Standing in the kitchen doorway and looking out into the great room, he watched the whole Walters family. All four of his brothers had beautiful wives, and their kids were something special. His own two kids were in great relationships. His son had married a lovely girl and they were hoping to have a child soon. His daughter had found someone and managed to land in a loving, committed relationship – no small feat for a lesbian in her twenties. Even his mother seemed happy in her widowhood; she’d made it plain that his father had been the love of her life and she would never need another. It would be natural to be happy for all of them, knowing that they were comfortable and loved. But looking at them, watching them, was almost too painful to bear.
After everything was cleaned up and everyone was in bed, he sat on an ottoman in front of the fire. His heart was as cold as the beer he was sucking on. Beams of light from the flood lamps on the patio reflected the snow that was falling even harder now. He thought about his ex-wife, the bitch, and watched the huge flakes fall. Wonder where she was spending Christmas? He didn’t care, as long as it was nowhere near him, and he shuddered just thinking about her. She’d ruined everything for him.
I’m fifty-seven and that part of my life, love and happiness and all of that shit, that’s all over. The fire was starting to die down, and he contemplated putting another log on. Why bother? Let it die. He poked at the embers to get the last of the heat out of them, then sat back in his chair and glanced down at the front of his jeans – yep, limp and dead, just like it had been for twenty years. Oh, it had a revival a couple of years before, but generally it just hung there neglected, no longer waiting for someone to come along and stimulate it, knowing that wasn’t even on the table anymore.
He had his work; that kept him busy. Heading up a large, family-owned construction and contracting business wasn’t a part-time job. And he had the gym. He was there almost every day, and his body was a well-tuned instrument. Everyone who saw him thought he was in his early forties, certainly not his actual age, and his genetics helped that along. Women looked at him with longing, but after what that bitch had put him through, no one was getting near him, no way, no how.
The embers in the fireplace seemed to simply wink out of existence, just like his chances at happiness. Everyone under his roof tonight was snug and warm with someone they adored and someone who adored them nearby.
Except for him. And that wasn’t likely to change.
New Year’s Eve 2011
“Hey, what did you bring?” Tony prowled through the bags that Vic had brought in with him.
“Hmmmm, let’s see,” Vic said, pulling out a box. “Mallomars and Moon Pies.”
“Love ’em,” Tony said.
“Yeah. And big bags of m&m’s and Skittles.”
“Love ’em too,” Tony said.
“And,” Vic said, pulling out two boxes, “Goo-Goo Clusters!”
“Ah, makes me proud to be a southern boy!” Tony said, ripping a box open.
“And a huge bottle of,” Vic pulled it out with a flourish, “Maker’s Mark. Plus some cheaper stuff for when we don’t care anymore. Which I hope is soon.”
“No shit. I plan to get completely hammered.” Tony looked at the bottle and gave serious consideration to tearing into it and drinking straight from it.
“Yeah, me too. I looked around the house but I didn’t have any weed or I would’ve brought that too.”
“Ohhhh, that would’ve been sweet. Oh, well, I think we can still do enough damage with the liquor.” Tony scrounged around the kitchen and came up with bowls for all of the stuff Vic had brought.
“What else have we got?” Vic asked.
“Well, I’ve got donuts, the powdered sugar kind and some filled with Bavarian crème, and all kinds of cookies, and chips, my god, every kind of chips I could find, and that great pub mix, you know, the one with all the different little things in it?”
“Yeah, I love that shit!” Vic grabbed two bowls and headed for the great room in the big house. Tony picked up all he could carry and followed.
An hour later, they were well on their way to something much more intense than a buzz. Neither of them did any heavy-duty drinking on a regular basis, and the much larger Vic was faring a lot better. The alcohol was slamming into Tony like a freight train.
“Well, here we are. Two cousins. Alone on New Year’s Eve,” Tony mumbled.
“We’re not alone,” Vic reminded him. “We’re here together.”
“You know what I mean, smart ass,” Tony slurred back. “I don’t have a woman, and you don’t have a woman. So we’re alone.”
“Yeah. No fun. Hey, how long’s it been since you got laid?”
