Trying the Knot (13 page)

Back in high school, one of the few
deterrents of Kate’s popularity was her aversion to alcohol. In
order to get decent grades, she studied voraciously in all subjects
except math. Like her deceased mother, Kate tended to butcher the
English language, but with due diligence she managed to obtain all
A’s. Like a majority of her classmates, she was the first one in
her family to attend college.

Kate thought it was humiliating to have such
backward hillbilly blood coursing through her veins. In order to
avoid being reminded of their tacky roots, her mother’s brothers
had moved away and dispersed throughout the state. However, it
never occurred to her mom or aunt to join the exodus from
Portnorth. Her father’s family, the infamous Hesses, were true shit
kickers who monopolized a small farming community a few miles from
the city. They were a hard drinking crop of Krauts with attitude to
spare.

Kate could not imagine herself living in
Portnorth, a member of the softball or bowling leagues, or even one
of the civic-minded volunteer societies. She had always dreamed of
marrying into a family that could trace its roots for more than
three generations, and so she considered herself extremely lucky to
have found Nick. He had his faults, but mostly he was a
godsend.

While attending a remote little university in
the Upper Peninsula she had dated a series of duds, but one stuck
out in her mind – the geek to whom she lost her virginity. He was
the only other man besides Nick she had known intimately, and he
had been as gentle as he was patient. His family was well
established and cultured in ways her clan could not imagine.
Together, they had planned to become engineers and settle down in
the woodsy outskirts of a distant metro Detroit suburb, but then
Nick came back into her life and put an end to such notions.

Becoming a doctor’s wife and a teacher was
the perfect escape from her blue collar past, which clung to her
like the dirty coveralls her father wore. Chief Engineer Ed Hesse
was in charge of the monstrous after-end of a freighter, and he
made a boatload of money, but he was still salt of the earth.

As they drove past the town graveyard,
Chelsea pointed to a decorated tombstone and said, “How morbid, who
has a party in the cemetery?” Streamers and balloons blew in the
wind with obligatory festivity. Stuck near the headstone was a
sign, resembling a can of chewing tobacco.

“So strange,” Kate said, not paying any
attention. Instead, she was thinking about how her mother always
kept more money stashed in the cookie jar than the bank. Unable to
balance a checkbook, Kaye Hesse had lived from paycheck to
paycheck. It was not an uncommon way of life among boat wives.
Perhaps it was the root of her stinginess, but Kate was unable to
imagine a fate worse than being impoverished.

Kate only agreed to marry Nick when her Uncle
requested she start paying rent. What was the point of paying money
to live at her uncle’s house, when she could get married? Nick was
generous nearly to a fault, and once married he would remedy the
fact she was such a miser. She could not help being a penny pincher
because she had an ingrained terror of being poor.

One unfortunate year Thad’s family received
food stamps, and that ended the extended family trips to the
grocery store, along with most all other familial functions. Kate
could not fathom such a humiliation as not being able to afford
food; the Feldpausch’s only consolation that lonely year was every
other family whose sole breadwinner worked at the local quarry also
ate compliments the U.S. Government. She vowed back then never to
subjugate her fate to the fickle whims of supply and demand.

Kate was such a frugal tightwad she opted to
wear her Matron of Honor’s wedding dress rather than buy one of her
own. So what it was being recycled. It was not as if she intended
to wear it again, and who in Portnorth would know? She liked to
think of herself as being thrifty. Kate’s only concern was the
dress was jinxed because its previous owner, her first college
roommate, had become a bored suburban housewife who regularly
cheated on her dullard accountant husband.

As Chelsea drove past the house where Kate
grew up, she said, “Maybe I should remind my brother what time the
church rehearsal starts.”

Chelsea nodded to the beat and cranked up her
favorite John Gorka song while Kate silently noted her childhood
home was comfortably understated and nurturing. Nestled in a hamlet
at the bottom of a hill, the home symbolized the sheltered
existence her mother had protectively carved out for them. It was a
glaring contrast to the kitsch ponderosa where her father now lived
with his new wife and Jack. The residence was set a couple feet
from the road, and it was exposed on all sides – like a tacky
reminder of the scandal her father created upon making Shayla
Whiley the next Mrs. Ed G. Hesse. Their marriage caused such a
furor Kate took to secretly staying at Chelsea’s mother’s house or
with Nick’s parents on those rare occasions she came back to
town.

