What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  Rozlyn was sincere and funny. One day I might even tell her about my past.

  I moved my bookshelves, painted white, to either side of my gas fireplace. I filled the shelves with my books on art and artists’ studios, colored yarn, fabrics, my gold sewing box, threads, and jars and boxes of paints, colored pencils and pastels. I pulled out a special, heavy book, a seventy-year-old dictionary with a black cover. Inside the pages I had hundreds of dried flowers.

  It’s odd, it’s silly, but it brought me peace.

  I am not me, not Grenady, without my art and art supplies.

  On Friday, Kade called a company-wide meeting. It lasted about five minutes. He said that our sales were up, production was up, everyone was working way too hard, and we were all to leave and go have some fun.

  The stud looked right at me.

  We took him seriously.

  Rozlyn said, “I’m taking this opportunity to buy some edible panties. I’ll need them if Leonard and I get together.”

  Eudora pushed a diamond bracelet up her arm and said, “I’m going home to research a trip to Antarctica. Now’s the time for me to go. Already been all over Asia and Europe, so the cold one is next.”

  It was three o’clock. I didn’t have to be at The Spirited Owl until 5:30. I grabbed my purse.

  I went to a coffee shop and bought a huge coffee. The shop was called The Horse and Buggy. I drove home, kept my jacket on, and sketched out a collage on my deck. I wanted to make a collage of a woman in a ball gown from the late eighteen hundreds. I remembered my mother used to draw ladies in ball gowns.

  I would make her dress out of charms, buttons, faux plastic jewels, and glitter. She would wear black heels and black stockings. Behind her would be a dark forest. She would be looking over her shoulder, as if someone was following her.

  What or who was in the forest?

  I would love it.

  I would hate it.

  My shift was brutal at the bar.

  It was Thursday night, so much of the bowling team was there. It was also Girls Night Out for about ten ladies in their forties, which meant that they were being naughty.

  Two of the cowboys at the bar were married to the women in the Girls Night Out group. As Russ McConnel said to me, “Grenady, as soon as I see that my Shondra has had enough, I’ll peel her off the barstool and head on home. She won’t like having a hangover tomorrow, because she has to bake three pies for the kids’ school fund-raiser tomorrow night. She told me to keep an eye out, and I will.” He sighed. “She gets horny when she drinks too much, so keep me with pop only.”

  Another man with a naughty forty-plus-year-old wife said, “I’m here to make sure that no men hit on my wife. You see anything, Grenady, you let me know and I will take that somof-abitch out.”

  I assured him I would.

  And then there were the other cowboys sitting at the bar.

  “Grenady? Like grenadine? That’s your name?” one of them said to me. He was about fifty. Huge gut. Balding.

  “Yes.”

  He smirked and deliberately ran his eyes over me, head to foot, so I could see it. Yuck. Do men think that we’re so brainless our vaginas will heat up to a boiling point when they do that? “I think I want some of your grenadine, Grenadine. It would go down nice, if you know what I mean.”

  Oh, I knew what he meant. I leaned forward in my black T-shirt and my stylin’ red apron with the owl on it. “Is that all ya got, tiny dick?”

  He seemed a bit taken aback.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it’s uncreative. It’s boring. I’ve heard that line a hundred times. It’s disgusting.” I rapped my knuckles on the bar. “What impresses me in a man is intellect. You want to discuss Van Gogh or Matisse or Monet, then I’m up for it. You want to say something vulgar, I might spit in your beer before I give it to you. Want to start over, Tiny Dick, or do you still want to treat me with disrespect?”

  “You’re feisty.” He winked. “I like that. Fight me, baby. You got the face of an angel and an ass like the devil. Makes me think of sexy things. Like stickin’ it to your devil’s ass.”

  I stalked around the bar, well and truly into my flaming temper. I knew my regulars were watching what was going on. I didn’t care. Tildy didn’t care. In fact, she drawled, “No broken bones. I don’t need the lawsuit, Grenady.”

  I came up behind the delusional one on the stool. “Look in the mirror.” I pointed above the bar. He grinned at our reflections, my smiling face close to his overstuffed red one. I put both my arms under his armpits and yanked him clean off that stool. He landed with a thud on his stomach, then flipped over. I grabbed the neck of a beer bottle.

  Grizz and Chilton and two men who were in a motorcycle gang with only mild arrest records leaped off their stools and held him down when he said, “What the fuck you doing?”

  “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again.” I bent down and shoved the bottom half of the bottle right close to his face. “I am not your eye candy that you can abuse with your obnoxious, sexual, and low-class behavior. Leave. You go home and think about how disgusting you are.” I tapped his nose with the bottle, sort of hard. “Don’t make me break that next time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He shuffled out, head down after handing me a twenty for his beer. I went back to the bar and a flurry of orders from suddenly extremely well-behaved and polite men.

  Grizz said to me later, when my temper had simmered down like cooling soup, “Grenady, this place is so much more exciting to visit now that you’ve arrived. I tell all my buddies. We got a show going on here, and it’s only the price of a couple of beers and a Grenady tip.”

  “Thank you, Grizz.”

  He left me a twenty-dollar tip. He always does. And he’s always polite.

