Dinah doesn’t answer, just raises her brows and looks at Paula sideways.
“What? He drinks himself stupid and falls asleep on the lawn?”
“That was always more your game,” Dinah says.
Paula won’t give up, though. Not this time. She knows she needs to move on, to let him move on. And, too, she needs to do this for Jorge, who has been so patient. She’s been gone over two months, half expects ultimatums, but even though he calls her every day, he hasn’t pushed her on this. Maybe a little distance has been good for them. But she also carries a suspicion that if she tries her luck, he’ll get over her. No, she needs to settle this business and get on home, back to her own life.
And that is how she finds herself in the Hudson House bar on a Friday night, drinking a Coke, waiting for Jared. Even though it’s well into November, the bar is still decorated for Halloween, with cardboard cutouts of jack-o’-lanterns and black cats dangling from the ceiling. Orange garland drapes along the bar, and she recognizes it from her own hardware store. It’s the cheap kind that sheds like Lola does every spring, sheds so much that when she leans against the bar to get a refill on her Coke, she ends up with orange plastic shreds clinging to her clothes. A plastic pumpkin sits full at one end of the bar, and when Paula takes a rock-hard Tootsie Roll, she sees that the pumpkin isn’t, in fact, full of candy. There’s newspaper underneath, with candy laid on top.
“That’s not for eating,” Slick says. Paula puts the candy back.
“Another shot, Slick,” Steve says. When he notices Paula sitting there, his first instinct is to duck out of sight. “Shit,” he says.
“I take it you haven’t talked to him?”
“I’ve been meaning to.”
“We had a deal,” Paula says, staring him down.
Slick pours a shot, but Steve has forgotten it. “Four dollars,” Slick says, as if Steve needs reminding, as if Steve hasn’t drunk thousands of dollars away in four-dollar shots at this bar.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Steve asks Paula, and she waves him off. Back when she lived here, when she, Jared, Steve, and Deb went out most weekends, she hadn’t noticed how inarticulate Steve was. Maybe he wasn’t back then, or maybe she was just too drunk to notice. But now, the man slurs something horrible, looping one word into the next. She wants to pat him on the shoulder, tell him it’s going to be okay, even though it’s not true. Nothing in this town is okay. For God’s sake, she works here, where Gilmer Thurber used to work. She doesn’t understand how the town is going about its normal business, when that man is on trial for the terrible things he did. If Thurber had hurt one of her family, she would be the one on trial today, because she would have murdered him.
“I was thinking about leaving,” she says. It’s bad enough she has to work here; she doesn’t want to spend her free time in this pit.
“Naw, stay. You’re here to see Jared, right? He’ll be here.”
So she plays pool with Steve instead. Even though he’s sloppy drunk, he can still handle a pool cue, probably from muscle memory, the same way he fixes people’s plumbing. The man could never get another job because he’s never sober long enough to learn a new trade. He gives her a run at pool, though, until she whups his ass.
When Jared finally arrives, she spots him in the doorway, and he turns to leave. She calls after him, but he pretends not to hear her. So she chases him out.
“There’s still the matter of the divorce,” she says. Lake-effect snow floats down in great wet clumps that melt as soon as they hit the pavement. Cars shush by down Main Street. Paula left her coat inside, and shivers in a tee shirt and tennis shoes. She didn’t bring snow boots with her to Michigan. She never intended to stay this long.
“Sure,” Jared says, and gives his beard a tug. “Why not?”
“We could go down to the courthouse tomorrow.”
“I want the store, though.”
“Done.”
He watches the progression of cars, of red and white taillights down the highway. She half expects him to turn, to pull her into his arms, to ask her not to leave, not this time. To tell her he still loves her. She’s never before wanted a public display, would have abhorred the thought under any other circumstance, but to have Jared break down, just once, to have him profess his love—if he had done it, she doubts she could walk away.
But he doesn’t do it. He looks defeated, his shoulders slumped. They stand there, side by side, and watch the snow coming down until it sticks to the grass. They let their hair get wet. They let their fingertips and noses go numb. And in the morning, they both show up at the courthouse at ten o’clock to sign the papers. Their assets will go to him. Their debt, what little is left, will be divided equally. There will be a two-month waiting period, and then they will be done with each other.
“One more thing,” she says as they leave the courthouse. Jared turns to her, his face unreadable. He won’t look her in the eyes. “Tell Deb to keep an eye on Steve. That man is not to be trusted.”
Elizabeth DeWitt
20
After breaking up with Steve, I’m lost. What to do with myself without that relationship to maintain? Because I still want love, even if I don’t deserve it. I want it to find me in spite of myself, to come barreling into my life and bowl me over.
I set up a dating profile. My name is now Loves2Laff.
The profile reveals just enough. My age, my hobbies, that I work as a line cook. A picture of me in makeup and a sunhat and a tight tee shirt. But these men see through the picture, the name, into the damage inside me. It draws them to me like flies to dead flesh.
They ask for my measurements. They ask for a full-body picture. They ask if I shave my pubic hair. They ask me to shave. They ask what I like to drink. They ask my dating history. They ask how many sexual partners. They ask me how tall. They ask my panty size. None of them ask my real name.
