Painted Dresses

by Patricia Hickman

  “That judge is after him, sounds like,” said Delia.

  I turned over the envelope where he had written, Remember we are family.

  All of the things Mother said about Truman Savage, Senior, Truman’s daddy, were mostly back in the days when I was too young to understand the foibles of a doomed marriage. I did not know much else, other than the fact that he cheated on her. Mother told me she walked into the kitchen from work and found him on the floor, entangled with a young woman whose hair was teased and so sticky with spray that it had gotten misshapen during sex on the floor. Truman Senior had his hand up her dress, and the two of them lay on a blanket of Rice Krispies. Mother did not know if they were looking for a snack and then got friendly or decided to include cereal in their lovemaking.

  “If we stop at my place, we can look up Truman’s daddy on the Internet,” I said. “A murder in Houston is bound to make the headlines.” We were not far from Wilmington. Braden was off in the wild blue yonder making a delivery, so the apartment would be quiet. I needed to be back home if only to remember who I was before Delia shot Sophie or, farther back than that, when Braden and I were still making sense. Maybe if I was lucky, I still had a job, depending on one’s definition of lucky.

  We were crossing Cape Fear when Delia said, “Is it safe to go to your place? What about Masons faggy thug?”

  “Braden ran him off. He’d be a fool to come back,” I said.

  “Hmmph!” said Delia.

  Braden had gone shopping in my absence. In our closet hung a leather jacket, soft as baby’s skin, but green, not because he wanted green, I was sure, but because the blue would have cost double. But it was a Dolce and Gabbana, nonetheless, hanging where his old Members Only jacket once hung.

  Our last fight was over money. My apartment managing job was bringing in only a small paycheck. But it provided me with some security and a roof that Braden could not manipulate. I said that to him in an angry fit, that he could not take away my apartment. He had flown to see his parents the weekend before. I decorated the living room that weekend like I wanted. A blue vase of pink silk tulips was still on the coffee table. Mother was not much of a decorator, so I was finding my footing as Braden Boatwright’s domestic partner, but within reason. Braden had his daddy’s predilection for electronics and expensive accessories.

  The Dolce and Gabbana might have been a revenge purchase. He had to have gotten a new credit card or some such to up and buy a leather jacket so supple that when I touched it I could see him in front of the mirror, thumbs running down the length of the lapel, rendering him helpless to pass it by.

  The bed was unmade but that was no different from when I was home. Our linens were pale blue Egyptian cotton from a Tuesday Morning store. The blinds were still closed as I had liked it because shutting the sunlight out gave the room a blue glow. On each side of the bed was a nightstand. My clock was still on my side of the bed, my wedding-ring dish next to it. I opened the porcelain lid. Next to my wedding set was Braden’s gold band. I had taken mine off the night of the fight, but not because I wanted it off for good. I had taken off for home because Daddy was dying and forgot it in my haste to leave. Braden must have returned home and, finding mine in the dish, tossed his ring in with mine. I took his out and slid both onto my ring finger.

  I pulled the linens up over the mattress, tucking the edges under the bed, pulling the comforter across and smoothing the wrinkles. The last time we made love was the last time the sheets were washed, so it had been a good two months; more according to Braden, but we never agreed about it.

  Not that I had success in the lovemaking department with Max, either. That first night at the cottage, we could not finish what we had set out to do. If Braden knew, he would have laughed. Max imagined I was looking for exotic passion. Trying to overcome his bookish persona, he played a part to try to be what he wasn’t.

  Max kept a lot of old possessions, one being an RCA record player. He put on the soundtrack from a movie called Doctor Zhivago. He laid a rose on my pillow and then propped himself up next to me with a look so uncharacteristic of him that I laughed. I had known him only in his Dockers and tweeds standing in front of the class articulating Fichte.

  He got up from the bed and walked out onto his patio, having taken back the robe. He shut the door while I sat on the edge of his bed. He wanted me to tell him what I wanted. Men say that, but what they mean by it is, what turns you on? That isn’t necessarily what women want.

