Super America

by Anne Panning

  I also make quite a bit of money at Briante’s, and it’s because I know how to flirt. Ardeth gets very upset with me about this, too. When she comes in after prowling in the dark, musty stacks of the law library all day, her pupils still dilating, then retracting, I bring her the usual, which she only drinks since I taught her to: Jack & Ginger. She loves it and always asks for it with a maraschino cherry, then sits there mournfully dragging it by the stem around and around in her drink. Meanwhile, by Happy Hour, I have a whole bar full of young and old men who come in here, so they say, just to see me. I’m propositioned constantly and have developed a slow, sweet smile, eyes lowered, as I twist a lime into their drinks, which says: you rascal, you just never know what can happen now, do you? The more I flirt, the more money I get, and I try to explain to Ardeth—who says I’m not the kind of woman who should be a women’s studies major—that it’s only my way of manipulating a male-dominated, capitalistic society in favor of women. She grows gruff at my lame excuses, slides out a slim, white cigarette, lights up, blows smoke straight up like a chimney, then shoos it away with a cupped hand. She has impeccable smoking etiquette.

  Frankly, I’m glad Ardeth drinks, and especially glad that she smokes, since these vices give her some much-needed credibility and edge. She was actually married and divorced already by age twenty-five to a guy named Jack Slade, referred to ever after as “The Loser.” She met him back home in Michigan between college and law school and, against her better judgment, married him in Ann Arbor’s City Park. I was a senior in high school and thought it was risky and frolicsome and spontaneous, but our parents feared it would upset her career in law, which it likely would’ve if she’d stayed with him. Our father is a theater professor at the University of Michigan, and every other summer he hires a bunch of poor graduate students to scrape and paint their rather large, lemon yellow house with white trim.

  Jack Slade was one of the bunch that year, an actor wannabe, and while he stood high on an aluminum ladder, dribbling sunny yellow rain from his paint bucket, he’d recite lines from Shakespeare to me and Ardeth, who sat tanning in our bikinis in the backyard, flipping through magazines. I secretly think he was after me, at least at the beginning, because whenever Ardeth ran in the house to pee and get us some more iced tea, Jack would point his finger at me, and then at himself, and then shrug his shoulders as if to say, why not? That was also the summer I bought my best bikini ever. It was a low-cut, underwire top with tiny straps and small hip-hugging bottoms in pale blue. I have to admit, with my tan and my dark hair and eyes, I looked pretty good in it.

  But Ardeth would come out in her red plaid bikini, which smashed her breasts down like pancakes. She has a very fair complexion, with a light sprinkling of freckles over almost every inch of her, including her lips and eyelashes. She would look up at him, then look down at me, and roll her eyes. Somehow—I’m still not sure how it happened, since we spent almost every second together that summer—he asked her out. First, they went to see a Jodie Foster movie, Jack’s favorite actress (“She’s a fucking goddess,” Jack always used to say), then the next weekend they went camping on the Upper Peninsula, and then suddenly it was wedding time. I was the flower girl, for effect, and wore a tiny black sundress and carried a huge bouquet of Gerber daisies in bright, primary colors like a Doctor Seuss book. My mother, a gifted musician, played the dulcimer and sang a poem she had written herself called “Hither and Thither, Love.” My father, ever the flaky, flamboyant dramatist, performed a skit in which he reenacted Ardeth’s childhood in abstract, elliptical scenes, then went on a mythical journey through love using mime and a black box. No one really got it except for the coalition of actors who were the only guests at the wedding, dressed extra-funky in Salvation Army clothes: sombreros, gold sandals, peasant skirts, batik sarongs, and silk pajamas. They clapped furiously and patted him on the back when he was done, even though he had all but upstaged Ardeth on her one special day.

  When it was time for Ardeth to start law school in Ohio, after Jack had finished his degree, everyone began asking him what he was going to do there. “I’m going to be married to a rich lawyer,” he said. “Who needs to work?” This didn’t sit well with our family, and as we saw them off in their big twenty-foot U-Haul, intonations of doom were probably evident in our voices. Ardeth drove and dragged her blue Subaru wagon behind the huge truck, its front pointed backwards. Jack’s bare feet gripped the dashboard, and he waved happily as they pulled away. “It’s never going to last,” my mother said, and grabbed me around the shoulders. “Now, you, Winifred, can wait a while before you jump into something like that. Right? Isn’t that right? There are big things ahead.” She then steered me up the sidewalk, and once inside the house, I felt the absence of Ardeth echoing everywhere.

