Spare Change

by Bette Lee Crosby

  Charlie, who’d had enough of looking at such bric-a-brac, claimed he’d prefer to wait outside. While standing in the shade of a green awning fanned out across the front of the True Love Jewelry Shoppe, he noticed a display of necklaces hanging in the window and in he went. Twenty minutes later, when Olivia came out with two ashtrays and a handful of postcards, he was holding a small white bag in his hand.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said with a grin.

  That evening, after he’d zipped the back of her dress, Charlie told Olivia to close her eyes; when she did, he fastened the pendant he’d bought around her neck. He placed her in front of the mirror and then said, “Okay, now you can look.”

  Olivia, who had an untold number of superstitions, gave a gasp of horror when she saw the pendant. “It’s an opal!” she said. “Opals bring bad luck. Last year a woman wearing an opal ring was found dead in a ditch.”

  “Nonsense,” Charlie said, “that was just a coincidence.”

  “Oh, really? What about Kathleen Riley, she bought a pair of opal earrings and her house burned to the ground the very next day!”

  “Things like that happen.”

  Were it not for the fact that Charlie had hung the pendant around her neck with the most genuine look of love in his eyes, Olivia would have ripped it off and dropped in right into the wastebasket. Were it not for the fact they were on their honeymoon she would have hidden the treacherous piece of jewelry in the darkest corner of some cupboard, but as it was, she obligingly wore it to dinner.

  Halfway through the lobster bisque, Charlie said he felt a touch of indigestion coming on and without another word he collapsed and fell forward into the bowl of soup.

  Susanna Doyle

  When I married Benjamin, I never figured to live the life of Riley; but I did believe we’d move to New York City so I could make something of myself. It ain’t like I lied about my ambition—right off, I told him, I got singing talent but I need to be in New York where there’s opportunities. I was working in the shipyard then, making real good money. But Benjamin, who can be a real charmer when he wants to, says for me to quit my job, because we’re gonna get married and he’s gonna take care of me. He didn’t say word one about moving off to some God-forsaken farm where there ain’t nobody but chickens and pigs to hear me sing.

  I know I got a real good voice, everybody says so—at least, everybody who’s ever heard me sing. But stuck in this backwoods dump, I got no chance of being discovered. ‘Benjamin’, I keep saying, ‘If I ever hope to have a singing career, I have got to get to New York City!’ I suppose I could talk ‘til the moon turns blue, but the only thing that ever comes of it is me and Benjamin having the same old fight.

  On the Eastern Shore of Virginia

  In a place where irrigation canals snake across flat stretches of farmland and a scream can drift for miles before anyone hears it, Susanna Doyle told Benjamin she was leaving him. It wasn’t the first time she’d said such a thing, nor was it the first time he’d answered, “Like hell you are!”

  Theirs was a fight that had gone on for years. It was raging long before Ethan Allen was born; it began three days after she stood in front of a Justice of the Peace in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and swore that she’d love, honor and obey Benjamin for the rest of her natural life. She did none of the three. The ink on their marriage certificate was not yet dry when Susanna took to saying she thought she’d made a mistake. “I thought we was gonna move to New York City,” she’d moan. “I thought we was gonna live in a place where a singer has opportunities!”

  Benjamin was so crazy in love with the curve of her body and the shank of dark hair tumbling down her back, that he deafened his ears to such talk. The first time she threatened to leave, he placated her with a fancy dress he special ordered from Sears, after that it was a imitation sapphire ring, then it was some perfume and lacy lingerie. Once, when he came home with a ruby-colored satin nightgown, she threw it back into his face. “I don’t want this crap,” she screamed, “I want to go to New York City!”

  Had she asked for a simple thing such as the moon or all the stars in the heavens, Benjamin would have turned himself inside out to get it for her—but as for going to New York, such a thing was not possible. Susanna was a woman who would be blinded by the bright lights of Broadway. She would be drawn away from him just as a moth is drawn from the safety of darkness to the brilliance of a flame. She’d spend her days tromping from audition to audition, allowing men with fat cigars and hairy hands to paw her beautiful body. In time, her face would take on the tawdriness of the city and the song in her throat would sound bitter as the croaking of a frog.

