ODD NUMBERS

by M. Grace Bernardin

  “You know, you really ought to come up with a more original curse than that. Please don’t bore me with anymore of your vulgar epithets. That’s E-P-I-T-H-E-T,” Frank hollered at her as she turned her back to him and stomped back to the building with her long determined strides.

  Chapter 13

  November & December 1983

  Vicky was all alone in her apartment waiting. She knew it was coming, but it really didn’t matter. She’d known all along. Louise would be at her door serving eviction papers any time now. Perhaps she was even on her way at this exact moment. She tried to go about the business of her usual day–preparing her late breakfast which she usually ate around ten o’clock. She tried to focus her attention on the simple things–the sizzling pad of butter in the skillet, the egg cracking on the side of the pan, the clear liquid becoming white solid around the perfect yellow center.

  She sat down to eat, scooping up bites of egg onto buttered toast. She couldn’t really taste her food, and she only ate because it gave her comfort. Not the food so much as the very act of sitting at the table and going through the motions of partaking in a meal. It made her think of her grandma. Her grandma never neglected to feed her, even when Vicky was a troublesome teen and made her mad as a wet hen. Even then her grandma would still cook supper and insist Vicky sit down to table with her. Some of those suppers were taken in silence. Some they’d wind up arguing. Some ended in weeping or praying, and once even a laying on of hands. But now she ate alone and her grandma wasn’t with her.

  The morning crept at its tortoise-like pace while Vicky tried to keep herself busy. She figured Louise would show up around lunch time. But this time Vicky wouldn’t try to persuade her with rum and food. She would be honest with Louise about the two a.m. rumble in the parking lot the other night between the biker boys. She wouldn’t deny a thing if asked about any of the other middle of the night disturbances. She would tell her the whole truth this time. Who knows? She might even tell her about Whiskers. What the hell? Louise couldn’t protect Vicky any longer. Not when all the others had gone to her with their complaints, as she was sure they had done about this most recent incident. It wasn’t just Frank this time. Even Allison was at her wit’s end. Vicky could tell by the way she barely acknowledged her greetings in the hallway and parking lot.

  The inevitable knock upon her door was almost a relief. Soon it would be over. Vicky looked at her clock on the kitchen wall. Sure enough, it was twelve twenty. Right about when she estimated Louise would drop by. Vicky opened her door. She gasped out loud when instead of Louise, she saw Allison standing there before her.

  “Allison! What are you doing here? I thought you’d be at work.”

  “I’m on my lunch break. May I come in?”

  “Sure.” Allison stepped inside and Vicky closed the door behind her.

  “I really can’t stay long. Twenty minutes max,” she said looking at her watch. “But I just had to talk to you. I was afraid you’d be at work by the time I got home this evening. I made some chicken salad,” she said holding up a Tupperware bowl in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other. “Can I make you a sandwich?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Mind if I make myself a sandwich?”

  “You know where the kitchen is,” Vicky said, her hand extended in that direction. She followed Allison into the kitchen. “What can I get you to drink?” Vicky inquired of Allison who’d already helped herself to a spoon and a plate.

  “Just water.”

  “So… this little talk you just have to have with me–it’s something serious, ain’t it?” Vicky said reaching into the cabinet for a glass.

  “Yes, it is.” Allison stopped scooping chicken salad on the bread for a moment and gave Vicky a concerned look.

  “It’s about the other night, ain’t it?” Allison nodded slowly with a slightly pained smile. “Quit looking at me like that. You remind me of a dang undertaker. And it’s my funeral, right?”

  “Could be.”

  “Look, I appreciate your coming here to warn me, but I already done figured it out. Louise is gonna kick my ass outta Camelot. I’m banished from the round table forever, ain’t I?”

  “Not necessarily. Nobody’s gone to Louise yet, at least not anyone from this building.”

  “This building!? Those crazy ass fools probably did wake up the entire complex. I thought they’d settled their differences before they left my place. How was I to know they was gonna continue their little spat out in the parking lot? Crazy fools!” Vicky muttered with her head down.

