“One other thing, doc. We made a pickup in Sweden on our way back from Iran. Congratulations on becoming a father once again. They say it never gets old.”
Naqui turned back to the television with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He watched the children he helped raise into courageous young men having their lives unceremoniously stamped out in the streets of Tehran. He couldn’t help but wonder if this next child would end up the same way.
Chapter 9
Billy re-entered the atmosphere Sunday morning like a burning, out of control spaceship. His head rhythmically pounded and his tongue had transformed into sandpaper. He initially had no idea where he was, or if he was even alive, but then he smelled the sweet aroma of Kaylee Scroggins.
He reached his arm over, only to find nothing but soft cotton sheets. His mind sobered, realizing this was probably a good thing, although it wasn’t a unanimous decision with other parts of his anatomy. He reached once more, but again got nothing but air. He then rolled back into his preferable sleeping position—on his right side with arms crossed. He’d almost drifted back into a hazy unconsciousness when he heard the female voice.
“Good morning, sunshine, you were fantastic last night.”
Billy strained his neck, blinking his crusted eyelids. After some brief calculations, he grasped that he was in the loft bedroom of the cottage. When he gained some semblance of focus, he noticed the woman sitting in a chair by his bed.
But it wasn’t Kaylee.
He jumped to a sitting position. “What the hell are you doing in here, Beth?”
The morning sun had latched onto the stern face of Beth Whitcomb. The glare highlighted the freckles around her nose, and made her look even younger than her twenty-five years.
“Expecting someone else?” she asked in a calm, but accusatory voice.
“You ever hear of breaking and entering?”
“I heard noises in here last night and I was concerned about your safety. And by the way, you’re living on my property.”
“Where is…”
“That bimbo you brought here last night? She left fifty bucks for you on the dresser. I would’ve thought you could get more.”
“Perhaps you should try it sometime. Maybe you’d loosen up a little. Get rid of those frown marks on your face.”
She forced a condescending laugh. “Oh, so did last night cure your pain, Mr. Happy?”
“You’re a pain in my ass, so no. Where’s Kaylee?”
“We came to an agreement. She would get off my property and I wouldn’t tell her father she was boinking our pool boy. That might get her suspended from his payroll. It was amazing how fast she ran out of here.”
Billy stood in all his glory. He purposefully took his sweet time in putting on a pair of shorts, simply because he knew it would annoy Beth. So far, he hadn’t found that to be much of a challenge. “I don’t remember anything in our agreement about me turning into a monk. Nobody held a gun to your head to let me live here.”
Beth reached down and picked up one of the many empty beer bottles littering the loft. She had her pick of many. She remained calm, which worried him. “I don’t know the exact source of your pain, but I can guarantee you the answer is not in the bottom of one of these bottles.”
“I’m a writer, I like an occasional cocktail. So what? So did Fitzgerald and Hemingway.”
“One who drank himself insane and the other put a gun into his mouth and turned himself into a dead writer.” She sighed deeply and said to nobody in particular, “I can’t believe I allowed this suicidal man around my daughter. God help me.”
Billy’s job for the Shoreline Times didn’t begin until Monday, but he felt he was onto something and put his reporter hat on. “Sounds like you’re talking from experience. What pain were you trying to numb with the bottle, Beth?
Beth’s face bristled, her calm suddenly swept out to sea. “This is not about me. This is about you and your self-destructive behavior, and how it affects my daughter.”
“If it was about being abandoned by your family, I hope you’ve figured out by now that it’s not worth it. Just because your family messed you up, doesn’t mean you’re to blame because Carolyn got kicked out of school. I happen to be an expert on shitty families—birth and married into.”
“My daughter is a sick little girl. Not only does she have constant fevers that the doctors can’t diagnose, but now she’s displaying mental instability and harming herself.”
“Mental instability? C’mon, Beth, the only thing you should be blaming yourself for is what a great kid she is. She pulled a practical joke—she’s a kid—don’t go handing down your straightjacket just yet.”
