by T. Greenwood
Six hours later, Crystal’s breasts had hurt so badly she thought she might die. Even the cheap polyester of her work shirt pressing against them was almost unendurable. And then as she was ringing up some creep buying Fiddle Faddle, socks, and duct tape, she felt her entire chest go hot and wet. The guy’s bug eyes got buggier and he gawked at her, staring at her chest. When she looked down, she could see perfect circles spreading across each boob, like blood from a pair of bullet wounds.
“Shit,” she said and threw the guy’s change at him, ducking out behind the counter and running to the Baby Care aisle. She grabbed a box of nursing pads and made a dash for the restroom. She found Deena restocking an endcap of batteries. “I gotta put these on my tab,” Crystal said, holding up the box. Ashamed.
Deena looked confused at first and then, noticing the two wet blossoms at Crystal’s chest, nodded. “You can take one of my shirts from my locker,” she said.
Somehow she’d managed to make it through the rest of her shift, even when the lady, the one who was always stealing shit, asked her if she was having a boy or a girl. That just about did her in. But she’d just kept working, and soon it was time to go home.
On her way to clock out, she walked down the baby aisle again, and when she saw the package of two Winnie the Pooh pacifiers, she felt a tug in her chest, a quickening of her heart. She thought about the lady slipping barrettes, Scotch tape, bubble gum into her pocket. How bold she was. How ballsy. She glanced around to make sure Deena wasn’t coming and plucked the pacifier package off the rack and, hands trembling, shoved it into her pocket. But then as she waved good-bye and headed toward the door, she felt guilty and slipped a couple of bucks into the register.
Now she wrapped her wet hair in a towel, put on her sweats, and pulled the pacifiers out of the pocket of her dirty work shirt before chucking it in the laundry pile.
Downstairs, her parents and sister were watching a movie on TV, but she locked her door anyway and sat down on the edge of her bed.
Eeyore. He was her favorite character when she was a kid. She even had a stuffed one from one of their trips to Disney World. She put her finger through the plastic loop, held the pacifier to her nose, and sniffed the strange chalky latex smell. Then, after she climbed under the covers and turned out the light, she closed her eyes and put the pacifier in her mouth.
Kurt walked.
In the middle of the night, when his legs started warming up for their symphony of pain, he had no choice but to move them. He’d found that the only way to quiet his limbs was to listen to them, to stand up and let them sing. In the winter, he just walked up and down the hallway that ran through their small house, the wooden floors creaking loudly even beneath his careful feet. On warmer nights, he walked in the woods behind the house, through the neighbor’s fields. Tonight, he walked down the driveway and out onto the dirt road that would lead him, if he walked long enough, into town.
It was dark and cold out, the ground still patchy with snow from the last big storm. He walked down the long, steep driveway, wondering if he should have worn gloves, a hat, and he turned to look back up at the small house, at its paper cut-out silhouette against the bright sky behind it.
He and Elsbeth had rented this house for six years before they were able to make an offer to Buzz Nolan, their landlord. The house was small, just a two-bedroom ranch with one bath, but it belonged to them. That had to be worth something. Even when they were still just tenants, Kurt had kept it up well, making most of the repairs himself. He’d replaced the loose floorboards on the front porch, installed new windows when the sills in the original ones rotted out. He’d patched the roof and re-tiled the bathroom; he’d even upgraded the kitchen countertops a few years back. He’d caulked and snaked and plumbed. He’d painted every inch of every wall.
They’d refinanced a few years ago when the house appraised at almost twice what they’d paid for it, cashing in on a chunk of equity. He’d paid off their debts, upgraded the computer system at the salvage yard, and splurged on a real wedding ring for Elsbeth, who’d been wearing a cheap 14K gold band since their wedding day. He’d never seen her as happy as the night he took her into town for dinner at Hunan East and gave it to her in its velvet case, like he was proposing for the first time. But not even a week later, it was as though it had always been on her finger, and the gratitude and joy it had brought seemed to evaporate. It shamed him now how much he spent. It shamed him that he’d mortgaged their future for that flimsy moment of happiness. Because now they were upside down on the house, and despite the state-of-the-art computer system, the website, the salvage yard was barely surviving. And on top of all that, they had to figure out what to do about Trevor and how to keep Pop from losing his house. Christ. Even if his legs weren’t like live wires, he doubted he’d be sleeping.
