What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  He thought he had my future in his hands. He had power over me. I knew he thrived on that. I was at his mercy. It was sexy for him.

  “I love you, Dina. It’s you and me, babe. And if you don’t want to be together then you’ll stand on your own and go to jail on your own. I won’t protect you unless you come home.”

  “No. I’m not coming home, and if I go to jail, you will, too.” I could not get air into my lungs. I felt panicky. Move in and hope that his slick attorneys could work something out or that, in the end, if he went to jail he would spare me? Or stay here and risk him frying me alive?

  “Exactly—you go, I go. I don’t go, you don’t go. How do you think you’ll fare in jail, Dina? How did you like all your new dyke friends there? How did you like those bars? I know you’re claustrophobic. What about isolation? Heard you ended up there. How was that? You like things organized. You’re an interior design queen. Jail’s not like that, is it? And no art, Dina. No paints. No collages. Art is the only thing that keeps you sane, isn’t it? You’ll be reminded twenty-four hours a day where you came from: Nothing. White trash. Trailer park.”

  “Shut up.” I pictured Covey. Teeth gritted. Face tight. I heard him exhale.

  “I miss you in our bed. I bet you miss it, too, you nymphomaniac. Oh, and how is work at The Spirited Owl? You’re back where you were years ago, aren’t you, Mrs. Waitress?”

  “I hate you. How did you find me?”

  “Easy, Dina. A little P.I. work. See you and that tight little ass soon, or I will send that tight little ass to jail. I think my phone is bugged by the government, so be careful what you say to me when you call and beg my forgiveness.” His voice lowered. “I love you and I miss you.”

  He hung up.

  I was so angry. If it looked like he was going to jail, he’d take me with him. If he couldn’t have me, no one could.

  The fear of being locked up like an animal, suffocating, dealing with rules and guards and cavity checks, of not being able to work, or live in my own home, or be independent and free, terrorizes me to my core.

  I was scared to pieces.

  That night I had a nightmare. I woke up not being able to breathe. I’d heard them shouting again, in horror, panicked.

  Run, Grenadine, run!

  Carlton Jags fell off his stool and was sprawled on the floor about eight the next night. He was drunk.

  Tildy groaned. “Not again. Last time he tossed his cookies in here.”

  “I got him.” I do not like tossed cookies. I might have to clean them up. I went around the bar with Tildy, and together with two men we grabbed Carlton and pulled him outside.

  “I served him only two beers, Tildy.”

  “He was probably drinking away in his truck, crying on his steering wheel, before he even stepped his sorry ass inside.”

  “This is not gonna solve anything, buddy,” Tildy said to him.

  “Never has in the history of mankind, never will.”

  Carlton didn’t answer Tildy, as Carlton was too out of it. Carlton also did not respond to an eighty-year-old woman named Mrs. Shomoto, who clucked at him and called him a “poor, dear, heartsick idiot.”

  We put him in one of the Adirondack chairs. Tildy went to call his mother, and the men went back inside. Vaguely I registered that three men were walking toward the restaurant.

  I took Carlton’s car keys out of his pocket, then made sure he was as comfortable as he could be. I tilted his head so he wouldn’t get a crick in his neck.

  Carlton, who is about thirty-five, is an online computer technician by day and a musician who wallows in his emotions and sings about them by night. His wife, Chandra, left him three months ago for a lovely woman, and things had gone downhill from there. Apparently he rarely drank before Chandra took off. Chandra was a cheerful and loving person and an elementary school teacher. The whole town, including Carlton, adored her.

  They did not have children, and Chandra and her girlfriend moved to San Francisco. “What a cliché!” Carlton had cried, then pounded his head on the bar. “I’m a cliché!”

  I went back in the bar, grabbed two blankets from the back that we keep for this purpose, and put a few slices of cheese bread in a baggie. I don’t believe in enabling drunks, and Carlton had to hit bottom to get back up, but I had a lot of sympathy for him and his broken heart. Plus I liked his mother, Joann.

