Ugly Girls: A Novel (14 page)

“I raised her right,” Myra was saying. “She goes her own way, which is how I taught her. No one to blame but herself.” She tipped her head back, finished the beer he’d handed her. Jamey watched the delicate veins in her neck moving with each swallow. Again Jamey’s mind went to Perry’s room, the possibilities there. He was with Myra and he was thinking of Perry. It had been a long time. Such a long, long time since there had been anything touching him, or anything for him to touch.

Myra dropped the bottle at her feet. “Why don’t you do something, already?” she asked. She could barely get the words out. “What are you waiting for?”

It was like she was reading his mind, like she saw his need and was here to help. It repulsed him, it scared him, how much he wanted what she had to give. He stood, meaning to move away from her, pretend to go for another beer, anything to stop whatever it was that was happening, but she caught him, reached right up and held him steady by his belt buckle, her other hand a wild spider at his crotch.

“I can do this,” she said. “Let me.”

He pushed her hand but she held fast. “I know you’re lonely like I am,” she said. “I know what I’m doing.”

And it was true, she knew what she was doing, at least more than any girl he’d been with in the past. She unzipped him quickly, her hand plunging in, strong and sure, kneading him and petting him until Jamey wanted to lean in and fuck that hand, hard, show that he was a man after all.

But in the next second her hand was gone, was up to her mouth, was catching the amber spurts of vomit she was trying so hard to hold in. She ran for the bathroom, catching her knee on the jamb, and after the door slammed Jamey heard her heaving into the toilet.

“I’m so sorry,” she called to him. “I didn’t eat nothing for dinner.”

“It’s okay, Miss Tipton,” he called back, trying to stuff himself back behind the zipper. “I’ll just see you later.”

He opened and closed the front door loudly. Then he walked careful, quiet steps over to Perry’s door. When he had shut himself in the darkness of her room he realized two things that nearly paralyzed him: he didn’t have a plan for how to leave, and he still had his erection.
First things first
, he thought, and felt his way in the dark to her empty bed.

JIM CLOCKED OUT
, drove home in the yellow morning. Walked through the front door like he was dragging chains. For a moment, even though he knew better, he saw Perry’s shut door and thought she might be just beyond it, lying in bed or fixing to go out her window. Then he remembered: he’d need to check the cereal box on top of the fridge for money, need to call down to the courthouse to see if bail had been set. His body felt pummeled, like he’d been worked over and only now, hours after the beating, could his muscles relax into their ache.

The night before, he’d gotten a call asking him to fill in. One of the newer guards up and quit, said he couldn’t come in no more. Jim hadn’t blamed him. If he ever found something better himself, he might make the very same call. And it had been a relief, having somewhere to go. Not having to watch Myra drink herself silly while Perry slept in a jail cell. Myra was already three beers in by the time he’d left for his shift. He’d put his hand on the top of her head, in the same gentle way he remembered his father doing to him. “We got to do something about her,” he’d said.

“She’ll be fine,” Myra had answered. Cheersed him. It used to be he could see through these spells Myra had, these bouts of harshness, see right through them to the pain she was feeling. Now he didn’t know. Maybe she wasn’t all that worried, and maybe he should quit worrying, too. Or pretending to worry. Doing his duty as a stepfather.

But she was drinking, right there in front of him. That counted for something. He’d kept his hand there on her head, leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. “We’ll figure it out,” he’d told her.

It made him feel better, anyway, saying it out loud. “Okay,” she’d said.

The shift had gone by as they all did, some hours blurring into the next and some hours like listening to the second hand of a clock. Each time he’d looked in on Herman he’d tried to put on a friendly face, but the man never met his eye. Stayed hunched at his desk or curled facing the wall on his cot. It couldn’t be helped, Jim decided. And at least now the prisoner knew just how far he’d be allowed to take it.

He’d eaten a cold sandwich at about three in the morning. Washed it down with inky coffee. The rest of his shift, the mixture burbled in his throat, bloomed into his mouth in hot, wet blasts. The desk guard and the other walker had just shrugged when he asked after Tums. He’d driven home as the sun was rising, thinking how he could breathe fire, wasn’t that something.

