Not right now. My gaydar is broken. Malfunctioning.
Here, in this place my mother will probably take her last breath, I’m completely without an advantage, and I’m thinking: Please let this girl be gay, pleaaaaseeeeee.
She sticks out her hand, stuffing the snacks under her arm. I take it. Shake. It’s so soft. “I’m Lola,” she says.
“Melanie.”
I can tell she’s been crying. Why wouldn’t she have been, in a place like this? I want nothing more than to comfort her, put my arm around her shoulders and bring her close to me, inhale the sweet scent of her hair, her skin, her perfume.
I can’t. That’s not socially acceptable. Fuck. This girl is scrambling my brains, and I don’t know what I’m doing.
“Sorry, again,” I say.
She smiles. “I’m sorry again.” I notice there’s no ring on her finger. She is a little older than me, probably in her early thirties. Around here, it seems like women don’t waste time getting married. They fall for their high school sweethearts, their college beaus, and then the next thing they’re doing is walking down the aisle in a white dress and popping out a couple of kids nine months later.
No ring for Lola.
She fumbles with the snacks and offers me the honeybun. I stare at it like it’s a priceless gem. “Want this? It’s the least I can do for nearly breaking your ribs.”
I laugh, the giddy laughter of a schoolgirl in way over her head. I’m only partially aware that my face feels hot and that before I reach for the snack, I brush a strand of hair from my brow, tucking it behind my ear.
“It was the last one. I felt guilty for taking it,” Lola says. She’s talking a mile a minute. Flustered, too. All right, this is good. “I don’t even really like them that much. I’m just—” she shakes her head, “—you know.” She motions behind me with a sweep of her snack-filled hand.
“This place,” I reply, regaining my confidence, “it’ll do that to you.”
She’s still holding the honeybun out to me. I’m not that hungry, not after what I’ve gone through today and with my father cooking me up a grilled cheese and some tomato soup, but I know an opportunity when I see one, and I’m not going to pass it up now.
“We can share…if you want. There’s a few tables over there for visitors—unless you have to get back?” I say.
I’m thinking: No way this is going to work. How rude of you to hit on an emotionally vulnerable woman in a place like this, a place where her mom or dad or grandma is probably dying just down the hall—
“Oh, God,” Lola says, “I’d love to.” She shakes her head. “I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a bad person…but I needed to get out of that room. I needed some air.”
We walk over to the small table. I sit across from her.
“No, no, no,” I say. “That doesn’t make you a bad person at all. I needed out, too. My mom…she doesn’t even know I’m here.”
Lola puts her warm hand on top of mine. My breath catches in my throat.
“You poor thing,” she says. “Same goes for my grandma.”
I smile somberly at her. It’s nice to be comforted.
Lola and I share the honeybun in silence.
She gets up about five minutes later. I stand with her. She grabs my hand again, not quite a handshake, but something close to it.
“It was very nice meeting you, Melanie,” she says.
“Mel,” I reply. “You can call me Mel.”
Jesus, I’ve really turned into a schoolgirl with a life-consuming crush—in just a matter of minutes, too. What’s wrong with me?
“Mel,” she repeats, nodding. Then she walks out of the cafeteria, leaving me there. She turns left at the corridor, and I think I should follow her, find out what room she’s going to, when a voice in my head tells me to stop it and get my act together. She’ll want privacy. People here deserve that.
And I better get back to Mom.
Still, that seven minutes I was in Lola’s presence, to be maybe a tad melodramatic, was the best I’ve felt since before I saw Brandy Hartfield’s face stapled to the mannequin at Cocoa’s. I am beyond grateful for this feeling, too. I need it, especially in a place like this, with my mom dying just down the hall.
As I walk out of the small cafeteria, passing the vending machines tucked away in their alcove, muscle memory takes over, and I drop the honeybun wrapper into the trash can.
