by Diane Munier
“No. I don’t have any children,” Spencer says smoothly, “remember?”
“None you know about, huh?” Mom says licking her finger with a loud pop then using her napkin on her hands like she’s about to perform surgery.
“Mom,” I say because what the heck?
“I have no children. I told you this last night,” he says.
“You did. You’ve got an answer for everything, a nice tidy answer. Four years of college, psychology to political science. Useless you say. Former high school teacher. Wanted a new challenge, a fresh start. I’ll give you that. Two women next door, you’ve got nothing but time. You’re young, uncommonly…everything. And we’re supposed to believe that a man like you has no other options than to flatter an aging widow and her…impressionable daughter?”
“Mom,” I say again because it’s better than throwing the applesauce.
“You come here, buy a house that’s sat idle for years because Alfred Hitchcock is dead and no one else wants it for their horror movie. You’re never fazed by anything much, never ruffled…but you’re a real good singer, and a mean guitar player…not mean. There’s not a mean bone in your body. That would take some real commitment…meanness. Believe me, I know. I was married to Fred Sullivan.” She pitches her napkin onto her plate.
“And I’ve embraced you like a friend. I’ve been a damn good neighbor, and now I hear you mention my daughter’s dress?”
“I apologize for using that reference…,” he says.
“Reference you call it?” Mom says.
The waitress appears, “Any dessert?”
“No,” Christine answers, dismissing her while her eyes are glued to Mom. But Mom won’t look at her, won’t look away from Spencer.
Spencer…whose hand is calmly holding my knee says, “I was asking Sarah if I could help pick her cherry…shit…her tomatoes,” he says, suddenly more flustered than I’ve ever seen him.
I have to laugh at that. I’m sorry. This whole thing, well I’m laughing and if my mouth was full of applesauce it would be coming out of my nose.
“Sarah?” Spencer says, lightly tapping my back and also smiling really big even though I think he’s trying to look serious for Mom. Mom is smiling, but it’s evil, that smile, nowhere near good, the face she wears when interrogating a student.
“You think this is funny?” Mom says. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Spencer.”
I groan because I hate, hate when she says that.
“C’mon,” Spencer says while I push on him cause I have to get out, “I am sorry about this misunderstanding. I hope you can forgive me and we’re still friends.” He takes his free hand, not the one that’s returned to my knee, and holds it over his empty plate and the rest of the mashed potatoes, for Mom to shake.
“Aw, give a guy a break,” Christine says, squeezing on Spencer like he’s just knocked on her door with the Publisher’s Clearing House check.
“Move please,” I’m mumbling now because the laughing is pretty well over and I’m ready to cut a bitch if Christine Horner doesn’t get her white meat out of the booth.
Spencer is touching me here and there, “I’m waiting for Christine, Sarah. Just a minute.”
Christine finally stops humping Spencer and stands. Then Spencer unfolds, digging for his wallet and some bills, and I am out and out. I’m flying around tables and chairs. I run into the lobby and almost knock poor Pearlie over. There’s my ride home. I tell a kindly blinking Merle, “I’ll be in your car.”
“Sarah,” Merle calls as I push the glass door, “it’s locked.”
Outside I go left and right, my arms swinging. Where in the hell…?
I see Merle’s flesh colored 1981 Cadillac and I head for it like a carrion bird toward a dead bison.
I’m not running from Mom. It’s Spencer. His hands, his everything. One more minute that close, feeling that hand. Shit.
“Where have I been?” I say that out loud. Then I see him exit the diner and hold the door and out comes Merle and out comes Pearlie, and Leeanne, and the four of them head for me.
I fold my hands in front of my throbbing baby maker and wait.
Me and Mom Fall for Spencer
Chapter Fifteen
Post-chicken: In the car—and after.
“You’re not going with Mom?” I state the obvious to Spencer as he approaches and I can’t hold his eyes for long because he’s just so…damn.
He says to me over the roof of the car, “Merle says I can hitch a ride with you all.” He’s a southerner now.