Now he just wanted a shower. And there was Myra, flat on her back in the bathroom, a towel rolled up under her head. He’d seen the cluster of empties by the couch, had thought about having to brace himself as he walked through their bedroom door, but he thought he’d be able to shower first, that warm water soaking into his skin and soothing his muscles some before he’d have to tense them back up when he saw Myra.

She opened one eye, lifted her head, the skin on her neck collapsing in an accordion of flesh. “Jim?”

“Yes.”

“I must have fallen asleep in here. I’m sick.”

“I know.”

“Am I ugly?” she asked him, pushing herself up on her elbows. “Is that why you’re looking at me?”

“No, you ain’t ugly.” It was true. She was a beautiful woman when he’d met her, a tall woman with bright eyes and red lips. And she was still beautiful. Like how a prize garden that had gone to weed in a few corners was still beautiful.

“You know I like to keep myself up,” she said. “I hate for you to see me this way. I got a little tipsy last night.”

Jim felt impatient for his shower. He’d had this conversation with her so many times, in so many ways. If he yelled and stomped she’d only do it again, as soon as she could. He couldn’t bring himself to muster the kind of energy he’d need to feel that angry about it anyway. And if he tried to reason with her she’d cry, beg his forgiveness, and he’d have to give it, repeating himself over and over, just to calm her down. Best to just let her talk. Help her off the floor. Ask if she wanted eggs. And then shut the door as soon as she was on the other side.

He held out his hand to her. She took it, pulling on him to stand. She held on to the tiny counter for balance, pushed her other hand through her hair to smooth it. There was a messy imprint of her eyelashes in dried mascara on her cheek, a cluster of black legs.

“I had a friend over,” she said. “He kept getting me fresh ones. I didn’t realize how much I was drinking.”

This was new. Myra didn’t have friends, not these days, and definitely not male ones. “He?” Jim said.

“This young kid from the neighborhood. He’s got a crush. Sometimes I need someone to talk to when you ain’t here at night.”

Jim knew Myra liked to reach out, feel around, see if he still had buttons to push. Would he be jealous? Angry with her? Would he feel guilty that she needed to talk to some kid because he wasn’t there, wasn’t there a lot?

And he did feel angry, just a shade. Not because of how she was spending her time. That was so far down the list of shit he had to tend to with Myra that it nearly dropped off. He felt angry because he never, not once, got to just come home and get in the shower. First he had to make sure Myra was alive, drive Perry to school, and now go out and punch some neighbor kid for getting fresh on his own couch with his own wife, because it was what was expected of him.

She’s lying, anyway
. The thought came to him in blinking neon clarity. She was lying to get him to do something about it.

And now it dawned on him that she hadn’t even asked about Perry, hadn’t wondered what the plan was or if she could do anything to help. Had risen as empty as a scarecrow, filled the room with the brackish fumes of her breath. His body was so tight he felt like he could shatter.

“The other night a man asked me did I have a teenaged daughter,” he said. “A prisoner. I popped him in the eye. It bled all over. It bled so much I felt sick. But I didn’t even think twice, I just did it. You got a teenage daughter sitting in jail right now and you haven’t done shit except invite some boy in to watch you get ugly.”

Myra let go of the counter, stood as straight as she could. Put a shaking hand back up to her hair. “She’s there because she wanted to be there,” she said. “She knows right from wrong. It ain’t my fault she acts the way she does.”

It was what Myra always said. Jim could feel his heart pounding, his body hurt even more because of it.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said, put his hands on her shoulders to steer her out. “And go see about getting Perry out. If you make eggs I’ll eat them. If you don’t, that’s okay too. Long as you get out of this bathroom and let me be.”

“I touched him,” Myra said. Her eyes moved back and forth rapidly across his face, searching for how this had landed. “I touched him where it counted and I would have kept touching him if my sickness hadn’t overcome me.”

Jim’s hands felt like they might crack with how hard he was trying not to shake her. Instead he steered her out the door.

“If that’s true,” he said, “then I feel sorry for you.”

“He liked it,” Myra was saying, but Jim closed the door, pushed the little nub lock. “He liked it,” she said louder, and slapped the door with the palm of her hand.

