Evidently Tim promised to come over and fix something for Wanda later on, because I saw her prissing back to her house. She threw me a little wave over her shoulder, smiling. “Bye, Donnette, honey!” I felt like shooting her a bird but glared at her instead. If she thinks Tim’d ever notice her big fat Andrews butt, then she’s got another think coming. Especially when he’s got me. I try to keep him so satisfied he won’t even look at another woman.
Finally Tim came up on the porch and sat in the swing beside me. Neither one of us said a word; we just sat there swinging, back and forth, back and forth, like an old married couple. It had gotten completely dark now, later than we usually eat supper, but neither of us mentioned eating.
The street lights had come on, and the night air was soft and sweet, perfumed with the flowers in the yard. I could see Brother Junkin sitting in his den—reading the Bible I imagined—the lamp next to him shining on his gray hair. Across the street in the tacky house, I saw Wanda Wooten at the sink washing dishes. She’d need to come over soon for me to re-dye her hair—I could see the dark roots, especially noticeable as she bent her head over, from here.
I looked over at Tim. He was relaxed, peaceful, swinging ever so slowly, also looking into the neighbors’ houses. “Honey? You tired?” I asked him.
He smiled without looking at me, then reached over and put his hand on my knee.
“Yeah. And I’m getting hungry, too.”
“I figured that. Supper’s ready, all we got to do is go inside and help our plates when we’re ready.”
But neither of us made a move to go in, still swinging slowly. I took his hand and squeezed it.
“Tim? What are you thinking about?”
He turned his head slightly and looked past me at the beauty shop. Originally it’d been a front bedroom in the house, but that was before I was born, because it’d been a beauty shop as long as I could remember. It worked out well as a shop because it was both separate from the rest of the house and connected—you could only enter it from the porch.
It was mighty convenient to have your work at your home. I remember Aunt Essie canning her tomatoes, peas, and corn in between customers, running back into the house to check on the vegetables, then into the shop to check on the customers. It used to tickle Daddy; he said she’d can a head of hair and shampoo an ear of corn if she wasn’t careful.
The only thing, the shop hadn’t been modernized and had lots of old-fashioned equipment in it, heavy old hair-dryers and ugly black sinks. I hoped to be able to make enough within a year or so to fix it up.
“You thinking about the shop?” I finally had to ask Tim, since he kept on looking at it so long.
“Yeah, I was. I was thinking that you ought to name it,” Tim said. “Essie never needed to, everybody knew it was here. But times are different now.”
“Tim—what a great idea! Why hadn’t I thought of that?” I squeezed his hand hard. Thank God he hadn’t seen Taylor Dupree at the stadium and that football practice went well! And that he was able to think of something else for a change.
“What should I name it?”
“Well, what about Donnette’s?” He smiled at me with a twinkle in his eye. He knew I’d never liked my name, named after my daddy Donald. I swore I’d never do that to a girl, though Tim teased me that our first daughter would be Timmette.
“No way!” I pulled my hand away from his playfully. “I’ll come up with something better than that, don’t worry.”
“Think of a real catchy name. Then, if you put a sign up front, folks from the highway can see it. It might be that you’d have folks passing through from Tuscaloosa to Mississippi who’d notice it, maybe stop by.”
I was really surprised. Tim had been giving this a lot of thought, and he was coming up with some good ideas. He surprised me even more, with what he said next.
“Tell you what, Donnette. I still got all my painting stuff from rehab, so I’ll paint you a great big sign, hang it up for you. How about that?” We stopped swinging and looked at each other.
“Tim, that’s wonderful! Would you really do that?”
“Of course I would.” He smiled at me. “The least I can do if you’re going to support us.”
I smiled back but felt uneasy. It was a casual remark, meant teasingly, but I’d been afraid once I got the shop that something like that might come up. Though he never let on a bit, I knew that our situation had to bother him, to begin to eat away at his manhood and his pride. But I didn’t think now was the time to discuss it, not tonight after I’d had such a hard day and seen Taylor and everything. I couldn’t handle anything else. I decided to change the subject instead.