  They divorced a year and a half later, and when I called to ask Ardeth why and what and how, she said, “He’s a loser. That’s all it is. He’s a total loser.” I didn’t question her further, because if Ardeth said it, it had to be true. At the same time, she tried to get me to transfer to the university in Greenwood, and at first I resisted. “No way! It’s out in the sticks!” I said, and it was, but then I looked around and realized, living at home, having a free ride at Ann Arbor because my father taught there, going to all the same bars and seeing all the same people, I needed a change. My parents were naturally unhappy because a) I was the only kid left and my leaving made them feel sad and old, and b) the university in Greenwood would not be free. That was the main issue, I soon discovered: money.

  “Half,” my father said, pacing the kitchen floor in his usual scroungy black turtleneck and gray jeans. “We’ll pay half. That’s the best I can offer.” He spun on his heel, looked at me long, then spun towards my mother, who sat at the breakfast nook, buttering an English muffin.

  “We’ll miss you,” she said, and crunched down on the jagged disc of bread. I worked all that summer as a waitress, gathering valuable experience that would land me my future job at Briante’s. With a huge wad of cash, I rolled out of town in August on the Greyhound, my choice: far more romantic than a ride with my parents could’ve ever been.

  When I moved to Greenwood that summer, Ardeth was living in a big apartment complex on the edge of town, despicably plain, all of the buildings painted tan, running parallel and dangerously close to the railroad tracks. It was a one-bedroom with a windowless kitchen, although it did come with free cable and a dishwasher. I’d sleep on the nubby beige couch and yawn and stretch and watch TV in the morning, while Ardeth sat at the tiny kitchen table, head bent over thick green books with yellowed pages. When the trains came past, which seemed to be on the hour, the windows rattled, the TV went mute, and the deep, moist carpet beneath our feet shimmied and vibrated like an earthquake. We had to shout to talk to one another, and Ardeth would sigh, pinch her fingers around her forehead, trying to concentrate. Finally, she would stalk off to the law library, her second home.

  Still solvent with my Ann Arbor earnings, I flipped through want ads at my leisure, went for long bike rides in the afternoons, and whipped up interesting, healthy meals for Ardeth. Her favorite that summer was a simple salad of chopped red tomatoes, cubed mozzarella, and fresh mint tossed in olive oil. I would pace the hot, humid apartment, waiting for her to get home, and with great pleasure, sit and watch her eat the bright, wet food. Most often she would fall asleep sitting up in the chair, reading, and I’d nudge her, pat her on the hand, and say, “Ardeth, Ardeth, honey, time to go to bed,” then walk her down the short hallway to her tiny white room with a daybed and rocker and five-drawer filing cabinet.

  I first suspected Ardeth had a lover when the phone would ring, I’d answer, and someone would hang up. But Ardeth and I sound amazingly alike, and when I’d say hello, there was often a brief pause, thick breathing from the nose, then a dial tone. Sometimes Ardeth was home; sometimes she was not. When she was not, I would catch the phone on the first ring, breathless, and instead of saying hello, I’d say, “Who is this? Just tel
l me. I’m Ardeth’s sister, Winifred. Talk to me.” Still, I failed to elicit a response.

  In order not to embarrass Ardeth, for she was a very judicious, discreet person, I began watching her more closely, pretending I was asleep in the early morning hours when she was most active. Mostly Ardeth studied and drank coffee, and sometimes did a series of stretches where she reached her arms up to the ceiling, then slowly lowered them, swaying from side to side. It was sad to see all the work she did with her brain and to watch her body becoming ever more lumpy and broad for lack of real exercise. Her hips had bloomed and bloated, and although she was certainly not fat, she was what you might call solid or heavyset, and I knew this bothered her. I also knew it bothered her that I could eat whatever I wanted, drink practically a twelve-pack of heavy beer, and never gain any weight. Not so with Ardeth, who was always merely picking at her food, fasting, campaigning herself into new diet programs, only to drop out after a week or two. I was always supportive and encouraging but knew our physical differences were an unspoken agony for Ardeth.

