by Tracy Ellen
I told the girls it wasn’t worth trying to convince the men that swiftly calculating odds and taking action was anything but an idiotic move for a woman with no weapons and no training in fighting. Mainly, I didn’t bother because it was idiotic when you looked at it that way. For me, it boiled down to a simple choice. I’d rather regret attempting an action that I thought could be successful over agonizing later that I did nothing to help.
Stella and Anna were both nodding in thoughtful agreement when I finished.
There was a crease of worry between Stella’s eyes when she asked, “I don’t get something, though. Where did you learn to understand what an abusive, misogynistic man would be thinking?”
“The Oxygen channel, Oprah’s book picks, and observing politicians,” I promptly answered.
Anna’s musical, deep laughter echoed off the high ceiling. “Hey, is Chief Jack an elected official?”
We held our sides laughing.
Catching my breath, I narrowed my eyes at Stella. “Don’t even think of doing anything like I did today, if you value our lives. Your mom would pulverize me and ground you for life, or vice versa.”
Blue eyes sparkling, my cheeky niece vowed, “I swear to God and promise I won’t.”
The three of us cracked up for a solid minute at that one.
Locking up behind them a little later, I wasn’t smiling any longer when I thought over the last few hours. Hopefully, none of this would ever be an issue again. It wasn’t like I had plans to romp on men’s ding-dongs as a way of life. Well, there was one man’s ding-dong I currently wanted to romp on. In my brooding, dangerous mood when thinking about Luke’s involvement all over my life, I wasn’t quite sure whether it was to inflict pleasure or pain. Cruel of me, I know, but I’ve never denied I’m a control freak.
I definitely needed a fun night out with my girls.
Chapter XI
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper
Saturday, 11/17/12
7:00 PM
Somehow, everything got accomplished on my mental checklist by seven o’clock. The quick shower I took had me raring to go. I was ready to put this day behind me and party.
Outside of Bel’s Books, I was waiting to be picked up by Jazy. The November night sky was clear and the cold air was refreshing; I could see my breath. The temperature had steadily dropped over the day and now hovered in the high twenties. There was a big snow in the forecast for early tomorrow and I thought about sledding in the afternoon.
Pacing and rubbing my chilled arms, it was easy to conclude I‘d come close to smothering in the birth canal as I arrived in this world. It’s the only explanation for my irrational dislike of being bundled up in coats, or constricted in any way. I had reluctantly brought a light jacket tonight with mittens stuffed in the pockets, in case of an emergency. Not that I had any plans to wear it. It still took wind chill factors of around thirty below to get me to admit winter had arrived in all its frigid glory and dress appropriately. I was proud of myself that I’d brought a jacket along for the ride. This was a positive sign. Maybe by age forty I’d bring a hat, too.
When I was young, it had been a common winter theme in my life to endure endless trudges home from impromptu, fun sledding wearing only wet shoes and sopping jeans. In my own miserable world, I’d chant a mantra of negotiations with that higher power to “Please, oh please just get me home before amputation is necessary and I’ll be a good girl forever.”
I had regularly suffered through the pins and needles pain of frozen feet and ears thawing out. I often had chapped inner thighs that burned like a son of a gun. I worshiped the manufacturers of petroleum jelly. I was super depressed when Stella had found my hidden cache of Vaseline during her most recent “search and destroy” sortie into my apartment.
I slowed my pacing to admire the street before me. Like Bel’s Books, many of the buildings lining Division Street had been built in the late 1800s and stood only two or three stories tall. Up and down the blocks, the buildings shared common walls in the thrifty, expeditious mode of construction popular during frontier times. Their storefront facades were designed to be unique from their attached neighbors by the different materials used, such as painted wood, brick, stone, and decorative awnings. It made for a quaint, charming downtown, even allowing for the occasional modern building thrown into the mix.
Division Street was fancied up for the holidays. The streets lamps were swirled with evergreens, red satin ribbons and bows, and aglow with white lights in the shapes of large snowflakes. Many buildings were similarly adorned; it reminded me of a village on an old-fashioned Christmas card dusted with glitter.
