A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty

by Joshilyn Jackson

  It was the third thing he’d said to me at Panda Garden after his surprised hel o, after he’d half risen and asked me to sit down.

  I’d slid into the side of the booth across from him, and we’d looked at each for five expectant seconds. Then he said, “I’m stil married.”

  He couldn’t have made me want to leave faster if he’d opened by saying he was a devout Southern Baptist. Which he was, turned out. It was only that middle word, “stil ,” that kept me in my seat. A timer started in my head, though, like he had two minutes to explain before I was smoke.

  She’d left him. Three months back. He’d come home and she was gone and both his boys were gone, off to Wisconsin to be with some asshole she’d met playing Internet bridge. She’d inched her way from online cards and typed chats to exchanging pictures to long phone conversations to the guy coming down to Mississippi and helping her bust her marriage vows on a vibrating bed at the Holiday Inn Express. Now she was cal ing him the love of her life.

  She’d filed for divorce, but Lawrence was fighting it, trying to make her bring his kids back to Mississippi. He told me, “This thing with Sandy and the lawyers, it’s sucking up my money and my time and my wil to live. Al I want is my boys home. I don’t know what I was thinking, asking you to meet me here. You looked so pretty in your driver’s-license picture, but in the car you looked on the outside how I felt on the inside, and you know what? This is the most words I think I’ve said al at once in five years. It’s ironic, actual y. Last night I cal ed that asshole’s house, and Sandy answered. I said for her to put on Harry or Max, and she said that was typical. She said if I had ever bothered to talk to her, she might not have kidnapped my children and dragged them to Wisconsin so she could fuck a shoe salesman. She didn’t phrase it exactly like that. But anyway, I have no business being here. I’m wasting your time, and oh, look, there’s the waiter. I wonder how long he’s been listening to me whine like a fifth-grade girl and waiting for you to give him a drink order or storm out, because yeah. I’m stil married.”

  I said, “He’s been here for most of it,” and then I turned to the stoic young man and said, “A mai tai, please. A great big one,” because Lawrence’d had me the moment he said al he wanted was his boys back home. Al I wanted was my girls, Liza and the new one whose name I didn’t know, and there I was, sitting with a person who was lonely in exactly the same gaping, ripped-up way as me.

  “We could just be friends,” I’d told him. “I could use a friend myself.”

  He nodded, so I stayed for the mai tai and then the moo shu, which was pretty damn good, and then green-tea ice cream with a frozen banana in it. I met him for dinner the next day, and the next. I took to cal ing him Mr. Friend to remind myself that he did not belong to me.

  I could cal him that al I wanted, but I liked how his deep-set eyes kept roaming me, always moving, like they couldn’t decide which pretty piece was prettiest. The first night I cooked for him at my place, I found myself pressed between his broad, hard body and the piece of wal beside my bedroom door, my legs wrapped tight around him with my jeans dangling off one ankle and only a brand-new pair of pale blue lacy panties in between us. I’d bought them earlier that day and shaved my legs, too, hoping more than knowing that this was coming. Mr. Friend was in the same frame of mind; he had a string of three brand-new condoms in his wal et.

  I’d gasped into his mouth, “We’re real friendly, friendly friends.” He’d had one hand gripping my ass, holding me up. His other hand went roaming, and then I couldn’t talk anymore. We tumbled down together and had each other right there on the floor of the hal , not able to get the last few feet into my bedroom.

  Now I was sitting parked in the driveway of Lawrence’s house like I stil had the right to be here, and that was when Liza reached out with her good hand and poked my side.

  I knew what she wanted. “It didn’t work out. It never does with married guys, as I suspect you know al too wel .” I pushed her hand back, but inside I was grinning. After six weeks of nothing, Liza was with me in the car. This whole time Mosey and I had been cal ing her the wrong way.

  I wondered if he would see us as we came up his sidewalk to his porch, Liza seeming more alive with every shuffling step. I could hear the radio going inside. I pushed my hair back off my face and said, “Wait here a sec, Little.” I went up the three stone steps to ring the bel .

  I heard footsteps coming. Before I could ful y register how light and quick they sounded, the door was already swinging open.

