“But, Ozzie!” Monica pleaded with her. “You . . . I mean, you’ve never taken shit from anyone! Anywhere! I . . . I just don’t understand!” She shook her head, begging for an explanation.
“I don’t really know how to explain it, either,” Ozzie said. “I had a million things going on in my head the first time he hit me, you know? It was right in the middle of this stupid fight; I’d glanced at some guy at a bar and Gary wanted to know what the ‘story’ was between us. There was no story; I’d just looked at the guy, and he’d looked at me, and that was the end of it. But Gary kept putting his finger in my face, over and over again, insisting that I tell him, that I ‘own up,’ and finally, I just slapped it away and told him to go fuck himself.” She inhaled deeply and then let it out all at once, as if breathing fire. “He decked me so fast that I barely even felt it. I mean, it was that quick. It took a few seconds for it to register, but as soon as it did, I was like a crazy person. I wanted to kill him.” She jabbed at her chest with a finger. “I mean it’s me, right? Ozzie Fucking Randol.” She began to cry, her face contorting into a strange dissolution of everything that had ever held her up. “The girl who always stood up to everyone. The one who called all the shots, who led all the meetings, who got in everyone’s face. Always.”
“Yes,” Grace whispered, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Yes. So what happened?”
“You mean that night?” Ozzie asked.
Grace nodded.
Ozzie shrugged and pulled hard at the loose cuticle, ripping it finally from the skin. “I went home with him and fucked his brains out. He fell asleep right after, but I remember lying awake for hours and wrestling with all of it. Trying to figure out what had just happened, what I was still doing there. Logically, I knew I couldn’t stay. That even though he hadn’t hit me all that hard, it was still unacceptable. I knew that, you know? Kind of like I knew what two plus two was. Or what color my eyes were. No-brainers. But then I remembered feeling something on top of all that that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.”
“You liked it.” Grace’s voice was flat.
“I didn’t like it.” Ozzie’s face twisted. “I’m not a masochist. But I knew it. It was familiar, you know? Terrain I could navigate. Living with Cesar was fun and wild, but I never knew what was going to happen when he got angry. Sometimes he’d laugh it off; other times he’d yell. Once he drove off on his motorcycle and didn’t come back for three days. I thought I was going to lose my mind, trying to figure out where he’d gone, if he’d come back. With Gary, I knew what to expect. I’d already done it for half my life. And I was so good at it. God, I was so fucking good at it.” She shrugged. “So I stayed. A few years later, I married him. And now it’ll be twelve years in June.” She stared into her lap. A tear dropped onto her pants, but she did not move to wipe it away.
Nora reached over and took Ozzie’s hand. Despite the warmth in the car, it was cold, the fingertips icy. The great Ozzie Randol. Broken not by a man finally, but by her decision to stay with the wrong one. Nora squeezed her hand and kept it inside of hers.
“Well, you know you can’t stay,” Grace said. “I mean, you have to leave him, Ozzie.”
“I don’t know what I know anymore,” Ozzie said.
“What about your kids?” Monica asked.
Ozzie’s head shot up. “What about them?”
“They see everything, don’t they? With the fights, I mean. Gary hitting you?”
“No.” Ozzie picked at her cuticle again. “Well, maybe a few times. Nothing too terrible, though.”
Nora and Monica exchanged a glance. “Maybe not too terrible to you,” Monica said. “It’s a different story for them.”
“Their only story,” Nora said softly.
For a while, no one spoke; it was as if Ozzie’s information, on top of everyone else’s, had sucked the last bit of life out of the car. Ozzie stared out of her window while Monica and Grace looked out of theirs. It was hard to know, Nora thought, if each of them was trying to come to terms with the information they had just shared, or with hearing someone else’s.
“That just leaves you, Nora,” Ozzie said suddenly, turning her head from the window.
“Leaves me what?” Nora’s ears got hot. Even from the backseat, she could feel Monica’s and Grace’s eyes on her neck, waiting.
