Lisa Djahed - Bee Stanis 01- The Foolish Stepmom

by Lisa Djahed

  I threw both girls bags on the front entry way just in time to usher Ben into the car. (I had packed each of their bags with a treatment of RID —I got it in a big pack at Sam’s Club— urging them to wash everything they touched and do a treatment before they came home.) I ended up driving because I knew he’d be too upset and would have rather stayed and fought it out. She screamed as we pulled rather hastily out of the drive. I hated that, their fighting, it meant they were still tied to each other, a tie I couldn’t touch. It is amazing to me how many threads of small bitterness I can taste in a single day.

  We got to the prison ahead of schedule, with Ben finally calmed down after the encounter with Ms. Hippy Bitch - for someone so “centered” in the universe she was certainly off her kilter.

  Ben sat at the table outside the little grey pre-fab trailer where the video hookups were for prisoner visitation and smoked. He always did that, chain smoked when something upset him. But I knew it wasn’t just Countess Von Stinker that was getting to him, he didn’t want to come here today. Not as much as I did. I needed to see Jesse and see his face and have him tell me he did not murder his dad. If I could see it and really believe it, then my heart would be settled. Not my head, because if not Jesse, then who, who could have fed Drano to a man and burned him from the inside out while he laid sedated from pills. Uugh it was too awful to fathom.

  We went in and signed in and were ushered to the waiting area while they fetched Jesse. There we sat with our fellow visitors, a lot of moms with small kids hanging off them, some older weary looking moms probably visiting their got too drunk and drove middle aged kids, the hooker girlfriends. It was a sad, dreary place with an odd institutional feel.

  Finally it was our turn.

  “Jesse, honey, how are you holding up” I said into the phone/video hook up. I could see him and see right away how upset he was. He looked so small and scared.

  “I didn’t do it, Bee, I swear didn’t do it,” and he cried, I mean sobbed into the phone. You could see the other inmates in his cell block area roaming around behind him and for him to be this vulnerable, in jail, just killed me.

  “It’s okay, Jess, it is okay. I believe you.” And I did, I just couldn’t imagine him harming his dad that way. As tears came to my eyes, I was grateful Ben nudged me to take a turn on the phone.

  “Jess, listen, you know this is recorded right, anything you say can be used at a future time, so be careful what you say, but we believe you didn’t do this. But we need to figure out who did. You need to focus with me kid, what happened that day, tell me everything.”

  “I can’t, I can’t really remember that much. Taylor came over and we got drunk, we had VSOP and we finished it, we were watching Cops and drinking. My dad was there, but was in the back computer room for a while, Pam came over for a bit and then left and then he went to take a nap. The thing is, I don’t remember cause I was drunk. I tried telling that to the cops but they didn’t believe me and didn’t test me for an hour after we got to the station. By that time I wasn’t lit at all. What am I going to do, Ben, Bee, what is going to happen?” And with that he started tearing again and I started tearing.

  Just then we heard the clerk yell out: “Visitor Two for Jones, Visitor One time up.”

  I got back on the video phone: “Jess, we have to go, call us, we’ll figure this out, just take it one step at a time, remember to pray, God can help you now more than you know, lean on him, okay.”

  As we were leaving we saw them, Taylor and her mom. Her mom looked like a squashed dirty version of the Pillsbury dough boy, with stringy long hair in a stylishly out of date sweat pant suit. Must have been her dress clothes, for the jail visit. They must be visiting Jess, they were the reason we had to go. As we passed them Taylor’s mom gave us a dagger look. Probably because Ben was giving her one right back.

  “I can’t believe they came,” I said as soon as we were out of the building.

  “Right?” Ben said, but I could see he was pondering something else and not really clued in to any utterances from me.

  “What did he say about that day?” I asked, I could see and hear a little but the phone line keeps most stuff mumbled and thus private.

  “He said Pam was there, and Taylor. It must be one of them.” Pam, I thought no way. Taylor. Maybe.

  “Pam, no way, Taylor, maybe.” I nodded at him.

