by Joy Fielding
He laughed, coughed a second time. “Long time ago. A lot of beer under the bridge since then.” He hoisted his mug into the space between us, finished what was left in his glass, and swiveled around in his chair, looking for the waiter. “You ready for another one?”
My own mug was still half-full. “I’m fine for the moment.”
“Another draft,” Lance called to a bald and heavily tattooed waiter resting against the far wall. FEAR was stamped in large blue letters along his right forearm; NO MAN was imprinted on the other. Charming, I thought, noticing a man nursing a beer at a small round table in the corner, a red bandanna wrapped around his forehead like a blood-soaked strip of gauze. Long, calloused fingers stroked a beard that was dark and scruffy. The man was staring at me, I realized, thinking there was something disturbingly familiar about him, trying to remember if and when I’d seen him before.
“How’s your burger?” Lance asked, swatting a buzzing insect away from his head as he squinted into the sunlight.
“It’s fine.”
“Just fine? My ribs were fantastic. I’m thinking of ordering another pound.”
I glanced at his empty plate. “Are you serious?”
“I’m always serious about what I put in my mouth.” His tongue lapped some errant sauce from his upper lip.
Was he flirting with me? Or was the heat starting to affect my brain? Should have worn a hat, I could almost hear my mother say.
I looked away, my eyes pulled back toward the man with the red bandanna. He cocked his head to one side, then raised his beer mug in a silent toast, as if he’d been expecting me to look his way again. Where had I seen him before?
“So, tell me what you think of my baby sister,” Lance instructed as the waiter approached with his beer. Lance gulped at its large head, chewed it as if it were solid food.
“I think she’s great.”
“She involved with anyone special these days?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“She tell you about her ex-husband?”
“Just that he was a mistake.”
Lance laughed, shook his head.
“You don’t agree?”
“Seemed like a nice enough guy to me. But, hey, what do I know? She’s the one who lived with him. Although Alison doesn’t always know what’s good for her,” he added, his face darkening as a cloud passed by overhead.
“I don’t think I agree with that.”
“I don’t think you know Alison as well as I do.”
“Maybe not,” I conceded, deciding to shift the focus of the conversation away from Alison. “What about you? Any sweet young thing on the horizon?”
“Not really.” Lance allowed a slow smile to creep across his lips. “Actually, I’ve always had a thing for older women.”
I laughed. “You should drop by the hospital one day. I’ll introduce you to some of my patients.”
Lance stretched his neck back over the top of his spine and poured half his beer down his throat. “So, what’s the story on this guy who sings here every Thursday night?” he asked, as if this were the most logical of follow-ups.
I glanced at the large cardboard cutout of a Las Vegas–styled Elvis impersonator—long sideburns, rhine-stone-studded, white jumpsuit, flowing cape, classic karate pose—that greeted patrons at the door to the restaurant’s interior. “He’s a Delray policeman, believe it or not.”
“Is he any good?”
“Very good.” I’d heard him the time I was here with Erica. I gasped, suddenly realizing where I’d seen the man with the red bandanna before. I’d seen him with Erica Hollander. My eyes shot toward the corner of the patio, but the man was no longer there.
“Something wrong?” Lance asked, signaling the waiter for another half order of ribs and two more beers. Clearly we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Will you excuse me a minute?” I was already out of my chair and heading for the washrooms at the back of the restaurant before he could answer. I needed to splash some cold water on my face. The heat was definitely getting to me.
The interior of the restaurant was soothingly dark and, while not exactly cold, considerably cooler than outside. I passed the large bar, its barstools constructed from the old hoists of the former gas station. Most people ate outside, but a few wooden tables hugged by leatherette furniture were scattered around the room for those who preferred not to see what they were eating. “The pig place,” people called Elwood’s, with affection. I wondered, as I brushed by another potbellied biker, if they were referring to the menu or the clientele.
I spent the next few minutes in the washroom, trying to convince myself that my mind was playing tricks on me, that the heat plus my overly active imagination had deceived me into thinking that the man with the red bandanna and scruffy goatee was anything but an overly familiar stereotype. Of course I didn’t know him. Of course I’d never seen him with Erica.
Except even as I was trying to convince myself I was seeing bogeymen who didn’t exist, I knew the truth—that I had seen the man before, seen him with Erica, and not just once, but several times. And not only here, I realized, as a series of suppressed images assaulted my already spinning brain, but much closer to home. Hadn’t I seen him coming out of the cottage on several mornings with his arm around Erica’s waist? Hadn’t I heard the unmistakable sounds of a motorcycle disappearing down the middle of a darkened street on several evenings? And did the fact he was back mean Erica was back as well?
I sprinkled water on my neck, dabbed a few drops behind my ears, as if it were perfume, stared at myself in the grimy mirror over the sink. My mother stared back. “Dear God,” I said out loud, realizing how much her features were starting to intrude upon my own.
Except for the eyes in the back of her head, I thought ruefully, remembering her terrifying admonition when I was a little girl. There’s no point in trying to fool me, she’d warned. I see everything. I have eyes in the back of my head.
Too bad I hadn’t inherited those, I thought, returning to the patio. My table was empty, and I looked around for Lance.
