by J. J. Murray
“You’re paying your respects, right?”
“Yeah.” And I’m hoping a redheaded tractor driver pays more attention to me this time than last time. “But I can only pay my respects for so long, you know? I need something that will keep me there a while, until Roger notices me.”
“Plant bulbs, then.”
“Huh?”
“Plant bulbs around the grave so they’ll come up in the spring. If you plant the right mix, flowers will bloom there throughout most of the year.”
“It’s a great idea. How do you do it?”
She explains, and yes, I take notes. I don’t want to screw this up.
I carry a spade, some white powdery bulb food, and a garbage bag full of every bulb I could find at Home Depot to Bobby’s grave on an overcast, chilly day. Bobby’s plaque and the area around it still look pristine. I check a few other plaques and graves to see if maybe Roger is giving Bobby’s resting place special care, but they are all just as spiffy.
Then I start digging, following Mama’s instructions not to “plant them too shallow or the squirrels will eat them.” I don’t have a plan, really, mainly because I mixed up all the bulbs. I could be planting a daffodil or a crocus or a tulip—it will just have to be a surprise. I even put several bulbs in the same hole, not because I’m tired, but because I’m curious what will happen this coming spring.
I’m almost halfway done when I hear a tractor. I don’t look up, and keep digging. Eventually I smell the exhaust. I still don’t look up. I drop three bulbs into my latest hole, sprinkling them with the bulb food. Then I see boots, Roger’s boots.
Instead of saying, “What are you doing?” or “You can’t do that,” Roger takes the spade from me and digs another hole. I look up at him, and he’s intent on digging his hole, no expression on his face. I drop in three more bulbs, sprinkle them with bulb food, and he pushes the dirt into the hole, tamping it down with the spade.
“This is a good idea,” he says.
I’ll have to thank Mama. Her idea brought him within a few inches of me.
“If everyone did this,” Roger says, “we’d save a fortune on fresh flowers.”
He digs, I drop and powder the bulbs, and he fills in the dirt, his face a study in concentration. We do this until I’m left with one little bulb. I look around the disturbed ground for the perfect place, pointing at a spot centered above Bobby’s name. He digs, I drop the bulb and the powder, and he fills in the dirt. We’re pretty damn efficient.
“Done,” he says.
I hope not. “Thank you.” And now for my next move. “How’ve you been?”
“I am fine. How are you?”
So formal. “I wanted to talk to you after Bobby’s funeral.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“It wouldn’t have been appropriate.”
“Not appropriate to talk to an old friend?”
He said “old” friend. Hmm. Does “old” mean I’m no longer his friend? “I guess I should have spoken to you.” But what would I have said? “I, um, I never had a chance to answer your question, the one you asked that night before …” The end.
“It’s okay, and in a way, I’m glad you didn’t get the chance. You see, um, I’m engaged now.”
I have no words. I am numb. How is this possible? What, was I the training bitch for these three men? I am oh for three: swing and a miss, strike three; wide left; incomplete pass on fourth down….
“Lana?”
“Um, yeah. Well.” I can’t think! “Um, who’s the lucky girl?”
“Someone I know.”
Oh, he said that with attitude, but I deserved that. I really should walk away, but I have to ask, “When’s the wedding?”
“Soon.”
Oh, I don’t know, why not have a triple wedding, where I give all three of you away? You’ll save a fortune on flowers, and you’ll even get a nice group discount on the tuxedos. “Well, um, that’s … that’s nice.” They have all gotten on with their lives, so why can’t I? I stand, and slap some dirt from my hands. “I guess I’m done.” In many more ways than one.
“Have you had that dream again?” he asks.
What? “What dream?”
“The one with the milk chocolate baby.”
What a time to bring this up! The man has just destroyed any hope I had of getting one of my men back, and he’s asking about that dream? I can’t tell him that I have had the dream, and that the last time, she had hair as bright as orange oak leaves.
