The Girl from Charnelle

by K. L. Cook

  She felt she should say something like “You deserve it” or “Sounds like fun,” something encouraging, but the words stuck in her throat. She liked Anne Letig. She did. She remembered a few times, years ago, arriving home from school to find her mother and Mrs. Letig sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, playing gin rummy, Gene and Rich and Jack running around with Fay and the other dogs in the backyard. The two women shared an easy, conspiratorial camaraderie that Laura felt she sometimes intruded upon. This was even before Gloria started dating Jerome, before Gloria eloped, before her mother had grown silent and distant, more mysterious and moody, back when her mother still seemed able to laugh easily.

  It also seemed as if what Laura felt for Mrs. Letig’s husband was not connected to her feelings for his wife. There was something wrong about this, she thought. But it was not something she wanted to dwell on. The woman needed a break. She wanted Laura to watch her kids. Fine. That could be arranged.

  On Monday of spring break, Anne Letig brought the kids over at seven-thirty. Laura’s father had already left for work. The bus to Amarillo and then on to Dallas left at nine, but she wanted to get the kids comfortable and give instructions for the week. She wore a stylish blue dress with white polka dots (had John gone over to Thomason’s and bought it after all?), cinched at the middle with a white patent leather belt. Her hair was loose, except for a blue hair band. She set down a box of toys and brought in another box of games for all the kids. These were games Laura’s family, who was partial to cards, didn’t have: Parcheesi, Chutes and Ladders, Yahtzee. She carried in a bag full of extra play clothes for the week so that her husband wouldn’t have to worry about bringing stuff over in the mornings. And she’d made three dozen oatmeal and peanut butter cookies and a German chocolate cake, as well as a large tray of lasagna for the icebox. She had a bag of groceries, including sandwich meat, bread, cheese, chips, fruits, and vegetables. Laura helped haul in everything. It was much too much, but Mrs. Letig assured Laura it wasn’t.

  The boys scampered past Laura into the backyard.

  “I feel guilty, I guess,” Mrs. Letig said. “I’ve never been away from the boys for more than a day. This all sounded so great last week. And John encouraged it. But now…I don’t know. Maybe it’s a mistake. I found myself crying over the asparagus in the grocery store.”

  Mrs. Letig smiled, but the smile seemed bittersweet. Laura felt flattered that she was telling her all this, confiding in her. She wanted to reach out to her but restrained herself.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Letig said, dipping into her purse, “here’s money for the week.”

  Laura waved her hand. “You bought all these groceries and made all this food. We’ll be fine.”

  “Now, Laura, I already told you that I insist. Besides, I’ve promised the boys that you will take them to the movies. And you all can have popcorn and cokes.”

  She handed Laura the ten-dollar bill.

  “I’ll pay you the twenty-five when I get back. I forgot to go the bank last Friday and won’t have time this morning. But that should cover you for the week. If you need more, just ask John.”

  “It’s more than enough.”

  Mrs. Letig kissed Laura on the cheek. Laura could smell her perfume, sweet, familiar.

  “I can’t thank you enough for this, Laura. I do think it will be fine. John says stretching the apron strings to Dallas for a week will be good for me, that I might even get to like it.” She laughed. “You’re a lifesaver. I mean that. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They stood there awkwardly for a second, Mrs. Letig looking at Laura and then staring down at the floor.

  “You know,” Mrs. Letig said, “I feel bad about…something I said on the phone to you—all this talk about leaving. Well, I know we’ve never discussed your mother or sister. I have felt just awful about it all, and have spent many nights wondering what it must be like for you…alone here without them. Anyway, when I said I had to get out of town, I didn’t mean any offense by it, you understand.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I know you must miss them both. I was the oldest girl in my family. Thank goodness my mother was around, but she was sick much of the time, and I had to…well, take over. So I know what you’re going through. Maybe not. But I can empathize…. Anyway, I’m stumbling with this apology. I just wanted to tell you I was sorry for the insensitivity and to let you know that I’m here, if you need to talk about your mother or about other…things. It’s not easy for you, I know. All these men and boys around. And to have someone to talk to might help.”