“Oh—I forgot to ask you. Were you pleased with Tommy at practice today?”
I could tell that was the right move as Tim’s face lit up. He was awful crazy about his little brother and determined to help him make something of himself. Since Old Man Sullivan died, Tommy had been living with a great-aunt of theirs way out from Clarksville, but Tim hoped before too much longer we’d be able to have Tommy with us. We had the room, now that we had Aunt Essie’s house—we hadn’t in our little trailer before.
“I think Tommy’s going to make it, Donnette. He’s got the potential, and he sure has the drive. He wants to go on to college real bad—you know he’s always wanted to be a vet, the way he loves animals. I hope to God he can do well enough to get him a good scholarship somewheres. He sure won’t be able to go otherwise.”
Tim had his left arm on the back of the swing now, and he began to twirl my hair around his fingers, absentmindedly. Suddenly he stopped and frowned at me.
“Hey, I just remembered. I saw you at practice today—saw you tear out of that stadium like you’d just seen a ghost. I hollered for you but you didn’t hear me. What on earth was the matter?”
I looked down at my fingernails, pretending to pick at a cuticle. I hated worse than anything to lie to Tim, because he never lied; he was honest to a fault. I thought for a minute about telling him, telling him about Taylor back in town and how I felt when I saw him. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring all that up again, with him so relaxed and peaceful lately, not tormented like he’d been the last two years. God forgive me, I just couldn’t do it.
“Oh, nothing. I just remembered I’d left something on the stove so I had to run home before I burnt the house down.” It wasn’t so hard to lie if I continued to look at my fingernail instead of into his soft blue eyes.
“You sure?” Tim asked me doubtfully. “You looked like you were about to pass out or something. You sure it wasn’t anything else?”
“What else could it be?” I’d picked at my fingernail till it went to bleeding so I quit. Instead I looked down at my feet, gently pushing the swing, until Tim reached over and touched my face. I looked up at him then.
“You know as well as I do what it could be—being back at the stadium, seeing me on the field …”
I tried to look away but Tim took my chin in his hand, his big calloused hand both rough and gentle.
“Donnette, listen to me, honey. You got to stop worrying about me. I’m okay. Really I am.”
“You sure?”
“It’s been two years. God knows, there’s been plenty of times when I didn’t think I’d make it. But I got to put all that behind me now.”
“But I don’t know that we can do that, Tim. Ever.”
“Yes we can, baby. We have to. I’m lucky to be alive and to have you. And now, to own this house, and the shop—things are looking better for us. Nothing bad’s going to happen to us now, honey. I promise you.”
“Oh, God, Tim—” Before I could stop myself, I was crying. Tim took me into his arms, using his left hand to place his lame right arm across my shoulder. I sobbed and sobbed while he held me close, cradled on his chest. “God, Tim,” I kept saying over and over, like a prayer. But as I quieted down and my crying stopped, I knew how much I wanted to believe him, wanted to believe it was all going to be over. Finally, after two
long, tortured years. If I hadn’t seen Taylor earlier, maybe I could. But I couldn’t think of that now, or I’d start crying again. I had to pull myself together, for Tim’s sake. So I said the first thing that came to my mind when I raised my head and dried my eyes.
“Tim? I’ve been thinking about Cat Jordan all day today. You know how you get people on your mind like that, just out of the blue sometimes?”
Tim nodded. “Don’t you reckon Miss Maudie up and dying made you think of Cat, that and going back to the stadium? Made you start thinking about the old days?”
“I reckon so. Listen, I thought I’d give Cat a call tonight, tell her about Miss Maudie,” I told him.
“Really? Do you even have a number for her?”
“Far as I know, she’s still in Atlanta. I believe we’d heard from her otherwise.”
Tim was quiet as he stroked my hair. I could tell he was doing some thinking, and finally he turned my face toward his again.