I love this time of year. Last week, Bel’s staff had a party and decorated the outside of the red brick building. Spruce treetops and red holly berries were in the display window boxes, lacey garlands of evergreens draped around the entrance doors, and an enormous wreath hung outside on the turret that capped the corner of my building. All of these were intertwined with hundreds of tiny lights. When snow dusted the greenery, the blue lights twinkling at night through the sparkling white stuff was magical.
Interrupting my sightseeing, a Chrysler Town and Country minivan honked softly and pulled up to the curb. I recognized our friend Tre J driving with Jazy riding shotgun. The side door slid open and an old Led Zeppelin tune poured out. I climbed into the beckoning warmth, agreeing silently it had been way too long a time since this woman had rock ‘n rolled.
I had earlier whipped off a mass text to my siblings and friends that all was fine, details to follow. NanaBel was out of touch in the desert for the next couple of days, so I’d email her in a day or two. I’d returned Reggie’s calls and left a quick, comprehensive voice mail message with details on Cheryl Crookston and Larissa’s ex, since I wasn’t seeing him tonight like I would be my sisters. I’d spoken briefly with Larissa’s parents; she was doing well, but sleeping. I made plans to visit her on Monday morning. The mean mommy voice should be happy with me and leave me the hell alone for the rest of the night.
With the dome light still on overhead, my youngest sister turned in her seat to do a swift eye balling of my person. I felt like a horse at a sale barn being appraised by an expert for soundness.
Jazy, satisfied I was not physically altered in any way, still wore a quizzical expression. This was for the mental checkup portion of the exam. If I was one of her horses, she’d probably make a clicking sound to observe how I responded.
I grinned crookedly in reassurance, at the same time I lifted one shoulder in a “What’s a girl to do?” unrepentant shrug.
Jazy returned a wickedly devilish smile; complete with two dimples and an emphatic power fist for a job well-done.
Enough said. Sister whisperer gets me.
Jazy and I are two years apart in age. We are instantly known as sisters by anyone seeing us for the first time, or hearing us talk and laugh. We share the same sapphire shade of blue eyes we’ve been told match our mother’s. The resemblances were marked between Jazy and me, but her features are all slightly larger, her body type less curvy. She’s an auburn brunette to my blonde and tops out at an impressive 5’4’’. Jazy’s bangs are straight, but her hair waves and curls loosely atop her shoulders with no help from a curling iron. Good thing because Jaz is a wash and go kind of outdoor girl. She’s passionate about three things in her life- horses, Harleys, and heavy petting.
Tre J turned down the volume on the music and then reached back to pull me up into a huge hug.
I hung awkwardly on my knees between the seats while she enthusiastically gushed and thumped my back. “Bel, we are so relieved everything ended well. Jaz and I were just saying how we wish we could have been there to see you in action.” She pulled back, a wide smile making her eyes crinkle. “Did you really unbutton your shirt, take off your bra, and show some nip to distract him? Awesome smart move! Girl, you are so my hero! Poor Larissa, how did she ever marry that skeevy mother?” Her face darkened. “He’d better pray I nev
er meet his ass in a dark alley.”
Laughing to myself in rueful weariness, I realized this was the kind of rumor humor I’d be dealing with all night. I patted her shoulder fondly in return, as I detached out of her smothering hug.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. You smell good tonight, by the way.” I climbed into my seat and buckled in. “If it’s all the same to you both, I’m not saying another word until we get over to Mac’s. When Jazy mans the blender and I have one of her special Margaritas in hand, then we’ll talk.”
“I hear you.” Jazy did a little drum roll on the dash in front of her. “See, told you she wouldn’t want to talk about it until Mac’s. Let’s hit it, Tre. My ass-kicking sister needs a drink!”
“I’m hittin’ it, I’m hittin’ it!” The side door slid shut next to me with a click. Tre J was laughing as she sped off around the corner onto Fourth.
Tre’s a Norwegian Valkyrie built like a brick shithouse with an easy belly laugh as generous as her personality. She has been a friend of both mine and Jazy’s since we were little. They’re roommates and work together on Jazy’s farm at the Lazy j Stables. They board, train, and sell horses, plus give riding lessons. Tre J is also in school training to be a physical therapist.
