What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  Some of the prostitutes were teenagers. Why was a teenager in jail? Why weren’t the men who were buying sex with a minor arrested? They were too young to give consent. That made it rape, even if those SOBs pretended they didn’t know the age of the prostitute.

  What about the pimps? They’re selling people. That’s sexual slavery. They ruled by beatings and an occasional murder. Were they in jail?

  It made no sense to me.

  My being in jail made no sense to me, either, as I had not committed a crime, though L’Andi, the serene assaulter, did make me laugh.

  I found Cleo an old lamp at a thrift store.

  The next Sunday we painted it pink and put some of my extra pink-striped material over a shade. She added sparkly buttons.

  “It’s not a princess lamp,” she said.

  “No?”

  “No. My mother says that princesses are silly. She said that when parents tell their girls that they’re princesses, it’s ridiculous. No one is a princess, and if you tell your girl she’s a princess she’ll grow up to be a spoiled brat.”

  “Could be.”

  “I’m not a spoiled brat, am I, Grenady?”

  “Nope. You’re smart. And funny.”

  “Yeah. And I like hamsters, but I think they should be bigger. Like the size of a seal. What do you think?”

  On a rainy afternoon, I made sketches of rocking chairs. Poppa Bear, Momma Bear, Kid Bear Chairs. I drew an oversized one with a pillow on it for a library. I sketched a huge one, maybe for a lodge, with spindles that went up eight feet. Three people could sit on it. I sketched a rocking chair that looked like it might have come from Alice in Wonderland, with a back that curved. Another one had a seat four feet off the ground.

  I put the sketches on Kade’s desk.

  He e-mailed me to come by when I had a chance. I saw him after lunch. He had the rocking chair designs in front of them. “I love ’em.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I talked to Sam, and we’re going to fast-track these, get them on the website, and see what happens.”

  “I’ll cross my fingers. Could be that I gave you a lousy idea.”

  “You didn’t. I’m sure of it.” Kade leaned back in his chair. “Ever been to Ashton?”

  “No.”

  “Want to go?”

  “Uh . . .” I paused, confused. Did I want to go to Ashton with him? For the day? Overnight? For work? For a weekend of carnal pleasure before I was locked behind bars for years and could not experience carnal pleasures? Yes and yes!

  “I’m sorry, Grenady.” Kade put his palms up. “I should have explained this better first before asking that question and putting you on the spot like that. I apologize. Legacy Hotels is building a lodge down there. They want us to make a bid for two sixteen-foot-tall wood hearths with carvings, a long bar for a saloon, sideboards, tables, a couple of wine racks, the check-in desk, etc. Upscale, expensive, and comfortable.”

  “Super.” Whew. It was for work. Of course it was for work. Kade would not make a pass at me, at any time, or toward any of his employees. I wanted to bash myself in the chin with my fist. Duh.

  “I need you to work your magic with the sales. Come up with ideas with me, and we’ll present them to Legacy.” He leaned forward, tapping his pen. “I’ve been told, quietly, that they haven’t asked anyone else for a bid. We’re it.”

  I was thrilled for him, for us. For Hendricks. “Yes, I’ll go. . . .” I thought about that. I would have to clear it with my pretrial release gal, but I think I’m allowed to leave if I stay within Oregon. “I’ll arrange it with Tildy and switch my schedule. When and for how long will we be gone?”

  “I’ll get you the exact dates and have Rozlyn make the reservations. It’ll be for two nights, at least. The planning for it is tight, but we can do it and it’ll open a lot of other business for the company.”

  “I’m sure it will.” I was suddenly nervous and jumpy. I smiled. It was a tight, nervous, jumpy smile.

  “I’ll pay you, Grenady, for your time on the trip and whatever you would have made at The Spirited Owl.”

  “Oh, no, that’s okay. I need a night off, anyhow.”

  “I insist.”

  “It’s totally fine. You don’t have to.”

  “No arguing. You argue too much. I’ll pay you. We’ll have a lot of work to do to get ready for this.”