“Donnette? Tell you what—don’t call her, okay?”
I was surprised. “Don’t call her? But—how come?”
Tim shrugged and frowned. “I don’t know. I guess because she’s part of our past. Let’s try and forget all of it, okay?”
I knew I’d never forget Cat, but I also knew I’d do anything on earth to help Tim.
“Sure, honey. If that’s what you want—it was just a thought, anyway.”
Tim pulled me back into his arms and I snuggled close to him. All the unsettling events of the day seemed far away then. As always, when Tim held me close, I felt like nothing could hurt me, that nothing could ever come between us. I closed my eyes and the day swam before me like some kind of crazy kaleidoscope. I thought about Miss Maudie and the funeral parlor and how I’d fixed her up to look so good. I raised my head and smiled up at Tim.
“Tim! I’ve got it—I’ve got a name for my shop!”
“Okay. From the look on your face, it must be a good one.”
“I’m going to name it Making Waves.”
Tim looked at me, puzzled, his face dark. Then his expression cleared, and he laughed out loud. It’d been a long time since I’d heard him laugh like that.
“Making Waves, huh?—I love it!”
I jumped up from the swing and grabbed both his hands in mine and began to pull him to his feet.
“Me and my shop’s going to be making waves in Zion County like nobody’s ever seen before! Now, come on, Mr. Tim Sullivan. Let’s go eat that fish—I’m about to starve to death.”
And I was, too. I felt like I could eat anything now because I knew that Making Waves was going to be a new beginning for us, that we’d be able to put the past behind us. And I knew that Tim was finally, finally going to be okay.
Taylor
I hung up the phone after Aunt Della’s call and stood in my bedroom shaking, feeling low-down, like the jerk-off I am. Lately I’d been getting off on feeling like the lowest of life forms. An amoeba. Or Prufrock’s pair of claws—not even a whole creature, scuttling across the very bottom of the ocean.
“So what else is new, Dupree—when haven’t you felt like a lowlife?” I’d also been talking to myself lately, a sure sign of my advanced stage of insanity. Getting worse instead of better, in spite of what my shrink said. What did he know anyway? Only what I told him. And I was very careful about that, doling out bits and pieces, enough to satisfy him, get him off my back. Or give me some more pills, whatever.
Of course my looniness was always worse after talking with Aunt Della, as the shrink loved to point out, scribbling like hell on his notepad. Sometimes I’d go almost two weeks without hearing from Aunt Della, and during that time I’d be functioning pretty normally, going to classes, working, boozing it up, screwing around, my usual routine. Then I’d get to missing her so much that I’d call her, or she’d call me, and I’d feel shitty all over again.
But this time—it was really bad. She’d fallen again, gotten so she couldn’t get around without a walker. She had sounded so frail, so damn old suddenly. I couldn’t picture that; she’d always been so energetic, so youthful. It never fails to amaze me how incredibly bad life sucks. I swear I never want to get old. I’d much rather be six feet under, any day, than be old in this society where old folks are treated like lepers, stuck away in modern leper colonies called nursing homes. Lots of things are worse than croaking. Lots and lots of things.
I put the phone back by my bed and walked into the kitchen area. Getting a beer out of the fridge, I popped the top and noticed that as usual, the kitchen was a disaster area, dirty dishes and crap piled everywhere. I’d have to clean the place tomorrow since the sublease was almost up and I had to clear out, get back into the dorm.
I hated living in the dorm but sweet Charlotte wouldn’t pay for anything else. I guess she fantasizes that if I’m in the dorm, I can’t get into as much trouble—though she pretends she only wants me to truly experience college life. Whatever. I gave up trying to figure that woman out a long time ago.
The beer was good, icy, icy cold, a contrast to the hot, hot apartment, and I plopped down in the only chair available. I wanted to get Aunt Della’s call off my mind. Guess I’d have to drink the whole six-pack before that happened.