“I don’t know.” Ozzie sounded dangerous somehow, as if she was daring Nora to say something. “You tell us. Are things really as great in your life as you’ve said?”
“Well, yeah.” Nora shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I wouldn’t use the word great per se, but they’re okay.” She pulled on her earlobe as Ozzie’s eyes bored into the side of her head.
“No secrets?” Ozzie pressed.
“Ozzie, stop,” Grace said from the back. “You don’t always have to harangue people.”
Ozzie inhaled through her nose and set a foot against the edge of her seat. Nora pressed down hard on the gas, maneuvering the car around a large white Lexus, and then settled in behind a red Honda. A bumper sticker on the back read: The village just called. They’re missing an idiot. Perfect. Just what she needed to see right now. She looked out the side window, bit down hard on her lower lip. Keeping things to herself at Turning Winds had been a necessity, a primitive need born out of fear. Letting those secrets out would have meant not only baring herself but also risking the loss of the most important people she had ever known in her life. Besides, those memories were the only things she had left of herself, the last threads that still connected her to Mama. As strange as it was, she wasn’t ready to sever them. She still hadn’t let go. And so she had shared the barest minimum of information when their questions arose, answering just enough to keep any more prying at bay.
But things had changed. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. They were far from Turning Winds. And despite the fact that all of these women, every single one of them, had just revealed a horrific truth about their own life, she understood that she still loved them. Maybe even more than she had loved them back then. And it was because of their weaknesses, because of their secrets. Why couldn’t the same be true for her?
“Okay, you know what, they’re not,” Nora heard herself say.
“Who’s not what?” Ozzie looked at her.
“Things,” Nora said. “In my life. They’re not as great as I said they were. I don’t have a boyfriend. I actually haven’t dated anyone in about three years. I just said I did because . . .” She stopped, wondering what else she could say that would not make her sound any more idiotic than she already did. “I don’t know. I guess I was embarrassed. Everyone here has someone and I . . .” She shook her head. “It was stupid. But there you go. I’m single. No boyfriend. Not looking. Not even interested.”
The ensuing silence was deafening. Nora tried to swallow, but something felt as if it had gotten caught in her throat.
“Okay,” Grace said encouragingly. “Well, my goodness. There certainly isn’t any hard-and-fast rule about being attached. Especially these days.”
Nora didn’t move.
“Why would you feel embarrassed at being single?” Ozzie asked. “Shit, I envy you.”
Nora had gone this far. Maybe she’d try another step. “I don’t really like dating. It gets too . . . complicated.”
“Tell me about it.” Ozzie snorted. “And then they want to fuck you.”
Nora’s stomach tightened. “Actually, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“What, the sex?” Ozzie said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been out there.” She nudged Nora in the side. “Catch me up. What makes it complicated?”
Oh God. Ozzie had misunderstood. But of course she had. Nora had said too much, opened the door too wide. She backpedaled frantically, trying to figure out how to end the conversation.
“Do they get all Fifty Shades of Grey on you?” Ozzie pressed. “That reminds me, this one friend of mine who just got divorced signed up on a Christian dating website and wound up going out with some
guy who asked her to be part of a threesome. On their first date!”
“No, God, no.” Nora shook her head. “It’s nothing like that. Really. I don’t even know why I brought it up. It’s honestly nothing.”
“Oh, don’t do that, Nora!” Grace protested. “Tell us what you’re talking about! What makes things so complicated?”
Nora closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again. It was mortifying that she still had issues with sex, that things got to a point where she’d rather not have it at all than have to deal with the memories that surfaced once it started. Real women didn’t deal with that. Or at least none of these women did. She was sure of it.
She took a deep breath. Screw it; what did she have to lose by telling them? Or maybe that wasn’t even the question. Maybe the real question was, what did she have to lose if she didn’t tell them?
