by Helen Ellis
“And?”
“And,” said Mrs. Summers, “men cheat. They work late. They don’t clean up after themselves. There’s something wrong with every one of them. You just have to decide what you can put up with. I suggest you cross beatings and pedophilia off that list.”
“Mother!”
“Sarina, Joe’s a fine man. He comes from money and no matter how else he screws up, that money isn’t going anywhere. He can open doors for you that, I’m sorry, I can’t. Your children will be stunning. And after ten years, you’ll get half, plus the house, plus child support. Alimony. The works. No judge is going to ignore photo evidence of adultery. You should be thankful you know his weakness now.” She picked up her empty wine glass and pointed at her daughter with the stem in her hand. “Just don’t let him near you without a condom. Have him tested before you get pregnant.”
Sarina said, “Is that what you did?”
“We didn’t have AIDS when I was a girl.”
“No,” said Sarina incredulously. “I mean, is that what you did when you married my father?”
“Oh, don’t look so surprised. You come from my blood. You’re hardly afraid to go get what you want.”
“But is Joe what I want?”
“Lord knows,” sighed Mrs. Summers as she got up from the table. “In today’s world, he’s as good as any.”
* * *
When Sarina reached Joe’s apartment, his car was not parked in his spot and the lights in his second-floor unit were out. It had been over an hour. Where the hell could he be? Sarina kept the radio low and car doors locked. She stewed in her seat. She got angrier and angrier.
When Joe showed up, Sarina was fuming. She stared at the steering wheel when he tapped on her window. She cursed herself silently for waiting at all. When he climbed onto the hood and made a blowfish face against the windshield, she fiddled with the cigarette lighter she had never touched in her life. She was mad and he should know it. She got out of the car and left him sprawled on the Prelude.
Joe followed her up the stairs to his apartment. All the while apologizing. Offering excuses to the beat of her heels.
Sarina did not say a word as Joe unlocked the front door. She shrugged her shoulders when he offered her something to drink. She was mute and damned impatient. As he unbuttoned the front of her pale Laura Ashley, Sarina kept her eyes straight and narrow.
“Go ahead,” she finally spoke. “Try to seduce me.”
Dropping to his knees, Joe took her panties in his mouth by the breathable cotton crotch. “I will,” he managed with his teeth close to home. He tugged gently and, even though Sarina surrendered solely to the motions, like always, predictably, unavoidably, he did.
Well after midnight, Sarina woke up drenched in sweat. Joe was snoring loudly. She had been dreaming of stampedes.
She went to the bathroom and ran her wrists under cold water. She asked her reflection if she could pull off what her mother suggested. Could she handle Joe’s cheating for a decade to come? Could she nail him to the wall? Play the gay divorcée?
When she saw the razor behind the toilet tank, she couldn’t resist picking it up. As if left by the Infidelity Fairy, it had been laying there like a little reminder. It was pink and plastic and definitely not hers.
Sarina ran the blade under the faucet. There was no rust. Not a hair in sight. She thought, This is something. Something downright unforgivable. She gripped the plastic razor and considered her choices.
Bitty Jack
THE DRIVE TO Druid City Hospital was uncomfortable for Bitty Jack. Stewart had gotten the bad news on the Big Al Mascot Mobile portable phone. He crumbled and Bitty Jack took over the wheel. She did not bother to adjust the seat. She balanced her butt on the vinyl edge; her toes pushing the pedals, the steering wheel reachable by her fingertips only.
On talk shows, women always begged their men to bawl like big babies. To share their pain. To let it all out. Now Stewart was shaking, shivering in his seat. He was breathing fast and hard. He didn’t bother to wipe his face. Bitty Jack wondered if those TV women had ever seen a grown man cry. It was a hundred miles from beautiful. It was not a special moment. Stewart’s tears made his face raw and puffy. They slid into his mouth. They scared Bitty Jack out of asking questions.
Inside the hospital, routes were taped on the floors. Pink tape went to the maternity ward. Yellow tape went to cardiac care. Red, of course, sought the emergency room. Green, the cafeteria. Blue, substance abuse. Bitty Jack and Stewart followed the gray tape to the morgue.