Beth stood, frozen like a statue. Just like Carolyn did when she didn’t want to deal with something—a handed down trait.
“And as far as the fevers, I’m sure there are plenty of parents with a truly sick kid who would love to have a child as healthy as Carolyn. Chuck told me he can’t even remember her getting a stomachache, and she didn’t even cry or complain when she cut her eye.”
Beth let down her guard. “I drank when I was pregnant with her. Are you happy?”
“So?”
“Haven’t you ever seen the studies about what that can do to your child?”
“Everybody’s different. My great-grandfather smoked three packs a day his whole life and lived to be ninety-six. I went to high school with a guy who was a world class triathlete who never ate a cheeseburger, and he dropped dead of a heart attack at twenty-six.”
Beth wasn’t listening. “I shouldn’t have. Chuck was always on the road playing hockey and I felt abandoned. I know that’s no excuse, but I was a stupid twenty-year-old who was alone, and probably too young and mixed up to handle the responsibility of being pregnant.”
“Maybe you should stop being so self-involved. There are a lot of kids whose parents did stupid things and they turned out fine. The only thing you could’ve passed onto her is being a total bitch, and Carolyn seems to have avoided that trait.”
Beth actually released a quick laugh. It was the equivalent of getting one of those Buckingham Palace guards in the big hats to crack a smile. Billy was drawn to her laughter. It reminded him of Carolyn’s giggle. He thought it was too bad she didn’t realize that she passed joyful laughs to Carolyn and not fevers.
Still drawn to the laughter, Billy inspected Beth. She wore a pair of denim overalls over a T-shirt. He remembered the theme of the party was something to do with nature. She wore little makeup on her face, but Billy got the impression Plain Jane could turn into an elegant beauty if the situation called for it. His eyes then wandered to her bare arms, and she squirmed.
For the first time he noticed the scars.
Chapter 10
They were similar to the scars on Carolyn’s arms.
And Billy discerned that mother and daughter’s scars came from the same dark place. They were the work of self-mutilation.
“That’s what you blame yourself for. You think because you cut yourself, she did that to her tongue.”
Beth tried to hide her arms, but there was no place to put them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did Carolyn ever see you cut yourself?”
“Of course not.”
“Then I don’t know what you’re worried about.”
Beth sat back down and stared blankly across the loft. “I felt pain and hurt myself in a cry for help. Carolyn also harms herself. You do the math.”
“The only thing that girl knows is love. That’s your legacy to her. And as far as pain…” he laughed to himself, “She dropped a bookcase on her head and didn’t even flinch. I’m not sure she knows what pain is.”
“The fact is, my self-destructive behavior, whether intentional or not, has done damage to my daughter.” She peered at the stream of empty beer bottles. “I just can’t have any more self-destructive behavior around her.”
“Are you throwing me out?”
Beth remained sil
ent, seemingly mulling it over.
“Are you?” his voice elevated.
Beth picked one of the bottles and repeated her mantra, “This doesn’t cure pain. In fact, after a while it doesn’t even numb it anymore.”
Billy stared at the suddenly vulnerable woman and surprisingly felt a bond with her—a bond of pain. “So how did you heal it?”
She fidgeted in her seat. “Numbing it didn’t work and hurting myself didn’t work. Then the Healing Angel of Pain arrived to save me.”
“The Healing Angel of Pain?”
“When Carolyn was eight-months-old, well before we could expect her to talk; I was changing her on a table in our tiny apartment up in Albany. Chuck was away and there were no witnesses, so I can’t prove it. But I sneezed and Carolyn looked up at me with those big hazel eyes of hers and said as clear as day, ‘God bless you, Mommy.’ She never spoke again for a long time, but the message was clear: God did bless me. He sent Carolyn to heal my pain.”
“Was there a virgin birth involved also?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Will it affect whether you throw me out or not?”
