Roommates

by Valerie Reyes

This new residence that she would be taking was little more than a double-wide trailer. Perhaps it was spacious enough for two people to live in comfortably, but the muddy cinder blocks, cigarette smoke stained windows, and faulty siding showed at the very least that this place was not in good repair. The trashy lawn ornaments and unkempt grass showed poor taste and lack of management. Still, Abigail had gotten this far, and there was no reason that she should turn back now, just because of a little bit of unsavory aesthetics. After all, she didn't need an opulent palace. She didn't need a fancy estate. She just needed a place to call home--a place where she could be free.

  Going up to the weather-beaten plywood door, Abigail hesitated slightly before giving it three sharp knocks. After so doing, she waited for a few seconds, which felt like minutes, perhaps even longer than that, before someone did finally answer the door.

  Abigail had very little by the way of expectations for the man who would be her husband. In truth, the only expectations she clung to were that he would be able to provide shelter and food for her, along with other basic necessities, or at least provide an opportunity for her to cover these necessities for herself. But even with her rather lax expectations going in, she was still shocked when the door opened.

  Standing at the threshold of this old, weather-beaten double-wide was a man who was overall thin in frame, but had a potbelly from drinking beer--a phenomenon that Abigail had never seen before, and so she was quite taken aback witnessing it for the first time. Furthermore, her soon-to-be husband had thin, mousy brown hair, a narrow and hard-looking face, with long gangly limbs adorned with a stained wife-beater and beaten up blue jeans. Not the most impressive figure to look at, in other words, but Abigail wasn't marrying him for lust, and even less was she considering love. She just wanted a modicum of safety and a fair deal of freedom--besides that, she didn't mind.

  "You Abbey?" the man asked rather gruffly, and Abigail just nodded . . . No sense in quibbling over a single syllable. If he wanted to shorten her name, he could.

  "Yes, I am," she replied, shifting a bit from one foot to her other. Holding her bag was a bit onerous while just standing there, so she hoped that the man standing in front of her would take it, or at least offer for her to come in and set her stuff down.

  He did neither of those things--at least not right off the bat. First, he just looked her over. She, having grown up where she did, wore very modest clothes: a long-sleeved black dress with a white collar, and plain brown shoes. That was her wardrobe, along with a bonnet, which she tucked her long hair beneath. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have thrown the bonnet off when she got the opportunity, but considering she was traveling, her long hair would have probably just gotten in the way. Especially because she wasn't used to it being free, she decided to keep the bonnet on during her travels.

  All that being the case, Abigail wasn't anything special to look at to an outsider. Though her face was exceptionally beautiful, her dress hid the supple curves of her body, and all of her finer features. It wasn't surprising that her husband-to-be didn't seem particularly impressed with her. Still, he might at least have the decency to invite her in before gawking at her.

  Despite her internal complaints, the man did not move from his spot for a minute or so. Eventually he stepped out of the doorway and gestured for her to come in. No kind words of welcome or elaborate invitation were offered, though at this point they weren't expected. She walked in and set her solitary bag on the coffee table. In it she had her basic toiletries, one change of clothes, stockings, and elastics to hold her hair back. That was all she brought, because it was all she could pack without her family getting suspicious before she left--something that she absolutely didn't want.

  "Goes in the bedroom," the man said gruffly, taking Abigail completely off guard.

  "I'm sorry?" Abigail said. She didn't even realize what the man--whose name still had not been revealed to her--was saying. Something about the bedroom, but heavens knows what he was talking about.

  "Then go do it," he replied.

  Abigail didn't understand the conversation she was having in the least. They were obviously on completely different wavelengths, and they may as well have spoken different languages for how well they communicated.

  "The bag. Are you dumb? Bag goes in the bedroom," he said.

  "Right. Where is the bedroom, exactly?" Abigail asked. She'd never been to this residence before, a fact that she would have assumed would have been obvious to the man who had just bought her. Apparently, he was about as intelligent as he looked, but at least she was able to understand what he wanted this time around.

  "Over here," he replied, leading her to the bedroom, where she promptly found an area that wasn't covered with dirty laundry, ashtrays, or empty beer cans, and tucked away her bag. She didn't even bother taking her items out and putting them away, because if the foul upkeep of the outside of the dressers and wardrobes said anything, then everything would need to be cleaned and organized before she could put away her things.

  "All right," Abigail said, turning to the man. "I was wondering if I may ask you a few questions."

  "I guess so," he replied nonchalantly.

  "Well, first I should ask, what's your name?" That was the most pressing thing on Abigail's mind. If not for the rude introduction and the even ruder herding into the bedroom, she would have already asked for it--but that was no matter. She just needed to know it now.

  "George," he replied. His speech seemed very odd to Abigail. Perhaps because she was so used to talking to Jebediah, who was a regular chatterbox if there ever was one. He couldn't be made to shut up, yet George here could barely be made to say a complete sentence. The two were certainly opposites, though Abigail didn't ever think she would be holding someone to the same standards as Jebediah. Those were barely standards at all, so what was she thinking? Still, the fact that George didn't measure up undoubtedly weighed on her mind.

