by Cait London
The echo of her voice skittered around the empty room, and she was alone. But the room was heavy with the sense of the woman who had once lived there…. Rachel ignored the tears burning her eyes. “Dammit, Mallory, you’re laying a load on me. I don’t know what you want from me. I’ve promised to do my best, but you’re wanting more, aren’t you? What?”
Why had Mallory hidden the boxes beneath shoes and deep in her closet? Rachel closed the closet doors, questions running around her as she looked at her reflection. Harry, who had been sulking behind the living room couch, strolled into the bedroom, his tail high and crooked at the end. The big gray striped tomcat had been neutered, and at times, his yellow eyes rightly accused Rachel of the deed.
But now, he leaned against her calf, rubbing himself on her. She reached down to haul him up close, hugging him. Harry dug his claws into her arm and purred loudly. “Ouch! Harry! You’re trying to make up after being so horrible on the trip here, aren’t you?” she asked as she rubbed her cheek against his fur.
Harry was still peeved and ran into the living room. Rachel looked at the mess she’d made in the bedroom and decided that feeding the cat might gain her some friendly points.
In the kitchen, she pulled the tab on a can of his food and bent to place it in his favorite dish. At the familiar tap of the can on his dish, Harry came running, tail straight up and crooked at the end, When Rachel stood, watching her cat eat, a beam of light pierced the kitchen window and moved around on the ceiling as a car honked.
“Oh, boy. Mom and Jada would have called first. If that is Mallory’s gentleman callers, they are in for a surprise.” Harry continued eating, undisturbed by the sound of another car. “I may as well end this now, Harry.”
Rachel walked to the front door, jerked it open and stared at the women leaning against the vehicles in Nine Ball’s parking lot. “We thought we’d do this right,” Terri Samson called up to Rachel. Are you too tired to play? We’ve been waiting for you to get back. Mallory would have wanted that.”
Dorothy Wainwright, the funeral director’s wife, Tommy James’s wife, Sally Mae, and two other women looked up at Rachel. They looked grim and each held a cue stick case.
They’d been at the funeral and they each had something to say about Mallory that was kind. But Rachel wanted to know more. She hadn’t gone downstairs since she’d arrived and braced herself before calling to them, “I’ll be right down.”
Downstairs, the women moved silently through Nine Balls’ front door. “We’ve done our hugging and sympathy route,” Terri stated briefly. “Now we’re here for Mallory’s belated wake, and just maybe to get a little drunk.”
“It’s too quiet. It feels funny in here. Mallory was always talking, nervous, sometimes, but she had a lot to say about nothing at the end. She talked about flowers growing—daffodils, I think. She worried if the ones she planted at Scanlon’s Classics would come up, if they had enough water and sunlight to do well.” The woman who had been introduced as Jasmine Parker, a middle-aged slightly plump woman in an over tight T-shirt and jeans, looked around the pool hall.
Nine years ago, Mallory had returned to Neptune’s Landing after an unexpected five months’ “vacation to find myself.” A few postcards from neighboring states and regular telephone calls said that she was traveling and happy, and that had been enough for the Everlys. It had been her first time to leave town; the next was when she came to stay with Rachel three years ago.
Mallory had never explained the whereabouts of her “vacation,” but she came back pale and tired and had purchased Nine Balls immediately. She’d started to work at a frantic pace, building her business with a determination that was obsessive.
“Mallory always liked daffodils,” Rachel stated softly. “We used to go cut them for Mom.”
“The light switch is over there,” Jasmine said quietly as the women watched Rachel take in Mallory’s “baby.” The varnished floors gleamed beneath the bright lights overhead. Across one wall, opposite from the front window, was a row of tall stools from which the players could be watched. Bamboo blinds at the big front windows had been unfurled; beneath them the potted African violets were dead. Black wrought-iron stands held ferns, untended and brown now, that dripped dead fronds onto the floor.
