He pulled me close and chuckled. I could feel his chest rise and fall with his laughter. I was too scared to get mad.
“Woman, you were never lost. We're about two hundred yards away from camp.” He pointed. “That way.”
“I-I-I'm scared of-of places like this … open, wild p-places,” I stuttered out, tears streaming down my face.
Jess chuckled again. If I'd been in my kitchen at the diner, I'd have thrown a steak or a wooden spoon or something at him for laughing at me. But I was so glad that he was here, I could put up with a few chuckles at my expense.
“Montana ain't the place to be agoraphobic,” he said, laughing.
“A-a-gora …”
“Agoraphobic,” Jess repeated, gently wiping the tears from my cheek. Stroking my hair. “It means that you're afraid of being in open places.”
“Oh.” I was still shaking a little, but I wasn't stuttering anymore. I liked having my cheek stroked, my hair touched by a gentle hand. “Guess I'd better get over it. It's just that … that I ain't never been nowhere like this before. This big place, all this open space. I always lived in small, tight places, with walls you could see.” I shivered a little. Jess's arm tightened around my shoulders.
“We all got demons riding us, Miss Juanita. You get over 'em or not. And you're either in a good or bad place to get over yours.” Jess reached up to touch my twists again, then looked at me, blushed a little, and grabbed my arm instead. “Come on, let's get back. Mary's looking for an idiot to help her cook breakfast for fifty people.” He grinned slyly. “That's why I'm here. She told me to come and get you.”
I didn't have a trout or a wooden spoon, so I pulled my head scarf off and swatted at him with it.
Chapter Twelve
When Jess told me that we all have demons riding us at one time or other in our lives, I thought he was talking about me. Trying to help me get over being scared of the plains and the forest and things. But he was really talking about himself. I didn't know it then but he had a demon sitting on his shoulders, too. And Jess's demon was taller than a high-rise, wider than the Mississippi River, and deeper than the blue sea. His demon was slippery as a piece of cooked spaghetti, meaner than a black snake and twice as vicious. I stumbled over that demon with both feet. And it got angry with me, reared its ugly head, and tried to bite me. But I didn't let it kick my ass.
And it all started with Inez's pecan pie.
It's one of the few things in this world that I can't make. My sister Kay makes a delicious one, but every time I try, I end up with brown goo in a pie shell that looks like toxic waste and nobody will eat it.
But I love pecan pie.
And Millie's housekeeper, Inez, makes a great one. So after dinner on Thursday, I had two, good-sized pieces. With whipped cream on top. And chocolate shavings. And served with a dessert wine.
I had gas and a stomachache all night. Popped Tums like they were candy. Finally fell asleep at three-thirty. Had the alarm set for five so I could open the diner, but I overslept until six-thirty. I threw myself together in ten minutes and ran over to the diner, only to get tackled by Dracula when I opened the door.
I gave him his Dog Chow with a spoonful of Pedigree on top. He tackled me again and tried to lick my neck. I swatted him away. My stomach quivered.
“Dracula, honey,” I pushed him away. “Today, I just ain't in the mood.”
Abel and the boys were sitting on the front porch, grumbling and wondering where I was at and what was taking me so long.
I barely got a chance at eight-thirty to take an Alka-Seltzer before a tour bus called up asking could they stop for breakfast. With fifty-three people.
From nine on it was nonstop through lunch. It didn't let up until almost two, and I was dead by then. Couldn't wait to get off my feet and onto the couch in Millie's back parlor, where I could nurse my gassy stomach with some chamomile tea.
That was when Mary told me it was “E-Day.”
Let me back up a bit. First, she told me I'd have to work for Jess that night. Spend eight more hours in front of a stove. On my feet. Cooking those unpronounceable dishes Jess created for dinner.
“No, and not just no. Hell no. My stomach won't let me,” I growled at Mary. I was a real bitch that day.
“Please, Juanita. At least you can cook the venison steaks. I'll make the sauce. I'm desperate!” Mary pleaded with me.