  We had ourselves a business meeting. I did some sketching, and he did, too. I looked up the Legacy Hotels company and tried to figure out how to incorporate something from their company into the furniture.

  All the while I thought, two nights, three days with Kade. Two nights, three days.

  Tough man, Kade.

  Reserved, observant, private, kind, and incredibly smart, Kade.

  Two nights.

  Whew again.

  Four months into my marriage I told Covey I needed more space. He wanted to know where I was and who I talked to constantly. His anger flared if he thought I was omitting anything, and when I refused to submit to his possessive grilling, he would follow me around the house, relentless, that handsome face of his tight. The man I married was—poof—gone.

  “Why do you want space?” he asked, his face flushed.

  “Because, you call and text me all day long and it’s tiresome.”

  He slammed a hand down on the kitchen counter. “You’re my wife, so we talk throughout the day.”

  “Not this much. You get upset when I don’t call or text you right back, but I don’t have time. I have work to do in my studio, I have client calls, clients come here, I go to their offices or homes—”

  “You don’t have time for your own damn husband?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “It is, don’t deny it. Don’t lie.”

  “Covey, we both work a lot. I will call and text you back when I have time, but you have to stop pestering me when I don’t immediately respond.”

  His tone was condescending. “Fine, Dina. I’ll leave you alone during the day.”

  For a week he left me alone during the day, and when he came home at night he would be seething and refuse to talk to me.

  Finally, late on a Sunday night, the seventh day of the silent treatment, when I started to wonder if I should pack up and leave because what was the point of staying with someone who wouldn’t talk to me, he said, “Who’s the other guy?”

  I was stunned. “There is no other guy.”

  “Yes, there is.” He stalked over to me, stopped three inches away, and shouted, “Who is it? Who the fuck is it, Dina? I want a name, and I want it right now!”

  It went from there, a trajectory down to marital hell. Jealousy. Suspicion. Demands. I learned later that he was checking my cell phone and my e-mail to see who I was contacting.

  It was creepy. It was smothering.

  Covey put a tracking device on my car, which my mechanic, Britz, who is also a whiz at computers, discovered about six months into my marriage. I had no idea when Covey put it there; it could have been when we were dating. For revenge I had Britz put the tracking device on his own car. He was leaving for Disneyland that afternoon with his wife and four teenagers.

  The calls and texts from Covey flew in—What’s going on? Where are you? Damn it, Dina, call me!—I didn’t answer. Covey drove after my mechanic, who was two hours ahead of him, for five hours.

  When I finally picked up my phone and told him I was home, he was livid. He paid a guy to drive his Hummer back to Oregon, and flew home.

  At first he stormed in, raving that I had wasted his time, how dare I put my tracking device on Britz’s car, he was a busy man, he didn’t have time for this shit, why didn’t I answer his god damn phone calls?

  This went on, like he was a human tornado, until I said, “Shut up, Covey,” nice and quiet. I told him I would not put up with his possessiveness any longer. He could not put a tracker on my car. He was to stop being so sickeningly possessive, or I would leave.

  First he had anoth
er fit, then he gradually turned white as he saw how resolute I was. “No, no no. Please, Dina. Don’t leave. We’ll work this out. I’m . . .” I could see his brain ticking away, trying to find a way out of this, to soothe and cajole me. “I’ll change. I love you so much. You’re my whole life. I won’t put a tracker on your car again. I did it for you. For you, Dina. I wanted to know that you’re safe. If something went wrong, I could come and save you.”

  “Not true, Covey, and you know it. You’re paranoid about me. You think I’m having an affair. That you are actually spying on me like this, following me, watching me—”

  “Honey, it was for you. I want to protect and defend you at all times. That’s my job. I’m your husband.”

  “Give me a break you odd, obsessed man. You will stop tracking me, you will stop smothering me, e-mailing, and texting me all the time. You can call once during the day to say hello, that’s it.”

  “What?” He was flabbergasted, pissed, the cajoling tone gone.

