Remember Us This Way

by C. R. Jane

  “You’re gorgeous,” he tells me, kissing me on the cheek and putting a little too much pressure on my arm as he guides me to the bar. Wendy has moved farther down the bar, setting her sights on another married member of the club. It’s funny to me that in high school I had wanted to stab her viciously when she set her sights on Jesse, but when she actually sleeps with my husband I could care less.

  “My parents are waiting in the dining hall. You’re ten minutes late,” says Gentry, again squeezing my arm to emphasize his displeasure with me. I sigh, pasting the fake smile on my face that I know he expects. “There was traffic,” I say simply, and I let him lead me to the dining hall where the second worst thing about Gentry is waiting for us.

  Gentry’s mother, Lucinda, considers herself southern royalty. Her parents owned the largest plantation in South Carolina and spoiled their only daughter with everything that her heart desired. This of course made her perhaps the most self-obsessed woman I had ever met, and that was putting it lightly. Gentry’s father, Conrad, stands as we approach, dressed up in the suit and tie that he wears everywhere regardless of the occasion. Like his son, Gentry’s father was a handsome man. Although his hair was slightly greying at the temples, his face remained impressively unlined, perhaps due to the same miracle worker that made his wife look forever thirty-five.

  “Darling, you look wonderful as always,” he tells me, brushing a kiss against my cheek and making we want to douse myself in boiling water. Conrad had no qualms about propositioning his son’s wife. I couldn’t remember an interaction I’d had with him that hadn’t ended with him asking me to sneak away to the nearest dark corner with him. I purposely choose to sit on the other side of Gentry, next to his mother, although that option isn’t much better. She looks me over, pursing her lips when she gets to my hair. According to her, a proper southern lady keeps her hair pulled back. But I’ve never been a proper lady, and the guys always loved my hair. Keeping it down is my silent tribute to them and the person I used to be since everything else about me is almost unrecognizable.

  Lucinda is a beautiful woman. She’s always impeccably dressed, and her mahogany hair is always impeccably coiffed. She’s also as shallow as a teacup. She begins to chatter, telling me all about the town gossip; who’s sleeping with who, who just got fake boobs, whose husband just filed for bankruptcy. It all passes in one ear and out the other until I hear her say something that sounds unmistakably like “Sounds of Us.”

  I look up at her, catching her off guard with my sudden interest. “Sorry, could you repeat that?” I ask. Her eyes are gleaming with excitement as she clasps her hands delicately in front of herself. She waits to speak until the waiter has refilled her glass with water. She slowly takes a sip, drawing out the wait now that she actually has my attention.

  “I was talking about the Sounds of Us concert next week. They are performing two shows. Everyone’s going crazy over the fact that the boys will be coming home for the first time since they made it big. It’s been what...four years?” she says.

  “Five,” I correct her automatically, before cursing myself when she smirks at me.

  “So, you aren’t immune to the boys’ charms either...” she says with a grin.

  “What was that, Mother?” asks Gentry, his interest of course rising at the mention of anything to do with me and other men.

  “I was just telling Ariana about the concert coming to town,” she says. I hold my breath waiting to hear if she will mention the name. Gentry’s so clueless about anything that doesn’t involve him that he probably hasn’t heard yet that they’re coming to town.

  “Ariana doesn’t like concerts,” he says automatically. It’s his go-to excuse for making sure I never attend any social functions that don’t involve him. Ariana doesn’t like sushi. Ariana doesn’t like movies. The list of times he’s said such a thing go on and on. I feel a slight pang in my chest. Ariana. Gentry and his family insist on calling me by my full name, and I miss the days where I had relationships that were free and easy enough to use my nickname of Ari.

  “Of course she doesn’t, dear,” says Lucinda, patting my hand. The state of my marriage provides much amusement to Lucinda and Conrad. Both approve of the Gentry’s “heavy hand” towards me and although they haven’t witnessed the abuse first hand, they’re well aware of Gentry’s penchant for using me as a punching bag. Gentry’s parents are simply charming.