Why did she have to beg me to come home? Looks like after all this time she of all people would finally get the message. Women. I swear, no matter what age they are, they’re nothing but a pain in the ass.
Aunt Della knew better than anybody that I had no intention of setting foot in Hicksville again. But she knew me so well, she must have heard something in my voice lately that made her start in on me. She hadn’t mentioned my returning for ages; now all of a sudden, here she goes again.
I guess the woman does know me better than anyone. She knew exactly how I felt right after the accident, when I first came here, and she never mentioned me coming home then. Not that I could have even if I’d wanted to, of course. Just the thought of returning to Clarksville made me wake up with cold sweats and the pukes. Even the shrink knew better than to try to make me go back then.
But now, two years later, I’d begun to have some strange feelings about the old homeplace. I almost wanted to see it again. And of course I wanted to see Aunt Della—she came to see me a couple of times the first year and it almost killed her, so she’d not been able to come here again.
All this nostalgia shit started when I got fired a few days ago for chasing Cat all over the streets of New Orleans. The memory of it makes me laugh at myself now. Of all the things I’ve done, few things have made me feel like such a fool—which inevitably makes me long to be back in my hometown, where I was king of fools.
It was a weird experience, though. There I was, busing tables at Antoine’s Courtyard like I did every afternoon. I’d just cleared off a particularly crappy table, full of beer bottles and soggy cigarette butts—one of those shitty messes I hate. And I swear and be damned, I saw Cat Jordan, plain as day, strolling down St. Ann’s Street.
Totally ignoring the fools sitting around nursing happy-hour specials, I yelled loud as a country bumpkin raised in Alabama: “CAT!” And she didn’t hear me because right in the middle of the street was a monkey and an organ grinder—an organ grinder, of all the damn things, out there noisily grinding his organ, a crowd of gaping tourists around. So I yelled again, “CAT JORDAN!”
This time everybody in the place stopped drinking long enough to really look at me, and I saw Jacque and the other waiters nudge each other. They all thought I should be committed anyway. So there was Cat, walking away from me, almost to Bourbon Street, not hearing me because of that damn fool monkey music—all like something out of a Woody Allen movie. I couldn’t stand it; I’d longed for her for two years, no contact—all my letters returned unopened, and now she was walking away from me. So what did I do?—I hauled ass after her, actually jumping over a table and knocking down two chairs.
There I went, running like a fool in my cute French-waiter outfit, apron and all. I lost her soon as I got i
nto the crowd of drunken idiots on Bourbon Street, of course. But then I spotted her again, long dark hair flowing out behind her, bare slim legs striding confidently along, crossing Bourbon and heading down Royal.
“CAT! CAT—WAIT!” I yelled like a madman as I ran after her, bumping into tourists and pushing aside tables and chairs from the zillion outdoor cafes I encountered on the way. Of course folks stared at me like the fool I was, a strange sight in a city of strange sights. As I ran across Chartres, I heard a cop yell, “Hey you!” but I continued on, determined, until I finally caught up with her in Jackson Square. I grabbed her from behind and stood huffing and puffing like a pervert as I turned her around to face me.
And of course it wasn’t Cat after all. Damn woman was forty if she was a day, good-looking all right, but definitely not Cat. She thought the whole thing was funny as hell, but my boss didn’t. I didn’t care; the jerk-off paid me less than minimum wage all summer, promising to promote me to waiter. So I was glad to get out of that situation.
But having free time since then, plus seeing Cat, that got me thinking about Clarksville all over again. Okay, truth time. I had not thought of anything else. Obsessive behavior, said my shrink. Get some healthy outside interests. Go to your group meetings, like you’re supposed to. Exercise. I popped the top on another beer, the only exercise I got lately. Yeah, buddy. Sure. Like all that crap was going to help me, a certified psycho.
Actually there was one other time, before the great street chase, that I got like this, right at the end of the semester last May. But I bounced back from that, got the apartment and the job, and got my mind on other things. Hey, maybe the shrink had a point after all.
Making Waves Page 4