As Chelsea pulled in the driveway, Kate
promised to only take a minute. She scrawled a note to her brother
in the kitchen among piles of pizza boxes, beer cans and
overflowing ashtrays. Unlike the pleasant smells of her youth, a
mixture of stray animals and home cooking, the new house reeked
like a tavern.

The doorbell rang, and Kate called out, “Come
on in.”

Nyda Czerwinski, the haggard home economics
teacher and mother of Jack’s dead prom date, approached carrying a
large package. Honeycomb frown lines bookended her downturned
mouth, and her hollow eyes remained unfocused. The woman’s hair was
a mess of frizz, the result of years of abuse suffered by
over-the-counter dyes and perms.

“I’m so glad I caught someone home, finally,”
she began. “I’m Mrs. Czerwinski, Jule’s mother – well, I was her
mother, you know, before the accident.”

“Yes,” Kate said, confused.

Nyda-the-Living-Dead, as she was still called
by her Home Economic pupils, was also an aerobics instructor,
Tupperware saleswoman, and Mary Kay Representative, and director of
the annual Portnorth Queens Pageant. At various times in her life,
Kate had been Nyda’s student, make-up model and a pageant
participant, but Nyda seemingly had no recollection.

“This parcel arrived by freight shortly after
we bought your parent’s house over on Superior Street. I’ve called
repeatedly, but no one takes any interest. It’s addressed to Mrs.
Ed G. Hesse.”

“How thoughtful of you to bring it by, Mrs.
Czerwinski,” Kate said taking the box. “I’ll see to it Shayla gets
it.”

“No, Katie, I think it’s meant for your mom.
She was such a wonderful woman,” Nyda said, unmoving. She had not
moved since entering the house. Her arms hung lifelessly at her
side, and her skeletal head was glued unnaturally forward. The
veins at her temples threatened to burst, and her thoughts were
permanently fixated elsewhere. Nyda gave Kate the creeps.

For lack of anything else to say, Kate asked,
“How are the twins?” Kate used to baby-sit Jules and her demonic
twin brothers. The Czerwinski twins were just as fond of drowning
cats off the boat harbor pier as they were of playing doctor with
various household utensils. They were holy terrors, but Jules had
always been and now would always be an angel.

“Oh, they’re around – back from the Persian
Gulf, I think,” Nyda said blankly. She chewed a strand of frizzy
hair between her ghostly blue lips, and she suddenly grabbed hold
of Kate’s shoulders. “I heard about Evangelica. First, your mom,
then your grandpa, and now your stepsister – it is such a shame. Be
strong and keep faith in our Lord.”

Kate nervously backed away, and Nyda grasped
hold of her wrists. “Let us pray,” Nyda said, caressing Kate’s
hands in her own bird-like talons. Nyda fell to her knees before
Kate and babbled prayerfully until Kate became visibly unnerved.
She waited patiently until the pear shaped woman stood upright
before thanking her; for what, Kate was unsure, but she had no idea
what else to say.

Stiffly, Nyda left the house as if rigor
mortis had set in long ago, and Kate struggled to open the box.
Discovering what was inside, she quickly realized the only place
her mother would have worn such a formal dress was to a wedding –
Kate’s wedding? It was ivory colored and tastefully simple. Had her
mom ordered the dress thinking she would live to see her daughter
married? Kaye had been an older, heavier version of her daughter;
Kate inherited her mother’s olive complexion, dark eyes, and raven
colored hair.

Stifling a tear, Kate quickly left the house
with the box tucked under her arm. As soon as she entered the
vehicle, Chelsea pointed at the person wandering down the center of
the road as if a lost in a fugue state.

“What did Nyda-the-Living-Dead want?” Chelsea
asked

“To deliver this,” Kate said, holding the
package.

“I heard Nyda and Hop-along Czerwinski are
swingers,” Chelsea said casually.

Years ago, Kate’s Aunt Jane told Thad of a
society gathering hosted by Ginny Norris’s mortician boyfriend.
Party games consisted of the men throwing their keys in a pile for
women to pick blindly whom they would spend the night with. Kaye
Hesse walked home alone, and afterwards she strictly forbid Kate to
ever baby-sit for the Czerwinskis ever again.