In the basement, they looked down a long, chilly hallway. Windowless steel doors guarded every room on either side. Twenty feet ahead, the Hicks were waiting. As Bitty Jack and Stewart got closer, Bert Hicks helped his wife up from an aluminum bench. She had gauze around her hands and fresh stitches on one arm. She seemed wobbly in her stance. She held onto her husband as he said what he must have been practicing for hours.
“I’m so sorry, Stewart. If it’s any comfort, your parents have been taken care of.”
“What do you mean taken care of?”
“He means,” said Mrs. Hicks, her face tight like a fist, “they’re at peace. Bert and I will take care of everything.”
“Can I see them?”
Mrs. Hicks looked at her husband. She looked back at Stewart. She looked at her husband.
Mr. Hicks said, “It’s not a good idea.”
Mrs. Hicks said, “It’s better you remember them the way that they were.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Oh, Stewart,” Mrs. Hicks opened her arms, an invitation for him to walk right in. “It was horrible.” She pressed her face into the front of his button-down. “Horrible.” She ran her hands through the back of his hair. Her nub lost in the layers recently grown out.
Mr. Hicks said, “Bitty.” He petted his wife’s back with long, soothing strokes. “Tootsie’s introduced us, I’m sure, at the games. She told us all about your quick thinking at the poker tournament. We’ve never given you a proper thank you.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Hicks, her voice muffled by Stewart’s stiff shirt.
Bitty Jack nodded and was left with Bert Hicks while his wife guided Stewart to another bench, six doors down, even farther into the bowels of the morgue.
“He needs to make some private decisions.”
Bitty Jack said, “Can you tell me what happened?”
Mr. Hicks took her hand and looked as if he might start from the beginning, before the events of that morning, back to the days when the couples first met. He closed his eyes. He shook his head. He walked toward his wife, leaving Bitty Jack’s hand adrift in the stench of wax polish and formaldehyde.
At this point, all Bitty knew was that the Steptoes were dead and she was being pushed out of the picture. The Hicks and her boyfriend were huddled down the hallway. Clearly no room for a young college girl. She wasn’t the wife. She began to understand that the Hicks saw her as no use at all. So she’d seek out the doctors. She’d get some answers from someone.
The coroner was eager to talk. She was short and blond and looked as if she’d wandered in from a Tupperware party. “It was one of those alumnae tailgate parties. You know, twenty cars on their way out of state. Their Jeep hit a log truck. Heavy rain. Faulty brakes. There were tons of witnesses, but your friend’s friends were in the car right behind them. Their injuries are obvious. A truck driver could tell you as much as I can.”
“Did they die right away?”
“Most certainly. The paramedics said the man was dead on site. The firemen had to use the Jaws of Life to pull the log out. Every rib broken. Now, that’s something to see.”
“And Tootsie?”
The corner pointed to her own head for example. “Clean off,” she said. “Shot it off like a pinball.”
“Where—”
“Did it go? You didn’t see the bandages? On your friend’s friend. Her husband said she chased it into the woods. She wouldn’t give it up. It was covered in
glass, but she put it in their Pepsi cooler. She rode in the ambulance. Brought it in on her lap.”
* * *
Bitty Jack called her mama from the waiting room. As she waited for her to pick up, Bitty Jack figured she was in shock. In her heart there was nothing. No sense of emergency. No hint of fear. So many times in her life, Bitty knew how things would go. There was a good feeling or a bad feeling. Something to accompany every trip she took.
When Mrs. Carlson heard, she said, “Sweet Jesus!”
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her mama said, “You saw?”
“No,” said Bitty Jack. “You know what I mean.”
“So what happens now?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know. I’m just sitting here. They’ve got Stewart somewhere and I’m just sitting here, and I need you to tell me what I’m s’posed to do.”
“Okay,” said Mrs. Carlson. “Okay, let me think.” She only thought for a second. “Baby girl, you’ve got to be strong. And strong means backing off. It sounds like those friends of his parents are taking care of everything. Let ’em. Let them choose the funeral home. Let them hold the reception. Let them smother that boy as much as they want and when he needs you, you let him come.
