Multiple Listings

by Tracy McMillan

  “You’re in jail.”

  “I see that.” He stands up and goes over to the bars. “Hey! Hey! Somebody! Hey!”

  Nobody comes.

  He looks at me, because I seem like I know what’s going on around here. “They’ll be back around eventually,” I say. “Maybe just have a seat.” I pat the cot next to me, not in a threatening way. Not a lot of dudes in County are willing to share a seat with you, but this guy doesn’t know that. Probably his first time and he can’t tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy. He shakes his head and sits back down on the dry pee river and buries his head in his hands. He might even be crying.

  “Sorry, man,” I say. “You and me both.” He doesn’t even look up at me.

  I know how he feels. Time stops when you sit in a jail cell like this. Days turn into nights turn into days. You fall into a sort of animal state of poised alertness, where you imagine—expect?—something will happen at any moment. A fantasy place where you hope against hope that someone, anyone, will magically appear to get you out of here. My mind goes to the most far-fetched possibilities. If Nicki won’t come, maybe Melissa? Peaches? Alex? Cody?

  This must be how Nicki felt as a child, waiting for me—Someone! Anyone!—to come home.

  Here’s what will happen to me: at some point a court-appointed lawyer will show up to go over my options. It won’t happen very quickly. Since I didn’t murder anyone or commit some other high-priority crime, I could sit here weeks. If I can’t find someone to bail me out, or sort out the parole violation with Melissa, I’ll probably be forced to go back to Sheridan to do the rest of my time.

  But there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about that right now.

  So I sit.

  Meditating on what’s happening.

  Which is not much.

  Mostly, I think about things. Life. There’s this spiritual idea in the Bible—actually, all religions come to it sooner or later—that your life, and the people, places, and things in it—is a reflection of whatever you believe. Whatever you hold to be the deepest, truest thing about life—that’s what will manifest in your life. It took me a long time to understand this. I thought the Bible was telling me that everything that happens to me is my fault. That if my life is shit, it’s because I wasn’t a good Christian. I “created” my life, right? So God must hate me, probably because I did things wrong, like sell drugs and masturbate. But once I went a few trips around the sun in prison, I started to get it. I didn’t end up in jail because of bad circumstances, bad timing, or bad breaks. No one was against me. I ended up in jail because I made the choices you make when you believe what I believed.

  And I believed I was bad.

  I’m not even sure exactly how. I was just bad somehow. Some invisible way that I could never quite put my finger on, but women were always trying to point out.

  Maybe you can’t go home again. Maybe seventeen years is too long to be away and have anyone remember you, love you, want you. Maybe they never wanted you in the first place. Maybe the people who invented three-strikes laws were right: once you’re a criminal long enough, you’ll always be a criminal.

  It doesn’t matter that I didn’t commit a crime this time. My crime is being a criminal now.

  The fact that I’m sitting here means at some level I still believe I am alone and always will be. The question now is: am I willing to change that belief?

  24

  * * *

  NICKI

  The glow of Thanksgiving didn’t last very long. On Sunday, Peaches canceled our mani-pedi date. She said she was hungover, which is hardly a reason to cancel. She’s always hungover. That doesn’t ever stop her from getting a mani-pedi. In fact, getting her nails done is usually the cure for a hangover. Then, later that night I called her, but she didn’t pick up. Also weird. When she didn’t return my calls or my texts on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday I started thinking she was lying in a ditch somewhere, having finally succumbed to her bad driving or choices in men or both. So today I finally went to her work and cornered her. I guess I sort of knew something was wrong. Though I never in a million years would have guessed what.

  “Are you okay?” We’re standing in the little waitress station off the main dining room of the restaurant where she works. She’s making a side salad, sprinkling croutons and ladling Italian dressing on it.

  “I’m fine,” she says. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you canceled on Sunday and you haven’t responded to me for days?”

  “So?” Peaches can be difficult, but usually it’s I’m-in-your-face-about-your-new-boyfriend difficult, not I’m-saying-nothing’s-wrong-when-it-­obviously-is difficult. “Do I have to answer to you for everything? I swear, you want me on some kind of leash.”

  “Peaches.” I have no idea where this tone of voice is coming from. “It’s been a week.”

  “Nicki,” she says, “it’s not that long.”

  Now she’s mocking me. I feel a little lump in my throat. I don’t know why this is making me want to cry, but it is. “Are you serious? You’re going to mock me right now?”

  “I’m fine,” she says. She practically slams a bottle of ketchup onto her tray. “I’m not sure why you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Probably because you’re not acting fine.”

  “Will you hand me that mustard?” I’m annoyed that she’s asking this, but I do it anyway. She grabs it from me. “Why do you have to sweat me all the time?”

  “Peaches, what’s going on? Are you mad at me?”

  “Why, should I be?”

  She drops a fork and picks it up and puts it on the tray anyway.

  “Obviously something’s wrong. Tell me what it is.”

  “I’m working, Nicki.” She scoops up the tray. “I’ll call you later.” She pushes the flap doors open and walks out into the restaurant, leaving me standing there.

