I felt as if someone had just punched me in the gut. I stared at my husband. “Is that true?”
For the briefest of moments, I saw shame in his eyes, and I had my answer.
But he recovered quickly. “Son-of-a-bitch! Can’t a guy crack a goddamn joke without you women gettin’ your panties in a wad?” He strode out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, we heard the apartment door slam shut. Betty and I stared at each other.
“I’m sorry,” Betty said. “I don’t mean to cause trouble between you two. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut.”
“No,” I said slowly. “I don’t want to be in the dark about such things. But Betty…I just can’t believe Jake was serious. Surely he was just fooling around with you.”
She turned to the counter and began to fill the percolator basket with coffee grounds. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said finally. “But joke or no joke…I didn’t find it a bit funny.”
***
I didn’t find it funny either. After putting Debby Ann down in her crib, I found Jake in the kitchen, mixing himself a drink—Johnny Walker and Coke. I watched him a moment, debating whether to rip into him about the wife-swapping joke or to chide him for drinking more when he was already lit to the gills. Or…a third option—leave him alone, go to bed and let him drink himself silly.
That seemed like the best idea.
He pinned his glittering blue eyes on me. “What the hell are you looking at?”
I couldn’t help herself. Even as I opened my mouth and said it, I knew I was making a huge mistake, but I could no more stop myself than I could stand at the bottom of Niagara Falls and stop the water from raining down upon me.
“A damn idiot, I reckon.”
My stomach did a slow flip-flop as my words hung in the air between us. I held my breath, waiting for Jake to turn into the same ugly man he’d been the other night at the sight of a colored woman in his house.
But to my astonishment, he laughed. And it wasn’t an ugly, mean-spirited laugh, but a genuine one. He placed his glass of whiskey down on the chrome-edged dinette table and grinning, came toward me.
“You’re quite a little spitfire tonight, ain’t you, darlin’?” His gaze swept down my body, lingering on my breasts under my cropped blue-striped top. “Did I tell you how pretty you look tonight, Lily Rae? I swear, it was all I could do all night to keep myself from slipping my hand inside them skimpy little short-shorts you’re wearing.” He gave me a wink and moved closer.
Mesmerized, I watched his approach. And felt myself falling under his spell. Why, he looks a little like Elvis, I thought. That sexy grin…something between a sneer and a smile. Warmth flooded through my lower regions, pooling in my womanly parts.
His hands closed around my buttocks. He pulled me against him so I could feel the hot brick of his erection beneath his Chinos. His mouth clamped down on mine, his tongue seeking entry. I sighed into his kiss, wrapping my arms around his waist. Deep in the recesses of my brain, I knew I should still be angry with him, whether he’d been serious or not about the wife-swapping thing, but somehow, it seemed unimportant now. Still kissing me, his hand moved from my butt cheek to my belly, slipping down inside the narrow waistband of my navy linen shorts. Gasping with excitement, I dutifully parted my legs, allowing him access to my most secret place. He began to caress me.
Suddenly he stiffened. “What the hell is this?”
I became aware of a tugging sensation in my vagina, and drew back in horror. “Oh, God, Jake! I forgot. I started my period a couple days ago.”
His face twisted with revulsion. He pulled his hand out of my shorts as if it had been burned. “Well, shit!” He looked like a little boy who’d been told he couldn’t have a cookie before dinner. “What the hell is that string-thing, anyway?”
My cheeks grew hot with embarrassment. “It’s a tampon. Betty told me how to…”
He turned away from me. “I don’t want to know the details! Goddammit, Lily Rae, I’m so horny, I could hump a mattress. And you have to be on the damn rag!” He grabbed his drink off the table and took a healthy slug.
“Oh, that’s nice,” I said, my blood still thrumming from his caresses. “Is that all I am to you, just someone to…hump?”
He stared at me without responding and lifted his glass to his lips again. In disgust, I turned to leave the room, but he called me back.
