Anywhere But Here

by Jenny Gardiner

  Did I say my face is red from embarrassment? Because now the red has spread from my forehead down to at least my mid-section. Probably right about where my panty line is. Where my day-old dirty underwear line is.

  “Like I said, I need to get something nice to wear if I’m going to make a good impression on Lizzie.” I grin back at Smoothie, and he knows I trumped his cards. I mentally scoop the kitty my way.

  Soon we enter into a pokey little town called Hawley that is about as gloomy as a place can look in the summer when all should be green and cheerful and full of life. It’s damn near blighted, a monochromatic landscape, with slag heaps along the roadsides and what I assume are barren strip-mined mountaintops surrounding the place. Not exactly the quaintest of locales.

  We drive along Main Street, pockmarked with ubiquitous fast food restaurants, muffler shops and discount and dollar stores (I’ve counted three already).

  “Check it out—over there,” Smoothie points off to the right. We see the familiar zig-zagged lines of the W of a Wal-Mart Superstore looming in the distance. And Wal-Mart’s as good a place as any for a girl on a serious budget in search of some clean undies.

  I negotiate the car through the parking lot, parking as far from the store as possible.

  “Any reason you didn’t take that space right up front, Mary Kate?” Smoothie asks, scratching his chin, which is looking especially attractive with a day’s beard growth on it.

  “Richard.” I say, stating the obvious.

  “Mandate from the dick?”

  “Keeps the car from getting dings and scratches. Mary Kate, if I see one more goddamned mark on the car, I’m going to personally see to it that you sand and paint it yourself.”

  “You should’ve done it, Mary Kate. And painted it purple or something, just to see what he’d do.”

  “Could you imagine?” I laugh, realizing I haven’t even thought about contacting Richard. “I wonder if the man even knows I’m gone yet. Hand me my purse, would you?”

  Smoothie passes it to me, and I rifle through for my phone. I turn it on, and immediately see that I’ve got several messages. All from Richard. I put it on speakerphone and play them back for Smoothie’s amusement.

  The first is mildly irate. “Mary Kate, I’ve been trying to call. My flight has been delayed. I need you to go online and get my hotel information so I can guarantee my room.”

  The second a little more so. “Mary Kate—why haven’t you called me back?”

  The third, temperature’s rising. “Mary Kate. Where in tarnation are you? Goddammit, call me immediately.”

  Smoothie starts to laugh. “Murry Kayte, whur in Turrnayshun arr yew? He sounds like Yosemite Sam, ready to send out a posse after you. And not because he’s worried about your welfare. More because you haven’t bothered to pay attention to him.”

  “Bingo. You got it. What matters to Richard is Richard. Fuck it.” I turn the phone off and drop it in my purse. “Come on, let’s buy some underwear.”

  I practically skip into the store. When the sticker lady stops us to hand out a smiley face, I take one and put it on Smoothie’s nose. He grabs one and puts it over my mouth. I ask her for a strip of stickers and she obliges. I plaster the stickers all over his cheeks, one on each earlobe, and along that sexy column of his neck along his Adam’s apple.

  Smoothie puts one over each of my eyes, but I pull them off because I can’t see. He grabs them and puts them on me like earrings. “Why don’t you have your ears pierced?” He asks.

  I roll my eyes.

  “Wait, let me guess. Richard wouldn’t let you.”

  I nod my head, feeling like a fool. “Says it cheapens a woman.”

  “And you listened to him? God, Mary Kate. Were you a zombie or something? What did that dude let you do?”

  I shrug. “Not much, I guess.”

  “Why? Why did you let him tell you how to live your life?”

  I feel at a loss for words. Why did I let a tyrant rule my world? “I guess it’s all I knew. I was young, I didn’t exactly have the best role models for marital bliss from my folks. I figured this is how it was supposed to be with a husband. I guess I was being a respectful wife.”

  “To a disrespectful husband. Consider yourself officially disrespectful then. And the first thing we’re gonna do, as soon as we get you some panties, is get you your first set of earrings.”

  “But I don’t even have pierced ears!”

