by Tawni O'Dell
This one is pale, soft, blemish- and wrinkle-free. It’s even hard to make out her knuckles. The nails are almond-shaped and painted in a high-gloss burgundy. Not a smudge or a chip or a scratch on them.
“Pamela,” she says, then thinks to add, “Jameson.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Jameson.”
She smiles. I knew she’d like that. Her lips are painted the same exact color as her nails and they’re equally flawless. Remarkable.
“It’s Mrs. Jameson,” she corrects me.
“I’m sorry. I’m here to change your flat tire if you’d like me to.”
“He said he was going to send a mechanic who used to be a police officer so I could trust him.”
“That would be me. Except I’m not a him and I’m not a mechanic. I run a cab company.”
I hand her one of my business cards.
“But I’m perfectly capable of changing a flat tire,” I go on. “And I used to be a police officer so you can trust me.”
“Well,” she says slowly. “I suppose if the deputy sent you.”
She suddenly holds up one index finger to keep me silent as she finishes her phone call. When she’s done, she smiles again and tells me, “That was my sister-in-law. My niece just earned her anti-stress badge in Girl Scouts.”
“Anti-stress badge?” I wonder. “Are you serious? How do you earn it?”
“Different activities. They keep a feelings diary. They learn how to give foot massages. They visit a spa. They practice breathing exercises.”
“How old are these girls?”
“Between ten and twelve. You’d be amazed at the amount of stress they’re already under at that age.”
“Like the stress of having to earn an anti-stress badge?”
She doesn’t say anything.
I continue standing there while she continues to sit in the car.
“It would be easier for me if you get out of the car,” I finally explain to her. “And you’ll need to turn off the engine.”
“Oh,” she says.
I watch her crawl down out of her cockpit. She’s wearing a sleeveless, silk blend, mock turtleneck, a pair of white Capri pants, and leather flats that match her top exactly. The tunic and shoes are a blue-green, but I’m sure she’d call the color Lagoon or Waterfall. The matching cardigan lies neatly across the backseat.
“How do you know the deputy?” she asks me. “Did you used to work together?”
I’d put her age around mine. She could easily pass for ten years younger if I only look at the skin on her face, but she has a forty-year-old neck and like all women, no matter how well their outsides have been maintained, her true age shows in her eyes and movements.
She seems to know what I’m thinking and she reaches back into her car for a pair of white Ray-Bans and slips them on beneath the bill of her little cap.
“Not exactly. We’re old friends,” I answer. “We go way back.”
“He was attractive. I was surprised.”
“Why’s that?”
“Oh, you know the stereotype of the country sheriff and his deputies: fat, stupid, bumbling, bad teeth.” She tries to scrunch up her face in disgust but amazingly, nothing moves on it except for her lips, which purse slightly, and her nostrils, which flare. “And they chew tobacco.”
I nod.
“I suppose where you come from all the cops look like Brad Pitt.”
“We do have a fairly good-looking police force.”
“Where are you from?”
“A town in Connecticut. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”
“I’m flattered that you assume I’ve heard of Connecticut,” I say.
I turn my back on her and start walking toward the flattened groundhog.
I’m really pissed at my son right now.
She follows along behind me, but stops well away from the carcass.
Apparently, removing the dead groundhog from the road was also beneath an officer of the law.
“Why are they called groundhogs?” she asks me. “They don’t look like hogs. Are they actually related to hogs?”
“No,” I say, heading back to her SUV. “But they do live in the ground.”
“Do you think they feel pain?”
“I would imagine so.”
“But they’re not intelligent?”
I give her a blank look.
“Say as intelligent as a schnauzer, for instance?”
“I’ve never spent any time around a schnauzer, so I wouldn’t know. Can you show me where your spare tire and jack are?”
She gives me a blank look.
“Never mind.”
I find what I need and set about changing her tire.
She hovers over me while I jack up the front of her car.
“Did you take a class?” I hear her ask.
“Pardon me?”
“To learn how to change a tire? Did you take a class?”
This is one of those questions where I believe if a person feels compelled to ask it, he or she is not going to understand the answer.
“No,” I say.
“Why are you no longer a police officer?”
I lean into the lug wrench with all my weight to loosen the hubcap nuts.
“Mrs. Jameson,” I say through gritted teeth, “I’m kind of busy here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I talk too much when I’m nervous. I’ve been meaning to discuss it with my doctor. I believe there’s a pill on the market now that can get rid of the problem.”
“Yeah. Cyanide,” I say under my breath.
It’s a hot day, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had to change a tire. Plus every inch of my body aches from my brawl with Choker. I can feel sweat beading along my hairline and between my breasts.
The woman continues to prattle on above me despite her earlier apology for doing so. I can tell she’s pacing back and forth behind me by watching her shadow move back and forth across the doors of her car.
I decide if I can’t beat her, I’ll join her, but I’m taking control of the conversation. This is the second wealthy out-of-towner to show up in Jolly Mount today, and I’d like to know why.
“So what brings you to rural Pennsylvania from a town in Connecticut that I’ve probably never heard of?” I ask when there’s a break in her monologue.
