A Web of Black Widows

by Scott William Carter

  She blinked. "Where?"

  "Under the ocean. They're sure they can teach me there." He looked at one of the sea-people who was standing by the window. "He says they're afraid too many people will find out about them. I've got to go now."

  "Now?" she said. "But what about the baby?"

  "It won't take long, dear. A couple of days. Maybe a week. And then I'll be back. We'll have a baby. And I'll be able to write poetry again."

  He squeezed her hands, but she was still afraid.

  yes i like the name melody just fine

  After packing the Thunderbird and the U-Haul trailer, Megan went down to the beach under the light of a full moon. She could hear the waves but not see them. Since she had already turned in her keys, she would stay in a hotel that night, then head home to Minnesota in the morning. Her due date was a week away, and she was going home to be with her parents.

  She wanted to give Nathan one last chance.

  It was shortly before midnight. The air was crisp, the wind still. With Nathan's gray trench coat wrapped tightly around her body, she walked gingerly across the sand. Underneath, she wore a black nightie, a new one she had to buy when she outgrew the old one. The baby was kicking. She had been kicking a lot lately.

  Megan walked up to edge of the surf, took a deep breath of the salty air, then reached into the pocket of her trench coat and pulled out the pad of yellow stickies.

  It was blank.

  She dropped to her knees, the sand cold against her skin. She looked out at the ocean, then back down at the pad.

  All she could do was hope.

  And wait.

  its cold here

  and dark

  i will hear the music any day now

  they tell me so

  will you be there when i come back

  will you be waiting for me on the beach your arms opened wide

  please do not leave me

  please do not abandon me

  i dont want to be alone

  She's Not All There

  WE SKIDDED INTO THE GRAVEL PARKING LOT shortly before two in the afternoon. The First Presbyterian Church of Daisy Creek, Oregon was a one-story box squeezed between a gas station and a bait and tackle shop. With its chipping brown paint and cheap aluminum windows, the church looked more like some mill hand's manufactured home than a place of worship. There couldn't have been more than two hundred people living in the tiny mountain town, but most of them must have been at the church. The parking lot was full of dented pick-ups and mud-stained RVs, forcing us to park far from the door.

  "This can't be it," Penelope said.

  My fake mustache and black wig itched like crazy. The stiff collar of my white dress shirt was soaked with sweat. With no air conditioner in my Honda, the July sun had turned the inside into a crock pot during the two hour drive from Portland.

  I killed the engine. Penelope wore a white, low-cut wedding gown that bared her pale, freckled shoulders. There wasn't a drop of sweat on her. Not a strand of her curly auburn hair was out of place, and her mascara was perfect.

  The yellow foam of the ripped seat cushion was visible through her body. The fade was coming fast.

  I checked the address I had written down on the yellow legal pad, then turned it to face her. Her lips, painted with bright red lipstick, formed a pinched line.

  "It's Hicksville, Saul," she said.

  I shrugged.

  "Everybody is probably a redneck," she said. "I can't believe you brought me to this place."

  "We can't keep doing Portland," I said softly.

  She glared at me, then floated out of the car. In the harsh sunlight, she looked less substantial, as if a light breeze from the Santiam River might blow her away.

  "What are you waiting for?" she asked.

  I fingered the simple gold band on my left hand, then finally got out of the car. Squinting in the bright light, I followed her to the church. When our fingers nearly touched, I pulled my hand away. I knew how touching her would feel. As if I had dipped them into Arctic waters.

  Inside, a boy in a black tuxedo asked me if I was with bride or groom.

  "Bride," Penelope said.

  Of course the kid didn't respond.

  "Bride," I said.

  The kid handed me wedding program and led me into the pews. They were a scratched pine, as if they had been imported from a bus depot. A burly, red-bearded fellow in a bright blue suit was playing the guitar at the front, some country western piece I didn't recognize. His voice had an unpleasant twang.

  The kid led me to a seat in the middle of the humid, half-filled room.

  "That boy's certainly rude," Penelope said, trailing. "He didn't even answer me."

  "He can't see you," I whispered.

  "What? Don't be ridiculous."

  I let it pass. It didn't matter how many times I explained that no one could see her but me, she didn't remember. I sat down next to an old woman in a purple dress and matching hat, who was fanning herself with a wedding program. There was no room for Penelope.

  "Where am I supposed to sit?" she pouted.

  "Sorry," I said.

  The old woman was looking at me curiously. "Excuse me, dear," she said, "did you say something?"

  "Tell the old biddy to mind her own business," Penelope said.

  I smiled at the old woman. "I was wondering how long you've known them."

  "Don't encourage her," Penelope said.

  "Oh, I've known Jessica since she just a baby," the old woman said. "Brian I know a little because my son works with him at the mill. You?"

  "Tell her you used to bang Jessica," Penelope said. She was leaning against my pew, her shoulder grazing my shoulder and giving me a chill.

  I was trying to think of what to say when the door behind the altar opened and a young blond man in a tuxedo stepped out. The room fell silent. I nodded to the old woman and turned forward.

  "Get ready," Penelope said.

