Paper Stones

by Laurie Ray Hill

  Darlene’s holding up all this. She says things that happened to her weren’t so bad. Lots of people have had worse, she says. If you ever think you’re bad off, she says, go take a look around a blind school. She’d saw a blind school once, little kids running into stuff.

  “Now that’s real trouble,” she says. What happened to her was small potatoes compared to something like that.

  Darlene was Minimizing. That’s the name of when you refuse to take a look at your own problems by saying they ain’t much. Start yapping about somebody else’s that’s worse. Learned that in Group. My mother was a minimizer. And my sister Sandra sounds just like her. I was too, at that time. It’s another way to get out of looking at whatever you’re too scared to look at. You sound like you’re a saint because you care so much about somebody else’s dilemma. Everybody’s supposed to think, Ah, ain’t she or he nice, feeling bad for the blind kids or whoever. But alls you’re doing is you’re making sure you don’t have to open the scary door.

  Meredith says, “Can you tell us about the matches, Darlene?”

  Darlene rolls her eyes like she’s cute (which, believe me, she ain’t). She says she don’t know why she went and glued them on. She never got burnt like a kid she heard of who—

  “Were you burned, Darlene?”

  “Nothing like this one kid who—”

  “Can you tell us about the knife, Darlene?”

  “I never got cut bad like some people. Some people—”

  “Were you cut with a knife?”

  “Not really bad or nothing. Not like this poor guy I seen on the news who—”

  “Where were you cut, Darlene?”

  Meredith tried for a long time. Couldn’t drag nothing out of Darlene. Couldn’t get her to say boo about her fears collage or her past.

  I’m so fed up I shut my ears and start thinking hard about blue curtains clouds. Velvet, open. Silver stars. We could make the curtains that night blue colour at the hotel.

  I won’t quit that until Darlene’s done talking. Sally hands her the Kleenex box, and she goes out with Frances. Bawling. Knows she’s heading into a time when she won’t be able to go out of the apartment. She’s saying there’s people that can never come out at all.

  Josie gets hit with a Question to Think About. Meredith tells her to think if there’s anything going on in her life that tends to be associated with drinking.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Is there anything happening now that was also happening around the last time you were drinking heavily?”

  Josie promised to give it a thought.

  Then she lit out of there. She’s fast, even with that foot.

  We all took off after her. Caught her on the stairs.

  Marg says, “All right, level with us. What in the world happened to your face this time?”

  Josie, she didn’t want to say nothing, but we pretty well had her there, trapped in the stairwell. Said she fell down drunk. She was drinking because she didn’t like Christmas.

  And she slipped through our fingers.

  Me and Tammy hung around for a smoke. Sally stayed to preach us a sermon on wrecking our God-given health.

  I says to Tammy, I says, “You know your husband’s due to take a fit this week, eh? Next week at the latest.”

  Tammy says no. Things haven’t been too bad. He took the family out for pizza on the weekend. He told her she was a good wife. Said he was sorry for the last time. He’s going to be better from now on.

  Sally says ah, isn’t that nice, but I have to look up at the moon. Blow smoke at it.

  I try it again. I say, “Tammy, there’s a pattern to it. After he’s took a fit and beat yous up, he’s always nice for a while. Then he gets touchy. Then he blows up again.”

  Tammy looks straight in front of her.

  I don’t get it. Why can’t she leave this guy?

  Sally says maybe if Tammy goes real, real careful this time and don’t do nothing to piss him off—

  “You can’t do it,” I says. “You can turn cartwheels to try and please him. He’s going to still get mad. He gets mad. It’s what he does. It’s him. You heard Meredith. He’s got an anger problem. His problem. Nothing to do with you. He’ll get mad because you’re breathing in and out!”

  All Tammy can do is look in front of her and tell us he’s buying a ping pong table for Matthew and Meghan this Christmas. That’s supposed to mean he’s changed. He’s going to be nice from now on.

  I stepped on my cigarette butt a lot harder than what it needed and left.

  4.