“What’s up with the van?” I could feel the maternal hormones oozing from the leather seats around me. I took in the requisite DVD player screens necessary for a child’s entertainment while being driven somewhere for five blocks and I shuddered. I did not want to become infected with the highly contagious BiologicalClockTicking disease. Last I knew Tre J drove a monster truck capable of pulling a multi-horse trailer.
They laughed at my bewildered tone. Jazy answered, “It’s Tre’s turn for sober cabbie. She borrowed it from her sister thinking we might want to get in some serious partying tonight. We can easily all ride together in this van.”
I leaned forward. “Way to be thinking, Tre. Oh, and just to be clear; I’ve never believed Jazy’s trash talking behind your back. This proves you haven’t taken one too many hockey sticks to the head.”
Even playing around, Jazy packs a mean punch. I’ve seen her take on a misbehaving, twelve hundred pound horse. I successfully dodged her until Tre’s long arm blocked off my sister’s frustrated, laughing attempts to get me.
Although a year behind me, and for reasons still known only to her, Tre J had appointed herself my personal bodyguard when we were still in grade school. My budding career as a little smarty-mouth without a care to the recipient’s age, gender, size, or disposition was already blossoming. I probably have Tre J’s threatening stare to thank for my smooth transition into a fully bloomed, adult smart ass with all my own teeth still intact.
Tre is an amazing six-feet-tall, weighs a glorious two hundred pounds, and is famous for playing defense in college women’s hockey. You do not want to piss off a woman acclaimed for wielding a hockey stick in comparison to that of a Norwegian war axe.
Tre J stood for January Jolene Jivers. In grade school, she had despised her first name with a passion second only to the disgust she had felt for her middle and last names. I believe the phrase “trailer trash and porn star” had been gritted out between her clenched teeth when asked for the explanation why she’d felt such enmity for her name.
Feeling her pain and learning to count in Norwegian at the time, I had suggested we change her alliterative, three banger of a name to Tre J. She was thrilled. Much to her mother’s chagrin, the name Tre J had been officially adopted. We even presented Tre with a commemorative birth certificate, complete with my inked footprints representing her newborn feet. The dreaded January Jolene Jivers moniker had never crossed our lips again.
Laughing and chatting, we drove a couple of streets over to pick up Anna, and then it was a few blocks up Fourth to Mac’s yellow Victorian. Elaborately trimmed out in white gingerbread; the house is a showstopper. The detached garage is as cute as the house. Above the garage is a studio apartment where Stella resides in solitary splendor.
The arrangement of Stella living in the garage studio works well for Mac and my niece. Stella has the relative privacy she needs as a commuting, college freshman. Mac has the relative privacy she needs to enjoy her new husband of less than six months. They both can still keep one eye on each other.
For eighteen years, Mac had remained single after Freddy’s death. Six years ago, she’d purchased this house and moved out of the Division Street apartment with Stella.
Last May, on her thirty-sixth birthday, Mac had met twenty-four-year old Diego Dos Santos at the grocery store he owns in Faribault. She was shopping his wide selection of peppers. He assisted her with her choice. Sparks flew from their first glance. The flame grew as conflagrant as a forest fire after their first date. One month later, Diego had hot-footed Mac down the aisle.
I compare my eldest sister to a locust. She lies low and leads your normal, somewhat staid life, then bursts out with lollapalooza drama every eighteen years or so. Her fifties should be interesting.
Diego is Puerto Rican by ancestry, but was born in upstate New York. His family had moved to Faribault when he was a little boy and opened the grocery store. He’s been the head of his family for several years, since his father died of a heart attack when Diego was twenty. He stepped up to take over the reins of that store and had recently purchased another small grocery market in Northfield. He’s an intelligent man, an entrepreneur, and extremely pretty. Not that his sizzling Latin looks had anything to do with Diego being able to convince my sister he was the man for her. Really.
Does it make me bad that I snicker behind my hand at seeing my bossiest, prissiest, gearhead of a sister dueling her macho, movie-star handsome, youngster of an el esposo for supremacy on all fronts? And, often as not, losing?
