by Webb, Peggy
Bessie might as well have been a fly on the wall for all the attention Susan paid her as she whizzed past carrying Jeffy.
Bessie followed her daughter to the door. "What are you going to do?"
"Apologize to Paul Tyler, for starters."
The door banged shut behind them. Bessie pursed her lips as she stared at the closed door. For starters? The trouble with Susan was that when she got started, she didn't know when to quit.
Bessie marched to her desk and took up a pencil and paper. She wasn't about to sit back and do nothing while Susan planned God only knew what. That's all Bessie needed, her youngest daughter down sick in the bed from worry and exhaustion, all because she felt responsible for the tender sensibilities of some pitiful drunk wreck of a doctor.
"Tender sensibilities, my hind foot."
She sank into her chair and began to write.
Dear Jo Lisa . . .
Chapter Four
Pressed flat into the sagging mattress with her sweaty hair tangled on the dingy pillow, Jo Lisa stared up at the ceiling and counted the water spots. She was as familiar with them as she was her own face. God knew, she ought to be. She'd spent enough time on her back studying them.
There were two new ones since yesterday morning. The rain the night before had nearly washed L.A. away. She wished it would. Maybe then she'd have a reason to go someplace else and start over.
When Dwayne rolled off, propped herself on the headboard and lit a fresh cigarette off the one she'd left burning in the ashtray.
Dwayne scooted up beside her, reached for her cigarette, and took a drag.
"Was it as good for you as it was for me, baby?"
She wondered what he'd do if she laughed.
"Yeah, Dick. Any more excitement and I'd have died and gone straight on to Glory Land."
"Dwayne."
"Sure . . . Dwayne."
She got off the bed, and he squeezed her bare bottom.
"You slay me with all that Deep South stuff.. Glory Land. What the hell's Gloiy Land?"
"Someplace you and I will never go."
She escaped to the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub. She could stay five minutes, ten at the most, before he'd knock on the door and yell for her to come back out. She crossed her legs and blew smoke rings in the air. They came out in perfect circles, like they'd been cut with a cookie cutter, then slowly rose toward the yellowed ceiling tiles and vanished.
She wished she were a smoke ring.
“Jo Lisa!" He knocked on the door. "You coming out?"
"In a minute."
She allowed herself two more minutes before she opened the door. Dwayne was prowling the room, picking up objects and putting them down. He had his hand on a photograph of Jeffy.
"Who's the kid?"
"None of your business."
"Right." He set the small brass framed photo back on her dresser. "Sorry. Nervous energy. That's what comes from being a stunt man."
"It's okay."
She pulled on her shorts without bothering with panties. He'd have them off her soon, anyhow.
He was prowling again. "Hey, babe. Don't you ever open your mail?" He held up a sealed letter. "This was here three days ago."
She snatched it out of his hand. Her mother's spidery handwriting stared at her from the pale pink envelope. She tossed it onto the dresser, then pulled Dwayne back toward the bed.
"Forget the letter. The only thing I'm interested in right now is you."
"That's what all the girls say."
She counted sixty-nine spots on the ceiling and fourteen water stains on the wallpaper beside the door before Dwayne wore himself out and rolled away from her. In less than a minute he was snoring.
Jo Lisa waited until he was sleeping deeply before she rose from the bed and tiptoed across the room. The pink letter accused her from behind the bottles of cheap perfume. She reached out and took it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, holding it by the corner as if it might be contaminated.
She sat in a straight-backed chair near the apartment's only window staring at the letter. Pale watery light filtered through the dirt film on the windowpane and slanted across the stamp. Biloxi, Mississippi.
News from home.
Jo Lisa chewed her bottom lip, then tossed the letter into the wastebasket. Sweat broke out on her forehead and beaded her upper lip. Somewhere in the apartment above her, children fought over a ball, screaming at each other.
She and Susan had never screamed at each other when they were children. Mainly because Susan wasn't the screaming kind.