  "That's a nice name," Abigail commented, though she said it as a pleasantry. Typically, when she was introduced to another person in her community, their name would really mean something. Almost always an allusion to the holy text, of course. Therefore, meeting a new person gave her the opportunity to make conversation on the story related to their name in the Bible, but she could think of no Georges in the holy book, so she didn't have much else to say.

  "It's just a name, not much else," George replied gruffly. "I need you to get this place in working condition before our wedding. The party's gonna be here."

  Abigail hadn't expected that order from George, though she was going to be cleaning the place anyways. If she was going to get a house and food, she knew that she would have to pull her own weight. Getting this place in working order would be doing a lot more than pulling her own weight in her mind, but she was happy to do it. After all, she certainly wasn't going to live in such filth.

  "I planned on it," Abigail answered, always rather candid with her language--especially so now that she was out of the restrictive community that she had been trapped in for so long. She felt that she was free enough to say and do as she pleased, though George's reaction quickly informed her that this was not the case.

  "Don't get a smartass mouth with me, woman," he said rather harshly. He didn't want any free spirit living with him. The whole point of taking an Amish woman was to avoid that, though perhaps he didn't think through it that much, considering that if Abigail was running away from the Amish, obviously she would have some issues with the status quo there.

  Abigail was at a loss for words for a moment, but when she regained her bearings, she just didn't dignify George's words with a response of her own. Instead she got to getting the place clean. That would certainly let her at least work out her frustrations and give her space to think.

  Chapter Four

  Not much difference could be seen after the first day of working to get the double-wide cleaned up. She had to rely quite a bit on George to ask him where he wanted certain things, so that everything cou
ld at least start to have some semblance of organization.

  Just getting part of the surface mess up was a triumph in and of itself--one that Abigail was proud of. Sure, the house still looked like a tornado had wrecked the inside of it, but she knew that she had put in a good day's work. Not that George so much as thanked her once, but she didn't necessarily expect to get thanked for the work. She was happy enough just collapsing in bed after working so hard.

  Abigail honestly was half expecting some untoward advances from her new soon-to-be husband, but she didn't get any. Unless she counted the way he laid beside her and put his arms around her, pulling her close to him. That was unwelcome and unnerving, honestly, but at least it wasn't as bad as some things that he could have done. She just counted herself lucky that he wasn't being a total creep.

  So, that silver lining taken into account, she fell off to sleep, and first thing in the morning she started cleaning again. Now that she had a good idea of what types of things went where, she only rarely had to consult George with questions pertaining to where things should be put. She put a good dent into the mess, then went to sleep again in much the same way. The cycle continued for four days before the whole trailer had gotten a thorough reorganizing and scrubbing down, inside and out.

  On the fifth day, the wedding was to take place. Abigail had always thought that weddings were rather important events. In her community, they were rather grand sorts of events. The entire town was involved and invited to the ceremony, though that was to say there was about sixty or seventy in attendance. All the women cooked, the men got together to help the husband build a new house and a new barn for his family. Truly, it took the whole village to prepare for a marriage. However, on the outside, Abigail quickly learned that things weren't quite the same.

  Honestly, Abigail didn't think she expected much. She expected for there to be a bit of ceremony involved, but no. She and George drove to the courthouse, signed some papers, made their vows, and then went back home.

  At the trailer, about thirty people were invited over--which was honestly too much for the little residence. About three-fourths of the guests were part of George's family, and then the other fourth were work acquaintances and then friends of George's. The guests all brought in dishes to share, though George did provide a main course by ordering fried chicken from the local deli for everyone.

  During the event, everyone milled about, but didn't pay much attention to Abigail. Perhaps it was the awkwardness of their friend or family member marrying someone that they had never heard of, and whom he had certainly never talked about. Despite that awkwardness, however, the guests were happy to converse with one another and to congratulate George on his instant wife, but nary a word was spoken to Abigail until almost an hour in.

  A woman of about sixty arrived to the party then, and got out of her beaten-up old car. The first thing she went to do was go and speak to George. By listening in the background, Abigail was able to discern that this woman was George's mother.

  Abigail thought it was very strange to see George's mother arrive at the festivities late. After all, this was her son's marriage they were talking about! It was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing, so Abigail thought. So how could his mother possibly be so careless as to be late? Of course, it didn't affect the proceedings or anything of that nature, but Abigail would think that a child should mean more to a mother than for her to just show up late to his wedding.

  The only explanation that Abigail could think of for why George's mother might be late came upon her suddenly and made her worry. Perhaps George didn't invite her because he was embarrassed that he had a mail-order bride? Sure, he hadn't divulged that information, but if anyone could put two and two together, it would be a man's mother.

  Abigail's hypothesis concerned her greatly, and so she got up from the table she had been sitting at to observe the crowd, and started going inside when George called her over.

  Why is he doing this? Abigail wondered. Why pull her over, when she couldn't possibly have anything to say to the woman? Still, ignoring him and going inside wouldn't do, so she begrudgingly let herself walk over to George and his mother.

