A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty

by Joshilyn Jackson

  “It’s too much to get into, but trust me, it was not the same thing as you canoodling with Denny Wilkerson.”

  She bounced away from the counter and planted her feet, her jaw set. “It never is, if you do it. Stop treating me like I’m some kid having sandbox adultery, while you have a complicated, grown-up kind I wouldn’t understand,” she said, and while her words were hideously convicting, her voice was pouty as any thwarted child’s.

  “I’l stop treating you like a kid when you grow up, Little,” I said, gentle as I could.

  Her lip curled. “God. Do you ever get a day off from al this Big shit? This constant mommism? Do you ever get to be a human?”

  “No, sweetheart. No, and you don’t get to either. Not anymore. You want Mosey running around ‘doing stuff’ with guys your age in a few years, daddy hunting? I’m tel ing you, Liza, if it takes a vil age, we are screwed, because we don’t have one. We have us. We have to do better for her than I did for you.” Liza started stomping away, and I cal ed after her, “That means staying out of Denny Wilkerson’s truck, Little.”

  She paused long enough to say, “No worries. I have plans to run around the house with a stick in my mouth al day, so I won’t have time for screwing any father figures.” Then she was gone.

  We had to eat that stupid cereal for a month, but good kept growing out of that bad day; back then, Liza had taken my words to heart. I don’t know what-al trouble she got up to with the fel ows. Plenty, I’m sure. But she kept it down low and away from Mosey. Now the memory of that day was paying off again. It made me understand I had to take her with me to see Lawrence.

  I planned to go on Saturday. Most of Lawrence’s Sundays were eaten up by church things, and on Monday, at the latest, I’d have to cal Rick Warfield back and schedule a time when he could come by and question Liza. He’d left another message, stil sounding friendly and patient, but if I didn’t cal him back soon, he’d start to wonder if I wasn’t avoiding him on purpose. Which of course I was. I had to talk to Lawrence before Rick came, had to know what Rick was thinking. The only problem was, Mosey had invited her friend Raymond Knotwood over on Saturday.

  Mosey wasn’t al owed to have boys over without either me or Liza home, but I’d decided to bend the rule. Just for this one day, and for this particular boy. Sure, Raymond had grown up a lot in the last year—the top of his head almost reached Mosey’s eyebal s now—but he was stil pale and gangly and about as seductive as a teenage Spock. The Leonard Nimoy one, not the new hot Spock they’d sexed up for the movie reboot.

  I knew I’d made the right cal when I looked at myself in the mirror that morning. I hadn’t dressed myself so careful in a decade, and I felt a breathless press on my chest, like I was heading toward Christmas or kissing or both. My eyes were overbright. I said to the pink-cheeked woman in the mirror, “You are an idiot.” I was going there to use him, not to get myself good and used. I’d been tel ing myself I was bringing Liza because an afternoon in the pool with Sandy had lit up al the darkened corners of her brain, and so it fol owed that a morning with my ex-man himself ought to flash even brighter. That was true. However, it was also true that today I needed a chaperone more than Mosey did.

  I poked my head in the den where Mosey was watching Mythbusters.

  “Mosey? You and Raymond stay in the den or the kitchen, you hear me? He is not al owed to hang back in your room.”

  Mosey rol ed her eyes like that was the stupidest thing any stupid person on the planet had ever said out loud. Her gaze slid right over me, ful of snit, and she didn’t even notice I’d put on mascara and blown out my hair to supposedly go to the grocery. I got out the door with Liza while the getting was good.

  Liza was moving faster in that walker. She inched her way to the car, internal y bright and interested. As soon as she was buckled in, I popped open my old flip phone. I’d waited to the last second, but I had to cal now. I didn’t want to find myself living the sequel to A Nightmare on Sandy Street. I imagined what it would be like to show up at his place and find it empty. Or worse, what if he wasn’t alone? I pictured a sleepy, hot thirty-something in underpants and one of his T-shirts peeking through the door to tel me he was in the shower, asking did I want her to pass on a message.

  I’d put Lawrence’s number in my phone when I’d looked up his new address on the bank’s computer yesterday at work. It rang four times before he picked up. I could tel he’d been sleeping by the way he answered, his voice a cracky, deep rumble in his chest. The sound of him made my stomach drop as if gravity had suddenly decided to stop working.