  DAVE’S TRUCK WAS PARKED in front of my place. I smiled. He was pretty well moved in. As soon as I opened the downstairs door, I could hear he had country on up there in my place (second floor of an old house). All my exes live in Texas. I dance up the stairs and as I open the door, I’m singing along, “Baby, that’s why I live in Tennessee!”

  We laugh.

  I gotta throw him out before he brings the cops, but I keep putting it off. I was thinking, if it wasn’t for he’s a dealer (if he was), Dave was way the best guy I ever had. He hadn’t broke nothing. He put in for the food, even, on top of putting in for the rent. He fixed the shelf where Hal busted it. He was fun around the place.

  He snapped the dish cloth at me. Made sure he didn’t touch me with it though. And, see, that’s Dave too. Not rough with me. Not at all.

  We wind up dancing in the kitchen. He’s pulling me in close, not coming on, just holding me that way he does. He’s got these big solid arms. He smells good. He’s warm, like a friendly bear. I can’t help it. I rest against Dave. I’m starting to get a new idea on what sexy is. This safe feeling melts me like ice cream in August. Bertie downstairs is banging on the air duct for us to turn the music down.

  We made popcorn. Cuddled up to eat it. We’re always hugging. It’s like Dave’s the only way I know how to get warm these days. And he’s the same. He’s got to pull me up close all the time.

  I curled up there, with his arm around me, feeling good, and I thought to myself, I thought, “I’m as bad as Tammy. I got a guy I can’t leave.” To act as dumb as Tammy, now that’s depressing.

  It’s easy to see what everybody else should do, eh. But yourself, that’s different.

  Wednesday, I went out to the storeroom to get a new cartridge for the photocopy machine. I turn around and there’s Ken, my boss, blocking the door. He closes it behind him and I can hear that he’s locking it.

  I think, Shit, I’m even worse off than Tammy. She’s always got her mace spray for strange men.

  He’s lugging out his equipment there, telling me if I want to keep my job, I’d better give him what he’s looking for. It made me want to puke, but I done it. He sat on three boxes of carpet-cleaning fluid, stacked up. I needed my job.

  I didn’t say nothing about it. Just went and washed out my mouth in the sink after. The girls were still coming to the bathroom with me. I didn’t have the heart to tell them not to bother no more.

  Have I got a neon sign on my forehead or what? Every jerk always figures he can hit on me.

  Anyways, it’ll be the easy way to get rid of Dave. I’ll tell him this. He’ll call me a whore and take off. I won’t have to say I want him to leave, which, face it, I don’t.

  Me and Dave went for a beer, and to get our names in again for the fridge draw, on Friday.

  I never phoned Josie because she’s drinking heavy. Last thing she needs is some so-called friend to phone her up and ask her out to the bar. She was there anyways, ripped, singing karaoke. She’s up there, leaning on one crutch, yelling along. For such a little squirt of a thing, Josie’s got quite the voice. Belts her right out. Last week’s bruises are toned down to the yellow stage, and she’s got them covered up pretty good with her makeup.

  Dave and Josie’s boyfriend Brent take off. For a game of pool, Dav
e tells me. There’s a lot of people that want to play pool, all of a sudden. Four of them stand up and follow Dave and Brent into the back room.

  I’m sitting there by myself, thinking maybe I’ll tell Josie what’s going on with the boss at work, if she’s not too drunk to listen.

  But the first thing I know she’s up there saying my name into the mic. “Ladies and gentlemen, this one’s for my good friend, Rose Underhill.”

  Then here comes the boss, Ken, himself. Thanks a lot, Josie. Now he knows I’m here. Wants me to dance with him.

  I say I’m waiting for somebody. I’m praying that Dave will come back soon. I know what’s going to happen if I try to leave. Ken will catch me outside and try to haul me into the alley.

  I don’t want to go into the pool room and see that Dave’s not there. Then I’d have to quit letting on to myself that I don’t know nothing about the dealing. Or maybe he’s in there playing pool like he said.

  I should go find out, once and for all.

  Don’t have the nerve. Don’t want to know. Avoidance.

  I looked up at Josie, wishing she wasn’t so hammered, so maybe she could stand by me here.

