I nod. Keep walking. Stop three doors down in front of a plate-glass window, hiding myself in the shadows by the street, away from the low light coming out of the bar. Jade follows me and whispers, “What are we looking for? Rick?”
“No. I mean, he might be here, because this is one of his favorites, but actually, I hope we don’t see him.” Now my heart is really racing, because I hadn’t really thought of that angle, and it would be painful.
The window is painted red to halfway up, with gold lettering in Old West script reading, MAGGIE’S PLACE. Inside, it’s comfortably dark except around the bar and over the pool table in the back, which you can’t really see that well from this angle. Soft purple neon runs in thin tubes up around the antique bar, and a mirror reflects the dozens and dozens of bottles on the counter. Around the bar, on red Naugahyde stools, are a collection of patrons—a handful of the usual suspects, men in baseballs hats with construction and tool logos on them, Anglo and Spanish, their hands rough with their work. They’re drinking beers, for the most part. A pair of women are hunched close together at one end, body language shutting the men out. Some Bob Seger can be heard. No Rick, thank God.
But, “There she is.”
“Who?”
“Carolyn.”
She’s standing behind the bar, one hip jutted out, a bar rag in the hand propped on her hip. The violet neon makes her hair look soft, and light from some other source pours over the generous amount of cleavage showing over her low-cut blouse. It’s not trashy. Her clothes are tight, maybe too tight for a woman of her age, but I’m not judging her. That’s what a bartender has to do. She has kids to support, not a lot of education. What’re you going to do? It’s an honest living.
My heart is sinking as I stare through the gilt framing the window and her. The low light covers her wrinkles; it’s obvious she’s comfortable with her body. Maybe, I think for the first time, she only hunches her shoulders when I’m around. I mean, I sure wouldn’t hunch my shoulders if I had a chest like that. And really, knowing my husband as I do, he wasn’t likely to pick some scared, sexless person. She probably does things like buys black lace garter belts and massage oil.
I want to throw up. Or throw a rock through the window at her head. “Let’s go.”
Jade grabs my arm. “Let’s go in, instead.”
“No.”
“You have a right to go anywhere you want. Maybe we just wandered over this way and thought it looked like a nice place to be.”
I give her a look.
She shrugs. “Maybe I’ll come back some other day.”
“Rick comes here all the time. He’ll know what you’re doing.”
“Don’t you think he deserves to suffer?”
He is suffering, but I don’t say that. I stare at Carolyn through the windows, thinking she really does look like Susan Sarandon and I can understand how Rick fell under her spell.
Except: “I was a good wife.”
Jade says, “Me, too.”
“Maybe that’s not what they want from us.” I nestle my hands more deeply in my pockets, watch Carolyn laugh at somebody’s joke as she pours a draw beer. Perfectly. Her fingers loop the dollar bills like a paper chain around her knuckles. She’s nodding politely. God, what a hard job!
“Good cleavage,” Jade says.
I snort, halfway between laughter and a moan. “Jade! Thanks a lot!”
“Well, you don’t have much chest, but that’s the only damned thing she’s got over you, Trudy. I’m serious as a heart attack. I mean, look at her. You look at least ten years younger! Didn’t you tell me she has a couple of wild kids?”
I nod.
“So, you gave this man a family and a home and tried to keep everything together for him, and he comes out and finds some bar wench with big tits and personal problems and then you’re out?”
“Never looked at it like that.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should.” She looks at me. “And when you think about it, ask yourself what kind of man would leave his wife and family like this, and ask yourself if maybe you were mistaken in believing what you have about him all these years.”
My ears start ringing, resistance or agreement or both, and suddenly I’m crossing the sidewalk, chest tight, and flinging open the door. The men at the bar turn around and look, then see Jade behind me and straighten, smooth the front of their shirts.
Carolyn doesn’t look up right away. It takes a minute, and then we’re staring at each other over a cold, open space covered in brown and white linoleum tiles. Bob Seger is singing about growing older, and there’s a clop of pool balls falling, and she still just stands there, looking sad, the dollar bills looping through her fingers over and over and over. I hate that I can see beauty in her suddenly, in the light where Rick found her. I wonder what she’s thinking of me, flushed and dressed up to cause a stir, and in fact, a man from a booth sees me and comes over and says, “Babe. Why don’t you two come on over?”
I shake my head. I don’t know why I came inside. Maybe because I’m tired of seeing her and her never seeing me. It feels like I stand there a long, long time, Jade at my back, ready to go forward or pull me back, whatever is required.
But it just strikes me that we’ve traded places, Carolyn and I. For so long, she knew I was there and suffered eating crumbs from my feast. Now it’s the other way around. I know she’s there, too. I can’t read her expression, but she’s seeing me for real, and it’s suddenly enough.
I turn and Jade follows me out. We don’t say anything on the way home.
Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help lift him up.
ECCLESIASTES 4:9–10
22
ROBERTA
November 12, 20—
Dear Harriet,
I got your letter last week, and haven’t had a minute to answer till this evening. It was a fine card and letter and I know how hard it is to find the right card for times like this. It brought me comfort, sister, it truly did.