  It wasn’t Lawrence. It was Sandy. I was so surprised I don’t know what my face did, but hers was a slide show. She went from polite eyebrows

  — May I help you? —to confused— Do I know you? That held for half a second before her eyes flashed recognition, and then her eyebrows went up and her lip curled in disbelief— Really, bitch? You dare besmirch my porch?

  I opened my mouth to speak, and she held up one hand and said, “No,” before I knew what I might have said. “I know who you are. Don’t you dare start this conversation off with a ‘Hi, how are you?’ like this is coffee hour right after church.” I realized I’d never heard her voice before. It was pitched higher than I would have imagined it, or maybe she was so upset she had gone squeaky.

  I was suddenly glad I’d taken such care with my hair and plucked my eyebrows. She was in sweatpants and no makeup, her dark hair back in a scraggly pony. She was holding a deep red coffee mug, and I knew if she turned it around, I’d see a pig in a footbal helmet on the other side.

  I said, “You know who I am?”

  “Oh, yes. I came by the bank where you worked to get a look at you. Years ago.” Her eyes could have burned holes in me. “You’re her. You’re Ginger something.”

  “Close,” I said. “Ginny. Ginny Slocumb. This is my daughter, Liza.”

  She’d been so focused on me she hadn’t realized that Liza was there. She looked past me, down the steps, and her breath caught as she took in the walker and Liza’s half-beautiful face with its right side drooping and the left side of her mouth tilted up into a lopsided version of her old reckless grin. Liza seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, but Sandy, seeing her, got about half the pissy punched out of her.

  Sandy stared for twenty seconds more, then threw her hands up. “I don’t even know where to start. I’m trying to imagine the thing you are here to say to me, and why you brought her, and it is impossible. Have you come to gloat, or fight me, or sel me Girl Scout cookies?” She looked me up and down, taking in my beach bag with the ends of the folded pool noodle sticking out. “You came here to go swimming?”

  Of al the ways I’d seen this playing out, none of them had included Sandy and no Lawrence. I shrugged, because now I wanted nothing more than to get away from here. “Being in the water helps Liza,” I said. “Lawrence is the only person I know who has a pool.”

  There was a blank pause, and then she started laughing. She laughed until she had to lean against the jamb. “Of course,” she gasped when she could talk again. “Wel , why the heck not? Come right on in.”

  She stayed put, though, wiping at her eyes, her body blocking the doorway, like she knew I wouldn’t actual y enter. She stared me down, stil chuckling, waiting for me to tuck tail and flee. I took a step back, tail obediently tucking, and behind me, at exactly the same time, I heard the tines of Liza’s walker click as they hit the first step. Liza was not fleeing.

  I turned and hurried to help her before she took a tumble. Steadying her as she went up was al I could do, because Liza, good eye blazing, was upward bound, meeting Sandy’s gaze. I couldn’t have dragged her backward down the steps even if I had much wanted to. Sandy’s mouth unhinged, and as we came up the last step, she walked away from us into the house, leaving the door open like a dare.

  Liza and me, we took it. I closed the front door behind us.

  We went through the foyer and into the den. Sandy wasn’t there, but I came to a sudden halt anyway, pul ing my breath in sharp. The den hadn’t c
hanged. Lawrence and I had made love on that exact blue sofa with the mal ard-covered cushions and in front of the fireplace with Sandy’s wooden decoy ducks watching from the mantel. Lord, but the woman liked waterfowl. The only new thing was a Mac and a lap desk, sitting on the end table. That surprised me. When Sandy came home from Wisconsin, the first thing Lawrence had done was rip out anything a person could use to get on the Internet.

  Every corner of this room held memories of me and Lawrence, so I hurried on through, fast as I could with Liza. We had to go through the kitchen to get to the backyard. Sandy was tucked in the breakfast nook, sipping coffee. That pul ed me up short for a second. She lifted her mug at me in an ironic salute.

  I left Liza in the middle of the kitchen and went past her to open the back door. Sandy turned in her seat, tracking me. The lock was sticky. It never used to be. I struggled with it under her gaze. Final y I spoke to her over my shoulder to bust up the silence. “Are you sure we aren’t putting you out?”