  “Hmmm.” Was all he said as he reverted into his own thinking space

  As we headed home we picked up some Chinese, this was our EOW routine, hang around in sweats watching tv and eating food from the carton and generally acting like slobs on our “night” off. It was hard maintaining a facade of always being the adult so when you got the chance not to, it was a real treat. We made quite a night of it, eating ourselves full, drinking beer, watching trash TV and finally making love in the living room. I could get used to this no kid on the weekend thing I thought guiltily.

  Chapter Five

  Laundry. Every Saturday was the same thing, laundry and more laundry. And this time, I had to wash all the sheets from the girls room AGAIN, plus their towels and comforters. Luckily, I had color coded all the towels the minute I moved in. Green for Yaz, Pink for Jules, tan for me and Ben. This might not sound important, but the devil is in the details and when you are a single girl, moving into a house with near strangers, towel ownership was a big deal.

  Plus, I had to get both the laundry and the grocery shopping done by 1p.m. when Ben would be home, we’d change, and head out to Drew’s memorial service. It was such a shame that Jesse couldn’t come but I suppose being accused of murdering his father had to have something to do with that. Every time I thought about it, I cringed. Just the manner of death. Drano, or something like it, burned Drew’s esophagus while he laid comatose from pills. So someone fed him the pills and then fed him the Drano, or vice versa. Horrible. What people do to each other. Sometimes I swear Rodney King had it right, couldn’t we all just get along. Life is hard enough just getting laundry done, I mean holy bejesus, it is no wonder they don’t inject anti-depressants into the drinking water. Everyone I knew was on some pill or another. It’s like you hit age 37 and your hormones go wacky, your synapses stop firing and it takes pharmaceuticals to get it all right. I’d been known to use anti-depressants and over the counter sleeping pills myself. Anxiety, insomnia, irritation at being a stepmother, irritation at being not the perfect wife, slight depression, too much red wine, whatever the reason, and there was any mix of the above and I could have been the one in Drew’s position. Hand me that pill, hand me that glass, I could see it, drink it down, lay down and bleed and burn from the inside out and sleep right through it. Gah. Completely morbid. I had to stay focused on the fact that I only had two dryer sheets to do and three more loads. Reuse the sheets? Hmmm. Big, big thoughts.

  After running around, I was completely sweaty and a little frenzied by the time Ben got home from work to accompany me to the memorial service. It was being held at Strunk’s, I was at least familiar with the place from my Aunt’s funeral last year. Funeral homes are always such sad places, and not just because of what they do, but because of the decor. Strange padded institutional seating, weird combinations of pastels, and now they all came with overhead projection screens for the “memorial” video/photo collage. And always too cold. I had brought my gold/brown wrap for just that reason. Plus it matched my heels nicely.

  We pulled up late (Ben couldn’t find a tie, GAH!) and had to park much too far away, Drew’s was obviously not the only service that day. I was irritated cause I wore my pointy brown heels and the parking lot was less than level. Ben walked ahead of me, he has a much faster gate, plus I was hobbled my heels. Dang they look good but phooey, hard to navigate gracefully in. The eternal problem of good fashion, whatever looks good is NEVER 100% comfortable and whatever is 100% comfortable NEVER looks good. Why is that? These were my thoughts I thought guiltily as we headed in to Drew’s service, shouldn’t I be remembering good thoughts about Drew. Not that we re
ally had many. He was a talker. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Both Ben and I developed a habit of ducking in our house as fast as we could whenever Drew was out front, cause lordy-loo, if you got caught in a conversation your afternoon was shot. Not such a warm memory. I could think about the time we saw Drew and Pam out at karaoke one night at Crossroads. That was fun. It’s always fun to see people do karaoke, to see what “songs” live inside them. I remember being surprised when Drew sang Krypotonite by Mario. I just didn’t see him as a “I wanna be your superman” kind of guy. But there you go. Everyone’s got someone else inside them that they want to be. Me, I’ve got a little Dolly Parton inside my soul, it’s my staple karaoke song, “Harper Valley PTA.” And Pam that night, it was really the first time we had spent time with them as a couple. She was a hoot. Got way up in your personal space, you know those types, that just insist on standing arm to arm, or getting up real close to your face when they talk, it’s like they have some sort of hearing problem but it is kind of flirty and annoying all at once. Pam sang some Joan Jett and the Blackhearts song, what was it, oh yeah, Bad Reputation, perfectly suited her. As I said, she’s a bit older than Drew, or was, maybe about 55 or so, you can see her age on her face, but that’s it, she’s got quite the rack for an older lady, probably falsely falsies, skinny as a rail, bright orange hair, she was wearing a tight red shirt that night and her lipstick was inches thick. She talked almost as much as Drew did. It was funny, seeing Drew, thick glasses, and all, trying to be hip, he was wearing a “cool” shirt and his hair was a little spiked with gel. And then that song. It was funny, it was like his mid-life crises but forced on him.

