A Dangerous Woman

by Mary McGarry Morris

“You serious?” he said with a nervous laugh, then added quickly that of course he had references but they were all out of state. He had spent most of the last two years in Oregon and Washington. Frances asked what kind of work he had done there.

  “Whatever I could get.” He laughed. “Odd jobs, even dishwashing. My longest was two months with a fence company, digging postholes. I dig a mean hole, ma’am.”

  Even from here, Martha could smell the liquor.

  Frances stepped back. “Why don’t I call you, Mr. Mackey? Leave your number and I’ll let you know,” she said, starting to open the door.

  “I don’t have a phone,” he said, not moving. “I’m staying with these people, but they …”

  “Well, you call me, then,” she said.

  “When? When should I call?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “What’s today?” He looked over at Martha with a tight wave at his waist. “Today Saturday?”

  “Sunday,” Martha answered, so faintly he asked again.

  “Today is Sunday,” Frances told him, her cold tone and gaze underscoring his confusion.

  He shrugged. “So what’s going to change from now to Wednesday? You’re not going to like me any better. Your deck’s not going to get built, unless you get someone else.” He squinted at her. “You got someone else?” he asked in a thin voice.

  “I have a few people in mind,” she said, nodding. She opened the door and held it for him. “You can call back if you’d like.” She extended her hand, Martha knew, only to draw him to the door. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Mackey.”

  “I’m a respectable person, Mrs. Beecham. I’m very well educated and I’ll do a good job for you,” he said, gripping her hand and looking directly into her eyes. “I’m extremely overqualified.”

  “Then you call,” she said icily, removing her hand. “And I’ll let you know.”

  He tried to smile. “Yah, I’ll bet you will.”

  Frances locked the door behind him. “Bastard!” she muttered as his old car turned in the driveway. “Half smashed and he’s got the nerve to ask for work.”

  The next morning, Frances was up at six. The dining-room table was covered with financial reports, bills, and bank statements. Today was the annual meeting with her accountants and lawyers.

  “Turn off those lights!” Frances called into the kitchen.

  Martha switched off the one light that had been on.

  “They better not say one word,” Frances said. “I have been so careful. So frugal …”

  Martha had never understood why, after all these years, Frances continued to be so nervous, so apologetic about her own money. It was the same with the house, as if it weren’t genuinely hers, as if she feared someone might take it away from her if by some misstep she proved herself careless, or unworthy. It was the same insecurity Martha had seen in her father, that strange sense of tenancy, of always having to appease an invisible master, a dead man, Horace Beecham.

  Frances charged into the kitchen with an accordion-pleated folder under her arm. “I don’t believe it,” she said glancing up at the clock. “He’s twenty minutes late.” Steve had called at eight to assure her he would be there on time. Frances picked up the telephone now and punched in three numbers, then changed her mind and hung up.

  Bent over her cereal bowl, Martha tensed under Frances’s scrutiny.

  “Don’t leave the milk out in this heat,” she said, taking the carton from the table.

  “I’m still using it,” Martha said.

  Frances put it in the refrigerator. “It’ll spoil. But, then, what would you care? You didn’t buy it.”

  Martha stood up and dug into her pants pocket and pulled out a handful of change, counting to a dollar fifty. “Here,” she said.

  “Oh for Godssakes,” Frances sighed as Martha held out the change. “That’s not the point,” she said, turning away.

  “Take it,” Martha insisted, stepping in front of her. “I’m buying the milk.” The last thing she wanted was Frances’s charity. She wanted her job and her room back, and Birdy.

  “Please!” Frances said, leaning over the sink to look out the window. “Will you just please stop it!”

  A horn sounded as Steve’s low black car squealed into the driveway. Frances ran outside, and Martha stacked the coins on the windowsill. In the distance she could hear the high-pitched irritating laughter of the Chelsea girls. Head down, she charged out of the house over to the apartment. She had just eaten her last food in that house. She would buy her own groceries. And she would see Birdy.