“Couple of years.” Tony took a pull off a bottle of bourbon.
Vic’s eyebrows knitted. “I didn’t know you dated anybody. What was up with that?”
“Didn’t date her. Long, sad story.” Tony took another hit off the bottle. “Well, the getting there was sad. The being there was awesome. She was a helluva fuck, lemme tell ya. But I’ve said enough; I really don’t want to talk about that. What about you? What happened to that little girl, Carrie? One day you’re banging her, and the next, she’s gone. Where’d she go?” Tony didn’t usually talk so coarsely, but it was just him and Vic and the liquor. Liquor always worked as a solvent on his personal filters, so they were more or less already shot.
“I pretty much ran her off; kinda scared her away. Didn’t mean to, but it happened.” Vic drained a bottle and looked for another. “I’m a bad, bad man.”
“Yeah, right; big, bad teddy bear. That’s what you are, my cousin-brother,” Tony laughed. “Big ol’ teddy bear.”
“The teddy bear has a grizzly side. Hey, didn’t I see a bottle of Evan Williams around here somewhere?” Vic asked, changing the subject and looking through the pillows on the sofa.
“I think it’s in the, the, oh, hell, what’s that room called?” Tony slurred, pointing toward the kitchen.
“Can’t remember.” Vic stuck his hand between the sofa cushions and pulled out a quarter. “Hey, your sofa’s throwing up money!”
“Don’t be talking ’bout throwing up, what with the power of suggestion and all that.” Tony got up to go to the kitchen and staggered a little. “Whoa, damn house must be on one of those tectonic plate fault line thingies ’cause the earth’s moving,” he giggled. When he came back, he tossed a bottle of Old Granddad to Vic. “Here, more fuel for the fire.”
“Thanks, cuz. Seriously, though . . .”
“No ‘seriously’ now. I can’t handle fucking seriously,” Tony admonished.
“Okay, just bullshitting you then, isn’t there a woman somewhere that you want to ask out?”
Tony thought for a minute. “Yeah, there’s this woman at my gym. She’s kinda cute. Nice tits, nice ass. Very nice hair. Looks like a sweet one. I’ve been watching her for four years. But she’d never go out with me.”
“Four years? Hell, nobody can accuse you of jumping the gun! You’d be lousy at speed dating.” Vic was shocked; why hadn’t Tony just asked her out? “Why wouldn’t she go out with you? You’re a good guy.”
“Yeah, and I’m hung, too! But I can’t just walk up to her and go, ‘Hey there, I’d like to go out with you and guess what? I’m hung!’ Probably get ar-ar-arrested, think?”
“You’d better slow down, buddy. You’re getting pretty damn polluted.” Vic reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels that Tony was sucking on.
“Hey, fuck you!” Tony snapped, snatching the bottle away. “You’re damn right I’m getting polluted! I’m here in my own house in my own recliner. So if they wanna ar-ar-ar-arrest me for that damn intoxication bullshit, they’ll have to do it between the recliner and the bed, ’cause that’s the only place I’m going tonight.” He took another draw. “And I’m not asking any woman out. Bitches only break your heart, man. Over and over. All of them. That’s no good.”
“Wow, you’re even more jaded than I thought.”
“Yeah,
well, uh-huh, yeah, I am. Pre-tteeeee damn jaded.” Tony picked up a donut, stuck his tongue through the hole, and tried to pull the whole thing back into his mouth which, of course, failed miserably and made a huge mess. “Boy, Helene’s gonna be pissed at me tomorrow,” he groaned, his head falling back onto the chair.
“Not as pissed as you’re gonna be with yourself, especially since she won’t be working because it’ll be New Years. That means we’ll have to clean up this damn mess ourselves; I can hardly wait. Come on, bud, let me get you into bed.” Vic put his arm around Tony’s waist and helped him stand.
“You’re not gonna take advantage of me, are you?” Tony laughed.
“You should be so lucky,” Vic growled as both of them staggered down the hall.
Vic felt like a rhino had sat on his head all night. He managed to get to the kitchen, but he didn’t smell any coffee. Tony was there, perched on a stool at the island, head on the counter and arms extended straight out.
