by Cynthia Webb
I let go of the blinds and turned to the room where I had spent the night. It looked like all the furnishings had come with the condo. Everything matched. I couldn’t hear any other noises in the house, so I assumed Johnny had gone to work. I picked up my clothes from the floor beside the bed. I put on everything except my torn bra which I dropped in the trash can.
I went out in the living room. Same look as the guest room. Everything neutral and bland and matching. I wondered if that’s what being made chief of police did to a guy. When I’d lived with Johnny, his taste had run to tons of paperback books on shelves made of old boards and concrete blocks. Weird posters on the wall. Salvation Army furniture.
His new kitchen with almond appliances was spotless. Nothing at all on the refrigerator door. It made me exceedingly anxious. I couldn’t find any real coffee, so I made a cup of instant. Taking the foul-tasting substance into Johnny’s bedroom which was only slightly more lived-in than the guest room, I checked his night table drawer, and found an open box of condoms. I was happy to see evidence that Johnny was getting some.
The bathroom off Johnny’s bedroom was kept neatly, too. Funny, I remembered Johnny as a slob. We’d had some really good arguments over the dishes that had stayed in the sink for weeks. And the dirty laundry that had flowed all over the ugly little duplex we’d lived in.
Experiencing a strong desire to brush my teeth. I searched around, but couldn’t find an unopened toothbrush anywhere. At first I hesitated about using Johnny’s. But after all, I had once been in the habit of putting various other things of Johnny’s in my mouth on a fairly regular basis. And Johnny had put his mouth on some interesting parts of me as well. Should such close old friends stand on ceremony, I asked myself. No, they should not, was my answer.
After I finished freshening up, I was left with another dilemma. I really wanted to do a thorough search through Johnny’s drawers and files. After I’d done something as intimate as use his toothbrush how could I refuse myself permission to engage in a much less personal act? Of course, I couldn’t. Refuse, that is. If I was going to rely on Johnny, I had to find out what sort of person he’d become.
The dresser drawer in the bedroom contained clothes. What a surprise. But instead of the holey t-shirts Johnny used to wear, this could have been my father’s stuff. Almost.
A few suits were hanging in his closet. And, believe it or not, perma-press slacks for casual wear. There was one pair of jeans.
Boxes were stacked on the shelves over the clothes racks. I was a little nervous about getting started on those as I was going to have to pull down the boxes, spread stuff around. If Johnny should come in unexpectedly, I would have a lot of explaining to do.
I stood up, stretched, walked back to the living room and pulled up the blinds that covered the sliding glass door.
I had a good view of the pool from here. A few young people tanned themselves in recliners around the pool. But in the water were a crowd of what Daddy and the boys called “raisins.” Old people. Retirees.
The pool was teeming with them. They were more or less lined up. taking some kind of aquatic exercise class. The women all wore bathing caps—most covered with bobbing plastic flowers or ruffles. People from up north move down here, spend too much time in the sun, and it bakes out all their taste. That’s the only possible explanation for it.
From this evidence, it certainly looked like Port Mullet was attracting a wealthier class of retirees. Used to be the well-heeled ones bypassed Port Mullet on their way down to Sarasota. The first raisin colonies around Port Mullet had been trailer parks, where the raisins drove gigantic tricycles with flags on the handle bars. The flat, narrow, streets between the neat, precise rows of trailers (not yet called mobile homes) were posted with “No Children Allowed” signs.
The phone rang. In the kitchen earlier I had noticed that the answering machine was switched on.
“Johnny, this is me,” said a sweet feminine voice. I wanted to gag. “I know you’re not home now, but you will be when you listen to this.” He’s not dating a brain surgeon, I thought. “Give me a call when you get home and let me know if you can come over for dinner. I’ll make it with my own ten little fingers. Bye now!”
Well, I had work to do. First I checked to make sure the front door was locked. It was, but I fastened the chain lock, too. Then I stripped down to my panties. If Johnny came in unexpectedly, I wanted to have some means of distracting him.