The craziness hits me again, the schoolgirl crush, and I stop on a dime, my sneakers squeaking on the tile. A quick glance around. No one’s coming, no one’s near me. Then I’m digging into the bin and pulling out the sticky-smeared wrapper, folding it neatly, and stuffing it into my pocket.
God, I need help.
Ten
I step back into Mom’s room with a big smile on my face. That’s not something you see much at Haven Light, except for the perpetually fake smiles plastered on the attending nurses. Make the brief residents feel comfortable here, happy, don’t remind them how most will be dead before Christmas.
Mom’s awake. Her hospital bed is propped upright and she holds a chilled apple juice in her shaking hands. I stop so hard I nearly fall over.
Dad turns toward me, and I see he has tears in his eyes.
“Mom?” I say, my voice a thin, whistling sound I don’t think she hears.
“Well, don’t you look like the cat that ate the canary,” my mother replies.
I feel dazed. I must be dreaming.
Mom is up, she’s sipping apple juice without help. There’s a smile playing at the corner of her mouth and some color in her usually pallid cheeks.
I look at my father, speechless. All the words I’ve learned in my years on this earth have evaporated from the file cabinet in my brain marked Talk.
Dad just shrugs at me. He, too, seems unable to find words.
Like I’m flying, I rush over to Mom’s bedside and wrap her up in a hug. Her apple juice spills, but she doesn’t seem to notice until I’m smothering her in kisses and promising her I’ll get her a new one.
She still feels bony, frail, but as she hugs me back, I sense the ghost of her old strength somewhere beneath the surface.
“She just woke up while you were out and wanted an apple juice,” Dad says. “I flagged down one of the nurses, the young redheaded boy, and he gave me one. And here we are.”
I part from Mom, pull my chair up right next to her beeping machinery. “How do you feel?”
Mom rolls her eyes with a slight smirk. “Oh, just fabulous.” She laughs. “I was thinking of going for a run in a few minutes, would you like to join me? A few miles, just for old time’s sake?”
This brings a laugh out of all of us.
Dad always called Mom the Sarcasm Queen, but I hadn’t heard her sarcasm since the early days of her diagnosis. In fact, I’ve barely talked to her since she was put in hospice. The times I have talked to her, like I said earlier, she wasn’t all…there.
“Do you know who we are?” I say, the words bursting from my lips uncontrollably. I hate myself for asking because part of me doesn’t want to know who she thinks we are. I just want to ride this wave of euphoria as long as I can. If she calls me Myrtle, and my father by some name that’s not John, I’ll deflate.
Mom eyes me sideways. She lifts a cold, shaking hand and touches it to my forehead. “Mel, are you all right?”
Dad and I look at each other. He mouths Mel and laugh-sobs into his open hands.
“You both are acting so strange,” my mother says.
I rise from my chair and hug her again, crying.
We stay as long as we can. The visiting hours are over at five. The people here need peace and quiet and rest. Most of them are asleep before then, if not all the time.
I kiss my mother on the cheek and tell her we’ll be back to see her bright and early tomorrow.
She says, “I’ll be here—unless I’m out jogging.”
Eleven
“We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” my father is
saying. We’re pulling out of Haven Light’s parking lot and onto State Road. “But Doctor Cooliato, she said that Sav could get better, didn’t she? I mean, you were there.”
Sav is short for Savanna, my mother’s name. I’ve hardly ever heard Dad refer to her by that. Only when they argued, and that was hardly ever. Usually it’s ‘Mom’ or ‘Ma’ or ‘Your mom.’ And I’ve never seen Dad so giddy and excited. He believes in hope, remaining strong, God’s will—that kind of thing. I can’t say the same. Mom’s terminal, she’s in hospice care. I know it’s possible for some people to make it out of hospice, but if I had to guess, the percentage of people who do so is very small. When you hear the word hospice, you don’t think good things.
I’m not going to be the one to burst Dad’s bubble. I’m still trying to ride the happiness I felt in her room, when I saw her sitting up and smiling.