Merle is helping Pearlie in, and Spencer holds Pearlie’s door like he must do something, so in the meantime I have my door open and Leeanne comes around to my side and I tell her, “Get in.”
And true to Leeanne-form she resists. “I’m not sitting by him,” she says. “You get in.”
“Leeanne, get in,” I say with all this conviction, like Gandalf with the Balrog or something.
“You get in…Sarah,” she says and Merle has come around to the driver’s side and he’s standing there, deep comb marks in his hair and a red bow tie and gray shiny suit coat. I know the look, and so does Leeanne. He homeschooled us same time.
“Ladies,” Merle says, reminding us.
“Geez Merle,” Leeanne mumbles. She gets in and I do, but before I can close the door, Spencer opens it, nearly wrenching my arm out of its socket because I am opposed, but he gets in and I barely have time to shove Leeanne over to the other door so he doesn’t sit on my lap.
“Shit Sullivan,” Leeanne says, then she looks at Merle, “Sorry.” She leans forward, “Sorry Pearlie,” she says.
“What’s that?” Pearlie says to Merle and he pats her shoulder then rearranges himself and starts the dead bison but even then you can hear his sigh. He tried. God knows he tried. But we are this.
And Spencer Gundry is beside me, holding my ponytail on the shelf behind the seat, his long legs open, his knee touching mine. I am not looking at him, my arms folded, staring straight ahead.
“Sarah,” Spencer says, but I ignore him and turn to Leeanne.
“We made three twenty Saturday.” I purposely leave out Spencer’s hundred this time.
“Way cool,” Leeanne says still looking out the window.
“Hey,” I poke her, “eye contact.”
Merle shoots me a look in the rearview and I smile. If poor Merle had a nickel for every time he said, ‘eye contact,’ to me or Leeanne. We both hated to look at…people.
“Leave me alone,” Leeanne says.
I pinch her side.
“Stop it psycho,” she whines, but she smiles a little.
“Merle, Leeanne called me psycho,” I say just for old times.
Merle ignores me and Pearlie says, “My favorite movie.”
Leeanne does laugh then, but quietly cause that’s how one laughs at Pearlie.
I feel that tug on my ponytail again. “You know I was only saying cherry tomatoes, right?” Spencer whispers close to my ear. His hot breath on my ear is the date-rape drug Rohypnol. I am almost in a hypnotic state now.
Then Pearlie turns around and grins at me. “Spencer sure is a handsome man.”
Leeanne has her head back and her body shakes. We live for Pearlie’s words. Well we used to. It’s how we got through Merle’s dedication to our educations.
Spencer beams at me. “Why thank you Miss Pearlie,” he says.
Pearlie doesn’t respond, but she’s smiling and looking out her window.
I don’t say anything either. But I’m coming out of my drugged-state.
“Did you hear me? About the tomatoes?” Spencer says releasing another cloud of Rohypnol.
“Yes,” I say, not ‘yes master.’ But really, beat a dead horse why don’t you.
“So how about it? We pickin’?”
There’s Mom to consider. He’s not retreating. Mom is not happy. And now he got a different ride home. How did that help the situation? Well, so did I. But he followed. He follows me all the ti
me. And Mom is used to my rejection. She counts on it.
“Merle was a handsome man,” Pearlie says still gazing out the window. “My mom didn’t like him. Remember that Merle? Mother thought he was a con-man.”
Merle sits straighter in his seat, moves his thin neck like he’s got a cramp.
“He sold vacuum cleaners door to door. That’s how we met,” Pearlie says. She’s smiling at Merle. “He’s still handsome,” she says.
“How many years?” Spencer asks.
“Sixty two,” Merle says because Pearlie would never remember if Merle didn’t tell her.
Spencer whistles. “That’s fantastic.” He yanks on my ponytail again. “Miss Pearlie did your mom come around?”
“No. She waited for him to die so I could come home, but she died first.”
“Hmm,” Spencer said, close to my ear again. Then to the front, “Did it bother you, Merle? I mean Pearlie’s mother hating you?”