  Hammered or not, Josie seen what was going on. And it’s all over the bar, she’s yelling into the mic. “Hey, everybody! Look at this jerk over here in the front corner, trying to hit on this lady here who don’t welcome his attention.” People laugh, eh, and look at Ken. He’s trying to ease away from my booth.

  It was pretty good.

  Dave, he must have heard. There he was, coming through the door with a pool cue in his hand.

  Just the outline of him and I thought, I’ve got it bad! I’m feeling all this relief, just looking at the shape of him there, like a nice big bear in the doorway. Just the sight of him across the room, with the light behind him, and this warm flood come over me like, I’m safe, I’m safe!

  I sat there after Ken buggered off, looking at the bubbles in my Coke and thinking, this is worse than ever. I gotta watch I don’t fall right in stupid love with this guy. I gotta think about where he’s getting this rent money he gives me. The cops are maybe going to bust him one of these days. I’d have to let him go anyways. I’d be better off to let him go now, so I don’t get attached to him any worse.

  When you’re talking like that, it’s too late, eh. And he did have that pool cue. Maybe that’s really alls he was doing. Maybe the girls are wrong.

  Dave come and sat with me. Ordered a beer and he says, “Are you hungry, Ann Toes?” He gets a kick out of little Jenny calling me that.

  I never buy food out. It’s too dear. But Dave wants to know what I’d like. I can have whatever, he says. I was hungry. Said I guessed I’d have a small fries.

  “Come on. You’re hungry. Get something more.”

  He had me talked into the banquet burger before he would quit. A banquet burger with large fries and coleslaw costs more than I make in a hour on the phone trying to sell the “hall and two rooms” carpet-cleaning special, with people insulting me and hanging up and frigging Ken looking for chances. Dave said he was paying. He did, too.

  And he bought me a beer. When it come, we noticed that the glass wasn’t clean. Smear of lipstick on it that hadn’t got washed off. I just turned the glass around to drink out of the other side.

  “For Pete’s sakes!” Dave says. He says, “Ask for a clean one.” He calls the waitress over.

  I didn’t like to make a nuisance of myself.

  “Sorry,” I said, “but it looks like this glass didn’t get cleaned. Sorry to bug you.”

  I ate all the food right up. When he paid, I said I was sorry that I’d been so hungry.

  “You know something, Rosie? You apologize way too much.”

  When we were done, he says, “I’d kind of like to get out of here, what about you?”

  He asks me what I want to do! I says, “Fine by me.”

  It was so cold out and so quiet, after all the music and carrying on, all that heat and noise. Me and Dave, we walked over toward the park. They had a lot of the trees lit up for Christmas. I like when they do all the same colour on one tree and a different colour on another one. They had it like that. Red tree. Blue tree. Yellow tree. Green tree. Like Jenny has in her book, something about fish. I felt happy. Red tree, blue tree, shining in the dark.

  Dave asked me which colour I liked the best! I never would’ve thought about it. I looked at each one and said maybe the blue. What about him? He liked the red.

  Some guys don’t want you to hold their hand, so I wasn’t sure. Dave’s big hand was hanging there in his mitt, curled a bit. His touch surprises you. How can he touch that gentle with them big hands? I didn’t want to do nothing wrong. I wanted things to keep shining. I kept looking at that hand, swinging there, empty. It made me think of that dent he has in him, under his collarbone, where my face fits. I felt like my hand would just fit in his. He wouldn’t even have to move his fingers, just the way they were curled, I could slide mine right in there. I wasn’t sure. Didn’t want to screw up. I kept my hand to myself.

  It was good and cold out, I’ll tell you, but no wind. We were dressed warm enough. Stars were out. It was real quiet.

  Dave says, “What should we do for Christmas?”

  Like we’re family! The coloured trees went blurry. I never met a harder guy to kick out.

  “We can go to my sister’s place and see Jenny open her stocking.”

  Dave says okay and he says how about we go up and see his dad in the afternoon. His dad lives back north. Dave wants me to meet a bunch of his cousins. His aunt’s cooking turkey, over at his dad’s. He thinks I’ll like his cousin Jan, particular. Jan will like me, too.

