Chik~Lit for Foxy Hens

by Ervin, Sharon

  But first I need to sleep.

  * * *

  For years now my mother has been quite irritated when we have come home for a few weeks visit and all we want to do is sleep for the first few days we’re here. We have tried to make it easy on ourselves because of the need-for-sleep factor.

  We’ve always flown straight to Tulsa for convenience’ sake, because to try to fly to the tiny little Texas town where Rhett’s family lives would be a major undertaking, involving spur lines and lots of picking up and dropping off. After a few weeks in Tulsa we have always rented a car and driven to Dumas. It’s much easier that way. Hey, should I go tell his Mother on him…bet she’d pray a lot if she heard about the new baby, new wife, new life thing. I was bad enough, not being a member of her church, but here was her darling Rhett, mixed up with a girl of another faith, another race and another language. As Dave Letterman so often says when things get complicated on his show, “Whoa, Nellie!”

  Well, I’ll think about springing that obnoxious news after I’ve had some sleep.

  Last year Miss Hazel and my cousin Julia Mae flew to the Philippines to visit us for two weeks. I showed them around, gave them the full guided tour, took them to stay in several of the tourist spots, especially Baguio. I introduced them to the Republic of the Philippines and to my Filipino friends. That was fun. I think Rhett appreciated Mother’s visit especially well because Audie and I were gone from home so much. That gave him carte blanche, of course, and I’m sure he took full advantage of it to spread his version of joy among the Filipino “working girls.”

  But that’s the past. I’m telling myself to let it lie, girl. I can’t let this man control my life or my thoughts any longer.

  Anyway, when Mother got back to Tulsa after her visit, she took to her bed. She was quite horribly embarrassed that all she wanted to do was sleep for a week. I really had to laugh when she emailed me about her “sleeping sickness.” At last, after thirteen years, she finally understood my own desire to sleep whenever I arrived in Tulsa. I’d explained to her that it was called, “jet lag.” But that meant little to her. I knew that this time around she would be pleased to let me sleep my way back into life for a few days.

  She’d be displeased that I was leaving Rhett. She’d hate hearing it was because of his behavior with a Filipino girl and his coming child. Miss Hazel has always adored old Rhett. After all, she’s a woman too, and most all women were charmed by him, my mother, most of all, simply because he had become a part of her family. And he took care of her car when we were in the U.S., taking it in for periodic checkups or seeing about buying a new one for her. He has always been good to her.

  Luckily for me, she positively thinks her daughter Lori can do no wrong, so that old boy will find himself cast out of that particular mother-in-law circle of paradise without a word and without another chance. Too bad… for both of them. They got along so beautifully all during our marriage. Good in-laws are hard to find.

  As I know well.

  CHAPTER 5

  Two months of looking through the lower end of the Tulsa Real Estate market made me really, really appreciate the house I’d left in Manila. Talk about trash heaps. Some of the places I saw made even Tondo’s garbage mountain look homelike. Oh, no, not really, but honestly, no money and no job can surely cure any delusions of grandeur you might still be carrying around with you. For sure, you can give up any idea of looking out at a body of water, unless it’s looking out at a leak in your sewage system.

  “But okay, buck up, Lori,” I told myself, “This is no time for self pity.” Gotta keep looking for a house…and searching for work at the same time.

  A direct mail contract project may be my first job, not much of a job, but something. It’s a way to get started, anyway. A professor at the University of Tulsa has been awarded a grant for about a three-month research project and it looks as if I’ll be the contract mover and shaker who’ll be doing the whole thing. Not much money, but something to point back to for later on. USA references carry more weight in the USA, I’ve found. I’m having real trouble finding high paying technical writing jobs.

  With electronic projects under the federal magnifying glass these days, maybe it’s better for me to go low tech for awhile. Direct mail is old, familiar territory for me. The prof has shown me my office and introduced me to Louise, my researcher, an older woman who will work with me. She is somewhere in her late seventies, I think, even so, she seems smart and will probably be pleasant to work with. She has the telephone, the clock and a typewriter on her desk. Nothing, other than the professor’s bound grant proposal, was yet on the desk assigned to me. I really wondered about that typewriter. Was she electronically challenged?

