“No,” she had answered irritably, shoving his hands away. “It’s nothin’.”
She wanted to escape, to leave her worries behind, and she did it that night, laughing with Linda, flirting and dancing with strangers, and ultimately, kissing a burly guy with sideburns who looked like an overweight Burt Reynolds.
She and Linda downed so many shots that they were way past tipsy and couldn’t drive themselves home. The guy Connie had kissed at the bar—she still couldn’t remember his name (Kurt? Kenny? Something with a K)—had offered to give them a ride. He had dropped off Linda first because her house was closest to the bar.
“Get her home safe, you hear me?” Linda slurred before stumbling out of the pickup to her porch steps.
When he reached Connie’s house, she threw open the truck’s door and paused as the truck sat idle a few feet from her driveway. She slowly turned to him.
“You wanna come in?” she asked, blurting out the words before she had a chance to take them back.
He eagerly nodded, like he had been waiting the entire drive for her to ask. She noticed then that two of his teeth were missing—one of his canines and a molar on the other side. In the truck compartment’s overhead light, she noticed that his gray hair was a little greasy and dotted with flakes of dandruff. She shifted her gaze and saw that he had sweat stains underneath the armpits of his gray t-shirt. An acrid mix of alcohol, perspiration, and dirt rose off of his skin.
Connie smiled in return.
Yes, this was definitely a man she was good enough for. This was a man she wouldn’t disappoint.
She inclined her head and hooked her finger, beckoning him to follow her. Within twenty minutes, they were in bed together.
The next morning, Connie made her tear-filled confession to Bill. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, she explained. She hadn’t wanted to disappoint herself by being everything that she suspected she always was: a middle-aged, low-class, drunken whore. But he had forgiven her. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the tears or her begging, or maybe it was because he had loved her that much, but he forgave her. He just didn’t forget.
She realized this when he never again brought up them getting married and when he started wearing condoms—something he hadn’t done the entire time they had dated.
“They say everyone should wear them . . . no matter what the age,” he had whispered before ripping open the foil packet with his teeth.
She saw it in the lingering looks he gave her and heard it in his loaded questions. “What did you and the girls get up to last night?” or “You know Danny well, do you?”
From that point on, Connie had decided that her goal for the rest of her life or his, with him being so much older than she was, was to help Bill eventually move on and forget what she had done. She’d be the perfect girlfriend—sweet and accommodating. She’d be the ideal mother to Yvette. Stepford wives would have nothing on her! But now she would never have that chance. Now he was gone.
* * *
Connie finally turned away from the store window and the last boxes she would load in her truck for the fashion show tomorrow, though, honestly, her heart wasn’t in it anymore. What did she care about coordinating cowboy hats with dresses and preparing the right accessories when the man she loved was dead?
She slowly walked across the shop toward the stockroom. When she entered, a thin shaft of light illuminated the space. It came from her office, a glorified walk-in closet adjacent to the stockroom that contained a small metal desk, rolling chair, computer, inkjet printer, and water cooler. Janelle had taken over Connie’s tiny office for the past three hours and had been printing and scanning documents. Connie could hear the printer’s metallic hiccupping even on the shop floor.
Connie didn’t understand how the young woman could think let alone work after hearing the news they had heard today, but she suspected it was Janelle’s coping mechanism. She buried herself under work and to-do lists—like Connie had buried herself under alcohol and men in the old days. But it was time that they both took a break and ate something, in Connie’s opinion. She had two spare microwave dinners in the fridge with their names on them.
She raised her hand to knock on the cracked open door but paused when she heard Janelle’s voice.
“Yes, I’m okay,” Janelle murmured with a heavy sigh. She sat in Connie’s chair with her head in one hand and the other holding her cell against her ear. The desktop screensaver flickered behind her. “Really, I am. Thank you for calling again and checking up on me.” Her voice grew warmer. “I know how busy you are now.”
Connie cocked an eyebrow. So Janelle had made up with her boyfriend? He had broken out of his busy schedule to give her a call?
He’s lucky she’s willing to forgive him, Connie thought. But she figured she wasn’t one to talk about forgiveness.
“On one hand, I’m glad the trackers finally found something, but on the other hand I’m still hoping it isn’t Pops,” Janelle continued.
Poor girl. She’s so in denial. Connie shook her head.
“Yes, I know . . . I know . . . I’ll hope for the best . . . Yes, that’s all I can do.” She raised her head. “Oh, please! You don’t have to apologize for not being able to come over. I told you. I know you’re busy.” She laughed softly. “Yes, I’ll give you a rain check. The chicken cutlets will be waiting in the fridge. They aren’t going anywhere.”
Connie frowned. Chicken cutlets?
“Of course . . . Of course,” Janelle said again. “Don’t worry about it . . . Just keep me updated . . . Okay, talk to you later. Bye, Sam.”
She then lowered the phone from her ear and set it on the office desk.
Sam? She was talking to Sam?
Connie shoved the door open, and Janelle looked up at her.
