Bless Her Heart

by Sally Kilpatrick

  I had been very good at avoiding corporal punishment, though.

  “I’m glad to see you trying new things,” she said. “But I’m worried about you. I know Chad’s leaving was a shock, but maybe you should be more gradual in the new things you try.”

  “I’m not sure who I am anymore.”

  Mom chuckled, and I heard the saucer being lifted and something being stirred in a cup. “Well, they say the first step is admitting you have a problem.”

  “I have a problem.”

  She placed in front of me a cup full of a murky liquid that looked very little like tea. The concoction smelled terrible and tasted worse, but I had to admit my stomach felt better almost immediately after drinking it.

  For once I felt lucky to have the once crazy but now mellow mother who believed in home remedies and natural consequences.

  “Go take a shower so you can feel human again,” she advised. “Then drink some water and go back to bed.”

  Bed. Bed could be my new favorite.

  * * *

  The doorbell rang twice before I sat up fully awake, even then it was the groggy semiconscious state after a day nap combined with the last bits of a hangover.

  “Just a minute!”

  Where were my pajama pants? Where were the other people who could just as easily open the door?

  The doorbell rang again as I hopped into my pants and donned my bunny slippers. I drew my hair into a scrunchie as I padded down the hall. Halfway to the door I realized I was braless and smelled like a person who’d spent the better part of the day sleeping off a hangover.

  Well, Posey, there’s a reason for that.

  Without checking the peephole, I opened the door to see Miss Georgette. She wasn’t pleased.

  I was incredibly confused.

  “Miss Georgette?”

  The older lady pushed into the house leaving the scent of Giorgio in her wake. Today’s knit ensemble consisted of a cheetah print shirt and black knit pants. Her earrings were black cat faces that made me dizzy when they swayed, so I had to look away. “I have a bone to pick with you, Posey Love!”

  She came in and had a seat on the love seat, so I could only ask, “Could I get you something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.” She sat on the edge, back ramrod straight and her tiny feet pressed together.

  After we sat in silence for what felt like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than two minutes, she said, “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  “About?”

  “About your little adventures last night, that’s what! Miss Lottie happened to be in El Nopal, and she saw you drinking margaritas and doing those shot things. Then my niece had her bachelorette party at that Pole place—you can bet she got an earful, too—and she said you were dancing around poles like some kind of wanton woman and drunk as a skunk to boot.”

  My face burned. “I can assure you—”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “I’ll tell you what you were thinking. You weren’t thinking. You weren’t thinking at all about how I stuck my neck out to give you a reference even though you don’t have any classroom experience beyond the student teaching you did ages ago.”

  “Miss Georgette—”

  “You weren’t thinking about how schoolteachers have to sign a code of conduct that says they’ll be a proper example to their students both inside and outside the classroom. For heaven’s sake were you sleeping when we went over that in class?”

  “No, I—”

  “As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, Mr. Yardley said you and the O’Brien boy were making out on the other side of the Pole Cat.”

  Her mouth kept moving and words flowed out as they always did, but at the memory of kissing John I felt light-headed enough to pass out. Then I wanted to walk down the hall, crawl under the bed, and then never come out. Oh, God. I had kissed him. I had admitted to him that I’d had a crush on him since eighth grade.

  He admitted he had a crush on me.

  We kissed, and it was fabulous, and I think I think I may have copped a feel by putting my hand in his back pocket.

  “Oh, no, no, no, no,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands.

  “Oh, but yes you did. I know your life isn’t easy right now. Believe me, I do. When I heard that no-good man left you and left the church in the lurch, I was so glad I was able to give you a good reference and hopefully get you back on the straight and narrow. Then I started getting the phone calls this morning. Oh, Posey. I am so disappointed in you.”

  I wanted to be swallowed by the floor, maybe live in the crawl space forever. Sure, there were probably snakes and possums under there, but I wouldn’t have to suffer from mortification, now would I?

  “I genuinely apologize, Miss Georgette. I will not make the same mistake again. I had never drunk before, and Rain convinced me to drink one margarita, and it all went downhill from there. I am so sorry.”

  “That’s great and—what in heaven’s name is this?”

  She picked up that book, the gray one with a tie on the front. “Tell me you haven’t been reading this filthy trash.”

  “I can’t.” I couldn’t think of a half-truth to cover my butt this time, and, really, why should I have to?

  “I like to consider myself a tolerant woman, but I am the head of a committee that has worked extremely hard to get this smut removed from the public library. So far, Wendy Cope has blocked me at every turn with her carrying on about free speech. I said speech should only be free if it’s decent.”

  I could only nod. I didn’t want to be on Wendy Cope’s bad side. I also didn’t want to point out to Miss Georgette that speech didn’t have to be decent to be free.