  “Hang in there, Carlton,” I said out loud, putting my hand on his cheek. “You can get through this.” I put the bag of cheese bread in his lap, then covered him with the blankets.

  When I stood up I locked eyes with Kade Hendricks. He was with two other men. They were towering giants, like Kade, not a pansy in the bunch. One hundred percent tough male.

  “Hello.” I wiped my hands on my apron. “Kade.”

  He nodded. “Hello, Grenady.”

  I tried to smile. I knew I hadn’t gotten the job. It was obvious. Too much time had gone by. It sucked. “How are you?”

  “Fine. Looks like you’re busy tonight.”

  “Yes, uh. Well, he had a few too many. Needs some air. He’ll be fine. I’ll check on him. Tildy called Joann.”

  Kade nodded. His eyes did not leave mine. I tried hard not to look away or tilt my head down.

  “Hello, I’m Rick.” The man next to Kade smiled.

  “I’m sorry,” Kade said. “Grenady, this is my friend, Ricki Lopez, and this is my friend, Danny Vetti. They’re visiting from Los Angeles. We’ve been friends since we were kids.”

  “Hi. Welcome to Pineridge.” I shook hands with both of his friends. They seemed friendly, tough like Kade but not so overwhelming.

  “This is part of your job description, then?” Rick laughed.

  “Sometimes.” I forced myself to keep smiling. I had wanted that job. “Are you coming in?”

  They were. I managed to collect myself enough to introduce them to our hostess, a college girl named Marnie, with dreadlocks. She was majoring in Japanese art history, which meant she would probably be working for Tildy after graduation.

  Marnie found them a table in the restaurant. A few times, as I smiled and served drinks, I could feel Kade watching me. Not in a weird way, not like Covey did, but definitely watching.

  I always worked hard, but I decided to show Kade what he was missing in not hiring me. I wasn’t mad at him. I was sad. That would be the word for it. I liked him; he had not liked me. He had seen something in me that wasn’t competent enough, smart enough, good enough. And he knew I was hiding something. Smart man. I felt my heart clench and I sighed, then caught myself midsigh and told myself not to be irritating and pathetic.

  People were chatting with me a lot now. They were getting to know me, saying hello and good-bye to me by name as they came and went, which made me feel more at home.

  We had a bowling team in that night, and they were beer guzzlers. They had lost. Again. They raised their beers to me before one stood and bellowed out, “To Grenady, best damn bartender to us losers,” then clinked their mugs together.

  We also had a group of women there who were “sick of baby showers” and had come to divide pitchers full of strawberry daiquiris. The expectant mother was not drinking. “This is my fifth,” she told me. “Five kids. I am never having sex again. Never. I told that to my husband before I left and he said, ‘Okay, baby,’ then he stuck his hand up my shirt!”

  I brought her a virgin strawberry daiquiri, on the house. “No alcohol. Just pretend.”

  About an hour later I was distracted by Moose Williams, who was sitting in the middle of the bar with his buddies and family. Moose had introduced me to many of them. Most were married with kids, one divorced, one widowed. Three were his brothers, six were cousins. His father was there, and so were three uncles. It was Moose’s birthday. He’d had a wee too much to drink.

  “Grenady, Grenady, Grenady,” Moose sang. He started out low and sweet first, then with each “Grenady,” his voice grew louder, until it thundered in an operatic, melodious sort of way,
all around the restaurant. “Grenadddddy!”

  His oldest brother, Chad, put his arms up in victory and yelled, “Sing it, brother!” The youngest brother, Arty, winked at me and said, “We told him when we left he was not to flirt with you. We tried, Grenady.”

  I rolled my eyes at Tildy.

  “Red hair . . .” Moose warbled, standing up, arms flung out.

  “Green eyes . . .” He held the note, splendid and deep. “A mermaid’s body . . .” He hit a high note, pitch perfect, and those easily entertained customers laughed and clapped.