Jim turned on the shower and undressed. In the mirror he saw a man who looked like all the air got sucked out. The mirror slowly fogged over, and he was just a smear. A blur of a man, could be anyone.

Myra called to him through the door. “I can’t hear you,” he yelled back, but in truth he had heard her.
I wanted to be touching you
, she’d said.

But that was probably a lie as well. Finally, he stepped into the shower.

HE’D FALLEN ASLEEP
in Perry’s bed. Had put his mouth on the stiff part of her pillow, the part where she drooled, and drooled into it himself. Before that, had spit into his hand, meaning to touch himself, go for it, his cock still hard from Myra’s touch, but he couldn’t get up the nerve. It felt wrong, it felt like something he should be saving for her, not keeping all to himself. And it’d be all the more sweeter when it did happen, if he held off. He’d fallen asleep envisioning it: he and Perry in her room, in his room, on a bed of leaves in the woods somewhere, pulled off to the side of the road in the backseat of his momma’s car.

Didn’t wake until the morning, still hard as a rock. Jim just on the other side of the door and mad enough by the sound of it to kill a puppy. Perry had once told him that she snuck out her window at night. It was a sliding window, about three feet wide, and he knew it was his only chance. But his back felt glued to her bed, his limbs useless. If he moved they’d hear. Jim would beat on the door until the dresser Jamey had pushed in front of it gave way. He listened as they fought, not two feet away.

He liked it.
Jamey heard how desperate she sounded, wanting Jim to get mad, probably wanting Jim to shake her, rip off her robe even, make her see who her man was. He’d read similar shit in his momma’s paperbacks, romances with intense love scenes where the woman always ended up begging, apologizing, offering herself up in one way or another. Jim had handled it all wrong, shutting the door like that. He could’ve had himself a little something.

“I wanted to be touching you,” he heard her say. She was crying now, and soon he heard the clink of bottles as she picked them up. He didn’t believe that shit, not for a minute. She wanted to be touching
him
, her Pete.

He could smell toast burning, butter heating in a pan. So she was making Jim breakfast after all. Which meant she was at the far end of the trailer, in the kitchen. And the shower was still running, so that’s where Jim was. Jamey pushed himself out of the bed, pulled his pants up. Slid the window open inch by inch, as gently as he could. Had nearly put one leg out before he remembered. He crawled to the door and pushed the dresser back to where it was. If anyone was listening they’d be able to hear it drag across the stiff carpet. Jamey felt his stomach in his throat at the thought. He heard the toaster pop, heard Myra getting a plate down. He went back to the window, got one leg and then the other out, jumped and landed in a crouch. He crawled, again, and didn’t stand until he was two trailers down.

Out front of his momma’s trailer he put his hand in his back pocket. What he found there sent a thrill so sharp he almost peed. There were her panties, right where he’d left them the night before, bunched and warm from his body. Would she miss them? Would she know someone had been there and taken them?

He hoped so.

WHEN BABY GIRL GOT HER PHONE BACK
she saw that there were no new text messages from Jamey. She hadn’t responded the day before when he’d texted to ask where she was. It felt like weeks ago, getting that text, driving over to Perry’s, driving to the drugstore, worrying that not texting him back was too big a risk, like she was playing too hard to get. But now everything had changed. Even her car felt different, like someone much larger had been sitting in the driver’s seat, like overnight she’d shrunk down to something else. Her bald scalp burning like a lidless eye. There was no way he’d consider being with her now. Touching her. If he’d ever even been considering it in the first place.

No, he’d just been texting her and chatting online with her so he could find out more about Perry, find out where they went, what they did. For a moment, early in the morning lying sleepless in that cell, she’d felt angry. Enraged and righteous. He’d gotten in, he’d planted a flag over her heart, she’d even helped him stake it in. She could have torched a city over it. Her whole body felt alive. But now, driving home alone in her car, she just felt exhausted. Thinking of her rage the night before, she nearly laughed. How could she think Jamey liking her was possible to begin with? That she even wanted it?
Quit acting like a girl.
She heard the words, heard Charles’s voice, preaccident Charles. Any time she cried around him, he’d say it. She had been acting like a girl, carrying on with Jamey like some desperate airhead
girl
.