Sandy Gingras - Lola Polenta 01 - Swamped

by Sandy Gingras

  “Why’d you marry me?” I ask.

  “Maybe we should’ve had kids,” he says. That’s a sore spot. Ed decided he didn’t want to have kids after we got married. He even had a vasectomy without telling me.

  I don’t say anything.

  “Or maybe not,” he says.

  “We had Dreamer,” I say.

  “How is she doing?” he asks.

  “She’s good.”

  “That’s good,” he says, but he doesn’t say it like he means it. “Listen,” he says, “there’s a lot going on right now. Why don’t we just let it go for awhile.”

  “Let it go?” I ask.

  “Looking at these papers… it’s like doing taxes. I don’t want to look at them right now.”

  Mr. Bull is getting in his car. He’s pulling out. “I have to go,” I say. I hesitate for one moment, then I hang up and decide to follow Mr. Bull. Dorothy is still inside watching TV. He drives down three blocks into town and parks. He goes into a place called Aunt Sadie’s. I go in a minute after. It’s a new-ish place, kind of Mexican looking. There are a lot of potted plants hanging from the ceiling.

  Mr. Bull is sitting at the bar watching golf. I sit down one stool away from him and order myself a red wine. He’s drinking a Black and Tan out of a bottle. There are only a couple other people at the bar. I know he’s looking at me as I sit down. Good thing I dressed already to go out to dinner. I’m wearing my black Capri pants and a black no sleeve turtleneck, but I don’t look as bedraggled as I usually do.

  “How ’bout those Yankees,” he says.

  I forgot that I left my Yankee cap on. I take it off. “Is my hair all mushed?”

  “Nope,” he says smiling.

  “These spikes are kind of hard to mush,” I tell him.

  He nods in agreement. His eyes are a sky blue, crinkly around the edges. “You look like a lost boy,” I blurt out. I don’t know why I say that. There’s just this sealed-in look to him that makes me want to shatter his composure. I kind of shrug at him apologetically.

  He looks at me. “I am,” he says. There’s something in his eyes. He’s flirting, but there’s something else there. Something real and sad. He reminds me of Johnny.

  “Are you a lost girl?” he asks me.

  “Maybe,” I say. I reach out my hand, “I’m Denise Schubert.” It’s the first name I can come up with; Denise was my best friend in first grade.

  “Trevor Bull,” he says, shaking it evenly.

  “You ever know anyone who really didn’t want to be married anymore, but didn’t want to be divorced either?” I ask him.

  He laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “You?”

  “Who would’ve thought? But here I am in limbo land.” I look around.

  “Is that what they call this place?” he teases.

  “Could be. What’s with this?” I say. There are spider plants hanging up above our heads. The sprouts are hanging down like little balls on strings. I bat one, and it goes nowhere. “Remember tether ball?” I say.

  “That was a frustrating game,” he says.

  “My husband just called to tell me he got the divorce papers, and he’s decided just to put them on the bottom of his “In” box. Where does that leave me?” I ask him. Sometimes the best way to get people talking about themselves is just to throw yourself into the mix. It’s better to share than to interrogate, I think.

  “Having a drink with me,” he tells me.

  I laugh. “You married?” I ask him.

  “Not really,” he says. “Kind of separated.”

  “Kind of separated,” I say. I do my archy eyebrows thing.

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You still live together?”

  “Yes.”

  “That doesn’t sound too separate.”

  He nods.

  “Separate bedrooms?” I ask.

  “No,” he says.

  “We just don’t touch,” he tells me. The way he says “touch” throws me back to that binocular-view of the way they were in their house together, how they almost had separate pathways in their house (invisible “his” and “hers” tracks on the carpets) and how those pathways didn’t intersect. I feel a little guilty that I’ve seen them not touching. Somehow their avoidance of each other is a kind of intimacy.

  “That sounds lonely.”

  “I like to be alone,” he says. “I’m comfortable being alone. It’s different from being lonely.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says nodding.

  “How long has this been…?” I say.