  “I appreciate that, Mrs. Letig,” Laura said, and she smiled but could not look the woman in the eye. Her throat felt tight, and her eyes burned.

  “Anne,” Mrs. Letig said and put her arms around Laura and pulled her close. “Call me Anne.”

  Laura could smell the mixture of powder and perfume, a little too fragrant, reminding her of her sister before she eloped. Her mother never wore perfume. But the talcum powder was a constant. She remembered her mother in her bedroom, applying the white cotton puff above her bra, a cloud rising from her chest. Laura felt herself go rigid from the embrace, almost against her will. She wanted to be nice to this woman, she did.

  “Okay, enough of this,” Mrs. Letig said, and she kissed the top of Laura’s forehead and dabbed away the wetness from her cheekbones with her thumbs. “Let me go tell the boys good-bye again.” She went through the kitchen to the back porch. “Jack, Willie. Come here, boys,” she called. “Come kiss me good-bye.”

  Laura watched from the window as they rushed to their mother and hugged her. Mrs. Letig grabbed their faces and kissed them each several times.

  “You be good for Laura. And for Daddy. You hear? I’ll bring you something back from Aunt Anita’s.” They hugged her one more time. “Oh, I love you soooo much.”

  Laura felt like there was too much crammed into this moment. Too many layers of emotion and memory. John was there as a ghost, or rather what she felt for him was there, and it complicated and darkened everything because she liked this woman and appreciated her and could see her as someone she might like to talk to in a way she could not talk to her friends or her father or brothers. But she also was glad Mrs. Letig was leaving town. Laura didn’t know what would happen between her and John, what this week might bring. They had not spoken a word about it. Maybe nothing would come of it at all. But the possibility of it kept her awake at night. She knew that meant she was a terrible person, sneaky and double-dealing and just the opposite of appreciative. She didn’t know what to do with that knowledge, however. Mrs. McFarland had said in class that one of the marks of a mature person was to be able to feel two contradictory emotions and not go crazy. She called it “coming to terms with paradox.” Laura wondered if this is what she meant.

  At the church here in Charnelle, which they did not attend anymore, not since her mother left, or at Aunt Velma’s church in Amarillo, it was simpler. The preachers spoke about dissembling. About coveting. About letting the false face hide what the false heart knows. She understood it all too well, though it was hard to take it that seriously.

  “Thanks again,” Mrs. Letig said. “If it’s too much for you, tell John or call this number”—she handed Laura a slip of paper—“and I’ll catch the bus back up here, lickety-split.”

  “Everything will be all right,” Laura said. “Don’t worry.”

  7

  Anything You’re Making

  That night and the following morning and the next evening John picked the boys up and dropped them off, but there was no way to tell what he was thinking. Her father was there all three times. John came in and had a cup of coffee in the morning, a beer in the evening, but he spent most of the time talking to her father about work, how they hated their new supervisor, a young shit head nephew of the vice president of the company who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. When John addressed Laura, it was simply about the boys. Were they good? Did they ea
t? Were there any problems? She answered his questions directly, searching for a special inflection in his voice, some coded message that she might discern, but there was nothing she could make out. No “yes, ma’am.” No secret smile or brush of his hand against hers. He was efficient and preoccupied, and it seemed that whatever had happened between them before—which, now that she thought about it, wasn’t that much—didn’t really matter.

  On Tuesday night, in bed, she was depressed.

  Gene whispered, “What’s wrong, Laura?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  She collected herself. “No. I’m fine. Just the sniffles. Go on back to sleep now. You’ll wake up Manny and Rich.”

  “Do you have a cold?”

  “I’m fine. Let’s sleep.”