“And I'm sick, Mary, and tired. Besides, where is Wonder Chef, anyway? Why isn't he coming in today? Is he sick?”
“No, he's drunk,” Mignon said matter-of-factly as she flew past with a tray filled with apple and rhubarb pie and ice cream sundaes.
“Drunk?” I didn't believe it. I'd never even seen Jess sip a beer.
“Mignon!” Mary chided her daughter, her cheeks coloring.
“It's E-Day,” Mignon continued, her voice flat with disgust. “He always gets drunk on E-Day.”
“E-Day?” Now I was confused. “Is that like D-Day?”
Mary chuckled bitterly.
“Not exactly.” She pointed toward the hearth where Jess's Vietnam memorabilia was on display. “E is for Eddie. Eddie Rice was Jess's best friend in the army. In Vietnam, Eddie told Jess to get behind him when they crossed a marsh near Da Nang. He stepped on a mine. If Eddie hadn't been there … Jess would be dead, too.”
“But Jess blames himself for not going first,” Mignon commented, dryly. “Blames himself for not dying, too.”
Mary looked at her daughter with an evil eye but didn't say anything.
“So at regular intervals, Uncle Jess gets plastered. As punishment, I guess. For not dying.” Mignon shook her head, her braids flying back and forth. “Don't ask me to explain it, I don't really get it, anyway.”
“Sounds to me like you're doing fine,” Mary snapped. Mignon shrugged her shoulders, and disappeared into the back.
“Regular intervals?” I tried to think. Jess had been here practically every day for the past three months. And he'd never been drunk as far as I remembered. Not even tipsy. “What's a regular interval?”
Mary shrugged.
“Well, before you came, it was once or twice a month, and definitely on Veterans Day, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, and Eddie Rice's birthday. You came before the Fourth, and Jess was OK …” She frowned as she arranged silverware on a tray and sighed. “I guess he's making up for missing a day.”
I looked at the picture of Jess and Eddie Rice. Saw the way they grinned into the camera. Noticed the pride in their tired young faces. The strength in their dark eyes. I thought about my brother, Jerome. God, they were just babies.
Then my stomach grumbled.
Now, normally, whenever anybody talks about Vietnam, I get sad and thoughtful. I get real sympathetic. My brother went over there tall and strong, not happy about going, but determined to do a good job. And come home. He came back in a flag-draped coffin. Jerome left a wife and a little baby. Lots of my brother's friends served there, too, so I have strong memories of that time and of that place, even though I've never been there myself.
But that's normally.
Today, I had a stomachache, a headache, and was getting my period. I was tired. And evil. And the thought of spending eight more hours on my feet covering for Jess, who was home drunk—regardless of the reason—was not my idea of fun.
I pulled my apron off, threw it down, and headed for the door.
Mary and Mignon stared at me.
“Where are you going?”
“Going to get Jess. I'll be damned if I'm working tonight, too!”
I heard some heavy breathing behind me. I looked over my shoulder. Dracula was there looking at me hopefully.
I pointed in the opposite direction.
“Beat it.”
I marched down the steps of the diner and let the door slam behind me. Stalked out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Waved to one of Carl's friends who
was driving down the mountain on a motorcycle, and waved at the girl who works in the carry-out at the gas station. As I walked along the highway, I noticed a few more trucks than usual, and was glad that I'd defrosted those extra steaks this morning. Hoped that Mary would remember to stir the chili from the bottom.
Arcadia Lake Road winds its way past the diner and around the lake. It also meanders up the mountain to Kaylin's Ridge, and that was just where I was headed. The higher I climbed, the cooler and lighter the air became. The cooler and lighter the air was, the better I felt.
The road dead-ends at the top of the ridge. I swatted at the decrepit mailbox half standing, half leaning next to an old maple tree. You could hardly see the name: “J. Gar-diner.” I turned down the gravel road that led to Jess's place.