“What the hell are you doing?” Vic asked him.
“Am I dead? Because I’m wishing I was,” Tony mumbled into the countertop.
“Not unless you’re a zombie or a vampire, because you’re talking to me, idiot,” Vic said matter-of-factly.
“Uhhhhhhhhh, if I was a vampire I could get all the good-looking women. They love that shit,” Tony groaned.
“Fuckstick, you couldn’t get a woman right now if you were naked on the side of the street and waving thousand dollar bills,” Vick laughed.
“Bite me!” Tony growled.
“Won’t do you any good. I’m not a vampire.”
“Oh, yeah; that’s how it works. I forgot.” Tony rolled his head slightly to look at Vic. “How much did I drink last night?” He rolled his forehead back to the countertop. He didn’t remember a whole lot after they’d opened the second bottle.
“Let’s just put it this way – you’re now on every whiskey maker’s VIP list.” Vic was busy trying to figure out the coffeemaker, punching buttons and getting more frustrated by the second. “Why the hell do you have to have a damn three-hundred-dollar coffeemaker? Why can’t you just have a simple fifty dollar coffeemaker so we could have some coffee?”
“I don’t know,” Tony groaned. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
“That’s sure as shit true. What do you want for breakfast?”
“Sleep. And more sleep. And you?”
“Yeah, sleep. I wish I could just sleep my fucked-up life away,” Vic muttered as he won the war against the coffeemaker. “Coffee coming up in ten.”
“Thank god. I thought I was gonna have to drink more bourbon and pretend it was coffee.” Tony tried to sit up and dropped his head back down again.
“No more liquor for you. We’ve gotta get our shit together because we’ve both gotta go back to work tomorrow.”
“Okay. Hey, wait; I’m the boss. I don’t fucking have to go to work if I don’t want to,” Tony told the countertop.
“Hell, you know that won’t fly, boy.” Vic shook his head again. “Shit, you’re a lightweight drunk,” he chuckled.
Tony ignored his goading. “So, you wanna drink some coffee, take a shower, go get something to eat? We probably should.” Tony tried to sit up again and this time he succeeded.
“Hope you’ve got some good dark sunglasses, ’cause you’re gonna need ’em,” Vic said.
“Darkest Oakleys they make,” Tony told him. “Where’s that damn coffee?”
NIKKI
August 2006
Folding the basket of laundry seemed too hard. Nikki just pulled her things out and threw them in the suitcase. She took the little bit of clothes still in the closet off the hangers and put them in too. Then she threw the dirty stuff into a garbage bag, squished the bag in, and zipped it all shut.
It was late afternoon after the funerals, and the house was quiet; her mind was anything but. She thought about the dirty dishes and garbage she left behind in the kitchen at home when she took off. Thank goodness she’d remembered to take the dogs to the vet to board them; it was a miracle she hadn’t just forgotten and left them in the house alone.
The last three days had been a blur. Dozens of people had shown up for the services, which surprised Nikki to no end. It had only been six months since they’d moved away, but longer for the kids because they’d gone away to college and found jobs elsewhere, and yet many of their former classmates had shown up. Interestingly enough, almost no one had even acknowledged her; it was all about her parents. The house was full of food that she wouldn’t eat brought by people she didn’t know, mostly her parents’ friends from their church. It was all so exhausting. If Randy had been with her it would’ve been much easier, but of course he couldn’t be. She hadn’t gotten his ashes back yet, or she might’ve put them in her suitcase just so she’d feel him close to her.
Worse yet, Nikki had gotten the distinct impression that her mother was gaming for a fight. Barbara had been more condescending than usual, and she’d thrived in the attention she’d gotten from everyone who’d shown up. Occasionally she’d taken a sideways glance at Nikki. That meant something was about to happen, and Nikki was certain it wouldn’t be pretty.
A noise at the door made her turn and look and, sure enough, her mother stood there, hands on her hips. “What are you doing?” she asked, and Nikki could tell with only those four words that she should steel herself for battle. And she knew it wouldn’t take long for the verbal bullets to start whizzing past her head. Her mother was used to getting her way, and nothing would ever change that. Bucking her meant you’d have hell to pay.