I don’t think so, either.
Diego and Mac openly bicker and banter over the seesawing role of Alpha in their marriage. He was used to running the show and so was my big sis. They could sell tickets; their power struggles are that fun to watch.
It’s my guess the newlyweds quite often, and quite sensibly, took the issue to the mat in the bedroom where they wrestle over the matter to their hearts content. I give them until New Year’s Eve. They’ll figure it out, or kill each other by exhaustion. Either way’s a win.
The four of us piled out of the van. We were joined by Stella coming down from her studio. Amidst the greetings and chatter, we started trooping up to Mac’s back porch.
I couldn’t miss the “SWEETAZ” vanity plate on the light blue Honda Civic parked in the driveway. I thought Candy’s gun safety seminar in Duluth went through Sunday. I was never pleased to see Candy, but tonight was the rare exception.
Since birth, my cousin Candy has been spoiled shamelessly by her father, my Uncle Trevor. She runs roughshod over her fluttering, ineffectual mother, my Aunt Carol. The only issue I’ve ever seen my gentle Aunt Carol take an unswerving stand on was not allowing Candy to have any pets. I’m glad I don’t know why. The general family consensus would have it that being spoiled was responsible for the ruination of whatever character potential Candy once had. Personally, I believe she was born a sociopath, so there had been no character potential to be had, or lost. However, what she lost by her unfortunate lack of parenting was the chance to become well-adjusted and perhaps develop her differences for good, instead of evil.
Candy hates she can’t manipulate me and use her superficial charm to blind me to her real nature. I don’t know why, but I have always clearly seen Candy for what she is. Had she not tried to tangle with me from the time I was five, maybe things would have been different between us.
Anna and I dubbed Candy’s lying, conniving, cheating, and tantrum throwing ways being “Candy Coated.” It’s like getting slimed, only much worse.
NanaBel feels sorry for this granddaughter. Even though Candy is three years my senior and has tried her damnedest to make my life a living hell, NanaBel has asked me repeatedly to go easy on Candy since we were kids. It has proved i
mpossible to like her, but for years I have avoided her, ignored her, and reluctantly turned the other cheek and kept quiet rather than destroy her- all in honor of respecting my grandmother’s wishes.
NanaBel wants me to have pity for Candy because she’s an unhappy, empty soul and vastly needy. I say pity is a wasted emotion that benefits no one involved in the long run. The person being pitied learns nothing of value as a result of his or her actions, and the people doing the pitying get the dubious satisfaction of being condescending and feeling morally superior. Big whoop.
In this particular instance, I have disagreed with my grandmother’s judgment since day one. Throughout our childhoods and into adulthood, NanaBel didn’t know half of the shady shit Candy’s pulled. Candy grabs anything she wants as her due and knows no boundaries in her pursuit of this belief.
I am a girl who believes in the motto of her forbearers from Scotland, Nemo Me Impune Lacessit. This is Latin that translates roughly, “None shall provoke/injure me with impunity.” Combine that sensible motto with the proverb, “Revenge is a dish best served cold” and I am good to go.
Candy and I were long, long overdue for a cousinly chat, and NanaBel was far, far away in Egypt. You see, Candy has pushed me to my wall. She hadn’t asked to borrow my gun, but stole it out of my apartment last Wednesday. Leaving a “Got your gun” note on my kitchen island hardly constitutes asking my permission. Using the word stole is not too harsh or inaccurate. She knows I would not extend her a helping hand if she were drowning; much less lend her my gun.
Tonight Anna, looking very cute and cozy in a purple wool jacket complete with teal colored mittens, hat and a scarf, gave the Honda a scowling glance, as if reading my thoughts.
She touched my arm and held me back, as the others continued up the sidewalk.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something all damn day, but kept getting sidetracked.” Anna didn’t wait for my response but rushed on, “I wanted you to hear this before Candy or Kenna told you. I ran into Mike last night at The Contented Cow. He’s joining his uncle’s law firm in Minneapolis and is back living here. In Northfield, I mean.” She hesitated briefly. “He asked all about you. He wanted me to give you a message.”