“I remember when your father’s father died. You were little and we stood in the back of the church and he walked right past us like we were total strangers. I don’t think he spoke to me for three whole weeks. I mean, baby girl, this is just the way it goes.
“I’m real sorry this happened. Real sorry. But give him his room because, I’m telling you, people are going to come outta the woodwork. People he never even mentioned are going to hear about this and show up at the funeral. You’re going to feel lonely and left out, but stick it out, because in a few weeks, all those people are going to go back to their lives and all that’ll be left will be you and him.”
Mrs. Carlson added, “If you need to do something, clean his house.”
“It’s a big house.”
“Baby girl,” said her mama, “do one room at a time.”
At the cemetery, Bitty Jack sat in the row behind Stewart. She had not seen him in two days. At the hospital, Mrs. Hicks had announced that Stewart would be staying with them for a while. Tootsie would have wanted it this way. He would take her son Rick’s room. Rick was in the army now. On his way to becoming a general.
Stewart looked like he had lost a little weight. Maybe five pounds. Or maybe he was tired. From her brief phone calls with Stewart, Bitty Jack had learned that Mrs. Hicks had kept him busy. There was the service to plan, the caskets to choose—pine or oak, regular or moisture-sealed, silk-lined or synthetic—and clothes to pick out for the Steptoes’s life together, forever and ever, in the sweet hereafter.
“She’s so demanding.”
“So leave, Stewart.”
“I can’t. Mr. Hicks has to work and she’s acting really weird. He asked me to keep an eye on her. But I hate it. She’s totally freaking me out.”
“What’s she doing?”
“I’ve heard her talking to my mom.”
“Well, that’s supposed to be natural.”
“This ain’t natural. Rick’s room is right next to Nicole’s. Mrs. Hicks goes in there and I can hear her having seances and shit. Moaning and shit. Calling out my dead mother’s name.”
“Stewart, leave.”
“I can’t. I promised. Besides she’s always on me with something else to decide.”
Stewart told Bitty Jack that Mrs. Hicks had vetoed his choice of the matching red blazers his parents wore to every football game. “She said it’s not right. That it’s tacky or something.”
“What does it matter?” Bitty Jack had asked. “It’s closed casket still, right?”
“Right, but she’s got these beliefs.”
“What beliefs?” Mrs. Carlson had asked when Bitty Jack told her.
“I didn’t ask,” said Bitty Jack. “I didn’t want to upset him anymore than he is.”
“Well,” said her mama, “I can understand that.”
Bitty Jack confessed that she wished they were coming.
“So do I,” said her mama. “But, you know, your father doesn’t do well with death.”
Graveside, Bitty Jack had been better herself. Already, she felt selfish for missing her boyfriend. Until now, she had spent most nights in Stewart’s apartment. Stewart was solid. A security next to her under the blanket. He slept soundly, every night weighing down his side of the bed, causing Bitty Jack to roll slowly toward his Fruit Of The Looms. In the warm spot where Stewart met the sheets, she pressed her body against his back and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. She patterned her breathing to sink and rise with his. She fell asleep more readily. It was good to be his girl.
Bitty Jack shifted in her fold-out wooden chair. Under the tent, there were three rows of six before two open graves.
They were deep holes, six feet under. They were exactly the same size even though, in life, Tootsie Steptoe stood at least a foot shorter. The pulleys to lower the coffins had been laid during the church service. The canvas straps were blue with a thick white stripe. They were wider than the handles of her daddy’s duffel bag.
Bitty Jack’s good pair of shoes were covered with condensation. The rain had returned and the grass was wet from the time before the tent was put up. It was crowded under the green waterproof tarp. Even the fair tents weren’t this garish and far from this small. Whoever designed it was very insensitive. He obviously thought people kicked one at a time. There were no plane crashes or car pile-ups or semiautomatics.
Bitty Jack touched Stewart’s shoulder to let him know she was behind him, two chairs to his left.
“Hey,” said Stewart.
