by Thomas Cobb
He watched Vanessa. Even she seemed to understand things that he didn’t, and she was a few years younger than him. But to him, she was a hot, rich girl. She lived in the world he looked at from the outside. As least, that’s what he had always thought. She had a nice house, and her father, formerly a town councilman, drove a new Accord.
She was going to the community college, not the university, and her job was worse than his. He had been surprised that she even had a job. He supposed that her father just gave her money for whatever she needed. And now it was he who was on a career path. He was a cop, and he intended to rise through the ranks and, someday, be the police chief, like Gordy.
It bothered him that she had been Matt Laferiere’s girlfriend. He couldn’t make sense of that. Laferiere was a loser. He seemed like a very cool guy in high school, and maybe he still was. But he was going nowhere. He would end up broke and drunk, maybe even in jail. Matt Laferiere didn’t have much to offer someone like Vanessa Woodridge.
He guessed she kind of liked bad guys. A lot of girls did. He thought of her as the kind of woman who would marry well. Have a good job. Maybe a couple of kids. Drive a good car and live in a nice house. Maybe belong to a country club. Laferiere would never be able to give her any of that. But, he thought, maybe Patrolman Ronald Forbert could swing it. Matt Laferiere was something she just had to get through.
He had seen her house a couple of times. It was a raised ranch with a split-rail fence and a mowed lawn and flowers and bushes and trees that had actually been planted, not just ones that came up. He had never been inside, but he imagined they had nice furniture, not old beat-up couches like his, but good ones, ones you could sit in and be comfortable. Probably even wall-to-wall carpeting, maybe air-conditioning. He wanted to have a house like that someday, a house where he could live with someone like Vanessa and raise a family that wouldn’t fall apart like his had.
And Vanessa herself. She was, as Pete said, “Fine.” And maybe Pete was wrong about the tattoos. Maybe she had some. Some you couldn’t see, ones just for the special guy. And, maybe, that could be him.
He really wanted to talk to her, to ask her out. But she seemed like she was from a different world than his. But she had gone out with Matt Laferiere, and Matt was no better than he was. Definitely worse. He lived in a trashed-out house surrounded by junk cars and farm equipment. Ronny was going to be someone. He was going to be Officer Ronald Forbert, Lydell Police Department.
AT THREE FORTY-FIVE the foreman came to him. “We’ve got another two and a half, three hours before we’re done here. I just talked to the office. They want us to finish tonight. They’re willing to pay the overtime to get us out of here and on to another job. We’re going to need you or another cop until around seven, plus cleanup. Can you get clearance to stay?”
“I don’t know. I want to knock off. Get dinner.”
“What? Are you fucking kidding me? She’ll stay, too. Maybe you can make up your mind about her.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been watching her like she was the last quarter of the Super Bowl. She’ll be gone tomorrow. You’ll have a couple more hours to figure it all out if you stay.”
Ronny reddened and frowned.
“I mean it, man. Tomorrow, she’s fifty miles from here. You can make your move tonight, if you’re ever going to. You really want her to slip through your fingers?” He nodded at Vanessa. “And I’m buying dinner.”
“I can’t force you to do it,” Gordy said when Ronny called him. “I mean I can’t order you to take an overtime shift, if you really don’t want to do it. But I’d like them out of here tonight. It’ll put a couple extra bucks in your next paycheck. And I would appreciate it. I don’t want to have to call in another officer for a couple of hours of standing beside the road. If you can swing it, I would like you to do it.”
“Chief says OK,” Ronny told the foreman.
“Outstanding. I’d like to tell you we might be done early, but once they go on the double bubble, they slow down. But we should be done by seven. I’ll go up to that place on 417 and get dinner. You want anything special?”
“Get me the turkey dinner plate.”
An hour later the foreman was back with several bags. He sorted through them and started handing them out. “Eat while you work,” he said as he passed out the Styrofoam go-boxes.
Ronny walked over to the foreman’s truck.
“Here you go. Turkey dinner plate. Grab some utensils and napkins from the other bag. And here. She wanted a salad. Take it to her. Ask her if she’d like a better dinner later on. It might work. Not a terrible move.”
He walked the box over to Vanessa. “Dinnertime. Boss says eat while you work.” He watched while she stopped a car heading west and waved an eastbound through. She came back and opened up her Styrofoam box. It was all lettuce, tomato, and chicken with a clear plastic cup of dressing on the side. He took the plastic bag with the napkin and utensils from his pocket. “Silverware?”
She opened the cup of dressing and drizzled less than half of it over her salad. Then she got the fork out of the back and poked a piece of lettuce with it. “Fuck,” she said and ran out to stop a westbound pickup and wave a Honda through. He stood and watched her. He felt stupid just standing there watching her work, but he fought the impulse to turn around and walk back to the cruiser and his own dinner.
“Thanks,” she said when she came back. “For the dinner.”
“No problem.” Then, “I thought maybe you’d like a better dinner. I mean some other time. A real dinner.”
She forked more lettuce into her mouth and gave him a quizzical look. “You’re asking me out?”
“Yeah. You know. Dinner. In a real restaurant. Plates and silverware.”