  What then did I want?

  I sat on my mattress and pulled the folded part of the sheet up around my face to smell the linens. Braden’s musky smell permeated the sheets, a smell of airplane engine oil mixed with damp clothing and a sprinkling of department store cologne. I pulled off the comforter, stripped the mattress and pillows, bunched up the linens, and carried them to the portable laundry room behind the kitchen.

  Delia inspected a six-pack of Yuengling inside the refrigerator.

  “Braden might not have stocked up much food,” I said. “He doesn’t cook at all.”

  “There’s a pot roast in a casserole dish and some taters,” said Delia. She pulled out the dish, a Corning Ware baking dish.

  “That’s not my dish,” I said.

  Delia rolled her eyes.

  “That’s not my dish.”

  “Ha!” She laughed.

  “You’re not going to eat that, are you?” I asked.

  She lifted the lid and sniffed.

  “You don’t know how long it’s been in there,” I said, my throat strained from reprimanding her.

  She opened the microwave oven over the stove and put the pot roast in to warm.

  A neighbor shuffled past the front window. Her frame slowed and she tried to see inside through the thin curtains. She tapped against the window glass instead of the door. I opened the door, and she looked surprised. “There you are!” she said.

  “Mrs. Shane,” I said, “how’s your apartment?” She had only lived in the one bedroom and one bath unit a month.

  “That little twit of an agent, Amberlyn or whatever, doesn’t respond like you,” she said. “She’s too preoccupied, probably with boyfriends and such. I see them come and go, males at all hours of the night, right out of her apartment. But that’s none of my affair.”

  “Kimberly,” I said, “is her name. Do you need anything?”

  “It’s all fixed finally,” she said. “She’s just not you.”

  “I’ll be back soon,” I said. “I’ll drop by the office in a few and check on her.”

  “You’re not leaving?” she said as a question. Mrs. Shane’s neediness eked through her small, unimposing stature.

  “I’ll be back.” I closed the door.

  Delia pulled the nuked roast out of the microwave oven. It smelled edible, actually good. She salivated over it. “Do people knock on your door all the time?” she asked. “I’d tell that tenant to get bent.”

  “Tell me if the meat is tender. I can’t eat tough meat,” I told her.

  She gouged the meat a few times with her fork tines. A bottle of cold Yuengling sat on the dining table, the sun shining through it turning it the color of goldfish. “You want one?” she asked.

  “I don’t drink anymore,” I said. “I wake up defaced.”

  “What’s defaced?”

  “Tattooed.”

  “A tattoo is just a symbol of your psychic self,” she said. “That Asheville tattoo artist told me we’d be back. Nobody gets just one.”

  “You fix us each a plate,” I said. “My office is below us. I’ll go check on Kimberly.” I knew that I was about to face the brunt of Kimberly’s frustration. Apartment offices are a magnet for hostility. There are the tenants who are lonely and in need of a shoulder to cry on. But most of the residents are either waiting to move out and buy a house or are so bad off financially that, more than anything else, they want
a dog to kick. That was my usual job title, the closest dog to kick. Going off and leaving a young leasing agent to manage a rental office was like leaving a stick of dynamite in her hands with a two-foot fuse. When I opened the door, she leaped up out of my chair where she had finally holed up. “Gaylen, I don’t know whether to kiss you or smack you.” She threw her arms around me.

  I kept apologizing.

  She picked up a book of phone messages and placed it in my hands without taking a breath between listing the complaints that had been lodged with her. “The last tenant told me that he was going to sue us, I think because his bedroom smells like mold. He says he’s allergic.” She pointed to the maintenance mans initials. “Jake says its the worst case of foundation mold ever.”

  “Offer to move him to another unit,” I said. “Tell Jake that maintenance includes helping a tenant move out of a bad apartment.”

  “I never can think that fast. That’s why you’re needed back here,” she said. “There is a tenant moving out first of the month. We can move him there.”