Doctor Cooliato did say there was a chance of remission, of recovery, but she also tacked on ‘In your wife’s case, the chances are beyond slim. It’s best to make her as comfortable as you can, Mr. Padgett.’
Dad has chosen to filter out that part of the conversation. That’s okay.
Maybe I could learn a thing or two about hope from him.
“We should celebrate,” I say. “Get a drink.”
“The Lounge?” He points at me. “Say yes. C’mon, say yes!”
I grin. “Yes.”
Twelve
The Lounge is a little dive bar located within walking distance of my parents’ house. Instead of following State Road to Crossings, Dad takes a left at the intersection of Jackson and pulls into The Lounge’s parking lot.
There’s about a dozen spots and they’re never filled, except for Friday nights when they have karaoke. I’ve seen Dad drunk off his ass up on the stage, singing everything from “Angie” by the Rolling Stones to “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio. I once even joined him on a rendition of “Love Shack,” my one and only foray into the weird world of drunk karaoke. I know no one gives a crap about how you sound, that it’s all in good fun, but I just couldn’t take all the eyes focused on me. Plus, I was only eighteen at the time, completely illegal for me to be there anyway. Luckily my father is good friends with the owner. He should be, since he’s been going there and spending God knows how much money each week on beer and whiskey for the last decade. The owner, Rocco—and I don’t know if that’s a first name or a last—let me in, but only after I promised I wouldn’t get within smelling distance of an alcohol beverage. Not an easy feat in a small place like that, where even the chairs smell like old beer. And if the cops came in—which they never did—I was to say I worked at the pizza place called Slices down the street and was just here for a forgotten tip, then make a show of leaving. Not wearing a uniform…like that was supposed to work.
“I like your old man,” Rocco said. “He’s good people.”
Rocco’s not here now. I know because he drives a champagne-gold Mercedes that isn’t in its usual spot. I’m old enough, anyway. I can go in to any bar and get shit-faced if I want to.
Which I don’t.
Though, I’d be lying if I said that prospect didn’t sound enticing. Especially after today, which has been a too-long rollercoaster of emotions.
Dad parks the Toyota right by the door and practically jigs his way up the walkway. I follow him, shaking my head.
A weather-worn banner hanging from the gutters to the right of the entrance reads: KARYOKEY EVERY FRI NITE @ 9!
It’s been this way for as long as I can remember, spelling error and all.
We walk in, Dad holding the door open for me like some kind of gentleman. The smell of cigarettes and sharp liquor hit my nostrils. You’re not allowed to smoke inside bars anymore, but they don’t care at The Lounge. One guy, a bigger fellow with sleepy eyes, is always at the far end of the bar with a cigar hanging from his mouth. He wears some variation of the same outfit, too: black or gray trousers, a white or gray shirt, and suspenders. Every time I’ve been in here, this guy’s in the same seat. I’m pretty sure he never leaves.
He’s here now. Dad waves to him.
The bartender is a woman who’s usually working on Friday nights. She wears glasses, probably in her mid-forties, and has long, wavy brown hair. Her name’s Denise or Darla, something like that. I’m not entirely sure.
“Johnny!” a guy by the jukebox says. He comes over and pats my father on the back. “Good to see you, man!” He’s toasted. He smells like a barrel of whiskey. In one hand is a Budweiser, and on top of the juke is a tumbler of some gold liquor. Beer before liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer, you’re in the clear—right?
Well, what’s the motto when you’re guzzling liquor and beer together?
I should ask this guy.
“And you brought a pretty little blonde,” the guy says, slurring. He taps his index and pinky on top of his tongue and swipes his eyebrows at the same time. This is definitely not the first time he’s tried this move. “Ooh, la-la.”
Gross.
“Calm down, Mike,” Dad says. “This is my daughter, and you’ve met her before.”
I smile politely, but the truth is that I don’t remember meeting this guy.
“Right, right,” Mike says. “Sorry, John.” He smiles, pirouettes, and goes back to the juke. Pretty soon, Bruce Springsteen’s voice comes from the speakers and Mike is playing the air guitar, spilling his beer all over the floor.
