The Beloved

by Gonzalez, J. F.

  Mom hadn’t said anything to Ronnie about what she’d found. This had been during a period when relations between son and parents were beginning to become strained. Ronnie had already announced his plans to move Diana and her kids out to Pennsylvania and get a place together, and the rent they had suddenly imposed on him two months earlier ceased. His excuse for not paying the two hundred a month to his parents for room and board was he didn’t have the money. Which translated to, “I have the money, but it’s already earmarked for anything Diana wants, so don’t ask me for any.”

  They’d met Diana three times. She’d called the house once and announced she was driving out to pay Ronnie a surprise visit and wanted directions to the house. She’d been seeing Ronnie steadily since June, and made the surprise visit in December, shortly before Christmas. Ronnie had been surprised, and he’d hustled her into the room he normally shared with Mary and didn’t come out until the next morning. Mary had slept on the sofa in the living room that night and Elizabeth had been furious when she’d found out. She’d been a trifle miffed her parents hadn’t been firmer, but as mom explained to her a week later, “What could we have done? He wouldn’t have listened to a word we said.”

  “But it’s your house, mom!” Elizabeth had said. She had been over with Gregg and Eric that afternoon and Gregg had nodded in silent agreement. Eric had been downstairs playing with Mary. “I mean, he’s living under your roof and not paying rent. You call the shots. Hell, you’re practically raising Mary anyway! Just tell him if Diana comes to visit next time, you prefer he get a motel room for her. It’s not fair his daughter has to sleep on the sofa while her father is fucking his girlfriend!”

  Only that hadn’t worked. The next time Diana visited a few months later, mom had politely asked Ronnie if he could get a motel room in the area for her to stay in and he’d exploded. Mother and son had wound up having a huge fight and mom had backed down. Diana had slept with Ronnie in his room, and mom wound up buying an air mattress to set up in the study at the end of the hall for Mary to sleep in. Jerry had fumed silently but said nothing.

  The third time Diana visited she’d brought her children. Rick was a silent, brooding twelve-year-old who was almost as tall as Elizabeth. Lily was also silent, dark-haired, with a perpetual frown. Elizabeth had been at the house with Eric and she’d tried to get her son to play with Rick and Lily, but Eric shied away. Elizabeth didn’t pursue it—it wasn’t in her or Gregg’s nature to force their son to play with certain children, and they certainly weren’t going to start now to make nice with her brother’s girlfriend.

  The plans were for Ronnie and Mary to move out of the house and into the new place with Diana and her two children, forming a Brady Bunch of sorts. Mary was looking forward to gaining step-siblings, even if they weren’t close to her age; Mary was seven, a year younger than Eric, and was more a sister to Eric than a first cousin. Elizabeth thought her niece was looking forward to having a mother figure again too; Cindy hadn’t really been much of one lately. She was more interested in sex, drugs, and rock and roll than her daughter.

  “So are they still bringing that dog with them?” Elizabeth asked. Diana owned a rottweiler and was adamant about bringing him along.

  “Apparently,” Mom said, rustling in the kitchen. “I’m not too happy about that but we’ll see what happens.”

  Elizabeth was about to ask her mother about Diana’s ex-husband, then decided to drop the subject. The few times she’d met the woman Diana hadn’t mentioned him. What they’d learned about the situation had come from Ronnie, who said Diana’s ex had suddenly walked out on her and the kids, leaving them destitute. Diana and her kids had been living with her mother in Ohio when she’d met Ronnie, and Elizabeth silently wondered if perhaps Diana was using Ronnie as a meal ticket and a way out of her situation. Despite his tightwad way with money, Ronnie made plenty as a welder at a sheet metal factory.

  “Well, if you want some company, give us a call,” Elizabeth said. She rose to her feet, moving toward the front door to call Eric in. “We’ll be around all weekend.”

  “Okay, honey,” Mom said. “I’ll probably be calling you.”

  Yes, you probably will, Elizabeth thought. Then she called Eric to come in, and a few minutes later the two of them were pulling out of the driveway of her parent’s house, heading home.