“Oh, hey, Connie!” The young woman glanced at the pile of papers on the desk. “I’m almost done here. I’ll be out of your way in ten minutes or so. I just need to send this—”
“What’s going on between you and Sam?” Connie asked, cutting straight to the point with a razor sharpness that surprised even her.
“Huh?”
“What is going on between you and Sam Adler?” she repeated more slowly, feeling her annoyance morph into anger.
Connie didn’t know why she was angry. Less than a week ago, she and Yvette had practically been trying to marry Janelle off to Sam. But, of course, that was before she knew the type of man Sam really was.
A disappointment.
A coward.
“What do you mean, what’s going on between me and Sam?” She laughed anxiously. “Nothing is going on between us! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a bad liar. I heard you talking to him on the phone.” She pointed at Janelle’s cell. “It didn’t sound like nothing to me.”
Janelle’s jaw tightened. “You were eavesdropping?”
“I wasn’t ‘eavesdropping.’ I was coming back here to—”
“Yes, you were!” She shot to her feet. “You were standing behind the door, listening to my phone conversation, which is . . . is completely inappropriate! Do you realize that? You know, if I knew you would do something like that, I wouldn’t have taken a call here. I wouldn’t have used your office at all!”
Connie narrowed her eyes at her, taking in Janelle’s defensive stance, her blustering, and her outrage. Yeah, something was going on between her and Sam. A cheater knew another cheater, and Janelle had guilt written all over her.
“Have you told your boyfriend?” Connie persisted.
“Told him about what?”
“About Sam.”
“No!” Janelle said indignantly. “And I don’t need to. I told you, there’s nothing to tell! We’re just . . . just friends!”
“Friends?”
“Yes, friends. I mean . . . I’ve . . . I’ve had him over for dinner, and we’ve talked a few times.”
Connie’s brows rose almost to her hairline. “You had him over for dinner?”
“That’s what they all say. It always starts out like that, and then it turns into something more. You’ll end up doing something you’ll regret later,” Connie warned, trying her best to blot out the memory of her own transgressions. But she couldn’t let go of the vision of Kurt/Kenny looming over her, leering down at her. “It’s best to be up front about these things. If you’re starting to have doubts about what you and Mark have going on ...”
Janelle opened her mouth to argue again, but Connie quickly held up a hand.
“I’m not saying that you are! I’m just saying if. If you have doubts, just be honest with him. I don’t know your boyfriend, but any man or woman deserves that . . . for someone to be honest. That’s the least they deserve.”
Janelle fell silent. She gradually lowered herself back into her chair. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
Connie leaned against the door frame. “I told you before, I don’t always make the best decisions.”
“No, you said you didn’t make good decisions before you got with Pops.”
“Before—and after,” she clarified in a barely audible voice.
Janelle opened her mouth, then closed it. She shook her head. “Never mind.”
“No, go ahead. Say whatever you’ve gotta say.”
“Why . . . why didn’t you and Pops get married?”
Connie stared at the younger woman in surprise. “Who told you we got engaged?”
“No one. I saw the marriage license in Pops’s bedroom. I saw that it wasn’t signed.”
Connie sucked her teeth and pushed herself away from the door frame. “Why the hell did he hang on to that?”
“Maybe he was hoping that one day you guys would finally get married.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Why?”
“Because your grandfather forgave me, but he will never forget what I did. I know he won’t.”
“Did you cheat on him?” Janelle blurted out, then immediately looked like she wanted to suck the words back in.
Connie’s face remained impassive. “I’d rather not go into the dirty details, if you don’t mind. It’s not exactly something that I’m proud of.”
Janelle grimaced. “Yes, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I disappointed your grandfather. I told him what I’d done, and it broke his heart. And I will live with that for the rest of my life.” She took a deep breath, making her shoulders rise, then fall. “You’re a smart girl. Learn from my mistakes. Don’t do the same thing I did.”
“I told you. Nothing is going on, Connie. Sam and I are just friends. Just . . . friends. Okay?”
You’re lying to yourself, honey, Connie thought. But she could see that any further argument was a waste of time and effort. She could see from the look in the younger woman’s eyes and the firm set of her jaw that she wasn’t going to listen to any warnings Connie offered.
I wouldn’t listen to me, either, she thought forlornly before turning back toward the stockroom.
“Come on,” she muttered. “Let’s eat.”
PART III
“What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is a human virtue, this is a human madness.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche
CHAPTER 20
Sunday, April 27
Somewhere
It was a tense allegiance between Little Bill and The Mutt. Little Bill still didn’t have much affinity for dogs, especially this dog—the one lying at the foot of the bed with his paw draped over Bill’s ankle. After all, the dog had almost killed him by aimlessly wandering in front of his truck on a dark road. He never would have had that accident if he hadn’t swung his wheel to avoid hitting the dog. But it wasn’t The Mutt’s fault that he was a stray who hadn’t been taught to run when he saw headlights coming toward him.
The Mutt, which is the title Bill had given the dog since he couldn’t think of another name that was more appropriate, seemed to like Bill, too. Bill didn’t coo to The Mutt and rub his back and tummy like the blond woman, Snow, did, but he’d sneak The Mutt yummy human food when she wasn’t looking. She kept trying to get The Mutt to eat some vegan dog food that tasted like tree bark. It made The Mutt suspicious of her. No sane human would think a dog wanted to eat that crap.