Don’t go worrying too much about me, now. That was just grief talking. I’m going through my things, it’s true, but this old body ain’t going nowhere yet. Doctor gave me the once-over just Monday and said I’m fit as a fiddle. I gone to see him on account of my heart racing, but he said it’s just sorrow and will heal. I got Jade here now, and she’s real good to me, making sure I eat regular and get my orange juice and has me eating wheat bread instead of the white I like, but I let her take charge in some ways so she feels useful.
I also have two neighbor women, Trudy and Shannelle, stopping in day after day. Like they afraid I’ll put my head in the oven or something. Trudy’s good about listening to all my old stories.
To tell the truth, there is not a single minute when I don’t think of my Edgar. I think of him in the mornings, at breakfast, and can’t hardly stand to eat sausage, which was always his favorite. Middle of the day, I think about the sound of lawn mowers. Dinner, it’s the news. I don’t turn it on no more. Every time I hear that music, I’m thinking I’ll come around the corner and see him sitting in his chair. ’Bout kills me every time.
Nighttimes, I just pray until it stops hurting long enough for me to go to sleep, then the next morning it starts all over again.
Well, listen to me run on about me. What have the grandchildren been up to? Greg pull up those grades? What did your doctor say? And how is Elmus?
Don’t you be calling me every week, neither, Harriet! I know you can’t afford all that long-distance. Save a call and go have you a banana split with that ornery husband of yours and just send me a letter next time, why don’t you?
I’m doing just fine. I always have the Lord to lean on.
Love, your sister,
Berta
INJURIES IN WOMEN’S BOXING
Boxing is one of the most dangerous sports.
Whenever two boxers step int
o the ring to compete, they accept a risk of bloody or even broken noses, swollen lips, bruised ribs or concussions. Broken hands, ribs, jaws and cheekbones have been recorded in women’s professional fights among novices and veterans, contenders and champions alike.
Of its very nature, boxing is going to hurt!
Some who dislike the idea of female boxing have a problem if people pay to see women get battered in public. They say that women’s boxing has no place in a society that should be coming to grips with issues of violence against women. They would protect misguided members of the “gentler sex” from injuring ourselves while attempting to follow the mens’ lead in a violent sport.
JULIE MORGAN
23
JADE
Sunday morning, I take Grandma to church. She’s wearing a black dress with a black hat, and dresses it up just a little with strings of beads. But she doesn’t say much. She’s so quiet all the time lately, I don’t know what to think.
“I love you, Grandma,” I say, pulling into the parking lot of the Church of God.
“You’re a good girl, Jade.” Her fingers fiddle over to mine, give them a squeeze. But she’s not really in it. She’s somewhere else all the time. Vague with me. With her friends, who have been calling trying to get her to go do something, get her out of the house. It’s been nearly a month since Gramps died, and she hasn’t left the house once except for church. Only then because I make her go. Our ritual is the same: I settle her with her friends, then go down to the nursery to hang out with the babies.
Babies are my weakness. All babies, of every race in the world, but especially laughing black babies with their curly heads and big old eyes and smooth skin and fat little toes. They make me mushy. I love to smell their lotioned selves, admire the little girls in their teeny patent-leather shoes and frilly socks. The boys have their baseball hats and tennis shoes. We tumble and cuddle. I play blocks with them, read them picture books, and generally make a fool of myself.
It’s also a relief to go to church, where the mothers and daddies are loving their babies, taking good care of them, doting on them as parents ought to do. A contrast to the babies I see at work.
Not a lot of happy babies in my job as a foster-care liaison. Sometimes I can find ways to make their lives better. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Everyone tells me that eventually I’m going to burn out on the losses. What I tell them is that I can’t imagine doing anything more important than this, that every time it does work out, I know exactly why I’m on the planet.
This thought, sneaking over my brain as I wash the face of Johniqua Parker, one of the sweetest babies I’ve ever seen in my life, gives me some insight into my grandmother’s current state of mind. What does she have to live for these days? What purpose?
Hmmm. I have noticed that Shannelle comes over every day or two to get Roberta’s advice on some little household thing—the best way to wash the windows or clean an oven. She asks what to do about one of her boys. How to get along better with her husband, Tony, who doesn’t want Shannelle to write novels. He wants her to go to work as a waitress so they can get some new furniture.
In fact, Shannelle shows up just after we get home from church. She looks very bad. Usually she’s so tidy about her appearance that it’s alarming. Roberta is instantly on Grandmother alert. “Sit down, child,” she says. Her gnarled hands brush over Shannelle’s hair. “What’s wrong?”
“I have another toothache,” she says, pressing her hand to her mouth. “Not even the peroxide treatment is helping. What else can I do?”
“Oh, baby!”
“It’s just”—tears start to leak out of her china-blue eyes—“this one is in the front, and I’m going to have to let them pull it and then I’m going to look like an old hag and …” She bends over to put her head in her lap. “God, it hurts. Like someone is hammering on my face.”
