by Ron Koertge
So that’s where it was. How ironic. Love’s Park was Kansas City’s sleaziest suburb. Sully and I had been over there to see some films. They were always shown at art theaters and they were usually about some naive girl who moved to the big city and had about sixteen affairs before lunch. Girls named Monique.
“Give me a kiss, okay?” Mom was standing there with both arms open. At her feet were a purse and an overnight bag. She might have been leaving on a short trip. Or forever.
I shook my head and stepped back. Just before she turned away, I saw her lips bunch up and I knew I’d hurt her. A little part of me was glad, but all the rest felt terrible.
When the back door closed, I crept out to the kitchen, peeked through the blinds, and followed the red tail-lights through the chilly evening until they disappeared around the corner.
Then I wandered around the house for a while. God, it felt big. Isn’t it funny how just one other person can fill a place up?
My mom had had a lot of Dad’s stuff taken out of the house and stored, and I can’t say that I blame her. He had this one stupid bowling trophy he was very proud of, and she just couldn’t look at it sitting up there on the mantel without going all to pieces. I don’t know where he got the trophy; I never saw him in a shirt with his name on the pocket. Maybe he bowled in a suit. He did most everything else in one. Even when we played catch on the lawn, he was dressed for a board meeting. Maybe that’s why my mom wanted to take all her clothes off. She’d never done it before.
I began to wonder about my dad. It was starting to look like there’d been things going on that I didn’t know about, not that that’s a big surprise. Kids don’t think about their folks nearly as much as everybody imagines. Parents are just there, like background music at the mall. In fact, that’s a lot of what I missed about my dad — his thereness. All I really had left was Mom and this Dad-shaped space.
I was about as hungry as I was upset, but then hardly anything ever got in the way of my appetite. If a giant meteor hits and I survive, I’ll probably be the only one looting a deli.
It was pretty bad setting the table for nobody but myself. I remembered how right after the funeral Mom would forget while she was dealing out plates and automatically put one down for Dad, too. Then she’d cry again, sometimes right into the casserole.
I had to wait until nine to call Sully. His parents all but locked him in his room right after dinner so he’d study. They’d take a message, but I sure didn’t want to leave information like this lying around on pink phone pads. Mrs. Sullivan didn’t have much to do except gossip. She made the town crier look like the patron saint of silence.
“You’re kidding,” said Sully.
“Is that why I’m laughing so much?”
“Medically, this is very interesting.”
“If I get you a couple of cadavers and a thunderstorm, can you make me a new mother?”
“It’s good you still have a sense of humor, unless these jokes are just symptoms of a complete breakdown.”
“Love your bedside manner.”
I could almost hear him lean forward. “What did I tell you, Walker? She came up out of that grave looking like a new woman. Hold it.”
“What?” I looked around my living room.
“Hang on until I can find some privacy. My folks have to watch 60 Minutes.”
I didn’t want to, but I started thinking about the funeral. My father said in his will that he wanted everybody to watch him go and wave bye-bye. Those were his exact words. See, my mom used to stand on the porch every morning and do just that. Rain or shine, there she’d be, with her arms folded like women do, and then when he’d backed out and hit Monterey Road, she’d wave.
So there we were at the cemetery. Everybody was crying or trying not to, the six guys were letting him down with those green canvas tapes, and we were leaning over, waving bye-bye, when my aunt Avanelle, who was standing behind me, passed out. We were packed in there, and it was the domino effect, pure and simple. I went first and then Mom.
The next thing I remember is that I could see up everybody’s dress. It was gross, but it was also pretty exciting in a weird way. I mean everything had been so black — black dresses and shoes, black stockings and suits. All of a sudden there were those colored underpants: pink and white and even red. Besides getting me a little turned on, it helped me get my bearings. Everything wasn’t all grief.
Naturally, they hauled us out and brushed the dirt off, nobody was hurt, and it didn’t turn into a fad, thank God, like people at a party jumping into the pool with their clothes on.
But Sully did say a little later that my mom came out of that hole a different person. He said he could see it in her eyes.
“Did she say why?” he asked once he’d settled in his own room.
“She just needs a job.”
“That’s not all of it.”
“You’re telling me. And speaking of telling, promise me you won’t tell anybody.”
“Don’t worry. Listen, what do you think she’s trying to prove?”
“I don’t know. That she can drive me nuts?”
“It’s not about you, I’ll bet. It’s about her saying, ‘Hey, look at me. I’m still alive and I’m still pretty.’ She is pretty, too. She always kind of reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet — you know, with those curls and that white skin.”
“I’ll trade my mom and my CD collection for your mom.”
“Look. Maybe it won’t last long. What do we know? Maybe tonight’s the only night. Maybe it won’t be what she expects at all. Maybe it’ll be embarrassing. Maybe it’s just a fling, a one-time thing.”
“Do you think so?”
“No. It’s not good to get your hopes up and then have them dashed.”
“Get them up. They’ve already been dashed.” Then I took a quick, deep breath. “Oh, God. I just thought of something. You know how I said bad things come in threes? This is the third thing. My dad, Debbie, and now this.”