“No. I don’t have that dream anymore.”
“Oh.”
I don’t think I have any dreams anymore.
“I miss talking to you like this,” Roger says.
I miss this, too. “Yeah.” We did have some good conversations. “It’s been pretty quiet for me, too.” I gather the garbage bag, what’s left of the bulb food, and my spade. “I’ll see you later.” Though I’m pretty sure that I’ll never see him again.
I feel a tug at my elbow.
“Why wasn’t I enough for you, Lana?”
I don’t have a simple answer for that one, but at least one of my men touched me. That’s something.
“Why did you have to have two others on the side?”
I can’t even turn to look at him.
“Why was I the last part of your love square or whatever it was?”
I turn because I finally have an answer. I focus on his boots. “You were the final piece to the puzzle, Roger. You were what was missing from the other two.”
“So the other two guys weren’t enough for you?”
“No.”
“I completed the puzzle, huh?”
I look up and see him smile. “Yes. Roger, if it’s any consolation—”
“It won’t be,” he interrupts, his smile vanishing.
No, I’m sure it won’t. “I just wanted to say that I thought—think—about you the most. I even wear your boxers every now and then. I’ve, um, kept them clean. They kind of hang on me now….”
He steps closer. “It wasn’t my … turn that day, was it? I came over when I wasn’t supposed to, huh?”
He had already had his “turn” the night before. “No, it … it was all kind of random, you know?”
“I don’t know, and I’ll never understand.”
Nor will I. Nor will I. “Well, it wasn’t easy.”
“It ended easily enough.”
Yeah, I’m standing in a cemetery just full of ends today. But I don’t want this conversation to end. “Is she nice?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Your fiancée.”
“Yes.”
“And does she …” I have no right to ask this, but I have to know. “Does she satisfy you?”
“Sexually?”
Me and my big mouth. “Not necessarily. I meant—”
“She knows what to do.”
“Sorry I asked.”
“Glad I answered.”
Ouch. How much lower can I get? “I … I better be going.” I turn away from him, walking in the general direction of my car.
“Lana.”
I don’t turn, but I stop. “Yes?”
“Am I your last stop today?”
I turn. “What?”
He walks closer, his hands in his pockets. “I mean, have you already spoken to Juan and Karl?”
“Yes.”
“And they wouldn’t have you back?”
I shake my head. “Karl’s with my ex-best friend Izzie, who is pregnant with Karl’s baby, and Juan Carlos is going to marry a girl named Monique soon.”
“So I’m your last resort? Again?”
Why did I stop? I must have a need for abuse. “You’re not my last resort, Roger. It’s not like that.”
“You could have fooled me. You fooled me in so many ways, Lana, or should I say, Peanut or Lahhhna.” He smiles.
Can I trust that smile? I have no choice. “Y’all must have had quite a conversation after you left me that night.”
“
We did.” He laughs. “That was one of the weirdest nights of my life. Believe it or not, we stopped and tried to fix Juan’s car. It was kind of good therapy. We gave up on it, though, mainly so Juan and Karl would stop arguing about the damn alternator. Juan rode with me, and we followed behind Karl—until his Blazer ran out of gas just a few miles down four sixty. Then … we all got in my truck and went to IHOP.”
No way! “You went out for breakfast?” He has to be lying.
“I told you it was a weird night. We went to IHOP, and we were there from just before sunrise until almost lunchtime. We went back to Juan’s car later with a new alternator. I’m surprised you didn’t hear us arguing later that day.”
I must have been crying too loudly or something.
“We even decided to meet at IHOP every Sunday morning from then on.”
I stare a hole in his head. “You what?”
He shrugs. “We … get together at IHOP, the three of us, every Sunday morning. It turns out that aside from you, we have a lot in common.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It’s not a Lana Haters Club anymore.”
Ouch. “Anymore?”
“Oh, we still mention you now and then, but … mostly we just shoot the shit.”
