Places to Stay the Night

by Ann Hood

  “Mrs. Ramone?” she said again.

  Still there was no answer. But Renata knew that someone was watching her. Someone she could not see.

  Dee-Dee Winthrop took off her white tank top and size 38-C bra right in Harper’s Garage on a Friday night. She had come to pick up her car, a 1974 Celica that she refused to give up on. It had been ready all day. But Dee-Dee said she couldn’t get there until after nine. So Tom had ordered a pizza from Domino’s and sat, watching the Red Sox on TV, eating pizza and drinking beer, waiting for her.

  He had even thought, as he sat there alone, that there were a few things about Libby being gone that he liked. No one frowned every time he opened another beer. And he could order a pizza with extra cheese and sausage, the way he liked it, instead of her way, which was black olives and green peppers and which always gave him indigestion. She read too many magazines, had too many silly ideas. Before she left she’d been on a new kick: fat intake. She knew how many grams of fat were in everything. Spare ribs, seventy. Potato chips, twenty-five.

  He finished off the last piece of pizza and smiled. Extra cheese and sausage pizza must be way up there in fat, he thought. All the things that tasted good were.

  “Who’s winning?” Dee-Dee said from the door.

  “Detroit,” Tom said. When he stood, he realized he’d had a few beers too many. He felt a little unsteady, and was grinning foolishly.

  Dee-Dee’s husband, Gordon, had left her and gone to live in a cabin in Maine, way up near the Canadian border. This had changed her. She used to be the PTA president and an organizer of things like church bazaars and leukemia drives. In high school, she’d been the president of Future Homemakers of America. Thinking of this, Tom laughed out loud. Dee-Dee Winthrop did not look like a homemaker at all. She had on a short tight skirt and a white tank top and she smelled like the entire perfume counter at Jordan Marsh.

  “What’s funny?” she said. Her lipstick was a bright color. Magenta or fuchsia or one of those other colors whose name he could never remember.

  “You,” he said. “Future Homemaker of America.” That was when he was sure he’d had too much to drink. The thought popped into his head and right out of his mouth.

  But Dee-Dee didn’t seem to mind. She laughed too.

  “You know something I remember about you?” she said, moving closer to him. “Besides all the usual stuff like you being Class Jock and all that. I remember how whenever we studied a new country in social studies you always made the map. And the teacher would hang it up and point to it. You were good at that. I used to think you were really smart.”

  And that’s when she took off her blouse, reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, and let her size 38-C breasts spill out, toward him.

  “Whoa,” Tom said, and held out his hands as if to keep her back.

  “Libby is not coming home,” Dee-Dee said. Her voice was firm, serious.

  She was unzipping her skirt now, wriggling out of it. Libby was tall and thin. Tom used to like to trace the line of fine golden hairs on the small of her back. Dee-Dee Winthrop was full and round. Not fat exactly. Zaftig. A full-figure girl like that old actress who sold bras and girdles on TV.

  “Not bad for someone who’s had five kids, am I?” Dee-Dee said. She moved toward him, her hands on her hips, still teetering in high heels.

  “Five?” Tom said. He could only remember two. A daughter with a crazy name and the boy who went out with Sue’s kid. He backed up as she moved toward him, so that he was now against the television. “Do you have five?” He shook his head. “Wow.”

  “Xavier, Kevin, Paulina, Kirk, and Connie,” she recited. “All Future Homemakers have at least five. It’s in the rule book.”

  He could hear the crack of bats and the crowd cheering. He wondered who had scored, then laughed again. He was alone with a naked woman for the first time since Libby left and he was thinking about baseball.

  “Now what’s funny?” she asked him.

  This time he didn’t answer her. He just shrugged.

  “I used to sit behind you in algebra,” Dee-Dee said, her voice low, “and I could smell you.”

  “Smell me?”

  “You smelled like a real guy. You know? And I’d look at those curly hairs on the back of your neck. The freckles on your arms.”

  She reached over and touched the sleeve of his shirt.

  “You still got freckles?” she whispered.