  TWO

  THE WEEKEND WAS uneventful. For the first time in weeks, Elizabeth and Gregg actually watched a movie together while Eric played in the basement with Stephen Peck, the kid next door. The following morning they ran some errands, and Gregg went to get the cars washed while Eric played outside. Elizabeth did some laundry and got some writing done. Ronnie and Diana were due to arrive at their new home that afternoon, and with the friends he had coming over to help, along with two of mom’s brothers who had promised to lend a hand, they’d probably get the truck unloaded that evening. Ronnie and Diana would spend the rest of Sunday unpacking and arranging furniture, and because he wasn’t due to report back to work till two p.m. on Monday, he’d have part of that morning to get stuff done too. Mom had said if all went well she’d have everybody over for a brief dinner Sunday afternoon at her and Dad’s place, so Elizabeth made sure to tell Gregg the possible plans Saturday afternoon.

  Sunday morning they did some work in the yard, and Gregg headed off to play a round of golf with some of his friends from the office. Elizabeth ate lunch in the dining room—a BLT sandwich and an apple—and Eric rode his bike to the McDonald’s on Route 501 with Stephen. She told him to be back by three o’clock, and she spent the rest of the day reading the new Norman Partridge collection

  Mom called at two-thirty. “Ronnie and Diana are coming over around four for supper. You guys want to come?” Elizabeth said they did, and twenty minutes later Gregg and Eric came home and after Eric washed his hands they headed to her parents.

  Ronnie and Diana were reclining on lawn chairs in the backyard, sipping cans of Budweiser when they arrived. Diana’s son, Rick, was playing with a football in the backyard and Lily was sitting by her mother, her expression forlorn and silent. Elizabeth gave the little girl a smile and tried to meet her gaze, but she looked away. She’s shy. I was shy when I was her age. And she’s been through so much.

  “So where were you guys yesterday when we were unloading the truck?” Ronnie asked, and the tone of voice he used seemed to say so why the hell didn’t you come over to help us? He was wearing sunglasses, his puffy tanned face tipped up at the afternoon sky, and Elizabeth could sense fatigue in his demeanor. He was wearing a tank top, which showed off his tattooed biceps, and a pair of shorts and sandals. One arm was draped casually around the chair next to him where Diana sat.

  Diana smiled—smirked more like it—at Elizabeth and chuckled. “Yeah, we missed you, Elizabeth. I could’ve used the help.”

  “Nobody called me,” Elizabeth said. She gave her mother a hug and the look mom gave her told her something was up but she didn’t pursue it; she’d find out sooner or later. “Besides,” she said, turning to Gregg. “We had ourselves a relaxing weekend. First one in a long time.”

  “Oh, a relaxing weekend, huh?” Ronnie said, taking a sip of beer. He nodded at Gregg, his long brown hair blowing in the summer breeze. He looked like the type of guy who would rent you a jet ski at Lake Havasu. “What’d you guys do?”

  They hung out for a while, making small talk; Elizabeth filled Ronnie and Diana in on what they did yesterday and today. Eric sat on a small bench on the porch with Elizabeth, and she could tell he was reluctant to join the older boy. The sliding glass door that led to the daylight basement slid open and Mary stepped out. “Hey Eric!” she said. Eric turned, his face brightened and Elizabeth smiled. Mary smiled and ran to join her cousin. She had her mother’s face and dark hair, but she had Ronnie’s personality—gregarious, outgoing, and active. She was wearing a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and white tennis shoes, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She joined Eric on the bench and began telling him about
the drive to and from Ohio.

  Jerry was standing by the grill where hamburgers were sizzling; apparently Mom had decided against the baked ziti. “Want a beer, Elizabeth?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll get it.” Gregg went into the house after Jerry for the beer, and Elizabeth settled herself into trying to be sociable with Ronnie and his new girlfriend.

  It was almost a perfect early summer late afternoon. The day had been warm, and a light summer breeze cooled things down as the afternoon died. Rick invited Eric and Mary to a game of catch, and before Elizabeth knew it the kids were enjoying themselves. Even Lily was in the yard playing. Ronnie had retrieved more beers for himself and Diana, and between talking with them and Mom, Elizabeth began to feel a little more relaxed. Diana related how the move was going. “The place is full of boxes and we’ve got the bed set up in the master bedroom. The kids slept in sleeping bags last night, and we should have them in their beds this evening. Tomorrow we might have most of the house set up.”