  Miss Hazel called my new office a “Quonset Hut.” I’ve explained the difference between a Quonset and a Prefab, several times but it’s still a Quonset Hut to her. I was studying the grant proposal when Miss Hazel brought mail to me my first day there. She explained that she’d driven the five blocks from her house because one of the letters was from a law firm. Mom is a bit of a worrier so she wanted me to open that particular envelope right away.

  “Why would a lawyer be writing to you, Lori?” she asked, “From a place called Silverdale, Washington, for Heaven’s sake. Never heard of it.”

  I could feel the bad news though the fancy, gold embossed, envelope. My fingertips felt cold pulsing from within the heavy linen weave paper. I was pretty sure that I would not like what I read when I did open the letter.

  “Mom, I’ll walk out to the car with you.”

  “Well, aren’t you going to open the letter?”

  “Yeah. I’ll open it outside. In the car. I want to walk out through the parking lot with you.”

  She looked at me rather strangely. It was daytime, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, just five blocks from her house. Why was I worried about her walking alone to the parking lot? I could see the questions in her eyes, but she didn’t voice them. She is such an open, honest person that she never thinks that other people may have devious reasons for keeping things unspoken, or maybe it’s that she wears blinders and only sees what she wants to see.

  In this case, I wanted privacy. For her part she wanted to find out why a lawyer in far off Washington State was writing to her daughter. Simple. Even if our needs were at cross purposes, here. My treacherous eyes had already begun to water by the time we stepped from the tiny wooden porch which had been tacked onto the front of the temporary structure. Tears were flowing by the time we reached the sidewalk. I took Mom’s arm to let her guide me to her car.

  “Why Lori, honey, what’s wrong?”

  “Rhett must have flown to Washington State to file for divorce.”

  “Oh, is that what that is?”

  “Probably. Let’s get in the car and I’ll open it.”

  She sat and held me in the same embrace she’d used when I was trying to learn to ride a bike. She held me with one hand around my shoulders, the other patting me. “Now, now, little girl. Everything will be all right. Sh-h-h-h, Lori. Bless your sweet heart.”

  * * *

  I knew everything would not be all right when I read the words, “…on this day, Everett Kefauver Prideaux appeared before him, (the lawyer’s name) charging Abandonment by the respondent, Lori Morris Prideaux…” and so on and so on.

  We sat in Mom’s car for a long time, she patting and murmuring, me crying. Finally, I pulled myself together, borrowed a handkerchief and a ballpoint pen from mom so I could sign the enclosed petition to mail it back to the lawyer in Silverdale.

  “Are you sure you want to sign this now, Lori?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You don’t want to think about it?”

  “No. I want to get it over with and get on with my life.” I signed with a flourish in each of the marked spaces and put the whole thing into the return envelope for mom to mail before she went home.

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I have to do this, mom. Just mail it for me.”

/>   “Okay. I’ll drive right to the post office. That old Rhett had better never show his face around here again. The very idea! I hate to think what I might do to him.”

  Mom could still make me laugh, even through tears. I wondered what she would do to her now ex-son-in-law. She is five feet tall and Rhett is 6’2”. I had a flash vision of a broom smashing against the man’s back as he ran yelping across her front yard toward his car, trying to make a getaway. I kissed her cheek and told her I had to get back to work, which I did. That grant proposal was slow going and pretty boring. Just what I needed. Back inside, I explained what I could about the divorce papers to Louise and then involved myself in monotony for the rest of the afternoon.

  Our very next day in the “Quonset” turned out to be pretty exciting too, in quite a different way.