  One morning, however, the phone rang for just a fraction of a second, and Ardeth was on it like fire. I pretended to be asleep when Ardeth turned her back to me and dragged the phone with her into the bathroom, the door ajar. I could hear every word and lay there, breathing slow and shallow. Finally, I picked up on a name. “Well, Tim,” Ardeth said, the disappointment thick in her voice. “When do you have to pick him up? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, what about Lori? Can’t she pick him up?” There was a long silence, during which Ardeth sighed loudly and peeked around the corner to check on me. Luckily, I’d kept my eyes closed, but she might’ve known I was awake, given the tense, flexed stiffness of my body, straining so hard to listen. She must not have noticed, though, because she kept on. “Is she really? Oh, God. When did she go in? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what does that mean for you? Or for us, I should say?”

  Who was Lori? Was he married? Kids? I couldn’t bear the suspense any longer and sat up, stretching loudly so Ardeth would know I was awake. She heard me and came quickly out of the bathroom, her voice newly tight and wiry. “All right then,” she said, and I tried to read into her code. “Yep. Thanks for calling. Gotta go. Yep. Bye-bye.” She replaced the phone on the wall and ran back into her room to grab her car keys.

  “Who was that?” I asked, and right away began folding up the pink bed sheets like Ardeth asked me to every morning.

  She came out of the bedroom finagling her earrings, dark topaz drops, into her ears. She wore a long, brown calico dress, which laced up in back like a maiden’s, and soft, buttery leather sandals. “Oh, friend from law school,” she said, head cocked, nose wrinkled. “Shop talk.” She shrugged her shoulders, grabbed her big wine-colored attaché case, and looked at her watch. “Better be going. See you for dinner?”

  I nodded, yawned, wiped sleep from my eyes, and poured myself a cup of her leftover coffee, which had a burnt, black look to it by now, like unrefined maple syrup. When I added milk, it turned a bleak slate gray, so I tossed it down the sink. Ardeth never said things like “shop talk,” so I knew something was up, but I didn’t know why she was keeping it a secret from me, her only sister. The only reason I could think of was her constant fear of me stealing her boyfriends, which she had accused me of countless times, and which was entirely fear based and unfounded. Well, except for twice, but I was young and stupid then and hadn’t been able to control myself. Plus, I had to be better at Ardeth at something; she had beat me on almost every other count. I decided I would have to confront her head-on, but in the meantime, I would look for a job. Although it boasted a good-sized, well-respected university, the town of Greenwood was so small the shops and restaurants spanned only five blocks on Main Street until they gave way to huge old houses all broken up into apartments.

  I wore a sleeveless periwinkle shift and fisherman sandals and carried a small leather bag filled with loose money, ID, and three pens. It was a hot, humid Midwestern afternoon, and since I wore a dress, I couldn’t bike but had to walk across town under the driving sun. When I came out of the prefab apartment building, checking in a panic for my keys, I saw a man in a blue car, watching me, watching our apartment door. I didn’t like the feel of it and, being much more street-smart than Ardeth, decided to go ask him what the hell he was doing.

  As I approached his Ford family sedan, he fiddled with the side mirror and smiled. “You must be Winifred,” he said, and squinted in the glaring sun. “Wow. Quite a package.”

  I crossed my arms and looked adamant. “And you are who? Somebody who likes to lurk outside peoples’ apartment buildings because he has nothing else to do?” My father had taught me to psych people out, to be mean and defiant, and to throw all cards on the table when dealing with creeps.

  “Hey, sorry,” he said, and flipped down his sun visor to beat the glare. “I’m a friend of Ardeth’s. Is she home?”

  I didn’t know what to make of him, and had also known women who were too gullible, had gotten in cars with men just like this, and had been beaten, raped, and robbed, so I wasn’t taking any chances. “What’s your name?” I asked, thinking this would be a perfect test.