  “Are you by yourself?” I asked. It came out a little too husky for my liking.

  I heard him breathe in sharp, and it sounded like he’d sat up in the bed. When he spoke next, he sounded like he’d gone from zero to wide awake in less than a second. “Ginny?”

  “I said, are you home by yourself?”

  “Yes. What—”

  I interrupted him. “Wel . Stay put. I’l be there in twenty minutes.”

  I flipped my phone closed before he could answer. It had been so long. Almost twelve years since we had so much as exchanged hel os, and yet my hands were shaking. I’d dated a few men after him, but no one that could get him out of my head enough for me to take them serious. If hearing his voice hit me this hard, then bringing Liza was an act of pure genius.

  As I got in my car and backed out of our driveway, Raymond Knotwood’s dowdy black wagon was pul ing up to the curb. I lifted my hand in a wave, and he gave me that egg-sucking dog smile of his.

  “I’m pretty sure that kid is evil,” I said to Liza.

  She muttered something that sounded a lot like “gladiola” back.

  “What?” I said. Whatever it was, it was responsive, and yet another new word. I asked again, more eagerly, “What did you say?”

  She waved her good hand at the road, impatient to be going. So was I, truth be told, and so I took gladiola as a good sign and drove.

  Lawrence’s new apartment was on our side of Moss Point instead of the Pascagoula side, so it didn’t take long to get there. He was living in a large complex, very depressing, I thought, a host of rectangular buildings painted the same split-pea-soup color, with fake shutters glued beside the windows. Lawrence lived near the back, on the first floor right near the Dumpsters.

  His door opened while we were coming up the walk, like he’d been watching for me, and he must have gotten off the phone and jumped straight in the shower—his hair was wet and slicked back off his face. His hairline had moved an inch or so higher than where it used to sit. His eyes had gone creasier around the corners, too, but the lines around his mouth looked the same, as if he hadn’t been smiling very much. He was a little thicker in the middle, but his shoulders had that broad, easy set I remembered.

  I was wondering what he thought about the miles I’d put on me. I’d dug out my old chocolate-and-gold wrap dress from the back of my closet.

  He’d always liked me in it, and I’d been pleased at how wel it stil fit me.

  “Hey, Ginny,” he said, stepping out to meet us.

  “Hey, yourself,” I said.

  “You must be Liza,” he said, and he said it right to her, looking into her half-lovely face. He rested his hand over hers on the walker for a moment, not at al awkward, like it was a regular way to do a handshake. He’d always been smooth, but this was too smooth, unless he already knew about the stroke. Moss Point and Immita were different worlds. It wasn’t like he and I ran in any of the same circles. If he knew, then he’d been keeping up with me from afar, on purpose.

  Liza was eating him up with her eyes, and she leaned in toward him and said, “Yes.” Not her old noise that meant yes, but a slurry- s’d version of the real, actual word. Yes and a word like gladiola; every little step forward like this felt to me like the pointy tip of a miracle.

  “Come on in,” he said, and swung his door wide for us.

  His front room was big, but it had only a stripe of a kitchen, open to
his living room with a breakfast bar running in between. There was a little TV

  on the bar, tuned to CNN with the volume on low. The back wal had two doors, one open to show a half bath and the other closed. The wal s were plain white, and he hadn’t hung anything on them. There were only a few pieces of furniture: a couch, a coffee table, a bookshelf, the bar stools. It al looked like the cheap stuff they have for dorm rooms in the IKEA catalog. I didn’t recognize a single thing from his old house except some of the books lining his pinewood shelves. He liked the same kind of reads I did, ful of lawyers and cops and private detectives.

  “You want coffee? I’m having coffee.” He walked away past us and picked his mug up off the counter. It was plain and white, probably from IKEA, too.

  “You didn’t take anything from the…your…” I petered out, uncertain how to say it. The room was so ful of elephants I didn’t even know a single word I could say that wouldn’t jostle us into one of them. Final y I said, “Sandy’s house.”

  He nodded. “Seemed easier. So you heard we busted up?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I pointed at his plain mug. “You didn’t even bring your pig mugs.”