Bill and The Mutt also were united in their joint hatred of the fat Persian cat, Mikey. The Mutt hated Mikey because . . . well, because Mikey was a cat, and that’s how dogs usually felt about cats. Bill hated Mikey because the cat seemed to act like a prison guard, keeping stern watch over his captives from where he sat in front of the bedroom door. Every time Bill shifted or rose from the dirty mattress in the bedroom at the back of the trailer, the cat would climb to its feet and arch its back. Mikey’s tail would stick straight up it the air like a gray feather duster and he would let out this horrible yawl and hiss that sounded like bacon on a skillet. When Bill lay back down, the cat would lower its haunches, purr, and fall back to the floor in a great furry heap.
If Bill could find a way to get around the cat, he was sure he was halfway to freedom.
“Sic him, boy,” Little Bill whispered fiercely to The Mutt. “Bite that kitty.”
But The Mutt only glanced at him indifferently, then continued to stare at the wall in front of him.
“And how is the patient doing today?” Snow asked while walking into the bedroom, holding a tray covered with crackers, a glass pot filled with herbal tea, and a chipped coffee cup. She set the tray on the stack of newspapers beside the bed and smiled as she pushed up the billowing sleeves of her teal kimono, which looked frayed and old.
“I’d be fine if y’all would just let me go home,” Bill muttered as she poured tea into a mug.
She paused midway in handing it to him. “You’re free to go home any time you like, Bill—as soon as you’re well enough to do it.”
“That’s what she always says,” Mabel mumbled petulantly in his head. “But why do they get to decide what’s ‘well enough’?”
He wondered that, too. They acted like he was a guest, but he felt like a prisoner.
Bill yanked the mug out of her hands and took a sip. He had refused to drink the tea the first few days she offered it to him, worried that it was laced with some drug that would make him enervated. He finally broke down and realized it was plain old green tea. Though he still preferred coffee, he was starting to acquire a taste for the stuff.
“Who died and made you Nurse Ratched?” he snapped.
She stood ramrod straight. Her skinny body went rigid, and her smile disappeared as she glared at him. “I am not Nurse Ratched. That woman was horrible! She was definitely out of tune with her chi. She could have benefited from meditation and deep cleansing. I’m a kind and giving spirit, Bill. I’m only trying to help!”
He rolled his eyes and grumbled. Bill reluctantly had to give her and Doc their due. Whatever holistic mumbo jumbo they had performed on him, it had worked. His back no longer felt like someone had taken Thor’s hammer to it, and he was slowly regaining his strength thanks to the short walks he took in the front yard while leaning against Doc’s side. But now that he was walking and relatively healed, he didn’t understand why they couldn’t just give him a ride back to his cabin. Why was he still here?
“When you do something bad, you have to make amends,” she continued, setting the plate of crackers on the stack of newspapers. “That’s how the universe works. You get back what you give and—”
“What do you mean, ‘when you do something bad’? What did you do?”
She paused and swallowed loudly. “Well, I . . . I didn’t do it. Doc did it, b-but he and I are soul mates, and the path he takes, I take with him.”
Bill wrinkled his nose. “What?”
“He didn’t mean to hit you!” she burst out. She started to
ying with her kimono belt. “It was an accident. We were driving on the road to meet a . . . umm . . . a very important friend.”
Bill wondered if it was one of the many “friends” that came to the couples’ trailer. The line of folks Bill had seen walk past his small bedroom window and leave a few minutes later clutching baggies or making furtive glances around them included all types: grizzled bikers covered in tattoos, pimpled teenagers wearing glasses, and even a housewife type who had worn big, dark sunglasses, a silk scarf on her head, and a trench coat that made her look like Jackie O back from the dead.
“Doc was tired, and I should’ve taken the wheel, but I didn’t,” Snow continued. “I get so nervous driving at night.” She started wringing her hands. “And then we turned a bend and we must not have realized he had hit you, because there you were lying in the road. He saw you before I did. He saw you in the rearview mirror and he slammed on the brakes.” She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. “He felt awful, Bill. Just awful!” She opened her eyes and gazed at him. Tears were on her ruddy cheeks. “Doc really hopes that you can forgive him.”
They hit me?
Why didn’t he remember any of this happening? His last memory had been his own car accident and lying in the middle of the road. Had they hit him after that? Had they even hit him at all?
“So until you’re in tiptop shape,” she said, stepping back with the tray in her hands, “until Doc feels that he’s brought your body and your state of being to what it was before we hit you, you can stay here. We saw on the news that those folks are looking for you, but you’re in good hands, Bill. They don’t have to worry, and you can tell them where you were when you get back.”
“What? People are looking for me?”
Her mouth clamped shut. She looked as if she had said too much. “Is there anything else I can get for you, Bill?” she asked, her voice brightening.
“Who’s looking for me?” he persisted.
She didn’t answer him. Instead, she rushed back to the bedroom door, climbing over Mikey, who was stretched across the doorway again.
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