“Wait a minute.” His eyes glittered with a speculative, barely suppressed excitement. It made me nervous. “There is something you can do for me…if you want to please your man.”
“What?” I asked, my voice ringing with suspicion. What about me, my brain shrieked. You get me all hot and bothered and then leave me aching just because you get queasy at the thought of blood.
But I could never, ever, in a million years say such a thing aloud.
Jake put down his glass, unzipped his trousers and withdrew his erect penis from the opening in his boxer shorts. He began to stroke himself.
I thought I understood. He called it a “hand job.”
“Shouldn’t we go into the bedroom?” I asked.
He shook his head, his eyes heavy-lidded as he continued to touch himself. “Let’s do it right here, baby. Right now.”
I shrugged and came toward him. If he was as horny as he claimed to be, it shouldn’t take long. But then…would he do the same thing for me? Just because I was on my period didn’t mean my desires had disappeared.
I stopped a few inches away and reached out to touch him.
“On your knees, baby,” he said, his voice husky, eyes slitted.
I looked at him in confusion.
His free hand settled on my right shoulder and nudged me downward. “Just a little blow-job, Lily Rae,” he urged, his voice ragged with arousal.
I wrenched away from him in horror. “No! I can’t do that!”
Only recently had I’d found out what a blow-job was. And when Betty had told me, I could hardly believe people actually did stuff like that. It was so nasty! Lord, he peed out of that thing!
And I remembered being so thankful that Jake had never expected me to do anything like that.
Until now.
I backed away, shaking my head. “No, Jake. Please…I just can’t do that.”
His eyes became as hard as diamond chips. I kept my gaze on his face, knowing if I allowed myself to look down at his erection and think about where he wanted to put it, I’d surely vomit right here on the kitchen floor.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” he snarled.
I shook my head helplessly. “It’s just that…oh, Lord, Jake! I just can’t bring myself to…you know…put my mouth there. I’ll gag…”
For a long moment, he stared at me in disgust, then stuffed his penis back into his boxers and zipped up. “Well, get the fuck out of here then! What the fuck are you good for?” He grabbed his whiskey glass and drained the contents.
My eyes swam with tears. “Please, Jake, try to understand…”
He looked at me as if I were a stranger. “Did you hear what I said? Get the fuck out of here! It makes me sick to look at you!”
I whirled around and ran out of the kitchen. In the bedroom, I threw myself on the bed, sobbing. Why did he have to be so mean? Every time I started to believe he was making an effort to be the sort of man I knew he could be, he went and did something like this! And in the process, always seemed to make me feel like I was the one in the wrong.
Like now. Had I overreacted to his request? After all, Betty had said that husbands and wives did it all the time. That even though most women didn’t particularly like to do it, they did it to keep their men happy. And that’s when I’d been so smugly thankful that Jake didn’t need to be kept happy like that.
I cried harder, wetting the pillow with my tears. Why hadn’t I just squeezed my eyes shut and let him do what he wanted to do? What was there for me to do anyway besides let him put it in and…well…I’d have to lick it a little.
My stomach spasmed at th
e thought and for a moment, I thought I truly was going to be sick right there on the bed.
What the fuck are you good for?
Jake’s sneering words rang through my brain.
Apparently, nothing. I’d failed him as a wife. As a lover. By refusing to do what Betty said was a pretty standard sexual practice in a normal marriage these days.
Had Daddy and Mother…?
“Aggggghhhh….” I buried my face in the pillow, trying to scrub my brain free of that thought. It was just too revolting.
But then another one, almost equally as disgusting came to me. Betty’s voice. If a man can’t get it at home, then believe me, honey, he’ll go looking for it elsewhere.
I sat up on the bed and blinked into the darkness, my last sob dying in my throat. What if Betty were right? I slid my legs over the edge of the bed. I’d go to him right now, beg his forgiveness, tell him I’d do anything he wanted me to, anything! Even that, if it was what it took to be a good wife.