Going back in Johnny’s room, I pulled over the chair from the desk. I climbed up on it and got down the first box from his closet, set it on the floor and began searching through it. High school yearbooks, athletic awards, report cards. I put it back up and got down another.
The second one was full of photographs. Some loose, some in albums. I picked up a handful of loose photos. They were elementary school pictures of Johnny. I picked the top one up studied it. Second grade, it said on the back. He was cute, dressed neatly in a matching outfit, with a short crew cut, and a cheerful grin.
I scrambled through the rest of them. I knew I shouldn’t be wasting the time, but I was hooked. I wanted to see when Johnny had started to become the guy I’d been crazy about.
I started to see signs of it in his junior high pictures. His hair a little shaggy, his clothes not so neat, there was something slightly self-mocking in his smile.
In his high school pictures he had long, flowing hair, ratty clothes, a sweetly ironic, just a bit dangerous, smile. This was the Johnny I had loved. I sat back for a moment, the picture in my hand. What had happened to him? Something must have. In the end, he’d become the man his elementary school pictures had foretold. Just like he’d never met me. Just like we’d never been crazy together.
The next box had old college term-papers and notes, a few snapshots, and the album from our wedding. I didn’t even open it. I didn’t want to be reminded of that now when I was betraying the last bit of feeling left between us.
There was another box full of receipts, cancelled checks, and stuff like that. Organized by year. It was frightening to think that there were actually people who kept this stuff. And he considered me perverse.
Then I pulled down the box labeled “Campaign.” There were stacks of campaign literature from the recent Port Mullet mayoral race—letters, notes, financial documents, all that kind of stuff. And a computer print-out of campaign contributions. I sat down and read it all.
Clearly, Forrest Miller and Johnny Berry had both worked on the mayor’s campaign. Forrest personally, as well as through his various business entities, had contributed heavily to the campaign. After the election, Johnny had been made Chief of Police. It looked to me like Forrest owned the mayor, and the mayor owned Johnny. So therefore, Johnny was owned by... I felt sick.
One thing I was sure of as I put all the papers back in the box and the box back on its shelf—I wanted to get out of there, away from Johnny and his condo.
I went into the kitchen and ran a glass of water, trying to calm down. Of every bad thing I’d ever thought about Johnny, I’d never once thought he was corrupt. Okay, so I didn’t have any evidence that he actually had done anything illegal. But he owed his job to a couple of guys. He was owned. Once in the middle of a heated argument, I’d yelled that Johnny had bourgeois values. That had been the most cutting thing I could think of to say. My saying that had been the notification to both of us that it was over. It had been a much more final act than our acts of adultery, than even Johnny hitting me. It had been the real divorce between us, not the papers I got months later in the mail.
I realized that the only things I knew about how hard the cops had really searched for my pursuers, I knew from Johnny. I was standing at the sink, considering all this, while the glass I was holding filled with water.
About the same time I noticed the water flowing over the top of the glass, I heard footsteps on the front walkway. I turned off the spigot and held my breath. The doorbell rang, just briefly, and then I heard the key in the lock.
> “Johnny?” I called.
“Just me,” he answered.
“Just a minute. I’ll be right there. I put on the chain lock.”
I ran and grabbed my clothes, started pulling them on.
I was buttoning my shirt when I heard the front door open. I looked up, surprised. Johnny walked in, smiling.
“You didn’t have to break it. I was going to let you in.”
“I didn’t break it. Those flimsy things are a cinch to open.”
“Then why did you bother to install it?” I was sitting on the carpet, pulling on my socks.
He shrugged. “Came with the place.”
I put on my boots, picked up my backpack. “I’m ready to go.”
He looked surprised. “What’s your hurry? I came home to take you to lunch. Thought we’d talk about what happened last night. What we can do about that. And about your girlfriend’s father, which folks might remember him. We’ve got to get organized.”