Jo Lisa studied her nails, then glanced back at the letter in the wastebasket.
She remembered a wet day in April three years before, a day so drab that even the birds had stopped singing. Rain had soaked her hair and run down the collar
of her coat as she'd hid among the live oak trees in the cemetery and watched her family clinging together, united by grief and the blood ties that bound them as inexorably as chains.
Some screams happened on the inside.
Bending over, she retrieved the letter and tore into it quickly before she could change her mind.
Dear Jo Lisa, it read. The only time her mother ever called her dear was in a letter.
You've got to come home. I'm wearing myself out trying to take care of Jeffy while Susan works, and now she's set out to ruin her health trying to look after some pathetic alcoholic. He used to be a doctor, but he's down there at some research place feeding fish now, and Susan's all softhearted and misty-eyed because he had a tragedy in his family and she thinks she hurt his feelings.
You know how tenderhearted she is and how easy it is for people to take advantage of her. I don't think I can live through another family tragedy . . . and believe me, if Susan gets down sick in the bed with only me to look after her and Jeffy both, it will be a tragedy.
If you still have any family loyalty, please come home and help save your sister.
Your mother
Jo Lisa crumpled the letter and threw it back into the wastebasket. Overhead the children screamed at each other.
The last line of the letter played like a broken record in her head.
Please come home and help save your sister.
It was like asking the snake to come back to the Garden of Eden.
Chapter Five
Sometimes when Susan had emergencies and her mother couldn't keep Jeffy, she left him at a nearby day care center. She considered her errand an emergency. Balancing the package in her arm, she maneuvered Jeffy's stroller across her yard to the car. Heat radiated from the ground. Another killer day in Biloxi. The temperatures had topped one hundred at noon. It was cooler now, but not much.
"We're going to the day care center, Jeffy. You know the place. All your little friends are there." There was no response. "Remember Ricky?" She stowed the cake box on the backseat, then bent over her son and tucked him into his car seat. "He'll be so glad to see you. And Miss Nancy? Remember how she reads to you? Maybe she'll read your favorite story."
She might as well have been talking to thin air. Sighing, she climbed behind the wheel. Defeat weighed down her arms and legs.
"Ready, sport?" She turned the key in the ignition, then sat waiting for the old engine to warm up. "Let's go!"
In the recovery group she'd attended after Brett's death, she'd learned that you couldn't give up. You couldn't take the easy way out and do nothing. You had to reach out. You had to keep trying.
She drove carefully so Jeffy's little head wouldn't bobble too much, then eased into the gravel parking lot. The Playhouse, a lopsided sign on the side of a small blue frame house said. Children raced around the fenced-in yard, screaming over who had the ball first and whose turn it was to go down the slide.
Inside, a woman Susan didn't know stood at Nancy Whiteside's desk.
"Can I help you?" Her smile of welcome froze when she saw Jeffy.
Susan cautioned herself not to make a snap judgment. "Actually, I was expecti
ng to see Miss Nancy."
"I'm her new assistant, Joy Reeves."
"I'm Susan Riley. I've brought Jeffy to stay for about an hour."
"You'll have to take him somewhere that handles children like him. We're only equipped to deal with normal children here." The woman who called herself Joy regarded both of them with another of her frozen smiles. Susan wanted to claw it off her face.
She bent over her son, shielding him from the pathetic, callous woman.
"Are you ready to go, sweetheart?" She straightened his little baseball cap and smoothed down his collar. "We'll come back another time when Miss Nancy is here."
She could feel the hot flush of anger staining her cheeks and her neck. Don't make a scene, she warned herself. It would only upset Jeffy. Anyhow, the woman wasn't worth her anger.
She pushed the stroller toward the door, afraid even to say good-bye lest she lose control.
"Susan?" Nancy Whiteside stuck her head around the kitchen door. Her black corkscrew curls spewed out in all directions, and her nose was red from heat and exertion. "I thought I heard you out here."
