The next morning I made my every-third-day phone call to Walker. Since he didn’t work—the pressure of Princeton, he told me, meant that he had to concentrate every second on school—I picked up the tab for the phone bills. I never asked what he did with the money his parents sent him from home. He sounded drowsy, as usual.
“Sorry I’m so out of it. I was up late last night studying with Cynthia.”
Cynthia was a sharp-nosed, dark-haired debutante who most likely had grown up learning her abC’s and numbers by managing her stock portfolio. I had met her on my last trip out to see Walker. We had entered a bar on Nassau Street and she had been draped around a booth drinking a Kir Royale with her perfect, ultra-cool friends. I was wearing jeans and she was wearing thousand-dollar black pants. It would have been hard to be skinnier than this whippet, but, I consoled myself, at least I had breasts. Walker had whispered to me that her father was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He had been on the cover of Newsweek a few weeks before.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Jeannie. Enough.” I held the phone tightly. Enough of what? I hadn’t said anything. I hadn’t even had an undertone to my voice.
“You brought her up,” I snipped.
The rest of the call was not pleasant either, so I cut it short by reminding Walker that I had an early morning class. Leaving the car for Lucy I headed out to the Kresge Art Center for my four-hour History of Art class.
I cut across campus to get there. Michigan State has arguably one of the prettiest campuses in the United States. The Red Cedar River meanders through it. Most of the architecture is classic red-brick-and-pillar set among broad lawns and woods. It had, however, been a shock freshman year to suddenly be in a classroom that had more students in it than had been in my entire elementary, junior high, and high school rolled into one. I dug my mittened hands into the pockets of my pea coat. Damn, it was cold. It was almost December and the temperature was already in the twenties in the morning.
No snow yet, though. Dad had called me to tell me there was a false alarm at the BLT in regard to the Squirrel Board. Several people thought they saw snowflakes, but it turned out to only be ash from someone illegally burning garbage. Tempers flared since the pot was up to $2,810.
At least, I thought, Evan and Anna had plenty of firewood for the winter. Their 150-year-old oak tree had to be taken down after we had unwittingly set it on fire. My sisters and I had bought a weeping willow to replace the oak. We had stuck it in the gigantic hole, stepped back, and stared at it. It looked like that tree Charlie Brown brings home at Christmas.
Evan spent his next two cooking shows on the subject of the ephemeral nature of, well, nature. How something has always been there, and you think it will always be there, and then poof. Gone. At first, the callers were deeply sympathetic. They knew the close relationship a man can have with his yard. But then they turned on him, told him to pull up his bootstraps and start talking about how to properly freeze venison. After all, they currently had bucks hanging upside down from their own beloved trees and the deer had all just about drained of blood. It was time for the butchering and the subsequent storage of meats in the Deep-freezes kept in their garages.
I arrived at class, actually participated in some of the discussions, and left the room feeling proud of myself. Lucy met me at the student union with the car. We usually had lunch there before I dropped Lucy off at the Kellogg Center and went to work.
“How’d the test go?” I asked as I stuffed a French fry in my mouth.
“I’m pretty sure I aced it.” She grinned.
“Excellent!” I sat back. “Maybe we should go to Dooley’s tonight to celebrate. It’s dollar beer night.”
She reached out to swipe some of my French fries while we talked a while about our classes. Then Lucy stood up and grabbed her coat off the back of the chair. “Come on, I can’t be late for work.”
I dropped her off and drove to the Ramada Inn. The workday started with the Bossman asking who wanted to do his laundry instead of dialing the phones. My hand shot up, but not fast enough. I lost out to a middle-aged woman who simpered like Ed McMahon had just come to her door in the prizemobile. It’s a sorry state of affairs when sorting the dirty underwear and sweaty polyester shirts of a stranger is preferable to dialing number after number. I picked up my sheet of phone numbers and began. By the fourth hour I had sold three coupon books, which was pretty good. I had laid my head on my outstretched arm and held the receiver to my free ear. “ . . . and you also receive a coupon for ten percent off a one-night stay at the Daisy Motel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.”