  “Fourteen years,” he says.

  “No, I don’t mean how long you’ve been married. How long have you been… like this?”

  “Oh, we’ve always been like this,” he says.

  I must look a little stunned, because he explains. “When we got married, I had a duplex. I lived in the apartment downstairs and she lived upstairs with her mother. We never really moved in together. Then her mom died and we moved down here…”

  “And does your wife like to be alone, too?”

  “She never complains,” he says. “We’re like two planets orbiting around the same sun.”

  “So you have some sort of agreement?”

  “Well, not spelled out. No. We just go our own ways.”

  “Meet back at the solar system…,” I say.

  “Right,” he says.

  “What if she didn’t come back one day?” I ask.

  “She likes the solar system too much,” he says. “She likes the idea of the solar system.”

  “And what about you?” I say.

  “I’m not too much of an adventurer,” he says.

  I’ve finished my wine and it’s getting close to 5:30. Plus, although I’m getting some good information, there’s something unbearably depressing about this conversation. I put some bills on the bar.

  “Have dinner with me,” he says turning his bright blue eyes on me. It’s like looking into a really, really deep well. I can’t tell but maybe there’s an alive person way down at the bottom of it. “We can be lonely together,” he says.

  I look at him. Oh God, I think. There’s a part of me that actually wants to say yes to that. Snap out of it, I tell myself. I shake my head at him. “I’ve done that,” I tell him, then leave.

  I swing by the Bull residence on my way back to Alligator Estates. I’m going to be late to pick up Joe, but I want to see what’s happening. Dorothy is still sitting in front of the TV eating. I don’t like the way she dabs her napkin to her lips.

  Dorothy picks up her cell phone. I watch her speed dial someone. I wonder if she’s talking to Mr. Drainage about how alone she is. I bet she isn’t mentioning how secure she is in her aloneness.

  The street is smooth and winding in a kind of manufactured way. It’s a pleasure to accelerate down it and get away.

  Chapter 36

  Joe, Dreamer and I pull into the crushed shell parking lot of the No Wake Cafe. It’s right on a wide body of water that looks more like a bay than a river. I get out of the car and the air smells like salt. A seagull circles overhead. I take a deep breath. I love that smell.

  Joe says, “It’s nice here. Edna and I came here a couple times for breakfast.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you’d been here with Edna.”

  “It’s okay,” he tells me. “I like the memories. I was ready to come back.”

  “How do you do that? I mean, live with the memories?” I ask him.

  He looks at me. “Sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s comforting.”

  “Six years ago, when I was engaged, and I got left at the altar by Johnny, I didn’t feel like I could live past it. So, I don’t ever allow myself to think about him. I can’t. If I do think of him, I imagine him in a tux standing in a doorway walking into my life like nothing ever happened. It’s too confusing for my heart.” My voice kind of clutches. “Why is he calling me now?”

  “Do you know where he is?”

/>   “Last I heard from a mutual friend, he was hiking Pike’s Peak. That’s was years ago. It was kind of a dream of his. Nobody tells me anything about him anymore, and I don’t ask.”

  “He never walked back into your life before now, never contacted you?”

  I shake my head. I think of the way he used to clump around in his hiking boots.

  “But you keep waiting for that?”

  “No, I got married,” I explain. “I stopped waiting a long time ago.”

  “Oh,” Joe says, “I see. What if he walks back in now?”

  I shake my head.

  “There’s a difference,” Joe says, “between loving someone and loving the idea of someone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some people don’t want the reality of love. They can’t deal with the risk of it. They prefer to stay in the abstract. They get stuck being dreamers.”

  Dreamer’s ears perk up when she hears her name.

  “Are you talking about Johnny, or are you talking about me?”

  He looks at me carefully, then he shrugs.

  We walk Dreamer around the parking lot. She carries a shell in her mouth. The water is moving fast and sloshing around the pilings. “There’s a good fishing pier right there,” Joe points to the next lot. There’s a bait shop and a wide dock with a railing where several people are casting. “This area is full of fish because the fresh water of the river is mixing with the salt from the Gulf.”