Merle looks in the mirror for a brief second, finds Spencer’s eyes. “Nah,” he growls. “Some people thrive on hate and some on love. That woman hated me long before I showed up.”
“Good to know,” Spencer says low, more to himself this time.
“So does that mean you loved Pearlie’s mom Merle?” Leeanne pipes up always a bit of a ball twister.
“Sure,” Merle says. “After all…she made Pearlie.”
Merle is just too good for us. Always has been. But the people in this car, right now, even Leeanne with her dark moods, Spencer with his looks and touches, it feels alright. It feels good. It feels safe.
We get out at Merle’s house. Leeanne walks away without saying good-bye. “Bake,” I call and she flips me the bird without turning around.
She lives by herself since her mom died, but it is hers, and a little money, so she can get lazy and give in to the black hole. But when she gets going she is as hard working as…well as me. She’s always been that way, fighting that dark strangler. She is on anti-depressants and something for anxiety. But most of the time she does alright.
Once when we fought big, she said I was my mother’s little baby, afraid of life, and at least she isn’t like me. But the truth? She is a lot like me. And I told her that, and I told her the difference. She uses everything that happened to stay down. I use it to get up.
She cried bullshit, and we never go back to that day. I think we both know we can’t survive another round like that and stay friends. That’s what Merle said that day when he broke us up. He’d heard the screaming and he talked to each of us separately.
Merle said we must never attack one another. We have to look at ourselves. We have to change ourselves. He said we needed a common cause not birthed in tragedy. He called the dog shelter and the rest is history.
So we haven’t fought for years, Leeanne and me, but they don’t go away…the words. I know what she thinks, and she knows what I think, but she likes to bake and I like to grow things, and we both love the dogs.
So Spencer and I walk to our houses and I slap my forehead because I forgot to bring Cyro a dinner. That means I have to make him something. I don’t mind, but he loves fried chicken. I say this to Spencer.
“Let’s go back there and get him something,” Spencer says.
I can feel the sand slipping through the hourglass. Days of Our Lives, I know, but I can feel it and I have so much to do.
“I’ll go back,” he says.
He asks to take my truck and I say okay. He drives to the diner and I hurry upstairs to change, or slip into something more comfortable. Right Mom.
So I do that, get on my usual Raggedy Ann ensemble, shorts and a tee-shirt and my flip-flops. Thank God I’ve already leveled the stalks growing out of my legs. Mom still isn’t home, and a half hour later she still isn’t home, but forty minutes after that she drives in, Spencer behind her, blocking her in, but then he doesn’t know better.
He gets out with the dinner and I hurry down the porch to take it right over cause it is already late. Mom gets out of her car and says something to Spencer and they are already laughing.
I don’t say anything, but go to Spencer and take the meal. I try to give him the eight dollars but he isn’t having it, insists it was nothing.
“Do you want to take this over?” I ask, hoping he’ll say no because…I do this.
“No you take it,” he says. Then he goes back to bantering with Mom about the ideas she has for his house. I take the dinner to Cyro all the while marveling that they have somehow made up. I guess that is what took Spencer so long. I imagine he ran into Mom at the diner and they talked.
I go up on the porch and set the dinner on the TV tray there and cup my eyes and look in the door and Cyro is in his chair. I knock and he says, “Sarah come in.”
So I take the dinner in.
“He’s left,” Cyro said. “Jason packed up and left this morning.”
“For the army?”
“He’s staying with a friend until he goes. I…I think it’s a woman. I’m not sure.”
Cyro doesn’t ever raise the blinds, but it is dirty in here. Now that Jason is gone, well before I take over I will clean. “You need to tell me what to do. What you need.”
He is staring toward the TV and shaking his head.
“Don’t…don’t. We talked about it before when he got mad that time. You just have to quit being so proud and tell me.”
He looks at me. “What good am I?”
Someone hits a homerun on the television and the crowd, a sea of color, goes wild. I move to a chair and slowly sit.
