Looking for Julie

by Jackie Calhoun

  “Want to ski next weekend? We can talk about your book.” She lifted eyebrows that were the same color as her hair.

  “I don’t think there’s that much to discuss.” Edie got to her feet. “I write to entertain.” And to pay the bills, but she didn’t say that.

  “Hey, don’t put yourself down. I think writing three hundred pages about anything is amazing,” Jennifer said as they walked outside.

  There was a feel of impending spring in the air. Too often the snow turned soft and sticky or melted and froze, taking the fun out of skiing. They both paused and looked at the darkening sky. Stars were beginning to appear.

  She said, “I think we need a good snowstorm.”

  “A blizzard.” Jennifer agreed.

  “That would be awesome,” Edie said with a laugh.

  “I’ll call you later in the week now that I have your cell number. Okay?”

  At home, Edie turned on the lights and built a fire. She picked up The Beach House and paged through it. She considered it one of her better books. Actually, it was pretty hot stuff, even for her, but sex was in the mind. All you had to do was create the right venue. Now if she could just do that with Midnight Magic.

  She had been getting vibes from Jennifer. Even before she found out that Chip was Jennifer’s brother, she had wondered. She was pretty sure that Jennifer had some interest in her. Why else would she to want to ski with her two weekends in a row? Would she even call after reading The Beach House? Edie sighed. She hoped she hadn’t shot holes in their fledgling friendship, but she couldn’t lie about her books. That would be denying what she did.

  The next day she was at her computer early, trying to make Mary Ann say goodbye to Elizabeth.

  “But you’re my best friend,” Elizabeth said with tears in her eyes. Too corny, she thought and deleted the tears in her eyes.

  “I’ll miss you more than you know,” Mary Ann replied, “but I’ve always wanted to be a principal. You can visit.” She dropped the more than you know.

  “Won’t you miss teaching, the hands-on molding of kids?” She searched Mary Ann’s eyes. Edie deleted the last sentence and then did away with the hands-on molding bit, thinking also too corny.

  Let Mary Ann go, she told herself. It’ll be easy without Mary Ann around. She should never have put her in the story. She packed Mary Ann and her daughter up. Elizabeth watched as they drove off in a U-Haul. The dog’s head hung out the window, looking toward the future. After they were gone, Don showed up and comforted Elizabeth.

  Edie stalled and made more coffee. She could hardly believe she was missing Mary Ann with her blazing blue eyes and blondish hair, as if she’d been her best friend.

  After several more pages of Don wooing Elizabeth, Don turned into a scoundrel with a real wife and a child in Chicago. Elizabeth had accidentally read an e-mail he’d stupidly sent on her computer. She called Mary Ann.

  Edie got up and walked around the house. She’d have to invent another hero, one she liked better. She decided to transform the neighbor, to whose door she’d sent Don, the one who owned an auto shop. She’d have to go back and bring him to life. He would be an unassuming man, one who respected Elizabeth’s independence.

  Her cell rang. She seldom answered when she was working, and she let the call roll into voice mail without even glancing at the display. Later, when she listened to her messages, Claire’s voice electrified her.

  “Call me.”

  Just like Claire to give her an order and just like her to obey it, she thought, as she returned the call. “You phoned?”

  Claire said. “Why don’t you phone?”

  “Because I’m busy. I’m working. Aren’t you?”

  “Look outside. It’s dark.”

  “What is it you want, Claire?” she asked, tired of the caustic tone.

  “I thought we had something special, but apparently not.”

  Her heart was pounding annoyingly in her ears. “If you want to do threesomes, you’ll have to find someone else.”

  Claire’s harsh laugh startled her. “Is that all that’s wrong?”

  Irritated, she said, “No, that’s not all. It seems as if all you want from me is sex.”

  Silence. Then, “You don’t like sex with me?”

  Edie sighed. She was sweating. The trouble was she loved sex with Claire. “I do,” she admitted.

  This time Claire’s laugh was real. “Come here and show me how much.”