He walked along the road kicking at rocks, studying the ditch that ran parallel to the road. When he got to the bend where two white crosses loomed ominous and sad, he stopped. The crosses had weathered three winters. You think he’d be accustomed to them by now, grown numb to the makeshift memorial. But each spring when they emerged from the melting snow a little more weathered for the wear, they never failed to startle him. A drunk-driving accident; two teenagers had been killed on the way home from a party out at the place where the rivers meet. Two boys, brothers. When summer turned to fall, he’d been the one who finally removed the rotting teddy bears, the deflated balloons with their sad ribbons, and the notes with their illegible Magic Marker scribblings. He hadn’t known the boys or their family, but he still considered himself the unofficial caretaker of this roadside shrine.
He climbed down the muddy embankment to the crosses and used his jacket’s cuff to wipe the dirty snow off the wood. Wind whipped across his face, stinging his eyes. He straightened the cross on the right, which was leaning awkwardly into the shoulder of the other one, and felt a pang in his gut.
Billy had called back right after he and Elsbeth got into bed. She’d been acting weird all night. First the fancy dinner. Cheesecake and wine, for Christ’s sake. She was trying too hard. Being too sweet. When the phone rang, she’d been kissing his neck and rubbing his leg over and over with her hand. It didn’t feel sincere, though; it felt like she was trying to get something from him. Something she wouldn’t name. He felt like that a lot lately: like there was some secret he was supposed to figure out, but she wasn’t giving him any clues. And so instead of arousing him, her gentle strokes had just made his jumpy nerves feel even more agitated.
“I’ve got to get this,” he’d said, looking at Billy’s name on the screen. He waited for him to leave a message, and then took the phone out into the living room, leaving Elsbeth in their bed.
Billy’s voice hadn’t changed since he was a teenager, since he left town and never came back. There was a lot of background noise. It sounded like a subway station: hollow, a loudspeaker voice reverberating. Billy waited a moment and then cleared his throat. “If the money’s for you,” he said. “I’ll send it. If it’s for Dad, he can go to hell.”
And while it killed him to lie to his brother, it almost killed him more to let Billy think he couldn’t provide for his own family. He’d texted a quick note back. 500 should take care of it. Pay u back next month.
Now Kurt climbed back up the embankment and looked down at the crosses. He’d bring out some flowers soon maybe, after El’s lilacs started to bloom. Get some of those cemetery vases that you can spear into the ground. That would be nice.
By the time he got back to the house, his legs seemed pacified. Ready to let him rest. He quietly opened the bedroom door and peeled off his clothes. He pulled the sheets back gently and climbed in next to Elsbeth, wrapping his arm around her, breathing the smell of her clean skin. She was sleeping deeply now. He envied her this. The way sleep could consume her. Even on nights when they’d fought, when Trevor had them both on edge, she’d been able to lose herself in sleep. To slip easily into her own private peace. Gracy was the same way. E
ven as a baby, she’d always been a good sleeper. A good sleeper, as if sleep were a skill instead of something necessary to survive.
On nights that his restless legs propelled him out of bed and into the darkness, he knew that sleep would elude him. Because even if his legs relented, his mind kept reeling. And so he held her, her body responding to his even in sleep, and concentrated on her breathing, on the steady thump, thump of her heart, as he waited for morning to come.
On Saturday morning, Trevor refused to eat breakfast. He did this sometimes, as if to punish Elsbeth. He didn’t want to go to Pop’s, and while she could hardly blame him, if he didn’t eat, he’d be starving later, which would only make things worse.
“I don’t like this wasting food,” she said, scraping the food off his plate into the trash can and then thinking, too late, that she should have saved it, sent it with him for lunch.