  I sure like Grizz.

  That night I collapsed on my deck chair and stared at the stars.

  The truth was that my seventy-five-plus-hour weeks were killing me.

  Even my bones were tired. My brain was sludge by Friday night.

  I couldn’t go on like this much longer without a couple of days off. I would ask Tildy if I could get a Friday and Saturday night shift off soon, then I could have a weekend off.

  But what would I do? Time alone gave me time to think of my future, and my past.

  The future made my heart shake with fear, and the past about ripped it out.

  I located the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. I thought of the canvas with the magnifying glass that offered no clarity, the girl dressed in lilies, the dark woods, and the lighthouse that illuminated nothing. I hadn’t worked on it again. It bothered me too much. There was something about it....

  I pushed both hands through my hair and massaged my head.

  If I could only remember more. Two minutes more even. Then I might know. It was the not knowing that had thrown me for much of my life. The mystery. The tragic mystery.

  Who was I? Who were my parents? Where did I come from?

  Run, Grenadine, run!

  I remembered that part.

  “Okay, let’s go over the orders,” Kade said.

  It had been a busy week. I helped clients personalize the furniture they wanted. A dining room table carved with the family’s boat in the San Juan Islands. A willow tree carved on a bride’s hope chest because as a child she loved reading under the tree. Bedposts carved with honeysuckle because a man’s beloved wife loved the honeysuckle vine he’d given her ten years ago when he’d asked her to marry him.

  Kade and I went through one order after another. I had also reached out to hotels and lodges, sent information, drew sketches, and took orders, and we discussed where we were with each one. We were efficient.

  When we were done, I gathered up all the folders, smiled professionally at him, not in a Can-You-Get-Naked-So-I-Can-See-What’s-Under-Your-Blue-Shirt sort of way, and said, “That’s it.”

  “Good job, Grenady.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m thinking of expa
nding into new lines. I need a woman’s perspective. Any furniture you would like to see?”

  Yes! There was! “How about oversized rocking chairs?”

  “Oversized?”

  “Yes. Huge. You can sell them to lodges, hotels, even personal buyers. The old-fashioned type. I could even see libraries buying them for the children’s reading corner. Or you could advertise rocking chairs for families. You know a Goldilocks type of thing—one huge one for poppa bear, a medium-sized one for momma bear, on down the line.”

  He nodded, and I could tell he liked the idea.

  “Can you sketch it out for me? I like your sketches.”

  “Sure. I’ll draw a woman in a rocking chair holding a bottle of wine and a glass.”

  He smiled. It transformed his face. Gentled it. Softened it. “Wine sounds good about now, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid I pour too much of it to appreciate it anymore.”

  “It must be tiring to work two jobs.”

  The question came as a surprise, and I stumbled with my answer. “I . . . I . . . like working.”

  I could tell he didn’t buy that.

  “Is the salary not high enough here with commission?”

  “It’s high enough.” My checks had been much higher, and I was darn grateful. I could tell that Kade was offended that I had a second job. It made him feel as if he wasn’t paying me fairly. “It’s more than high enough. I’m saving for . . .” I swallowed. “A house.”

  “I think you’ll be able to get one soon. You work hard. You’re making me a lot of money, but you look tired, Grenady.”

  “I hate when people tell me I look tired. It’s another way of telling me I look like crap.” I sucked in my breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” His voice gentled again, and he leaned forward. “Not at all. You do not look like crap. You’re . . .” He stopped, glanced away, then back. “Sometimes you seem worried.”

  “I’m not worried.” Oh, hell, yeah, I am.

  “If you ever want to talk—”

  “No, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “Working two jobs is exhausting. I’ve done it. I know.”

  I felt tearful for a second around that sweet concern, but I bucked up. “Hopefully I won’t have to haul anyone out tonight. It does, however, add excitement to my life.” I used my old tool: Change the subject, be amusing. “On Thursday, three women from Los Angeles decided to have a wet T-shirt contest on the bar.”

  “Heard about it.” He didn’t smile. He’s a man, so I was surprised he didn’t find that amusing.

  “You missed out,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Tildy made them get down after a few minutes. She thought they were going to fall and get hurt, then sue her.” I tilted my head. “You don’t come in often.”

  “I like the food at The Spirited Owl, but I don’t like the bar scene.”

  “Me either.”

  “That’s too bad, since you work there.”

  “If I didn’t work there, I would come in for the hamburgers. I love their hamburgers. Gerard puts all this crumbled blue cheese on my hamburgers, and these crunchy onion rings and mustard. I feel like I’m eating my own heart attack, but I love ’em.”

  “Me too. My favorite is the Blue Stallion Crunch.” He looked off into space. Men are so easily entertained by food and beer, I almost laughed.

  I tapped the folders. “I better go. I know you’re busy.”

  “Not too busy,” he said. He smiled again. Friendly, those eyes watchful. He had huge shoulders. I wished he’d been in the car with me when those two masked creeps tried to break in. He would have smashed their heads together like two pineapples. “Any time you want to chat, come on in.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Grenady. Have a good night.”