  He could smell cigarettes on her breath. He tried to remember who was the last girl he had kissed, besides Libby. His mind came up blank.

  “You know,” he said, as her breasts pressed against him, as her hands groped for his zipper, “I love Libby. I mean, I love her.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dee-Dee Winthrop said, kneeling in front of him.

  Her thick lipstick felt strange on his penis. He heard himself groan, his knees buckle. Things were getting stranger every day.

  Caitlin tried to cut a mirror with the small diamond chip on Dana’s ring, but it didn’t work. “Real diamonds,” Caitlin said, “can cut glass. They can be pawned for money to put down on a lease for an apartment.” She held up the ring. “This will get us nowhere.”

  That was how Dana felt about Mike, she realized. Being with him would get her nowhere. It was as if taking that ring from him was giving away something of herself. Something big. And now everything he did bothered her even more. The way he guffawed at television shows like Cheers and M*A*S*H that he’d already seen. The way he showed off by breaking a two-by-four in half with his hand. The way he thought everything was status quo.

  She tried to tell him all this one night, sitting across from him in her living room. She watched his jaw muscles tighten, the way they did before he stepped onto the mat before a wrestling match.

  “It’s just that I have these plans and all,” Dana said. “To go to New York with Caitlin. I think it’s just easier to do this now before we get any more involved.”

  Mike stood when she said that. “That’s stupid,” he said. “I’ve been with you forever. I mean, we’ve done everything together. How much more involved could we get? Give me a break, Dana.”

  In the movies, even after the girl breaks up with the guy, she still calls after him as he leaves. But Dana didn’t. She just watched him walk out. It wasn’t until she picked up the phone to call Caitlin that she realized she still had the ring.

  Caitlin shrieked when she heard. “You’re crazy,” she said.

  That was when Dana started to tremble. “But we don’t even like Mike. Or Kevin. They cramp our style, remember?”

  “No, no,” Caitlin said quickly. “It’s good. Great, even.”

  In the background Dana could hear Kevin’s voice, and the theme song to Cheers.

  “Listen,” Caitlin said, “I’ll call you later. This is the one when Sam and Diane first sleep together.”

  “Sam and Diane?” Dana said. “I’m talking about real life. I’m talking about breaking up with the guy who taught me how to drive.”

  “I know,” Caitlin said. “You are the bravest person I know. Seriously.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dana said. “Then how come I’m shaking?” But the phone was already dead.

  She dialed Mike’s number, but when his sister answered she hung up. Then she dialed the recorded weather message, over and over, listening to the forecast for company.

  “Okay,” Nadine said, “Ready?”

  Troy nodded. He closed his eyes and waited for the now familiar sound of surgical tape tearing from his skin.

  “Ooooh,” she said, “this is a good one.”

  He opened his eyes and looked down, but closed them quickly again when he saw blood. He could smell rubbing alcohol, and feel the sting of it on his still tender skin as Nadine rubbed his forearm with it.

  They had drunk almost an entire bottle of Wild Turkey before they sat themselves down in the tattoo parlor in Albany again, and he was still a little drunk. Nadine had to drive the whole way home, because he kept throwing up. Sh
e was the toughest woman he knew. Nothing bothered her. She sat and watched the needles press the design into her shoulder without even blinking. She drove almost ninety on the New York State Thruway, singing at the top of her lungs and finishing off the rest of the Wild Turkey, acting as if she wasn’t even a little drunk, as if blood wasn’t oozing out through the gauze on her shoulder.

  “Okay,” she said now. “Look.”

  Troy opened his eyes and held his arm up in front of his face. It was swollen and red, but even so he could make out the face of John Lennon looking back at him.

  “Cool,” he said, and smiled.

  As calm as anything, Nadine tore the bandage off her shoulder. He saw a flash of red and looked the other way.

  “You are such a baby,” she said.

  “A lot of people can’t stand the sight of blood,” he said.

  She didn’t answer him. He waited a few minutes then peeked. The peace sign tattoo was the size of a quarter, sitting right on her shoulder.