And to think that I brought them together for this weekly ritual.
“Karl … Karl’s a good guy. A little rough, but he’s funny as hell. And Isabel likes the Coach bags.”
I roll my eyes. “They’re knockoffs.”
“Oh, she knows they are. The DVDs though. They pretty much suck.”
“Yeah.”
“Juan’s a good guy, too. He tunes up my truck and Karl’s van whenever they need it, even getting us discounts on parts.”
My friends with benefits … are friends? Wait. They’re friends who benefit each other. What kind of a three-headed monster have I created?
“We were all out just the other night watching some soccer match at Hooters. Juan knew every player on both teams, and the waitress he could have picked up that night was a knockout. He said, ‘No, I must be faithful to Monique.’”
Roger has Juan Carlos’s voice down pat. They have been spending a lot of time together.
“You heard about his mama, right?” I ask.
“Yeah. That was sad. She was a nice lady.”
“You met her?”
“Sure. We had a few cookouts over at Juan’s house. Best chili I ever ate.”
This is too much! I date and sleep with the guy, and I don’t get to meet his mama. Roger eats breakfast with him, and he gets to meet his mama.
“Karl and I went to the wake.”
Huh? “I didn’t see you there.”
“We saw you go in. We were getting gas across the street.”
“Why didn’t you come in while I was there?”
He shrugs. “Mainly because we didn’t want to be part of the fireworks. Monique can be pretty evil sometimes.”
Don’t I know it.
“And, we couldn’t understand why Juan wanted you there at all, so we gave you two some privacy.”
Today is getting to be one of the weirdest days of my life. I need to change the subject. “So, how did you meet your fiancée?”
“Lisa?” He smiles.
That jolts me, and not just because he said her name. It was the smile that followed his saying her name.
“Lisa is our favorite waitress at IHOP.”
Roger, the future interment director of Fairview Cemetery, and Lisa, the IHOP waitress. How quaint. One serves you food that will one day kill you, and the other plants you. “So you’ve only known her for, what, a couple of months?”
He shrugs. “I only knew you for a couple of months before I asked you to marry me.”
Oh yeah.
“Yeah. Lisa’s something. And she knows everything there is to know about you.”
Great.
“Now at first, I didn’t want to ask Lisa for her phone number, but Karl and Juan insisted. I thought they were trying to weed me out of the equation so they’d have a better chance to get back with you, but that wasn’t the case. Karl has Izzie, Juan has Monique. Anyway, that’s when we all agreed never to be with you again, no matter what.”
They actually made a damn agreement!
“Karl called me the night you visited Isabel and him, and Juan called me when you visited him, you know, to warn me that you might be coming to see me.”
I’ve been under surveillance. I don’t know whether to be scared or pissed. “Did you tell them about the day you saw me here?”
“I didn’t mention that to them. I mean, we didn’t exactly speak to each other.”
“We did share a wave, and you did put that rose under my wiper.”
He smiles. “I did?”
“Yes.”
“Oh yeah. I did. I must have had an extra to spare that day.”
I feel like stomping my feet, I’m so mad! But I don’t want to wake any of the dead around me. “Y’all actually have an agreement against seeing me?”
“We wrote it all out on a napkin and everything.”
And it’s written down! Of course it is! And on a damn IHOP napkin. “Well, that’s, um, that’s great. Just great.” I start to walk directly to my car.
“Hey, sorry,” says Roger, trotting alongside. “But at least you’ll know where Karl is every Sunday morning from now on.”
How comforting. I juggle them, let them fall, and they collect themselves every Sunday morning at IHOP for a cholesterol breakfast.
“How’s your ankle?”
I’m almost to my car. “It’s fine.”
“Will you play again next year?”
I shoot a look at him to see if he’s being sarcastic. He seems genuinely interested. “I haven’t decided.”
“Well, you should. You’re a good player, Lana.”
Was that supposed to be a smart remark? Why can’t I tell anymore?
