Straight Up

by Lisa Samson

  The leg that settles on the pavement is encased in a heavy woolen sock, and the shoes are thick and hard, with rubber-tire bottoms and slick black laces. The old man stands to his feet and touches TV Mom’s face.

  He pulls out a cane and starts toward the kitchen door. TV Mom opens the hatchback and lifts out a suitcase—the old kind that looks like a box with a handle. So the nice old man is staying with them?

  It’s like a show. But real live. And it’s fascinating to the little girl. She watches TV Mom unlock the door, let the old man in. Granddaddy, the little girl will call him. She watches until the side door is closed, then watches for several minutes more.

  Perhaps they’re having coffee now, warming their hands around the cups, and maybe they’re talking about all the fun things they’re going to do while Granddaddy visits.

  Georgia

  Bits of mirror and silver glitter all pressed into slick black laminate lines the Ten O’Clock Club. The original art deco bar reclines like a tired bon vivant across from the corner stage. I shrug out of my spring jacket, cover the black leather seat of the barstool, and rest my elbows on the padded perimeter.

  And now I am a drunk. I’d flirted with the bottle since eighth grade, when Bobby Martin invited me over to play video games and we raided the liquor cabinet and how cliché, right? But it felt so good to feel happy like that. Free and able to laugh at anything.

  Jesse pours me vodka, straight up with a twist, and slides it forward. “You’re a little late today, Georgie.” He rests his forearms on the bar in front of mine. “It’s after four.” Twice as much hair grows like rye grass out of his ruddy arms than grows out of mine.

  Jesse used to spin me around on these stools, his booming laugh blending with my childish giggles. I don’t recall a time when the meaty bartender didn’t remember a birthday or bestow upon me some odd present for Christmas. One year, he bought me my own box of Halloween decorations.

  It amazes me, now that I think about it, how many people tried to step in after Mom died. But how can a woman like Polly Bishop be replaced?

  I can’t see much change in him, considering he’s worked here thirty years. Aunt Drea’s loyalty assures almost no turnover at the Ten O’Clock Club. The barmaids are now barmatrons. And Aunt Drea smokes her little Tiparillos, all the while patting them on the rear and saying, “Good work, doll! This club wouldn’t stay open without you.”

  Aunt Drea and Mom became friends in the fifth grade when Drea punched a girl in the face for making fun of Mom. No one can remember the reason.

  Jesse taps the space between our arms. “What’s up, hon?”

  “Rough night.”

  He shakes his head, and I raise my hand. “I know, Jesse, I know. You can’t imagine what my mother would say.”

  He points at me. “Here’s the thing that gets me about you, Georgie. You’re not bad looking, you’ve got talent oozing from your pores, your dad left you enough to live on—while maybe not extravagantly, definitely enough to get by in the everyday—and here you sit tying one on.”

  Jesse usually doesn’t talk like this. Jesse usually minds his own business when it comes to things like sex, drinking, and any questionable behavior he’s been guilty of a thousand times or more himself. Jesse usually isn’t this annoying.

  He turns around and pours himself a cup of black coffee. “Thing is, there are people who aren’t born into any sort of opportunity the way you were, and they’d kill to have a skill, a little cash. I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

  I just shake my head. “Give me one more year of this.”

  “Two’s not enough?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something about the number three that seems just right.”

  He sips his coffee and rubs a hand over his slicked-back hair. “You weren’t even close to your dad. And what’s wrong with a job? All I know is, this isn’t right.”

  I set down my drink. “Do you honestly think I believe it is?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Maybe nothing, Jesse. I live a stinking life. Nobody knows that better than me.” I pick my drink back up, throw it against the wall of my throat, and grimace. “Keep ’em comin’, as they say in the movies.”

  “Drea’s coming in early today; you’d better get your drunk on quick.”

  Wow, that stung. I really do need another drink after that.

  Drea circles her arms, and the billowing, swirling, yea, dizzying Indian fabric is enough to render me nauseated. “It’s time for you to leave, Georgia. Get out of the club now.”