  It seemed to Benjamin that Susanna should understand the pitfalls of such a life, but instead of being grateful for the way he looked after her, she screamed at him, threw tantrums, heaved heavy glass pitchers at his head, and set her lips into a pout. “I’m suffocating out here!” she’d shout. “There’s no excitement, nothing to do but watch those damned soybeans grow!”

  When she finally turned her back on him in bed and curled herself into a ball so he couldn’t touch her breasts or find his way inside of her body, he agreed to take her to New York City. “Just for a vacation,” he said. “After the winter harvest, we’ll go for a three-week vacation.”

  Throughout that entire fall, Susanna danced from room to room singing songs into the bowl of a wooden spoon. She’d stand on the front porch and belt out Boogie-woogie Bugle Boy to an audience of sunflowers, or climb atop the kitchen table and take bow after bow. “I’m good as any of those Andrews Sisters,” she’d say, “I just need to get discovered!” In the middle of planting a row of soy beans Benjamin would come to the house for a drink of water and there she’d be, wriggling through the living room in a brassiere and panties. “You think Maxine Andrews can do this?” she’d ask; then she’d shake and shimmy till every inch of flesh on her body was quivering. She’d start in a standing position, but before she was done she’d be down on her knees with her back arched in a way that caused her bosoms to bust loose of the brassiere. Afterwards, she’d throw her arms around Benjamin’s neck and kiss him with such passion that it brought about love-making.

  Mid-morning on a Wednesday in early November Benjamin got to thinking about Susanna in her red lace brassiere, so he stopped working on the tractor and went looking for her. Instead of singing into a spoon, she was in the bathroom with her head hanging over the toilet. “Those pork chops we had last night must’ve been spoiled,” she groaned.

  Benjamin dipped a washcloth in cold water and held it to her head. “I don’t see how that’s possible,” he said, “I ate a plateful and I’m feeling fine. Matter-of-fact, I was thinking you might want to slip on that lacy brassiere…”

  “Asshole!” she said; then went back to puking in the toilet bowl.

  By afternoon Susanna was feeling fine, so she raised the window and hollered for Benjamin to come back into the house. When he walked through the door, there she was atop the kitchen table, wearing a pair of red high heel pumps and a little bitty apron tied around her waist—not another stitch. “You still in the mood?” she asked, then slid down and wrapped her legs around his neck.

  That’s how it was with her; Benjamin never knew from minute to minute whether she’d be crawling up the leg of his pants or jumping down his throat. Why, just the thought of such a woman in New York City scared him to pieces. Anything could happen. He could fall asleep thinking everything was just as it should be, then wake to find she’d run off with some agent or songwriter. He could go out for a newspaper, return and discover her in bed with the elevator man. Even worse, she could disappear without a trace, slip down some dark alley and never be heard from again. Benjamin began to think going to New York, even if it was only for a vacation, was definitely a bad idea.

  That evening when they sat down to a supper of fried chicken and dumplings, he told her he’d changed his mind about New York City. “I�
��ll take you to Norfolk or Virginia Beach,” he said. “Those are fine vacation spots.”

  “Virginia Beach!” Susanna screamed, “In the dead of winter?”

  “Okay, we’ll go to Norfolk. Shop, eat in fancy restaurants, see a show.”

  “See a show? Watch another woman who got discovered? Some vacation that would be!” She pleaded for Benjamin to change his mind, “I’ve got talent,” she sobbed. “I could be somebody.”

  “You are somebody,” he answered. “You’re my wife. It seems like that ought to be enough for a woman.”

  “Well it’s not!” Susanna shouted; then she overturned the bowl of dumplings into his lap and ran crying to the bedroom. Benjamin followed after her, but she’d slammed the door and twisted the lock. That’s when he decided that if he was to hold on to his wife, he’d have to trick her into staying there on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

  The next morning, Susanna was sick again. “See what you’ve done,” she said. “All that talk of canceling our vacation has upset my system.”