“Now you sound like your father. Remember how superstitious he was?”
“Sully, do you think my dad was the dad I knew?”
“Run that by me again?”
“Do you think that all there was to my father was what I could see?”
“You mean was he more than a supervisor at the phone company and your dad?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Sure, there was more.”
“Then who was I crying about when he died? Who do I still miss, today more than ever?”
“Ask your mom.”
“Are you kidding? Why would she tell me anything?”
“She had to have said something already, or you wouldn’t be thinking like this.”
He had me there. “Isn’t that the truth,” she’d said when I’d pointed out that Dad wouldn’t have let her be a stripper.
“Anyway,” Sully said, “I’ve got just what you need to take your mind off your troubles.”
“Thirty pounds of chocolate decadence?”
“A girl.”
“I don’t need a girl.”
“You do. Now more than ever.”
“And what would I tell her my mother does for a living?”
“Lie.”
“That’s a wonderful way to start a relationship.”
“Her name is Rachel Gardner. She just transferred from California or New York, I forget which. She’s in two of my accelerated classes.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Sort of. She’s got an okay face with short hair and —”
“I don’t want to go out with a girl who has short hair on her okay face.”
“I think she’s got a good body, but it’s hard to tell with all those clothes. I did get a glimpse of one leg the other day in physics and it looked fine.”
“So far she has a beard and one good leg.”
“She’s at least as good-looking as Debbie, and she’s rich.”
“So what would she want with me?”
“Jus
t to go out. She’s lonely. She doesn’t know anybody in town. You need this girl. She needs you. Two lonely souls. She hasn’t got a mother.”
“Shouldn’t we call the Pope? Isn’t that a miracle?”
“She died. Listen, meet me after math tomorrow. I’ll introduce you.”
“No.”
“Look in the paper. Find something to tempt her — a movie, a concert, anything.”
“She’ll be busy.”
“When you talk to her, don’t be put off by any aloofness, okay? It’ll just be a defense. You can bust through that icy facade.”
“I’ll just throw my body against it.”
“You aren’t fat.”
“No? Then why do the Pillsbury Doughboy and I wear the same size shorts?”
I really was hysterical. That wasn’t always my style. Or it didn’t used to be. Had I changed? Had I emerged from that box-shaped hole a different person, too?
Sully had to get back to his books; Sully always had to get back to his books. I tried studying, but my mind wouldn’t stay put. I kept picturing my mom onstage, in the spotlight, while lowlifes waved dollar bills and left their fingerprints all over her shoes.
Who needed to study, anyway? Anybody who couldn’t graduate from high school with about one hour of concentrated studying a week was better off being a forest ranger. I admit, I wasn’t taking those high-tech accelerated classes, but what was the big hurry? I just wasn’t like Sully, with his career map: all those straight lines from high school to college to medical school. My map would have been like the ones you see in museums, full of blank spaces and sea monsters and land masses with no name.
In spite of myself I scanned the entertainment pages. What would a girl from California like to do? There was very little surfing in Missouri.
Back to the books. God, I hated Silas Marner.
TV time. NYPD Blue cops in a rowdy bar full of drug addicts and felons. They were looking for a topless dancer who’d been kidnapped.
So I tried the more obscure channels — land of the non-stop evangelist, Korean variety hour and, on the educational network, the usual close-up of a lizard. I settled for The Farm Report, a slow crawl of prices for soybeans, hog bellies, and wheat.
But it soothed me. The next thing I knew, something woke me up. Some sound. Tentacles? Pods cracking open? The rustle of a silk-lined cape?
It’s funny, but whenever Mom was home and I heard something, I got my baseball bat and went to take a look. This time I scurried into my bedroom and locked the door. Protecting somebody else is easy; taking care of yourself is a whole other thing.
Pretty soon I heard her car, and I have to admit I was relieved. I unlocked the bedroom door and pretended to be asleep. Man, people are weird. Look at me — open the door so she can peek in, and then act like it doesn’t matter.
Maybe I wanted it both ways. I wanted to make sure she still loved me, but I didn’t want to see her in some embarrassing outfit. What if she wore her work clothes home, tassels and all? Who would see her, and who would they tell? Would everybody at school know by first period?
What I wanted was to go down to breakfast next morning and find her standing at the stove, wearing two or three aprons, cooking up stacks of pancakes, and apologizing all over the place.
Instead we got to the kitchen at just about the same time. I could see a sequin or some sparkly stuff right near the corner of one eye. Man, it looked out of place, especially since she was wearing the robe Dad had given her for Christmas last year.
She nodded at me coolly.
“So, how was it?” I asked.
Disgusting. Stupid. A real mistake. Only a passing fancy. I must have been out of my mind. Harmless but silly. I wouldn’t go back there for a million dollars. Once was enough, believe me.
“Fine.” She moved her shoulders under the salmon-colored chenille and shook her dark curly hair. “Hard, though. It’ll take me a while to get in shape.”