Someone switched on the lights and the overhead fans began to rotate slowly, eerily. On the cork bulletin board were snapshots of young teenagers, grinning as they held a cue in one hand and a trophy in the other. Some of the pictures had been taken with Mallory, and Rachel forced herself to look away to the twelve empty tables, the balls lying within the V-shaped racks. Eleven tables were the common billiards parlor eight footers, but one—Mallory’s special one—was standard tournament size at nine feet.
In contrast to the usual coin operated tables, these tables were commonly arranged by reservations paid in advance.
Rachel walked to the nine-foot table, circled and studied it. The balls were perfectly racked into the diamond shape for nine ball. Everything in the room was too neat, as if it too had been cleaned and prepared by a loving hand…. Mallory, how could you?
“Haven’t you been down here since Mallory—left?” Dorothy asked tentatively.
Rachel ran her hand over the smooth wood, the padded railing, the green fabric, and knew instantly that was what Mallory had done last—come here to say goodbye to her dreams—preparing her “baby” for Rachel. “I’m weak, Rachel. You’ve always been a crusader, but I’m not you. You could always do anything you wanted. But I can’t change. I’ve tried and each time, I knew I was disappointing you. Do you understand? I’m not you. I’m what I am. You want too much. I can’t be you…I can’t be you….”
“I haven’t had a chance to come down here—okay, maybe I wasn’t ready to see it. I can’t stand the way she lived upstairs. I’ve been working up there, cleaning…. I thought I’d come down tomorrow when it was light.” She’d needed to prepare herself mentally before entering Nine Balls, a place that her sister had loved desperately.
“Mallory used to let the kids play every Saturday morning,” Terri stated quietly. “She looked like a kid herself, down here, teaching them how to stroke, how to hold the stick, finger bridges, whatever. She had a lot of patience with kids. Sometimes more than I would with my own two boys. Your mother and Kyle were here, helping to see that the equipment survived and that not too many dents were placed in the wall or the cloth wounded too badly.”
“I haven’t had a chance to look at the books yet. But I somehow had the idea that business wasn’t as good in the last few years.”
“People didn’t want to get involved or maybe be caught in a bad situation, so they started staying away, going other places,” Terri said quietly. “Gossip isn’t good for their community standing, or their businesses.”
“I’m going to get Nine Balls up and running like Mallory wanted,” Rachel promised.
Sally Mae laughed aloud. “Now that sounds like the girl I grew up with. You haven’t changed at all since high school. You were always a crusader.”
Rachel smiled briefly. “Better sew me a cape, because Nine Balls is going to be very busy and very profitable.”
Against the wall, a long rack of cues gleamed, perfectly tended. A row of high stools sat beneath them, an easy place for observers. At one end of the airy room with its slowly rotating ceiling fans, there were tables for the checkers and chess, and several dart boards hung on the wall. A small self-help minibar held a humming refrigerator filled with bottled water and soda and candy bars. Tiny packages of assorted salty chips lay in a large basket beneath a sign that read “Included with fees. Please keep food and drink away from the billiards tables. Thank you. Mallory.”
Rachel walked around the long, spotless room, taking in the lists of eight-ball and nine-ball rules posted around it. A big-screen television set, radio and CD player dominated one corner. A quick glance at the DVDs said that Mallory had stocked up on billiards and pool tutorial programs. Spread across one wall were diagra
ms of billiard balls with dotted paths demonstrating the shots.
She opened a door marked Private, and found a small broom closet, scented of lemon and lined with cleaning bottles, mops, and brooms. Everything was too neat, even the cleaning rags were folded.
Another door marked Office opened to a dark musty room. A flip of the light switch and the impersonal and very neat office seemed to hold Mallory inside it. A small desk, one chair and file cabinets seemed all to reflect the woman who had used them, almost as if she had waited for Rachel to come in and start working.
“Tomorrow, Mallory. I’ll do a good job.” Rachel closed the door softly.
Sally Mae James looked at the big sign on the wall. No Smoking, No Drinking, No Gambling, No Cursing, No Rough Stuff. Owner reserves the right to refuse anyone who breaks these rules. “We always had a few drinks on Ladies Night. Mallory understood. I guess she’d understand tonight.”