  As the ceremony started, my palms began to sweat. By the time the minister, the groom, the best men, and the bridesmaids were all up front on the red-carpeted dais, my heart was pounding. When the organist launched into "Here Comes the Bride," I stood and turned along with the rest of the audience.

  She was a stout girl with long, curly red hair, her face hidden behind a veil. A spindly man with a black goatee led her up the aisle.

  "She looks like a cow," Penelope said, taking a swing at the girl's head. Her hand passed through and the girl didn't react. I was the only one affected by Penelope's touch.

  The bride was handed to her future husband, and then bride and groom faced the dour-looking minister.

  "Please be seated," he told us.

  And when the people sank, I was the only one left standing. My knees felt weak. The minister cleared his throat and lifted up a bible. People whispered for me to sit. The old woman tugged on my pant leg. The bride and groom turned and looked at me.

  Finally, the minister sighed. "Is something wrong, son?"

  "Do it," Penelope urged. "Do it now."

  I cleared my throat. Slowly, purposefully, I raised my hand and leveled a finger at the bride.

  "That woman is carrying my child!" I cried.

  It was as if I had struck the bride on the head with a mallet. She slumped into the arms of the minister, who, being a small man, collapsed under her weight. The old woman cried "Heavens!" Other women gasped. While people reeled in shock, I pulled two stink bombs out of my pockets and cracked them open. White vapors that reeked of rotten eggs blasted out, and I hurled the canisters down the aisle.

  Pandemonium seized the room. The groom, red-faced, charged me. Other men stumbled over their wives to get at me. I turned and ran, yanking free from an old man who grabbed at my shirt. I plowed past the kid usher and into the glaring sunlight. Penelope followed.

  Looking at her, I could see that she was more solid. Not as much as we had hoped, but definitely more solid.

  By the time a group of angry men piled out of the ch
urch, fists clenched, we were in the car, kicking up a cloud of gravel behind us.

  Imagine you're a young man of twenty-two in your first year out of college, a bright accounting major with a flair for numbers, not ugly or handsome, but in that limbo world of the nondescript. Your sole experience with the opposite sex amounts to a half dozen awkward dates with a half dozen different women who all eventually talk to you about other men. Such women are drawn to you, you have no idea why.

  You get your CPA and land a hot job with a surviving dot com making 50K a year plus stock options, buy a two thousand square foot house near the golf course, park a gold-colored Lexus in the driveway, and then, every night when you come home, leave your 42-inch television on loud enough that you can you hear it all over the house. Cable isn't good enough, so you get a dish. You can spend two hours just cycling through the channels. Often you wake with a sore neck because you have fallen asleep in the rocking chair.

  When you do go to bed, you often wake in the middle of the night, and it's so quiet your own breathing sounds like that of another person. Slowly, you come to realize that the whole idea of there being a soul mate out there destined for you, an idea you have clung to since you were fourteen, is bullshit New Age nonsense. You might very well spend the rest of your life alone.

  And then, on a day just like all the other days, you're at Jack's Mart buying microwave-able lasagna and a six-pack of beer to help you sleep when you have trouble with the machine in the U-Scan line. The barcode on your beer won't read. You run it over the reader again and again, growing frustrated.

  A hand, soft and small, touches your wrist.

  "You're doing it too fast," she says.

  Her fingers are like silk. You turn and see this young, slender woman in a dusty green apron with a nametag that reads "Penny." She takes the beer and rings it up with ease, but all you notice is her smile. The smile emboldens you to ask for her number, though you have never done anything so bold before. She writes it on your receipt and signs her name "Penelope," which is why you always refer to her by her full name. That night, it takes you four tries before you dial the number all the way through, and you stammer when you ask her out.

  But she says yes.

  Running low on gas, I took Exit 248 to South Salem. Penelope complained, calling it the capitol of boring, and why couldn't we just pull into a gas station right off the freeway, but I said nothing. I grew up there and still felt fondly for the place, despite its blandness.

  The sun had eased behind a bank of white clouds, but it was still warm in the car. I fueled up at a Texaco, and was going to turn around in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, when I got an idea. I parked the car and headed across the hot asphalt toward the store. I had removed my disguise shortly after leaving Daisy Creek.

  "Where are you going?" Penelope asked, following me.

  "I want to look at something."

  "Not your stupid fish."

  "Not fish," I said.

  Inside the cool store, I weaved through the customers to the sporting goods section. The guns were in a glass case. A silver-haired man in a blue vest came up as I bent down. I saw my reflection in the glass and thought my sallow, unshaven face looked like a street person's.

  "Can I help you?" he asked.

  "Why are you looking at those?" Penelope asked.

  "Yes," I said to the man, "I am interested in getting a gun for self-defense. What do you recommend?"

  "Self-defense?" Penelope said. "From who? The boogeyman?"

  The man nodded. "Well, I'd recommend a Smith and Wesson .38 Chief's Special. It's a six-shooter, easy-to-use —"

  "I'll take it," I said. "Is there a waiting period?"

  "Not since '98," he said. "Just a background check that will take a few minutes. You're not wanted by the FBI, are you?" He chuckled.