I didn’t like his proprietary manner. I’d asked for this, though, by coming to him for help in the first place. I should have known better. At that moment, it seemed to me the major pattern in my life was knowing better and going ahead anyway.
“Never mind me. You’re gonna be busy,” I said. I walked over to his telephone answering machine and hit one of the buttons.
On came the twittering voice. I held up my hands, waited until she got the part about her “own ten little fingers” and then wiggled mine in front of his face.
He just stood there. Didn’t say anything. Then he walked past me to the machine and pushed the reset button.
“Hi, it’s me,” I said in a Beverly Hillbillies accent, dancing around the kitchen, wiggling my fingers and laughing. I could just picture her, with bleached-blond hair, wrapped nails, fussy clothes. She was probably just dying for Johnny to marry her so she could move into his little condo with their color-coordinated wedding presents, registered at Burdines. I fell onto the couch, laughing, holding my stomach. To think I’d actually been in love with this guy once.
Eventually I got control of myself and lay on my back, trying to catch my breath.
“Are you finished?” Johnny asked, in a cold voice.
I sat up.
“Because if you’re finished, put on your boots and I’ll take you home. And put one of my shirts over yours. If your Momma sees you in that ripped blouse, she’s going to think I’m into rough stuff.”
“That’s not my home.”
“Fine. I’ll take you to your parents’ house, then.” His voice was rough with irritation.
I pulled on my boots, then went into his room and grabbed the first shirt I could find. I walked back into the living-room buttoning it up. “Thank you for your hospitality, Chief.”
He was already walking towards the door. He looked over his shoulder at me. “Just so you know... Emma’s a fine girl. Real class. She deserves better than me.”
“And I didn’t?” I snapped.
He was at the door, and opened it without looking at me, speaking so quietly I almost didn’t catch his words. I have never been completely sure that I heard him correctly. But I think what he said was, “We deserved each other, Laurie Marie.”
Chapter Ten
The mood in the car was frosty, in spite of the sticky, humid air. When Johnny pulled up in the driveway, I grabbed my backpack and opened the door before the car was completely stopped. I slammed the passenger door behind me and was half-way to the kitchen door before I realized that Johnny had shut off the ignition and was getting out, too. Ever the gentleman, I thought. Going to pay his respects to my mother.
I didn’t wait for him. I went on in to the kitchen and let that door slam behind me, too. Momma was—no surprise here—standing over the stove.
She looked at me, and I could read her confusion. She couldn’t make up her mind how she should react. I’d stayed out all night like the brazen hussy I was. I’d slept at the home of a man to whom I was not married. On the other hand, the man in question was Johnny Berry, whom she would dearly love to see me marry. Again.
Finally she chose. “Oh, Baby. I’m so happy for you. But honey, just remember if you keep giving away the milk, he won’t need to buy the cow.” She looked like she had a few more pearls of wisdom to toss in my direction when she saw him at the door. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and hurried to let him in.
“Why Johnny! I wondered why Baby Sister didn’t bring you in. Have a seat, sit right down here at the table. I was just putting on a pot of coffee, and I have some cinnamon buns here. I’m just gonna warm them up a bit.”
“Why, I can’t stay, Mrs. Coldwater, but I couldn’t drop off Laurie without stopping in to see how you and Mr. Coldwater are doing.”
“We’re doing just fine, Johnny, and how are your parents? I think of them so often. You know, your daddy was always partial to my fig preserves, why don’t you just take a jar of them and slip them to him next time you see him.” She was measuring coffee as she spoke, and putting some cinnamon rolls onto a plate and sticking them in the microwave. Momma used to bake them herself, but now she bought these with the texture of cardboard from the big franchise in the mall.
Thing is, I was contemptuous of her for spending most of her life in the kitchen. But I was also resentful when she took shortcuts. But it didn’t stop me from grabbing one off the plate that Momma took from the microwave. The cardboard was generously layered with fat and covered with cinnamon sugar. I took a big bite of it, standing there in the kitchen. The crumbs and little avalanches of sugar fell on the floor.