I saw the man with the red bandanna first. He was standing by the row of motorcycles parked along the curb, one hand resting on a pair of steel handlebars, and he and Lance were having an obviously serious conversation. I watched the man lean forward to whisper something in Lance’s ear, before climbing on his bike and backing out into traffic, acknowledging me with a barely perceptible nod of his head. Lance remained where he was, as still as the cardboard-imitation Elvis, his fists clenched tightly at his sides.
“What was that about?” I asked when Lance returned to the table.
“What was what about?”
“That guy you were talking to.”
“What about him?”
“How do you know him?”
“I don’t know him.” Lance’s eyes squinted into the sunlight.
“You were talking to him.”
“I’m a friendly guy.”
“Don’t play games with me, Lance.”
“What kind of games?” Lance leaned back in his seat, ran his tongue along his lower lip.
“Look, that guy you were talking to is bad news. He was involved with my previous tenant. I think he’s been phoning me,” I said, realizing this was true.
“You think? You don’t know?” Lance looked amused.
“I’m not sure,” I backpedaled, beginning to doubt my instincts.
“Sorry, sweetheart, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Why were you talking to him?”
“Why is it so important?”
“What were you talking about?” I pressed, my voice rising in frustration.
“Hey,” Lance said softly, his hand reaching across the table to stroke my arm. “No need to get upset. It was nothing. I was just telling him how much I liked his bike. That’s all it was. You okay?”
I nodded, somewhat mollified. Already I was starting to feel foolish about my outburst.
<
br /> Lance picked up his cell phone. “Time to give Alison a call.”
FOURTEEN
Alison joined us at Elwood’s within minutes of Lance’s call, her migraine blissfully vanquished. “Those pills you gave me were a godsend,” she told me repeatedly, looking radiant in her blue sundress, as she simultaneously wolfed down an order of spareribs and chewed on a mouthful of french fries. I marveled that she managed to do so with such grace. I also marveled that her headache had had no effect on her appetite. Indeed, she seemed in better shape than I did. “Are you okay?” she asked me as Lance was settling the bill.
“Me? I’m fine.”
“You’re so quiet.”
“Terry thought she saw some guy who was involved with her last tenant,” Lance interjected.
“Really? Who?”
I shook my head. “It probably wasn’t him. Must be the heat,” I demurred, now almost convinced I’d been mistaken.
“It’s a scorcher all right.” Alison looked around the patio, still crowded at almost three o’clock. “Okay, so where should we go now?”
I suggested a visit to the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, something I thought would be both soothing and interesting, but Alison said she wasn’t in the mood for museums and Lance reiterated that nature wasn’t his thing. So instead we went for a long walk along the Intracoastal Waterway and took a boat ride on the Ramblin’ Rose II, then sat on the seawall at twilight and watched the bridge as it opened for a small parade of magnificent yachts on their way to the Bahamas.
“Did you know that alligators move really fast?” Alison asked later, apropos of nothing at all, as we strolled along Seventh Avenue, heading for home. “And that if you’re ever being chased by one, you should run in a zigzag, because alligators can only move in a straight line?”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
“What’s the difference between alligators and crocodiles?” Lance asked.
“Crocs are nastier,” Alison said with the sweetest of smiles. She stretched her arms toward the sky, as if reaching for the full moon that dangled precariously overhead. “I’m starving.”
“You just ate,” I reminded her.
“That was hours ago. I’m famished. Come on, let’s go to Boston’s.”
“I’m game,” Lance said.
“You two go. I’m exhausted.”
“Come on, Terry. You can’t poop out on us now.”
“Sorry, Alison. I have to be up really early in the morning. What I need now is a cup of herbal tea, a soothing bubble bath, and my nice comfortable bed.”
“Let Terry go,” Lance urged his sister softly.
“Did you have a good time?” Alison stared at me expectantly, the fat yellow moon reflected in eyes as eager as a child’s. “Three words.”
“Yes,” I answered truthfully, dismissing any lingering concerns about the man in the red bandanna. I’d done my best to forget about him during the long afternoon, but like a bad penny, he kept popping up. “Yes. Yes. Yes,” I said, banishing his image altogether.
Alison wrapped me in a tight embrace, several loose tendrils of her hair tickling my cheek, sneaking between my lips. “See you later, alligator,” she said, kissing my forehead.
“In a while, crocodile,” I answered back, watching them until they turned the corner and were swallowed by the night. I could hear Alison laughing in the dark, and I wondered briefly what she found so amusing. The echo of her laughter pursued me down the street, bouncing off my back like sharpened stones.
What’s the difference between alligators and crocodiles? Lance had asked.
Crocs are nastier, Alison had replied.
My house was in total darkness. Normally I leave at least one light on, but Lance had ushered me out so quickly, I’d obviously forgotten. Proceeding cautiously, my eyes scanning the ground in case Bettye McCoy had returned with the dogs from hell, I zigzagged up my front path, mindful of hungry alligators that might have strayed dangerously off course.