  "Oh, well, isn't this a pretty face," the woman said, not at all sarcastically. It took Abigail aback. She was rather pretty, of course. She was wearing a wedding dress from a charity shop, but it fit well and was flattering enough, despite it being rather old fashioned. Her long hair, flowing in black and luscious waves down to her waist, was free of any adornment. A simple bride, but a pretty one.

  "She is pretty, isn't she?" George agreed. "Got the house looking pretty nice, too," he added with a chuckle.

  "Well, how long have you two been seeing each other?" the woman asked.

  "Aw, about two months," George said. He carefully calculated his response, unbeknownst to Abigail, to the last time his mother had checked in, so she wouldn't find anything contradictory.

  "Well, that's rather fast to jump into marriage. Let's hope this one lasts," George's mother said with a laugh.

  "This one?" Abigail couldn't help but ask. She received an admonishing look from George for speaking up, but Abigail didn't know she wasn't supposed to say that. In truth, though, even if she did know, she probably wouldn't have been able to help herself from saying that. It was just so strange to her ears to hear someone say "this one" in regards to a one-time event in someone's life. Was it a colloquialism of some sort? She had no idea, but the question slipped from her lips.

  "George! Don't tell me you haven't told this poor woman . . ." George's mother began.

  "Well, no. No, Ma, I haven't. I wish you would've not, either," George replied, getting a little defensive about the whole thing.

  "You're married to the girl! You should have already told her about your failed marriages, not wait till your mother does. You didn't think that I wouldn't bring it up, did you?" she retorted, frowning at him.

  "Um, failed marriages?" Abigail repeated, not caring much what dirty looks she got from George, because she simply didn't understand how George was married before and was now marrying her. Was he a polygamist? Did his previous wives die? What was going on?

  "Well, first, before we go any further, hon, I'm Pearl. I'm your new stepmother. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and fill you in on everything my son hasn't told you. Sorry I came a bit late, but it shouldn't be a deal breaker. He's been married twice before, and both times his wives wanted divorce. I think they were just hussies incapable of settling down with anyone, because my son is a very nice man. But, yes. He probably just didn't want to say anything in case it made you get a bad first impression of him," Pearl informed her, much to George’s chargrin. Still, he didn't do anything or say anything to fight it.

  "Divorce?" Abigail asked, getting a bit hung up on the word. Her community never tolerated divorce--it wasn't even an option. She'd never heard the word used before, and none of her books mentioned it. Given that she had no television to speak of and didn't fraternize with tourists too much, the word was just a totally alien one to her, and she didn't know what to make of it, honestly.

  "Yes, dear. You're awfully hung up on that word, you know," Pearl said, getting a bit concerned at that. She didn't think that the fact that George had been divorced before would bother Abigail so much, but maybe it was the fact that he hadn't told her about it prior to getting hitched. In all honesty, Pearl would have been quite upset in similar circumstances, but now she felt like she had to do damage control to make sure she didn't ruin this marriage from the very start.

  "Look, my son is a very nice man. He just had some hard luck with women before, but that's no reason to freeze up. You can't blame him for being a little bit nervous."

  "No, no. Pearl, it's not like that. I just haven't heard that word before. What does it mean?" Abigail asked, and she saw George let his hand cover his face in embarrassment.

  "You don't know what divorce is?" Pearl asked, and started laughing.

  This reaction wasn't what Abigail was expecting in the least.
She felt her cheeks burning, and just wanted to leave their presence before she embarrassed herself any further, so she certainly didn't speak anymore on the subject.

  "Are you being serious when you say that you don't know what divorce is? Or are you just pulling our legs?" Pearl asked. Abigail was severely tempted to say that she was joking, and to play it off as if she had a sense of humor rather than just being ignorant, but she couldn't. She didn't want to lie. Doing so just gave her a sinking feeling in her gut, and unless it was absolutely necessary for one reason or another, she would refrain from lying.

  "Yes, I am being serious when I say that I don't know what divorce is. I come from an Amish community, and I've never heard of a failed marriage, or divorce," Abigail replied. She figured that perhaps if she explained that she was Amish, that would enlighten Pearl as to why she didn't know the term. After all, outsiders always talked about how "quaint" and "sheltered" Amish people were when they visited. Abigail usually took offense when they would say things like that, but it played to her advantage now, because she could explain away this apparent oddity.

  "Oh, Amish," Pearl said, as if trying out the word, then looked over to her son. "Amish? Where did you meet an Amish girl?"

  "Well, I'm ex-Amish. I just recently left," Abigail said, to clarify, and hopefully make the story that George would have to construct a little bit easier to spin. She wouldn't tell the lie for him, but she knew that she had put him into this hot water, so she felt responsible for getting him out of it, even if it was not directly due to anything that she had done wrong.

  "Yeah, we met because she wanted to take the position of secretary for my garage. Says she's done bookkeeping for her family for as long as she could count well enough. Instead of hiring her, we just really hit it off. Now here we are," George replied, keeping the story short and sweet. The less details he involved, the less chances for inconsistencies, after all.

  "Oh, well, how sweet! And do you think she'll still be interested in bookkeeping?" Pearl asked, quite amused with the story.