  I follow her out onto the floor. “Peaches!” I’m whispering loudly. “Stop!”

  She ignores me as she goes to her table and puts down the side salads, the drinks, and the ketchup and mustard. The customers look at me like I’m crazy. “She’s training me,” I say. “It’s my first day.”

  Peaches pretends like I’m not even there and heads back for the kitchen. I struggle to keep up. The moment we are out of the main room, Peaches hisses at me. “Leave me alone!”

  “No, Peaches. I won’t. What’s going on?” Somehow I’m getting the idea that whatever’s happening, I need to know what it is immediately. Peaches has never acted like this in the history of our relationship. Ever.

  “Okay, fine. There’s something going on, but”—she looks at me dead serious—“I can’t tell you.”

  I drop my shoulders, relieved that I’m not insane. I was really starting to worry there. “You can tell me anything! You know that you can.”

  “Not this.” She turns her back to me. “Now, please stop asking. I have to work.”

  All I can think is that she’s pregnant or someone died. But both of those she could tell me.

  “Are you pregnant?” I say.

  “Please, Nicki.”

  “You tell me everything!”

  “I know.” She looks terrible. “That’s why if you keep pressing me, I’ll probably tell you.”

  “So, tell me.”

  “This is different.”

  “Peaches, I’m worried about you. Whatever it is, it’s a bad idea to keep it bottled up. This is how people get cancer.” I don’t know why I just said that. It’s clearly not scientific, but a part of me still thinks it’s true. Anyway, it was just one last gasp trying to get her to tell me whatever it is that she won’t tell me.

  She pulls her hair out of her eyes and lifts her head. She wants to tell me, I see that. Peaches has a lot of faults, but keeping secrets isn’t one of them. What you see is what you get. “Are you sure?” />
  “Of course, I’m sure. You can tell me absolutely anything.”

  “And you won’t get mad?”

  “I won’t get mad.”

  “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “Do what?” I prompt her the way I used to have to prompt Cody when he had to admit he was the one who broke the lamp or the cup or whatever. “You didn’t mean to do what?”

  She starts to cry. Big tears, of a variety I have never, in all these years, seen her cry.

  “What?”

  “Nicki, I slept with your dad.”

  I didn’t see that coming. Not at all.

  * * *

  The day is going from bad to worse, if that’s possible. I was supposed to go to the restaurant after stopping by Peaches’s work, but I’m sick to my stomach and I had to come home and get in bed. I can only think about one utterly bad life decision at a time. And right now it’s Ronnie’s. Or maybe it’s mine, for letting Ronnie into my life again.

  Of course he fucked my friend.

  I should have known when I let him move in here that something like this would happen. This is who he is: a person who is so self-centered, so narcissistic, so unable to think about anyone but himself that he’ll just mow down whoever gets in his way. He doesn’t care about me, Cody, or even Peaches. He just cares about knowing he can have power over some dumb woman who needs to know she can have power over him.

  They both disgust me.

  He’s at work right now, so I have the next three hours to figure out how I’m going to tell him I know what he did. Thinking back on the last week—I had no idea anything was amiss. That’s how messed up he is, that he can do something so wrong and then just act like everything’s fine! He can go out with me and Cody and get pizza after the doctor’s office and make breakfast and lunch and do laundry—all as though he didn’t just betray me in the grossest possible way.

  Obviously I’m going to kick him out. But I’m not going to call him to tell him that. I’ll just wait until he gets home from work. It needs to happen face-to-face.

  Speaking of which, how am I going to tell Alex? This is such a mess. What am I supposed to do, ask Alex to fire Ronnie? I can just see me going to my new boyfriend of a month and saying you know that awesome thing you did for me because you’re amazing? Well, now I need you to undo it because I have god-awful family baggage and I’m virtually radioactive as a result. Don’t even think of wanting to be in a relationship with me because this is what you’re going to get more of.

  I’m untouchable.

  I was so stupid to think maybe the war was over. To think that maybe I was going to get to be a normal person with a kid, a dad, a boyfriend, a job, a business, a house. And now it’s all gone, of course. Because that’s me: Nicki Daniels, the girl with the smelly plastic shoes.

  I pick up the remote control and am about to click on the DVR—quick, get me some House Hunters International—when the landline rings. Normally, I wouldn’t even answer that phone, but I haven’t heard from Cody all afternoon, and sometimes he’ll call me there if my phone dies, which it did, so I pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  There’s a beat, and a familiar pause that I recognize from some faraway place in my mind, like a face that is hard to place. I’ve heard this before, where do I know this from? I’ve heard this before, where do I know this from? I’m running through the options in my mind when the voice begins:

  “This call is from the Multnomah County Jail. You will not be charged for this call. This call is from . . . ‘Ronnie.’ To accept this call, press five. To decline this call press—”

  Fuck him. I decline.

  An hour later, Alex comes over and tells me the whole story, or what he knows of it. Ronnie was at work when two guys showed up and put him under arrest, apparently on a parole violation. Even though Ronnie’s embarrassed him at his job, Alex has brought flowers, and is offering to bail Ronnie out of jail. That’s how awesome he is, even when I don’t really deserve it.