  CHAPTER 6

  I was already nodding into the educational doldrums by ten o’clock the next morning when my cell phone rang. When I flipped the instrument open I heard Audie say, “Lori, I’m sitting on the toilet. My stepfather just walked into the bathroom. He says he has something for me. Want to see it?” A picture of an engorged penis folding out from unzipped jeans, rolled before my eyes. “You better come and get me, Lori, right now if you can.”

  I told her I was leaving and I explained to Louise, that I was driving to Arkansas to pick up my stepdaughter. She smiled and promised to keep the professor at bay. I walked fast, almost ran, to Mother’s house to ask for the loan of her car.

  Audie and I had agreed to meet at a convenience store in Van Buren and that’s exactly where I found her an hour and a half later.

  She waved when she saw me then raced toward me to slide into Ms. Hazel’s old brown Chevrolet. She threw her two duffle bags onto the back seat and held up the telephone, the penis still embossed on the tiny screen.

  “He tried that same thing when I was eleven,” she told me, “That’s why Mother sent me to live with you and Dad.” She swallowed a nervous giggle as she closed the screen. “I knew he was getting ready to try something again, so for the last three days I’ve taken my phone into the bathroom everytime I had to go.” She was silent a moment. “I always wondered why they didn’t have a lock on the bathroom door. Maybe he doesn’t want one.”

  “Are you frightened, honey? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m okay. I was scared when I was eleven but I’ve been pleased all day at the trick I played on old Jim. He couldn’t deny the evidence this time. It was just my word against his when I was a kid. Mother is the one who was hurt, I’m afraid.”

  We discussed the incident all the way back to Tulsa and I’ll admit I had to agree with the poor kid. Maybe those expensive cell phones were worth something after all.

  Three things faced us… getting Audie enrolled in school, finding a place to live and making enough money to live on. I increased my search for a house to before and after working hours. My real estate broker took me to a place about eight blocks west of the downtown post office. It was in an old, mostly rundown neighborhood but there was something beautiful about the place she showed me there. A gorgeous hand built stone wall surrounded the place on three sides. Several huge trees gave the two large lots a “country” feel. That wall sold me. It had obviously been built by a master craftsman of the art of stone masonry. The side without a wall was just a steep hill, covered with bushes, flowers and trees. Even though junk and trash were everywhere this was a much bigger and better yard than any of the other places I’d looked at and hated.

  The house itself was just an ordinary twenties style wood frame bungalow, two bedroom, one bath place, engulfed in garbage, but the structure itself seemed sturdy enough. I decided to try to buy it.

  Both Audie and my Mom said things like, “eww-w-w” and made faces at the place but they both had to admit that the stone wall was magnificent.

  “We can do it,” I assured them. “Three strong women and a lot of Pine-Sol can do wonders for this place.” I felt a small jolt of joy. Maybe everything was going to be all right.

  I called my agent that night and told her we’d take it. Miss Hazel was willing to cosign so we didn’t foresee any trouble. Early in the morning I searched the Thrifty Nickle for a strong back who could help us clear out the house and yard. Louise didn’t seem upset that I hadn’t yet started the professor’s project. In fact, she agreed to keep the man happy and off my back for the rest of the week while we moved in. I figured we could sort of “camp out” while we cleaned up and repaired. The next projects were even easier. We gave Miss Hazel’s address for Audie and enrolled her at Will Rogers High School. They seemed happy to get her and Audie was really interested in their strong theatre program. She has talked about becoming a professional actor. I understand the temptation of theatre but hope she would also become involved in something that might support her.

  Even the Thrifty Nickle paid off. Tall, wide shouldered , strong looking, Joe Casey showed up with two even larger, much younger men in tow.

  “My sons,” he presented them to Audie and me. Joe himself was an attractive, green eyed man, but I didn’t even try to flirt. I just assumed he was married. Audie was obviously impressed with Joe, Junior and his brother and the two of them circled about her with even more interest.

  I heard a distant bell like sound when I shook hands with Joe but I ignored it.