There was sunlight here and there, peeking through the trees. The forest surrounded me with cool, greenness, and sweet smells that soothed my sore stomach. The gravel crunched under my feet, the sounds sending little furry creatures that I could not see, but could hear, scampering off into the darkness. I smiled. This place reminded me of the enchanted forest where Dorothy met the Cowardly Lion. The road was steep and muddy in some places, but not too tough to climb. When I reached the crest of the ridge, I stopped to catch my breath. And to see.
Down below me was Arcadia Lake, blue-green and beautiful, like a precious stone, sparkling in the sunlight, with the lake road winding around it like a silk ribbon. I saw the roof of the diner and watched as a red car turned into the parking lot. A convoy of four semis turned in behind it. A twig snapped and I looked to my left. A doe passed through the trees below me on the ridge. She stopped and looked around. I held my breath. She seemed to look at me for a moment, then decided that I wasn't worth more attention, and strolled away. I chuckled to myself.
Jess's cabin looks like something from the old days: rough and rustic, made completely out of logs. Just like Lincoln Logs, everything was dark brown but the door, which was painted bright green. The shades were drawn, and the curtains had been pulled closed. I listened for a second. There was no sound at all besides the sound of the forest around me. The peace sounded beautiful. I sighed, and balled my hands up into two fists. Knocked on that door like the big bad wolf.
At first, I didn't hear anything. Then I knocked again. Harder. Louder. And started yelling out Jess's name, too.
“Who the hell is it?”
“It's Juanita. Open the door!”
“No!”
“Open the door, Jess!”
“Fuck you!”
“In your dreams!”
“Go away!” came a rough, evil voice from inside.
“No,” came my rough, evil voice from outside.
“Go away, damn you!”
“Don't you curse at me, asshole!” I pounded on the door even harder. My knuckles were getting sore. “Now open this door!” “Shit!” came a loud hiss from inside. The door opened. Jess looked out at me with two very black, very bloodshot, and very mean-looking eyes. “All right. The door's open. Now what do you want?” “I want to know when you're coming to work today. I want to tell you that I ain't covering for your sorry ass just because you decided it was a holiday and got tore up. That's what the hell I want.”
“Go 'way, J'nita.” He pushed the door toward me, but I stopped it with my hand.
“If you think I'm gonna cover for your tired behind tonight, you're making a royal mistake. I've worked my shift. I've got gas and a stomachache” (although both were miraculously gone now) “and I don't feel like working eight more hours while you sit up here like the hermit on the hill and feel sorry for yourself.”
“Go 'way, 'Nita. Mary will take care o' things.”
“Yeah, well, I've a good mind to tell her to go home. It's not fair to her either.” I studied him for a second. “And it's Juanita to you.”
You never saw a sorrier creation. His hair was damp and stringy, his face long and drawn, and his clothes were wrinkled up and stained.
And he stank to high heaven.
“You look like a tale from the crypt.”
“Look, this doesn't kasern you. I'll talk to Mary,” Jess said evilly, narrowing his eyes, and moving to close the door in my face again.
“Yeah, it does,” I snapped back, pushing the door open. “ 'Cause you on my time now.”
Jess looked at me again. Tried to narrow one eye, and got dizzy. Almost fell down.
“What you mean, your time?”
“Whose time did you think it was? You think every month or so, it's OK to get drunk out of your mind, have an out-of-body experience … and leave all the dirty work and the worry on Mary? Well, that shit may have worked a few months ago, but now you dealing with me. And I ain't taking up your slack, Jess Gardiner. Especially not today.”
“Oh? What's so special 'bout t'day?” Jess growled, trying to keep his balance.
“I got cramps.”
He groaned and looked like he was going to throw up.
I grinned. Men get queasy when you start talking about periods and cramps and things. I love it.
He leaned against the doorjamb and closed his eyes. I've been drunk before, I know what it's like. I knew he was trying to get the room to stop spinning and his stomach to settle down. At first I thought he was going to pass out, 'cause his face went pale on me, but then he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. They were filled with tears. Then he gave me a look that could break a heart of concrete.
“You don't know how it was, Juanita,” he choked out.