  “Little spat? I’d hardly call breaking beer bottles over one another’s heads a little spat.”

  “They didn’t bust ‘em over each others’ heads. Trash just got all pissed off and threw his bottle against the building then threatened to cut Jimmy’s throat with the broken glass.

  “I can’t help it. My friends are trashy. They’re rough and wild. They’re screw ups… like me.”

  “You’re not a screw up.”

  “Oh, yeah? Respectable people, like you, don’t have friends who break beer bottles in parking lots at two o’clock in the morning then make death threats.” Vicky’s eyes burned with tears and her stomach knotted in anger. “Respectable people’s neighbors don’t have meetings about them in the middle of the night. Respectable people don’t get laughed at. I’ve heard the wise cracks about Ellie Mae and her critters; and about Chief Bobby bein’ my boyfriend because you know how them Kentuckians are about their cousins.” Hot tears rolled down Vicky’s cheeks and her voice quivered with each syllable she strained to utter.

  Allison looked at Vicky with a sympathetic look.

  “If you show me pity right now I swear I’ll hate you for the rest of my life,” Vicky yelled in between sobs.

  Allison’s head and shoulders dropped with one terrific sigh of resignation. The two women just stood there for a time–one sobbing, one seemingly paralyzed. Allison left the kitchen and returned moments later with a box of tissues she’d retrieved from the bathroom. She pulled several sheets out and handed the wad to Vicky. “Here, you’re going to have to dry your own tears lest you think I’m taking pity on you and decide to hate me for the rest of your life.” Allison smiled as Vicky accepted the wad of tissues.

  “So what did you do?” Vicky asked. “Beg them to give me another chance?”

  “I wouldn’t say beg, but I did have to use my best salesmanship skills.”

  “Why? I don’t deserve another chance.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “Then why?”

  “I asked myself the same question. I guess it’s precisely because you don’t deserve it.”

  “Is this something you learned in college ‘cause I ain’t following your line of thinking?”

  “Don’t you see, Vicky? If you get evicted then you win… again”

  “Whatever.”

  “You do this to yourself, don’t you? You set yourself up to fail. Things are going along great for you then you do something to screw it all up. Why?”

  “I told you, ‘cause I’m a screw up.”

  “No, you’re not. You wouldn’t have a reputation as the best bartender in town if you were such a screw up.”

  “Big whup! Ain’t nothing to tending bar,” Vicky said lighting a cigarette and nonchalantly exhaling a stream of smoke along with the aftermath of a heaving sob.

  “Maybe not, but no other bartender I know can remember a person’s name six months after meeting them once. No other bartender can accurately guess what a person’s favorite drink is nine times out of ten. And I’ve never met a bartender who can size up a person the way you can, or get them talking about their troubles only to get them smiling again all in less than ten minutes. I’ve watched you. You’re incredible! Everyone knows Vicky Dooley. Everyone loves Vicky Dooley. You just need to learn how to use those people smarts once you step out from behind the bar.”

  “And you’re just the one to teach me I suppose?”

  “Some
body needs to,” Allison said sternly, cutting her chicken salad sandwich diagonally with a fierce determination set firmly in her jaw. She picked up her plate and her glass of water and proceeded into the dining area where she sat her plate down with a firm but controlled clunk. “Coaster, please,” she said still holding her glass of water.

  “Hold your horses, I’m getting it.” A moment later Vicky was at her elbow, placing a coaster on the table. Allison sat her glass on it.

  “I don’t have much time,” Allison said checking her watch as she sat down. Vicky grabbed her brown glass ashtray and sat across from Allison with her cigarette. Allison took a bite off her sandwich, quickly chewed and swallowed, then took a drink of water. “Play by the rules, Vicky, or leave Camelot. It’s as simple as that. If you screw up again all the residents of building 3300, myself included, will sign a petition stating that we won’t pay our rent until you are evicted. And you won’t be able to charm Louise out of that one. She’ll throw you out on your ear, and I won’t be there to bail you out.”