  “How far away is the Gulf?” I ask him.

  “It’s right there,” he points down the river where the horizon opens up. “You haven’t been there yet?”

  “Is there a beach?”

  He laughs. “Some of the most beautiful beaches around…”

  “I’ve been busy,” I tell him.

  “You need to get out of the swamp more,” he tells me smiling.

  Tweenie waves at us from the door. “Come in,” she yells.

  “Let me put the dog in the car,” I wave back.

  “Bring her,” she tells me. Dreamer trots along happily. “Welcome,” Tweenie tells Joe and shakes his hand.

  The cafe is like a cheerful old-style diner. The floor is shiny red and white tiles. There are red speckled Formica tables against a wall of windows overlooking the water, and a long white Formica counter with red swivel stools on the other wall. The view is everywhere. It’s reflected lengthwise in the chrome behind the counter and in slices in the chrome napkin containers. It’s ghostly in the glass cases where the cakes are revolving. The diner is half full of people and the music is sha-na-na-iing in the background. “This is great,” I tell Tweenie. She’s got a jadeite green uniform on today and she looks just peachy.

  I hold up two bottles of wine, a white and a red. “What goes with pancakes?” I ask her.

  “I think Paulie wants you to sample everything on the menu. He’s so excited that you’re here,” she says hugging me.

  “He’s happy, isn’t he?” I ask her.

  “We are,” she says. It’s not really a correction, the way she says it, it’s got more wonder in it than that. It’s got more how-did-this-happen-to-me happiness in it. I smile. I envy them. I’ve never really had that. She takes my arm and leads us in.

  Joe and I sit at the counter. Paulie comes out of the kitchen every twenty minutes to bring us something else to eat. “Breakfast, I’m right here,” he indicates the grill behind the counter. “Six to twelve. That’s my favorite time. But I’m learning the dinner routine too.”

  “’We’ll come for breakfast next time,” I tell him. “I’ll bring Mom.”

  “I’ll come too,” Joe says. His ears are pink.

  “How much wine have you had?” I ask him.

  “The pancakes soak it up,” he tells me.

  “The pancakes, my eye,” I tell him.

  When the sun sets, the lights along the pilings and on the fishing pier come on and shimmer along the edge of the water.

  Just as we’re about to leave, Detective Johansen walks in the door with his daughter.

  “Hi Juliet,” I say. “They’re closing,” I tell the detective.

  Tweenie slaps my shoulder. “We are not.”

  “I’m not here to eat,” he says, “Your father told me you were here.”

  Paulie comes out of the kitchen. “Dave,” he says and shakes the detective’s hand. “Let me make you up something.”

  “No, thanks, Paulie. I’m on my way home.”

  “Something to go then, for you and your daughter. I know how you like my French toast, Juliet.” Juliet kicks her toe on the floor.

  “That would be great, Paulie. It’s been a long day.”

  My uncle nods. He’s got an apron on with a floppy bow over his butt. I smile watching him walk away.

  “Sir.” The detective nods at Joe.

  Joe pours the detective a little OJ glass of wine. He gives Juliet a glass and Tweenie pours her some juice. Juliet twirls around and around on the stool. I can tell she’s kind of listening.

  Dave Johansen says, “Thank you.” He sits down on the swivel stool next to Juliet. He seems so big next to her. He spins a little and I get a whiff of his aftershave. We clunk little wine glasses. Our fingers bump together.

  “I found out who planted the golf clubs,” he tells us.

  “Who?” Joe asks, leaning forward eagerly.

  “The clubs belong to Gladys and Susie. The clubs had their prints all over them.”

  The detective shakes his head, “I questioned them. They had no idea that their clubs were even gone. They had both gotten new sets of clubs this Christmas. The old clubs were stored in their old bags in their sheds—both sets were missing the two old putters. They were both bewildered by the whole thing.” He stops to sip his wine.