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
She looked at him, but he wouldn’t return her gaze. She wished she could brush the white shock of hair out of his eyes, touch his chin, make him look at her. But she worried he’d only swat her hand away.
“Listen, I know you don’t want to go, but your dad needs your help,” she said, turning back to the counter. She knew that Trevor respected Kurt. That Kurt and he shared some sort of bond that eluded her.
At that Trevor silently stood up, grabbed the camera his teacher gave him, and walked out the front door. She watched him through the window as he climbed over the tailgate into the back of the truck, looking through the camera at the sky.
Kurt came in and sat down at the table. “Thanks,” he said when she handed him his plate.
She sat down across from him and picked up her coffee, which had grown cold. “You need me to come with you today?”
“I’ve got Trev. You don’t need to worry about it.”
And truthfully, she was relieved that he hadn’t accepted her offer. Like Trevor, she’d rather go just about anywhere than Pop’s house on a Saturday morning. But she also knew that everything with Pop was wearing Kurt down. She’d suggested a few times that he talk to Jude about moving into an assisted-living place. If anyone could convince Jude to move out of that dump, it would be Kurt. But Pop was stubborn and proud. Like father, like son.
“You mind if I take Gracy to the salon, then? Get our tootsies painted?” she asked, stroking his leg with her bare foot under the kitchen table.
He grabbed her calf and pulled her foot onto his lap.
“I love you, El,” he said.
She wriggled her foot until it was pushing into the soft lump at his crotch. She felt him stiffen, and she smiled. “Love you too, baby.”
After Kurt and Trevor took off for Jude’s house, Elsbeth took Gracy to Babette’s to get them both pedicures. It was a freebie that came with working at Babette’s Beauty Boutique, one of the few (if tiny) perks. And Gracy loved it. She’d spend all day choosing from the rows and rows of colors.
Elsbeth had been working at Babette’s since she graduated from cosmetology school, almost thirteen years now. She worked five mornings a week and every other weekend. Twig shared the chair, working the afternoons and the weekends Elsbeth was off. They left notes for each other sometimes, silly scribbles on sticky notes they stuck to the mirror. Elsbeth learned about most things going on in Twig’s life through these scratched missives. It would be nice if they could work at the same time, she thought. But so many things with Twig were like this: Elsbeth always feeling left out, a part of her life but still, somehow, on the edge of it.
She and Twig met at beauty school, and without Twig, she probably would never have finished and gotten her license. The first three months were the worst; the smell of shampoo alone was enough to send her running to the bathroom; perm solutions and hairspray were almost more than she could stand. (She wondered sometimes if maybe all those chemicals were partly to blame for Trevor’s problems. When she was pregnant with Gracy, she didn’t do anything but cut hair. No coloring, no bleaching, no nails.) Twig was her savior back then, holding her hair back as she threw up into the sink. Bringing her ice cubes to suck on. Thankfully, by her second trimester, all those noxious smells became tolerable. And by the time she got her certificate, Trevor was already born.
In school, she and Twig had studied together and practiced on each other, but it was clear from early on that Twig was a better stylist than Elsbeth, though she’d never admit it. She was an artist, truly, while Elsbeth was merely competent. Twig got the wealthier clients, the younger clients. All of the teenagers. She was famous for her upsweeps: May and June with their proms and weddings made Twig enough money to spend most of her time off in July and August traveling. She was always running off to Old Orchard Beach or down to Atlantic City to visit her sister. Elsbeth, however, relied on the faithful ladies from Plum’s Retirement Community who got bused into Two Rivers every week. And, to be honest, she really didn’t mind. They always wanted the same thing: cut and curl, the occasional color. It was easy work, and there wasn’t nearly as much at stake. Elsbeth was also a good listener, and mostly the ladies just wanted to talk.
Back in the day, Babette’s used to be a barber shop, and it still had the swirly barber pole out front, though it didn’t work anymore. Elsbeth thought Babette might do well to renovate a little, but she wasn’t really in any position to speak up. The place was caught in a serious time warp, but Babette and most of the customers (especially the retirees) didn’t seem to mind.