  I pick at my salad and listen to Lucinda prattle on, my interest gone now that she’s off the subject of the concert. Gentry and his dad are whispering back and forth, and I can feel Gentry shooting furtive glances at me. I know I should be concerned or at least interested about what their talking about, but my mind has taken off, thinking about the fact that in just a few days’ time, the guys will be in the same vicinity as me for the first time in five years. If only….

  “Ariana,” says Gentry, pulling me from my day dream. I immediately pull on the smile I have programmed to flash whenever I’m in public with Gentry.

  “Yes?”

  “I think you’ve had enough to eat,” he tells me as if he’s talking about the weather and not the fact that he’s just embarrassed me in front of everyone at the table.

  I shakily set my fork down, my cheeks flushing from his comment. I was eating a salad and I’m already slimmer than I should be. But Gentry loves to control everything about me, food being just one of many things. I see Lucinda patting her lips delicately as she finishes eating her salmon. My stomach growls at the fact that I’ve had just a few bites to eat. I have a few dollars stashed away in my car, I’ll have to stop somewhere and grab something to eat on the way home. That is if Gentry doesn’t leave at the same time as me and follow me.

  When I’ve gotten my emotions under control, I finally lift my eyes and glance at my husband. He’s back in deep conversation with Conrad, their voices still too soft for me to pick anything up. Looking at him, I can’t help but get the urge to stab him with my silverware and then run screaming from the room. The bastard would probably find a way to haunt me from the grave even if he didn’t survive. Still, I find my hand clenching involuntarily as if grasping for a phantom knife.

  After that one terrible night when it became clear that I couldn’t go to L.A. to meet up with the guys, I was lost. I got a job as a waitress and was living in one of those pay by week extended stay motels since there was no way I could stay in my trailer with them anymore. I met Gentry Mayfield while waitressing one night. He was handsome and charming, and persevered in asking me out even when I refused the first half a dozen times. My heart was broken, how could I even think of trying to give my broken self to someone else? I finally got tired of saying no and went on a date with him. He made me smile, something that I didn’t think was possible, and every date after that seemed to be more perfect than I deserved. I didn’t fall in love with Gentry, my heart belonged to three other men, but I did develop admiration and fondness for Gentry in a way that I hadn’t thought possible. After pictures started to surface on the first page of the gossip sites of the guys with hordes of beautiful women, and the fact that my life seemed to be going nowhere, marrying Gentry seemed to be the second chance that I didn’t deserve. Except the funny thing about how it all turned out is that my life with Gentry turned out worse than I probably deserved, even after everything that had happened.

  Three months after we were married, I burnt dinner. Gentry had come home in a bad mood because of something that had happened at work. Apparently, me burning dinner was the last straw for him that day and he struck me across the face, sending me flying to the ground. Afterwards, he begged and pleaded with me for forgiveness, saying it would never happen again. But I wasn’t stupid, I knew how this story played out. I stayed for a week so that I could get ahold of as much money as I could and then I drove off while he was at work. I was stopped at the state lines by a trooper who evidently was friends with Gentry’s family. I was dragged kicking and screaming back home where Gentry was waiting, furious and ready to
make me pay. Every semblance of the man that I had thought I was marrying was gone.

  I had $5,000 to my name when I met him. I’d gotten it from selling the trailer that I inherited when my parents died in a car crash after one of their drunken nights out on the town. Gentry had convinced me that I should put it in our “joint account” right after we got married and stupidly, I had agreed to do it. I never got access to that account. Gentry stole my money, he stole my self-esteem. No, he didn’t steal it, he chipped away at it and just when I thought I’d crumble, he kissed me and cried over me and told me he’d die without me.