They tell me they want to take me to the hot tubs. They tell me they want to eat my cooking. They tell me they want to take me for drinks. They tell me I remind them of someone. They tell me they want to eat my pussy. They tell me what trucks they drive. They tell me they love my lips, I have nice lips, my lips are big and soft and firm and snug. They tell me they want my number. They tell me they want to take me out. They tell me they want to lick my ass. They tell me I will love it. They tell me my picture looks sad, that they can make me smile for real. They tell me I look familiar. They ask my cup size; they tell me they’ve always wanted to date a D. They tell me they’ve never dated a black girl. They tell me about med school, about fire academy training, about working construction, about their grad programs. They tell me I look nice, I look fun, I look sexy, I look cute, I look shy, I look like a daddy’s girl, I look light, and when I give them my number, they don’t call, and when I ask them why, they don’t message me, and when I ask again, they block me or they say I’m pushy, they say, Bitch, what’s your damage? They say they want a girl who is whiter or darker or taller or thinner or thicker, who wears more makeup, who wears less makeup, who knows how to have a good time, who has a better education, a better job, who drives a better car, who shares their interests, who has a daddy, who dresses better, who can hold a conversation, who can hold their gaze, who can hold herself together.
THE LEAVING BEHIND
1998
You didn’t have gas money, and I was working two jobs that summer, the deli and the bakery, saving what little I made for college. We walked around town on weekends, past the tool and die shop, through the warming grass of the cemetery, down the streets that crossed at irregular angles radiating from the river. I didn’t have the guts to make the first move, because who would want me? Who would want this body and this hair? Deb had slender hips like a boy’s. She had long red hair. Fair skin like a speckled egg. I’d seen you kiss her freckles, slowly, like you didn’t want to miss one. You said you didn’t love her, that you were waiting
for the right time to leave, and I wanted to believe you. I didn’t want to know you weren’t mine.
At the park, we sat on the swings, our feet scuffing in the dirt, raising dust clouds that made me sneeze. When my hips were sore from sitting on a swing meant for a child, I ran to the merry-go-round. You took a wide stance, put your back into it and spun me, and the rusted merry-go-round whined and creaked. I watched you slip by, then the street, the swings, the slide. Sunlight through dark branches, bright green leaves, a kaleidoscope of foliage interlacing, orbiting a small pool of naked sky. You spun me around and around, the cars driving vertical on the street, the slide swinging sideways, the trees circling in the spring breeze, and when I couldn’t stand it anymore, when my vision was looped, the park in retrograde, you stopped the merry-go-round. Steadied me from falling. And you kissed me.
* * *
• • •
Your mom came to stay with you a few days while your dad was drying out and cooling off. You asked me not to visit while she was there.
“I want to visit,” I said. “I want to meet her.”
“That’s probably not the best idea.”
She must have been bored, or wanted to make herself useful, because the next time I came over, your house was the cleanest I’d ever seen it. The windows had been opened, the cigarette smoke replaced with sunshine. Your counter, swept of crumbs. The hard-water stain, gone from your bathtub. The grout of your kitchen floor, bleached to the color of butter.
* * *
• • •
You were no good for me, my mother said. You would keep me from living my life. She had us sit outside on the balcony of her second-floor apartment, with the sliding-glass door shut, so I could break the news.
“Just like that?” you said. “You’re going to let her wreck it, just like that?”
I tried to hold your hand, but you pulled away, rubbed your wrist as if I’d hurt you. Then you showed me the inch-long scar; you said that after you graduated high school, after you lost your job at the grocery store, you’d slit your wrists. How bad must the cut have been to still be such a vivid pink four years later? I wanted to hold you, to comfort you, but you said it wasn’t my problem. So I watched you walk away, and made up my mind that this wasn’t actually over.
* * *
• • •
We made a standing date, hanging out at the bluffs or in the abandoned River Bend Casket Company, or meeting at the movie theater. Once, when you arrived before me, you bought tickets and stood waiting outside. You’d brought me a bunch of gladioluses, and stood with them tucked in the crook of your arm. Your eyes were serious when you handed me the flowers, as if you were passing a fragile bundle. They seemed heavy in your hands. After the movie, we didn’t want to leave, and so we sat in your car in the parking lot, the flowers wilting in my lap. We watched the rise and fall of the moon. I must have dozed off. In the darkness, you stirred. You wanted to get home, shower before heading to work at the creamery. I wanted you to stay just a little longer. In less than an hour, I knew, Deb would be waking up. Her mother had kicked her out again, and you told me you were letting her stay with you until she fixed things and made up.
I’m not sure you understood the idea of secret romance. After our date, I had to sneak the flowers into my room. My mother didn’t have a vase large enough to keep them, and even if she’d had one, there wasn’t a place I could put them without her seeing. I wrapped them in damp newspaper, laid them on the floor in the back of my closet, watched them wilting day after day, the smell of decay tainting my clothes. Their blooms started out red, yellow, purple, but soon they were brown and fluttered on the floor. And then I had to sneak the flowers out to the dumpster.
