“He came when you were serving that big table.” She plucked a crouton off one of my salads and plopped it in her mouth. “Wanna see?”
I followed the hostess as she weaved her way back up to the lobby. She leaned behind the hostess stand and retrieved a box. It was covered in red tissue paper, with the words “Adidas Trainer” pushing up through the thin wrapping.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Nah, he looked in a hurry.” She stared at the box. “He got big feet though, size twelve. That ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at.”
I wanted to open the box, which thumped deliciously when I shook it. At the same time, I didn’t want to because I was certain it would be a disappointment: a fruitcake or an ugly pair of socks. Probably he regifted something from his office Christmas party and gave it to me to start the New Year off fresh, no blights or misdeeds by his name. I jammed the box into my work locker and tried to forget about it, but I couldn’t. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, as I carried out plates of steaming enchiladas and pollo fundidos, I could feel the box waiting in the dark, nestled cozily beside my boots and winter coat.
I still hadn’t opened it by the time I picked Jay-Jay up from school.
“Oh wow, another present.” He grabbed it from the backseat and gave it a hearty shake. “Who’s it from, that Mr. Tims guy?”
“It’s not yours, it’s, well, mine.” I felt myself blushing. “From someone at work, a customer to, uh, thank me.”
“Oh.” He lost interest. “Did you know that Mark Twain was born and died in the year of Halley’s Comet? That’s, like, practically impossible.”
“I suppose it is.” I eased my foot on the brake and slowed down as a police car pulled up in the lane beside us.
“His real name was Samuel Clemens. That’s a dumb name, huh?” He tapped his fingers on the box. “Can I change my name when I’m older?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I’m the only one in the whole school with a hyphen in my name, except the divorced kids.” He glared at me as I signaled to turn on Spenard Road.
“So take out the hyphen,” I said.
“Jay sounds dumb, like a baseball player.”
I pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine. “Here.” Jay-Jay shoved the wrapped box into my hands. “I’m not carrying in your stuff.” He ran up the steps, his backpack bopping up and down. I stuffed the box under my coat and hurried past Laurel and Stephanie, who sat in the living room cutting pictures out of magazines.
“Well, don’t bother asking how my day was,” Laurel yelled as I passed. “It’s not as if I’ve been sitting on my ass doing nothing the whole time.”
I veered into the bathroom, locked the door, and climbed inside the dry bathtub, which smelled comfortingly of damp soap and dirty feet.
“You going to be long?” Laurel yelled again. “I’ll need to pee again in about, oh, five minutes.”
I counted to three and tore off the wrapping paper. Inside was an ordinary shoe box with a Sports Authority price sticker on the side for $109.99; obviously Francisco favored expensive athletic shoes. I placed my hands on the top and was ready to lift when I realized that I was living out the scene from one of my Woman Running with a Box paintings. I was getting ready to open the box! I sucked in my breath and slowly lifted the lid. Inside was more tissue paper, green this time. I paused for a moment, not sure I really wanted to continue, but of course I did, so I pushed the paper aside and gasped, my elbow knocking over a shampoo bottle. There, tucked inside the box, was a thick white bone, a red ribbon tied jauntily around the middle. It was gruesome, bizarre; I didn’t know whether to be offended or moved. After all, Francisco was an anthropologist; bones were what he did, so in that sense he was giving me a part of his life. I picked it up. It was smooth and polished, beautiful in an odd sense. I was fairly certain it was a femur, since there was a rounded knob at the top that resembled the head of a penis. I folded the tissue paper and placed the bone back in the box. I had no idea why he had given me this peculiar gift. Still, he had made a move, taken a chance. It was brave, like a lone voice calling out, not sure if anyone would answer.
“Are you done yet?” Laurel’s own voice yelled out. “I have about a minute before my bladder explodes.”
I flushed the toilet and ran the water, and right before I left I tucked the box in the linen closet behind the extra towels, giving it a little pat before I closed the door.