Johnny was sitting at the table. Momma had placed the rolls in front of him. She started setting out the milk, sugar, little pink envelopes of sweetener. I didn’t sit down at the place she’d set for me. Without excusing myself I walked over to the little table where the phone book was kept. I picked it up and headed down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. I wanted to make a phone call in privacy.
As I entered the room I turned on the light. I felt a shiver up my spine when I remembered how close I’d come to being shot by my own father just the night before. Wasn’t I supposed to want to kill him, not the other way around? No, I was getting my complexes mixed up. It was mother I was supposed to want to kill, to have my father to myself. Right, I thought. That’ll be the day.
I sat down cross-legged on the bed and opened the phone book. The name I was looking for was there. Or rather, her husband’s name. Thomas Dalman. I dialed it, and a child’s voice answered.
“Can I speak to your mother, please?”
There was no answer. A clattering noise that sounded like the phone had been dropped. Then a voice called shrilly, “Mom! Mom! Telephone!”
Eventually I heard a soft, feminine, “Hello?” Just that one word, in an accent deep and velvety, much richer than mine. In the difference I could measure the distance between our lives.
“This is Laurie Marie. How the hell are you, girl?”
She gasped and then Susan, my old best friend, and Forrest Miller’s daughter, cried out “Laurie Marie! I can’t believe it! Where are you?”
We talked for a while, both of us rushing, and laughing, and excited. I heard a child’s voice saying, “Who is it, Mommy?” Susan answered, “An old friend of Mommy’s. Go outside and play.”
Momma opened the door to the room and came in, carrying a stack of clean laundry. She put it away, shooting glares at me every chance she got.
“Listen, Susan, this telephone conversation isn’t working. Why don’t we meet somewhere? A diner? Better yet, a bar.”
There was a long silence on the other end. “I can’t leave the kids, Laurie.”
“Okay, how about tonight, then?”
There was a longer silence. “I don’t think I could go out at night without Tom.”
Particularly not to meet the infamous Laurie Marie Coldwater, I added silently.
“Right. Okay”
“Why don’t you come over here?” she said brightly.
&nbs
p; “Okay. When?”
“Now?”
I agreed. She gave me directions. We hung up. I hopped off the bed to go and change clothes.
“See ya later, Momma,” I said, headed for the door.
“Just a minute, young lady.” She looked at me for a moment and then walked over to the bed, smoothing out the spread where I’d sat. And brushing off the sand that had come off my boots.
I winced. Another aggravating thing about growing up. I’m starting to recognize it when I engage in boorish adolescent behavior. At this rate, by the time I’m seventy-two, I’ll finally stop behaving like a boorish adolescent.
“Sorry.”
“Baby, I just want what’s best for you. I just want you to be happy. That’s all I want.”
I sighed, but prepared myself to hear her out. I owed her that, I thought.
“I blame myself for what’s happened to you, honey. I shouldn’t have let you have your way so much. I should have given you more guidance. Your father should have been more of a help to me. You needed your father to keep you in line.”
I was shocked to hear her blame my father for anything. It made me think she really did feel bad about the way I’d turned out. I also had to struggle to keep a straight face. Did she really believe it was more of her advice I’d needed? I’d had so much guidance that I’d had to run a thousand miles just to get a breath of air.
“Momma. Momma. It’s all right. Don’t worry about me.”
She looked at me with fierce determination in her eyes. “You have to listen to me. This might be your last chance. I can help you. You’ll never forgive yourself if you let Johnny get away again.”
“Momma...”
She was having none of my interruption. “No, you listen to me. I don’t know why any decent man would have you. But it’s plain to see that Johnny Berry still holds a candle for you. If you don’t straighten up and fly right, you could lose your last chance. For a husband. For children. For a real home. You’ll end up a lonely old woman.” Her determination had faded. She was pleading with me now, her stark fears for my future written across her face.
