by Cathy Holton
“We’ve already had this conversation,” Lavonne said.
“Lavonne, I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to Nita!”
“There’s nothing wrong with me that Dr. Guffey can fix,” Nita said, and Lavonne tapped the edge of Nita’s lounger with her foot and Eadie gave her a little smile.
Virginia continued as if she hadn’t heard her. “It’s amazing what a little Zoloft can do to lift the spirits. It’s amazing what a low-dose prescription of Prozac can do.”
“Tequila is my drug of choice,” Eadie said.
“Yes, we’re all aware of that.”
“Bite me, Virginia.”
Virginia, stunned, stopped talking. Her little mouth opened and closed. She looked like a carp hauled up on a riverbank. She wasn’t sure what “bite me” meant, but she was pretty sure it must be crude and disrespectful. Here she was trying to fix her son’s defective wife and all she got for it was criticism and hostility. Well, she was through trying. She forced herself to calm down. She forced her tremulous heart to be still. Let Charles fix his own problems. Virginia turned her head and looked through the French door at the kitchen clock. “I’ve got a twelve o’clock luncheon,” she said.
“Don’t let us hold you up,” Lavonne said.
Virginia stood up and smoothed her skirt. “I’ll just run to the little girls’ room before I go,” she said to no one in particular. She put her sharp little nose in the air and stalked off.
Eadie waited until Virginia had closed the door and headed down the hall and then she leaned forward and said excitedly, “Okay, listen. I talked to Ramsbottom. And he said we needed to take pictures. You know, of the husbands with the male prostitutes or female impersonators or whatever the hell you call them. It was his idea but he said he’d do it for the agreed upon price. Videos, too.”
“That’s illegal,” Lavonne said.
“I know,” Eadie said. “Isn’t it great?”
“I have to think about this,” Lavonne said. “Extortion isn’t something I planned on.”
“It’s not extortion,” Eadie said. “It’s blackmail. I mean, if you want to get technical about it. Besides, what do you think the husbands are going to do when they find out we’ve cheated them out of money behind their backs? Trust me, we’re going to need those pictures as insurance.”
“Let’s not talk about this right now,” Nita said, looking down the hallway where her mother-in-law had disappeared.
“All I’m saying is we better have a good backup plan,” Eadie said, taking her keys out of her purse. “And those pictures would be added insurance.”
No one said anything. A few minutes later they heard the sharp clacking of Virginia’s heels on the hardwood floor.
“I’ll think about it,” Lavonne said quietly to Eadie. “But remember, we mustn’t talk about this, even among ourselves, unless we’re all together. The more we talk, the more likely it is to get around town. We’ll discuss it again tomorrow at Nita’s mother’s house, but not a word to anyone until then.”
THE SOCCER FIELDS were crowded. They had to park in the back lot and walk up from the lower fields, past the creek that flowed parallel to the road through a grove of beech, sycamore, and red oak. The water was slow and brackish. Logan skipped rocks across its dark green surface, his soccer bag banging against his knees as he walked. Through the chain-link fence ahead, Nita could see his team warming up on the practice field. “Honey, you better hurry,” she said.
“Have a good game,” Eadie said, ruffling his hair affectionately.
He smiled at her but didn’t move, standing in the middle of the road and kicking his toe in the sand. “Do I have to play?” he asked his mother. He hated soccer, but his father had pulled every string imaginable to get him on this select team. Quitting was not an option, and he knew it.
Nita stopped in the road and looked at him. “Of course you don’t have to play,” she said. “If you don’t want to.”
He squinted at his mother, holding his arm up against the sun. “Are you saying I can quit?”
“Anytime you want.”
He dropped his arm. The expression of relief that flooded his face made Nita think about all the ways she could have been a better mother. Why had she let Charles bully Logan into doing something he didn’t want to do? Why had she let Charles bully all of them over the past sixteen years? “We can go home now if you want to,” she said, pointing toward the parking lot. “I mean it.”