I meet Roberta’s eyes. “Shannelle, maybe I can find some help for you. Don’t get the tooth pulled. Let me make some calls in the morning. In the meantime, I have some good painkillers. Let me get them for you.”
She shakes her head. The circles under her eyes are like lakes. “I have to watch the boys this afternoon. I can’t get too messed up.”
“Bring them over here,” Roberta says. “Jade’s got to go to her boxing lesson, but I’d love a chance to spoil those babies a little bit. You take the medicine and go sleep, and let Jade see what she can do.”
Her agony is so perfect, she just nods. Her eyes fill with tears again. “Thank you.”
I fetch a couple of Vicodins for her. They’re left over from a bad sprain I had last spring. She takes one and puts the other in her pocket. In a few minutes, she brings the boys over and goes home to sleep. Roberta, for the first time in weeks, seems genuinely happy when she hustles the boys into the kitchen to make chocolate chip cookies.
Which makes it a lot easier for me to leave for my training session. I’ve been looking forward to it all week. As I put on my workout clothes, I’m feeling a little jittery. Nothing fancy, of course, but I do pick the coppery tank that makes the best of my skin, and put on some shorts beneath my sweats.
I tell myself I’m excited because I get to box this afternoon. I really am learning something, getting stronger, figuring it all out. But my closed-off heart opens up as I walk into the gym and see Rueben jumping rope.
He winks as I come up. “How you doin’ today, Jade?”
“Very well, thank you. Went to church with my grandmother”—I tie up my hair in a scrunchie—“and she’s happy now with some little boys to baby-sit.”
He nods, an alert interest in his face. “Where do you go to church?”
“Church of God, over on Elm.”
“I miss church lately.”
I smile. “You’re welcome to come with us anytime. And,” the idea is brilliant, “what you should do is come and have breakfast with us first, let my grandmother spoil a Texas boy. She’s Texan, you know. It’d thrill her to pieces to cook you some biscuits.”
“I might just do that.” For a second, it seems like there’s something in his face; then he says, “Let’s get you warmed up.”
Over the past few weeks, I’ve learned very, very little about Rueben Perry. He works for Boys Ranch. It’s a tough group of children. He’s from east of Dallas somewhere. He’s divorced, but doesn’t talk about her. No children.
It’s the things he doesn’t say that intrigue me. There are scars on his arms where tattoos have been removed. I wonder what they used to say, how they got there. What made him take them off. How did he get from Dallas to Pueblo? He doesn’t drink or smoke. There’s no woman in his life. I asked Shannelle’s husband.
He’s also a hard taskmaster. I’m working harder than I ever have in my life. Running five miles every morning, working with weights three times a week after work, a hundred crunches every night before bed. These sessions twice a week. He’s teaching me my footwork and punches, and he’s not exactly easy to please. Not that he yells or anything. Just gets that slightly disappointed wrinkle in his forehead when I’m not getting it. When I do get something, he’s pleasant but curt.
“Good,” is what he says.
This afternoon, the gym is nearly empty. Nearly everyone else went to see the local hero box in Denver tonight. I’m conscious of it. It feels like Rueben is being hard on me. He snaps at one point. “Get your fists up, Jade! I just broke your nose.”
He’s right. I try it again. “How long until I can spar with someone for real?”
“A while.” There’s boredom in the words.
I drop my arms. “All right, what is it? What’s going on here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you act like I’m being clueless, and if I am, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
He inclines his head, those big soft eyes looking right through me. “You partied hard last night, huh?”
“Yeah, so?” I shrug. Bang my gloved hands together.
“Then we
nt to church this morning with your grandma and came here to work out?”
I scowl. “So?” I say again, harder this time.
“And there you are, all dressed up to kill, even in your gym clothes. Makeup on, hair all falling down, the shorts to show off your legs.”
It makes me angry because it’s so on target. How can he see through me like that? But what I say is, “I put on makeup for church and didn’t think I had to wash it off to come to the gym. I like my legs and if I want to show them off, that’s my business. And so what if I partied? I’m thirty years old, have a hole in my chest the size of the Eisenhower Tunnel, and it makes me feel good to go somewhere and be admired for five minutes.” He sure as hell isn’t admiring me. I hate that it makes me feel so cheap to have him look at me that way.
“You’re better than that, Jade. Somewhere, somebody made you think the only thing you had is the way you look, and it’s not true.”
“You don’t know me!”
He nods. “You’re right.”
For a minute, I glare at him. He reflects it right back to me. What I hate is how much I like looking at his face, how right it seems. Almost familiar.
Which is just bullshit. I look away.
“C’mon. Let’s get to work. Do me a favor and don’t party before we work out. It slows you down.”
I nod.
I work harder. He’s a little kinder. By the time the sun sets, I’m wiped out, gin-scented sweat coating my flesh. My legs and arms are like rubber. I sink down to a chair, pull off the gloves, take a long, long pull of water. He comes up behind me and drops his hands on my shoulders. I start, but then he uses his thumbs on the tight places in my lower neck, across my shoulder blades. It feels so good, I groan aloud.
The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue: A Novel Page 15