  “Were their sheds locked?” Joe asks.

  “No. Their washer/dryers are in there and their golf carts. They say they only lock up at night when the golf cart is re-charging.”

  “So, anyone could have taken them,” Joe says.

  “Not anyone,” the detective says. “Their husbands.”

  “Dick?” I say.

  “And Richie?” Joe says.

  “I got them in a room together, just the two guys. I told them I was going to have to bring their wives in for questioning in the murder inquiry because I believed they planted the golf clubs to scare you two off their trail.

  “The husbands’ jaws dropped. The littler one kept looking at the big one, nudging him with his eyes. He asked me if they could speak together alone. I told them no. So, finally the little one said, ‘Dick, we can’t let the girls go to jail.’ The girls—that’s what they call their wives.

  “Finally, the big one caved in and said, ‘It was just a joke.’ They just grabbed their wives’ old putters to play a joke on you two. They remembered to wear gloves, but they didn’t remember to wipe their wives prints off the clubs,” Dave Johansen says.

  I say, “What’s with the cowboy hat on Dick. Is he from Texas?”

  “They do line dancing at the clubhouse on Rodeo Night. They dress up,” Joe says.

  I look at him.

  “It’s fun,” he tells me. “You should come.” He includes Detective Johansen in his invitation. We both ignore him. Juliet pipes up, “That’s bogus.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Line dancing sucks. All country music sucks.”

  “What kind of music do you like?” I ask her.

  “Rap,” she says. “Reggae.” Then she spins her stool back and forth and makes her hair swing.

  “How are your dreads coming along?” I ask her.

  She twirls her hair around her finger thoughtfully and stares at me.

  “They don’t like you, Lola.” Dave Johansen interrupts me. “Especially the big guy. He did your trailer, Lola. Unscrewed the bulb, went right up to the door to lean the putter. Bold. He wanted to really scare you. But, you,” he looks at Joe, “I think, were just an afterthought. Richie did your trailer. He didn’t have the ne
rve to go up the steps or unscrew the light. He just left the putter leaning against the deck.”

  “I didn’t even find it till the next morning when I was watering the plants,” Joe says. “I couldn’t even figure it out at first. I thought someone had lost it. It wasn’t threatening like yours.” He looks at me.

  “So, they murdered Ernie?” I ask.

  Dave Johansen shrugs. “I don’t have any evidence of that. I think they didn’t appreciate you nosing around. I think they have something to hide. I don’t know if it’s murder though.”

  Paulie’s standing next to Tweenie with two takeout containers in a bag. “Do they alibi each other for the murder?” he asks the detective.

  “Sure,” he says. “They were all together.”

  “It’s hard for four people to keep a secret well,” Paulie says. “One of them is the weak link.”

  “I’ll talk to them all separately,” Dave Johansen says.

  “They aren’t going to talk to you,” I tell him. “You’re like a wall.”

  His face goes blank for a moment, like I’ve slapped him. He puts a twenty on the counter and gets up slowly. He pats Paulie on the back and takes his bag. “Good night then,” he says.

  “Wait,” I say catching up with him at the door. “I just meant, let me talk to the women at least. I have a stake in all of this. I’m the one that got threatened.”

  “You can talk to whomever you please. It’s a free country,” he tells me.

  Juliet stares at me. “Daddy, let’s GO,” she insists.

  We’re standing at the door looking out at the lights of the parking lot, the lights shining on the water. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I had too many juice glasses of wine.”

  “I used to be different,” he says.

  “Join the crowd,” I say. Although it’s just the three of us standing there.

  Chapter 37

  First thing in the morning, there’s a jaunty knock on my door: Doopdedoopdoop, doop, doop. By the time I get off my cot and go over to the door, it happens again. Miss Tilney’s got her hands cupped peering in. “About time,” she snaps at me as I open up. She stomps in. “Got any coffee?”

  “Not yet. Come in,” I say, although she’s already plopped down in my cardboard chair.

  “What, you don’t believe in furniture?” she says looking around.