  I was thinking of this night as we took our seats, in the middle on the left side near the curtains that mysteriously were always closed and went into adjacent rooms. Just then we saw Pam come out of one of the curtains and wave and smile big at us. Like we ran into her at the grocery store or at a bar, not quite the quiet decorum you’d expect at a funeral home.

  “Hey guys, so nice to see you.” “Hey Pam, we’re so sorry.”

  “Oh yeah, sorry. Did you see Drew’s mom, she’s sitting up front with his uncle, and his boys I’m up there too, gotta skedaddle.”

  I leaned over to Ben, “that was weird.” “Right?”

  “Why is she sitting with his family? If anyone should be it should be Bev, I mean, she’s the mother of his children .Is Bev even here?”

  Both Ben and I were doing a 360 with our heads as inconspicuously as we could which was pretty NOT under the radar if you get my gist. But no Bev. Which means she was still missing?

  “She must be still away, or missing, or whatever she is,” added Ben still looking over his program towards the back door as casual as he could.

  But we spoke too soon. Cause right then, Bev, all135 pounds of her buff, revamped self, came through the door. We only knew cause we heard some collective gasps from around the room (was one from Pam?) and a “mom’s here” from one of Drew’s younger sons who was sitting up front.

  I have to admit, she looked striking, her hours with her personal trainer, the tanning salon, the hair salon (was she wearing extensions?), the nail salon, she was clearly keeping multiple salon’s in business, cause she was coifed. Wearing an elegant, perhaps too elegant, black cocktail dress. Not quite funeral wear. She looked like she was about to enter a swanky martini bar, not bury her ex-husband. We watched, our jaws drooping slightly as she hugged, off-handedly, her two sons that were there. And what about the son that wasn’t? I wanted to pipe up, where have you been? Have you seen your son who is in jail? I could feel the flush rise in me, this justifiable anger I wear so well these days. It’s like a generic blanket I pull out for comfort, this resentment I have against mothers who don’t mother. I want to shake them and say, don’t you get it, don’t you see what you have?

  “Check out Pam” Ben said as quietly as he could leaning into me. Pam was clearly flustered and clearly did not plan on having her parade ruined by the appearance of Mrs. Drew Jones—after all they weren’t officially divorced. I realized just then that Bev at least had had the dignity NOT to bring her boy toy, Mr. Hunk-a-doo. it is funny, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them apart except for this week and now twice. But yeah, Pam kept darting around, trying to maintain like she was busy while Bev took her place up front with the family. I saw that none of them were that close, besides the kids, of course, but it looked like Drew’s mom was none too happy. I have to admit, not having been THAT close to Drew, except in a polite neighborly kind of way, was making all this intrigue at the funeral somewhat interesting. Like a little soap opera. The girlfriend, the ex-wife, the strange manner of death, the family vs. the ex-wife. Like a bad whodunit. Course, there really was the question of who had done it.