He frowned and looked at his feet. He dug the toe of his shoe in the sand. “Naw,” he said. “I’m already here. I better play. Besides, you never know, dad might show up.” He gave his mother and Eadie a little wave and headed off toward the field. At the edge of the green he turned around and shouted, “But this is the last time. I’m quitting after this game.”
They stopped at the concession booth and bought some popcorn and Cokes, and then they climbed up into the stands to wait for the game to begin. The day was cool and breezy and the warm sun felt good on Nita’s face.
“I’m working again,” Eadie said, tugging her straw in and out of the plastic lid of her Coke. It made a sound like wind whistling through a stovepipe.
“I’m glad,” Nita said. “You look good. Really rested. I think work agrees with you.”
“I’m trying a mixed medium,” Eadie said. “Oil and doilies.” She laughed and Nita thought how pretty she was with the sun shining on her face and the breeze in her hair. “I guess that’s what you’d call it. It’s kind of a cross between painting and collage. I haven’t painted in years, but it feels right to me now.”
Neither one mentioned Trevor or Charles or the fact that their worlds had, in a little over a week, gone completely topsy-turvy. Nita thought again how rested Eadie looked, not at all like a woman who had faced public humiliation and was soon to be embroiled in a contentious divorce. She wished she had an artistic outlet like Eadie had, or a hobby, something she could throw herself into to take her mind off her appalling marriage. She thought, briefly, of Jimmy Lee’s offer to teach her woodworking, and she smiled, remembering the silly hopeful woman she had been that day in the garden. She thought of Jimmy Lee less and less now, and she knew there would come a time when she would not think of him at all. Nita was too cynical now for romance.
Eadie stood up and poked her fingers in her jeans pocket. “Hey, do you want to split a bag of boiled peanuts?”
“Sure,” Nita said. She sat in the stands while Eadie went back down to the concession booth. Bright sunlight washed over the fields and the distant fringe of trees, glittering on the metallic roofs of parked cars and trucks. A thin cloud of dust rose over the parking lot as people continued to arrive. The Ithaca Raptors, in neon blue and white, were just finishing their game with the YMCA Dominators, in red and yellow. The Raptors were ahead 1–0. Players flowed and receded across the field like a red-blue tide. Mothers sat in the stands and gossiped and pleaded with small children who hung from the metal bleachers like monkeys. Fathers paced the sidelines, shouting instructions and pumping their fists in the air. Across the field, Nita could see Logan’s team warming up.
Eadie sat down beside her, holding a small sack of wet, steaming peanuts. “Who are they playing?” Eadie asked, nodding toward Logan’s brightly colored teammates.
“Reverend Bob’s team,” Nita said, in a low voice. She could see Reverend Bob sitting one bleacher row down and to their left. He was hard to miss.
“Oh God,” Eadie said.
The Reverend Bob Hog was six feet five inches tall. He had played basketball at Duke and engaged in drink and other assorted sins of the flesh until one night in a drunken orgy at Myrtle Beach with a group of Kappa Delt girls, he heard the call of the Lord.
“Bob Hog,” the Lord said. “Why do you ignore my Word? Why do you wallow in the trough of sin and despair?”
“Is that you, Lord?” Bob said. He sat, stunned and bloated with sin, pinned to the sofa like an arrow-riddled Saint Sebastian.
“Why do you
conspire with harlots?”
“They’re not harlots, Lord. They’re Kappa Delts.”
“Go and sin no more, Bob. Preach my Word to the wicked.”
Bog Hog stood up and shook off the Kappa Delts like a dog shaking off fleas. After that he attended seminary at Bob Jones University, and now he was youth minister down at Ithaca First Baptist Church. The Reverend Bob liked to coach Little League and soccer and town basketball and city league football. He liked to teach boys about sports on one hand and fill them with the fear of the Lord on the other.
On this breezy Saturday afternoon in October while they waited for the soccer match to begin, the Reverend Bob sat in the bleachers with Tammy Purvis and talked about the Lord. Tammy had been a cheerleader up at UVA and had smoked pot and slept with a boy named Mule before she got the call from the Lord. Now she was married to Chester Purvis, had three children, attended Bible study four times a week, and spent her spare time purging the school library of books she found inappropriate, and passing out leaflets to school-children on the evils of Halloween. Tammy Purvis believed donning a Halloween costume was the closest thing possible to opening up your heart and inviting Satan to enter. She had been denying her own children the sinful joys of trick or treating for years, and now she felt compelled to deny other people’s children. Tammy figured it was her Christian duty.