“I will do anything it takes to protect my daughter.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Beth calmly reached beside her chair and picked a plastic three-ring binder that Billy recognized. She opened it up on her lap, acting as if Billy wasn’t there. She slowly flipped pages, causing Billy to fume.
“I was reading through one of your manuscripts while I was waiting for you to wake. Dana told me you wrote this great political thriller. So I was surprised you also write children’s books.”
Billy lunged at her, snapping at the manuscript, but Beth pulled it back toward her chest and cradled her arms around it.
“Give me that! It’s none of your business!”
“Writers are always so temperamental,” she teased. “I just wanted to compliment you. I loved it—The Adventures of Peanut Butter & Jelly—Carolyn would love it also. Do you do the illustrations yourself?”
The Adventures of Peanut Butter & Jelly is the story of two five-year-old girls who would be confronted by a life issue—the first story was about dealing with a bully—then would solve the problem in adorably creative ways, always ending in a life lesson. The two girls were twins. Jelly was the extroverted protector of the sweet and shy Peanut Butter. The illustrations were drawn to the scale of how a child would see the world—oversized buildings, cars, and adults. At the end of each story, the girls would come together with satisfaction and repeat their mantra, “Always stick together.”
“It’s a hobby of mine—now give it back!” Billy made another fruitless attempt to grab the manuscript. “Just because your hobby is to cut yourself doesn’t mean I’m going to steal your knife set.”
Beth continued to casually flip through the pages. “You know what my theory is, Billy?”
“I’ll leave if you want, but I don’t have to take this shit!”
“Dana told me a lot of the great writers she’s met are filled with pain. They channel it through the characters and live vicariously through them. It’s like creating life. I think you created Peanut Butter and Jelly to be your healing angels of pain.”
Billy began walking around the room gathering his belongings. “I guess you’ve gone back to drinking.”
“Truth hurts, huh? Nobody knows that better than I do.”
Billy pounced at her, this time wrestling away the manuscript. He shoved it in a duffel bag and exclaimed, “I’ll be out of here, and out of your life, in five minutes!”
“I really think Carolyn would like Peanut Butter & Jelly. She’s had trouble with a couple neighborhood bullies; I think she would take great solace in your stories.”
Billy ignored her, continuing to shove items into his bag.
“Not only would she like it, but I think she would really like for you to read it to her. My angel adores you, Billy Harper, and she’s never been wrong about anyone before.”
Billy stopped in his tracks, confused. “So you’re not kicking me out?”
“You can stay, but on two conditions. One, the drinking stops. And second…”
Beth reached under the chair and pulled out what looked like a reddish-orange rug, or perhaps a fur coat for a giant. She tossed it to Billy.
She addressed his confusion, “It’s an Elmo costume. The guy we hired just cancelled on me. You’ve been hired.”
He watched Beth descend the stairs of the loft and maneuver through a sea of unpacked boxes toward the front door, shouting instructions, “The party begins at noon. You need to be under the tent by eleven-thirty for preparation. It’s up to you.”
The door slammed.
Chapter 11
With Beth’s stinging words planted like a chip in his brain, Billy found a half-eaten box of cereal and ventured up a steep set of stairs to the deck atop the cottage. The roof-deck was originally built because it was the coolest place to gather on summer days prior to the invention of air conditioning, back when the cottage was used to store blocks of ice. But there was no need for cooling this day.
For the fourth birthday party of Princess Carolyn Whitcomb of New Canaan, the temperature fell to the high sixties and a cool breeze introduced the first hint of autumn. It was a good thing, Billy figured, because the Elmo costume was going to be hot.
The dry cereal mixed with his sandpaper tongue was a bad combination, so he returned to the cottage seeking something to lubricate the cereal. All he found was one bottle of beer remaining from last night, along with Carolyn’s strawberry milk, leftover from yesterday’s lunch. He thought about pouring the beer over his cereal, college style. But Beth was right; the numbing effect of alcohol had a short shelf life, and for Billy, it had already run its course. So he grabbed the bottle of strawberry milk, thinking, I could use some help from the Healing Angel of Pain.