  “I have a deadline to meet.”

  “I’ll make it worthwhile.”

  “I work during the week.” Of course she could take an afternoon off, but it broke her concentration.

  “Come on the weekend.”

  “I’m going skiing.”

  A silence followed and she pictured Claire pouting, which made her stubborn. “Look, maybe this isn’t a good idea—you and me. I think Janine is the one you want.” There, she’d said it. But the continuing silence made her anxious.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. Wednesdays are best for me. I’ll be home by three thirty.”

  Edie stared at the phone. She wasn’t sure what amazed her more—Claire’s rudeness or her own willingness to put up with it. A tingle of excitement began to dissipate her anger. Tomorrow. She could write in the morning and leave at one. If she were a little late, it would make Claire worry. She let go of her determination to give Claire up and latched onto Lynn’s idea that seeing a lot of Claire would surely cure her.

  When she went back to her computer, she worked Al, the widowed neighbor, into the story.

  Snow started falling mid-morning on Wednesday, which she could have used as an excuse to stay home. Snow was what she wanted, lots of it, and it had seldom kept her off the roads. She shoved a change of underwear and the kit with her bathroom stuff into her backpack and headed toward Madison. Tiny flakes that froze as they hit the pavement made driving dicey. When she took the ramp onto the interstate, she knew she was a fool to drive in this stuff.

  Just before she got to the Plainfield exit, the Focus went into a slow-motion, heart-stopping skid. She tapped the brakes and steered into it, as the car turned slowly toward the median strip. A pile of snow reared up, and she braced herself as the car rammed into it.

  As the adrenaline drained away, she began to shake. When she calmed a little, she put the driveshaft into reverse and tried to back out. The tires spun on the icy snow. After a few attempts at freeing her car from the snowbank, she called Lynn.

  “I’m stuck in the median strip near the Plainfield exit.”

  “Where were you going? The roads are dangerous.”

  “I think I found that out.”

  “How near are you to the exit. There are two gas stations there.”

  “I know. I can see the ramps. I guess I better start walking.”

  “Give me a call and let me know how it’s going. I’ll be worried.”

  With difficulty she pulled on boots and stuffed herself into her jacket before struggling against the wind to open the door. Her hood blew off her head and icy pellets stung her face. The car door ripped out of her hands and slammed, and she started toward the exit. Holding her hood in place she crossed the snowy median strip, peered down the road for oncoming traffic and ran across the northbound lane. She lost her balance on the other side and fell into the snow. Back on her feet, she walked along the edge of the road toward the ramp. The wind was at her back, pushing her up the incline. When she reached the top, she looked both ways and ran across that road. The gas station was at the end of a long drive, and she took a shortcut, plunging through the snow, turning her head away from the icy pellets, till she was on the tarmac of the station itself and then safely inside the warm building.

  “I need someone to pull my car out of the median strip. I skidded off the road,” she said to the kid behind the counter, who looked like he should be in middle school. His name was stitched on a oval patch on his shirt—Phil.

  “The tow truck is out. There’s a bunch of people off the road.�
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  Bits of snow fell down her neck when she pushed the hood off. She shrugged out of the jacket and gave it a shake.

  “We got coffee and stuff over there,” he said pointing. “There’s a Subway on the other side, but the woman who works there couldn’t make it in.” He lifted his thin shoulders. “So, no Subways, but you can sit down there.”

  She looked around the gas station and realized she’d forgotten to grab her book, the one thing she told her friends and family to go nowhere without. There was a newspaper stand, however, and she put a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the counter. It would help pass the time. She paid for the paper and a cup of coffee and took them to the empty Subway.

  An hour later she was still sitting in a booth, having long since finished reading the paper. She cursed herself for forgetting The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. After a while, she put her head in her arms on the table and fell asleep.

  “Hey, ma’am. The tow truck is back.”

  She awoke with a start and glanced at her watch. It was exactly three thirty, the time Claire said she’d be home. “Thanks,” she said, sitting up.