  She came in thirty minutes early, and how rude was that?

  I try to pull my purse off the floor, but I slip and fall, hanging off the barstool beside me by my jaw. “I am an owner here.”

  Aunt Drea used to be my friend.

  “Jesse, help her to the door. And I’m not seeing to your safe trip home today, Georgia. You’re on your own.”

  Good night, Aunt Drea. “I’m fine.”

  “Baloney.”

  Baloney? Who says that anymore? I start to giggle. Baloney.

  “I can’t imagine what your mother—”

  “Save it. Jesse already speeched your spoke.”

  Speeched your spoke. Her spoke. Oh, that’s hilarious!

  “This isn’t funny, Georgia Ella.”

  Oh, but it is. I feel the laughter popping up like woodchucks from their holes. Ha. Ha. Ha, ha, ha.

  Ella? What were they thinking, those two crazies who called themselves parents? Ella? Georgia and Ella go together as much as—

  Cinder and Ella! Cinderella. Georgiaella. Cinderella. Georgiaella.

  Jesse takes my arm. “Come on, hon. Let’s just get to the door. It’s a good first step.”

  I touch his face. “You know, you’re still a beautiful man. A beautiful person. You’re so nice to me, Jesse.” His beauty makes me want to cry.

  My eyes fill with tears.

  I turn to Aunt Drea. “And what in the name of all that’s decent did Ella Fitzgerald ever do for me? That’s what I’d like to know!”

  Jesse squeezes my arm. “Come on, baby doll. Just go down to the bench and get the bus.” He reaches into his pocket. “Here’s the fare. And please, go right home.”

  So I sit on the bench in the spring evening, brain twirling pleasantly, my fanny spreading out like warm batter on a wooden griddle, loose and flappy-like, and when the bus arrives, I stumble on, hoping I can fit the coins into that stupid little machine.

  Fairly

  My contact lens ripped! Right in half like a slightly-dried-out Jell-O saucer. And I’m out of replacements. So I rolled it around on my fingers, figuring I might as well have a little of that curious fun I used to have when I was child and the thermometer broke.

  Lucky me, I may land myself in a cancer ward someday due to the effects of the mercury I allowed to skate and pill across my palm.

  So there I sat at the Tavern with Braden, who said we needed to celebrate the finishing of his MBA. He’s a Mr. Smarty Pants. Did I tell you Braden’s only twenty-three? A whiz kid. My boy toy.

  Man, he looked cute, that brown, curly JFK Jr. hair sweeping his brow.

  “Those glasses are sexy, Fair. You know, there’s something alluring about a smart woman.”

  I heaved a dramatic sigh. “Well, you’ll just have to accept older and more worldly wise.”

  He raised his brows. “Wanna get out of here?”

  “No.” I batted his arm. “I’d rather eat. I’m easy, not cheap.” I feel as if I’m watching a movie. This can’t be me, for goodness’ sake.

  Our waiter, Jim, arrived. “Are you ready to order?”

  I set down my menu. “I want two thick pork chops grilled for five minutes, then rubbed with pepper, garlic, and brown sugar and baked for ten. Then throw them back on the grill for another three.”

  Jim leaned forward, bald head catching the candlelight. Looked both ways. “Come on, Fairly. You know I’ll catch it from the chef.”

  “I’ll tip you fo
rty percent.”

  He leaned back and nodded his head, the expression of disgust bobbing up and down. “Okay, okay. I swear. But only for old time’s sake.”

  One time, during our senior year of high school, I kissed Jim behind the school gym. I had my cheerleading uniform on too. I’ll bet he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. He went off to school in New York, just like I did.

  A theater major.

  And he didn’t have a Hort to rescue him for a sweet little while.

  “Caesar salad with something sweet in it like oranges or apples, and I’ll take the grilled artichoke.”

  Braden ordered the filet mignon, a baked potato, and a green vegetable.

  What’s for dessert, my dear? Jell-O?