He returned to the deck and looked out over the extensive grounds. The morning was calm, but would soon be infiltrated by a small army of four-year-olds. He noticed Beth under the tent making last minute alterations. He couldn’t shake her words. I don’t know the exact cause of your pain. She might not have known, but he was well aware of its source and origin.
She walked into his English lit class at Ohio State. It was his major, while she attended because it was a required course. Billy was supposed to be feeling like the BMOC, since he was the highly recruited quarterback phenom from Johnstown, PA. The list of great quarterbacks originating from Western Pennsylvania read like a who’s who of legends—Marino, Montana, and Namath, to name a few—and he was expected to reach the same rarified air. But he struggled with the adjustment to college life. He went from being the big fish in the small pond, to just another quarterback on the depth chart at a school with fifty thousand nameless students. Going home was no cure, either. He wasn’t looked upon favorably in Johnstown after bypassing the local schools to cross the border into Ohio. And his parents were as big of a disaster as ever. He was homesick for the home he never had.
Kelly Klein was the striking daughter of Gordon Klein, the beer billionaire, whose Pittsburgh brewery helped keep the local economy chugging. Kelly’s reason for attending Ohio State was simple: she didn’t have a choice. Her father was a proud alum who happened to be the school’s biggest donor. Even with Billy’s football exploits, the idea of dating the likes of Kelly Klein was too far-fetched to grasp at the time.
That’s why he was surprised, maybe shocked, when she plopped down next to him in class, and he actually noticed a tinge of nervousness in her voice when she asked, “You’re Billy Harper, aren’t you?” Then she seemed to become unhinged by nerves, and stammered, “Oh my God, of course you are. Can I be any more pathetic?”
She informed him that she’d once met him at a scholar/athlete dinner funded by her father, at which Billy was honored. This was news to Billy. He figured he would have remembered meeting her...like for the rest of his life. When she revealed a high schoo
l crush on him that included secretly attending all his games, he almost slid off his chair onto the classroom floor.
He was mesmerized by her tantalizing eyes. The short plaid skirt she wore didn’t hurt either. But he didn’t see the hardened inside until he was already trapped in her web. Billy realized now that their relationship was a calculated move on her part. She bought a stock low, betting on its high ceiling.
The stock rose up the charts later that fall, when due to an injury, Billy Harper became the starting quarterback. He led a comeback against Michigan that was still talked about fifteen years later, and followed that up by winning the Rose Bowl MVP in a romp of USC. A Sports Illustrated cover followed, and agents lined up to help him spend the inevitable millions he would get in the NFL. Suddenly he was the big time fish in the big time pond with the big time girlfriend.
But Billy felt like a fraud. Football was just a means to an end for him. He wanted to be the next John Updike, not the next John Elway, but his football scholarship was his way to escape a life of working in the mill like his father. Ohio State didn’t share his passion for writing and academics. Before his sophomore year, they asked him in a wink-wink polite way to cut back on his class load. When Billy refused, they demanded. When that didn’t work, they threatened. Billy then turned it back on them—he quit.
It turned into a national hot-button issue. Billy looked like the symbol of academic integrity in an arena where the college part was too often missing in college football. Ohio State looked like the Evil Empire that preferred winning football games to education. Kelly clung closer, despite her father forbidding her to see him. Ohio State eventually backed down.
Billy returned to the field with much fanfare, along with his heavy class load. But in the second game of the year he tore his throwing shoulder so badly it needed three surgeries to fix it. He went through the vigorous rehab program to return to the field, but knew he’d never have the arm to ever be the starter again. So he gladly finished out his career under the radar as the fourth string quarterback, keeping his scholarship. People would tilt their heads when they spoke about it, as if he suffered some sort of tragedy. But he was at peace, as football was finally where it had always been for him anyway—in the rear-view mirror.
Painless Page 5