I get to my car, throwing the bag, the bulb food, and the spade into the backseat.
“Wait,” he says.
“What?” I say.
Then … Roger looks me up and down slowly, and suddenly I feel self-conscious. “And you look good, too, Lana.”
“Thanks, um, Roger. Bye.” I get in the car.
He pantomimes rolling down the window. What else? I roll down my window.
“You really ought to come out here after the first snow.”
Why would I want to do that? He waves his arm over the entire cemetery. “You’ll see white fields as far as your eyes can see.” “I’m, um, I’m sure it’s beautiful. Bye.” I start up my car and drive off, talking to the dead people I pass.
“Y’all have it easy,” I say.
Chapter 38
It was only five months!
Five freaking months!
Twenty weeks and Roger is engaged, Juan’s marrying Monique, and Karl and Izzie are expecting a child. I thought they were better men than that! They leave me and fall all to pieces going after a permanent piece. I was the best thing in their lives….
And they were the best things in mine.
I want them all back!
I know I can get Karl to dump Izzie. I know everything about her, and most of it is scary. She plucks her eyelashes and uses false ones. When she takes them off, she looks like a black gecko. She has a false tooth held in her mouth by a bridge. If that bridge should ever fail, she’ll be missing one of her top front teeth. And, she has the hairiest toes I’ve ever seen! I swear she could braid them. Karl wouldn’t want her after I told him all that.
Except for the baby.
Which Karl wants.
No.
They seem happy. They have what I want.
Okay, what about Juan Carlos? Roger said that Juan Carlos could have picked up a waitress at Hooters. I’m sure I can make Monique jealous enough about that to break it off with him. I’ll just go to Monique …
Nah.
She might be Haitian and cut me with a machete or someth
ing.
And as for Lisa, I almost want to drop in on them at IHOP one Sunday morning just to tell them how childish they’re all being. I’d tear up that little napkin, and I’d get to see Lisa in the flesh.
Today is Tuesday. Five days until Sunday. Hmm.
I could go to IHOP and talk about my boyfriend Roger McDowell in front of Lisa, and then Lisa would be suspicious or break it off with Roger, and …
No. That happens only in the movies or on stupid sitcoms. Or in middle school.
I’ll just … drop in. Yeah. As in right now. So what if it’s lunchtime.
I drive from the cemetery to IHOP, slam the Rabbit’s door closed, throw open one of the restaurant’s double doors, and—
Damn. There are a lot of people here for lunch at a breakfast place.
Only in Roanoke.
While I’m waiting to be seated, I stare at every waitress’s name tag and don’t see a single “Lisa.”
“One?” the hostess finally says.
Oh, rub it in, why don’t you? “Yes. Is Lisa working today?”
“She only works early mornings.”
Shit.
I follow the hostess to a booth and sit, not looking at the menu. A waitress named … Allie comes over with a pot of coffee. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
She pours the cup. Allie looks no older than nineteen, so she might know Lisa.
“Um, Allie, are you a friend of Lisa’s?”
“We’ve worked together some. You know her?”
Shit. I need information. I don’t need to be answering any questions from gum-cracking waitresses like Allie from the Valley. “Um, yeah. I know her from high school.”
Allie blinks. “You don’t look that old.”
Lisa is older than me, or at least she seems so to Allie. White folks sometimes have trouble telling black folks’ ages, so I don’t know how to react. “Thank you,” I say.
“You really went to high school with old Lisa Lou?”
Old Lisa Lou? Whoa. She must be really old. Roger, I hardly know you anymore! “Oh, I work at Patrick Henry. That’s what I meant when I said high school.” That was weak.
Allie squints. “I think Lisa’s kids graduated from Northside.”
Old Lisa Lou is an older woman with children who graduated from high school already? What does that make Lisa? In her late forties at least? Whoa. I look up at Allie. “Perhaps we’re talking about different Lisas.”