  “Young lady, I know your life has not been easy as of late, and I’m really hoping this is just a phase that you are passing through. I did not recommend you as an elementary schoolteacher only to have you gallivanting around in sex shops, drinking like a fish, and fornicating out where God and everyone can see you. Any one of those things could keep you from getting this job or could get you fired. You know this, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m not one to dismiss the medicinal purposes of the occasional dose of Wild Turkey, but that is not to be done in public, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “As to carrying on with one man while you’re still married to another, even if he is a low-life, sorry excuse for a human being? You know that’s not right, too?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And for heaven’s sake don’t dance around any more poles. You’re applying to be one of a chosen few who mold our children and thus are held to a higher standard. I won’t say anything about these particular incidents, and I trust you not to get into such things again. If you do, then I will call Ms. Varner over at the Ellery Elementary and tell her that I have made a most grievous mistake because you are not the person I thought you were. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Miss Georgette reached across the coffee table to pat my hand and then stood. “I’m glad we have that all straightened out. You’re going to be just fine. As long as you don’t do anything else stupid.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  In a daze I walked Miss Georgette to the front door, certain I looked like a deer caught in headlights. Perhaps, a recently hungover deer in headlights.

  At least my heart hadn’t been blessed.

  I closed the front door and fought off the urge to go back to bed because I knew I needed to find something to eat and do a load of laundry so I’d be ready to go to work in the morning. At my lunch break, I’d visit Ben Little, our local attorney. At some point, I’d have to apologize to John for my ridiculous behavior. At least I had that old LP as an excuse to go see him.

  “Well that was a load of bullshit.”

  There Henny stood in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. “What?”

  “All that
‘yes, ma’am’ business. You’re a grownass woman and don’t need to be letting anyone tell you what to do.”

  I brushed past him, casually studying him as I did. Pupils the normal size, no scratching, no edginess. He seemed clean for once. “Actually, she had every right. She gave me a good recommendation, and I hauled off and did a very stupid thing.”

  “Says who? What right do they have to put in some kind of morality clause? As if drinking or dancing around a pole defines you.”

  I couldn’t help but give my brother the stink eye. He, no doubt, was making excuses for himself just as much as for me.

  “Fair or not, it’s the way things are.” I opened the fridge, searching for something appealing. Celery was the most appealing thing I saw, which said a lot about food selections in La Casa Adams. Didn’t Mom know that women in the throes of crisis needed ice cream and cookies and chocolate and potato chips?

  “Dude, I’m a loser. I get that, but you’re not a loser. Having a drink or two and dancing around a pole don’t make you a loser.”

  “Around here it does.” I smeared peanut butter on a few pieces of celery then took a bite. Yep. Still disgusting.

  “Well, what does any of that have to do with what kind of teacher you would be?”

  “Henny, people don’t want a drunken pole dancer to teach their kids.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not a drunken pole dancer. Heck, how do they even know a pole dancer wouldn’t make a good teacher?”

  I had to smile. My little brother indignant on my behalf was kinda cute. “They don’t.”

  “See? Bullshit. Who comes over to someone’s house unannounced to chew them out for something they did one town over?”

  “Someone who cares?”

  Huh. Did Miss Georgette care about me? Sure, she didn’t want to recommend me only to have me be seen publicly drunk and doing sexy dances in a store with blacked out windows, but was that more about me or her?

  “Well, I think it’s stupid. It’s like these people who won’t give me a job because I was in the joint for a while. Am I rehabilitated or not?”

  More stink eye in his direction. I couldn’t help myself. “You managed to get fired by your own mother.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I got mixed up in things again, but I’m trying to get straight. I swear.”

  I’d heard that one before.

  What had happened to my scrawny little brother? The pasty child with bright red hair who seemed to be without front teeth forever? The scrappy baseball player who once hit a walk off home run to take tiny Yessum County High School to the state championships? He’d been a handsome young man who was a runner-up for Homecoming King.

  Then in the spring of his senior year, he’d taken a dirty slide to the ankle in the last game of the season before the playoffs started.

  Mom wanted him to sit out the postseason, but the coach was having none of it. Henny was his star player: pitcher, hitter, shortstop. Next thing we knew, Henny said he was fine. We didn’t find out until much later that he was taking some of Coach’s oxycodone and lots of it. Sometimes I feared he’d branched out into heroin.

  “Maybe you need to move, get away from these people around here,” I heard myself say.

  “I don’t know.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I still have to check in with my parole officer, you know.”

  “Then you can stay and help me get it together,” I said. “Goodness knows, I need to get it together.”

  He stood. “Nah, you’ve always had it together far more than I have.”

  “Henny—”

  “No. I’ve got a night shift job at a warehouse. I’m hoping that if I sleep all day, those losers I used to hang out with will leave me alone.”

  He left the kitchen, and I found myself hoping the same thing.

  I also couldn’t kick the shame I felt for all those years of thinking myself superior to my little brother who always seemed to be in trouble. He needed help. Now I knew what it was like to need help even if it wasn’t for the same problem. Mom had been slow to see the problems the first time. Then she’d attempted to coach Henny on mind over matter. Henny’s father, unlike Rain’s, couldn’t help fund a trip to rehab because he was dead. He’d had too much to drink one night and wrapped his truck around an ancient oak tree between two forks of a lonely country road.