  Benjamin, with his eyes averted from her face, answered, “I didn’t say we’d never go, I just said this wasn’t the right time.”

  Susanna’s face brightened.

  He watched her from the corner of his eye. “New York winters are bitter cold,” he said. “I’ve heard tell the temperature drops below zero and the wind can freeze a person’s tongue if they open their mouth long enough to ask directions. You think any talent scouts are gonna be out in weather like that?”

  She sat down alongside him and slid her hand onto his thigh. “Can we go to New York in the spring?” she asked.

  “Late spring, early summer; depends on what needs doing around here.” He tugged loose the strap of her nightgown, “And…whether or not you’re being a good girl.” He gathered a rough handful of her breast, but before he could slide himself into her, Susanna became sick again and went running to the bathroom.

  Three weeks later, when Doctor Kelly told her she was pregnant with a baby due to be born the third week of May, Susanna flew into a rage of crying and hollering, the likes of which the nurses had never seen. Barbara Ann Taylor, who had snow white hair and thirty years nursing experience, tried to calm her by saying how a wonderful little baby was well worth all the pain and suffering of childbirth; that’s when Susanna heaved a tray full of sterilized instruments across the room. “You think a baby’s so wonderful,” she told Barbara Ann, “then you can have it!” Susanna begged and pleaded with Doctor Kelly to do something to get rid of the baby, but of course, he said such a thing was against the law. “They do it all the time in China,” she sobbed.

  Benjamin was delighted with the news, not because he was wishing for a baby, but because it seemed to be just the thing to prevent Susanna from running off to New York. “No talent scout’s gonna be looking for singers the size of a milk cow,” he’d said; then he ducked when she hurled a pitcher of orange juice in his direction. Susanna was always quick to show her anger and that winter was worse than most. She broke the kitchen window three different times, smashed an entire set of dishes and flushed her wedding ring down the toilet.

  In February, she started to retain water, her feet swelled up to the size of melons and throbbed if she dared to stand for longer than a half-hour, which meant she had to quit her job at the furniture store. Although she’d sold only one maple sofa and three lamps in eighteen months, the manager, who it was rumored had a weakness for attractive women, had given her five raises. Once she was no longer working in town, Susanna grew more foul-tempered and quicker than ever to fly off the handle. “What kind of a career can a singer expect to have,” she’d scream, “with a kid hanging onto her!”

  The baby was ten days late in coming; and when it finally arrived it was with a tearing and ripping apart of her flesh. Susanna kicked at the doctors and screamed profanities that bruised the nurses’ ears. “I can’t stand it anymore,” she cried, “Get this fucking thing out of me!”

  Even after Doctor Kelly announced that she had delivered a fine healthy boy, Susanna continued to call the baby it. “Start it on formula,” she said, “I’m not about to have my tits look like a litter of pups has been sucking them dry!” She was in the hospital for three days and not once did she cross over to the nursery to see the baby.

  As she was getting dressed to come home, a nurse came into the room and handed her a copy of the birth certificate. “How can he have a birth certificate,” Benjamin asked, “he’s not even been named.”

  “He’s got a name,” the nurse answered.

  “He has?” Benjamin picked up the birth certificate and read it. “Shit, almighty!” he growled, after reading the boy’s name. “You named the kid after that fucking furniture store!”

  Susanna laughed like a person satisfied with the results of a practical joke. “Maybe I can sell him,” she said, “like that maple sofa.”

  That’s how it was the boy came to be called Ethan Allen. Once Susanna came home from the hospital, she ignored the child altogether and spent her days crying. She’d wake in the morning, then slide right back under the bedcover and pick up where she’d left off the night before. “Why me?” she’d howl, “…why me?”