  “We’re gonna take care of that, too. Come on.”

  He grabs my hand and we work our way over to the intimate apparel department. That I am even going near the intimate apparel with a man not my husband is hard to imagine. Hell, I wouldn’t have even done this with my husband. But it feels so deliciously subversive I can’t help but enjoy the feeling just a little bit. Even though I’m embarrassed to the point I feel compelled to hide my face with my hair as protection.

  I beeline to the cotton high-top briefs, looking for something simple and white. But Smoothie’s got other ideas.

  “Hey, Mary Kate, what about these?” He holds up a pale pink bra with green frogs on it. I burst out laughing.

  “Frogs? On a bra? I don’t think so.”

  He shakes his head at it, agreeing with me. “Agreed. Frogs are incredibly un-sexy.” Next he pulls out a hot pink push-up bra that looks like it’s only half there.

  He walks over to me and holds it up against my body, eyeing me up and down. He whistles out loud and I run to another display, so embarrassed by his public demonstration.

  “Why Mary Kate, I do believe you’re bashful!” He teases me. “Whatever do you have to be bashful about, young lady?”

  He tugs me away from my hiding place behind a cardboard stand-up of a svelte woman in a bra and panties clearly not designed for the likes of me. Smoothie points at the model. “I bet you’d look just as good as her in this bra, Mary Kate.” He holds the pink bra up against my chest.

  My eyes implore him to be quieter, because, after all, intimate apparel suggests intimacy, which needs to be quiet. At least for me it does.

  “Do you want me to be quiet or something, Mary Kate? I don’t know why. It’s just panties and bras, girl. You should be proud about what you wear underneath your clothes. It should make you feel good!”

  I work my way back to the plain white bras and panties, but Smoothie persists. Now he’s got the pink bra, a purple polka dotted one with matching panties, and a black strapless lace number that simply does not apply to my lifestyle.

  I pull down the white cotton matching set, not even interested in trying them on, just wanting to get out of the underwear department with my pride intact.

  “Ah, ah, ah.” Smoothie grabs my undies from my hand, looks at the sizes on the tags, whistles again (lest we forget I’m anatomically gifted up there) and then returns to his choices, matching up correct sizes.

  I heave a sigh of resignation. “All right, fine. If I get these will you stop making a scene in the panty department?”

  “You’re starting to catch on,” he says. “And now, let’s go find you some better clothes than this. He points to my tired overalls and t-shirt. He grabs our empty shopping cart and piles the collection of underpants and bras into it for me. His panty choice includes two sheer thongs, one black, one red, and three boy-leg briefs. “These will look hot on you. Trust me, Mary Kate,” he insists. His smile cuts a path across his mouth so wide it’s like a door opening to another world.

  Next stop, women’s wear, where Smoothie again starts picking out things.

  “Why do I get the feeling you don’t approve of my current mode of dressing?” I ask him. I’m leaning against a clothing rack as he pulls out a variety of tops, each one more revealing than the last.

  “Honey, we’re gonna showcase your assets. You’re a woman, not a prison guard, you kno
w.”

  I look down at my clothes and realize they do look like the uniform of someone relegated to the land of plain Jane.

  Smoothie pulls out some silky camisoles, two halter tops (“But you can’t wear a bra with them!” I say. “That’s the idea,” he replies, lifting his eyebrows up, Groucho Marx-style), three pairs of hipster shorts that look like they’re made for a girl half my age—and size—and a mini-skirt, ditto.

  In shoes, Smoothie talks me into some sequined flip flops and a pair of black spiked heels. I’m sure they’ll be simply perfect for driving in the car to Niagara Falls, but I don’t say a thing.

  To top it off, back to intimates, where Smoothie picks out a red cami top and tap pants. “You gotta have something to sleep in,” he says with a wink.

  “Can we get out of here yet?” I ask, thoroughly tired of feeling like Eliza Doolittle to his Professor Henry Higgins.

  “I tell you what. You go sit over there,” Smoothie points to a bench. He still has his stickers on his face, which makes it hard to take him seriously. “I’m going to get some toiletries, and I’ll meet you back here in ten minutes.”