Miss Nancy came forward and squatted beside Jeffy's stroller, smiling. "How're you doing, little man?"
Susan could have wept with relief. "I probably should have called before I came. I just need you to keep him for a little while."
"Of course. I'll take good care of him for you, Susan." Nancy smiled at her new assistant. "Joy, come over here and get acquainted with Jeffy. He's a great favorite of mine."
Joy came forward looking like an old cat that had been caught with her hand in the bird cage.
"You'll take care of Jeffy personally, won't you?" Susan had to know. She couldn't bear to think of Joyless handling Jeffy.
"As always, Susan. I promise."
"And watch the other children around him. I know how they love to roughhouse."
"I was taking care of children when you were still in diapers." Miss Nancy patted her hand. "Don't you worry about a thing."
When Susan got back in her car, she had to sit and collect herself before she could start the engine. She would worry, though. How could she help it? People like Joy Reeves made her so mad. They acted as if Jeffy had a big sign around his neck that said Damaged Goods.
Sitting there brooding wasn't going to help matters one bit. She started the car, then turned on the radio. An old Elvis song was playing. Susan made herself sing along.
By the time she got to the Oceanfront Research Center, her mood had lifted. And it was a darned good thing. In her condition she couldn't have cheered a toad, let alone a man who had lost his son.
No matter what her problems were, at least she still had her son.
She lifted her cake box from the car and made her way across the scorching parking lot. Damp curls clung to the back of her neck where her hair had escaped its ponytail, and her dress stuck to her torso in sweaty patches. As she approached the gates she suddenly
wished she'd freshened her lipstick. It was too late now. The gates loomed before her.
Taking a big breath, she crossed through the gates and sent a prayer winging upward—Lord, give me courage —though why she was so nervous about a simple mission of mercy, she couldn't say.
o0o
"You did what?"
"I told Susan Riley where you live. She's on her way there now."
Paul swore royally, then sagged against the bed. At the other end of the line, Bill chuckled.
"You know that old saying about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread? Well, I think maybe they've got it wrong, that it's angels rushing in where fools fear to tread. The angel is on her way, Paul."
"Son of a gun. I ought to come over there and wring your neck."
"What you'd better do is get ready for Susan."
"I can't believe you did that."
"It got a rise out of you, didn't it? Got you off your butt and into gear."
"I owe you one, pal."
Paul hung up and sat staring at the wall. Susan Riley. Coming to his apartment. Susan Riley with her lovely eyes and her brave smile. Coming to see him. Why? He'd been so angry he hadn't even asked.
He jerked his shirt off the end of the bed where he'd thrown it earlier, then hurried to the bathroom and leaned over the sink. He looked like death on wheels. He hadn't bothered to shave that morning, and his eyes were bloodshot from too much booze. His hands trembled when he picked up the razor.
Disgusted he shut it off and went back into the bedroom. He'd just crawl into bed and pretend he didn't hear her. What did it matter that later he would hate himself for being a coward?
He was staring at the bed with his shirt hanging open when the doorbell rang. Automatically he started to the door, then remembered his shirt. He was fumbling with his buttons when the bell rang again.
“Damn.” He'd buttoned his fool shirt wrong. The tail hung crooked.
"Paul?" she called through the door. It felt strange to hear a female voice in his apartment.
"Coming," he said, stuffing his shirt in as he walked. Then he noticed he wasn't wearing shoes. Too late now. Susan Riley would have to take what she found.
He opened the door and there she was, lovelier somehow in the close confines of the hallway, more feminine, more dangerous. A small bead of sweat inched down her cheek. He couldn't take his eyes off that tiny drop of sweat.
"Paul? I hope I'm not intruding."
"No. Of course not." He held the door open. How could he do otherwise when she was standing so close smelling like flowers and looking at him with eyes brightened by expectation? "Come in."
Moving with the grace of a ballet dancer, she placed the box she was carrying on the table, then sat on the sofa with her soft skirts spread around her.
"You have a nice place."