  I kept pouring beers and shook my head. I wished he’d keep it down. I knew Kade and his friends could hear him at their table in the restaurant, and I didn’t want him to think I was encouraging this.

  “You haunt my dreeeeeams!” Moose shot his voice down to a gravelly roar, and I was struck by how on tune he was. The man actually sounded like an opera singer.

  “Can’t help that, Moose.” Oh, please, Kade, don’t look over here.

  “You follow me around toowwwnnn. . .” Moose put a hand to his chest.

  “I never follow you, Moose.” I grabbed three wineglasses from the rack over my head.

  “Your spirit does!” The word spirit bounced along the walls.

  “It’s beeaautifffull to mmmeeee . . .”

  I was so embarrassed. I don’t like being the center of attention. Ever. “Thank you for the solo, Moose, now chill out.” I hurried to the other end of the bar to work. This was Moose’s sign to stand up across two stools and continue singing, his cackling cousins holding his legs so he wouldn’t fall.

  “Grenady, Grenady, Grenady, I want you for my wiiiifee!” His friends hooted as he stood on the bar.

  “Oh, fry me a pig and shut up,” I muttered, and shook a martini.

  Tildy said, “Don’t fall. If you do, you may not sue me. I am warning you, Moose.”

  “We could live in the country. We could have chickens and coooows!” The word cows was held, his voice reverberating, low and deep, in his chest. “We could have a hundred children,” same with the word children, “if you’ll only say yeeess to meeeee!” Oh, how he held that note.

  “No, Moose, sorry. No chickens, no kids.” I was blushing. I did not dare peek at Kade. I served the martini to a woman, and she said, “Take him. I’d take him. He looks well hung.”

  I headed to the other end, and he followed me strutting on top of the bar.

  Moose puffed out his chest, the whole place enthralled, cheering, as he finished his mini-opera so dramatically with, “You are my laughter, my smile, my love and my desire, please, Grenady, Grenady, Grenady, say yes to me tonight!”

  The customers clapped, pounded the bar and tables. I thought his brothers and cousins were going to wet their pants, they were laughing so hard. I rolled my eyes and poured vodka shots.

  I turned my head, couldn’t help it, and saw Kade staring at me. He was not happy. In fact, the deadly mobster expression was back. I felt myself get hot. Then hotter. Unattractively hotter. As in sweaty hot. I actually felt one bead of sweat run down the front of my chest between my boobs.

  Kade’s friends were watchful, quiet, too. I turned away and felt like crying. I had wanted to appear professional tonight. Hardworking. Competent. And I didn’t.

  “Is it a yeeeesss?” Moose sang, almost hitting a high C.

  “No,” I said again, tight smile. “But thank you for the opera. It was entertaining. Original.”

  Tildy called out, “You break your butt, Moose, you pay for it.”

  Moose feigned a heart attack. He crumbled to the bar, then to his stool, then to the floor.

  Ah, so funny. Everyone loved it. They clapped again. I could never be with a guy like Moose. He was funny and kind, but not my type. Was any man my type anymore? I thought of Kade.

  Moose’s family pulled him back up, almost hyperventilating with laughter.

  His father said to me, “He has a romantic heart. I’ve tried to toughen him up. Doesn’t work.”

  I caught Tildy’s eye. I could tell she knew I was dying. She tilted her head toward the exit behind the kitchen. When Moose’s attention was finally elsewhere and people weren’t staring at me, I escaped out the back to the picnic table she had there for staff. There was a white awning over it. I sat down and covered my head with my arms.

  I was back where I was when I started, years ago. It had happened so fast, I couldn’t even dig my heels in and stop it. I was working as a bartender. I was living in my car. I was struggling to save for rent. My window was gone. Winter was here.

  My reputation, as Dina Hamilton and as the artist Dina Wild, was obliterated. I was in the midst of a divorce which would be long, brutal, and costly. Financially I had been stripped of all I had, my accounts on lockdown, and in all likelihood, that money would be confiscated. I would be sued for an enormous amount because of Covey, and be in debt for decades to his poor victims. Maybe my whole life. I could go to jail for years.