Behind reception, there were black and white photos from the ’50s and ’60s hanging crooked on the walls. Elsbeth’s favorite was the one of the original owner, standing with his little girl by the barber pole. Betsy Parker, that was her name. In the picture, she’s sucking on an Orange Crush, and both her knees are skinned. Elsbeth always thought the girl looked a little bit like herself: long legs, black hair, restless eyes. Babette said that she’d gone off to college but then had to come home when her father got sick and couldn’t run the shop anymore. Like Elsbeth, she also got pregnant when she was still just a girl. Then one night there was a terrible thunderstorm, and she got in a car crash up at The Heights. She died just as her baby was born. It was the saddest story Elsbeth had ever heard. She looked at Betsy Parker’s picture at least once a day and felt her throat grow thick.
The salon was small, only five chairs and a couple of nail tables, though they had a tanning bed in the back as well. It was on the same street as the bank and the post office. Across the street was a used bookstore with a bowling alley in the basement. Elsbeth liked to browse through the used copies of Vogue and Condé Nast during her lunch breaks.
“Hey, girlies!” Twig said as Elsbeth ushered Gracy through the heavy front door, the bells jingling like Christmas. Twig was like a ray of sunshine in bright yellow capri pants and a tight orange tank top. Her shiny blond hair was spun up into a high ponytail. “I thought you were going shopping today,” she said as she combed out her customer’s curls.
Elsbeth sighed. “Trevor got in trouble again. Kurt’s making him do time at Jude’s.”
“Jesus, El. What did he do now?”
Elsbeth shook her head. She shouldn’t gossip about her own son. Sometimes she felt like she wasn’t even talking about her own family when she told Twig about Jude, about Trevor. When she complained about Kurt. Then it would hit her, this was her family, the people she was supposed to love more than anybody else in the whole world, and she’d feel bad. “Same old stuff. Getting in fights. I think the new principal has it out for him.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Twig said. As she spun her client around to look in the mirror, Twig whispered to Elsbeth, “You look like you could use some time in the tanning bed.”
“What about Gracy?”
“I’ll take care of Gracy. You go on,” Twig said. “Treat yourself. Nobody’s in there.”
“You sure?” Elsbeth asked, feeling swollen with gratitude.
“Princess Grace will get the full spa treatment.” Twig winked. “M
ani, pedi, and how about a shampoo and blow-dry, Gracy?”
Gracy smiled, a big gap-toothed smile, and squeezed Elsbeth’s hand. “My favorite color is sparkly purple. Can I get sparkly purple? But pink on my toes. I only like pink on my toes.”
“Absolutely,” Twig said and lifted her up into her chair. “Now, I’m going to need to know which Disney princess you like the best.”
“I like Sleepy Beauty.”
“Me too! Why is she your favorite?”
Gracy’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Because her hair’s the swirliest.”
Elsbeth hugged Twig. “I love you,” she said, practically running to grab the key to the tanning room.
Elsbeth stripped down to her bra and underwear and studied herself in the full-length mirror before affixing the goggles and climbing into the tanning bed. She tried to imagine herself in that Victoria’s Secret bathing suit. She turned from side to side; she could use a tan. God, she was the color of milk. Glancing to make sure the door was locked, she slipped out of her panties and bra and climbed naked into the bed. And as she closed herself into that coffin of sun, she shut her eyes and dreamed of the beach. Of flamingos and oranges and Disney.
As they pulled up the long gravel driveway, Trevor peered through the camera’s viewfinder at his grandfather’s house. It was the same kind of house as theirs, just a shoe box with windows. But while theirs was freshly painted, with window boxes and bright blue shutters, his grandfather’s house looked like a cardboard box that had been dragged through the mud and stepped on. The front porch was full of garbage bags and old furniture. The shutters hung like droopy eyelids, and the yard was littered with trash and broken-down cars. Trevor rolled down the window and clicked three photos of the house.