  Toiletries. How could I forget? “I’m coming along. I need to get a toothbrush and some toothpaste.”

  “Just leave it up to me, Mary Kate. I’ll get you everything you need, and then some. See ya’ in a few.” He waves with his fingertips only, leaving me to wonder what exactly he’s got up his sleeve. “I prefer Crest! And make sure the brush isn’t too hard. And don’t forget a razor—the kind with the shaving cream already in it.”

  Sure enough, true to his word, Smoothie returns, all sorts of unidentified things in his cart that he keeps hidden from me. We go through the check-out and I take out my wallet, fat with my slush funds. Smoothie pushes my hand away.

  “Nope. My treat,” he says. I start to protest, but he won’t hear of it. “You can pay me back by wearing your new wardrobe without complaining. Fair deal?”

  I roll my eyes, having a hard time believing I will be comfortable dressing in this vixen-wear. But I nod and agree.

  As the cashier completes the transaction, she hands Smoothie his credit card. “Thanks, Mr. Cunningham.” She nods my way. “Mrs. Cunningham. Enjoy!”

  Oh, my God. She thinks I’m his wife!

  Smoothie chuckles and grabs my hand and pulls me in toward him like you would your wife or girlfriend. “Come on, honey, let’s get home and try these out.” He winks at the cashier as he holds up one of the bra/panty sets, and I just shake my head. I can’t believe what I’ve gotten myself into.

  #

  We get to the car and Smoothie grabs my keys from me and goes to the driver’s side door.

  “Well, aren’t we the dominant one,” I say.

  “Not dominant, Mary Kate. I’m just taking charge to help you orchestrate some big changes in your life. Step one, our little shopping junket. And now I’m going to take you to step two.”

  “Do I dare ask?”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t even bother, because it won’t change a thing. You want to go to Pittsburgh and shake up my world? Then I’m going to shake yours up a little too.”

  I comply and climb into the passenger seat. Strange how I trust this man implicitly. I guess I have a track record of just following men blindly, though.

  We drive about a mile down the road and turn off at a busy intersection. We go about a half a mile more and he turns into a parking lot where before me is a tiny Pepto-Bismol pink shack with a large sign over top of it: RING OF FIRE, Piercings and Tattoos.

  “What are you doing?” I ask. There’s no way in hell I’m stepping foot in a tattoo parlor.

  “You’re coloring outside of the box, ma’am,” Smoothie says as he tugs on my left earlobe. “I asked around back at Wal Mart, and this seems to be the most reputable tattoo parlor in town.”

  “Are you nuts? I’m not getting a tattoo!”

  Smoothie scruffs my hair, his gesture suggesting I clearly don’t get it. “You don’t have to get a tattoo, Mary Kate,” he says. “But you do have to have something pierced.”

  When I was first married I made an appointment to have my ears pierced. I bought this pretty little pair of hoop earrings for when my ears healed up. I was so excited to finally wear those earrings. When Richard found out he went ballistic—first he threw my earrings against the window, and then he flushed them right down the toilet. Can you imagine? I paid forty dollars for them on sale at Belk, and he flushed them down the toilet.

  Well, I knew I was best to just let that one die. I never again considered doing something as crazy as piercing my ears.

  “If I was you, I’d start at your ears, but I think you’d be wise to consider something a little more radical.”

  “Radical?” Oh, geeze, now I’m imagining what Smoothie’s talking about. I am most definitely not going to pierce my nipples. Or worse! My fingers start typing furiously against my thighs, and I’ll spare you what they’re typing because it has to do with needles in nasty places.

  Smoothie leans over and touches his fingertip to the side of my nose. “Like here. A tiny little diamond would look very sexy.”

  I’m so not used to the idea of sexy and me being tied together. Meanwhile, Smoothie’s going on.

  “Or here,” he says, pointing at my navel, which is completely hidden by my overalls. “Now that would be hot.”