  Shut up, I told myself after ten minutes of my defeatist self-pity party. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. You have enough money for today and next week, and you have a job where you get a full meal on each shift, plus extra.

  Buck up.

  When I didn’t feel like I was going to blubber on, I went back in and started working. I faked a smile. I was efficient, chatty. All a charade.

  Moose was too tipsy, but his father and friends left me more than two hundred dollars in tips.

  I did not look at Kade and company again. I couldn’t.

  Tildy patted my shoulder that night. “Moose’s performance was as torturous for you as a cow getting his balls branded, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand.” She leaned against the bar. “You’re a tough one, Grenady. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “Survival instincts. You have them in full.”

  “Learned those a long time ago.”

  She pushed back that white streak. “Me too. They’ve suited me well. Make sure you take a slice of my chocolate cheesecake when you leave. I outdid myself again.”

  17

  He tapped the pencil lead on his tongue a few times, then placed it on a clean, white page in his rhyme book. “I am a poet!” he declared. “A poet!”

  He would change things up today, take some literary liberties.

  Rock-a-bye, baby,

  on the treetop.

  When the waves crash,

  the cradle will rock.

  When the rock breaks,

  the cradle will fall,

  And down will come corpses,

  cradles and all.

  He thought of her. He thought of her every day. He bopped up and down in his chair. The Getaway Girl, that’s what he called her. She would pay for getting away.

  They had almost caught him because of her that night. He’d had to hide in the woods. No one had guessed it was him for many years. He had a job and a home and a bike. They thought he was normal.

  He giggled into his hands, then bit down on his thumb. It bled. He giggled again.

  He was not normal.

  18

  Children’s Services Division

  To: Sima, Yolanda, Sam, Quenelle, and Kiyanna

  From: Margo Lipton

  Date: December 15, 1983

  Re: Grenadine Scotch Wild, foster child

  I need to see the five of you today in my office at eleven. Cancel

  all your other appointments.

  Dr. Paresh Chakrabarti and St. Clare’s Hospital have filed complaints against the Children’s Services Division because of the condition that Grenadine Scotch Wild was found in. Their attorney, Laurie Gutirrez, has called several times requesting a meeting. I have met her before, and we will need our attorneys here to deal with her. She is a human pit bull, and she is extremely angry.

  The governor’s office has been calling, and an investigation has been launched.

  The only person talking to the press should be Wi
lson Deveneaux.

  The Oregon Journal’s articles about Grenadine have the public in an uproar. We are being besieged by letters and phone calls.

  All of Connie Valencia’s kids are being checked on. She apparently has not seen many of them in months. There are problems in other homes, and those kids are being moved immediately.

  Liel Nover, Lenny Circo, Beth Morris, and Georgie Labelle have been suspended pending a review.

  Children’s Services Division

  To: Margo Lipton

  From: Daneesha Houston

  Date: December 29, 1983

  Re: Grenadine Scotch Wild

  Dear Margo,

  As you know, Grenadine has been in St. Clare’s Hospital for three weeks. I have been to see her every day. Seeing this girl struggle to live has been the most heartbreaking experience of my career.

  Grenadine asked why we hadn’t come to see her at the Berlinskys’ home. I told her we were checking on that, and she said that her caseworker, Mrs. Valencia, never came to help her and the Berlinskys took her out of school so she couldn’t tell a teacher.

  She told me that she had been treated like a bad dog there.

  She said she was not going to be in our “program” anymore. She told me she wants to live on her own. She said we did a “really bad job” last time and that if we put her in another home where she’s locked in a cage and gets bitten by dogs and rats and hit by the mom and dad, she’s going to call the police on us and have us arrested.

  I assured her that we wouldn’t do that and that the people who had been in charge of her case were no longer working for the department.