I know what Merle would do here—say something great, Shakespeare, to be or not to be. He has a quote—well he has a bunch and he’s used them all when talking to me and Leeanne. He made us write essays, but there was this one, and I can’t remember the whole thing, but Merle said it was bad when someone died, but suicide was a crime against all of mankind. Something like that, but are we talking suicide cause…Cyro doesn’t believe in it.
“Cyro…you want to talk to Merle?”
“No,” Cyro says sharply. “You’re already saddled with your mother, and now me? I’d rather be dead than put more on you, Sarah.”
“Then do more for yourself,” I say. Oh shit I don’t mean it. “It’s a pigsty in here. No wonder Jason wanted to leave.” Oh God, I can’t stop. “You used to G. I. things. That’s what you called it. Now it’s just dark..and sad. It feels really sad in here. And it stinks. And what’s with peeing in jars? Get your lazy ass up and pee in the toilet! Then clean the damn toilet now and then, Cyro.” Oh crap I’m standing. “Are you in there? Are you still in there?”
I’ve got so many feelings in me, all stirred up, all of a sudden. “What are you doing sitting all day? You don’t laugh, you don’t…you don’t get a special car so you can drive. You were a cop! You were my hero! You told me to try. You told me to keep trying! But you don’t try. You big…hypocrite!”
“Sarah,” he says amazed.
“What?” I yell back. “Leeanne does better than you. Mom at least went back to school. Jason…he’s trying…right? But I don’t know Cyro…you don’t try. You just don’t try.”
I have to get out but I stop at the door. “I want a list of everything you need me to do. I want a list, Cyro. Now…eat your chicken.”
I go out then.
There is no sign of Spencer. Good. I need to be alone. I run up the stairs to my room and close the door. I’m just getting started on my files when I hear Mom coming to knock on the door.
“Sarah?”
Crap. “Come in.”
She opens the door, eyes locking on me.
“I’m working,” I say.
She stays in the doorway. “Spencer and me…it’s better.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t know why it had to happen in the first place. But it’s just another chapter in the great book of why.
“I saw. I have to get some work done.”
“Don’t be like this,” she says.
I don’t br
ing up the bills, but they come due every month and some of us have to pay for more than the cell phones and the cable.
“He’s…a good person…Spencer. I think,” she says, shoulder on the doorframe.
I keep my fingers poised over the keys.
“I just…I don’t want you hurt,” she says.
“A little late,” I say. God there is no stopping me today.
She pulls away from the woodwork. “Did he hurt you?”
“He pulled my hair.” I stare.
“He’s a man, Sarah.”
“I’ve seen that.”
“You’re aware he’s flirting with you? It’s harmless. He doesn’t mean anything. You seem so…you light up around him. You’re infatuated.”
“Go downstairs, Mom.”
“Sarah, what’s gotten into you? We can’t talk about this?”
“No.”
“Well Spencer understands. I made sure of it.”
“Understands? What?”
She gestures toward me. “That you’ve been through a lot.”
“What did you say?” I am standing.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t go into detail, I just said he needs to think again if he’s looking to…well you know how men are. And I have to go back to work, you’re here all day…it’s not good.”
Do I know how men are? Yes. Oh God, I know things about men…since I was ten years old. And the men on the web, Mom and Christine…I know things. I know things. But men like Spencer Gundry? I don’t know anything.
“Don’t speak about me,” I say.
“You’re my daughter.”
I want to tell my own things. I want to say them my own way. Why can’t she understand this?
“I’m going to be decorating his house…that house. I have to be sure he’s upstanding. He’s right next door for God sakes. Someday you might be a parent, then you’ll understand. But if you just let a man…touch you…he can get the wrong idea, Sarah. You can’t let him touch you like that.”
“Mom…go downstairs.” I’m trying to remember what Merle would say. I’ve tried to look for the thing Mom and I can gather around. We have the house, and our work. I have my garden and the shelter and patrol. I have Cyro and Leeanne and Merle and Pearlie. Mom has Christine and all the men on her site. And there’s Spencer. Maybe we’ll have to share Spencer. But we’ve never shared before. And Spencer has his own ideas.