  I saw Lisa Ling have her navel pierced on The View years ago, and I don’t know how she kept from passing out in front of an audience of millions. Her lovely Asiany olive skin blanched as white as my behind, which has never seen a day of sunshine. And she was in pursuit of a job. What would my motivation be to go through excruciating pain like that? Except that it’s sort of an emancipation proclamation…

  We enter the Ring of Fire through a rounded silvery archway that I think is supposed to be a hoop earring. There are neon flames licking up from the outside of the ring. I wonder why they couldn’t call the place something a little more charming, like Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Ring of Fire feels a bit threatening.

  Once inside, we learn that Doug will be my piercing specialist. Doug with six sequentially sized hoops in his left eyebrow, not one but two studs in his tongue, and more multi-colored flesh than flesh-colored flesh. Clearly someone’s been practicing on him, and all that tattooed skin makes me nervous.

  “So pick out a pair of earrings,” Smoothie says, showing me the tray Doug has handed him. “And maybe one of these.”

  The next tray contains these spear-like objects with screw-on balls attached. Like a short toothpick with miniature cherries skewered on either end.

  “What on Earth do you do with these?” I ask, completely ignorant to the ways of body mutilation. Evidently the thing spears through your belly button. And if you’re lucky, you live to tell about it.

  Smoothie ignores me and looks at the selection of toothpicks. He sees one with a dangly diamond star that sparkles, no bigger than the eraser on a pencil. Well, disregarding the skewering aspect of it.

  “She’ll take this,” he tells Doug as I’m choosing a subtle pair of basic earrings. I don’t recall mentioning that I was going to pierce my navel, so I wonder where Smoothie got that idea.

  Next thing I know, Doug has my earlobe lodged between some weapon and bam! It’s over. I reach up to my smarting ears and feel a giddy sense of defiance that feels so satisfying—like a starving child who gets to eat a square meal and then is offered a brownie for dessert. I’m on a piercing high, which must be why I agree to the next piercing.

  I have to unfasten my overalls and pull them down to my dirty underwear line. Must remember to change out of these things soon. Doug lays me down on a flat table, pulls up my t-shirt a little, and swipes my navel with antiseptic of some sort. He’s pulled on another set of rubber gloves. I feel like I’m at Dr. Frankenstein’s o
ffice. This is so not like when I had a mole removed at the dermatologist’s last year.

  “I’m gonna count to three, and I want you to think of one of your favorite memories,” he says as he pulls my skin with calipers. Favorite memories. Favorite memories? I can’t think of a one. At least not one that involves my growing up, or my marriage. Or my life, for that matter. I think my favorite memory at the moment is pulling over on the side of the road to pick up Smoothie. I close my eyes and start to ponder the crazy turn of events in my dull life.

  “Sweet Jesus!” I scream. I know right now I look about as much like Lisa Ling as I ever will—blood drained from my face and on the verge of throwing up from the pain. For a second there I think I see the white light, with a large hand reaching out to show me the way to Heaven.

  “It’s okay, babe, you’re just fine,” Smoothie reassures me, stroking my flushed forehead with his work-callused fingers.

  My hands are shaking from the pain, from the nerves, hell, maybe from some deep-seated residual fear that Richard’s gonna get me for having done this. He has a tendency to leave me fearful like that.

  “It looks gorgeous, Mary Kate. Lookey here.” Smoothie holds up a mirror to my belly, which is bleeding and hurts like a mother, but I see my pretty spangly star and can’t help but smile. I will say I don’t have the world’s flattest stomach, but I suppose all those years of not having children has preserved it enough for a piercing at least.

  “You’re gonna make some guy real happy with that thing,” Smoothie says, beaming at me. “Real happy.”

  “So the secret to a successful relationship is a pierced navel?” I ask.

  Smoothie’s face spreads into a smile. “I don’t know about that, but it’s a hell of a start. We men are visual creatures, Mary Kate. And looking at that sexy belly, well, trust me, that’ll be some lucky guy’s downfall.”

  Doug cleans me up while Smoothie leafs through tattoo books next to me. “What do you think about this one?” He asks me. It’s covering the entire chest of whoever’s wearing it. A flesh landscape of some sort.