  “Of course you are, but what the hel , eh, Ginger?” she said, her voice too mild to match her words. I final y got the door unlocked and swung it wide to make space for the walker. Behind me Sandy said, “I’m curious. Did Lawrence say this was okay?”

  I turned to face her. “I didn’t ask him.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “How’d you know I’d even be home to let you in?”

  I snorted. “You think I wanted this? I thought Lawrence would let us in. I was hoping you’d be at work.”

  Her head tilted, and I could see that gears had started grinding inside it, meshing and whirring. She opened her mouth to speak, but right then this huge clattering smash of sound exploded to our right. We both jumped, and I whirled to see Liza standing by the sink, the rail of the walker pressed against the counter. She had a water glass clamped in the claw of her bad hand, lofting it up as if it were a trophy, and on the ground by her was the dish drainer. She’d knocked it to the floor getting the water glass, and the floor was sea of broken shards around her.

  “Oh, crap!” Sandy said, jumping up.

  I was already crunching through the glass to get to Liza. I tried to take the water glass out of her hand, but she clung to it, making a high, honking noise like she was one of the endless ceramic goslings Sandy had lined up on top of every cabinet. I final y wrestled the cup away from her and put it in the sink.

  “I’m sorry,” I said awkwardly to Sandy.

  She laughed, but there wasn’t any real mirth in it. “It’s only broken dishes. This time anyway,” she said. “I’l get the broom.”

  Liza made an angry, throaty noise. I pushed at the walker and forced her to turn, making an angry, throaty noise right back at her.

  “I’l pay for these,” I said to Sandy.

  Sandy didn’t answer. She watched without comment while Liza and I trooped and thumped our slow way across the glass and headed outside. I closed the back door behind us and walked Liza over to the edge of the pool, hissing, “What was that?”

  When I looked back at the house, I saw that Sandy had pushed aside the eyelet drapes to watch us. I turned and stepped in front of Liza to block Sandy’s view. I was furious with Liza, but I found I stil I didn’t want Sandy ogling her thin, wasted leg as I helped her out of her Keds and peeled her dress off over her head. She was wearing a modest one-piece I’d bought her at the Target.

  I kicked off my sandals and pul ed my dress off, wishing hard I’d gotten myself a modest one-piece, too, instead of a tankini splashed with sil y daisies. It had high-cut legs and a built-in underwire that pushed my boobs up. I’d wanted Lawrence to see I hadn’t given up fighting gravity, that bitch, not even twelve years later.

  I didn’t like wearing it for Sandy. I could feel her looking, and I was irked to find myself sucking in my stomach as I buckled a wide cloth belt around Liza’s waist. At the rehab center, the therapist had used something like it to keep a hold on Liza in the water, so if she started to fal , they wouldn’t have to grab any of her hurt pieces to keep her upright.

  We waded in, making identical peep noises as the cold water hit our suits. Then Liza started shaking, and it took me a second to realize she was laughing.

  “This is not funny. I bet those stupid dishes are going to cost me a mint. Most of them were her good ones, with those Italian chickens on them.”

  But even as I said it, I started laughing, too. We stood crotch-deep in the shal ow end, giggling together like vicious little girls who have played a mean prank at a sleepover. I was glad our backs were turned to the window. When I final y got it tamped down, I said, “They are some ugly-ass dishes, though, Lord, and what kind of a dreadful girl are you, only perking up when we start smashing things that belong to my ex’s wife? What possessed you?”

  Liza stopped laughing, instantly, when I asked that last question. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, but nothing came out. She tried again, her jaw unhinging and working like a word was caught in her throat and she was trying to maneuver it on out. Final y she said something that sounded like “soup.” We blinked at each other, both of us surprised. She shook her head no, then said, “Pick soup.” These weren’t the words she meant. I could see it in her scared eye, that she had heard herself, and whatever was inside, it wasn’t coming out properly. Her shoulders tensed, and she wagged her head back and forth, close to panicking.

  “Don’t,” I said. “This is good. You’re talking, and that’s good. Even if the word isn’t right, it’s a word.” She kept wagging her head no at me, but I slapped the water, hard. I said, firm, “This wil help. We wil get there. Come on.”

