by Lynne Hugo
“I want The Plan that will make Larry Ellis lose everything. Like I have.” Marvelle opened one eye to indicate Finally, something vaguely interesting.
“You haven’t lost everything. And you are not going to kill his family. Or him.” CarolSue, ever practical, ever literal.
“Spoilsport. Where are you right now?” I said. I always like to visualize that though I’ve been to her house just once, when she and Charles got married eight years ago. She’s been the one to do all the traveling, to come home.
“Sunroom, and no, he’s out messing with crap in the garage, bless his heart.”
I could picture her then, curled up on the overstuffed sofa in my favorite part of her house, where she’s got some of Mom’s and Grandma’s things: one of the cherry rockers, an end table, a braided rug Grandma made, and framed family pictures. The image was comforting. (I’m not so fond of CarolSue’s living room, elegant, formal, graceful lamps, art and drapes picked by a decorator as was the upholstered furniture in fabrics and colors so delicate a farm woman is uncomfortable sitting on them, even knowing full well she’s just showered and doesn’t even need to check her shoes because there’s no barnyard in a retirement community of fancy patio homes.)
I knew she’d be all put together, in slacks and a coordinating pressed blouse, because she’s always coordinated and pressed and wears nice shoes that don’t need polish or new heels like mine. Her eyes are hydrangea-blue, wide-spaced above high cheekbones that keep you from even noticing the normal lines around her mouth. CarolSue is two years older but looks five—sometimes ten—years younger than I do. She’s strong, stands straight, and gets her girls up high with a good bra. She hasn’t let herself get blousy with that rose-dropping-its-petals look that I’ve accidentally mastered. She’s a looker, thanks to having her teeth whitened and a real knack for eye makeup. She’s got fashion sense and can pull off that new kind of haircut that looks like a small animal chewed its way around the ends. Her hands are the oldest-looking part of her, though she polishes her nails and uses lotion morning and night.
“Okay,” I said. “Just checking. I don’t want to kill him. Well, yes I do. When can you come?”
“Louisa. Stop. Harold wasn’t intending to kill him. He could have done that. Killing him has bad idea written all over it. No. I say, first thing you’ve got to find out is what Larry Ellis really, really cares about.”
“Are you putting me off? Are you coming or not?”
“Well, of course I’ll come as soon as I can. I have a doctor’s appointment, I mean, Charlie has one. I do, too, actually. Let me get through those, and—”
“What’s wrong? What haven’t you told me? When’s your appointment?” I swung my feet to the floor and Marvelle stirred.
“Oh honey, it’s nothing. You know, the annual junk for me, next Wednesday afternoon. Charlie’s PSA was a little high. It’ll be fine.”
“Are you scared?”
“It’s just age,” she said, meaning no. It scared me, though.
“Yeah. Harold’s ran a little high, too. But you’ll tell me what’s going on, right?”
“Of course. But right now, you come first.”
8
Probably I was distracted by worry, but I didn’t focus right in on where CarolSue was headed when she said I had to find out what Larry Ellis really cares about.
I learned his name first from the newspaper the day after Cody was killed. No face then, of course. Someone saved the newspaper for me so I’d know about the arraignment for vehicular manslaughter and DUI. The judge let him post bond. I was so caught up with restraining Harold that I hardly noticed my own feelings. And later, as much as Harold was obsessed with Larry Ellis, I wanted no image of that man. I was hanging on to every mind picture of Cody, scared at how they were fading; I wouldn’t cede an iota of space to Larry Ellis.