  Heart pounding, she was so nervous she didn’t hear the knocking right away. She was dressing. “Wait,” she called. “I’ll be right there.” She put her bathrobe back on and opened the door.

  “Mrs. Beecham in?” the man named Mack asked through the screen. His eyes were puffy and even in the shadows he squinted, his breath reeking of the same stale foulness. When she said Frances would be gone all day, he sighed and shook his head.

  “She said Wednesday, right? She said to call Wednesday.”

  “Yes, but it’s Monday.”

  “It is?” He winced when she nodded. “When’d you say she’s coming back?”

  “Tonight. But she said for you to call Wednesday.” She closed the door, then listened. It was a moment before she heard his footsteps down the creaking stairs. That was stupid, telling a perfect stranger she was all alone here. “Good,” she muttered, dressing quickly. “That was really, really good.” She hurried to the door, then ran back and called the Cleaners again. When Mercy answered, she hung up and dialed Birdy’s number, listening to the end of the recording. Nothing had changed. The only way to contact Birdy would be to go to the Cleaners, and she couldn’t bring herself to do that. But if she got her groceries at the little Superette near the Cleaners, she knew she might run into Birdy, who bought their coffee and break supplies there every Monday afternoon.

  As she came around the side of the house, she was startled to see Colin Mackey dragging a board from the lumber pile. He set it against the cinder block and, with one foot bracing it, began to saw off the rotted end.

  Rubbing her arms, she watched in fearful silence. “What’re you doing?” she finally forced herself to call out.

  “I’m sawing this two-by-four.” He paused, looking up at her. “No sense wasting the whole day.”

  “You’re not hired! She didn’t hire you!” She thumped her chest angrily.

  “No, not yet. But if she does, I’ll be way ahead of the game.” He started the saw going back and forth. “Besides, I haven’t got anything better to do.”

  “No, you can’t! I have to go someplace, and I can’t leave with you here.”

  He stopped sawing and straightened up. The sun lay across the yard in a dizzying white square, and the pool water had bleached to a pale blue. “I’ll just do a little, I promise. Just to show her. Like a sample, you know, of my work, and then I’ll leave. I promise.”

  An hour later, he was still out there, sawing and hammering under the hot sun. She waited in the house. She kept peeking out the kitchen window. She had never seen anyone work so fast. Instead of walking between the lumber pile and the section he was framing, he ran. His hammer was a glinting stream of motion, and now, as he glanced up anxiously at the house, it occurred to her that he would work until she told him to stop. The only way she would catch Birdy at the Superette now would be if she ran most of the way.

  “I have to go now,” she said, coming outside. She locked the door, then waited as he drove in two more nails. “I said, I have to go now!”

  His head jerked up and he teetered dizzily, his face such a ghastly gray that she was afraid he was going to pass out.

  She took a few steps onto the driveway, turned, and watched him gather his tools and put them in his trunk. He pulled out a dingy yellow towel and patted his face and neck dry, before tossing it back. She walked a few more feet, and stopped. He opened the car door, then stood with his hands on his hips, watch
ing her with a puzzled expression.

  “Where’s your car?” he called.

  “I don’t have one. I’m walking.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Into town.”

  “Well, so am I!” He jumped into the car, got it to start with a fumy wheeze, then pulled alongside her. “Get in and I’ll give you a ride.”

  Empty beer and soda cans rolled between her feet. The back seat was a mound of stale clothing he had tried to cover with a sheepskin-lined jacket and an army blanket. The back window ledge was strewn with faded magazines, a leather boot, and a typewriter with a curled sheet of yellowed paper in it. At least by car she might still make it in time to catch Birdy.

  “So what do you do?” he asked as he drove. “You work?”

  “I used to. At the Cleaners.”

  “What do you do now?”

  She folded her hands in her lap. “Nothing.”

  He laughed. “Hey, that’s what I do! Same thing. What do you know. Small world.” He held out his hand to shake hers, but she peered fixedly out the side window.

  They drove a mile or so in silence. She glanced at him. From this angle, he looked a great deal older. His face was deeply creased and the hair at his temples was gray and the skin under his eyes sagged in dark pouches.