  A good night. I was trying to enjoy each day of freedom. I would, therefore, try to enjoy tonight, though I had to serve a hundred beers.

  That night, about two in the morning, I thought about Kade. I worked for him. I needed the job. I knew him well enough to know he would not date an employee even if he wanted to, and I wasn’t saying he wanted to date me—he had not given me that indication at all.

  But if he did . . .

  Hell.

  He’d be a lot to handle, but I could gather myself up and rise to the occasion.

  I leaned back in bed and smiled, wondering what he would look like naked.

  Hot.

  Wide chest. Black hair on it. Muscled arms to hold onto in the throes of multiple orgasms. Solid hips. Solid ass. Enough to wrap my legs around. Long legs. Those lips could do wonders. I imagined lying on top of him naked. I imagined kissing him. I imagined moving against him, with him, under him. I imagined my mouth on his . . .

  I reminded myself not to look at him with unbridled lust and passion while at work.

  No panting, Grenady! I laughed.

  33

  He had always liked the nursery rhyme about the old woman in the shoe. He liked the part about the whipping best.

  There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

  She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

  So she gave them some broth without any bread;

  And she whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed!

  He decided he could not improve the poem. It was perfect as it was.

  Danny came in and screamed at him, told him what to do.

  “Get out of here, Danny,” he yelled. “Out. I’m working.”

  Danny wouldn’t leave, so he hit him in the face, again and again, he hit him, until he was bleeding.

  Then he pulled out a hair and sucked on it.

  34

  Eudora, Rozlyn, and I continued to have lunch together most days.

  Rozlyn was upset because she did not know how to approach Leonard for a date. “And, see this? I weigh more than he does. I would squish him. But look at my boobs. They’re my best asset.” She lifted up her shirt. Luckily there were no men in the employees’ lounge.

  “You’re right, Rozlyn,” I said, in slight awe. “Your boobs are porn star boobs.”

  “I know, right? I could do a peekaboo movie with these girls.”

  “You should be proud of those two,” Eudora said, leaning back in her chair. She resembled a seventy-year-old model, sleek and stylish, white hair pulled back. “Those are boobs to behold.”

  Rozlyn put her shirt down, then rubbed her temple. “I could go to his front door and ask him out, but I can’t get up my woman’s nerve yet. My female power.”

  “Do it,” Eudora said. “If he says no, he says no. You’ll live. You don’t want to look back on your life and say, ‘What if I wasn’t a wimp? What would have happened? What could have happened?’ ”

  Eudora had made reservations to go to Antarctica. “I must go. I have to wear one of those red coats and watch whales. Last time I was in a red coat like that, I was in Siberia,” she mused.

  “Why Siberia?” I asked.

  She blinked a couple of times. “Vacation.”

  “In Siberia?” Rozlyn said.

  I laughed.

  We watched Dell park his car outside of Hendricks’. Kade drove up at the same moment in his truck. He talked to Dell, gently, then thumped him on the back and walked him back to his car.

  “Poor Dell,” I said.

  “I wish I could feel sorry for him,” Eudora said, “but I can’t. He wants someone to take care of him. Cook. Listen to him. Stroke his ego. Be there when he gets sick and starts to die. I don’t want to play that role. He sees me based on what I can do for him, not who I am. He has an image of me and he doesn’t want to see beneath the image. You can’t be with a man who is unwilling or unable to see the real you.”

  “That never works out for the woman,” I said. “She can’t live happily with a man who doesn’t want to know who she is, how she thinks. He wants a smiling robot. Pla
ying the role of a robot is incredibly lonely and isolating. Better to be alone.”

  “I think that Leonard would want to know how I think if I could get him on a date,” Rozlyn moaned. “What I want to know is if he has a girlfriend. If he does I’ll . . . I’ll . . . give her a one way ticket to Siberia!”

  After my second stint in Hotel Isolation Hell, I was released again into the general population. I had a new roommate. Her name was L’Andi Howe. She seemed sane and friendly to me. She actually shook my hand when I walked into our suite. We talked about politics and social issues and both agreed that the world would be a better place if there were no guns.

  I found her friendly and engaging. When the guards weren’t looking, she imitated them. She was brilliant, totally hilarious; her impersonations dead on, down to the sound of their voice, posture, the way their head and hands moved, how they walked.

  L’Andi was arrested because she had assaulted a woman in the street who had backed into her car and didn’t apologize and didn’t give her the insurance information until L’Andi had her on the ground. “Don’t you hate rude people?”

  I assured her I did, although, I said, “Sometimes I’m rude.”

  “I’ll remember that, Dina. It is not in my nature to be rude. Serenity is in my nature. Peace. Tranquility. Meditation. Yoga. Sharing my love.”

  Sure, sure. L’Andi was an angel. This was only her third assault charge.

  We showered at the same time, one after the other. We talked, we laughed. When the other inmates called us the Lesbian Couple, we ignored them.

  I met a number of prostitutes in there. After talking to them, I wondered why they were in jail. Two of the women had tattoos of their pimp’s name. He owned them. If they didn’t make enough money on the streets, he beat them up. If they worked the streets, they were arrested.

  They couldn’t win. And we were arresting the women?