  “Once, Covey.”

  “That isn’t going to work.”

  “It will work. Or I’m leaving.”

  That about lit him on fire. He flipped. When he calmed down, at my insistence or I would leave that night, he said, “I love you, Dina. If that’s the way you want it, then fine. It’s not something a loving wife would do, and I’m sorry you can’t show more love for me—”

  “Covey, if you need me to show love for you by allowing you to call me all day long and to keep a tracking device on my car, get someone else.”

  “No, I don’t want anyone else. I only want you.” He pushed and tried to manipulate me, and I pushed back and he backed down.

  I knew it was only temporary. He tried to make love to me that night, but I rolled over. Covey was technically excellent in bed. That was one of the things that I loved about him when we were dating. He took time to make love to me. Foreplay, romance, music, candles, dinner.

  He always waited until I had several orgasms before he did. He liked watching me orgasm. I thought it was sexy at first. Loving. Passionate and lusty and generous.

  After we were married, I knew it was all about utter and complete control.

  He had me all to himself, in bed, or on the couch or in the hot tub or in the pool. I was focused on him, physically and emotionally. He could play with my sexual reactions, make me wait when I was on the border of having an orgasm, then pull out at that crucial moment until I begged him to come back in again.

  He would wait for me to recover from an orgasm, then make me come again, even when I said, “I can’t come anymore.”

  “You’ll be too exhausted from sex with me to even think about having it with anyone else,” he whispered into my ear one night.

  That was what all the orgasms were about. They weren’t about my pleasure, or loving pleasing me, or enjoying the sex we shared as a gift to each other. It was about exhausting my sex drive.

  I used to think his postsex comments were romantic, too. “You and I will always be together. . . . I will always love you. . . . Don’t ever leave me, Dina. . . . I can’t live without you. I won’t be able to live without you.”

  I would reassure him that I wouldn’t leave, but as I grew to know him better after the wedding, I heard it for the threat that it was. I heard his insecurity, his clinginess. His possessiveness was strangling me.

  Was true love mixed up within the caverns of Covey’s obsessive, grainy mind? Or was I simply a new human possession he couldn’t part with? I think he loved me somewhere in that, but it was an unhealthy love, wrought with tar and sludge and deception and lies.

  And that is no kind of love.

  About a month after finding out that Covey had put a tracking device on my car, he gave me a new “updated” phone. I was no fool this time around. I took it to a phone whiz I knew. Covey had put a GPS on it.

  I bought a new phone, new account.

  Stalked.

  Spied on.

  Sick.

  I finished the canvas with the lilies in the vase with the miniature bucolic village. I drew the crack in the vase straight down. I liked the peace of the village.

  I saw the crack as a representation of life. Life cracks sometimes.

  I liked it.

  I hated it.

  I hung it up.

  “Grenady, thank you.”

  “Why thank me?” Kade and I were on the deck of our bed and breakfast in Ashton late Monday night. Ashton’s a southern Oregon town with outstanding live theatre, a downtown filled with funky shops and restaurants, and an unbelievably beautiful public park that follows a river. “It’s your furniture they loved. I simply filled in a few details.”

  “You did more than that. Bringing in the wood as you did was so smart. They loved the scrapbook, too, of our furniture.”

  “Aw, gee shucks.” Sounds silly, but it worked. It was a scrapbook of eight-by-ten photos. I put a photo of Kade in front, then photos of the outside of Hendricks’, the red barn doors with the sign over it, a kaleidoscope sunset, the deer that visit, the lobby, and the production area with his employees working with the saws and tools. I included photos of the most spectacular furniture Hendricks’ had made in the past.

  It gave the Legacy Hotels people more information about the furniture we made, but it also made it personal. Here’s Kade Hendricks, the owner, and here’s Tim, Petey, Cory, Rozlyn, Angelo, Eudora, etc. This is who works at Hendricks’! See—nice, normal people who love wood, and this is how they’ll make your furniture in their rustic yet modern shop surrounded by mountains, fresh air, and deer.