“Why would I be going to Gatlinburg?” the voice asked.
I dialed the next number without picking up my head. I was more than halfway through my script when my victim interrupted me. “Could you repeat that?”
“Sure.” I yawned. “You can get a two-for-one dinner of mouthwatering Penis Chicken at Penis Barbecue.”
A chuckle came over the phone. “Honey, I’m not sure if I should call the cops or ask you for a date. But I think you mean Penni’s Barbecue. It’s that joint on the highway.”
My hand came up to my mouth as I stared at the script. There was a typo: one of the ns was missing, so it read Peni’s—or, as I was pronouncing it, “penis.” I hung up the phone. How many people had I read this script to? Two thousand? Three thousand? Did they think I was selling them something entirely different from a coupon book? Bossman saw me and came marching down the narrow aisle.
“Why are you just sitting there? Dial!”
I stared at the gold chain resting in its nest of black chest hair. “Jeannie, I’ve never told you this, but you are my number one seller. So come on, let’s look alive.” He walked away. I was perplexed. How could I be his number one seller? Then I realized. Penis Chicken. For the first time in my life I recognized the power of marketing to an unsuspecting consumer.
After work I met Lucy and Chuck at Dooley’s. They were a few beers up on me and were nuzzling each other so I headed to the bar to escape them. I was trying to get the bartender’s attention when a waitress slid up next to me. “You with them?” she asked, jerking her head at Lucy and Chuck’s booth.
“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”
“Who’s the girl?”
“My sister.”
The waitress slammed her round tray on the bar and signaled the bartender. She turned to me. “No. Who’s. The. Girl?” she repeated, getting right in my face. Now I got it.
“She’s his wife.”
“That figures.” She jerked the beers onto her tray. “That just fucking figures.” She started to leave, but I pulled on her arm. She had no choice but to turn back to me or lose the load on her tray.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
“Because he’s been seeing my roommate. They work together at Mr. Taco. This is so going to piss her off.”
Piss her off? I thought. I let the waitress go and went to sit with Lucy and Chuck. The waitress studiously avoided our table all night. Several times, Lucy tried to flag her down but she just sailed by. Chuck said it was easier just to get beer from the bar anyway. He darted up there every time the waitress entered the danger zone. This meant anywhere within three tables of us. Lucy could tell something was up but she didn’t know what it was. Fortunately, the music was so loud we couldn’t do much talking anyway.
After we got home there were raised voices coming from their bedroom, and then it sounded like a lamp shattering against our adjoining wall. I tossed my blankets back and went to my wall to listen. Instead there was a knock on my door.
“Jeannie,” Lucy called, “can I spend the night in your room?”
I let her in. She went straight to my double bed, flopped down, and faced the wall. I shut the door and made sure it was locked.
Chuck was already gone when we woke up the next morning.
“Lucy,” I said at breakfast, “is there anything you want to talk about?”
She fiddled with a fork.
“It’s hard for him, you know? He’s in a place where he doesn’t know anybody and he can’t stand the weather. At least I have a reason to be here.”
“Lucy, are you sure this is the right thing for you?” I tried to tread carefully but she threw the fork at the wall.
“Leave me alone!” she shrieked. Then she fled to her room and slammed the door. I knew then that it was time to call in the Special Forces. I needed Mom. I picked up the phone, but there was no dial tone. Our phone had been turned off. Shit, shit, and goddamn it.
I worked on Saturdays, and I was already late. I didn’t have time to take care of Lucy. When I finally shrugged out of my parka at the Ramada Inn, I was twenty minutes late. One of the other girls told me Bossman was out on a fast food run, so I relaxed. I looked to my left and right, but no one was paying attention to me. I was about to break a cardinal rule and make a personal phone call.
“Mom?”
“Hello there. I’ve been wondering what you were up to. You never call home,” Mom said. I knew she was waiting for me to talk more so she could tell which daughter it was without asking.