  He caught her studying him. “You married?”

  “No!” she said, so emphatically that he laughed.

  “My sentiments exactly.” He turned onto the main road.

  As they neared town, she stared down at her tightly gripped hands. Maybe she should just march right into the Cleaners and talk to Birdy. Of course she should. Just march in there and tell her the truth. But what if John was there? Or Getso? She closed her eyes. What would she do then? What would she say? She’d say, Birdy, please come in the bathroom. You have to hear the truth. “You have to!”

  “What? I have to what?” Mack asked. He glanced at her as he drove. They were on Main Street, approaching the park, where a swarm of little girls rode bikes with training wheels up and down the paths. Someone sat in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch of Mayo’s boardinghouse. But she couldn’t tell which old woman it was.

  He signaled for a right turn. Not here, she thought in a panic. Oh, she didn’t want to see any of the ladies. Not yet. Not until she had her job back.

  “I don’t know where you want me to stop.”

  “Downtown!” she cried.

  “Yes, ma’am!” he said with a laugh, brakes squealing as he swerved around the corner.

  She slouched low on the seat as they passed the gas station and the pharmacy and the armory. She didn’t want to see anyone she knew. She closed her eyes. This was a mistake. She wasn’t ready for this. It was all Frances’s fault, nagging her about the milk, riling her until she wasn’t thinking straight. She punched her open palm. Frances should have left her alone, but she never did, never would.

  “Any particular place?” he asked.

  “The supermarket.” She glanced up, not sure where they were. All she could see was the bright-blue sky over the dashboard. Conscious of his stare, she sat up and did not move, taking her breath in shallow draughts. “Right here’s fine,” she said, swallowing the wrong way. She hit her chest.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded and wiped her eyes. Her nose was running.

  He pulled up to the curb and she opened the door and got out. Most of the stores here on State Street were small, a florist, an auto-supply shop, a party-goods store.

  “I don’t see any supermarkets.” He looked over the wheel. When she told him the Superette was just around the corner, he leaned across the seat and insisted she get back in so he could take her there. Pretending not to hear him, she closed the door and started up the street, tensing with the approach of his loud engine. When it was alongside, the old car slowed a moment, then accelerated up the street and out of sight.

  The air-conditioned Superette smelled of ground coffee and pungent cheese. Red peppers and webbed salamis dangled over the meat case at the back of the store. It was still the same white-haired woman as before, sitting on a stool behind the counter, watching soap operas on a miniature television. Martha moved slowly up the three short aisles, filling one red plastic arm basket with fruit, lettuce, cucumbers, crackers, a jar of cheese spread. She set that basket on the counter and got another from the stack by the door. These next items had to be selected with care. Nothing too heavy to be carried, and nothing that would melt or spoil before she got home. Four cans of soup, a package of shortbread cookies, a jar of peanut butter, and a bag of peanuts. She glanced up at the clock. Two-thirty. Birdy would never come in this late in the day for coffee supplies or cigarettes. She was probably working on the books now, head bent over the stacks of slips, her feathery dark hair catching the light, her plump upper arms moist with sweat.

  She carried her basket to the register. She had just made up her mind to go from here to the Cleaners. She didn’t care who was there, Getso, John. She had to talk to Birdy.

  “Fourteen seventy-eight,” the old woman said, starting to pack everything. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” the woman said. She shook out a second bag and put the soup cans in it.

  “I just want one bag,” Martha said, her head down. She held her breath as she counted her coins. She always gave the exact change. It upset her to break a bill when she didn’t have to. It didn’t seem right.

  “One bag’ll break.”

  “I just want one bag,” she insisted.

  “Then I’ll double-bag,” the woman said, removing the cans from the bag with stained fingertips.

  “No! I said I only want one bag!”

  The old woman stared at her as she piled the rest of the groceries into the first bag. She realized now what the woman had meant by a double bag, but it was too late. The woman watched coldly as she backed out the door with the bulging bag in her arms.