Nita tried not to listen to their conversation, which was hard because Reverend Bob always talked as if he was standing in a pulpit. His voice carried up the stands and across the field and probably across two counties as well. He and Tammy were talking now about Chester’s new car.
Chester Purvis was a steady, God-fearing man. He sold insurance out of his basement and attended huge prayer meetings in Atlanta where Christian men go to learn how to take back control of their families. “It’s an eighty-four Mercedes,” Tammy said, flipping her bleached blond hair over one shoulder. “I prayed about it and prayed about it and the Lord told me we should buy it.”
“Praise the Lord,” Reverend Bob said.
Over in the parking lot, Reverend Bob’s team stood methodically kicking a soccer ball into the side of his truck. Reverend Bob had a Ford truck with a bumper sticker that read I am a Christian and I have a Gun. Seeing the boys, Reverend Bob stood up and shouted in a thundering voice, “Nathan, get those boys out on the practice field and ya’ll start warming up.”
Nathan Hog stood apart from the other boys, watching in dignified silence. He was a tall thin boy who looked out at the world with an abiding sense of one who is preordained to failure. He was a minister’s boy and his last name was Hog. It didn’t get much worse than that.
Reverend Bob sighed and sat down heavily. Across the field, Nita saw Logan take a shot on goal and miss. He put his head down and loped back to the sidelines. She wanted to go out and put her arms around him and tell him everything was going to be all right. She wanted to tell him that life could be better than succeeding at soccer and trying to live up to impossible standards, and that he mustn’t give up hope. But then, who was she to talk?
Reverend Bob wiped his sweating face with a handkerchief and nodded his head while Tammy droned on about the Mercedes. She had told Chester no, he couldn’t have it, it was too expensive, and then they prayed about it and the Lord sent an answer in the form of a 1978 Honda Civic driven by a crowd of unruly teenagers. The teenagers plowed into the passenger’s side of the Mercedes and the lady who owned it, shaken and unharmed but realizing she was ninety-four years old and too old to drive, had called Chester and told him the car was his.
“I just know the Lord meant for Chester to have that Mercedes,” Tammy said, bobbing her head like one of those little dashboard dolls. “He gave me a sign, plain as day.”
Eadie, who had somehow managed to keep quiet throughout this entire conversation, leaned over and said loudly, “I hope you don’t seriously think the Lord would cause an accident between a little old lady and a carload of children just so Chester could get himself a fucking Mercedes.” Several people looked over their shoulders. Nita kicked Eadie with her foot, but Eadie ignored her.
Tammy swung around, her eyes narrowing when she saw Eadie. Reverend Bob glanced at Eadie and then away, ducking his head between his shoulders. Eadie Boone was one of the biggest contributors to the Baptist Boy’s home. She served Christmas dinner to the homeless down at the Interfaith Outreach Program and helped pay for the new ten-bed building addition. Reverend Bob didn’t want any trouble with Eadie Boone.
“This is a private conversation!” Tammy said, her little beaked nose turning bright red. She had a shrill voice when she was calm, but when she got excited it sounded like seagulls fighting over a dead fish. “We weren’t talking to you, were we, Reverend?” she shrieked.
“Excuse me, ladies,” Reverend Bob said, rising. “I see our game is about to begin.” He nodded without looking at any of them and hurried out of the stands.
Tammy stood up, quickly gathering her belongings. She made little short jerking movements and her hair stood up around her face like ruffled feathers. “You’re just jealous,” she hissed at Eadie over her shoulder. “You’ve been jealous of me since the day I made pom-pom squad, and you didn’t.”
Eadie smiled sweetly. “Of course, you’re right, Tammy, I never stood a chance competing with you.”
Tammy tossed her hair over one shoulder, her little dark eyes glittering with pride and vindication.