“No, baby, I don't. I can only imagine,” I whispered. Wanting to cry myself. Wanting to stroke his hair, and squeeze his shoulder. “I know it was hot and wet there … and dangerous. I know you spent twenty-four out of twenty-four hours a day scared shitless, and wondering if you'd ever see the plains of Montana again. I know …”
A line from one of my brother Jerome's last letters to my momma jumped into my head. I was only fifteen when he wrote it, and too young then to understand what he meant. But I understood now.
Jerome had written:
“Momma, sometimes I have to see things, do things I don't want to see, don't want to do. I got to follow orders. I got to do what the man say. Awful things I can't talk about. But Momma, I think God he make me burn in hell for this. And I don't sleep too good thinking about that. Dream about all the things I done. I don't want to go to hell, Momma. So I split myself in two parts, that part that do things and see things no person should, and the other part that just scared to death and don't see nothing, don't remember nothing, and trying to live long enough to come home. The part that can forget.”
“Only problem is you can't forget,” Jess whispered. “No matter how many parts there are, none of them can forget.”
Jess just stared at something in front of me. The strength of his memory was so strong that I could see it and smell the damp southeast Asian jungle, the acrid napalm, and the peppery stench of gunpowder. I saw past the curtain of the deep foliage of the rain forest into a marsh filled with mines.
“Every night when I sleep, I see him. I see Eddie walking in front of me. Pushing me back with one strong arm. Motioning for me to be silent. And then moving forward maybe fifteen, twenty feet and then … he's gone.” He stared into space and I knew that he was watching Eddie die again. “No screams. No crying. Just gone.”
I closed my eyes.
Just gone.
“Maybe you need to quit trying,” I said.
“Quit trying what?”
“Quit trying to forget.”
“I got to forget or I can't sleep, I can't eat …”
“Who says you got to forget? Maybe that's what's wrong. Maybe that's what was tearing my brother apart. Maybe that's what's tearing you apart. Half of you is trying to remember. And half of you is trying to forget. And they're fighting each other. Just like in the war. Don't worry ‘bout gettin’ over it, you just have to ge
t on with it.”
His head was down and a ray of sunlight sneaked through a crack in the blinds, and made the silver in his hair sparkle like new snow in the sun. It was so pretty I reached out and stroked it gently. Jess looked up at me with the strangest look on his face. I pulled my hand back quick.
“Maybe you need to quit trying to fight yourself, Jess. Quit trying to forget about Vietnam, and everything you saw and … and did. And Eddie.” Was I saying this right? I knew what I meant, but was I telling him what I felt in my heart? “Maybe you just need to let yourself remember.
And let it go.” His eyes flooded over. And mine did, too. “Maybe it's OK to remember. No matter how awful it was.”
I stopped then. I didn't know what else to say. I didn't know if what I had said was the right thing or not. I just looked at Jess. And he looked at me. Then he reached up and stroked my hair, the coils on the side, where I got some gray that Kay didn't color yet. And he smiled a little. A small, sick-looking but sweet crooked little smile. And he said, “Wait for me. I'll be right back.”
I waited. Got a tissue and dabbed my eyes and blew my nose. And watched the hawks fly.
When Jess came out of the bathroom, he was cleaner than the board of health, but his face looked like something an old cat had been dragging around for a few weeks. Actually, he looked green. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.
He followed me out of the cabin without hardly saying anything, then locked the door. I walked to the end of the porch and looked out over the ravine and down the mountain to where the lake glistened in the sunlight. Beautiful.
“Juanita? Juanita?”
I turned to look at Jess.
“What?”
He was frowning at me. Looking out into the driveway where his truck sat by itself.
“How did you get up here? Did Mignon drive you?”
“No, she has class today. I …”
I stopped. And looked around. I was surrounded by trees and woods, by little furry animals and big furry animals, by eagles and butterflies, by huge pine trees. I was deep in a Montana forest, up on a small mountain ridge. I had walked here.
Dancing on the Edge of the Roof Page 14