“What took you so long?” Laurel demanded when I finally emerged, blinking in the flashing lights of the Christmas tree I still hadn’t taken down. “I thought I’d have to use a bowl.” She pushed past me and slammed the bathroom door.
Wednesday, Jan. 4
“It looks like we’re finally going to do it this weekend.” Sandee and I stood at the Mexico in an Igloo bar separating coffee filters and watching Judge Judy on the large-screen television. We had a few minutes before Mr. Tims opened the door and Sandee was using it to brief me on her latest Joe update. “He sent me flowers with a key attached to the note: Dimond Center Hotel, with little kiss marks across the bottom.”
“Roses?”
“Worse, dried violets and wildflowers. He picked them himself last summer.” She smacked an obstinate bundle of coffee filters against the bar to loosen them up.
“He didn’t know you last summer.”
“That’s what I said, but he just shrugged and clicked his tongue against the inside of his cheek. It’s what he does whenever he’s feeling unsure, and damned if I don’t start clicking my tongue along with him.”
My tongue involuntarily clicked against my cheek.
“Stop that!” Sandee grabbed the coffee filters out of my hands. “When I think of sleeping with him, my stomach hurts.”
“In a good way?”
“What’s the difference?” I followed as she marched out to the pantry and shuffled through her locker for her apron and waitressing book. “If your stomach hurts, it hurts. Who cares if it’s warning or anticipation?”
“Francisco got me a bone.”
“Huh?” Sandee stopped midway from pulling her hair up into a ponytail. “Did you say bone?”
“Wrapped in tissue paper and stuck in a box. I haven’t told anyone, not even Laurel.”
“Wow, is it human?”
“I don’t know. He’s an anthropologist, so it’s possible.”
“That’s creepy.” Sandee looked interested in me for the first time all morning. “Was there a note?”
“No, but it was clean.”
She finished with her hair and then helped pull mine back. “You need to thank him but not too much. You can’t act too interested until he reveals his intentions. For all you know, he has another girlfriend or even a wife stashed somewhere. Trust me, I’ve seen it all these past couple of years.”
“Thanks.” My hair was pulled so tight it hurt to move my mouth.
“Maybe we should get makeovers or haircuts.” Sandee examined her face in the mirror behind the pie case. “Something sleek and expensive. Think it would make us feel better?”
“No.”
She sighed. “Probably we need to go out and shoot again. I can see how these things evolve, first cans and then small animals, birds, and finally large mammals.”
“With a BB gun?”
“I’m just saying… Damn it, he’s going to win, isn’t he?”
“Joe? Well, you could end up winning, too.”
“Yeah, right.” She slammed a ladle into the salad dressing and turned so fast she bumped into me. “Why do we waste so much fucking time talking about men?”
Thursday, Jan. 5
Junior calls every evening and leaves the same message on Laurel’s cell: “Laurel, we need to talk. Call me—my cell is always on.”
Laurel listens to these over and over before deleting with a triumphant little cry.
“He misses you,” I tell her. “He had pizza stains on his shirt when I went over a few weeks ago. He sagged like an
old blanket.”
“So?” Laurel puts her hands on her hips, tilts her head forward. “Now he’s sorry? Now he wants to change?”
I don’t mention that Laurel was the one who had the affair. Marriages are complex, and there’s never just one perspective or one person to blame. This morning as we watched the first half hour of The Price Is Right, crumbs falling over my last clean waitressing blouse, Laurel asked me to make her warm milk. “With a little bit of cinnamon,” she added, patting her belly, which was quickly expanding. I got up, splashed milk in a pan, and stirred in cinnamon and sugar. Right before it came to a boil I added a dab of vanilla, Gramma’s little secret, then set the mug down in front of Laurel and turned down the TV; I had the feeling something big was coming. Her hands shook slightly as she drank.
“There’s nothing like hot milk, is there?” she said. “Maybe it reminds us of our mothers, do you think, Carly? Do you think we crave milk late at night because we crave having someone take care of us?”
“Probably.”
“When I married Junior, I thought he’d take care of me.” Laurel held the mug up to her face, the steam rising against her chin.