  I should swear off these frivolous relationships. But wading around in “intimacy light” is a whole lot easier than diving into a committed relationship, and it’s all I can handle. It’s a good thing my parents are dead. I don’t know if they could stand to see what I’m doing. But I am rather successful in my business, if not my ability to function emotionally.

  No, I haven’t been to a shrink about all this, but I am aware that I simply can’t face the issues of life as they’ve come to me.

  Diversion is good. Diversion is good.

  I sipped my cocktail. “I heard a rumor that my friend Leo Jacobelli—remember him from that party I took you to last week?—he found a Laverne settee. Quite rare.”

  “Ah! So you’re getting furniture from old TV shows now? Cool!”

  What was I doing there with this guy?

  “Not Laverne and Shirley, Braden.”

  Still, however unartistic, Braden was rather cute. I believe I said that already. I feel rather sorry for him, however. I don’t believe I’m going to want to live this fast and loose for much longer. When I see Solo with his boys and think of his dead wife back in the Congo, I feel more than a little silly. I feel downright fetid and not a little sloppy, as if people like Solo are a wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano and I am a can of squirt cheese. As my friend Jim used to say when Sally, the loosest girl in school, would walk by us in the cafeteria, “Don’t touch that, you don’t know where it’s been.”

  I can’t be that girl much longer.

  Georgia

  We married young, right out of high school where we’d met as freshmen. Sean sang, I played, and we loved each other. The most beautiful boy I’d ever seen, he grew up slim and lithe, golden and brown, smooth and calm. The lovemaking was great. The music was great. The food was great.

  But four years into our marriage, he left to go to a monastery for a time because Sean could never be contained and he loved God in this very mysterious way, accepting of pain and the thorny existence all humanity must live, a feed-the-poor kind of way.

  Like me. I’m so accepting of all that. I can handle the ways of the world so well. Or at least with such economy. I mean, why not the bottle? In the scheme of things it’s cheaper than a big house, less time consuming than an ubercareer, and even more numbing than therapy.

  He’s still at the monastery, in fact. So I’m married, but I’m really not. Even at Grove Church, after a few years of asking when he’d be coming home, the people stopped wondering.

  But what if I returned to work? Would that really be so bad? Jesse may be right, really. A lot of people would give almost everything they’ve got to be in my shoes.

  Clarissa

  The mother slams in through the door. No car in the driveway. No man at home apparently, the creep!

  She tramps over to the sofa, pokes the girl on the shoulder. “Clarissa.”

  The colorless eyes move their gaze from the shoulder to the mother’s face.

  “How many shows have you watched since Daddy left?”

  The girl thinks. Saved by the Bell, Full House, Family Ties. “Three and this.” Growing Pains.

  “Almost two hours, then.” The mother’s lips curl inside themselves, and she mutters, “Phyllis, Phyllis, Phyllis. Phyllis, what have you done?” She turns and steps toward the door.

  “Where you going, Mommy?”

  “Upstairs to lie down. I have a headache. Go outside and play. You watch too much TV, Clarissa.”

  The little girl presses the button on the remote and jumps down from the couch. Then she heads out the side door. Maybe that nice next-door mom and the old man will come out at the same time.

  The little girl skips down the steps and into the backyard. Her father brought home a swing set a few days ago, and she’s pretty good on the teetertotter, even by herself. Her older brother, Reggie, who is really her cousin, is at school during the day. She’s glad for that because Reggie can be mean sometimes. He calls her Ugly Girl a lot.

  She climbs on the teetertotter and, testing her balance, whizzes back and forth across the beam, feeling the cold winter breeze nibble her nose and cheeks.

  So why not try the swing? She’s not sure she can do it on her own, but her mom has a headache.

  The little girl jumps down from the teetertotter and slips her bottom up onto the swing. She grasps the chains and jerks her body, trying to get it moving forward.

  Oh, this is frustrating!

  A shadow falls across her lap. A shadow wearing a hat with a pompom on the top. “Can I give you a little help?” it says.