  “It looks good,” he said.

  Nadine straddled his lap, facing him. “I want to get more,” she said. “I want to cover every inch of my body.”

  “Then you can join the circus,” he said.

  “You know, it’s illegal to do faces. I wonder why that is.”

  For some reason, Troy found himself thinking about his mother. He used to be almost afraid of her. She was that beautiful, that remote. He used to feel tongue-tied around her. He used to want her to notice him more than anything. Once he started hanging around with Nadine, Libby started to notice. So he would leave things around for her to find—rubbers, pot, anything to get a reaction from her. He wondered what she was doing right this second, in Los Angeles.

  Nadine was talking and talking, about crazy things.

  “There was an old movie,” she was saying, “where some guy had Love tattooed on one hand and Hate on the other. Like yin and yang, you know?”

  He closed his eyes. His head was throbbing and his arm, where the new tattoo sat, burned.

  “And in freak shows you can make lots of money for things like that,” he heard Nadine saying. “Thalidomide babies or Siamese twins.”

  He felt her face close to his.

  “The tattooed man,” she said.

  Suddenly, there was nothing Troy wanted more than to be home, in his own bed where it was quiet.

  “That way,” she said, “you can see America.”

  Troy opened his eyes, pushed her away from him, and sat up. “I don’t want to see America,” he said. “I just want some sleep.” He felt tired deep in his bones, as if he hadn’t slept for years.

  “Well, excuse me,” Nadine said.

  Her eyes were shining, but otherwise she looked tired too, all pasty and drawn.

  “I’ll come by later,” he said, struggling to his feet.

  She pointed at him. “You’re bleeding again,” she said.

  He looked down and saw small beads of blood covering John Lennon’s face.

  “Well,” Tom said, clearing his throat. “I’ll call you.”

  Dee-Dee lit up another cigarette, then put the car into gear. He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the mouth. Then he closed the car door for her. He didn’t wait for her to drive away. He turned around and walked right back into the garage instead. He felt terrible. He knew he was not going to call her. He didn’t even really like her.

  The garage office looked the same. Arsenio Hall was just ending, the pizza box lay open and empty on the table. But just a few minutes ago he had pulled out of Dee-Dee Winthrop right there on the desk. Tom flopped down in the desk chair. Was this what his life was going to be like from now on? Sex with divorcees in the garage late at night? Feeling empty and awful afterward, then going home alone and thinking about Libby? He was thirty-six years old, and he knew there was an entire generation of men his age who had laid every woman they’d ever met. Men who had gone to discos and singles bars, who had lived with women without marrying them, who did not even have children yet.

  But Tom didn’t miss any of that. He liked what he’d had. And the thought of this other life depressed the hell out of him. His mind raced over all the available women in town. He imagined trysts like the one he’d had tonight. It had felt good, he thought. But he hated the taste of cigarettes. He’d never liked big breasts. And all the other women whose faces he conjured up were wrong too. Tom closed his eyes and forced himself to think about Libby. She wore that expensive perfume—Beautiful. Even now his hands still smelled like that terrible stuff Dee-Dee was wearing. Libby seemed vague, a blur.

  He opened his eyes and sighed. “What a mess,” he said out loud.

  When Troy pulled into the driveway, it was almost two in the morning. He turned off the car, but did not move. He had forgotten how quiet it was here, in the woods at night. His head and arm were still throbbing, but somehow the darkness and silence soothed him, seemed to make his pain go away.

  Headlights appeared behind him. Startled, Troy threw the car door open, felt his heart pound. He must have fallen asleep for an instant, and the bright lights scared him awake.

  “Troy?”

  Troy peered into the light. It was his father, walking slowly toward him.

  “Where’ve you been?” Troy said. His voice sounded unusually loud.

  Tom sighed. “Don’t ask,” he said.

  Troy nodded. “Okay.”

  “We haven’t seen you around much.”

  “Well, it’s summer. You know.”

  Tom sighed again.

  “It seems weird not having her here,” Troy said, lowering his voice this time. “I mean, she wasn’t exactly talkative or anything. But she filled up the house anyway. You know.”