  “Have you heard from Mrs. Weymouth?” I asked. Weymouth owned the complex, along with several buildings in downtown Wilmington, all populated with adult students unwilling to live on campus.

  “I told her that you would be back anytime, no need to call you, and that I had leased out the three remaining units last weekend,” she said. “She tried to call you a million times.”

  “I’m buying you anything you want from the mall,” I said.

  She was handing me my set of keys.

  “I can’t come back until I get my sister back to her house,” I said.

  “You’re not back?” Kimberly was not one to hide her disappointment.

  “Delia’s having it hard, and I’ve been driving her around to meet family, get her out of her funk,” was all I told her.

  “I haven’t had time to even go to the bathroom,” said Kimberly. “Now you’re leaving again?”

  She was getting to me. I had grown accustomed to having the weight of the rental office off me. It occurred to me that I was enabling Delia and maybe I had my own reasons. But seeing Kimberly standing helpless and not wanting those keys handed back to her brought me back to my place of origin. I could not lay my life on her shoulders while Delia lolled upstairs drinking Braden’s beer and propping her feet on my sofa. For whatever reason I had taken her under my care, it was time I drove her home to take care of her own problems. I could hear a noise overhead, loud bass and the sound of dancing.

  Kimberly looked up and said, “She sounds as if she’s coming out of her funk.”

  I handed her back the phone messages. “If you’ll work for me for a few more days, I’ll make it up to you.”

  “Paid vacation?” She knew better. Leasing agents have no benefits.

  “I’ll talk you up to Weymouth,” I said. I went upstairs. The door was ajar. Delia was sitting on the sofa, her face in a pillow. Braden’s stereo blasted at the highest volume. I walked across the room muttering. The door closed behind me. A white guy wearing a green Elvis shirt was holding a pistol. He looked beaten around the eyes. Delia’s face was red as if she had been struck.

  I was made to sit by Delia on the sofa. Knowing the guy would most likely hit me too, I told him, “If you don’t turn down the music, you’ll have an irate rental agent knocking on our door. We’re right over her head.”

  Mr. Elvis Shirt used the butt of his pistol to turn off the stereo.

  “My husband paid good money, so watch you don’t break it,” I said as nicely as I could.

  Delia moaned.

  I pulled her hair away from her face. She needed a shampoo.

  He turned his pistol on me. “Fork over the jewelry.” He wanted the wedding rings.

  I covered my hands.

  Elvis Shirt was of the same make and model of guys Delia dated from high school up. He could have passed for husband number two or a boyfriend from the Raw Bar. He waved the gun around like he had gotten thug lessons from TV. But guys like him leave behind the isolation of the picked-on boys and become the men who knock over your neighbor’s gas station. They pull the trigger because they’re afraid; it doesn’t mean they intended to kill you—no more than they intended to flunk algebra.

  I handed him the rings.

  Delia slumped back against the sofa saying, “Her mother-in-law gave that wedding band to her. It’s like a family heirloom or some such.”

  He looked at me and said, “It’s payment for what your old man owes me from the last time.” He walked into the kitchen but leaned over the countertop, keeping his gun on us through the pass-through. He slid both rings onto his pinky finger. When he stooped down, his bald head reflected the counter light. He made a phone call, but he spoke in pronouns so we could not identify any names. His eyes twitched nervously.

  “How did he get in?” I whispered to Delia.

  “I heard a knock at the door. I thought you’d locked yourself out,” she said. “He rammed me knocking me onto the floor. Then he turned up the stereo to cover up my yelling.” She started crying. “He kicked me good, in my face and my ribs.” She kept touching the red spot over her right cheek and then jerking away.

  “Did he mention Sophie?”

  “He kept saying her name as he was kicking me.” She sneered. “Son of a gun wears steel-toed boots.” She jeered at Mr. Elvis Shirt. “I hate you, pig!”