Maybe you understood the idea of secret romance perfectly.
* * *
• • •
Deb stopped at my deli counter to buy thick-sliced ham. She must have loved having me serve her, she in her pastel dress, me in my dirty apron, she with her pink knees showing, me with love handles blooming over the waist of my pants. I’d been working there all summer, had gained forty pounds from their Tuesday specials on fried chicken. That and the birth control. But then, she’d put on weight, too. Her legs were still skinny, but she was growing a belly. Her face had gotten plump.
I leaned over the counter to wipe a crumb away, and I saw that her cart held a can of Maxwell House, a pack of cigarettes, and a case of Old Milwaukee.
I could do this. I could serve her. It was the least I could do, considering her father had just died. She and I used to be friends. Now that we were adversaries, I couldn’t let on how much I missed her.
The woman behind her said in a voice too loud for a grocery store, “Dear Lord, Deborah! I barely even recognized you.”
I didn’t know the woman. I’d lived in this town my whole life, and I didn’t know this woman, and Deb did. I went to slice ham, trying not to look like I was listening to the women making small talk.
“Boy or girl?” the woman said, a hand on either side of Deb’s stomach.
“Boy,” Deb said. “Steve wants me to name him Layne after some football player.”
I wondered whether anyone was really buying her story that she was pregnant again. She’d played that card before, had gone around faking morning sickness two years ago, but nothing had come of it. You had told me this was her go-to lie; she pretended she was pregnant for attention. It was one of the reasons you wanted to break up with her.
When I handed her her package, she kept her eyes on the other woman, on her cart, on the hands she’d rested on Deb’s gut. She finally looked up at me, glaring, as if I were the enemy, as if I were the one making a fuss, showing her ass in the grocery store.
* * *
• • •
My mother, sitting in the kitchen. The light over the table warm, golden, a frizzy halo on her head. Why couldn’t she straighten her hair like other women?
“I thought you ended it,” she said.
The house was so tidy, the cereal boxes aligned on top of the fridge, the air holding only cooking scents.
She said, “Don’t make that boy your everything.”
And for a moment, I hated her. I hated her bright clothes and the way she twisted her hair in a scarf when she went out in public. She wore high heels, even though she was five-foot-nine, and she always walked with her back so straight. So proud on the surface, but I knew the whitening creams she kept in the bathroom. People watched my mother, everywhere we went. And I watched them watching her. You were always polite to her, your family had raised you with Southern manners, you called her ma’am. Even so, she never warmed to you. When my mother ran into you in town, she would hold her purse close to her belly, pucker her face, and turn away.
* * *
• • •
You helped me move into my dorm. I was nervous about college. You were so sweet, rubbing my back, trying to calm me. My roommate hadn’t arrived yet, and we had the room to ourselves. We were gloriously alone. At your house, I always felt like the neighbors were watching me come and go. But here, nobody knew us. We hung a quilt from the top bunk, screening us from the world while we curled together in the bottom. I studied the squares of the quilt: red, purple, yellow, pink, red, purple. Finally, alone.
I told you I wasn’t ready, and you told me you were, but that we could wait if I wanted. Which was stupid. I was stupid. It’s not like I was a virgin anyway. Not for a long time. We lay together, fully clothed, draped in each other, and watched the maple leaves outside my window turning colors as bright as fire.
My mother called that night, and when I was short with her on the phone, she wanted to know what was wrong.
“Steve’s here,” I said.
I could hear her breathing into the phone.
“Someone had to help me move in,” I said.
“This won’t end well,” she said.
&nbs
p; I hung up on her. When she called back, I let the answering machine get it. I retreated into you, took shelter in your body, let you burrow inside me like a grub. Clothes off, all in. We were terrifyingly alone, feverishly alone, painfully alone, dizzyingly alone. In the morning, after you left, I could smell your aftershave all over me. You said you couldn’t visit for a while. You’d lost your job at the creamery. And when you left, you left your scent in my quilt. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I would smell my way along the fabric, trying to find a path back to you.
* * *
• • •
You proposed two days before Christmas. In your living room, the snow climbing up to the bottom of the front door, you pulled me into your lap. Your eyes were trained on my face like I was a fast pitch, a finish line, a prize. You never actually spoke the words, but the way your fingers trembled said everything you didn’t. You kissed me on the nose, you always said it was a perfect little doll’s nose, then slipped the ring on my finger. And you said you had left her. You’d left Deb.
When I imagined getting engaged, I never thought it would be such a quiet moment, the deed hushed by the sifting snow outside, the world blanketed in bridal white.
My grandma came to visit around New Year’s, said she wanted me to have my gifts. My mother wasn’t speaking to me again, and I refused to go to Christmas with my family, where she would have made it obvious I wasn’t welcome. I unwrapped presents out in your driveway. A Coach handbag, a pair of leather boots, a CD player for my car, a tiny gold watch. Snow gathering in my grandma’s large wig. Her dark face smooth, placid from recent Botox.
The House of Deep Water Page 17