“So you’re going back?”
She looked at me evenly. “Sure.” It was a little like a cowboy movie. She might have said “Yup,” or “It’s your move, stranger.” And God knows I felt like one.
“I’m hungry. What sounds good, Walker?”
“You don’t have to fix anything for me. You’re so tired. I ate dinner alone; I can eat breakfast alone.”
She let it slide by. The Teflon effect on sarcasm. “You should eat; you know all those studies about a good breakfast and success in the classroom.”
“I’ll get some doughnuts.”
“It’s your body; you’re grown-up enough to pollute it if you want to.”
“How much money do we have?”
“Enough.”
“How much is that? If I’m so grown-up, why don’t I know?”
Deliberately she broke two eggs into a skillet, then she held up two more. “Are you sure you don’t…”
“Quit treating me like a kid — I mean it.”
“Stop acting like one, then.”
I could feel the tears, but they were a long way off, down at my knees or maybe even in my shoes. I hadn’t cried since the funeral.
“I hate that job of yours.”
“Good. You get to hate it and I get to do it.”
I sat down at the table, then got up. “But I don’t want you to do it.”
“I know, and I respect that. You get to feel that way and I get to dance.”
“What, is dancing your whole stupid life or something?”
“I know this is hard on you,” she said softly.
“Then why do it?” My heart was really going.
“Honey, I liked it. I liked dancing again.”
“You liked taking off your clothes?”
“Some of the people in the audience — and if you want the truth, some of the ones I work with — would’ve made your dad pass out; but some of them are really nice. And anyway, even if they’d all been drooling in their beer and counting on their toes to get to eleven, I’d still like it.” She smiled kind of crooked and goofy. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Your father used to say that when he got mad. Maybe he was right.”
“Why would he have passed out?”
“Walker, you know your dad. He went to church every Sunday.”
“I went with him.”
“Unless I’d lie for you and say I needed you around the house. And then you’d go off with Sully, and I’d lie again when he came home and say you’d just left.”
“Did you lie to him about other stuff?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you lie to me?”
“Just so you won’t worry.”
“Tell me how much money we have,” I demanded. “Tell me the truth.”
She stared at her eggs, which, sunny-side up, were sort of staring back. Then she sighed heavily and tipped them into the garbage.
She began softly. “If your dad had lived a few more years, I’m pretty sure everything would have turned out all right.”
“Don’t you know?” I sounded like the relentless interrogator in a World War II movie.
“We had an arrangement. I took care of you and the house; he took care of everything else.” I could see the barest smile. “Like the future.”
“But he didn’t, did he? Not really.”
“It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t plan to get hit by a car in his new jogging suit. But things turned out to be in pretty much of a mess. What it boils down to is this: one insurance policy worth almost a hundred thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It just sounds like a lot, honey. There could be a little more — some lawyer’s still pawing through things — but I wouldn’t count on it.”
“And that’s it?”
“We’re living off the insurance money now. By the time you get ready for college, there won’t be nearly enough for all four years.”
“And that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing, to send me to college?”
“Partly. And to pu
t food on the table.”
“I’ll never eat anything you buy with that money.”
She gave a little snort of disbelief, then pointed to the cluttered sink. “If you’re never going to eat that tainted food again, why didn’t you at least wash your dishes from last night?”
“You know how you just love to dance? How you can’t explain it but you just love it? Well, I just love to leave dirty dishes. ‘Maybe there’s something wrong with me,’” I mimicked. “‘But I just plain love it.’”
“You really can be a little shit, Walker. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“You should talk. You should talk about being ashamed.”
That morning I peeked out the front door, wondering, I guess, if the police might not be there with a big-hearted social worker or two ready to whisk me off to the warmth and safety of some foster home where my new mother would make desserts all day and feed them to me with a golden spoon.
The street was deserted. No clucking, sympathetic neighbors, no jeering kids. Business as usual.
At school, too. No banners saying WALKER’S MOTHER IS A STRIPPER. No gutty saxophone music as I walked in, no whistles or catcalls. Nobody knew. At least not yet.
“Walker, over here.”
The girl beside Sully wore a soft brown skirt, tall boots, a white swashbuckler’s blouse, three or four yards of Brazilian peasant shawl, and a little mustache of perspiration. Her hair was cut jagged and pointy across the brow, and her brown eyes were big and kind of sad.
Why hadn’t I dressed up a little? Why had I picked a T-shirt, much less a T-shirt with the word T-shirt on it? Probably she would think I was such a retard I had to have all my clothes labeled.
Sully introduced us. Her hand was warm and damp.
“You look hot,” I said.
They both just stared at me. God, I could have torn out my tongue and stomped on it.
“In the weather sense, I mean. You’re just wearing all those clothes and your lips are sweating.”
Her pink tongue slid out to investigate. “My lips are sweating?” She seemed genuinely concerned, and her eyes got even bigger.
“Your mustache. I mean, where it would be. If you had one.” Ah, the life of a grave-digger. Every time I opened my mouth, I got in deeper.