  But she didn’t sleep, and the next day, Wednesday, she felt cranky and out of sorts. John was running late and didn’t even come in, just dropped them off and let Jack lead Willie inside. She opened the door as he backed out of the driveway. He waved as he left. The truck sped over the gravel, crunching it violently. His arm was back inside, his eyes focused on the road, and then he was gone. Had he done this on purpose? Did he just not want to see her?

  “Have you eaten breakfast?” she asked the boys.

  “No,” Jack said.

  Willie said, “I want pancakes.”

  “We’ve got Rice Krispies,” she said.

  “I want pancakes.”

  She stared off down the road. White dust from the gravel still drifted opaquely in the air. The sun was out. It was almost warm. She wished she could go back to bed.

  “Rice Krispies will have to do,” she said.

  That afternoon they all walked the mile downtown for lunch. Gene was off with Manny, shooting cans with friends. She sweatered Rich, Jack, and Willie, and then the four of them sang songs as they walked. It was a pretty day, sunny and cool. Snow from the bad winter still clung to the ground into March but was almost completely melted now, except for a few pockets on the north sides of houses and buildings, and even those were wet-looking, as if they were contemplating evaporation.

  There were five restaurants in Charnelle. The Armory, southeast of town, a mile or so from the city limits, served burgers and hot dogs and french fries along with the only liquor you could get between Charnelle and Amarillo; you had to be a member of the club, but the membership cost only a dollar a year. Mr. Thomason’s Bar-B-Q, a small, redbrick building on the south side of Main Street, was the last stop before you left town for Amarillo; it was open only Tuesday through Saturday and Sunday for lunch. The Somersby brothers owned Charnelle Burgers, a little joint over on the north end of town, next to the baseball park and the drive-in (which they also owned); however, both Charnelle Burgers and the drive-in were closed several months each year when it was too cold—though it looked like the drive-in might open this week for spring break, if the weather held. Aguilar’s, a Mexican restaurant on the west end of town, was really just Mr. and Mrs. Aguilar’s kitchen and living room and only opened for lunch on weekdays and all day and evening on Cinco de Mayo; it catered to the four other Mexican families in town and the lunchtime crowd at Charnelle Steel & Construction. The best place to eat in Charnelle, and the only place downtown, was the Ding Dong Daddy Diner—also known as Ding Dong’s or 4-D’s. Clean and big, it served burgers and fries and shakes, which you could order and eat at the counter for a reasonable price while listening to the jukebox and talking with your pals, but they also had a nice sit-down dining room in back with red leather upholstered booths, where they served high-end meals—brisket, rib eyes, sirloins, chicken, and pork, and sometimes even fish.

  Laura had determined at first that she wasn’t going to spend Mrs. Letig’s money. It had seemed like too much, but now she wanted to spend it all and to even tell her it wasn’t enough. Because it wasn’t. She was stuck with the boys all day. Marlene had invited her over for a cookout and marathon game of canasta. But nothing doing. She was burdened with these grimy little boys.

  Downtown bustled—the lawyers and judges milling in and out of the county courthouse, the kids off for spring break circling the square in their cars. Debbie Carlson and Eddie Stimpson, her new boyfriend, drove by in Eddie’s new Chevy, and then circled the square and drove up along the sidewalk where Laura and the boys were walking.

  “You coming to Marlene’s?” Debbie asked.

  “Can’t,” Laura said, nodding toward the boys.

  “Good thing you’re getting paid,” she said. “I wouldn’t be a mother unless they paid me for it.”

  Eddie laughed, and Laura just smiled, not quite getting the joke. “Don’t have too much fun,” Laura said, smiling weakly.

  “Not without—” Debbie started, but then Eddie pulled away before she could finish her sentence, and she didn’t even turn around to wave good-bye, which irritated Laura, made her feel left out.

  At 4-D’s they had hamburgers and french fries and chocolate and strawberry shakes, so much food that there was no way they could eat it all, especially not Willie and Rich, their shakes turning quickly into glasses of milky mush.

