Pretty

by Jillian Lauren

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what I did. It wasn’t as if he’d never seen a lap dance before. I didn’t think it was a big deal.

  I looked for him when I was on stage but he’d left the room. He didn’t even come back at the end of the night to get me and he wasn’t home when Francesca dropped me off. I don’t know where he went, but I know some shadow grew in him after he saw me working. I didn’t know who to be angrier at, him or me, but it doesn’t matter because the important part is that I know he never looked at me the same again. It was one of those mistakes. It’s one of those regrets.

  Jesus is in the slow sparkles of the water. Jesus is in the quick glitter of the doll wings. Jesus is painted on the wall of a roadside church.

  But Jesus doesn’t stop it. Jesus doesn’t make it better.

  Sixteen

  Somewhere after the trailer park with the big sculpture of Santa Claus at the entranceway, I pull over for gas. It’s one of those whatever places with the terra-cotta fake Spanish-style strip malls and that’s pretty much it. I always wonder what the people do who live near these places. Not what do they do for fun but what do they do for real.

  My hands freak people out. The palms of my hands look like a million-year-old mummy, but more pink. When cashiers get caught unawares by the sight of my scars, it always gives them a visible jolt. So I’m careful to buy my bottle of water and pay for my gas palms down. The doctors always tell me—everybody always tells me—I’m lucky. I’m lucky I lived. I’m lucky it was just my legs and my hands and not my face or my insides that got all fucked up. I’m lucky I didn’t sever any nerves or I wouldn’t have my bright future in cosmetology to look forward to.

  Refueled, I roll up the coast for another hour, the browns and grays and greens of the coastal cliffs rising to the right of me and the vast glossy expanse of ocean folding out on my left. This is the kind of thing they photograph and make religious calendars out of. Fuck, it’s nice here. I wish Jake were with me because he’d probably paint it even prettier than the real thing. He sees things so pretty.

  Have I told you about Jake’s painting? As far as professionally being a famous painter and all that, he’s kind of through. I don’t think he has to be, but he refuses to finish anything, refuses to try and sell anything. He always gives his best stuff away to, like, some waitress he thinks is nice or some guy who works at the Jamba Juice and has acne so bad that his face looks like an angry relief map. Jake will think he needs a painting. He says that something just tells him who needs paintings. There’s no talking to him about it so I don’t try.

  Most of his paintings are bizarrely twisted, ugly but still beautiful. His latest series was of ravaged Hitler clowns advertising whatever corporate thing Jake was hating on at the moment. Which makes it hard to believe that when Javi and Paul moved to their town house, they hired Jake to paint Milla’s room. Not with Hitler clowns, of course. He agreed to keep it positive. But even painting a castle, he was impossible. He changed his mind a thousand times about every detail and took a whole week to find the right green for the grass and ate all the food in their fridge and some days didn’t show up and some days showed up at ten or noon or two or whenever he damn well pleased and before the whole thing was done Javi and Paul were ready to get a divorce or kill Jake or both.

  But in the end, the room was the most incredible masterpiece. It was a fairy kingdom, with the ceiling as the bluest sky and the walls decorated with hills and a castle and wood nymphs and birds and a giant oak tree and fantasy animals that Jake just invented as he went and angels and bunnies sailing in nutshell boats and cows with wings flying across the sky.

  I had a dream after I saw the finished room. I dreamed I saw Jake in heaven and he was so handsome and he had this quality about him that was different from how I usually know him, and when I thought about it later I thought it was probably peace. He was peaceful. And he had no scar on his face and he wasn’t wearing a hat.

  He said, “Isn’t it funny how we were so hidden from ourselves?”

  I laughed and I knew just what he meant. And I wished there was a mirror because I wanted to see what I looked like in heaven, too. The Jake I saw in heaven is the Jake I can see in his paintings.

  So I search each freeway marker and billboard and cardboard real estate enticement but they all lead to nowhere I want to go. Half an hour after I think I’ve gone too far, just when the desperation sets in, I spot the 246 that leads east off the main highway. Tucked into the bend in the road is a little green sign: Chumash Casino 6.