  I tried to get away several more times, by bus, on foot, I even went to the police to try and report him. But the Mayfield’s had everyone in this state in their pocket, and nothing I said or did worked. I eventually stopped trying. It had taken me a year of not running away to get my car back and to be able to do things other than stay home, locked in our bedroom, while Gentry was at work.

  Gentry stood up from the table, bringing me back to the present. A random song lyric floated through my mind about how the devil wears a pretty face, it certainly fit Gentry Mayfield.

  “I’m heading to the office for the rest of the day. What are your plans?” he asks, as if I had a choice in what my plans were.

  “Just finishing things around the house and going to the store to get a few ingredients for dinner,” I tell him, waving a falsely cheerful goodbye to Gentry’s parents as he walks me out of the dining area towards the valet stand. We stop by the exit and he pulls me towards him, stroking the side of my face that I’ve painted with makeup to hide the bruise he gave me the night before. My eyes flutter from the rush of pain but Gentry somehow mistakes it as the good kind of reaction to his touch. He leans in for a kiss.

  “You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he tells me, sealing his lips over mine in a way that both cuts off my air supply and makes me want to wretch all at once. I hold still, knowing that it will enrage him that I don’t do anything in response to his kiss, but not having it in me to fake more than I already have for the day. He pulls back and searches my eyes for something, I’m not sure what. He must not find it because his own eyes darken, and his grip on my arms suddenly tightens to a point that wouldn’t look like anything to a club passerby, but that will inevitably leave bruises on my too pale skin.

  He leans in and brushes his lips against my ear. “You’re never going to get away from me, so when are you going to just give in?” he spits out harshly. I say nothing, just stare at him stonily. I can see the storm building in his eyes.

  “Don’t bother with dinner, I’ll be home late,” he says, striding away without a second glance, probably to go find Wendy and make plans to fuck her after he leaves the office, or maybe it will be at the office knowing him.

  I wearily make my way through the doors to the valet stand and patiently wait for my keys. It’s a different kid this time and I’m grateful he doesn’t try to flirt with me.

  On my way back from the country club I find myself taking the long way back to the house, the way that takes me by the trailer park where I grew up. I park by the office trailer and find myself walking to the field behind the rows of homes. Looking at the trash riddled ground, I gingerly walk through the mud, flecks of it hitting the formerly pristine white fabric of my shoes. I walk until I get to an abandoned fire pit that doesn’t look like it’s been used for quite a while. For probably five years to be exact.

  I sit on a turned over trash barrel until the sun sits precariously low in the sky and I know that I’m playing with fire if I dare to stay any longer. I then get up and walk back to my car, passing by the trailer I once lived in. It’s funny that after everything that has happened, at the moment I would give anything to be back in that trailer again.

  2

  Then

  Trailer Park Trash. That’s what I’ve been called all my life and when I moved to Bellmont, South Carolina, I didn’t expect it to be any different. The fact that the police had to be regularly called on my parents regardless of where we moved always ensured that my reputation was soured in just a few weeks. Like usual Terry and David, my good for nothing mother and step-father, got into a knockout fight within a week of us moving, the day before I was supposed to start my new school in fact. Fueled by alcohol and whatever drugs they had been able to get their hands on that night; the screaming and shouting roused all the neighbors. Which is a bit hard to do in most trailer parks since the residents are usually used to the out of the ordinary. The fact that my parents sounded like they were going to murder each other always pushed the residents to call the police. No one wanted a dead body on their hands.

  When I heard the sirens, I snuck out my bedroom’s window. I didn’t want to be around just in case they forgot to put their drugs away before letting the police inside. It was best if the police didn’t know that the two psychopaths had a child. Dealing with the CPS right when I was starting a new school was not something I wanted to experience.

  The air was chilly despite the mugginess of the night, and I pulled my threadbare sweater tightly around myself to try and keep warm. I walked through the rows of trailers. Some were kept up nicely and you knew that even though the residents inside may not have very much money, they still took pride in their possessions. Others were like my own place, barely staying put together. Rusted and decaying, just like its residents.