  A man with a stubbly chin and tired eyes was standing in the hall between the station and the Subway. “You in the ditch, ma’am?”

  She felt like apologizing. “I am, just north of the southbound exit.” Why hadn’t she made it to the other side of the overpass? Now they would have to double back.

  “C’mon. We’ll get you out.” He looked at the boy. “You all right, son?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Goodbye Phil,” she said as she went out the door. Her voice was snatched away by the wind, and she hunched into her jacket. When she stepped on the running board, she slipped before climbing into the truck.

  “Smutty day to be on the road,” the man said, sliding in behind the wheel. “It looks like snow, but it’s more like ice.”

  “I found that out,” she said.

  When he parked behind her car to let her out, he said, “Best to get off the road.”

  “I’m going back to Point, if I can get there,” she promised.

  It was scary driving up the exit ramp to State Highway. 73 and even scarier taking the ramp back to the interstate, going north. Her heart leaped into her throat every time the car hit an icy patch. It took her nearly an hour to drive the normally twenty-minute distance.

  Her phone had been ringing most of the way, but she hadn’t dared take her eyes off the road. When she stepped into the warm kitchen and closed the garage door behind her, she checked her voice mail. She talked to Lynn first.

  “I’m home. I will never do that again. It’s a skating rink out there.”

  “Good. You could have called me back earlier. I was worried.”

  “Sorry. I fell asleep waiting for the tow truck, and I couldn’t drive and talk at the same time.” She slipped out of her jacket and pushed off her boots. “Home never felt so good.”

  When she phoned Claire, she expected a tongue-lashing. Instead, she got silence as she told her why she wasn’t in Madison.

  “When are you coming?” Claire asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe next Wednesday.”

  “Better call first. I might be busy.”

  “Why don’t you call me?” She had no patience with this passive-aggressive behavior.

  “If I can.”

  “Do you care at all, Claire, that I might have been in an accident?”

  “You weren’t, though, were you?” And then she was gone as if there were nothing else to discuss.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sam and Karen turned their backs to the driving sleet and walked toward Sam’s apartment. Jamie’s parents had brought him back the day before, Tuesday. The apartment now had two locks, both new, one a deadbolt, which Officer Dana told Sam never to forget to use.

  Sam thought the police officer felt responsible for DeWitt’s release on bond. Not only had she told Sam to change the locks before she moved back in, she had stopped by to check them out, which had made Sam even more aware of the danger she was in.

  She and Karen had spent the previous night at the apartment. The old house creaked as if it were complaining, and Sam awoke at every noise. Once she shook Karen awake when she thought she heard someone outside. They had crawled to the window and peered out through the frosted pane, but the noise came from the storms banging against the rotten window frames. To Sam it sounded like someone hammering at the door. Cold radiated through the glass panes and wood floor.

  “Hey, it’s okay, Sammy,” Karen said. “I know what will help you sleep. C’mon, let’s go back to bed.” Once there, she worked her way under the covers, but Sam pulled her back up.

  “I like it better when we do that together.”

  “Me too.” Karen was a thoughtful lover.

  The touch of her tongue took Sam’s mind off anything else. DeWitt could be banging at the door and she’d never hear him.

  They were nearly to the apartment now. Sam was scheduled to work that night, and she dreaded going out, not just because DeWitt might be in the vicinity but also because the weather was so shitty.

  “I’ll go with you,” Karen said. Karen sometimes worked shifts when Chili Verde was short-staffed. Otherwise, she sat in a corner and studied or talked to customers till Sam was done.

  “I couldn’t make it without you.” This was true, but her grades were sinking and she knew it was because Karen was always there to distract her. “I have a paper due Friday and I haven’t even started it and now I have to work.”

  “You want me to work for you? I think Bruce would be okay with that.”

  She’d be home alone, which was not an option. “I’ll get it done. It’s Women’s Issues. You know, gender and society. Should be easy.” She was shouting to be heard and was glad when they came to a stop in front of the apartment.