  We decided that after one weekend of hard work we could move into the old place. Joe and his sons turned out to be lean, mean, cleaning machines. They made trip after trip to the city dump and Mom and Audie and I scrubbed and washed and swept and painted. Joe told us where he might be able to get a couple of mattresses for us from the mobile home dealer near his house. He thought he could get them free since it’s against Oklahoma law to sell used mattresses. Joe and the boys agreed to work on Sunday to finish up the cleaning chores. I ordered in pizza and soft drinks for all, at regular intervals. All we needed to make our new lives complete was a bit of money. Yep, that part was up to me.

  I gave Joe most of the $150 I had left in my purse and we parted friends after he promised to stick with me to help make our place pleasant and livable. If he could come evenings and weekends when he wasn’t working on larger jobs he would try to make our place on West First Street into a veritable mansion. Sounded good to me. His strong back and expertise would be what made the difference in when we could begin our life there.

  It was pretty exciting in the following week when we moved in with a small desk donated by mom’s neighbor, a straight chair and a couch from mom and the two donated mattresses from the mobile home people. Joe’s old pickup held it all. We all agreed to keep an eye out for other people’s cast offs and held the dream of shopping at the Goodwill store and/or the Salvation Army store for later on down the road.

  During our first week in our new place, Miss Hazel swung by with a letter for Audie. It had been forwarded from Arkansas.

  In his letter Rhett announced his marriage to his nineteen year old Nancy, so now, it seemed, Audie had herself a new Filipino stepmother.

  Well, hell. Tears again. From both of us. But I promised myself and Audie that those were the very last tears I’d shed over that old boy. I wanted my promise to be the truth.

  CHAPTER 7

  The old house came together rather quickly because of the evening hours put in by Joe, Audie and me and sometimes the two big Casey boys. Fairly soon, Joe Junior started coming to work without his brother, then he and Audie began going out “for a coke,” more often than they worked.

  Joe and I didn’t mind, really. We conducted our own getting acquainted dance over paintbrushes and hammers and nails.

  “Does your wife mind you working every night and on weekends?”

  He looked at me, in his eyes lay an unspoken question or perhaps inner speculation. The skin on his cheeks pinkened slightly.

  “I’m divorced.”

  I looked at him with new interest. I believed his compelling green gaze was telling me something. The problem was I just couldn’t
understand exactly what that something might be.

  “How’d you learn to do all these different things?” I asked, “You know how to fix ancient plumbing, renew old electric wiring, work with wood, and do a dozen other things as well. How’d you get so knowledgeable, so clever, about fixing stuff? Did you study all that in school?”

  Joe took another swipe of daffodil enamel down the dining room wall before he smiled and answered.

  “I had to learn how to do things real early on.” His low chuckle was like creamy satin against my ears. “I got myself through High School but that’s all the schooling I had.” Something about this big blonde man intrigued me

  My naughty Aunt Bea once told me that blue-collar men were much better in bed than white-collar males. “They don’t psychologize the whole thing to death,” she explained. I have yet to test her thesis, although Rhett started “blue collar,” all the years I’ve known him he was the “boss” and worked in an office.

  “You’re an educated woman, right? You work out at the University?”

  “Yeah! Educated is right and I couldn’t rewire this house if you put a gun to my head.” I kinda feel the way Audie does. “When the registrar at the American school in Manila asked Audie what her mother and father did, she told the woman her dad was President of his corporation. ‘And your mother, dear?’ ‘Oh, she’s a doctor, the kind that doesn’t do anyone any good.’”

  Joe’s smile lit the room even more than did the daffodil enamel.

  “Well, you have me now for all your rewiring, Lori, so no guns against your head will be needed.”

  We finished painting the dining room in short order and went out to sit on the narrow back porch steps to wait in the fresh air. Audie and Joe Jr. were to return from the “coke run,” before 10:00.

  I could feel autumn in the air but I could also feel heat emanating from Joe’s body all the way from my shoulder to my ankle. Our silence didn’t feel awkward, it was as if we’d known each other for a very long time.