  Here is where I should turn inland and lose the ocean but instead I pull onto the shoulder. The nausea I’ve been staving off all day creeps up the back of my throat and into my tonsils. I’m already sitting on a dry embankment with my head in my hands when Vi calls. The phone rings on the seat next to me and the screen lights up: VIOLET.

  “Where are you?” she asks, like a worried parent.

  “Nowhere.”

  “I know where he is, but you can’t get there now so come home. There’s no point in both of you getting kicked out of here.”

  “They caught him?”

  “Apparently he walked into a recruitment station. Susan had already reported him to the police, so now he’s on a seventy-two-hour hold.”

  “Fuck me.”

  “Better than prison.”

  This is what I was afraid of. I’m losing him. I’m a loser.

  “There’s something else. There’s someone here waiting for you.”

  Of course there is. I can tell by her voice who it is. She knows the story of Billy Coyote.

  Don’t worry, I’ll find you. That’s what he said last time I saw him, before I went to detox.

  Don’t I always take care of you? That’s what he said on the phone before he never showed up.

  “Should I get rid of him?” she asks.

  “Of course you should. How does he look?”

  Pale, pale and blue veins and slippery hands.

  “A babe. No doubt. He’s a babe. But, Bebes . . . ,” she says. She doesn’t finish the sentence.

  Seventeen

  When you’re from somewhere else, you think there’s a promise to California. I don’t know if it’s some cellular thing—like your ancestors in the wagon train only made it as far as Ohio and you’re completing the journey—or if it’s the Beach Boys or the Beat poets or Baywatch . You get in that car pointing west and you think the answer is at the end of the road. You really do. But here I am at the continent’s edge, jagged and final, and there is no West left to go to and I still don’t have what I want.

  I look down at Kitty Hawk Barbie next to me on the car seat and wish I could hold her up like a dowsing rod and she would point the way, just like Javi said. When I wanted a sign and I was back at Zion I would have dropped to my knees and prayed. I knew some people there who had clear visions from God pretty regular. But I never did. I thought it was because I was further down the scale from God, but I didn’t know why. Just born that way, maybe. Just born a little dead inside—dead in the place that some people heard God. So I was reduced to seeing signs in the way the rainwater dripped down the window, in the number of Ford Crown Victorias I passed by in a day. But then you wonder—I’m making them up, right? I’m seeing the signs I want to see. I’m making the world reflect what I want, and I’m calling it God. And what bigger sin is there than that kind of pride? You can’t think about it too long; it spirals down and down. So I kept praying, kept praying, until I got sick of not getting an answer.

  I know Milla’s Kitty Hawk Barbie is meant to be a talisman or a charm, but she isn’t working. Instead she just lies there like the stiff piece of misogynist plastic that she truly is deep down inside, even with her glitter wings, silver shoes, and retro hairdo. Underneath it all she’s still an impossible ideal that worms its way into little girls’ heads and haunts them all their lives with what they aren’t. I think it again, looking down at the doll. This child in me, I hope it’s a boy child.

  It’s
there all the time now: the baby, the thought of the baby, the possibility of the baby, the tiny glowing presence. There’s no unknowing it now that I know it’s there. There’s no going back to being myself alone and separated from everything and everyone by the impenetrable membrane of my skin, this skin that’s so resilient you can slice it to bits and it will still grow back tougher than before. Hold my scarred hand and you’ll see what I mean.

  But now there is this thing, this not even a baby yet, this wisp of an idea, and suddenly I am not alone at all. Everything changes, without my thinking about it. Like, for instance, I am driving down a four-lane highway with only a double yellow in the center, and a road like this one used to inspire an overpowering urge to swerve the wheel and careen into oncoming traffic. The first few months after the accident, the impulse was so strong I often had to pull over, lay my head down on the seat next to me, and wrap my arms around myself until it passed. But now, I face the drive back down the coast with no good news about Jake and evening fast on my heels and I do not think it once. Or I do think it once, but it’s just habit. I don’t think it twice.