Suddenly he saw his apartment through her eyes— the bare walls, the tables gathering dust, the almost empty bookshelves. When he'd left Jean he'd taken nothing except the things he needed to survive. His place wasn't nice, at all: it was empty and sad, even depressing.
He thought about standing so she would think she'd caught him in the midst of getting ready to go somewhere important, but in the end he sat facing her on a chair.
"Paul, I want you to know that I'm not in the habit of visiting men in their apartments." A flush tinged her cheeks, and she smiled at him almost shyly, like a young girl on her first date.
God. How he must look. Barefoot, unshaven, hung over. He hadn't even combed his hair. Once he'd taken pride in his appearance, and in the way women looked at him.
Trapped between shame and anger, he stared at her.
"I came by to apologize for my behavior yesterday at the dolphin pool." She moistened her bottom lip with her tongue—pink, delicate, sweet—and he knew that when he climbed into his empty bed that night he'd have a hard time sleeping. "I said some terrible things to you, things I never should have said, and I'm sorry."
"It's all right." He wished he'd at least taken time to put on his shoes.
"No, it isn't." She leaned forward. "I don't mean to be prying into your personal life, but when my mother told me about your son . . ."
He felt the blood drain from his face. A growl of protest rose in his throat.
"I'm sorry." She left the sofa and knelt beside his chair. "I'm so sorry." She caught his hand and held on, squeezing it gently.
A small rush of something like tenderness took him by surprise. Speechless and trapped, Paul could do nothing but sit in his chair, enduring.
"I baked you a cake," she said, standing. Paul felt relieved and unexpectedly deprived. "It's small recompense, but I wanted to do something to let you know that you're not alone, that I care."
"Thanks."
"It's chocolate."
Chocolate. Sonny's favorite.
"That was kind of you." He stood up. A signal that the visit was over. He had to get Susan Riley out of his apartment before he made a total fool of himself.
"It was the least I could do." Smiling, sh
e made her way to the door. "I'll see you next week?"
"Yes. Next week."
After she left he stood barefoot inhaling the scent of chocolate and the lingering fragrance of her perfume - vivid reminders of how empty his life had become.
o0o
Susan almost ran a red light on her way back to The Playhouse to pick up Jeffy. There was a powerful sexuality about Paul Tyler, even in his condition. Something in the dark eyes, she thought. Or perhaps in his voice. She shivered.
Had she gone to his apartment merely to deliver cake? It wasn't something she wanted to think about.
o0o
Paul gave the cake box a malevolent glance, then shot out of the parking lot as if he could outrun his gift even though it was sitting on the front seat beside him.
He hit the steering wheel with the palm of his right hand. Thank God he was sober enough to drive, otherwise he would be trapped in his apartment with the lingering scent of Susan Riley's perfume and the damnable cake.
"Daddy, I like chocolate the bestest, don't you?" Chocolate smudges decorated Sonny's face. Four candles burned brightly on the birthday cake.
"Make a wish, Sonny."
Laughing, with his rosebud mouth puckered and his black eyes dancing, Sonny blew out the candles. "I wish I'd be just like you when I grow up, Daddy."
Paul's knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. The fragrance of chocolate assaulted him.
Blindly he swerved into a convenience store lot, turned the car around, and headed back down the tree- lined avenue. On his right, the gulf lapped against the shore. Afternoon sun filtering through the oak leaves and the Spanish moss cast a lacy pattern on the dashboard. Sea gulls screeched at children building castles in the white sand along the beach, and young girls, wearing more oil than swimsuit, lay upon colored towels like long-stemmed flowers wilting in the sun.
It was the same as a hundred other afternoons when Paul had driven home. He used to drive with his windows open so he could hear the sounds of wind and water and children at play.
He didn't think about where he was going; he merely guided the car. Beaches and screaming sea gulls gave way to crape myrtle trees dripping pink and white blossoms onto wide, well-kept lawns. If there were children at play, they were hidden behind brick fences and wrought iron gates.