  For the first three months of his life, Ethan Allen screamed longer and harder than did Susanna. It seemed he was always hungry or wet or at times crying for no apparent reason. Benjamin, despite his rough hands and lack of tolerance was the one who heated the bottles of formula and changed diapers. Once the baby had been fed and dried, Benjamin would drop him into his crib and hurry off to a bunch of soy beans that needed planting. “We’re never going to New York if you don’t get your ass out of bed and see to this baby,” he’d tell Susanna; then he’d beat it out the door before she let go of a string of profanities.

  The first time she held the baby was one morning in late September. An early frost had covered the ground and Benjamin fearing the worst, rushed off without feeding the boy. Ethan Allen howled like a tomcat for three hours, until Susanna finally went to him. “You gonna keep squalling forever?” she said, lifting the baby into her arms. The crying stopped immediately. “Ornery little cuss. Hell bent on getting your way, ain’t you?” She grinned, “Just like your mama.” After that Susanna found she could tolerate the baby and at times even love him. “You got eyes like Mama,” she’d coo, then drop him into the crib and head off to the beauty parlor in town.

  Benjamin had hoped having a baby would settle Susanna down, make her forget the nonsense about a singing career. Of course, it didn’t. “When are we gonna take that trip to New York?” she’d ask, “I’ve heard tell Radio City Music Hall is hiring some new Rockettes.” Once a thought like that got into her head, she’d work on her singing for days on end. Ethan Allen would be wanting his oatmeal, but she’d be dancing atop the coffee table in her panties and a lace brassiere.

  “You gonna feed this kid?” Benjamin would ask, but she’d keep right on singing into the bowl of a wooden spoon and gyrating like there was an eggbeater caught inside of her. “Some kind of mother you are!” he’d growl, and turn off in disgust. Still, when the darkness of night rolled around he’d feel the same old fire of wanting in his belly. “Come over here,” he’d say, “Make Daddy happy.”

  The first year, Benjamin held off going to New York by claiming she’d have to get back in shape if she was to attract a talent scout. “Those Rockettes don’t have an ounce of fat on them,” he told her. That whole summer Susanna ate nothing but spinach and lettuce. She’d spy a Hershey bar and a line of drool would drizzle down onto her chin; but she stuck to the spinach and lettuce. She grew to be so thin that her eyes sunk back into her face until they appeared to be sitting on a ledge of cheekbone; her arms became smaller around than those of Ethan Allen. Finally, when Susanna was too weak for lovemaking, Benjamin said he thought she’d taken the dieting a bit too far and suggested they postpone the trip till she got some meat back on her bones. The second year he insisted the boy was still too young to travel. Th
e third year there was a problem with the crops; the fourth he had something else worrying his mind. Year after year he found an excuse to cancel the trip to New York, which was, of course, the reason for most of their arguments.

  “I’m suffocating out here,” she’d wail, “I want more than just you and this kid.”

  Benjamin would answer, “You got a fine house, a kid, and a man who loves you! What more does a woman need?” Before the evening was out she’d be hurling cook pots at him or screaming profanities that caught hold of the wind and traveled far beyond the neighboring farms—sometimes in another town that was miles down the road, men would swear the voice had been that of their wife who was washing dishes in the next room.

  Ethan Allen grew up with such sounds taking root in the canals of his ears. Before his first birthday, he’d become so accustomed to the arguments that in the midst of a free-for-all, he could nap peacefully. He’d sit there in the floor and not twitch a muscle, when a piece of crockery sailed by and splattered against the wall. The first word the boy ever spoke was damn and the second was hungry. While he was still small enough to be suckling milk from a bottle, he’d toddle along behind Susanna saying, “Damn kid hungry, Mama.”

  “See what you’ve done,” Benjamin would moan, “the kid thinks that’s his name.”

  “Oh, and I suppose you’re not to fault!” she’d answer.

  By the time the boy was three, he’d learned to fix his own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He’d also learned that when the breadbox was empty, he could drag a stepstool across the kitchen, scramble up onto the counter and reach into the cupboard for a box of dry cereal. “That’s my little man,” Susanna would say, and plant a kiss on his forehead as she headed off to town. At an age when most children are cautioned against playing with matches, Ethan Allen would light the stove and fry up an egg.