She squinted as if to get him into focus. “You still hang out with Matt Laferiere?”
“No. Not anymore. That was a long time ago.”
“Yeah.” She regarded him as though he were a used car in questionable shape. “Me, too. Yeah. I guess we could do that.”
“Great. This weekend? Saturday?”
She took more lettuce and shook her head. “No. Can’t Saturday.”
“Sunday?”
She shook her head again. “This whole weekend is no good. Next?”
“Sure. Next Saturday?”
She took her phone from her back pocket. “What’s your number?” She punched the numbers into her phone and in a second, his phone rang. “OK. You’ve got my number. Call me.”
“I will. For sure. Next Saturday.”
“Cool. Oh, shit.” She put down her salad, picked up her sign, and ran out to slow a speeding Ford Escort. He followed her and made a down motion with both hands to the driver, who slowed, then smiled weakly as she eased through the construction.
“I’ll call you next week.”
“Right.”
HE CALLED HER the following week. They went to an Italian restaurant just outside Warrentown, Pete’s recommendation. He watched what he drank, trying to relax and get comfortable, but fearing letting his guard down. They endured an overly attentive waiter and began telling their lives from the present forward.
“Right now I’m just general ed,” she said. “To start with. I’m going to transfer to the university when I graduate at the community college. I’m thinking business administration.”
“Wow. Cool.” He could think of nothing more to say.
“I don’t know if it’s cool. There should be some money in it and the chance to get out of Lydell and move up in some company.”
“Cool.” He nodded. “Why didn’t you just start at the university, rather than the community college?”
“Money.” She shrugged.
“Money? But you’re rich.”
Vanessa laughed. “Rich? Far from it. You think I’d be out working on roa
d crews if I were rich? I mean, yeah, I’m getting a great tan, but it’s pretty nasty work out there on the road every day.”
“Hmmm.” Her answer stymied him a little. He was poor, or had been poor. He understood that. But what was Vanessa if she wasn’t rich? Middle class? Wasn’t that a form of rich? Or was it just another shading of poor? “I’m going to college, too. I mean, kind of. Taking courses at night.”
“What are you majoring in?”
“Criminal justice. I’ve already taken a couple of classes. I’m only able to take a course or two because I have to do it on my own time. But Gordy has agreed that he’ll schedule me around my classes. It’ll take a long time. I know that. But I have a good job, and I know that when I graduate, I’ll be able to get a better job.”
“Like what?”
“Not sure. Maybe stay with Lydell and work my way up—sergeant, maybe even chief. Gordy’s getting kind of old. Or move over to state police. There’s a lot more room there to work your way up. I may even decide to go on to law school.” He stopped himself. He wanted to tell her that he felt like a rat in a maze, helplessly lost until he had suddenly turned a corner and seen a way out he hadn’t seen before. And once he was out of the maze, there were an infinite number of ways he could go. He would be free, and he could be a success, something he had never even considered possible before Gordy put him on the force.
Vanessa lifted her glass again. “To future successes.” They clinked glasses.
“So,” he said. “You think you’ll get out of Lydell?”
“Why not?” she asked. “What’s in Lydell? It’s dying. I mean, it’s dead. It just doesn’t know it yet.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think that’s true. I mean, things are bad. No question about that. But they can get better.”
She shook her head. “In some ways, I really love Lydell. It was a good place to grow up in. But it hasn’t stayed a good place. There’s really no future in Lydell that I can see. Lots of past, but no future. The mills aren’t going to reopen. The farms are all dead. If you look around the edges of town, it’s all starting to get overgrown. Each year the forest gets closer in. One of these days, it’s going to just take over, and there won’t be a town anymore, just some deserted buildings in the middle of a forest. It’s too bad, but that’s what I think is happening.”
“So, after college, you’re getting out.”
“I’m already out. My body’s just stuck there for a while. You know, when I broke up with Matt, I think I broke up with the town, too. He’s just like the town. He’s got no future. He’s just hanging out, waiting for the inevitable end, doing what he’s always done, hanging on, getting by, never changing, not even to save himself. One day I looked at him and realized that the guy I thought was so cool was just sad. The forest is going to take him over, too. I mean it already has. He’s doing what guys in Lydell do. He’s cutting firewood now. And that’s not a life. I want a life.”
“Me, too. And I know what you mean. I thought Matt was the coolest guy there was. I wanted to be like him. Him and Bobby and Paul. They’re still riding around in the Cherokee, getting high and hanging out. It was fun while it was new, but, man, that got old fast.”
She smiled. “And you got out of that trap. Maybe you’re getting out of Lydell, too.”
“I don’t know about that. Part of me really wants to stay. Take over Gordy’s job when he’s ready to retire. Another part keeps telling me that there’s more future somewhere else.”
“Anywhere else.”
“I don’t know about anywhere else, but somewhere else. I don’t know. I don’t think I’d like to go down south. All rednecks and humidity.”
“You got both of those, right here, just not so many, I think. You know what place I think about? You’re going to think this is silly.”
“No. No I won’t.”
“Dallas. I think about Dallas. It seems like a really cool place to me. People think about Dallas, and they think about cattle.”