  “And the way you attached the sketches to the wood was another smart Grenady idea.”

  “And gee shucks again.” I had Cory cut wood in twelve-by-twelve squares, then glued the sketches of the furniture down on top so the Legacy people could feel the wood while analyzing the sketch.

  “Plus, you know how to talk with people and make them laugh. They liked you, and that’s huge. If clients don’t like us, they won’t buy from us. They found you personable and funny. I think the story you told about Cleo and how Liddy follows her around like a dog, and the things she says and the clothes she wears, hooked them completely.”

  I laughed. “She’s a funny kid, but it’s you, Kade. It’s you they bought. You and your art furniture. That’s what I call it in my head—‘art furniture.’ ”

  “I like it.”

  I held up my beer and clinked it with his. “To Hendricks’.”

  “To Hendricks’ and the best damn sales director I’ve ever had.”

  Our presentation was in front of six people from Legacy. In typical Oregon fashion, most people were in jeans, including Kade and me.

  I also wore black heels, a black sweater, and gold jewelry. I had my hair down, my smile on. Kade wore his cowboy boots and a light green button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up.

  Kade was sure, confident, and personable as he spoke.

  I could tell that the three men and three women, although not the owner, were a tad overwhelmed by him. He’s six feet five inches of solid gold tough with scars on his face, but he smiled, he shook their hands, and away we went. They ate him right up. They ate his furniture right up.

  They did not even bother to hide their enthusiasm after the first few minutes.

  They loved it.

  “We love it,” the head honcho-ette and owner Bettina Rhodes said. “Love it.” She winked at Kade. She had wavy white hair and wore loud, expensive jewelry. “I envision myself enjoying my Manhattan at the bar after a long day of busting heads together. Being the boss, you gotta bust heads sometimes, right, Kade?”

  Kade laughed.

  “Now, I don’t waste no time, and you don’t either, do you? How much money am I going to shoot through my nose for all this?”

  We were ready with that, too.

  Kade told her the prices she would have to shoot through her nose, handed her a price list. We had worked on them together along with Rozlyn.

  Bettina didn’t h
aggle much. Kade met her mild haggling with humor. He re-sold her on the quality of the furniture, the wood, and how he would carve a peacock into the pieces she bought, as the peacock is their symbol—not surprising after meeting Bettina.

  “What do you think, Grenady?” Bettina asked me, her diamond bracelets running partway down her arm.

  I told her. I told her how furniture affects a home, then related it to a hotel and how people needed to feel at home in a hotel. I told her how the right furniture held the theme of the hotel together, how if the furniture and décor was somewhat uniform in a chain, people felt more comfortable. They knew what to expect whether they were in Colorado or Carmel. I appealed to her inner snob and how our furniture would appeal to people who were used to the finer things in life.

  “Sold, sweetie,” Bettina boomed. “I been lovin’ your furniture for years, Kade, and now that we met, I love you, too, and this here Grenady, too. We have ourselves a lovin’ deal. ”

  “Happy to work with you, Bettina,” Kade said.

  “Baby, I am, too.” She shook Kade’s hand, then mine, with vigor. “If I had looks like yours and a smile with all those teeth and that hair, I would be able to snag me a fourth husband. As it was, with this old figure”—she indicated her curves—“I could only find three. You married, Grenady? No? Maybe you’ll meet a husband in my hotels one day, sugar.”

  I felt Kade shift beside me, and he drummed his fingers.

  “I want a husband about as much as I want a hole in my head,” I said, the words leaping out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  Bettina’s laugh ricocheted off the walls. “I think you’re right. What do I need a husband for? Money? Don’t need that. Sex? Believe it or not, this ole girl still has it. Now let’s go and have some ribs and potatoes and celebrate with some women’s booze that can sear the skin off a cow. I have a hankering to get some meat on my bones.”

  “I’ll take some meat on my bones, too,” I said. “And a beer.”

  “But no hole in your head!” She cackled.