  Dean Compson was not working. He was probably off with some other hicks, plotting how to crash Marlene’s party. Billy Sidell, the cook, who had once dated Gloria and had been heartbroken when she eloped, shook his head at the waste of food on the table.

  “Got your hands full there, Laura.” She could tell that he really meant, Where do you get off throwing away all that food?

  The boys were rowdy on the way home, and Jack ran out in the street once, and a car screeched to a halt within a few feet of him. He looked up, alarmed, and started crying.

  She grabbed his arm hard and screamed, “What were you thinking?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you crazy? You could have been killed.”

  Then she felt horrible, shouting at this terrified boy. She had to soothe him, and then she had to calm Willie and Rich, too, who had both broken into sympathetic tears. The clouds rolled in and threatened rain during the rest of the walk back to the house. A few drops hit them, but they made it inside, barely, before the downpour.

  There was a note on the front door:

  LAURA AND BOYS—CAME BY FOR LUNCH, BUT GUESS YOU WERE OUT ON AN EXPEDITION. SEE YOU THIS EVENING.

  —J L

  She didn’t expect his handwriting to be as neat as it was, simple but elegant printing, no cursive, except for his initials, which he wrote with a kind of looping flourish. She ran her fingers over her own name and over his extravagant L.

  That evening, when her father and John showed up—late, almost nine o’clock—the two men were laughing in a way that felt contagious.

  “Hey, there, pretty thing.” John whistled. It was bold but done so deftly, like a magic trick, that he got away with it.

  “She damn sure is, isn’t she?” her father said and leaned down and kissed her forehead. She could smell the beer on him. “She’s growing up too fast. I’m going to have to beat the boys off with a stick soon enough.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” John said.

  “What are you all so happy about?” she asked.

  Her father and John exchanged looks. “I don’t know. I suppose if you need a reason,” Mr. Tate offered merrily, “we could come up with something.”

  They both laughed again like this was a real knee-slapper. She figured they’d stopped off at the Armory after work, played some pool, had a few bottles, and shot the shit, as Manny liked to say, with the owner, Luke.

  “Your father’s having a poker game on Friday. He says you’re a shrewd player yourself.”

  It’d been a long time since he’d hosted a poker game, certainly not since her mother left. He’d taught all of the kids. Manny sometimes got to play with the men.

  Her father said, “She’s my good-luck charm.”

  “I can imagine. I’m not that good. I may n
eed some of that luck.”

  “I won’t give her up that easily.”

  “Hey, Laura,” John said. “I have to go over to a buddy’s house on Saturday evening to help him overhaul his transmission. Wanted to see if you could come watch the boys that night. Zeeke said it would be okay with him. Unless you have a date.”

  “She better not!” her father said.

  She looked down at her feet. “Yes, I’m free.”

  “I’ll pay extra.”

  “Mrs. Letig paid too much already.”

  “No. This wasn’t part of the bargain. You’ll get more. No arguments.”

  He winked at her, and to her father it must have seemed natural, but she knew different and was relieved by the wink. She understood what he meant. And she was happy about it.

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow for lunch to see the boys, if that’s okay with you, ma’am?”

  “We’ll be here.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now, where are the boys?”

  She gathered them up and walked them to the truck. Jack and Willie clambered in.

  “About twelve-thirty,” he said.

  “What do you like to eat?” she asked.

  She meant it as a simple question. She wanted to fix him something he liked. But he smiled at her curiously, his lips slightly parted, his chin dropping, his eyebrows arched.

  “Anything you’re making,” he said.

  Lunch. She wore a dress. Just a hand-me-down, one of the dresses Gloria left behind, but nice. A summery, tight-fitting purple one with green diamonds and a V-neck. And she had washed her hair the night before and braided it. She made the boys a picnic and set them up outside at the table, with peanut butter and banana sandwiches, oranges, and some of Mrs. Letig’s cookies. He showed up just as she was carrying cups of milk out to them.

  “You boys get started,” he said. “I’ll help Laura make our lunch. Jack, you watch the younger ones.”