“It’s Jeannie, Mom.”
“I know that!” Mom lied smoothly. “Now tell me all about school.” She was back on her game.
“Mom, I’m at work and I can’t talk long. I’m not even supposed to be calling you.” I had to keep going before she made vain attempts to keep me on the phone anyway.
“Here, say hello to your father.” Mom then yelled for Dad to come to the phone. I looked anxiously at the door and smiled wanly at my seatmate. It was the same woman who had brown-nosed the boss by doing his laundry.
“Hello, sweetheart. How’s Michigan State treating you?”
“Uh, good, Dad,” I said. I couldn’t talk to my dad about Lucy’s problem. This was Mom’s territory. Bossman ambled through the door and scanned the room for loafers. His antenna went up when he saw me hunched over. Now he was coming down the aisle toward me. Desperately, I launched into the script. “And you can get twenty percent off a dinner at Red Lobster!” Bossman paused by my side. I looked up at him innocently.
“Well, that’s real good, sweetheart. My, twenty percent off.” My father clearly felt like he had been dropped into a mysterious conversation I had started with my mother.
My seatmate was making motions next to me and mouthing over my head, “She’s on a personal call!” Bitch.
Bossman poked me maliciously with a pencil. “Read the part you told me about. The part that always gets ’em sold.” Then he punched speakerphone so that the entire room could hear my conversation.
I closed my eyes tight. “And you can get a special coupon to, um”—I coughed—“Penis Chicken.”
“What did you say, honey? I can’t hear you for some reason.” Dad’s voice sounded like he was stretching the cord across the kitchen so he could watch his TV show at the same time. Bossman motioned for me to repeat the line. Frantically, I looked around the beige room for help, but all eyes were now upon me and they weren’t sympathetic.
“I said you can get a special coupon to Penis Chicken.” I closed my eyes before I read their slogan. “There’s no place my mouth would rather be than at Penis!”
There was a long pause on the other side of the line. Then I heard Dad yell to Mom, “Rose, I think she wants to talk to you.”
Bossman took the phone from my trembling hand and hung it up. “You’re fired.”
“That was my first personal phone call!” I protested.
“That I know about,” he said sternly. He turned to the others. “Let Jeannie here be an example to you. Make a personal phone call, get fired.”
I rose and took my purse and coat off the back of the metal folding chair. I tried to hold my head up as I walked out, criminal though I was. At the door I asked, “Can I get my check for last week?” My voice quavered.
“Sue me,” Bossman sneered.
I stopped outside in the Ramada Inn hallway and stared down at the ugly carpet. Fired. I had been fired. And I didn’t get to ask Mom’s advice about Lucy. And I had said the word “penis” to my father. Not just once but several times.
I sagged out of the Ramada Inn, got in the car, and drove over to the Kellogg Center. Lucy would cheer me up. She would confirm that I was lousy at this particular lousy job but that I could aspire to mediocrity at another crummy job. When I got there, Lucy was waiting outside. How could she have heard about my being fired already? She pulled open the car door and slid in.
“Thank God they gave you my message. Your boss was acting really weird. I wasn’t sure he would tell you,” Lucy said.
“What message?”
“Chuck’s in jail.”
I was speechless. We drove across town in a silence that was broken only by Lucy reading directions she had written down on a napkin. When we arrived at the police station, we gave our names and told the desk clerk whom we were there to see. “Wait there,” she said, and pointed to a row of molded plastic chairs that were bolted to the floor.
We sat for several uncomfortable minutes under the fluorescent lights. I studied the notices for bail bondsmen and drug rehabilitation facilities. They both featured the smiling faces of happy couples. “So why is he here?” I asked Lucy.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to talk about it.” She stared straight ahead.
“What did he say when he called you?”
She turned to me. “I just told you I don’t want to talk about it. Why do you always keep talking when I tell you I don’t want to?”
“Because you really do want to talk when you say you don’t want to talk. I’m helping you out.”
Lucy couldn’t help smiling. “You’re a brat.”