“I’m meeting someone in a town called Centresburg. Do you know it?”
“Yes, I do. It’s about thirty miles south of here.”
I get up from my crouch to get the spare tire.
“Actually, I’m not exactly meeting her. I’m trapping her.”
“Trapping her?” I almost laugh. “What did she do?”
“She stole my baby.”
The seriousness of the words stop me in my tracks. I lean the tire against the car.
“Someone kidnapped your child?” I ask her.
“Something like that.”
“Isn’t that something the police should be handling?”
“No, no. It’s very important that I don’t involve the police. That’s why I didn’t tell the deputy, even though it occurred to me that he might be helpful since he knows a lot of people around here. You’re not going to tell the police, are you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s none of my business.”
I don’t know what else to say to her. I can’t read her eyes, since they’re safely concealed behind sunglasses and I can’t read her face, since it’s no longer capable of showing any emotion.
“Maybe you could help me?” she says suddenly. “Do you know a woman who lives around here named Jamie Ruddock?”
The name gives me a start. Shannon rode the school bus with a girl named Jamie Ruddock. If I remember correctly, they hated each other. They were both kicked off the bus for awhile after they got into a fight in the middle of the aisle and the driver had to pull over and separate them. Shannon never did give me a good explanation for their animosity. Only that Jamie Ruddock thought she was better than us, and I understood th
at reason.
“Jamie Ruddock stole your baby?” I ask her.
“Do you know her?”
“I know a Jamie Ruddock, only she’s Jamie Wetzler now. She’s married with four kids of her own. Lives in a double-wide near Jolly Mount, and I’m willing to bet she’s never been to Connecticut. I doubt she’s ever been farther than the mall.”
Pamela Jameson considers this information, then walks back to her car and returns with a photograph. She hands it to me.
My heart starts pounding heavily in my chest exactly the way it did when I heard Gerald Kozlowski say Shannon’s name.
I haven’t seen her since she was sixteen but the face is exactly the same. Maybe a little fuller. The eyes are mine. The smirk is hers. In her teens she wore her shoulder-length hair chopped up in a feathered cut like 90 percent of the other girls and inflicted so many boxed highlights on it, it was difficult to tell its true color. Now it’s all one length and a shiny natural chestnut. In the photo she has it skinned back from her face with a headband.
“Is that Jamie Ruddock?” I hear Pamela ask me.
“No.” I shake my head. “Do you know this woman?” I ask her.
“I know her very well. Or at least I thought I did.”
“You say she’s in Centresburg?”
“Maybe. Do you know her?”
Once again, my gut tells me to lie.
“No,” I reply.
I stare at the photo again.
Shannon’s standing on a city street holding a big Macy’s shopping bag. She’s wearing a coat, and a pair of red cowboy boots peek out from the cuffs of her jeans.
“This is the woman who stole your baby?” I ask, holding out the photo of my sister.
“Yes.”
“When are you trapping her?”
She takes the picture back from me.
“I think maybe I’ve said too much.”
She walks away from me and doesn’t return. I finish changing the tire amidst welcome external silence while my brain is filled with the clanging of a hundred unanswered questions about my little sister.
When I’m done, I assume I’m going to be offered some money and I decide to just take whatever she gives me.
I watch her get back in the SUV and turn on the engine, then I realize she’s about to leave.
I walk over to her window and stand there like an idiot. She rolls it down. The air-conditioning is already blasting.
“Yes?” she says.
This is one of those situations where I don’t like being a woman. A man does a job and he expects to get paid for it; a woman does a job and she feels like she should say thank you for being allowed to do it.
“That took an hour of my time, not to mention the time it took to drive out here.” I show her the filth on the palms of my hands. “And it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do on a Saturday afternoon.”
“Oh, I see. You expect to get paid? Well, of course. I’m sorry. I thought you were just doing a good deed. I thought country people were friendly.”
“We are. That’s why I haven’t knocked you unconscious and stolen your wallet and your car the way a city person would.”
She smiles and reaches into her purse.
“Fifty,” I tell her.
She could easily afford two hundred but I know if left to her own discretion, she’s going to give me a twenty.
I pull up the bottom of my shirt and wipe the sweat off my face, then tie it up into a knot below my bra.
I look up and find her holding out fifty dollars to me while staring at my midriff.
“Did you get that in the line of duty?” she asks me.
I follow her gaze to the ragged shiny pink scar on my left side.
“Yes,” I tell her. “In the line of duty.”
I’m not lying. It’s the place where my dad hit me with the claw end of a hammer when I told him I was going to keep my baby.
We all have our own definitions of duty.
Chapter Five
MY HOUSE IS A HOMELY HOME. The barn-red paint job is peeling, and the front porch sags alarmingly. It sits about forty feet from the road and is surrounded by so many trees, including two unruly willows that are twice its height, that it’s very difficult to see and if somebody does catch a glimpse of it they usually think it’s an abandoned outbuilding belonging to a nearby farm.