Bitty Jack said, “Hey.”
Mrs. Hicks returned from talking to the funeral director. Throughout their conversation, he’d held her by the elbows, supporting her weight, careful not to touch the gauze on her hands, which had been reduced to one layer. She leaned into him as if she were drunk, her mouth working rapidly inches from his face. Her low banter was interrupted only by her own one-syllable cackles and sobs and “Huh-hmms?”
Mrs. Hicks picked up her purse from the seat saved beside Stewart. She did not acknowledge Bitty. She straightened her black suit that made her complexion appear slightly green. There were dark circles under her eyes and cream concealer caked on top. Her lipstick bled. Her hair seemed thinner. Bitty Jack winced as Mrs. Hicks ran her bandaged hands through her locks, each time dropping strands over her shoulder onto the grass by Bitty’s good shoes.
Mrs. Hicks put her arm around Stewart’s broad back. He flinched, but she persisted, scratching his shoulder, massaging his neck. Bitty Jack wondered if she was doing the right thing by giving Stewart his space and not forcing herself. Mrs. Hicks whispered and Bitty Jack leaned forward, straining to hear.
“Tell me she’s not gone, Stewart. She always knew what to do. She had a second sense.”
“You’ve told me.”
“She always said that she’d find Nicole.”
People were arriving by the carload. The funeral procession was so long it had delayed traffic significantly. Relatives quietly argued over who should get one of the few chairs remaining.
“Aunt Sallie can’t sit in the rain.”
“Well, you certainly can’t expect Mee Maw to stand.”
Mrs. Hicks hissed, “Would you please?”
Stewart again shifted anxiously in his seat.
“Here.” A third cousin bent over Bitty Jack. “Scoot down three, so we can all sit together.”
Stewart was out of her reach, so Bitty Jack relinquished her chair and walked to the other side of the plots where her boss, Tom, stood with a tremendous domed umbrella borrowed from the bakery’s lost-and-found. Tom put his hand on Bitty Jack’s shoulder. She knew he meant well, but she shook it off anyway. Tom had done enough. He’d driven her there and offered to cater the reception for free. Presently, two
of the staff were setting up at the Hicks’s house.
Bitty Jack scanned the faces and recognized very few. There were a couple of professors and kids from classes they shared. Alabama football players. Coach, too. Some of the cheerleaders stood in a pack. They cried a lot. More than the Deltas. There was a cluster of them, her old roommate included. Funny, Bitty knew her old roommate wasn’t there to support her. In a school of thirty thousand, Greeks and Independents were socially segregated. Since she’d moved into the sorority house, she hadn’t seen Bitty Jack. She was there to help Mrs. Hicks survive a Tri Delta loss. The sisters wore matching pendants. They held songbooks and wore veils. There were older people: friends of Stewart’s parents, patients of Dr. Steptoe. Everyone tissuing their eyes like they had bottled their grief for this very moment.
The clouds over the cemetery were as dark as the shadows they cast. They rumbled. They made everyone cold. The rain kept coming and sometimes thunder. The patches of artificial grass laid around the fresh graves flattened and, more noticeably, could be seen as a different color than what was natural.
Under his breath, the preacher cursed the funeral director for forfeiting a second tarp to a baby’s burial two counties over. Mr. Hicks lent him an umbrella and, ready to begin the service, the preacher stepped into the downpour. He stood between the heads of the identical plots.
During his sermon, Bitty Jack noticed Mrs. Hicks was not paying attention. She seemed to look through the crowd, moving her head slightly at times as if to get a better view of something or someone that had a motion of its own.
Bitty Jack turned to see if she could spot what had divided her attention. She looked back at Mrs. Hicks, whose lips now formed two words so indeterminably it looked like she was chewing on the inside of her mouth. She said it over and over, never making a sound.
“My daughter, my daughter, my daughter, my daughter . . .”
In the far reaches of the cemetery, Bitty Jack saw no one. There was rain and there were headstones. There were statues shaped like angels. There were open holes and shovels stacked beside them. There were cars with their lights on and flowers beaten down.