“It’s not that the sex is complicated,” she said slowly. “It’s that I’m complicated. With sex in general.”
“It’s hard for you to be intimate with someone?” Monica’s voice was so kind that it brought tears to Nora’s eyes.
She nodded instead of responding and readjusted her hands on the wheel to stop them from shaking.
“Because?” Grace sat forward in the backseat.
“I guess because I had a bad experience with it,” she said. “A long time ago.”
“You mean with Theo?” Ozzie asked.
Nora felt her face flush hot. “No, not with Theo. With someone else. And that’s really all I want to say right now. Okay? I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be dismissive or go back into my shell or anything, but can we please change the subject?” She drew a hand over the front of her eyes as if might erase the shame that was rising behind them. “Please?”
“Of course we can.” Grace squeezed her shoulder. “I appreciate you saying anything at all, Norster. I know how hard it is for you to talk.” She sat back in her seat, but not before catching Nora’s eyes in the mirror. She winked.
“It’s hard for me talk about things, too,” Monica said. “If I hadn’t been here this weekend when I got the call from the detective, I probably wouldn’t have told another living soul what I’d done.”
“I only opened up about Gary because you did first,” Ozzie admitted, looking at Monica. “If you’d asked me before I came out here whether or not I was going to tell you girls the truth about my marriage, I would have laughed in your face.”
“I knew you knew some of the gory details about me,” Grace said softly. “But I hadn’t planned on saying anything else. Not until Monica spoke up first.”
It was funny how that worked, Nora thought as the car raced on. How they borrowed strength from one another, leaning on it for a while until the next one needed it. It might have been the only thing from those Invisible days that hadn’t changed.
It might have been the only thing that wouldn’t change, the last, single thread that held them all together.
Chapter 21
There’s a Burger King up ahead at the next exit,” Ozzie said a few minutes later. “Anyone hungry?”
“Starving!” Grace said.
“I could eat,” Nora agreed. “And pee.”
“Me too.” Monica grimaced. “I’ve had to go for over an hour now, but I didn’t want to say anything.”
“Why not?” Grace asked.
Monica shrugged. “I’m always afraid public restrooms aren’t going to be a single room. I hate it when there’s someone in the next stall.”
“You still have bathroom hang-ups!” Ozzie said, slapping the backseat. “Don’t you guys remember? She couldn’t go if she thought we were being too quiet in our rooms. She always thought we were listening!”
Nora smiled as Ozzie laughed out loud. She’d forgotten that part about Monica, but now as she thought about it, she remembered how Monica would turn on the water in the tub to drown out any noise she might make, how she would emerge red-faced, mortified by the fact that the girls knew what she’d been doing.
“God Almighty.” Monica smiled faintly at Ozzie as they pulled into the Burger King parking lot. “You’ve got a memory like an elephant.”
For a little while, after they’d eaten their burgers and slurped the last of their milkshakes, the women slipped into a silent, sated state, leaving Nora alone with her thoughts. She had already put over two hundred miles behind her and the distance was wearying. She could feel her eyelids getting heavy even though she’d had an extra-large Coke, and her arms felt waterlogged. The pot had worn off long ago, although remnants of it combined with the overload of everyone’s personal information had left her emotionally exhausted. The sides of the highway were bleak and dusty, but farther back, a wash of red and yellow trees lit up the landscape, and small flocks of sparrows dipped and sailed over the tops of them. For as much as she loved the moon and its phases, daylight never failed to disappoint Nora. Each morning, as the light seeped back into the world during one of her walks with Alice Walker, she felt the same assurance rise inside her chest, as if something dark had split open and revealed something new to her. Life pushing through, despite all the odds. Now she felt the same way, except with an intensity that made her tremble.
A first line from A Tale of Two Cities came to her: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the Spring of Hope, it was the Winter of Despair.”
Here, today, was all of these things, she thought.
And more.