Mallory’s whisper seemed to echo around the row of billiards tables. I want my place to be clean and good enough for women and kids to come play and enjoy the sport.
Sally hefted the insulated cooler she’d been carrying onto a long wooden bench. “Wine coolers. Everyone’s favorite kind. Drink up.”
The rest of the women placed their chips and dips and sandwiches on the bench, grabbed a wine cooler and opened the lid. Terri handed Rachel a bottle and then lifted her own. “To Mallory. May she rest in peace. May we all keep her in our hearts and remember what she gave us.”
“To Mallory,” the women said in unison, then lifted their bottles. Terri took another drink and took her cue from its case. She moved toward the nine-foot table, Mallory’s favorite. “Let’s play.”
Sally Mae chalked the tip of her cue and studied Rachel for a minute. “Are you going to play, or what? Your mom is a good shooter, so is Jada. By the way, where is she?”
As if signaled, the ice cream wagon slid by the front windows of Nine Balls, the music a tinkling sound. It stopped in the side parking lot, and Jada rounded the corner, carrying her cue case and a small thermal cooler. Inside, she said, “Ice cream on me, ladies—fudge bars, popsicles, ice cream bars, what have you. Eat up, don’t let it melt on the tables, and put the wrappers in the trash.”
“Wait—I’ll be right back.” Rachel ran up the stairs and returned quickly, carrying Mallory’s cue case. She carefully put the cue together, slid it through her hands, and again noted the new tip. Mallory had wanted to leave her equipment in good shape….
The women paired off and Rachel slid the smooth wood through her fingers, getting the heft and balance of the cue. “It’s been years. I’ve played a little when visiting Mom, but we usually end up just sitting and talking.”
She hadn’t really played since that night she’d been attacked as she walked home from playing pool with her girlfriends…. Rachel placed a cue ball on the felt, trying to remember the stance, front hand down, fingers in a bridge, right arm at a 90-degree angle with the cue, leg back, body low and leaning into the table. She slid the cue back and forth in the bridge of her fingers, getting the feel of it.
“Mallory just loved running this place, or did until a couple of years ago. You don’t want to break those balls, do you? Because Mallory probably racked them—she was really careful about getting a good tight rack, the one ball in perfect position, the nine ball in the middle…. Okay, if no one wants to make the virgin break since Rachel has taken over, I will. Break.” Terri bent to place one hand on the table, the other hand back on the stick, her elbow raised. She leaned into the shot and the cue ball hit the number one ball in the diamond shape of balls. “Your turn. I never could get a good break,” she said quietly as the balls spread, but left a compact core formation.
Someone had placed a country music CD into the player and the music cruised softly around the room, punctuated by the slight click of balls hitting each other.
Between shots, Rachel studied the women—married, mothers, housewives, and those with occupations, such as Terri, the attorney. Terri watched her. “You’re wondering out of all the women who came here, sometimes only to show support for their kids, why we’re so special, aren’t you?”
Rachel angled her shot, banked it, and the nine ball rolled into the pocket, winning the game. “Nice shot,” Terri commented. “Smooth, good spin. You’re a really focused player. Mallory wasn’t.”
“It’s been a while. You were saying?” Rachel took another bottle of wine cooler that Jasmine had just handed her.
The overhead fans were rotating slowly, the balls clicking against each other on the other tables, and Terri took her time answering.
“At one time or another, Mallory sent our wayward husbands home to us. Some stayed faithful and others didn’t, like my ex. We had a deal after that, we came here, let off some womanly steam and gripes and generally settled life with a few hours away from house and kids. In return—not that she had to, but Mallory settled a few, ah, womanly territorial issues—our men weren’t in her bed.”
“Maybe Kyle Scanlon was keeping her busy.”
“He liked her. Everyone knew that. She stayed with him a couple times. Maybe they were making a test run for the real thing, but they never really lived together.”