I didn’t read the newspaper my teacher friend kept for me, and I shook my head and moved away when people talked about him. I was running scared about how to keep Cody’s toothy grin in my mind, the dark hair that he’d started to gel, the blue of his eyes. What was the exact color? Was it really the same as CarolSue’s, or had they leaned grey, influenced by the hazel of Nicole’s? I was frantic going through pictures, trying to find one that showed the precise color of his eyes. To think he’d been so embarrassed when his voice was changing—like a road full of potholes—and proud when there was enough hair on his face to shave. That erratic, splotchy new beard, and his eyebrows thickening up, too. He’d started to get some pimples. Boy and man converging in his physical being, past and future in the moment of confluence. But he’d not churned mean in that way of teenagers, not with us, anyway. Not that look of dissatisfaction or scorn. (Not at Harold or me, though Gary complained about back talk and attitude, and said, “Of course he’s not like that with you. You two don’t see that side of him.” I liked to think that we didn’t give him reason, but maybe that’s not fair. Nicole wouldn’t have told us if he gave her a hard time.) I replayed my memories of his face—the interested, warm, happy, grateful expressions I’d read and saved at the time, but oh, not savored and memorized well enough. Not enough. And what had his hands looked like exactly?
So while Harold laser-focused on Larry Ellis, I buried myself in remembering. We might as well have been in separate states. That’s why I didn’t have anything to go on when CarolSue said I needed to find out what Larry Ellis cares about. Harold would have known exactly. I didn’t even know what he looked like.
Sometimes you have to push yourself to do the very hard thing that part of you is determined to do and part of you has no faith you can accomplish. (Yes, that word should be difficult, as hard refers to a physical property, and I always insisted my students use language correctly, but oh! today it just felt so terribly hard.)
After my Sunday afternoon talk with CarolSue, I had a nice glass of sherry with Marvelle and the girls. Marvelle and I had seconds. She couldn’t finish hers so I did, not to waste it. We all talked over the steps I need to climb. (Or stumble up—Beth politely suggested that could happen. Yes, as you’ve probably noticed by now, I do talk to the girls when CarolSue isn’t available. Don’t you talk to your pets and don’t you think you know what they would say back? Try to remember that I’m really no different from you, except maybe more alone.) I wrote a list as we figured it out:
a. Look up what happened to Larry Ellis in court. I had never let anyone tell me, not really. I knew he’d basically gotten off. I couldn’t help but get the drift. Harold had been in the courtroom willing every word out of the prosecutor’s mouth, every word the judge should have said. He’d gone in breathing fire and been left cold and sooty until he started with his personal retribution schemes. But I didn’t want to hear about it, not any of it. I’ve said why. But because I’d stuck my fingers in my ears, I never did have notion number one about the man who took Cody’s life and then Harold’s. Or maybe it was Gus who took Harold’s, thwarting him the way he did. Or maybe it was I, who never helped him. But I digress. I’m not myself. I don’t know who I am, though. Once I was a teacher, even if I did have trouble sticking to the curriculum, which wasn’t challenging enough, and was considered mouthy by the administration. And once I was a mother and a grandmother and a farm wife. Now I’m none of those. I’ve been aimlessly looking for the point of my remaining life somewhere between the canned soup and the boxed macaroni and cheese in my cupboard. Once upon a time I cooked meals, you see, but I have no interest in that anymore.
Amy and JoJo both cluck at me to get on with The Plan. Knowing what happened in court isn’t a Plan, they coo.
b. Oh! I have it now: Look up Larry Ellis’s arrest record. That will give me his address, his age, and his picture. When I came up with this idea, JoJo positively sparkled with pride. She’d been behind the couch, so there was a bit of Glitter Jesus residue on her enhancing the impression, but I could tell from her excited flaps as she hopped onto her favorite wingback chair that she thought this was a dandy.
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c. Follow him. How else can I find out what he cares about? Marvelle opened one yellow-green eye when I came up with that, an idea so good it roused even her. If you secretly watch someone’s life, doesn’t he show you what he cares about whether he means to or not?
9
Brandon
Ever since Larry, his mother’s boyfriend, had killed a kid Brandon’s age, his mother had been crazy. For one, she’d cleaned out her savings to get him an expensive lawyer and pay his fines, even though that money was supposed to help Brandon go to the community college after he graduated. She’d always said it was for him, because his absentee father occasionally paid her off when she threatened to take him to court. Not only that, but the other way she went crazy was how she cried a lot about the kid who died, saying she felt so bad for his mother, who she found out was single, too. Her face would be all wet against Brandon’s and her arms around his neck, which was pretty uncomfortable, but he didn’t pull away because she couldn’t exactly cry on Larry right then. But it wasn’t like she knew the kid or his mother; they lived in another town. Still, if he let himself think about it, which was why he didn’t, Brandon couldn’t fathom himself being here one minute and wiped-out-dead the next because of some random guy. There was no point to it. Brandon thought about how his English teacher had suggested he read The Catcher in the Rye for his book review, and the part of the opinion he’d written was that Holden Caulfield was way too cynical, but now he thought that he’d been wrong. He heard the kid Larry killed had been a football player and Brandon was, like, so not one of those. But when you’re dead what difference does that make anyway?