One by one, the women dozed off as it began to rain, the landscape darkening under a thick clot of clouds. Nora stared through the slosh of the windshield wipers, admiring the just-washed colors of the trees, and wondered what Alice Walker was doing. Maybe Trudy had just gotten back from taking her for an afternoon walk. She hoped so. Alice Walker was used to getting up early for their daily treks to the birch grove and over the railroad tracks, but she doubted if Trudy or Marion would have managed to rouse themselves at such an hour. Still, if Alice Walker didn’t get out at least once a day, she would start to howl.
If she were home now, she would be on the couch probably, having just returned from the grocery store. Alice Walker would be nestled up against her, and Nora, who would have showered and gotten into sweats and fuzzy socks, would be reading, maybe finishing up the Sunday crossword from the New York Times, or flipping through the Book Review, which was her favorite part. The afternoon light would be coming through the living room window at a slant, warming the hardwood floor, touching the tips of her small ficus tree in the corner. Every so often she would look up from the paper and study the patterns on the floor, leaf-shaped movements dancing to and fro like small hands. After a while, she’d get up, go to the refrigerator. Maybe take out some cream cheese, toast a bagel, drizzle a little honey over the top of it. A glass of root beer too; and a few gummy fish from the bag she kept in the bread drawer. Then back to the couch, where she’d turn on the TV, find a Law & Order marathon, drift in and out of sleep in between episodes, while Alice Walker readjusted her position, trying to get comfortable.
It wasn’t such a bad life, she thought.
It couldn’t be.
If it was, she wouldn’t be missing it the way she was.
Next to her Ozzie snored, a long, rumbling sound that careened off into a high-pitched whine. Grace, who was curled up like a cat in the backseat, her thin legs tucked under her, muttered under her breath, while Monica, whose head was flung back on the seat rest, sat perfectly still. Nora’s eyes got heavier, and after another few moments, she reached across the seat and shook Ozzie awake. Ozzie recoiled at her touch, a rattlesnake ready to strike.
“Hey,” Nora whispered. “It’s just me. I have to stop or I’m going to fall asleep at the wheel. Can you take over?”
“Yeah.” Ozzie’s eyes, momentarily disoriented, focused once more. “Yeah, of course. Where the hel
l are we? What time is it? Did I fall asleep?”
“You slept for a while.” Nora jerked her thumb toward Monica. “She conked out. And Grace, too. It’s almost four-thirty. We’ve got another seven or eight hours or so, I think. We’re in Pennsylvania.”
Ozzie rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Okay, pull over. I got it.”
Nora stopped the car and let herself out, sliding to the ground. The backs of her knees were stiff, and something in her back cracked. The headlights of the car were clotted with dead insects and the windshield was covered with a thick film of dust.
“Mmmm . . .” Ozzie said, rolling her head between her shoulders. “My head feels like a bag of rattlesnakes, but I’m glad I got a little shut-eye. Thanks.”
As if on cue, Grace lifted her head from the backseat and yawned. “Where are we?” she asked. “Did we get to Manhattan?”
“Not yet.” Ozzie eased the car back onto the highway. “I’m driving. Nora has to rest for a while.”
Nora sprawled out on the enormous leather seat next to Ozzie, the top of her head touching Ozzie’s thigh, and closed her eyes. She could feel the muscles in her back and then her neck relax, as if she had been clenching them for hours.
The wheels spun and then squealed a bit as Ozzie lurched the car forward.
Monica sat up like a shot at the noise and looked around. “We’re there?” she cried. “Already?”
“No, doll.” Ozzie reached over the seat and patted Monica’s arm. “Just switching drivers. We still have about seven more hours.”
Monica rested her head against the window. She stared through the glass, not moving. “Oh my God, I still can’t believe this is happening. I’m so sorry to drag all of you into all this.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Ozzie said. “And you didn’t drag any of us into it. We wanted to come, remember? I just hope that when we get there, you can fix things, Mons. I really do.”
The Invisibles Page 21
