tie, Reznick left the trailer, locked the door, and carried his briefcase to his car. His father had always told him to wear a suit when he worked, no matter what he did. He should always look his best, the old man always said.

Reznick got in the car and started the engine. He started to back out but stepped on the brake because a white pickup truck was coming along the narrow road. It drove past him and around the loop to the other side. Reznick backed out and went around the loop. The pickup truck stopped at unit seventeen. Reznick left the trailer park.

He was in the Yellow Pages and the White Pages. He wondered if he should blow some money on advertising. Maybe in the newspaper. Things couldn’t go on like this much longer. Something had to change. He was actually putting reading material in his briefcase so he’d have something to do at the office. He had two novels in his briefcase – a Larry McMurtry and a Stephen King. He’d probably get through the McMurtry by lunch, if it was like most days. The King book was four times the size of McMurtry’s and would take more time.

On the northern end of North Street, Reznick pulled off the road into a small parking lot, and pulled up beside a tollbooth-like house with a sign on the front that read Java-Hut. It was painted pastel violet with pastel yellow trimming, like an Easter egg. He stopped with his car window just below the window in the side of the little house. The young woman who worked in there was a fresh-faced blonde with dreamy eyes and a bedroom smile that was an especially pleasant way to start the day.

“Hello, Marc,” she said.

“Good morning, Janine,” he said with a big smile. “I’ll have the usual, please.”

“Comin’ up.”

It was the only time he ever wished he drove a big pickup or an SUV – so he could be level with the window and look in there while Janine moved around making his frozen coffee drink. He imagined she wore faded denim shorts above long tan legs that looked as smooth as the coffee drinks she served. Probably a very tight, round ass. Nice, smallish breasts – those he’d glimpsed from his car as she bent forward. She looked like she had the whole world in front of her – and she was trapped in that little shack selling coffee drinks. He wondered what her dreams were, and how that job figured into them. She was twenty-two, twenty-three – where did she hope to be at thirty-three, at forty-three? Or did she think that far ahead? That was what worried Reznick about the young people he met – they seemed to go along with the flow of things, no ambitions, no particular hopes or dreams, seeking not knowledge but the next entertainment, the next diversion. He wondered if Janine was that way. And he wondered with whom she discussed those things – what lucky guy got to hear about Janine’s dreams? Or was she with a guy who didn’t care?

“Here ya go, Marc,” she said with a big smile.

She took his money with one hand and gave him the drink with the other. Their fingers briefly touched. As she made change, she said, “Any interesting cases?”

“I’m afraid not, Janine. Business has been very slow. I may just dump the whole thing and go raise alpacas, or something.”

Her laughter was a pleasant, youthful sound. She handed Reznick his change.

“Have a good one, Janine.”

“You, too.”

He drove away and headed for his office.

His frozen drink was already beginning to melt.

* * * *

Sherry awakened suddenly and bit the inside of her cheek.

“Ow,” she said as she slowly raised a hand to the side of her face.

“What’s wrong?” Philpott said.

“I bit mythelf,” she said.

“Andy’s here.”

“
What
?” she said, her eyes suddenly open wide. She looked down at herself. She was lying on the bed, all the covers in a heap at the foot, in shorts and a yellow tube top –
When did I put
that
on?
she thought – and she sat up straight. She closed her eyes tightly when the bed whirled around. She flopped back down on the pillows.

Philpott said, “You wanna try that again a little slower?”

Sherry laughed humorlessly. She slowly sat up and moved her legs off the bed. She sat there for awhile, her elbows locked at her sides.

“What time is it?” she said.

“About quarter to ten.”

“When did he get here?”

“They been here a few minutes.”

“They?”

“David’s with him.”

She set her jaw and stood. “That son of a bitch had better – “ She stalked down the hall and shouted, “You son of a bitch, you’d better have a good story ready!” She stepped into the kitchen and saw him seated at the bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer.

“I brought a buncha beer,” he said. “The fridge’s full of it. Now we gotta get some
food
in there.”

“Where the hell have you been?” she said. “You fuckin’ jerk, you know how worried I was?”

“Yeah, I noticed how worried you was when I got here. You was so worried, Philpott had to wake you up.”

Sherry turned around and reached out blindly. Her hand landed on a coffee mug on the counter. As she lifted it and pulled it back over her shoulder, Andy disappeared behind the bar. She threw it anyway, and it broke into two pieces when it hit the living room floor.

“Hey,” David said. He was seated in Andy’s recliner watching television. The mug fell at his feet.

“You fuckin’ asshole,” Sherry said. “I was worried all night. I called your cell phone, but it was turned off. Turned
off
! Since when do you turn off your phone?”

Andy cautiously raised his eyes above the edge of the bar. When he saw she was unarmed, he rose up and sat on the stool again. There were two stools at the bar, one on the living room side and one on the kitchen side, and they did not match.