Feeling both relieved and foolish—foolishly relieved?—I unlocked the front door and flicked on the light switch, my eyes sweeping across the sofa, the Queen Anne chairs, the painting of peonies on the wall beside the window, the Christmas tree in the corner, the numerous presents beneath it, the daunting parade of Santas and reindeer and elves Alison had lovingly assembled.
“Merry Christmas, everybody,” I said, locking the door behind me and heading for the kitchen. “And an especially merry Christmas to you, dear ladies,” I greeted the sixty-five china heads regarding me with indifferent eyes. “I trust you were good little girls while I was away.” I filled the kettle with water, made myself a cup of ginger-peach tea, and carried it up the stairs to the bathroom, where I stripped naked and poured myself a bath. I climbed inside and leaned my head against the cool enamel, jasmine-scented bubbles covering me like a blanket.
I remembered how once, when I was a little girl, my mother had found me in the tub, my legs akimbo, the water lapping against the insides of my thighs, as I giggled with childish abandon. The spanking I’d received that night was worse than any other she’d administered over the years, partly because I was soaking wet, and partly because I had no idea why I was being punished. I kept begging her to tell me what I’d done wrong, but my mother never said a word. To this day, I can feel the sting of her fingers on my bare buttocks, like the bite of thousands of tiny wasps, my wet skin a magnifying glass, reflecting and enlarging my pain and humiliation. More than anything, I remember the sound of those slaps as they resonated against my bare bottom, then ricocheted off the walls. Even now there are nights, when I close my eyes to sleep, that I hear it.
I shook my head free of such unpleasant thoughts and slid down in the tub, dragging my head under the water’s surface, my hair floating around my head, like seaweed. Immediately, another unpleasant memory attached itself to the insides of my closed eyelids: three little gray-and-white kittens, abandoned strays I’d found shivering in a corner of our garage, all mangy and mewing and “probably riddled with ringworm,” as my mother had proclaimed before wresting them from my arms and drowning them in a pail of water in the backyard.
I tried unsuccessfully not to see the kittens as I lay in the tub, an inch of water covering my face, like a shroud. What was the matter with me? Why was my mother so much in my thoughts these days?
It seemed that ever since Alison’s arrival, my mother had once again taken up residence in not only the house, but my brain. Probably it was all the questions Alison asked, the photographs we’d looked through together. They were responsible for my strange dreams, these unscheduled trips down memory lane. I hadn’t thought of those damn kittens in years. Why now, for God’s sake? Hadn’t I made peace with my mother during those long, awful days of her illness? Hadn’t she begged my forgiveness? Hadn’t I gratefully bestowed it?
My mother was such a formidable presence, although I’m at a loss to say exactly why. At only five feet two inches tall, it was hardly her physical stature that made her so imposing. Indeed, her disproportionately large bosom gave her a pigeonlike shape that was almost comic, and her features were surprisingly small and non-descript.
I think what truly set her apart was the way she carried herself, proud shoulders rigid, stubborn head held high, so that her tiny, upturned nose always seemed to be looking down at you from a great height.
That posture infused all aspects of her life. She was definite in her opinions, even on subjects she knew little about. Her temper was quick, her tongue sharp. I learned early that there was no point in trying to press my side of things, that only one side mattered.
Certainly my father was rarely consulted. If he had any opinions, he kept them to himself. I’d learned early to count on him for nothing, and in that way, he never disappointed me. If he had any regrets, they died with him.
My mother became even angrier after my father died, lashing out at me at the slightest provocation. You’re a stupid, stupid girl! I can still hear her shout whenever
I’ve done something particularly foolish.
Later, of course, when age rounded those stubborn shoulders and infirmity softened her more abrasive edges, she became gradually less formidable, less self-righteous, less prone to poisonous outbursts. Or maybe she just became less. After her stroke, my mother literally shrank to half her former size.
And a strange thing happened.
In becoming less, she became more, as the architect Mies van der Rohe might have said—more tolerant, more grateful, more vulnerable. Her shadow shrank to something approximating human size.
You know that everything I did, I did for your benefit, she said often in those last months of her life.
I know that, I told her. Of course I know that.
I didn’t mean to be cruel.
I know.
It’s the way I was raised. My mother was the same with me.
You were a good mother, I said.
I made a lot of mistakes.
We all make mistakes.
Can you forgive me?
Of course I forgive you. I kissed the flaky, dry skin of her forehead. You’re my mother. I love you.
I love you too, she whispered.
Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe I just wanted to hear her say the words so badly that I imagined she said them.
Why was she returning to haunt me now?
I pushed my head above the water’s surface, felt the tiny soap bubbles evaporating on my skin. Was there something she was trying to tell me? Was she trying to warn me, to protect me, in death, the way she never had during her lifetime?
Protect me from what?
I pulled the plug with my toes, listening as the water gulped its way musically down the drain. It took a moment for me to become aware of other sounds, another moment for me to understand exactly what those sounds were. Bells, I realized, hearing a downstairs door open and close, as my heart slid down the drain with the last of the bubbles.
Someone was in the house.
I stepped softly from the tub, gathering my robe around me as I stretched over to lock the bathroom door. But the lock had been broken for the better part of a year, and the closest thing I had to a weapon was the blunt blade of a disposable razor. I might have laughed had I not been so terrified.