His mother wanted to go to the dead kid’s funeral, to pay respects and tell the family sorry, sorry, sorry, but Larry’s attorney got wind of it and said absolutely not. That made his mother cry more. He said she couldn’t even send a card. Nothing.
Brandon figured it was obvious Larry had been drunk again; his mother even knew he’d failed the Breathalyzer, but Larry told her those were way off all the time and he’d swerved because he’d seen a deer in the road. Bullshit, Brandon thought. He didn’t say that to his mother. She was upset enough, and for a while didn’t want him leaving the house, not even over to Dudley’s, which was plain ridiculous. She was scared something random and pointless would happen to him, too, he guessed, even though Brandon was pretty sure it doesn’t work that way. It wasn’t like he and Dud were doing anything wrong. The dead kid hadn’t been doing anything wrong either, so maybe it didn’t much matter what you did. Dud had a PlayStation 3, which was still cool even though the PlayStation 4 had sixteen times the RAM. Brandon’s mother said, “I don’t like having you on the road, is all. Have him over here. You can order pizza.” Finally Dud’s mother called after Dud told her what was going on.
“Hey, LuAnn, my computer froze up again. Can I borrow Brandon to come fix it? Dudley doesn’t know what’s up this time.” The truth was that Dud could fix their computer just fine since it wasn’t frozen, but his mom was nice to do them a solid. Brandon’s mother had relented and that sort of broke the spell, though she wanted him to call when he got wherever he was going. That wasn’t so bad and he got his own cell phone out of it. Finally.
Larry was out of jail in three days. To hear him complain you’d have thought he’d been locked up for three years. Personally, Brandon would have been fine with it if Larry had been locked up forever—he deserved it. When she was rushing off to pay Larry’s bond, his mother said Larry was going to pay them back. “He owes me big-time, honey. He’ll be good to you, and you need a dad,” she said.
Two counts of bullshit, Brandon thought to himself. Never gonna happen, either one. For one thing, his mother had also told him it would be “helpful” if he’d get a job as soon as possible. “That way there’s more time to save for college,” she’d said, so Brandon knew he was right about the money. He didn’t say it out loud. He really tried not to upset her. She was always wanting him to spend time with Larry, be pals, do things together. She’d spent Brandon’s whole life trying to find him a dad, for God’s sake, a role in which Brandon could see Larry had zero interest. Not that Brandon wanted him in it. Personally, he didn’t like Larry. The guy had a mean edge his mother didn’t want to see. Larry wasn’t smart either, like he wouldn’t know a hard drive from a remote control but thought he knew everything.
Brandon didn’t mention any of these things to his mother after the beginning when he realized she needed him not to. It made him sad that she was sort of desperate and went for creeps. Like that time she said she’d tripped and fell right on her face. Whatever. Maybe. He didn’t know what to believe about the bruises but he had his suspicions, and if he ever knew for sure that Larry hit his mother, Brandon would kill him.
Brandon loved his mother. The noise from the master bedroom a lot of nights meant his mother liked Larry. A lot. Or needed him. And Brandon didn’t particularly want to move again. He’d been talking to a girl named Emily at school and now that he had a cell phone he could text her, which was cool because he could read what he was saying and think about it before he pushed send. It helped him avoid embarrassing himself by saying something stupid like he had in the cafeteria when Emily said she was going to the Girls’ Room.
If Larry actually made Brandon’s mother happy like she claimed, Brandon could deal with it.