  “Yeah,” his father said.

  Troy was looking down, at his father’s sneakers. There were splashes of grease on the tops and sides. For some reason he did not understand, they made Troy feel sad.

  “I guess,” he said, faltering, “I guess it’s hard on you.”

  Tom reached out, as if to touch Troy’s arm, but he didn’t quite make it. Instead, his arm just hung there, in midair.

  “Nadine is nuts,” Troy said.

  Tom laughed. “Another crazy woman,” he said.

  Troy looked up then. In the light from the car, Tom looked especially young, younger even than Troy. And then Troy saw something else, on the side of his father’s face, working its way down to his neck—a streak of bright lipstick.

  The front door creaked open and Dana came outside.

  “What is this?” she said. “A family picnic?”

  “Well,” Tom said, “I guess I don’t get Father of the Year this year. Two kids, both teenagers, both awake in the middle of the night.”

  Dana was frowning, as usual. “You have lipstick all over your face,” she said. She pointed her finger at Tom. “Everywhere.”

  His hand shot up to his cheek.

  “And you,” she said to Troy, pointing to him now, “are bleeding. Your arm is covered with blood.”

  “A new tattoo,” he said. Then he added softly, “John Lennon.”

  Dana looked like she might start to cry. “I’m moving to New York. I’m growing my hair long and I’m going to read important books and go to the ballet.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Troy said.

  Tom looked at his daughter, then at his son.

  “We’ve got to fix this,” he said.

  Dana narrowed her eyes. “Fix what?”

  His arm swept forward. “This,” he said. “Everything.”

  He put his arms around each of them. “Come on,” he said, urging them forward. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “And you smell like perfume,” Dana said, wriggling in his grasp.

  “I know,” Tom said, not letting her go. He pulled both of them closer to him. “I know.”

  “I don’t like Massachusetts,” Millie said.

  “Millie, honey,” Renata said, “we’ve only been here five minutes.”


  “It’s too little,” Millie said. She sighed, and steamed up the car window with her breath. Then she drew an M in the spot, and watched it vanish.

  In the back seat of Jack’s dark blue Oldsmobile were a few boxes of their stuff, and one suitcase of clothes each. It’s like starting fresh, Renata had said when they left New York three hours earlier. Now, heading down Route 23, catching sight of familiar things from long ago, it didn’t feel like something fresh and new at all.

  “Right now,” Millie was saying, “they’re getting their new spelling words. Hard words,” she added. “Third grade words.”

  “I’ll give you new words,” Renata told her. “How’s that for a great idea?”

  Millie shrugged. She breathed on the window again and drew a broken heart.

  “Today your word is agriculture,” Renata said. They were passing a few scraggly farms now. Poor-looking farms, with a few cows and dilapidated barns, some corn and pumpkin patches here and there.

  “I bet you thought pumpkins grew from sidewalks,” Renata said.

  But Millie wouldn’t laugh. She hadn’t even smiled since they got in the car. As they drove away, Jack waving goodbye from the sidewalk, Millie had yelled to him, “We’ll be back!”

  “It’s not the same if you give me words,” Millie mumbled.

  “What do you want from me, Millie?” They were passing the church now. On Friday nights in junior high Renata used to go to dances there. She sat on a folding chair and watched as all the pretty girls like Libby Holliday and Sue O’Hara danced with the jocks. Remembering, she could suddenly smell the musty cellar smell mixed with candles and incense burning. The songs they played were by Bobby Vinton and the Supremes, “Blue Velvet” and “I Hear a Symphony.” And the chaperones would stick yardsticks between the couples dancing, to make sure no one was pressed too close.

  Renata used to sit right up front and watch. She did not expect to be asked to dance. She wasn’t even sure why she went, delegated to a group of girls who were doomed to be wallflowers—fat Teresa Harvey, and Wanda Gallucci, who wore thick glasses and had a dark mustache that everyone used to make fun of. Heil Hitler! the boys would say when she walked by them in school.