  Now I had nothing extra to offer my brother, either.

  I lay my head on the table, not wanting to think about hangovers, my brother and his pill problem, or how I’d killed all chances of the first-grade job while also alienating a friend. If I squeezed my eyes tight enough, would it all go away?

  At least, I could rest comfortable in the knowledge that tomorrow couldn’t possibly be any worse than the day I’d just been through.

  chapter 15

  First thing on Monday morning I walked to work with my mother. Business at Au Naturel was the busiest I’d seen it. Monday was the day of good intentions; women in yoga wear with rolled up mats filled the store, their high ponytails bobbing as they signed in then climbed the stairs. Meanwhile, at least three women stopped for a tarot session with Julia, suggesting she had been right about how her business was going to pick up.

  At lunch I went to see Ben Little and picked up what he called a couple of “divorce worksheets” that would serve as a guideline for how to divide what was left of Chad’s and my worldly possessions. The worksheets looked more like packets, and I didn’t know how I was going to convince Chad to fill his out. Ben walked me through the entire process, and a dull headache began to bloom as I realized getting a divorce could be easy—but only if Chad cooperated.

  Back at my station behind the cash register, I was studying the worksheets to get a handle on how to divorce my husband when the man in question walked through the door.

  Today could, apparently, get worse.

  “Posey.”

  I clenched the edge of the counter, glad I had a barrier between him and me. “Chad.”

  “You weren’t answering my calls.”

  My heart hammered. My knuckles had already gone white, but I said. “I changed my number so I wouldn’t get any more of your calls. By the way, I picked this up for you.”

  “What the—?” He took the packet and ripped it in half. “I thought I told you we would not be getting a divorce.”

  He leaned over the counter, and I leaned back as I always had before. The old Chad would have never done anything that seemed like a fight while we were out in public. No, all arguments were to wait until we got home. Maybe it was finally sinking in to him, that there would be no more arguments at home. Slowly, I straightened my spine. “There is no longer a we. It’s also not the Middle Ages, so you cannot force me to stay married to you. I will take you to court if I have to.”

  He closed his eyes and cast a glance at Julia before turning to me with his public smile, a one-thousand-watt beauty that could charm anyone in a five-mile radius. Her eyes were glued on the cards in front of her, but I knew she was listening. Nothing got past her.

  “Let’s step in the back room so we don’t discuss this in front of your mother’s customers.”

  He had a point about that, and the back room didn’t have a door—only a curtain of beads—so it wasn’t so isolated that I feared his usual treatment. I didn’t need anyone from the school to see us arguing. “Okay.”

  I waited for him to go to the doorway to the side of the stairs, the one currently covered by swaying beads.

  “No, ladies first.”

  My eyes narrowed. His voice had gone back to charming, a trick he often used to keep me off balance. Once I was sure we were out of hearing range, I said, “Chadwick, we are getting a divorce. I told you from the beginning that infidelity was one of my deal breakers. So you might as well—”

  He struck quickly, jerking me over to where he sat on a bench. Before I knew quite what was happening, he’d tossed the skirt portion of my dress over my head and was spanking me. “This time you have gone too far, Po
sey. I am the head of this household, and you will act like it.”

  He hit me so hard, I cried out. I could both see and feel stars. I scrambled to get away, but my arms got caught in my dress, and he had leaned his upper body over mine, his elbow digging into my back as he administered more licks. “This is for your own good, and—”

  Then I was on the floor. Chad thrashed beside me making an almost inhuman sound.

  Fighting my dress as if my life depended on it, I managed to get the skirt portion down and to find my feet. Julia stood to the side with her arms crossed, a small device in her hand. “Tasered him.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’m going to call the police, and you need to get a restraining order,” she said, taking me by the arm and leading me out into the store. She sat back down at her table and took out her cell phone. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her. What did she know about Tasers and restraining orders? How could she remain so calm?

  The good Lord knew I wasn’t calm. In a million years I’d never thought he would actually spank me. I knew he wanted to, but I didn’t think he would.

  Maybe I needed a Taser.

  Chad started to emerge from the back room, then retreated as a gaggle of yoga students made their way out the door. To my left Julia was talking on the phone to the police, and I was so grateful she’d made the call for me. My hands shook. My posterior stung almost as much as my pride. Thank God I had never procreated with that pitiful excuse for a man.

  Once assured the store was empty except for Julia and me, Chad stalked toward the desk, his face flush with anger. Was that a wet spot on the front of his pants? Oh, Julia was going to get a wonderful gift as soon as I had the money to buy her one. Seeing my soon-to-be ex-husband humiliated did me more good than it ought to have done a Christian woman. Good thing the church and I were on a break, wasn’t it?

  “I can’t believe that you would do such a thing!” Chad said, his speech a little slurred as if he were having trouble controlling his lips.

  “That I would do such a thing? You hit me. You promised to never hit me.”

  “Well, you needed to be reminded of your place.”