  Dave don’t seem to know he’s just another guy I met in the bar. He don’t know I don’t expect nothing like this. He’s acting like it’s for real. Like he means it. Like I’m something to him.

  He don’t know the type of trash I am. If he knew what I was like, he’d never want me to meet his dad or his cousin or nobody. What happened in the supply room at work, if he knew that, he’d never want me to eat his aunt’s turkey with this mouth. That’s what I was thinking.

  We planned it all out, to go spend Christmas morning with Jenny and my sister and this guy, Ian, she’s with (who I don’t take to, myself). Then we’d get in the truck and go up to Dave’s dad’s.

  It was clear I wasn’t getting nowhere with kicking him out.

  On the way back up through the park, he reached over and he held my hand.

  5.

  TUESDAY NIGHT, Sally was the first one there. When I come in, her face lit up brighter than the lights at a baseball diamond. Tells me she hasn’t slept one day this week.

  I says, “Well, you’re doing good! What are you keeping busy at?”

  Sally sits forward. “I’ll show you!” She whips open a bag. Pulls out a stack of big and small squares in blue, pink, and yellow fabric. This is about the nuttiest thing I’ve ever saw. What these must be are tablecloths and napkins. For the daydream hotel?

  “They had remnants on special at Fabric Kingdom!”

  There’s Sally, petting her stack of folded linen, beaming like it’s Kingdom Come she’s been shopping at. She’s lived with how it feels to be awake, threading her old Singer sewing machine with her favourites (soft blue, yellow, and especially pink), folding the cloth, ironing it smooth, sewing the remnants together, trying to believe in better times to come. Trying to make them come. Acting on faith, as she says.

  She’s shining that pretty face of hers at me, anxious to hear what I’ll say.

  What am I going to say? The obvious? Sally, you’re coo-coo? We’ll never have tables to put those on?

  I says, “How did you sew these edges so straight?”

  Marg come in and I watched the different looks go acrost her face: What’s this? Oh, jeeze! Poor Sal—bless her heart!


  Marg run a piece of the cloth through her fingers. “Good weight to it,” she says.

  Tammy come in and we told her what she was looking at. “You mean we’re really going to do it?” she says. Poor dumb Tammy.

  Josie limps in. Looking rough. But, as soon as she sees Sally’s project, the sun busts through. She’s hopping, quick as a squirrel, all over that waiting room, spreading out the different coloured cloths, trying the napkins on them.

  “Yellow ones on the blue tables and blue on the pink. Or we can mix and match!” She whisks away a stack of magazines. Grabs a bunch of fake flowers off the bookshelf. Plunks them in the middle.

  “Can I get yous some blueberry pie? We have it made right here in town.”

  “I believe,” says Marg, “I will have it warm, with ice cream on the side.”

  “The ice cream is going to cost yous extra. But you’ll agree with me that it’s worth your dollar. Alls we serve is this homemade, super premium ice cream a guy makes special for the hotel. Hundred percent free range milk.”

  Sally’s flamingo pink and giggling. She’s so tickled.

  I’m laughing. “Free range milk! Who ever heard of that? Cows running loose!”

  Tammy’s tapping on the other little table by where she’s sitting. “Can we have service over here?”

  Josie says, “Wait your turn. If you want to come to a famous hotel for people like us that’s wrote up in the paper, you gotta expect they’ll be others ahead of you.” To me, she says, “The cows is fenced in, for God’s sakes, but they’re out in the air.”

  I was laughing but could I ever see that dining room! Just the way Josie’d drew it. Wood, glass, and stone. View of the sparkling lake out every window. Water reflections jiggling all over the ceiling.

  I thought that Sally, starting to sew, was not stupid so much as brave. Well, stupid and brave. Maybe that’s what acting on faith is.

  When we heard Meredith and Frances coming, we bundled up the cloths in a flash and tucked them back in Sally’s bag. It’s funny how quick we done that, like we were afraid of getting caught. We filed in. No Darlene.