The bartender looks at Dad and I as we pull out two stools. “He’s been here since I opened,” the bartender says.
“Got nowhere else to be,” Dad replies. He leans over and whispers, “Goodyear.”
I nod. A lot of people around here work at the Goodyear plant, making tires and whatnot, and a lot of people get laid off every year. Mike must’ve been part of the recent wave of let-gos. Since he’s not working, what else is there to do besides drink?
“The usual, John?” the bartender asks.
Dad nods.
“And for you, honey?”
“I’ll have a beer. Budweiser.”
“Coming right up.”
“Budweiser?” Dad asks. “Like father, like daughter, eh?”
The bartender brings our drinks. Dad’s got a vodka and tonic. I once called him girly for drinking those, and he told me the manliest thing a guy can do is drink whatever the hell he wants and not worry about what other people think about what he’s drinking.
As the time passes, I nurse my beer. People just getting off work stream in. Music pumps out from the juke. The guy with the cigar has his eyes glued to the television in front of him, something about the Indians’ spring training. Behind us, Mike is still playing air guitar, even though we’re all hearing the intro to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” Hardly a shredding part of the song, but I don’t doubt Mike will play air drums a few minutes from now.
A guy sitting at the bar’s curve motions to the bartender. “Turn that up a little, can you, Christa?”
Christa, that’s her name. I knew it was something with an ‘a’ at the end, but my brain has a mind of its own and the ‘a’ gets me thinking about Lola, the girl I may or may not have fallen in love with in the hospice cafeteria. Christa aims the remote at the TV. I can’t really see the screen from where I’m sitting, the angle’s off, but when the volume rises, I hear the reporter’s voice, the same one from this morning’s eleven o’clock news.
I close my eyes, wish Phil Collins would just hammer on the drums already so I wouldn’t have to worry about what’s on the television.
The report stretches for an eternity.
“Can you believe that shit?” the man asks in our direction. Dad just shakes his head, but the man goes on. “I been following that fella a while. I remember when he killed in 1999. Didn’t put the face on the mannequin then. He just left it at the store. It wasn’t until that second or third girl when he did that, and even then he hadn’t perfected it. I got a buddy in the police department, said it’s the most gruesome thing he’d ev
er seen. I asked him for a picture, but he won’t gimme one. Says, ‘Man, you don’t wanna see that shit. That’s the type of shit that’ll get in your head and haunt you in your dreams.’ But that stuff interests me, you know? Especially since it’s right here in our own little community.”
Dad motions to the door. “Wanna go?”
“Go? Man, you just got here,” the guy at the curve says. He acts like he knows my father, but my father doesn’t act like he knows him.
I shake my head.
“Good on you, girl,” the man says. “Why would you wanna go?”
He’s looking right into my face, and I know what happens next. He’s not been here long. He hasn’t been drinking much, sipping at his bourbon the way I’ve been sipping at my beer. If he’s followed the case, he’s going to know who I am. Most people who recognize me or know what I went through have the good grace to leave it alone; others have just plain forgotten. Five years is a long time—
“No shit,” he says. “You’re the one that saw him, ain’t ya? The one who walked in on him while he was stapling that girl’s face to the mannequin.”
Dad stands up. “Drop it, buddy.” He’s on his second vodka and tonic. His face is flushed, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead reflecting the Christmas lights on the walls, which are hang year-round.
The guy is completely unaware of the anger radiating off my father. I doubt that’s the booze.
“What’d he look like? I mean, really look like? I know you gave the artist a description, but he ain’t what I pictured,” the guy says. “I got this image in mind: A twig, greasy face, ratty features—”
Dad stands in front of the man, blocking me from his view. “I said, drop it.”
“Watch out, buddy,” the guy says. “I’m in the middle of a conversation here.”
I put my hand on my father’s arm. “It’s okay. Let’s just go.”
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