  The late afternoon fog sweeps in over the coastal mountains, turning the sky and the ocean into shades of shifting, misty churning gray.

  I drive for hours.

  When I hit Thousand Oaks, it’s nearly six thirty and I have to get back to the house. Am I going to give up and go home and sit in group and pretend like nothing’s happening? I listen to the radio and watch for shapes in the clouds. I look for a sign. Where to go next. You never know when you’ll get one. Even the most faithless among us are waiting to be proven wrong.

  I set my trajectory for Serenity and creep along in the snarl of humanity that is the freeway as the red sticks of the digital numbers on the clock rearrange themselves to make me later and later. I screech off the exit, race up and down the neighborhood streets.

  Jesus is in the thirty-two, three, four.

  Sprint for the door of the house and get there exactly thirty-four minutes late for our mandatory Friday night meeting. I half expect to see Billy waiting for me on the porch, but he’s already gone. I notice that I’m disappointed, which is my first clue that the next time the phone rings and says DON’T ANSWER, I probably will anyway. But the thought is a fleeting one. I have bigger problems than Billy right now.

  I gingerly shut the door behind me and shrink as small as I can as I slink into the room and sit down against the wall. Everybody looks at me for a second and then looks away. I feel the judgment shimmering in the room like heat waves rising off asphalt in summer. And from Susan it’s more than heat waves, it’s laser beams. Laser beams of condemnation. Objective laser beams, of course. Nonjudgmental laser beams.

  Violet gives me a tight-lipped smile that’s meant to be reassuring, but just looks anxious.

  After group, Susan calls me into her office.

  “Please sit down, Beth.”

  I sit on the lumpy love seat that makes my knees stick up funny in front of me.

  “I’m worried about you,” she goes on, an off-center deep wrinkle of concern etched between her eyebrows. The wrinkle always fascinates me. I can’t stop staring. Why is it pushed off to the left that way?

  “It is not about an isolated incident. I’m sure you’re upset about the situation that occurred today with Jacob Hill. I want to let you know that we located him and he is being well cared for. But such an emotional investment is hazardous at this stage of your recovery, which is why it’s against the rules.”

  She pauses and I wait for her to go on, but she just looks at me so I assume it is my turn.

  “I’m really sorry I was late. I had an ugly mishap with a chemical straightener.”

  I look her straight in the eye with what I imagine is a neutral facial expression.

  You have to be careful around Susan. She can try to bluff you into showing your hand. It drives her crazy that I won’t emotionally flay myself for her and let her stick Post-its on my every memory. She takes it as an insult that I don’t welcome her into my most intimate, wet heart spots.

  Jesus is in the water stain. Jesus is in the walls. Jesus is in the halls.

  “Beth, I’m forced to take disciplinary measures. I don’t want to, but I think you need to be aware that there are consequences for your choices. I’m writing you up for your tardiness at the meeting today. I need to bring your attention to the fact that this is your third write-up. This is it. One more and we’ll be forced to terminate your residency here.”

  “I understand.”

  “Beth, I urge you to look at yourself. Try to see this as an opportunity to change your habits, to change your choices, and to therefore change the outcome of your choices. You are so close to achieving what you have worked hard for.

  Stop being your own worst enemy here. Let us help you help yourself.”

  Trying to keep a hold on my running brain exhausts me. I don’t have any fight left. I feel like I walked to the reservation and back. I have to press my hands down into the seat next to me just to prop myself up straight.

  “You’re right. I’ll meditate on that.”

  “You can go now.”

  With my last scraps of energy, I shuffle down the hallway to my room. When I get there I find Violet and Buck sitting cross-legged next to each other on Violet’s bed. They look up at me anxiously.

  “Nice hair,” I say to Buck, who sports a freshly shaved head.

  “I feel like a new man.”