“Nyda really does look dead,” Kate said.

“Was Jack home?”

“No, but let’s check and see if my dad’s
truck is parked outside the bar.”

“Which one, there’s a bar on every corner?”
Chelsea asked, and she drove to the nearest tavern. Ed’s truck was
parked in back where the regulars half-wittedly attempted to
conceal themselves.

“It makes me sick,” Kate said. In the
unlikely event her father or stepmother saw her, Kate slunk down in
the seat and hoped they were too drunk to notice. She surmised,
“They’ve probably been here since leaving the hospital.”

“I thought they went to the cottage.”

“So did I. Apparently, they were
side-tracked.”

“Isn’t there anything else to do in this
town?”

“Drive to Nick’s parent’s,” Kate said. “If
that’s their only hobby, it’s no wonder Jack dropped out of
school.”

“Jack’s a high school drop out?” Chelsea
exclaimed, and added sheepishly, “I shouldn’t sound so condemning;
after all, I’m leaving law school.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope.”

“But why –

“I can’t stand it anymore,” Chelsea said.
“Can you really picture me in a courtroom?”

“If you can imagine it, it will be.”

“What? Barf me out. Tell me, you don’t
believe that Oprah nonsense.”

“You’ll just drop out, and then what?” Kate
asked. Chelsea was always so driven and motivated. Kate spent her
entire high school career studying like crazy, never quite
measuring up to the academic mentor she found in Chelsea. “What’ll
you do?”

“I’ll grow my hair out and drive out west.”
Chelsea smirked at Kate’s bewildered expression. “So, Jack’s a
dropout too?”

“He spent some time in a psych ward after the
accident, the one that killed Nyda’s daughter on prom night.”

“It must’ve been horrible. Was he
driving?”

“No, she was, or at least that’s what Alexa
told the police. Jack fled the scene with a concussion,” Kate said.
She shook her head as if life itself were incomprehensible. “When
released from the hospital, he refused to go back to school. Nick
tried to convince him to get a GED, but he won’t listen to
reason.”

“Maybe you should have a talk with him.”

“Me? What could I possibly say that would
make any difference?” Kate asked. “We don’t have one thing in
common.”

“Well, you have the same parents,” Chelsea
said incredulously.

“He has more in common with his stepfamily.
They’re all hopeless. He’ll end up a bar fly. He’s cruising for a
bruising, on a fast track to nowhere.”

“Kate, oh my God, he’s your brother! You’re a
teacher, is that how you write off your students?”

“Let’s drop it,” Kate said. The car pulled up
in front of the Paulls’ lakefront home, and Kate extended an overly
polite invitation to Chelsea.

“Oh, all right, but only if they have wine or
booze. I need to unwind from all this stress,” Chelsea said. “My
run didn’t quite cut it.”

As they made their way up the flower-lined
driveway, Reggae music sounded louder, and they exchanged perplexed
looks of bewilderment.

“This sucks, someone’s having a party and we
weren’t invited,” Chelsea said. They followed the beat of the music
and the lull of the waves to the other side of the house, where
four Rastafarian wannabes danced wildly in the sand around a
bonfire.

Kate let out a smattering of nervous laughter
as she approached her future husband. Without warning, the world
had gone mad. She felt herself shrinking and wanted to crawl back
into bed in order to sleep away several eons like Rip Van Winkle.
Her only hope for escape was to pass out in a Valium induced
stupor.

Ben called out for her to join the
celebration. He danced with Nick’s tall skinny sister, who appeared
out of place on the beach in her all-black ensemble, nose ring, and
permanent look of aloofness. Chelsea recognized the type, and she
instantly withdrew. At least there had not been anyone so
pretentious at law school.

“What’s going on?” Kate demanded. “What are
all these palms doing here?”

“You’ll never guess,” Thad said.

“Try me.”

“Our little siblings stole them from the
Catholic Church,” Thad said. “We’re burning the evidence.”

Kate asked dumbfounded, “Who stole these
palms?”

“Alexa and Jack,” Ben answered. “All
two-thousand of them.”

“What’s that juvenile delinquent thinking?”
Kate asked no one in particular. Growing irritated, she pointed
out, “This is clearly in violation of his probation.”