  The chaos of my upbringing had spurred me to be almost fanatically the opposite from my parents. Where they were dirty, I was clean, almost unhealthily so. Terry’s cigarette smoke would leak under my door if I didn’t block it out, and just even walking through the front door of our place made me feel gross since they never bothered to clean up after themselves after one of their binges that left sticky spilled liquor and discarded food everywhere. I would rush back to my room, close the door, and block the bottom with a wet towel. Then, I would start cleaning, wiping every surface down, until all I could smell was the harsh lemon scent of my cleaning spray. I repeated this process every day and even now, while walking in the dark, I felt the urge to be wiping down my room, wiping away the despair of my life.

  After walking around for a while, the flicker of a fire in the distance caught my eye. Even knowing that I should head back to my room and see if the police were gone so I could try and get a good night’s rest for my first day at my new school, curiosity got the better of me. I began to walk towards the fire. The sound of male and female talking and laughter from people who sounded close to my age spurred me on even more.

  There are two buildings on one side of the fire, and I approach from that side so I can just look and hopefully not be seen. There are two boys sitting on turned over steel drums, both with girls wrapped around them. The flames light up their faces and even in the dim lighting I can tell that their beautiful. The most beautiful boys I’ve ever seen in fact. Boys might not be the right word for them though. If anything, they look closer to men than they do boys. I watch entranced as their hands move over the girls’ bodies. The two girls, both beautiful as well with the same uniform of shorts that border on indecency, and tops cut off half way across their stomach, seem enthralled and I don’t blame them. I’m feeling a bit enthralled myself. I feel like a voyeur as the guy whose blonde hair seems to shine like the sun under the fire’s reflection pulls his red headed girl in for a kiss that looks far better than the ugly, awkward ones that I’ve experienced in my life.

  A third boy walks in from the woods with a naughty look on his face, holding the hand of a gorgeous blonde girl. He murmurs something in her ear as I watch and she smiles, her face blushing at his words. His midnight colored hair is a little too long, swept back carelessly off his face. It fits the ‘don’t give a fuck’ vibe he has going as he looks at the scene in front of him, perusing it indifferently. I feel the insane urge to run up and drag my hands through it, just to see if it’s as soft as it looks. He leads the girl to another seat and pulls her to sit in his lap. One of his friends pulls
away from his girl long enough to murmur something at him and he throws back his head to laugh. I smile watching it, it’s not often that I see someone whose laugh takes over their whole body. I find myself wanting to know what the blonde guy said to make his friend laugh like that. The two girls in their laps aren’t laughing so I wonder if it’s some kind of inside joke. I’ve never been close enough to anyone to have an inside joke.

  The boy who came in from the woods turns to the girl in his lap and starts making out with her. I take a step closer to the fire unwittingly, and immediately curse myself when the boy’s eyes open and he stares right at me. He hesitates for a moment when our eyes lock, and then he continues to kiss the girl, albeit a little more distractedly. He turns his head, casting more light from the fire on his face than before.

  With the extra light shining on him, the first thing I notice about him are his eyes. They are a remarkable silver color that I’ve never seen before. They practically glow in the dark making him look more like ethereal prince than teenage boy. At least I think he’s a teenage boy. I could tell as he was walking that he’s tall. Far taller than my 5’7 frame. He’s also big, much bigger than the boys I’ve seen before. He looks like he spends the perfect amount of time working out, not too much, not too little...just right.

  Crap, I’m now thinking in terms of nursery rhymes. I really need to get out more. I focus in on the gorgeous specimen in front of me again and although he’s still kissing the lucky wench in his arms, his eyes are amused as he watches me. He finally pulls away and murmurs something to the other two gorgeous creatures. They stop what they’re doing and their eyes flash towards me as well. I’m frozen in their gazes. I’ve never felt such intensity focused on me before.