Rachel stopped racking the balls, the nine ball in the center, and looked over her shoulder to Terri. The attorney shrugged. “I don’t know what happened, but she closed up for a month each time. I guess it didn’t work out. Kyle usually has people hanging out at his place—some big bald wrestler-type and some down-on-their-lucks. Maybe Mallory couldn’t take that. Did you meet Iris and Patty? They’re lucky they’ve got him to help them out—not a clue about making it on their own, either one of them. They had something in common with Mallory, I guess. Good hearts, but not the usual defenses to protect themselves, like children inside women’s bodies. Some men really go for that, you know. Makes them feel good.”
“Did you ever wonder exactly where he gets the kind of money to support two ex-wives?”
“He works, I imagine. He’s gone once in a while, to see relatives or something. What are you going to do with Mallory’s things?”
“I’ve thought a lot about that.” Rachel met the other woman’s eyes and walked to the CD player, stopping it. In the silence, while the other women looked at her, Rachel said, “Mallory left everything to me, personal stuff included. I do not want anyone else sleeping on her sheets, lying on her mattress, or wearing her clothes. I want to burn everything that made her look trashy. Let’s take this party out to some field and finish it.”
“Woo-hoo! New player in town,” Jasmine hooted. “I’ve got my husband’s pickup outside.”
“That won’t do it all. The couch and chair, too. And that round bed is massive. Everything that—” That Mallory used to entertain…
“I’m driving the funeral home’s hearse, that should take care of something,” Dorothy said as she lifted her bottle in a toast.
“And we’ll use my husband’s garbage truck,” Sally Mae added gaily. “I’ve been dying to drive it.”
“We can burn her stuff out on our farm,” Jasmine offered as she placed her cue into its case. “Just bring the booze. We’ll toast Mallory.”
Terri took a deep breath. “We should have had an intervention for her. We should have done more, but I guess we were all locked into our own little secure lives and didn’t want to raise problems by—” By chumming around with the town tramp in our spare time, by sticking up for her when gossip condemned her….
“Don’t feel bad about that. Mallory wasn’t letting anyone into her life, including me,” Rachel stated carefully. “Let’s just do this.”
The highway leading to the Parker farm passed Scanlon’s Classics, and at night, the big Hummer sat behind the locked gates.
Sally Mae caught Rachel’s stare and said, “Sometimes he comes back, dragging some old clunker on a trailer and looking like hell. I guess he does pretty well on the sales of the restored classics. The buyers are usually upscale-looking
when they stop in town, like guys who don’t want to get their hands dirty, but who want to look cool.”
“Where does he go?” Partying in Las Vegas, gambling, running illegal weapons to foreign countries, supplying drugs?
“No one knows. He just shuts down the business and he’s gone. He buys some kids clothes every once in a while before he takes off. My sister, Ronnie, checks at the discount store and says they’re for a girl. Sometimes it’s a trinket or two, girl-stuff.”
“His next wife probably has children. Or maybe he has his own stashed away from here. It must be tough, spreading himself around between his ex-wives and girlfriends.”
Sally Mae giggled and pulled the dump truck away from the ditch. “That’s harsh, coming from you. Just think, Jada says he’s agreed to be the sperm donor for her baby if she can’t nab someone in four years. You’d be related to Kyle, DNA-wise, I mean.”
“That’s disgusting. And stay on the road, will you?” Jada apparently wasn’t keeping her sperm prospect a secret, and Sally Mae understood Rachel’s ongoing dislike of Kyle.
“Mallory liked him,” Sally Mae teased in a singsong.
“She didn’t always have the best taste.”
At the Parkers’ farm, the women struggled to heap things onto a pile. When it was soaked with gasoline, the women stood silently, holding hands, their minds and hearts filled with Mallory. “Light it, Dorothy,” Rachel whispered.
The pile exploded into flames that crackled and sent blue smoke up into the night sky.
Each woman murmured a tearful goodbye.
Except Rachel. She’d noticed the big wide headlights at the crest of the small hill overlooking the burning. They switched off and she knew Kyle was up there, watching the private ceremony to erase Mallory’s darkness. She was moving up that hill to Kyle before she realized it.
“What are you doing here, Scanlon?” she demanded as she topped the hill.