The interior consists of two bedrooms, one bath, and a large living room area that extends into a roomy eat-in kitchen.
I don’t need much square footage, since I’m only one person and don’t plan to become more than one, but I do need a lot of space and that’s why I love my house. Even though it’s relatively small, it has high ceilings and few walls and hardwood floors. Anything that muffles sound makes me claustrophobic.
As I near my driveway, I’m surprised to see Gimp sitting at the end of it. I could’ve sworn I left him inside with the door closed this morning.
“Hey, boy,” I call out my window.
He raises his gray muzzle and fixes his copper eyes on mine while slowly swishing his tail back and forth across the gravel.
I got him from a farm twelve years ago when I started working for the Centresburg police and moved back to Jolly Mount.
I called ahead so the farmer knew I was coming. E.J. came with me. We parked near the barn and sat in the car waiting for him. The next thing we knew a German shepherd mutt—who turned out to be the mother of the litter—came loping toward us on three legs. We’d find out later she’d been hit by a car. A few minutes after that a three-legged black Lab appeared. He’d been caught in a thresher.
E.J. turned to me and said, “If the farmer comes out on one leg, we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Afterward, Gimp was the only name we could come up with for the puppy.
He doesn’t look particularly anxious to get up and walk back down the driveway.
“Give me a break,” I tell him but I go ahead and let the lazy mutt in and give him a lift.
There’s a car I’ve never seen before parked in front of my house. It has a New Mexico license plate.
Gimp won’t get out of the car. I have to pick him up and set him back on the ground.
“Have I complimented you lately on your guard dog skills?” I ask him.
At that moment, my front door creaks open and a face peers out.
I head toward her, walking at first, then I’m running.
She meets me on the porch.
I kiss her and touch her hair and nuzzle her neck to see if she still smells like my kin.
I try to hold her, but it’s not easy to do since she looks to be about nine months pregnant.
Chapter Six
I’M COOKING DINNER. I keep glancing back and forth between the dried beef I’m sizzling in a frying pan with butter, and the extremely pregnant stranger sitting at my table who was my skinny teenaged sister the last time I saw her. Each time I look in her direction, I expect her to be gone.
“I’m really sorry about this,” I say, gesturing at the frying pan with my wooden spoon. “I have no food in the house. Nothing. I really need to get to the grocery store.”
“It’s okay,” she says.
I look over at her toying with the stem of her wineglass. She has her feet propped up and her head tilted back with her eyes closed and her hands resting calmly on the hill of her belly.
I’ve noticed that she’s carrying low for a first baby, and she moves fairly carelessly for a first-time mother. No walking on eggshells. No lowering and raising herself in and out of chairs with infinite patience. No cradling or stroking her stomach.
“I haven’t had creamed dried beef since we were kids. We practically lived on the stuff. Remember?”
She smiles at the memory. To me it’s not a good memory. It reminds me of how poor we were and how the cooking duties in our household fell to me, a child.
I may never have earned an anti-stress badge but by the time I was the age of Pamela Jameson’s niece, I could make a dinner for two chi
ldren and a 200-pound coal miner out of a loaf of Wonder bread, a can of green beans, and some leftover gravy.
“Yeah, I remember,” I say.
“What was it Lib said they called it in the army? Shit on a shingle?” she laughs.
I laugh, too, but I’m not feeling merry. I want to remind her how much she used to hate creamed dried beef, but I don’t.
Something’s not right with Shannon. During the hour or so she’s been here she’s chatted happily about our childhood, sugarcoating our lives and our relationship with our father in a hyper-sentimental way usually reserved for bad TV movies about country folk produced by people who’ve never set foot out of L.A. or New York City.
She even makes the occasional comment about someone outside our family who I’m amazed she can remember, like this reference to Lib who worked with our dad in Beverly back before he became boss of his own crew in Jojo. Shannon would only have known him from company picnics and the times he dropped Dad off at the house when he was too drunk to drive.
To hear her talk, hers was a swell life in a swell place that she remembers vividly and fondly, yet she ran away from all of it and stayed away for eighteen years.
I add some flour to the beef mixture, then the milk.
So far we’ve managed to completely avoid the topics of why she left, why she never came back, and why she never contacted me, but the questions sit in the room with us, taking up more space and more oxygen than either one of our physical bodies.
She did give me a brief account of her most recent life and the circumstances that brought her to my doorstep. According to her, she’s been living in a little town in New Mexico, another one of those towns I’ve probably never heard of. She had a fairly decent job working at a car rental place until they had to cut their staff in half and she was canned. She not only lost her income but also her health insurance.
That was four months ago. She hasn’t been able to find another job—who wants to hire a pregnant woman?—and she had to pay her bills with the little savings she had managed to put away to buy things for the baby. She lost her apartment, and she’s two months late on her car payments.
The father of the baby isn’t in the picture.
The combination of her dire circumstances and the emotional turmoil of being pregnant with her first child reduced her to a desperate, sentimental wreck, and she decided to drive cross-country into the arms of her big sister in her hour of need, in the hopes that I’d let bygones be bygones and take her in.