  The little girl looks up. It’s the old man. It’s Granddaddy Man!

  “Okay.”

  He pushes her gently. “Now tell me if I push you too hard.”

  Georgia

  Uncle Geoffrey’s ring, “A Whole New World,” lights up my cell phone as I practically plaster my face against the bathroom mirror, trying to pop the menstrual zit I’m blessed with on the right side of my chin each month.

  I press the button with the green phone on it and turn away from the blotchy sad sack in the mirror.

  “Guess what, Georgie? There’s an opening for an organist here in Lexington!”

  “Uncle Geoffrey, come on.”

  This is a little freaky, like God’s suddenly going to start caring or something.

  “I’m serious. You’ve got to get out of that hole you’re living in. You’ll soon become one of those peculiar hermit women who wears long skirts and black hats with veils and buys everything in bulk over the phone.”

  “What do you mean ‘one of those’? I’ve never seen anybody like that in my life!”

  “It does sound a bit like Emily Dickinson with a phone line, doesn’t it? I promised your mother I’d see to it that you lived your promised life. Enough is enough, oh niece of mine. If you don’t come down, I will come up there and drag you out by your hair.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet, much less an organist position.” Last night I was just muttering crazy things, things only a raving lunatic or a drunk would say. Who in her right mind thinks about getting a job?

  “The interview and audition are next Wednesday. I already set it up.”

  What a meddler!

  “Georgia, you can stay here. You can even move in here if you want. I’m always gone anyway. And I’m serious about the hair thing. You’ve got enough of it for me to grab a hefty handful, you know.”

  “I need to think about it.”

  “You’ve got five days to make up your mind. But I’m telling you, Georgia, two years is long enough for anybody to get their head together. You’ve made your last excuse.”

  “Am I becoming one of your projects, then?”

  “Well, that’s up to you. I’m not above making you one.”

  That sure is the truth. Still, I thought that was a pretty good line, and he worked his way around it beautifully. I’m definitely off my game.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “That’s all I ask. For now. You know, I was thinking about your being such a fine organist. I used to take a great deal of chest-puffing credit for all that, but now I wonder if jazz piano wasn’t supposed to be your gig.”

  “Am I that pathetic?”

  “You can answer that bett
er than I can, Georgia.”

  “Why did you ever convince me to drop jazz, Uncle Geoffrey?”

  Silence strains until, “It’s something I’ve been asking myself a lot over the past couple of years. I probably should have kept my mouth closed on the matter.”

  So now, as I sit once again on my barstool, I have to wonder how I got here. Really. What was the one thing that ushered me to this place? What? Or who?

  And why? That’s something I don’t think I can answer.

  Do you know what it’s like to watch your fingers dance on their own? Do you know what it’s like to ride on a wave of sound, not seeing ahead but somehow knowing where you’re going? Do you know what it’s like to close your eyes in a cool, dark place, spinning on a discus of warmth that is notes and beat and the odd place to rest?

  Fairly

  East Lae’apuki continues its ocean entries, with lava pouring into the water in the August 27 collapse scar and near the tip of the lava delta.”

  I found that entry earlier in my little sketch journal. I frequent the Kilauea updates on the Internet. I used to think of volcanoes as either-or. Either they’re dormant or they’re exploding. Silence or kaboom! But now that I know a little better, I love the way lava can gently dump its heat into the ocean, mounds and mounds and mounds, creating footholds and crevices for future inhabitants of the island. I feel some similarities sometimes, as if the heat inside me is dumping out into something cooling and soothing, building toward something I cannot name or even imagine, creating a place to stand.

  I can tell you what that something is not. Braden. That’s for certain.

  Every time he comes home with me and Solo sees him kiss me or take my hand or make a much-too-familiar joke, I feel such shame.

  Maybe I should just ask Solo to marry me!

  Oh, Hort would have loved the idea.

  Solo would make me face things I’m not ready to face.

  Perhaps he knows this, because he forces me to do nothing right now. His presence is a megaphone from which I shrink but cannot turn and walk away.