A crash came from the kitchen, then another one. I stood and headed for the door. Lord above, was he breaking my dishes? Not that they were good dishes, but they were all we had. The crashing continued. My heart pounding, I ran down the hallway and burst into the kitchen.
Jake stood at the kitchen table, a hammer in his right hand. He looked up and gave me a grin that could only be described as malicious, and then he brought the hammer down again on the table. Bits of black vinyl flew, skittering across the table and onto the Linoleum floor.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
And then I saw it—the brown paper wrapper with the circular hole in it. The one that had contained Elvis’s record.
“No!” I screamed, instinctively reaching for the hammer, even though I knew it was way too late.
Jake pushed me away. “Bet you’d suck his dick, wouldn’t you?”
“Jake! Don’t be an idiot! Give me that hammer!” I reached for it again as he aimed for another blow.
This time he pushed me hard. Off-balance, I fell against the corner of a cabinet, and stars exploded behind my eyes. Something warm trickled down the left side of my face. I brought my hand up. Touched it to my face and looked at it. Blood. Stunned, I looked at Jake.
His face had paled, and the anger had drained from his eyes. “Oh, Lily Rae, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You know I didn’t do it on purpose.”
I stared at him. “You never do,” I said softly.
He lifted his hand to wipe the blood away from my cheek, but before he could touch me, I turned away.
“Lily, please…you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
“I know, Jake,” I said wearily. “Let me go and clean this cut.”
Just as I moved, a pounding came at the front door followed by Betty’s anxious voice. “What’s going on in there? Lily, are you okay?”
We locked gazes. Jake’s face was ashen and vulnerable-looking. His fingers entwined in one of my curls.
“Please, baby,” he murmured. “Let me send her away. She don’t need to know about this. You know how much she hates me. That’s why she keeps trying to poison you against me, can’t you see that?”
“Lily!” The pounding came again, harder this time. “You want me to call the police?”
My heart jolted. “I’m okay, Betty!” I called out. Cupping my hand to the cut on my forehead, I hurried into the living room and over to the front door. “I was just making Jake a…BLT, and cut my finger slicing a tomato,” I lied. “It’s not deep, though. I’m fine.”
For a long moment, there was nothing but silence on the other side of the door. Then Betty’s voice came again, heavy with suspicion. “Why don’t you open up the door, Lily? So I can see you.”
I thought quickly, and gave a little laugh. Another lie rolled off my tongue. “Well…uh…it’s like this, Betty. I ain’t got a stitch on. Jake and I were sort of…fooling around.”
“While you were making a BLT for him?” she asked smoothly. It was clear she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Well, now, Betty,” I said slyly. “Do I pry into the what and wherefores of you and Eddie’s bedroom secrets?”
Another brief silence, then, “Touché.”
“But thanks for checking up on me, Bets.” I had to get to the bathroom and clean this cut. It was bleeding profusely, creating a red stream down my jaw onto the blue and white-striped scoop neck of my top. “Goodnight!”
“Wait!” Betty called out. “What was all that banging?”
I bit my bottom lip, thinking. “Oh! That was Jake…finally putting in them shelves in the kitchen I’ve been nagging him about.” I heard a movement behind me and turned to see Jake standing in the threshold of the living room, listening.
“Goodnight, Betty,” I said again.
This time Betty must’ve believed me. There was only a moment’s hesitation before her response. “Okay. Goodnight. See you tomorrow.”
Without glancing at Jake, I went into the bathroom to grab a towel, pressing it against the bleeding cut.
“How bad is it?” Jake said, hovering in the doorway, his face anxious.
“I’ll live, I reckon.” I peered at him out of the eye not covered by the towel. “You do know you’re gonna have to put up them shelves tomorrow, don’t you?”
CHAPER TWENTY-FOUR
I slept on the couch that night, even though Jake tried several times to cajole me into bed. I was just furious at him—not so much about the cut on my forehead, because I knew he hadn’t meant for me to get hurt when he pushed me. No, I was spit-fire mad at him for destroying my Elvis record. That was just out and out meanness, and as far as I was concerned, it took the cake.