  The heat of the parking lot met her in a sheet of glare. Lifting one arm as best she could, with her shoulder she nudged her sweaty glasses back onto the bridge of her nose. Straight ahead, there was a gray van with its familiar red-and-white lettering. It was one of the Cleaners’ smaller vehicles, parked with its rear doors open. She stopped. Pulling alongside the van was the big laundry truck, with Getso at the wheel, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Hoping he hadn’t seen her, she turned frantically in the opposite direction. Her glasses slid down her nose and the bag shifted in her arms. She was headed toward a row of to hedges that blocked this side of the parking lot. She kept going, judging them low enough to step over, to get her out of Getso’s sight.

  “Hey! Hey, wait up!” a man’s voice called. She did not know it was Mack.

  As she turned, a cold sweat rose on the back of her neck. Getso came around the back of his truck. He threw his cigarette on the ground and, with his thumbs hooked in his pockets, stared at her.

  “Wait!”

  In a blind turn she stepped over the knee-high dusty hedges that were budded with Popsicle wrappers and faded cigarette packs and Styrofoam cups. Suddenly she pitched forward, the heavy bag spewing its cans and jars onto the opposite sidewalk. She fell down on one knee, wedged between the shrubs, watching her lettuce roll to the end of the sidewalk, then stop at the curb.

  Getso bent over her, one hand digging into her armpit, his other pulling at her shoulder. “C’mon,” he grunted.

  “Leave me alone!” she cried, trying to push him away, but he only leaned closer, tugging with a stream of hoarse curses.

  “Jesus Christ … c’mon … get the hell …” he muttered as she batted him away.

  “Get your hands off me. Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!”

  “C’mon, damn it. Just get up.” Again he bent down, reaching toward her.

  She slapped his face, and his head jerked back. “Don’t you touch me!” she screamed, pointing at him. She kept trying to stand up, but her foot was snapped in the sharp branches.

  He looked down at her, rubbing his c
heek. “You screw …”

  “Don’t lay another hand on her!” It was Mack. Stepping past Getso, he grabbed her wrists and pulled her up. He set her bag on the asphalt and squatted down to retrieve her spilled groceries.

  “What the … Hey!” Getso sputtered. “I was just tryna help her, that’s all!”

  “She sure as hell didn’t think so,” Mack said, getting up. He stepped over the hedge and, palming the lettuce, dropped it into the bag. Martha lifted the bag, careful to hold its bulging tear against her chest.

  “What? You think I was attacking her or something? C’mon’re you fuckin’ nuts?” Getso shouted with an indignant jerk of his hand at Mack, who was picking up soup cans.

  Mack glanced back at him. “Just get the hell outta here,” he said.

  “Yah, and next time I’ll step right over the fuckin’ screwball!”

  Mack stood up and walked toward Getso, shaking his head. “You didn’t really say that. I mean, you couldn’t’ve said that, right? I must’ve heard wrong.” He twisted his finger in his ear. “Tell me I heard wrong.”

  With a disgusted swipe of his arm, Getso started to walk away.

  “Hey, Lancelot, go fuck yourself,” Getso hollered as he jumped into the truck. “And do her, do the fuckin’ screwball too,” he called, grinning over the open door.

  At this, Mack lunged forward, but Getso had already slammed the door shut and thrown the truck into reverse. As the truck squealed by, Mack’s hand jerked back and the can of tomato soup shot into the windshield, turning it into a glittering web of shattered glass.

  “Who was he?” Mack asked as they drove up Merchants Row.

  She stared out the side window. In a flat voice she told him about seeing Getso steal from the register and how he had accused her.

  “Greasy slimeball,” Mack said.

  “You shouldn’t have broken the window,” she said, chewing the inside of her lip until it was shredded.

  “Yah, and maybe I shouldn’t have been born either,” he sighed. He stopped for the red light, and while he waited he banged the wheel with the heels of his hands. He looked at her. “But there are some forces of nature that can not be denied.” He laughed, and she looked away; her stare dulled the passing houses and trees until there was nothing to see. No colors. No sharp edges. No contrast.