I smiled back. “If it makes you feel any better, I got fired today.”
“What for?” She looked mildly interested, but I turned my head away in a grand gesture. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lucy laughed and I knew I had her. “So why is Chuck in jail?”
“He got in a fight with the manager at Mr. Taco. Why did you get fired?”
“Because I made a personal call.”
An imposing cop strode up to us. “Is one of you the wife of Chuck Tanner?” Lucy nodded and the cop sat down next to me in the awkward three-across formation. He talked past me to Lucy. I tried to lean as far back as possible to stay out of their way.
“Ma’am, your husband is incarcerated tonight on very serious charges.” He paused, waiting, I guess, for some reaction. When there was none, he continued. “The manager of Mr. Taco would be within his rights to file attempted murder charges against Mr. Tanner.” At this, both Lucy and I sat straight up. She shoved me back so she could see the cop.
“Attempted murder? What happened?” Now it was the cop’s turn to lean back and away from Lucy’s rising voice.
“Mr. Tanner allegedly picked up the manager of Mr. Taco and threw him through the plate-glass window. The manager probably would not have survived except . . .” The cop stopped and looked up at a commotion at the front doors. A giant foam taco was storming through the police station reception area.
“Where is that little cocksucker?” the taco screamed. Then he spotted Lucy. “Your husband is an A-Number-One Looney Tune! He should be put away, and I’ll make sure he is!”
Lucy shrank back from the onslaught. “All I wanted him to do was wear this fucking costume! Is that so hard?” Foam stuffing was falling all over the floor and he kicked at it viciously. “But he was too cool to wear it in front of his Little Miss Hot Pants.” At this, he jerked a finger toward a plump, pimple-faced girl who trailed behind him. Her uniform wasn’t doing her any favors—the material was straining hard at her thighs. She was sobbing.
Lucy stood up and straightened her skirt. Then she strode past the taco to the girl. “You,” she said, “you need to go home and have a hot bath. Forget you ever met Chuck.”
“But I looovve him,” the girl blubbered.
“No, you don’t,” Lucy said firmly. She took the girl by the shoulders. “I’m doing you a huge favor. Go home and do not contact Chuck again.” Lucy looked into the girl’s eyes, not unkindly. “Can you do that?”
The girl raised her eyes to Lucy like a trusting puppy. Then her chin went up and down. “Yes, I can do that.”
“Are you okay to drive?” Lucy asked.
“I think so.”
“All right, then. Off you go.” Lucy propelled her gently toward the door. When the girl disappeared, Lucy turned back to the matter at hand. She took in a deep breath as she regarded the man in the taco suit. It was clear that the plate-glass window had shredded the costume but that the costume had also cushioned the manager from the flying glass and the impact of his landing. The cop confirmed this. He also told us that the manager was here to file charges against Chuck. Finding out the bail amount would take several hours, but we were welcome to wait, the cop said. With that he took off and Lucy and I sat back down in the bolted chairs. The taco leaned against a painted cinder block wall with his arms crossed.
“Do you want to sit down?” I inquired. Nothing. “What’s your name?” I kept going. The taco shuffled his feet and then turned his back on us.
“It’s Mr. Sanders.” Lucy sighed.
“Why don’t you work at a chicken place with a name like that?” I joked, before I could stop myself.
“Like I haven’t ever heard that one before. Fine. Make fun of me. I’m twenty-nine years old, I’m a college graduate, I’m a manager of a lousy food franchise, and now I’m standing here dressed like an idiot in a police station. And why? Because I didn’t score high enough on my LSAT.” Mr. Sanders wasn’t angry anymore. He just hung his head. Lucy walked over to him.
“Do you have anything on underneath that thing?”
“I wouldn’t still be wearing it if I did.”
“Chuck has his sweatpants and stuff in the car,” Lucy said. She and Mr. Sanders left to go to the parking lot and returned shortly with a gym bag. Mr. Sanders took it and went into the men’s bathroom.
Born Under a Lucky Moon Page 29