  “Razorback,” he said automatical y. It was the echo of an old play fight we used to have, mostly when we were naked, drinking coffee in bed the morning after a night of tumbling al the sheets around. I felt my whole body flush.

  His throat had to work to swal ow; he remembered, too.

  “Sandy doesn’t even like footbal ,” I said, and I could hear an edge of mad in my voice. How could he remember and stil not have come for me? If he knew about Liza’s stroke, he must also know I was stil single. He should have been on my doorstep thirty seconds after he walked out on his wife.

  He shrugged, his eyes on me gone wary. “I wanted out. Wanted something fresh.”

  “I guess so,” I said. I couldn’t help adding, “What’s the something fresh’s name?”

  His eyebrow cocked. “I meant the place. I wanted a fresh— Stop it.”

  “I didn’t start anything,” I said, and that was a lie. I most certainly was trying to start something. Maybe something ugly. My vision had pinholed down to only him, standing there being not Sandy’s anymore, and stil not mine. I was al pent up, wanting to hit him or throw things, make him angry enough to forget everything and put his damn hands on me.

  This was exactly wrong. I needed to finesse him. I had to get him to tel me what suspicions Rick Warfield had pinned on Liza, if he was wondering about Mosey.

  I took a breath and turned away from him. Liza was standing stil and quiet in her walker, taking us in. I went to her, put my hands over hers, and said, “You need anything?”

  She met my eyes. She smiled, like she was bucking me up, and it seemed to me that it was a pretty good smile. Her right side, the bad side, was pul ing up a little, not just twisting as the left-side muscles worked. But then I saw how her good eye gleamed, fil ed to the brim with devilment.

  An old Liza look. A Liza-up-to-something look.

  I cocked a warning eyebrow at her, though I wasn’t sure what I was warning her off of, and Lawrence said, behind me, “I was going to cal you.”

  Smooth. Like he meant it.

  “When you got around to it,” I said. I couldn’t seem to get on topic, not at al . I wanted to smack him. Smack him and leave. “I don’t think I can do this right now.” I turned toward Liza, to tel her we should go, just in time to see that her eyes were slipping shut and she was sliding down her walker to her knees.

  “Liza!” I yel ed, and stepped in to catch her.

  Instantly Lawrence was beside me. Together we got her wrestled over onto the pinewood sofa and sat her down. She made the most pitiful noise, like a sad kitten.

  “Oh, baby, are you okay?” I said, furious with myself and her for pushing too hard and with Lawrence for everything, even breathing. The worst part was, Liza had al but fainted, I was worried nigh to death, and yet a teeny piece of me wanted to lean a little closer to Lawrence as he settled Liza on the sofa. Lean in and smel the skin on the back of his neck.

  “I’l get her some water,” Lawrence said, and left us.

  I found Liza’s pulse, and my anxiety went down a notch. It was steady and even. Then I looked at her face, and she was grinning at me, her good eye wide and ful of mischief. I heard Lawrence coming back, and Liza’s eyes sank to half-mast and her smile vanished.

  I gave her good arm a tug, but Liza made a hmmm noise and snuggled herself low into the sofa. My jaw dropped. She was playing possum.

  “Is she okay?” Lawrence said, holding a water glass.

  “She’s just…tired,” I said, not sure what she was doing. I had no way of knowing if she understood our mission, knew we hadn’t accomplished it yet, or if she was simply basking in the hormones thickening the air and the man drama piling up in heaps around the room.

  Lawrence took over, setting the water on the coffee table nearby. He grabbed a folded blanket from the back of the sofa and started tucking it around her. I shifted and stood, wanting to get away from him, as he put a couch cushion under her head. I almost ran the three steps across the bare room to the breakfast bar. Lawrence picked her feet up, like he’d been doing this al his life. He stretched Liza out on the sofa, fixing her blanket, and in less than a minute she was tucked in and her eyes were closed, like she was sleeping peaceful. But I knew better. I could see she was smiling, faint, but enough to make the start of the dimple on her good side.

  “This was a bad idea,” I muttered, not sure if I meant mine, coming here, or whatever the hel the idea driving Liza was.