  “I’m so glad I have someone like you to save me from myself.”

  “Look, you have to decide what you want. If you want to blast your stereo and have your noisy visitors come and go at all hours of the night…fine. If you want to leave your trash out in the hall and have a cat…great. Move somewhere that’ll let you do all that. It’s no skin off my nose.”

  “I don’t have no cat.”

  “Hang it up, Vicky. We aren’t all as easily conned as Louise. I know you’ve got a cat. I’ve seen it sitting in your window.” Vicky wondered if Allison was simply calling her bluff in an attempt to get her to confess. The two determined women glared at one another–one as immovably fixed in her position as the other. “It’s white with brown and black stripes, isn’t it?”

  “All right, so I got a cat.”

  “Geez, Vicky, did you really think you’d get away with it?”

  “It’s a stupid rule. He ain’t done no damage to this place. Hell, I got him declawed and fixed. There ain’t no damage left for him to do. And cats are cleaner than humans you know. It’s just a stupid rule and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Louise is the one who makes the rules, Vicky, not you. Whether you think they’re stupid or not, you still have to abide by them if you want to live here.”

  Allison looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go. You need to decide what you want,” she said carrying her plate and glass into the kitchen.

  “So do you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Kent. You’re all over my ass for breaking the rules and maybe you’re right. But sometimes it’s just as dangerous to play it safe. I seen the two of you together. I know you don’t love him no more.”

  “No, you don’t know that,” Allison said, as she placed the plate and glass in the kitchen sink nearly hard enough to break them. She quickly made her way to the door, stopping only briefly to retrieve her purse and coat from the chair where she’d laid them. “Oh, one more thing,” She turned and said before exiting. “If you decide to stay, I know someone who will take your cat for you.” Allison was gone a moment later, closing the door behind her with a finality that startled Vicky.

  *****

  Vicky worked until midnight and didn’t get to bed until after one. She set her internal alarm clock for early. It would have to be early if she wanted to catch Allison before she left for work. Her few hours sleep was the restless half-sleep of those who know they must get up early, but fear they will not. She rolled from one side of her waterbed to the other with strange dreams about Whiskers. She was looking for him in her dreams. Someone had taken him away. She would hear him meow. She would see the black tip of his tail disappear around a corner, but she couldn’t get to him. Worst of all when she did find him he was in the middle of the street all flattened and bloodied, small fragments of tendon and bone barely holding his nearly detached head to his body. He was still alive, still meowing, and she tried to put him back together again, but she couldn’t and she knew he would die all alone out there in the middle of the road. She returned to her pick up truck which was parked on the side of the road. She thought it was mud and dirt splattered all over the vehicle until she got closer. To her horror she discovered it was blood. She checked her tires. They were covered with blood. She was awakened by the sound of her own scream.

  It was still dark when Vicky awoke, but from the looks of the navy blue sky her internal alarm clock told her it was close to dawn. She wrapped her blanket around her shoulders as she shivered in the frigid morning air and stumbled into the kitchen to check the time on the one and only clock she owned. It was six thirty-five. She stood there in her bare feet on the cold tile floor and listened to the clock tick tock the seconds away.

  “I guess it’s time I made a decision about my future,” Vicky said aloud to herself as her cold fingers reached out from underneath the blanket to grab a pack of cigarettes off the kitchen counter. “I ain’t used to planning for my future.” She struck a match and lit the cigarette which dangled from her lips. Smiling at her thoughts, she sent a puff of smoke quickly into her lungs then quickly back out again. She huddled one last time in her blanket and generated as much warmth as she could, then with one quick tug and toss she discarded the heavy wool thing onto the back of her rocking chair. Her bare feet padded quickly along the cold kitchen floor as she moved about.