Last night as I’d laid there on that couch, staring grimly into the darkness, it was all I could do to keep myself from gathering up a stack of Jake’s Hank Williams albums and take that hammer of his and smash them to smithereens. But then that would make me just as bad as him, wouldn’t it?
Sometime before daylight, I’d finally fallen asleep, only to be awakened just after seven by Debby Ann’s listless wails. Stumbling to the baby’s room, still half-asleep, I cast an evil glare at the closed bedroom door, and murmured a curse under my breath. What magic power made a man able to sleep through the racket of a crying child?
I tried to force a few spoonfuls of oatmeal into Debby Ann who managed to be even more stubborn than usual, defiantly turning her wispy blonde head to avoid the spoon coming at her. And when I did get a spoonful of cereal in that sweet rosebud of a mouth, the kid would stare me right in the eye and spit it out. The third time it happened, I gave up, washing her face with a wet cloth, none too gently and without a smidgen of guilt, and took her out of the high chair. Placing her on her feet on the floor, I plugged her mouth with what she’d wanted all along—her ba-ba—which the baby doctor had sternly advised me to start weaning her from at the last check-up.
“Fine with me if you’re still sucking on that thing when you get to high school,” I muttered, watching grimly as Debby Ann parked her butt on the floor, and began to suck enthusiastically, her tiny hands clamped on the bottle.
I sighed. “You’re just as strong-willed and stubborn as your daddy, aren’t you?”
Debby Ann’s big brown eyes watched me as she drank from the bottle. She sure was a pale little thing, her fine hair so light it practically blended into her porcelain face. Her dark eyes looked like a couple of raisins embedded in an unbaked cream puff.
“You sit right there and drink your bottle,” I told her. “I’m going to get your daddy up. If I can’t sleep, I don’t see why he should.”
Besides, he had shelves to get up. I’d be darned if I let him make a liar out of me. Them shelves better be up by the afternoon, or I’d know the reason why.
I opened the door to the bedroom. “Jake? You need to get up now.”
No response. I stepped into the room. The blinds were drawn, but there was enough sunlight filtering through the slats so I could see that
the bed was empty.
“Well, I’ll be!” Hands propped on my hips, I stared at the rumpled sheets.
Where the dickens had that man gone off to? And why hadn’t I heard him leave? He would’ve had to go through the living room to get out of the apartment.
He’d better not have gone out to drink more and carouse. That would really be the last straw! I blinked at the thought, wondering where it had come from. What did that mean, the last straw? And what would I do if it was the last straw?
Turning my attention to the bed, I smoothed out the top sheet and pulled up the gold-and-green chenille bedspread, tucking it over the fluffed pillows so it looked as pretty as a catalog picture.
“There, now.”
The truth was, there would be no last straw. As Mother would say, I’d made my bed, and now I had to lay in it. Come hell or high water. So, I might as well make the best of it. Make it nice and smooth and pretty as a catalog picture…just like that bed. I wasn’t a bit sure how I could do it, but what choice did I have but to try?
So just after eleven, the apartment was sparkling clean, Debby Ann was napping, and I sat at the kitchen table in a sunshine-bright yellow sundress and white sandals, my hair still damp from the shower, licking green stamps and placing them into a booklet.
On the radio, Frank Sinatra sang “Three Coins in a Fountain,” and I hummed along as I placed the last stamp in the book. It was more than half-filled. Maybe it wouldn’t be too long before I could use it to get that new steam iron in the catalog.
When Jake appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, I pretended not to notice him; instead, I turned my attention to the grocery list. For a moment, he just stood there and watched me. Finally, he came into the room, and I began to scribble on my pad of paper…anything that came into my head, whether we actually needed it or not.
Instant pudding. Nescafe. Wesson Oil. Campbell’s Soup.
Jake pulled out a chair and sat down. Even though I could feel him watching me, I pretended to be absorbed in my grocery list.
Bisquick. Kleenex. Soap.
Lily of the Springs Page 19