  Lawrence stood up and turned to face me. His hound-dog eyes had gone al sorrowful. I looked back at him, and there was nothing to be said. I was furious and Liza was faking, but neither of these facts could stop the mother in me from noting how gently he’d handled my hurt kid. I had never questioned the choices of Lawrence-the-daddy. What I couldn’t understand were his choices now, after the boys were raised and gone to col ege and his marriage was over. I understood that my idea about slipping questions at him sideways through a casual conversation was not going to work. I couldn’t chitchat, couldn’t ask how his momma was or say, How ’bout them Bulldogs? Every avenue of conversation led right to me throwing his plain white coffee mug at his head; his sweetness with Liza made me not want to do that, exactly, either.

  We stood looking at each other, and there wasn’t anyplace to go from here. So I simply asked him direct, “What’s Rick Warfield thinking about those bones in our yard?”

  Lawrence regarded me with unreadable eyes. “That’s why you came to see me?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying for staunch, but I could feel my lower lip trembling. His gaze dropped to my mouth, and I knew he’d seen. I said, very sharp and too loud to sound truthful, “That’s the only reason.”

  Liza made a snorty noise, like my raised voice had disturbed her. He watched her until she subsided, and then he said, quiet and calm, “Let’s go back where we can talk.”

  He crossed the room to the closed door, and I fol owed. It led to a short hal way open to a couple of bedrooms. He closed the door to the den behind us and started down the hal . I could hear a radio playing soft.

  “I can’t say much about an open investigation, Ginny,” Lawrence said. “Ask me what you want to know, specifical y. I’l tel you what I can.”

  I said, blunt, “I’m worried he’l think Liza had something to do with it simply because it’s our yard. She didn’t, of course, but she can’t tel him so.”

  Lawrence opened the door at the end of the hal , and as we went in, he said, “I wouldn’t worry about that. That’s not the direction the investigation is going. Not at al .”

  He was saying exactly what I’d hoped, but I couldn’t answer. I’d gone speechless. He’d brought me to his bedroom, so smal that the act of going inside had fetched us up against the side of a queen-size bed. The wal s were stark and white here, too, and the dresser and the bedside table were more
pasteboard IKEA dorm stuff, but the bed…I knew this bed. It was Lawrence’s old cherry four-poster, and I knew the butter-yel ow sheets with the cranberry pinstripe, too, thin and cottony soft from a thousand washings. It was unmade, the sheets in a stir. A faint scent rose up from them, familiar. Tide detergent and, under that, the warm, oaky smel of Lawrence, clean and sleeping.

  He was being tight-lipped, but he’d said enough to reassure me, and here we were, alone with the bed we’d made love in half a hundred times. I couldn’t swal ow. He was stil him, and I knew him, and I knew this bed.

  Everything I’d thought was anger blazed up in me, higher and hotter than any rage could go. Almost unable to help myself, I went up on tiptoe and I put my mouth right on his stil -talking mouth. My arms wound themselves around his neck, feeling the cool, summer-grass spring of his short hair against my forearm and the warm skin at his nape. It was the same, al the same, and my body remembered perfectly the shape of him and melted to it.

  His body remembered, too. His mouth opened against mine, opened to the taste of Lawrence and Crest toothpaste. His hands went right where they belonged, cupping my ass and pul ing me into him, lifting me so I was almost off my feet and we were hip to hip.

  “Goddamn it,” he said into my mouth, but it sounded more like a prayer than cussing. His breath mingled with mine. Al the days that had passed with the sun coming up and going down with him not touching me, they had al been wrongful and off-kilter, and now, with his hands on me, at last the world spun right. I slid a hand between us, cupped him, felt the hard, familiar weight of him wanting me; he folded at the knee, pul ing me with him. We tumbled sideways onto the mattress, spil ed together into the sunshine splashed across it. And there we were.

  It was me and Mr. Friend; I’d brought a chaperone and come to weasel information, but that hadn’t stopped me from choosing my prettiest panties, hopeful pink and lacy. Panties for company, a few years old but looking brand-new from lack of wear. Lawrence’s clever fingers were already seeking things inside of them, and I arched and clung and I let myself forget, for a little while. He took everything—my hurt child, the chance we could lose Mosey, how scared I was, how sad I was for Liza’s lost baby. I gave it al up, and I gave myself up, too, opening to al the things he was doing to me in the sunshine, and it was like coming home.