“I’m packing.” Nikki thought that was pretty obvious. “I’ve got to get back home and take care of things.”
The corner’s of Barbara’s mouth twitched, and Nikki could almost swear she saw the beginnings of a sadistic smile. “You are home. You’re not going back there.”
Nikki stared at her, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean, I’m home and I’m not going back? Murray isn’t my home. I live in Louisville.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Nikki, give it up! You don’t need to go back there,” her mother growled. “Your dad and I have made a decision; we’ll clean out the spare room and you can live here.”
Nikki’s mind reeled. “That’s not your decision to make. I live in Louisville,” she reiterated. “My house is there. My dogs are there, for god’s sake. I’m going home,” she said again.
“Oh, Nikki, don’t be difficult about this. After all, you don’t have anyone there anymore, and we don’t have anyone here. You can stay here and take care of us! Wouldn’t that be nice, just the three of us? It’ll be fun!”
As that scenario played out in her mind, Nikki shuddered. No way was she staying in Murray, taking care of them, being shackled to a life of board games, jigsaw and crossword puzzles, church socials, and the fried seafood buffet at the local family restaurant. If she stayed, her life would be over. Oh, it was pretty much over anyway, but at least at home she’d be near Randy, Jake, and Amanda’s things. She’d have peace and quiet to think and to heal. She’d have the dogs; Bill and Hillary were all she had left of her little family, and she was anxious to get back to them. “No, Mom, I’m going back to Louisville.”
Barbara’s face knotted in anger. “You selfish, ungrateful brat!” she snarled at Nikki. “You think you’ll go back and have a happy life, but you’ll be miserable. I know – you’re probably thinking you’ll get a man! Well, they’re not going to want you. Look at you – fat, pale, short. You’re a terrible cook and a horrible housekeeper. And you’ve got no personality. What man will want you?”
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. Don’t let her see you cry. “You know, Mom, I’m sorry that you’ve always been so jealous of me and my relationship with Randy. I’m not stupid – I know I’ll probably never have that again – but if I stay here, I’ll never have a chance at anything, and thanks to you and your mouth, I’ll have zero confidence and optimism to boot. So no, I’m not staying here.
”
Nikki felt something in the air shift as Barbara strode across the room and pointed a finger in Nikki’s face. “Let me tell you something, missy!” she screamed. “If you leave, that’s it! We’ll have nothing more to do with you! Don’t bother trying to get in touch, because you’ll be dead to us, you hear me?” she continued yelling. “And you can pack your stuff up and get out of here this afternoon, go stay in a motel or something, because you’re not welcome here!” She stomped out of the room and slammed the door shut behind her.
Nikki stayed in the bedroom with the door closed for the rest of the day; she wasn’t hungry anyway, and the guest room had its own bathroom, so she just hid out and stayed in her pajamas. As she was getting ready for bed, there was a knock at the bedroom door. Before she could answer it, the door opened and two uniformed officers stood in the doorway. “Mrs. Wilkes?” one of them asked.
“Yes?” she answered, confused. There was no one else for her to lose, so why were they there?
“We got a call that you were asked to leave this property and refused. Is there a problem?”
Nikki sighed and shook her head. “No, no problem, sir. Let me get dressed and I’ll leave. My mother’s just . . .”
“Yes ma’am, I don’t know the exact dynamics, but this is their home and you need to honor their wishes.”
“Again, no problem. I’ll be gone in a few minutes. You’re welcome to stay and watch me leave if you’d like. But I need to get dressed.”
“Not necessary, ma’am.” He turned and looked over his shoulder up the hallway. “And, by the way, I’m very, very sorry for your loss,” he almost whispered. He looked at the other officer out in the hall, then turned back to Nikki and very quietly said, “And I’m so sorry we had to do this. This is very mean-spirited of your parents, but we’re bound by law, you know? So I apologize. Is there anything we can do for you? Help you in any way?” He looked sincerely regretful, and the other officer nodded his agreement.
Laying a Foundation Page 2