  “My future. My silver mine. My own place. Vicky’s Country Inn.” Vicky chuckled, feeling self-conscious at the grandiosity of saying it aloud. She thought of the place made of logs, but with plenty of windows and doors to let light and air in. In clement weather the doors would always be open so that hospitality, old time country music, and the smell of fried chicken could flow out, letting folks know they were welcome. She saw the oaken bar in her mind which lovers would be free to scratch their initials on. She saw the stone fireplace with old iron skillets and kettles hanging about.

  “My own home. My big ol’ dream house, way out in the country with lots of land, and horses, and dogs, and cats, and wild flowers, and a vegetable garden, and kids running around…” Vicky paused. “And someone,” she said, removing the lid from a can of ground coffee. She turned the sink faucet on and filled up her grandma’s old percolator. “Like Allison says, I guess it’s time I decide what I want,” she said filling the metal basket of the percolator with scoops of coffee. She plugged the old percolator in and stood motionless with her thoughts silent, as if they were too personal to speak aloud, even to herself. The percolator bubbled. What do I want? What do I want?

  I want to be smarter. I want to be better. I want to be loved. I want someone to look at me the way Frank looked at Allison that first time I saw them together. What would it be like to have someone look at me like that? What would it be like if Frank looked at me like that?

  The mere suggestion caused Vicky to slap herself hard on the cheek. “Stop it, you stupid girl!” But her mind couldn’t help wondering. She’d seen glimpses of something in Frank–something she couldn’t explain, yet understood. She’d heard something when he spoke, something faint, far away, and distant. It was like the woeful moan of a ghost haunting a castle, forever pining away, never freeing itself from the chains it rattles in the middle of the night–something that longs to be freed yet if someone brave enough gets near, it only draws back in fear. But what if someone dared get close enough to touch the pitiful imprisoned thing? She wouldn’t have to reach up very far to kiss him. Vicky closed her eyes and imagined it.

  All of those things that make a woman love a man were real at that moment. The perfect balance of toughness and tenderness were in everything he did. The touch of his lips on hers, both soft and firm. His cheek against hers, both rough and warm. The feel of his arms, hard and solid to the touch held her in a tight embrace, yet his hands and fingertips touched lightly. It was gentleness. It was passion. It was the two together in perfect harmony.

  The daydream ended abruptly when Whiskers appear
ed, seemingly out of nowhere as he so often did, rubbing up against her leg then planting himself on her bare feet. “Phew, you must be hard up Vicky ol’ girl. Getting to be one horny ol’ broad,” she muttered as she reached down and picked up Whiskers. She held him close and said, “Whatever happens to you, just remember Mommy loves you and always will. I’m gonna see to it you get a decent home.” She stroked him and kissed him then set him down in front of his food bowl. The coffee was ready so she poured herself a cup. Then with a sigh of determination, she commanded her legs to move out the door and up the stairs to Allison’s place.

  Vicky knocked hard on Allison’s door. She waited, took a gulp of her coffee then knocked again. Vicky would persist until she spoke with her even if it meant waiting out in the hallway. She knocked hard one more time. “Allison. It’s me, Vicky. I gotta talk to you!”

  “Hold on a second. I’m coming,” the muffled cry from behind the door called back.

  “Sorry, I was in the shower,” Allison said opening the door, a towel wrapped around her head and a terrycloth robe wrapped around her body. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “Making sure I talk to you before you leave for work.”

  “Come on in.” Allison politely stepped aside making room for her unexpected visitor.

  “Say, I apologize if I came on a little strong yesterday.”

  “It’s cool. I’m sorry for what I said about Kent. I had no right.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “Listen I been thinking, you know, about what we talked about. And I think I–that is, I know I wanna stay.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes,” Allison chuckled. “Despite everything you’re the only person around here I actually like. Don’t ask me why but I do.”

  “So, uh, there’s the situation with Whiskers–my cat. I talked to my cousin Bobby last night. You remember Chief Bobby? He said if worse come to worse he’d take him for me, but he ain’t really a cat lover, besides he’s on the road a lot. I’d rather it be someone who’d love Whiskers–someone who could give him a real home. You mentioned you knew someone.”