10
Louisa
In Indiana, driving under the influence is a Class A misdemeanor. A first offense can result in up to a year in jail, up to a five-thousand-dollar fine, plus court costs and fees, and up to one year probation. A violator also gets a ninety-day license suspension. But that suspension can be for pleasure driving only if the violator has a decent attorney, one who gets it changed to one hundred eighty days of a probationary license for work, education, and probation purposes after the first thirty days of more serious inconvenience.
That’s all Larry Ellis was found guilty of. Not drunk and “causing serious bodily harm” (yes, I’d say dead would qualify as serious bodily harm), making it a Class C misdemeanor. Because he said there was a deer in his way, and he’d panicked and swerved—just a bit, but it was enough because Cody was walking with traffic instead of against it—that he hadn’t known what to do, “being more a city type,” as his lawyer put it.
I know about this because I paid in the courthouse for a recording of the trial. Oma was right about the necessity of a Plan. I just got up and went to the Dwayne County Courthouse and found someone to ask. A middle-aged woman whose roots needed touching up told me where to go. She was sitting in an office by herself and when she looked up she smiled at me, like it was fine to be asking for this information. The scarlet lipstick on her teeth made me feel strangely all right. I straightened my posture, hoisted my purse back up on my shoulder, and found the clerk’s office. There, a brown-haired girl with wire-rimmed glasses around eyes too much like Cody’s, blue and long-lashed, made the disc for me. She looked like she was sixteen herself, though she wore a small diamond on her left hand. (Take off those glasses! I wanted to beg her, and let me look at your eyes, but of course, I didn’t.)
I brought the disc home and listened after supper. Sherry and company helped; I propped the kitchen door open so the girls could come in or not as they pleased, and all three chose to be with me, making their soft noises in comfort as it progressed, and I wiped my eyes and face over and over. The defense lawyer was just smarter and faster than the prosecutor. There was a substitute judge in from Elmont because Judge Kane’s wife had died of cancer on the sixteenth of the month. He wasn’t expected back on the bench until March. I’d known Margie in high school. Even knew she was sick. Why hadn’t I sent a card?
“No wonder Harold lost his mind. Three days? Larry Ellis was sentenced to time served, three days? Probation? Who cares about probation? A hundred and eighty days of only driving to work and probation? Who cares? He probably has friends and a family to take care of the rest, if he even stuck to the restriction. A five-thousan
d-dollar fine? Bless someone’s heart, that helps out the Great State of Indiana, I guess, but doesn’t do a damn thing for Cody now, does it?” I ranted to CarolSue after twilight when I’d closed the girls into the coop for the night. I’d stayed to watch them head to the roost, as all chickens will do at the brink of darkness, their reliable and unfailing instinct to keep themselves safe. Oh my Cody, my Harold.
“A civil suit was the obvious thing to do,” CarolSue said gently. “You know, like Nicole Brown Simpson’s family after that O.J. travesty.”
I knew I must have gotten her out of bed. She was probably in her bright pink lounging pajamas, the ones with the matching zipper jacket. I imagined her pulling it on while she held the phone tucked between shoulder and ear, then switching it to the other side. She’d never tell me that, though. She’d lie and say she was still up and pad out to the family room in her fuzzy mules, switching on the ginger jar lamp that sits like a fat Buddha on the rattan table out there. She’d sit in the soft half-circle of amber light the lamp lays on the red loveseat.
“I’m really sorry to call so late,” I said. “You knew all this, I’m sure.”
“Yes. I asked and Harold told me.”
“Did you ask him about a civil suit, too? Oh, never mind. What’s that about but money? Does money bring Cody back? It’s too much like being paid for . . .”
“For all I know, he did.”
“File a suit?”
“I wouldn’t know. Harold mentioned it before he died.”
“You always say ‘before he died.’ Instead of ‘before he killed himself.’ ”
“I guess that’s how I think of it. That he just died after Cody did. And now you’re keeping yourself alive. Whatever it takes.”
“So you think Gary might have a suit going on? Or, I guess it might even be over? I haven’t seen anything about it in the paper. But then there’s probably been weeks and weeks I haven’t read the paper, if you want the truth. And I’d be the last person he’d tell. So much I don’t know, huh?”