  "Not yet," I said, taking out my wallet.

  On your first date, she wears a low-cut lavender dress that shows off plenty of cleavage. You bring her a bouquet of red roses, but she says roses make her break out in hives, so you put them in the trunk. You drive through the rain to a new Greek restaurant in Vancouver, Washington, and most of the way she complains about the dreary weather. You like the sound of her voice. The menu is limited, and she tells you how she's allergic to most grains. You ask her where she grew up, and she rants about the little boring town of Yachats on the Oregon coast. You are happy and content in her presence, though, and it is not until you drop her off at her duplex that you realize that she never asked you any questions.

  Still, you ask her out again.

  On your second date, when you're at her door, she leans over and kisses you. It's only a peck on the cheek, but you dream about it all night and wake in twisted, sweaty sheets. On your fourth date, you take her to the coast — not to Yachats, but to Newport, which she doesn't mind — and park down by the beach. You give her a pearl necklace, and she asks you if it might be possible to get a ruby one instead. She says pearls don't look good on her fair skin. You tell her you'll exchange them on the way back to town, and then you try to kiss her, but she puts a hand on your chest.

  "You're not very good at this," she says, "so why don't you let me decide when to kiss, okay?"

  You tell her okay. You tell her anything she wants to hear.

  The first time you try to make love, it's at your place, after a dinner of cooked salmon, which she only nibbled at because she said you burned it, and then a night on the couch drinking two bottles of a local White Zinfandel, her favorite. You've worried about this moment for years, and when you're finally naked in bed with her, your bodies glistening with sweat, you go limp. She gets frustrated and says, "What, am I not beautiful?" She storms out of the house.

  You sit naked on the edge of the bed, trembling, the ceiling fan turning slowly above you.

  She comes back an hour later with some porn tapes. After watching for an hour, it goes better, though she says you have a lot to learn about making a woman happy.

  I brought the Smith and Wesson home from Wal-Mart. Penelope, who had started to fade again, teased me about it.

  "Oh, Saul's going to be Mister Cool with his big gun," she said. "A regular Rambo. You going to bring home the girls and show them your piece? It's the only piece that will impress them, I'll tell you that."

  The lawn in front of my house was brown and parched-looking except for the weeds, which were as green as my neighbor's lawns. I ignored the harsh stare from Mrs. Alberts, who was trimming her rhododendrons, and drove the Honda into my garage. Inside the house, I brushed the stack of unopened bills off the kitchen table and sat down to open the gun box. Narrow strips of light shined on the table through the blinds. The room reeked of dead fish, and glancing in the corner, I saw that all my friends in the salt water tank floated at the top.

  I didn't know much about guns, so I scrutinized the manual for a few minutes.

  "Look at you," Penelope said, the pile of dirty dishes in the sink visible through her. "Just like a geek. You have to read the manual."

  I opened the package of bullets and loaded them into the chamber.

  "What are you doing?" Penelope asked. "Saul? Saul, answer me."

  The first time you propose, knees in the mud while on a walk through Forest Park, she laughs and says you have to do better. The second time, you take her on a balloon ride south of Portland, but when you show her the ring, she says she wants something shinier. The third time, you buy the biggest, shiniest ring you can find, maxing out your Visa card, and pop the question while on a Steamboat cruise down the Willamette. She says yes, but there's some conditions.

  Her parents can't afford the wedding, so you'll have to pay for it. And she wants a big one.

  Her parents are Methodists. Even though you've never seen Penelope go to church, that's the kind of wedding she wants. You have no opinion on religion one way or the other, but you agree to go to the marriage counseling required by the church. Penelope does most of the talking, and you nod and say yes when the pastor asks you so
mething. Yes, I understand marriage is a sacred covenant between two people. Yes, I understand that this is a lifelong commitment.

  You ask her if she wants to pick out a ring for you. She tells you to do it. You pick out a simple gold band, rounded on the edges for easier fitting, and place the box in your nightstand.

  Your friends — the few that you have — try to be nice, but you can tell they don't think that much of Penny. But what do they know? They don't know what it's like to be alone all the time, night after night, year after year. They don't know what it's like to lay in bed trying to come up with one person, just one, who would cry at your funeral. Your friend at the office, Steve, pulls you aside one day near the water cooler and tells you flat out that you're making a mistake, that she's not right in the head, that — and this is the part you'll remember later — she's not all there.

  You tell Steve to go to hell.

  The wedding day approaches, and she has taken care of all the details — catering for two hundred, flowers (but not roses), a live band (not too loud, it hurts her ears), and a three-tier cake (not chocolate, she hates chocolate). The last thing to do is to pick out a dress, and she spends endless afternoons looking at them by herself. Finally, she finds one at a boutique in Seattle. It's the only one that will do. There's weeks of fitting and adjusting, and then she drives up there two days before your wedding to get it. The winds are strong, the rains heavy, and you tell her to wait until the next day, but she calls you a sissy.

  A little before midnight, you get a call from Sergeant Wayne Hill of the Washington State Police.