  He scratched his head. He kept tapping his thigh, like his mind was racing. He sat down to the plate of pot roast Delia had made for me.

  “See, what did I say? You’re a pig!” said Delia.

  I squeezed her leg.

  He picked up his gun, tapping the trigger, antsy like an execution shooter.

  I changed the subject before Mr. Elvis Shirt could shoot Delia and then me. “She’s not right, you know,” I told him.

  “Don’t tell him nothing about me!” said Delia. “He don’t deserve to know.”

  I gave her a look.

  “Hmmph!” She turned away.

  I thought it might be helpful to appeal to his logical side. “I’m not kidding. My sister has to have a lot of care. When she shot Sophie, it was no different to her than shooting a deer.”

  He was shoveling the food in hurriedly.

  “You kill Delia, and it won’t be any different than killing a retarded person,” I said.

  “Liar!” said Delia. “Stop it!”

  “You ought to keep her locked up then,” he said.

  “I ain’t afraid of you!” said Delia. “My brother-in-law, Braden, he knows people. He has pull. He’ll have you hunted down.”

  No amount of arm tapping or leg squeezing could stop Delia.

  He ate my lunch, licking his fingers one after another, ritualistically. “Is that the guy who I shot this morning?” he asked. “I was wondering what to call him.”

  My ears were so full of air pressure I thought my head would thunder. I tried to read the way he emoted, the squints around the eyes. “Braden’s not home,” I said so weakly that it showed on my face. “That’s not possible.” My cheek twitched, and my mouth went dry. I was feeling sick. Braden had not called me all morning. If this hit man was telling the truth, I was at fault for my husband’s death. I was sucking breaths when I said, “My husbands flown out of state.” Then I sobbed, “You tell me you’re lying this instant!”

  “That’s what I needed to know,” he laughed. “You two are alone.”

  Delia coughed.

  I rested my head against the sofa back. It was odd, the feelings that bobbed up for Braden right at that moment. I cried until he pointed his pistol again, telling me, “Pipe down, pretty face.” He finished off my sister’s Yuengling and then pilfered a second bottle out of the refrigerator. “You’re not like little sister, are you?” he asked me. A tender quality came over him.

  If I answered, I’d mak
e Delia mad, and she was too pitiful looking for that.

  “She got all the guts, but you got the brains,” he said. “Maybe I’ll do you last.”

  “No one’s ever said that,” I lied, but it was a good stall. It engaged him.

  “Pffft!” said Delia.

  “I guess you knew that you got the brains,” he said.

  “Mmm.”

  “You got to tell yourself the good you see in yourself. My old man never said nothing good about me,” he told me. “Family will judge you. You got to listen to the voice inside you that tells you who you are.”

  “What’s yours tell you?” I asked.

  Delia turned and stretched her legs out over my lap. She laid her head against the sofa back and sighed, as if she couldn’t believe I was talking to Mr. Elvis Shirt.

  He calmed a bit, looking less anxious and not as insecure. “Grady is smart. I’m a good money manager. I’m saving up to buy a little house down in Meh-hee-co. I’ll find a fat woman to keep me warm.”

  “Why fat?” I asked.

  “Good cook.” He got up and paced the length of the kitchen’s galley.

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  “You’re a good cook too,” he said. “Best pot roast I’ve ever had.”

  Delia and I looked at his empty plate. “I didn’t cook it. I don’t know who did,” I said. “I’ve been gone, if you’ll remember.”

  “Your husband then?” He was trying to read me or Delia. Finally he laughed. “Your old man’s found someone else to cook for him. Nice. Nice.”

  “It could be our neighbor. She’s a good cook and is like a mother to all of the tenants,” I said. Delia was still touching her cheek. “You didn’t have to hit Delia. She’s not like you think, dangerous.” I didn’t know how to explain Delia to a hit man.

  Delia sat forward. “There’s a spider coming down on your head, mister, and I hope it bites the crap out of you,” she said.

  His hand tightened around the pistol handle.