  “I’m so sorry, Nicki,” he says.

  “I should be saying I’m sorry to you,” I say. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  Alex tells me it’s not my fault, and chances are it’s probably not Ronnie’s fault, either. He’s so sweet and trusting. I shake my head and snort cynical laughter.

  “You don’t know my dad, Alex. He’s probably guilty as shit.”

  Alex looks stunned, his expression a mixture of disbelief that my dad is guilty, and fear that I sound so unforgiving.

  “Wait a minute, now,” Alex says. He’s trying to slow me down; you know, maybe there’s some kind of mistake. “You don’t know that.”

  “Really? Really, Alex?” I sound scary now. “I kind of do know that. Every time you give him a chance, he fucks it up. That’s what he does. And now he’s doing it again.”

  “Nicki, calm down.”

  He doesn’t mean for this to come out patronizing, but that’s how I take it, because I’m furious. Furious that my dad would do something like this, again. That he would not only drag me through it, again. But that he would drag Cody through it, too. Not to mention Alex.

  “I will not calm down, Alex,” I say. I’m angry now. “You have no idea.”

  Alex backs down. “You’re right, I don’t.”

  “I’m pissed. You did something nice for him and what does he go and do? He totally takes advantage!” My chest is heaving and I feel sick that Alex is seeing me like this, but I can’t control it. I feel so unworthy of such a good person. “This is who I am, Alex. I’m a messy, fucked-up chick from a terrible background and this is how it is. This is why I date losers who bail on me out of the blue—because I’m not worth being with a nice guy. I’m just going to bring you down and make you look bad at work, and be a burden to you.”

  “Nicki!” He sounds genuinely shocked. “That’s not true!”

  “It’s okay, you can go now. I’m giving you an out,” I say. I can hear that I sound insane, but I also believe what I’m saying. This is the truth about me. I might have it all together on the outside, but if you get too close, you’re going to discover who I really am. And who I really am is a girl from the wrong side of town, passing as a normal person who grew up in an upscale suburb. “You don’t have to get involved with me. You can get out now, while there’s still time.”

  Alex drops his head. “Nicki, no,” he says. He looks seriously hurt, as if I’m rejecting him. “You’re not going to get rid of me that easy.”

  “Go, Alex.”

  He just sits there.

  “Alex, go! Please.”

  I can’t stand to see myself in his eyes. It makes me feel so small and so ashamed.

  “Okay, I’ll go,” he says, getting up. He grabs his car keys off the coffee table. He doesn’t seem angry, just confused and hurt. “But you’re not going to get rid of me that easy.”

  I watch as he walks toward the door, giving me one last meaningful glance before he closes it behind him. I hear his footsteps go down the wooden stairs, and I’m relieved.

  I’m also nauseous.

  * * *

  I spend the whole next day in a whirlwind. Nothing like a crisis to make me triple my productivity. I do four appraisals, tear through a massive pile of paperwork, do two loads of laundry, and grocery shop, all before Cody gets home from school. All this activity does the job of pushing the drama with my dad to the background, where I almost can’t see it or feel it. I say almost, because it’s still there, draining my energy like a data-sucking application you leave open on your phone. And you wonder why you’re at 14 percent battery and it’s only 3 p.m.

  I’m still livid at Ronnie. I was just starting to trust him and now, bam! He’s back in jail. This is the worst-case scenario.

  I’m mad at myself, too, for making Alex leave last night. I woke up this morning going, What did I just do? Now I haven’t heard from
him all day and I’m blaming myself. I was stupid to take my frustration and anger with my dad out on him. Alex is a good guy. He’s better than good, he’s amazing. And now he thinks I’m not speaking to him.

  Also, I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Peaches. She is the only person I could really talk to about what is happening right now. No one else would understand. I feel betrayed by my dad. It feels something like getting fired from a job, finding out a boyfriend is cheating, crashing your car, and getting an F on a test—all rolled into one.

  At least I’m not missing Jake. So that’s something.

  I can’t bring myself to tell Cody what’s going on, either. This is exactly why I never wanted him to know my dad. Because this is what my dad does. He gets you to love him, then he leaves you. Right when you least expect it. I want to kill my dad for doing this again. First to me, and now to my son.

  Except for how much I got done today, this really, really sucks.

  * * *

  At dinnertime, the phone rings again. This time Cody picks it up before I have a chance to stop him. Instantly, I know it’s Ronnie again—I can tell from the blank look on Cody’s face that he is listening to the lady with the automated voice:

  This call is from the Multnomah County Jail. You will not be charged for this call.

  “Hang it up,” I say from across the room. “Cody.” This is not how I want him to find out that Ronnie’s in jail again. But I can already see that it’s too late.

  Cody looks up at me, but doesn’t move.

  This call is from—

  I grew up with that recording. I know every second of that recording. That recording framed every major moment of my life with my father: my first starring role in a school play, my first period, my first kiss. And now my son has to hear it.

  An inmate at—

  “Hang it up!” I say again, louder this time. Too loud.

  But Cody doesn’t hang it up. He presses five. God, no, please. Then he starts talking.