  “So quickly?” Mom said, reclining in her favorite rocker with a glass of lemonade.

  “Most of it,” Diana said, nodding. Despite being skinny as a rail, she wasn’t bad looking, but Ronnie had been with more attractive women in the past. Elizabeth tried not to focus too much on Diana’s hair, which looked slightly unwashed and frizzy, or her complexion, which looked like it had just gotten over a bad case of acne. “Of course I’ve got my curtains I want to put up, and Ronnie has his things he wants to set up. We still have to set up the computer—”

  “And we’re setting up my computer,” Ronnie said, in that subtle we’re-doing-things-my-way tone.

  “What’s wrong with my computer?” Diana said, turning to Ronnie. Her hazel eyes dared him to continue.

  “It’s a piece of shit,” Ronnie said, matter-of-factly, sipping his beer. Elizabeth recognized that tone all right. It was his holier-than-thou voice; since getting his computer, Ronnie had become a PC specialist in his own mind. This happened with everything Ronnie got into. When they were kids and Ronnie wanted a guitar, their father had bought him a Gibson Les Paul. Ronnie had taken lessons, never practiced and never became very good on the instrument, but he proclaimed himself the next Eddie Van Halen anyway. He did the same thing with cars, motorcycles, and other toys he held brief infatuations with. Now it was computers. She remembered him telling her that he spent three grand on his computer when he bought it. Three grand for a guy who only used it to e-mail his girlfriend and download porn off the Internet. But that was Ronnie.

  They ate supper on the back deck. Laura put a nice spread of condiments for the burgers on the table, and Elizabeth brought a salad and they all dug in. Diana told them Himmler, the rottweiler, was being acclimated to the house; she’d put a pen in the basement where the dog was staying while they were gone. “Don’t know what to do with him without a fenced-in yard,” she said. Elizabeth agreed, but silently wondered why she brought the dog with her if she knew the house didn’t have a fence around the yard. Couldn’t she have tried to find a home for it?

  For the most part it was a casual dinner, but Elizabeth could sense a slight tension in the air from her brother. It was a sense she got from him the moment he introduced them to Diana three months ago, as if he were forcing her on them. As if he was saying, this is my new girlfriend and you’re all going to like her, okay? She was getting this feeling from him again, and as the afternoon changed to evening and she helped Mom clear the table when supper was finished, she dismissed the notion. He’s just nervous, she thought. He just wants everything to be okay. He wants her to be accepted by his family. She seems okay enough. She paused at that thought, watching Diana out of the corner of her eye. Like Ronnie’s ex-wife, Cindy, and the few girlfriend’s he had deemed worthy enough to bring home to meet the family, Diana had a slim, if too skinny, figure with shoulder-length black hair and dark eyes. If her face hadn’t been so badly scarred and she had more meat on her bones she’d be very attractive. She seemed nice enough on the surface, but...come to think of it, Diana hadn’t really been that friendly with her when they’d walked in this afternoon. She’d acknowledged her, yeah, but she seemed to carry this condescending aura, a feeling that said, you are so beneath me that you don’t merit my time. Elizabeth shook her head. I’m letting my imagination get the best of me. Give her a chance. You’re not going to like her immediately; you’ve got to get a chance to know her and she has to warm up to you. She’s probably nervous.

  One thing she did notice, however, was that she did not like Diana’s kids.

  She disliked them the minute she met them.

  The revelation hit her suddenly, and as conversation went on and she engaged in it, the thought remained at the back of her mind for her to dwell on. She’d never felt such a dislike for children before. She’d known people who had kids that were brats, but she never felt the kind of dislike she felt for them as she did with Rick and Lily. She wondered where the feeling came from, since it came so sudden and seemed to spring from no particular event or series of events for her to form an opinion on. It seemed to have just sprung out of her instinctually, the way one felt a dislike for spiders or snakes.