  I thrust the pool noodle at her, and we walked out farther and deeper, my hand steady on her back belt. I tried to forget Sandy and turn al my attention to repeating the exercises I’d seen the PTs do with Liza, first warming her up by walking back and forth across the pool, shortways. After a couple of laps, we went a little deeper. Liza spread her feet apart to get her shoulders lower and then lifted her arms up as if she were doing the top half of a jumping jack. I held steady to the back of her belt as she repeated the movement. We’d begun a series of careful squats when the kitchen door opened and Sandy came out.

  She had changed into a swimsuit, too, a Lands’ End tank that held her body so rigidly it looked lined in whalebone. My eyes narrowed. It was the kind of suit I’d have to buy if Mosey got her way and started cal ing me her mee-maw, but Sandy didn’t have a bad figure. It was like she’d picked it so that anyone watching would know at once who was the wife and who was the mistress.

  Sandy came to the edge of the pool and sat down, swinging her feet in the water. I felt Liza straightening, the good side of her mouth curling irrepressibly up. Wel , why not? With Sandy in the pool, she was back in the middle of an aborted catfight over an absent man. It was practical y her home territory. And whether she knew it or not, she’d been in the middle of this very fight before.

  I’d been seeing Sandy’s husband for almost six months when Liza showed up on my doorstep, strung out six ways from Sunday and toting Mosey. I’d cal ed Lawrence and asked him to give me some space and some time. It wasn’t only because my hands were so instantly ful .

  Lawrence was a cop, and even though Liza said she was off meth, she drank cough medicine like it was Coca-Cola, using it to wash down the brightly colored pil s that lined her pockets. I didn’t want to put Lawrence in the position of either arresting my kid or ignoring il egal substances. I spent my time researching rehab centers and waiting at legal aid so Liza could grant me a say in Mosey’s life before I checked her in. I burned al my vacation and sick leave in those weeks, forging a bond with the baby so she wouldn’t be scared while Liza was getting clean.

  While I was in the middle of al that, Sandy came back home, Harry and Max in tow. I guess the sex had worn off enough for her to see that her shoe salesman was fatter and older and poorer than he’d seemed online.

  “She wants to work it out,” Lawrence told me on the phone.

  “What do you
want?” I asked.

  “You,” he said. But he said it soft, almost like it was an apology. I waited, holding my breath, and he said, “The boys are…they cling to me like a couple of freaked-out monkeys. Then they tear off and act like natural-born assholes, looking to see how I’l react. They are so relieved to be home, but they don’t trust it, you know? Not the way they used to. I want them back. I want their lives put back together.”

  “But do you want her back?” I asked again, and in the long silence I had my answer, even before he spoke.

  “The boys need us. Not me. Us,” he said, like it was exactly that simple. I had Mosey and Liza home, so I knew too wel that it was.

  Stil , I said, “How can you ever trust her?”

  He sighed. “I don’t trust her, but hel , I cheated, too, Ginny. That helps somehow. It’s like we’re even.”

  It took me a second to realize that by cheating he meant me. There was silence on the phone between us. I was furious, and my heart was smashed, but inside I knew, if it was him or Liza and the baby? Wel , when they’d shown up, I’d cut him out immediately and thoroughly. So thoroughly I hadn’t even known that his dumb-slut stupid wife had come home. So I said, “Bye, Lawrence,” and I set the phone back careful on its cradle and went to read Goodnight Moon for the nineteenth time that day, trying not to feel anything except the magical way sleepiness made Mosey get heavier. I didn’t even cry until she was a limp string of trusting weight and heat, sleeping heartbeat to heartbeat on my chest.

  Now here was the same dumb-slut stupid wife easing herself down into the pool with us, saying, “You looked like you could use some help.”

  “How kind of you,” I said, terse. “Liza, you want to try some backward walking?”

  Liza made her “yes” noise, “Yarrrrr,” long and growly like a pirate. I gave Sandy a nod, translating. Sandy got on Liza’s other side and kept pace with us. She wasn’t actual y touching Liza, which seemed wise to me, but I had to admit I was glad to have a person there. The real PTs had worked in pairs in the water, with Liza between them.