“After all, you were sleeping with the whole football squad.” Eadie smiled, showing her teeth. “What chance did I have?”
Tammy made a squawking sound deep in her throat, and turning, she sailed down the long row of bleachers, stepping over people who got in her way, and dragging her purse behind her like a broken tether.
“Bye, Tammy,” Eadie called.
“Well, that was pleasant,” Nita said.
“Yes, wasn’t it?”
Nita watched Tammy stomp down the bleacher steps. “And I guess this doesn’t have anything to do with the pom-pom squad?” she said to Eadie.
Eadie took a small mirror out of her purse and carefully applied her lipstick. “She was sleeping with the football team.” She closed the mirror, slid the lipstick into its sheath, and put both into her purse. “I always got blamed for things like that. Sleeping with the football team, I mean. No one ever believed I was a virgin the day I graduated, and it was girls like Tammy spreading the rumors.” She smiled at Nita and smoothed her hair. “I’m just setting the record straight, is all.”
Logan’s team was lining up on the field opposite Reverend Bob’s team. Logan sat on the bench, waiting. He usually got sent in for a few minutes at the end of the second half, but only if they were ahead by three goals, or losing so badly it didn’t matter.
The referee came out onto the field to start the game. There was something familiar about him, something familiar about the way he moved. He raised his arm and blew the whistle and in that instant, Nita recognized him. Blood flooded her face, pulsing delicately beneath her skin. Watching his lanky figure run up and down the sidelines it seemed foolish that she had ever thought she could forget him.
“Hey.” Eadie nudged her with her shoulder. “Isn’t that your good-looking carpenter? Billy Ray? Johnny Bob?”
“Jimmy Lee,” Nita said quietly.
AT HALF TIME Eadie went to the concession booth to buy another Coke. Nita sat in the stands, trying not to feel self-conscious. If Jimmy Lee had seen her, he gave no sign of it. He stood over on the sideline drinking water from a bottle. She tried to send him a telepathic message, willing him to look at her. A cool breeze fluttered his hair. Nita wondered if he had forgotten her in the two weeks since she saw him last. She wondered if she had imagined their little flirtation that day in the garden. The insistent voice in her head reminded her she was often naive and easily duped. She had, after all, been faithful to a man who cheated on her for fifteen years, and she never had a clue. Maybe Jimmy Lee was just another way she had of fooling herself.
&n
bsp; A tall blond girl wearing faded blue jeans strolled across the field. He saw her coming and grinned, wiping his face on a towel. The girl put her hand on his shoulder and they stood talking for a few minutes while the players from both teams slowly resumed their positions on the field.
“What’s the matter with you?” Eadie said. She sat down beside Nita, holding out another sack of boiled peanuts. Steam rose from the sack and curled, thick and wet, around Nita’s face.
“Nothing,” Nita said.
“Do you want some peanuts?”
“No thanks.”
High-flying clouds scuttled across the sun. The day, which had seemed so bright and promising just a short time before, grew gray and dismal. Nita tried not to let it all weigh her down. She tried not to think about all the things she had to worry about, but they fell into place anyway, lining up in her mind like missiles in a silo. She was married to a man she could no longer love or respect. Her children would need therapy. She had no skills or training that would enable her to find a job that could support both her and the children. She had fallen for a boy who probably couldn’t even remember her name.
Nita longed suddenly for the escape of her porno romance novels. She longed for the days when she had been able to immerse herself in thrilling tales of love and adventure on the high seas, in castle boudoirs, in lonely teepees, when all around her the world had seemed safe and knowable and miraculously uncomplicated, and the only problem she had had to worry about was whether to make chicken or fish for dinner.
AN HOUR AND fifteen minutes later, the game was over, a perfect rout by Reverend Bob’s Raiders. The two teams lined up on the field to shake hands. Logan’s team filed by the stands like prisoners on their way to execution. One of the boys was crying. Logan came up the rear, whistling. He saw his mother and waved. In a strange twist of reasoning known only to bored housewives, death-row felons, and lonely adolescents, other people’s misery made Logan happy. He passed the crying boy.