“And cheerleaders.”
She gave him a fake frown. “But it’s not like that. I mean, I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen pictures. It’s this big, beautiful city, with tall buildings. There’s this one that’s outlined in green lights at night. It’s just amazing. It’s a big city, and it’s getting bigger. There are lots of jobs there. I think if I get to Dallas, I will have put Lydell completely behind me. I’d come back, of course. Sometimes. I think my parents are going to stay here, though maybe not. I think if they had grandkids somewhere, they’d move to be near them.”
“You want kids?”
“Of course. Not right away. I want to get myself settled and into a good job, a career, but, eventually, I want kids. Yeah. How about you?”
“Well, I guess I’d need a wife first.”
“Not absolutely necessary, but helpful, certainly.”
“No. I want a wife. I know that. And kids, too. I could give a kid the things I never had.”
“Like what?”
“Like a nice home. And parents. I mean I had parents, have parents. But neither of them is much in the way of parenting. My mother left us when I was twelve. My dad tried, but he didn’t do a real good job. I think having a kid got in the way of his drinking. Not that he didn’t have time to do plenty of it.” He pointed to her wineglass. “You want another glass?”
“Uh, sure. I’m having a good time.”
“Me, too.”
He called the waiter over and ordered another glass of the Chardonnay.
“You’re not having another?”
He smiled. “You know how embarrassing it would be if I got pulled over for DUI? I’d, like, never live it down. Even if it didn’t cost me my job.”
She smiled at him, nodded, and regarded him silently for a minute. He felt like he was being studied, and thought, maybe, he was doing all right.
AFTER DINNER THEY went to a movie in Warrentown. He hadn’t known what movie to suggest. Action adventure seemed wrong, as did a horror film and an animated feature aimed at kids. That left the romantic comedy. The perfect choice. A chick flick. She wouldn’t think of him as the macho cop. The seating was awkward and rife with high school conflicts. Put his arm around her, hold her hand? It all seemed way too obvious and gawky. So they sat quietly next to each other, occasionally sharing the popcorn.
On the way out of the theater, he guided her through the door and she quickly stepped away from his hand at the small of her back.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“Cute. No chemistry, though.”
That seemed clearly to be a comment on the movie, but it could have been more.
When they got to her apartment, they sat for a minute in the truck.
“This was nice,” she said. “You’re nice.” Then she put her finger to his lips before he could respond. “No coffee or drink,” she said. “Sleep. Alone.”
He nodded. “Can I call you?”
She leaned over and kissed him. It was a good kiss, probably the best kiss he had ever had. It wasn’t eager and sloppy, but still forceful enough that he felt a shudder go through his body. She leaned back, smiled a tight smile. “Yeah,” she said. “You can call me.”
WITHIN THREE WEEKS, Ronny Forbert was as happy as he had been in his life. The vague dreams that he had barely allowed himself to dream had suddenly come true. He had a job that he liked, an apartment of his own, and he had a girlfriend. It was far too early to admit it to anyone, even himself, but he was in love, and he thought there was a chance, at least a possibility, that Vanessa was as well. The life that he had thought so distant, one of a kind of general prosperity and respectability, seemed to be right in front of him.
Not that he was prosperous. His pay was, he understood now, not very much. He wished that he had bought a cheaper truck, maybe even a used one. Dating itself was expensive. Dinner at Applebee
’s and a movie after was not so bad, but he had to keep buying clothes. Each date seemed to require a new shirt until he could build up a rotation of them. Once he had done that, he thought he would be able to stop shopping every midweek, though summer was coming to an end, and he would likely need sweaters and such. Vanessa was not demanding and didn’t seem much concerned by what he wore, but she dressed well, and he didn’t want to become an embarrassment to her.
He had credit cards, and as long as he could keep making the payments on the cards, he would be all right. And things looked better just ahead of him. In another six weeks, he would advance from probationary status to full patrolman. That would mean a raise in salary. And there were rent-a-cop opportunities that Pete knew about and was willing to share. Construction sites and events needed off-duty police for hourly or daily work. And the money was pretty good.
And Vanessa was helpful. Often enough, she insisted on paying her own way—splitting the dinner check or alternating paying, and paying her own way into the movies. And they had gone straight from dinner last week to her apartment, made love, and then gone to sleep. And Sunday they had lounged at her place, luxuriating in each other’s bodies and presence, and then gone grocery shopping and ate dinner in. It was the best weekend of his life, and seemed like a template for much of the rest of their lives.
CHAPTER 6
PETE HANGS UP the phone and walks into Gordy’s office. “The Staties have a registration on the Lexus. Whoever stripped it missed a VIN number.”
Gordy looks up. “Great. Is it our car?”
Pete nods. “Looks like it. They found some cloth in the grille. Looks like denim. They’re trying to match it to Laferiere’s jeans. Even better, there’s blood, human blood. Car’s registered to a Marie Caplette in Waynesville. I have an address. You want me to check it out?”
“A woman,” Gordy says.
“A drunk,” Pete says. “Don’t imagine gender has anything to do with it.”
“Do you want to ride to Warrentown?”