  He answered quickly. “Tim. I’ve talked to you on the phone before.” His eyes, a merry, flickering blue, met mine, and there was an awkward silence. His face was nicely sculpted and angular, freshly shaven, and his dark hair rolled back from his forehead in waves.

  “How come you never identified yourself on the phone then?” I asked, and could feel cool drops of sweat dribbling down my ribs. I was braless, which I’m able to get away with, but could feel my nipples graze against the rough fabric of my dress.

  “Because I’m supposed to be a secret,” he said, then adjusted the side view mirror and winked at me. His fingers drummed against the side of the car. “You know how Ardeth is.”

  I nodded that I did, and then maybe, simply because of the heat, or his soft, blue eyes, or because I had these certain insatiabilities, I said, “Would you like to come in for some iced tea? It’s really too damn hot to go anywhere.” My forehead was dotted with sweat, and my palm came away wet and shiny when I swiped at it.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise and gripped the steering wheel with both hands, as if ready for takeoff. “Sure,” he said, “if it’s no trouble.” Probably, if we had known then what we were getting into, I’d like to think neither of us would have done it, would have crossed that line. But I had no friends in town, no job, and Ardeth had all but abandoned me for school. I went ahead as he locked up the car and met him in the doorway of the apartment, bolting the lock casually behind us.

  There was no iced tea, so I drew us tall, clear glasses of water from the tap and plunked big, frosty ice cubes into them, which sizzled and popped and split. The glasses soon beaded up with the humidity, and water trailed down both our hands and wrists. He sat on the couch, my bed, and I sat in the yellow director’s chair, facing him, legs crossed. It was hard to tell if he was on his way to work or had been to work, since he wore Levi’s and a purple polo shirt, tucked in; it was about noon. His blue eyes stood out shockingly in the whiteness of the room, and he looked around, jumpy.

  “You’re married, right?” I asked, and sucked on a sliver of ice, cold and sharp and small. It padded my speech.

  He put his glass down on a magazine, spread his arms across the back of the couch, and nodded. “But it’s very complicated. I mean, yes, I am technically married, but my wife, well—she’s got some problems. She’s—”

  “Like what?” I asked. “Specifically.” My foot jiggled up and down involuntarily, so I grabbed my sandal and held it down.

  “Well, she’s manic-depressive, right? So she gets in these fits and has to be hospitalized for weeks at a crack. It’s really bad for her, and there’s nothing I can do. I mean, when she gets like that, she doesn’t even want to see me. You know?” He rolled his head around in circles, vertebrae cracking and shifting, as if the conversation were tensing him up. “Anyway, it’s a re
al mess. I don’t know.” He folded his hands together and set them on his stomach.

  I wasn’t satisfied, and grilled further. “Kids?”

  “One,” he said. “Patrick. He’s seven, good kid. He knows Ardeth— did you know that? A lot of times the only way I can see her is when I’m picking him up or some shit like that. He really likes Ardeth, you know, something about her good nature.” He tapered off, and I imagined then the look on Ardeth’s face if she were to come home, carrying a huge stack of law books in one arm, toting an expensive six-pack of beer in the other. Her jaw would not drop. She likely wouldn’t scream or yell. She’d sit on the edge of a kitchen chair, trying to understand and infer meaning out of the meaningless.

  “It sounds confusing,” I said, in a manner I hoped did not connote sympathy.

  Tim stood up suddenly, and I realized he might leave, that perhaps he’d had no ignoble intentions after all. “You know Ardeth wants me to leave my wife, right? She said it’s no good for me, living like this. But there’s Patrick, and you know Ardeth said she’d love to be his stepmother, but I don’t know. Kind of tricky business—” He cracked his knuckles and quickly scanned the titles, mostly Ardeth’s, on our bookshelf by the door.

  “It is tricky,” I said, and I’ve since replayed over and over in my mind what I did next, which was walk up to Tim, put my arms around his neck, and press my lips to his very, very softly. His warm hands came around my waist, then slid down my hips, and pulled them into his. I’d like to think I was saving Ardeth from what sounded like a dead-end affair that would surely culminate in favor of the wife, who was ill, and therefore more vulnerable and pitiable, but I suppose that’s a shabby excuse on my part.