  Just as was getting carried away with the movie playing in my own head, the funeral director welcomed us all there, acknowledged the family, said some generic tomes about Drew having gone before his time. The slideshow started. There was some corny music playing so at odds with the “superman/kryptonite” persona that Drew adopted that night. You always wonder at a funeral or memorial, is this what the person would have wanted? Would Drew choose this music? I think not. I don’t know who it was who put the slideshow together but including a smiling picture of Drew and Jesse, arm in arm, was probably not in the best taste since it sent Drew’s mom into hysterics up front. During the whole thing, both Ben and I concentrated almost all our attention on Pam, sitting on one side of the family and Bev, sitting on the other. I still couldn’t get over that they knew each other, and better yet, were landlord and tenant. Surely they both knew of the Drew connection, why would they condone that? Why would Bev? Did she really not care, I mean, she spent almost 14 years with Drew, and had three kids, surely there was some sort of animosity towards him dating again, even though she was the dumper not the dumpee. And Pam? She’s the funny one, knowing Drew all of two months, acting like the current wife, doing all the wifely duties, arranging this memorial service. Odd. The whole thing.

  There were some people from Drew’s work, that was nice, they clearly respected him and liked his quirky talkative ways (yes, they mentioned his love of gab), and his uncle spoke, in a stilted, halting way. But my thoughts kept turning to the one family member NOT here, poor Jesse. What did the family think of his being charged? What did Bev think? I knew both Ben and I wanted answers. Had she seen Jesse? Was she going to?

  And just as cheesily as it had begun, with bad music, the service ended. The official service. Now was the line of greeting, we’d get to see Bev.

  “Let’s go” said Ben, ushering me as quick as he could without being overtly rude ahead of other people in line. Ben hated lines. But I also knew he was just as anxious as I to get to Bev.

  As we reached Pam, she was dabbing her mascara ridden eyes in fake sorrow taking in like a horse to water everyone’s condolences. “We’re so sorry,” we said, and she embraced us both in a hug like we were life long friends. We had met her three times total.

  We offered our condolences to Drew’s mom and uncle and said hi to the kids, it was nice to see them, when they were sent away last year it was sad to see them go, but the level of noise and the debris in the yard went down significantly I thought, again, guiltily. What was it with me and the guilt-ridden admissions?

  And there she was. The ex-wife. The one who was “missing” all week. Didn’t look like she was “missing” it looks like she spent the week at a spa.

  “Bev,” Ben started. He had known her the longest, was there for the whole breakup. She was mostly gone by the time I appeared on the scene, except for some drop-offs and pick-ups of Jess.

  “We’re so sorry,” it felt SO awkward saying that cause I knew, and everyone in the room knew Drew’s death was no big loss to her. Her life just got 10, 000 times better with Drew out of the picture.

  “Have you seen Jesse?” she asked, surprising both Ben and I.

  “Yes, we have” I added somewhat haltingly.

&
nbsp; “How is holding up?” she asked, implying that she hadn’t seen her own son.

  “Are you going to see him?” I answered her with a question. This was really the only reason we came today, to see if she showed, to pay our respects and to try and get some answers for Jesse’s sake.

  “I might, last time I checked I wasn’t on the visitor list, you know they can only have four visitors listed, right?” she stated and moved us along the line greeting the next person behind us.

  “What?” I said as I turned around towards her but she was already in the arms of some coworker of Drew’s. I suppose the receiving line was not the best place to have a conversation, but she lied. I knew for a fact that she must be on Jesse’s list. I mean, she’s his mom, ok, maybe he took her off after she was missing, but it would only take a phone call to clear it up. I was huffing and puffing when Ben nearly had to drag me away. We went outside and saw that more than a few people were milling around in a somewhat polite way. I suppose it wasn’t good form to take right off after a memorial service but we really didn’t know that many friends of Drew’s if any. Just then we saw another neighbor from the other side of Drew’s house, Mr. Stidmore, Hank.

  “Hey Hank” said Ben.

  “Hey Ben. What a shame eh?” Hank was an older black guy that Drew seemed to get on with well. I remember being over there only once, when Drew dragged me over to raid Mr. Stidmore’s avocado tree, he had this huge tree that apparently only yielded fruit for one week a year and the avocados literally rained down during that week. Drew said that he and Hank had planted that tree together when they both moved in years back and were the only two folks on the block.

  “Yeah, really strange what they are saying.” Ben added.

  “Tell me about it, you can say what you want, but that Jesse, he ain’t no killer, dumb as a skunk on a trunk, but a killer, no way.” Hank added shaking his head.

  “I think the same thing,” I piped in.