  I shut the door behind me. There are no locks on the doors here. There are no carpets on the hardwood floors. If you stand outside a door you can hear every word said inside. It can make you crazy. But if it doesn’t, you get used to it.

  Buck holds Violet’s delicate, pale hand in her square, calloused one. This is a new development. Not terribly shocking, but new. I lie down on the bed facing away from them.

  “We got rid of him for you.”

  “He’ll come back.”

  “What’s going on? What happened today, Bebes?”

  “You found out more than I did. What did I think, I was going to catch Jake and have some big reunion scene? I’m so sorry cry cry. I love you cry cry. I’m having your baby cry cry. Like it’s my fault. It’s not. Like I can stop him from going crazy again. I can’t. I know that. I read. I’m not stupid.”

  I roll onto my back and gaze up at a hairy spider on the ceiling, wondering if it is poisonous. If the spider turns right, I tell myself, Jake will get out and everything will be okay and we’ll be happy. The spider stays frozen there for a minute and then decidedly turns left and runs along the seam between the ceiling and the wall. It’s childish anyway, how I’m still looking for signs. From who? Signs from who?

  I look over at Vi’s handmade Buddhist placard. Help is not on the way.

  Vi says, “Are you, like, using a metaphor I don’t understand right now?”

  “Nope. Not a metaphorical baby. A real baby. Help is not on the way.”

  Buck startles me, leaping up from the bed and putting an arm up as if in victory.

  “Yes!” she says and runs over to where I’m lying on my bed. She grabs my whole skull in her hands and plants a big kiss on my forehead. Then she leaps back across the room, topples Violet, and sticks her tongue in her ear, making her squeal.

  Violet rights herself. “Stop it, Buck. It’s not funny. What are you going to do, Bebes?” she asks, twirling a black snake of hair around her finger and blinking her wide brown eyes with lashes so long they look like zebra eyes.

  Buck sits up and gets serious, with her legs wide apart and her elbows on her knees. “I’m not trying to be funny.

  Help is right here. We’re havin’ a baby. If it’s a boy, will you name it after me?

  “Listen here,” she continues, laying on the Alabama accent, which waxes and wanes and is definitely waxing. “Me and Vi, we’re meaning to tell you that I’m coming with you guys to San Francisco. My parole conditions are nearly complete. I’ve got less than a week. And if tha
t nutter can pull it together, bring him, too, and if he can’t, hell, I’ll be your baby’s daddy. We’re gonna blow this town. We’re gonna start over.”

  “This has always been the plan, Bebes.”

  “Start over,” I repeat. I look for the spider, but it’s gone.

  San Francisco. It was where we were supposed to go. I don’t know how we wound up here. Aaron promised me San Francisco. Fog that rolls over the hills like cappuccino foam. Little pink and white and blue houses. Silver towers that sparkle in the sunlight like Oz.

  “But I can’t go now. What am I going to do about Jesus? I’m not leaving him.”

  “Only Jesus can get Jesus out of that place,” says Buck. “It’s not up to you.”

  Violet says, “I suppose you should at least go down there tomorrow and see what the damage is.”

  I have no doubt the damage is significant. No one does damage with quite Jake’s flair. When I first met him in detox the scar on his face was still an angry gash crisscrossed with stiff black stitches. I was sweating as the dispensary nurse slowly decreased my Dilaudid, but not slowly enough, because I gripped the phone between my two bandaged hands and called Billy Coyote from the pay phone and wept and begged him please please come visit. Please please smuggle me some pills, some anything.

  Billy said, “Of course. Of course, Baby. Don’t I always take care of you? It’s me you come to. It’s always me.”

  He never showed. And that night my eyes just leaked tears, didn’t stop for anything, and I woke crying in the pale predawn and wondered if I could somehow shred the sheets to hang myself. Wondered where I could hang myself from even if I got the sheets shredded. I wanted to gnaw my wrists open with my own teeth. If I could break apart a ballpoint pen in such a way that I could sever my jugular vein with the jagged plastic.