  And as the afternoon bled into evening and she found herself supervising the kids more, babysitting her niece as well as Diana’s two kids, she thought about it more. She began to think of Diana in a different light. Maybe that’s why she felt such an intense dislike for the woman’s children—maybe it was really Diana she didn’t like, and the feeling was beginning to be projected onto her kids. Whatever the reason, the rational part of herself knew it wasn’t fair to Diana or her kids—or Ronnie for that matter—to begin formulating opinions on them based on being around them for only a few hours. Relationships take time to develop. She’d get to know them better, and in doing so would slowly begin to like and accept them. She was sure of it.

  They left her parents home around eight p.m. and got home twenty minutes later.

  That evening as they were getting ready for bed, Gregg said something that surprised her. “There’s something about Diana that doesn’t seem right.”

  Elizabeth turned to him, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  Gregg shook his head as he slipped on a t-shirt. He’d put on some pounds the last few years. His once flat stomach was now beginning to balloon considerably, and his hair was graying rapidly. His face hadn’t changed, though; he still had delicate features, high cheekbones and an aquiline nose; an actor’s face. “I don’t know,” he said. He went to the master bathroom. She followed him and waited for him to continue as he brushed his teeth. She could tell he was thinking about what he wanted to say, that he probably didn’t want to offend her, so she said, “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure if I like her, either.”

  “Really?” He paused in mid brush, mouth full of toothpaste.

  “Yeah. I don’t know what it is, but...”

  “You don’t like her?”

  Elizabeth shrugged, not sure how to answer. “I don’t know. I mean...I want to, but...”

  Gregg finished brushing his teeth, his eyes not leaving hers as he watched her in the mirror. “There’s just...something about her,” he said.

  “Yeah.” She nodded. She rubbed her arms. “It’s just a feeling, I guess. Kind of silly, isn’t it?”

  “Not at all,” Gregg said. He finished brushing his teeth, put his toothbrush away, turned off the light and joined her in the bedroom. “We’ve probably developed this subconsciously over the past few months since hearing she was going to move out here and finally meeting her. I mean, look at the situation. They met on some Internet dating website. He drove out to spend a weekend with her and got hooked. All we heard was that her husband suddenly left her and she made her living as a debt collector for a credit card company. Then we met her and the kids when they came out that one time. Remember that? Rick was downright sullen; didn’t say much. I thought he was spooky, myself. And Lily? She had this air of...oh, I don’t know...”

/>   “She almost looked cowed,” Elizabeth said. “Like she was afraid to do anything. Like she was afraid her mother would yell at her if she did the slightest thing to provoke her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And Diana just reeks of...” The phrase was on the tip of her tongue and she hesitated before saying it. “White trash.”

  “Yeah,” Gregg said settling back into the pillows. “White trash. That’s just the word I was looking for.”

  “The minute I saw her that first time she reminded me of Cindy. It’s like Ronnie has this certain type of woman in his mind he keeps hooking up with. Remember Linda, that woman he was seeing for a while after Cindy left?”

  “Yeah, I remember. She did kind of look like Cindy.”

  “Exactly. Put all three of them together and they’d look alike.” Cindy was a petite, lithe brunette; Linda, whom Ronnie had dated for a year after Cindy left him, was a petite, lithe brunette. Diana could have been a carbon copy of both women. All three favored tight fitting blue jeans and blouses, black leather jackets, smoked and drank, hung out at the same kind of bars bikers tended to congregate at and sported the same style of make-up; cheeks rouged, eyelids blue, lips glossy red or pink. And their hair always looked like it had been microwaved to a frizzy do.

  “You’re right. They do look alike.”

  They lay in bed, silent for a while. Then: “Gregg?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You don’t think it’s silly of me to not like Diana right away?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I know it’s wrong. And I’ll try to get to know her. I really will. It’s just...”

  “Trust your instinct, Elizabeth. Get to know her at your own pace, on your own terms. If your instincts about her are true, then there’s no law that says you have to get along with her just because she’s your brother’s girlfriend. But if you give her a chance and she turns out to be okay, so much the better.”