  That evening Chili Verde was empty except for the staff, which hung around the hostess’s booth and chatted, until Bruce sent them all home and closed early due to the weather. It was a lucky break for Sam, who tapped out her paper on the computer.

  The web was her source of information. She wrote about how women always have had lower status than men—that it was demonstrated by the jobs they often held despite their education, jobs like receptionists and data processors instead of managers and CEOs. She pointed out that women in 2000 made about seventy-six cents to a man’s dollar. Pregnancy and child bearing had a direct effect on women’s ability to attain and keep jobs, of course. What might it be like if men bore the children? She quoted from Alan Wolfe’s, The Gender Question, “Of all the ways that one group has systematically mistreated another, none is more deeply rooted than the way men have subordinated women.” She quoted the passage in Leviticus where God told Moses that a man is worth fifty sheikels and a woman worth thirty—about the same as the present day difference in pay. She concluded with a 1980 summation by the United Nations Commission for Women of this unequal burden: “Women, who comprise half the world’s population, do two-thirds of the world’s work, earn one-tenth of the world’s income and own one-hundredth of the world’s property.” But she couldn’t answer why the world was this way today, why women, who were the daughters and wives of men, continued to be held in such low esteem by these same men.

  She printed what she had written and gave it to Karen to read. Karen looked up afterward and said, “Wow. You are so smart. This is really good. It’s a real turn-on, and it’s time for a break.” She got up and gave Sam a big kiss and backed her toward the bed.

  These “breaks” were what kept her here. Where Karen went she would follow. As Karen lowered her onto the unmade bed, already unzipping her jeans, the front door opened.

  “At it again, huh?” Nita said, standing in the bedroom door. “Like a couple of rabbits.”

  “Jealous?” Karen asked, standing up and straightening her clothes and hair. “Not getting enough from Carmen?”

  Nita stepped forward and raised her hand to Karen. Carmen, who had been stan
ding behind her, grabbed her arm.

  Sam jumped to her feet. “Stop it! Just fucking stop it! You said you’d walk to work and back with me, but it’s Karen who does it. You’re fucking nuts if you think I’m going to give her up!”

  “I didn’t work last night,” Nita said.

  “That’s what I mean. You’re not always there.”

  “Hey, cool it down,” Karen said, touching her cheek.

  Carmen jumped into the fray. “Shouldn’t we hang together? I mean no one should go anywhere alone.”

  “Sorry,” Nita mumbled, turning away, looking like she might cry. “You’re right. I’m just so fucking scared all the time. You know?”

  “Hey, it’s going to be all right,” Karen said. She put a hand on Nita’s shoulder and Nita moved out from under it.

  Sam said, “I’m sick of being scared. We should have some friends over. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re fucking nuts,” Nita said, slumping on the sofa.

  Sam plopped down next to her, feeling a kinship in fear. “Hey, it might be fun. We’ve been living like fugitives for weeks.”

  Nita’s voice broke and she began to cry. “College is supposed to be fun, not a nightmare. My grades are in the toilet.” The words were enunciated with sobs.

  Sam put an arm around her. This was the closest she’d ever been to Nita, so near she could smell her shampoo. When Nita only cried harder and tried to move away, she said, “I’m tired of living like a goddamn mouse, scurrying from hole to hole.”

  The sobs ceased. Nita turned her gaze on Sam. Even reddened, her eyes were beautiful, set in a perfectly oval face. Sam backed off. She didn’t want to want Nita. She had Karen, who was kind and fun and great in bed.

  “So, what do you want to be? The cat that chases the mouse?” Nita said sarcastically. “We have a party and invite Jamie, who is a magnet for DeWitt. You think he’ll crash our party, don’t you? And somehow we’ll catch him. Stupid but tempting.”

  Although baiting DeWitt with a party hadn’t entered her head, she said, “We’ll tell Officer Dana to stick around.”