“I told Junior about Hank when I went over to get some of my things yesterday,” she continued in a weary voice, and I nodded because I remembered how she looked when she straggled back home, her face pale, her mascara smeared beneath her eyes. “Afterward he thanked me, can you believe that? As if I had just finished testifying in court. ‘Thank you, Laurel,’ he said in the crisp, professional voice he reserves for work. It would have been easier if he had gotten mad.” She set her mug down on the coffee table with a bang. “But he couldn’t get mad, that’s the big secret stretching out between us.” She laughed harshly. “Remember when we moved up here? We didn’t come here because of work or because either one of us particularly wanted to live in Anchorage. Oh, we lied and pretended we did, but really we came because I insisted. I said, ‘Alaska or the door.’ It took Junior two days to decide.”
“But I thought—”
“I know. That’s what we wanted you to think. The truth? Junior was having an affair with one of the interns. An eighteen-year-old who turned out to really be sixteen. He could have been charged with statutory rape; it would have been a death sentence for his career, but the parents agreed to forget the whole thing if we left town.”
“Junior?” I couldn’t imagine him capable of grand passions, but then again, you never really know a man until you’ve slept with him. Energetic men can be the laziest lovers. It’s the soft-spoken, intellectual types who often turn out to be the most inventive.
“He wanted to go to California or Washington, but I said Alaska. I wanted somewhere safe, and you were here. I knew that anytime I could have told you, and you would have shrugged like it was no big deal and offered one of your own stories in return.”
“Oh, Laurel.” I reached out to grip her hands in mine but she fought me off.
“No, there’s more. I told Junior about the baby, and he started to yell and suddenly stopped; I could tell he was remembering. It was as if someone had pricked him with a pin and all of his air was leaking out. It was like watching someone die.
“Then he pulled his shoulders back and walked out the door. He didn’t even slam it; he closed it very soft, almost gently. I packed up and was gone before he came back. I didn’t want to see his face—what could we possibly say? There is nowhere to go from here. Every time he looks at this baby he’s not going to see a child, he’s going to see all of our mistakes stretching between us.”
Laurel clutched her belly and sobbed, mascara leaking across her face. She made no move to wipe it off; she sat there and offered me all of her sadness and pain, and how could I possibly accept it when I had so much of my own? Yet I did. I took her too-straight shoulders in my hands, leaned over, and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were soft and tangy and so much like my own it was as if I were kissing myself, kissing away my own pain and troubles, the ugliness and brutality I knew I was capable of.
She wiped her mouth and gave me a shaky smile.
“Love is a terrible thing, isn’t it?” she whispered. “An awful, horrible thing.”
I didn’t tell her what Junior had said about wanting a baby the night I had gone to the house to look for her blouse. Maybe I would tell her later, or maybe I would wait and see if he had the guts to tell her himself. I turned up the TV. A fat woman got ready to drop her last Plinko chip. The first two had fallen into the zero slot, and for some reason this cheered us up. I smeared peanut butter over two more crackers and handed one to Laurel. We bit down at the exact same time. I grunted contentedly.
Friday, Jan. 6
This week I’m supposed to keep a gratitude journal, that’s what the Oprah Giant called it. “The only way to truly appreciate what you have is to give it a name,” she wrote. “This is the beginning of grace.”
I don’t know about the grace part: what, exactly, does that mean? The only Grace I ever knew picked her nose and sat ahead of me in fourth grade. Nevertheless, I’ve been jotting notes on Post-its and Jay-Jay’s old spelling tests, my gratitude splayed across the house on grubby scraps of paper.
“Jay-Jay’s wit,” I wrote over the electric bill, which I still haven’t remembered to pay. “Laurel’s car,” I wrote the morning my own car refused to start in minus-twelve-degree temperatures. “Stephanie’s poems. Sandee’s soft breasts when she hugs me. Barry’s dumb optimism. Killer Bee’s lopsided nose.”
Probably I should be casting about for grander graces and writing about how my needs are miraculously being filled, my old hurts from childhood suddenly soothed. But many of my needs haven’t been met and parts of my childhood can still reduce me to tears. I am grateful for Jay-Jay and Laurel, though, and Stephanie and Sandee, Barry and even Francisco, whom I’m afraid to know but still appreciate.
I am grateful. At least some of the time. All of the time?
Some of the time.
Thinking of this made me so melancholy that I poured a shot of Baileys Irish Cream into my tea, and then I went back for a second shot, and a third. I paced the house, eventually wandering into the bathroom, where I felt behind the towels for Francisco’s bone. The minute my fingers grazed the cold surface, I became furious. Who did he think he was, giving me a bone? A bone! Did he think I was a fucking dog? I swigged Baileys straight from the bottle and fumed. By the time Stephanie and Jay-Jay returned from the high school basketball game, I had reached that state of drunken self-pity.
“We lost again,” Stephanie interrupted as she and Jay-Jay slammed into the house.
“There was a fight during halftime. Between two girls.” Jay-Jay’s face was smeared with chocolate. “The tall one got a bloody nose. It was so cool.”
“Two cheerleaders,” Stephanie explained. “One had totally been two-timing with the other’s dude. The principal tried to break it up and they scratched him across the face.”
“How come I always miss the good stuff?” I hiccupped, covering my mouth so they wouldn’t smell the sweet Baileys’ fumes. “It’s after ten, mister,” I told Jay-Jay as I squinted at the clock, which swayed back and forth. “School will be here soon.”
“Your voice sounds funny,” he complained as he headed off to the bathroom.
“My voice feels funny,” I yelled back.
“Chill, Mrs. Richards.” Stephanie snapped her gum. “You’re totally wound tight.”
“That’s it!” I pounded the table. Stephanie jumped. “Get your shoes, I need a chauffeur.”
“You’re drunk.” Her voice was disapproving.
“It’s just a few miles,” I insisted. “Laurel’s here in case Jay-Jay needs anything.” I jammed my boots on the wrong feet. “How do I look?” My coat was inside out, my sweatpants stained with hot chocolate.
“Okay, I guess.” Stephanie picked up the keys. “But I’m totally not going to a liquor store.”
“Francisco’s,” I said as I followed her to the car, the cold
air causing my head to ache. “Over past Earthquake Park.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mrs. Richards.” Stephanie started the car as I fumbled with my seat belt. “You’re sloshed and he’ll be, like, who is this woman? He’ll totally lose respect for you.”
“Good!” I haltingly gave the directions I had memorized from MapQuest during a melancholy lull last week, and a few minutes later Stephanie pulled up in front of a pinkish-orange house with trees cluttering the yard.
“Ugly color but gutsy,” Stephanie said. “Think he’s married?”
“I don’t know.” It was an awful thought.
“Want me to come in for, like, support?”
I thought of her punching the guy in the belly at the abortion clinic but shook my head no. “Oh, shit!” I cried as I opened the door. “I forgot the bone.”
Stephanie cleared her throat nervously. “I’ll just wait here for you, Mrs. Richards. Just don’t make it long. You only have a quarter of a tank.”
I walked up the driveway feeling strong and vengeful. I pounded the door. Francisco answered on the third knock wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms printed with Scottie dogs.
“Carlita,” he said, surprised. I staggered against the doorframe and waited for him to invite me in. We peered awkwardly at one another.
“A bone,” I finally said. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?”
“Oh,” he laughed. “It was, well.” He didn’t say anything else. He had his glasses on and his eyes were greener than I remembered. I glanced down at his feet, which were bare and looked cold, and I started to cry.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice gentle. I wiped my nose on my coat sleeve, mortified. I knew I should leave but I couldn’t move. “Want to come in?” he finally asked. I nodded and followed him into the book-lined living room littered with driftwood, bones, and colored glass. “I like to collect things from the beach.” He shrugged, his face reddening. “Most of it came from down around Homer. That raven wing there? That was outside of Hope; I had to fight another guy for it. Ended up costing me forty bucks and three beers.”
Dolls Behaving Badly Page 16
