From the nursery, Jennifer began to wail. I hesitated, torn between my daughter’s tears and my husband’s imminent demise. The baby let out another piercing wail. I got to my feet and started to step over Claude’s body. Then I froze, remembering a high school football game. A big-shouldered linebacker had slammed into number 14, Claude’s number. I’d watched with horror as the ball had flown out of Claude’s hands into a defensive back’s outstretched arms. Then the linebacker flattened number 14. A cheer rose up in the visitors’ section. From the loudspeaker, the announcer called, “Fumble on the play. Recovery by Putnam County.” Claude lay motionless on the field. A minute ticked by, and when he didn’t get up, the coaches jogged over and helped him to his feet. As he limped to the sidelines, the home crowd had clapped. Later, in the backseat of his daddy’s Lincoln Continental, he’d told me that he’d faked the injury to cover his error. “I should go to Hollywood,” he’d said, and I’d agreed. I thought he’d be good either as a movie star or a politician, which were one and the same, if you asked me.
Remembering all this, I imagined his hand rising up, grabbing my ankle, and yanking me down. The baby screeched again, and I leaped over Claude and ran to the doorway. Then I turned. He still hadn’t moved. The very least I could do was cover him. So I hurried down the hall, into our bedroom, and flung open the closet door. I ran my hands over Claude’s suits, and the rows of color-coordinated shirts. Then I reached up onto a shelf and grabbed a stack of cashmere sweaters. I could vaguely smell his cologne, Canoe. If I warm him up, he’ll be all right, I thought. Please God, don’t let him be hurt.
From the nursery, the baby screamed again. Tucking the sweaters under my arm, I hurried out of the bedroom. I found my daughter standing in her crib, arms outstretched, chubby face streaked with tears. With my free arm, I lifted the child, cushioning her with the sweaters. Except for the distant humming of the ice box, the house was eerily quiet, but I forced myself into the kitchen. Claude was still on the floor, in the same position. His nose resembled a crook-neck squash. As I stepped closer, the baby twisted around, trying to see her daddy.
“Shhh, Daddy’s sleeping. Let’s don’t wake him.” I tried to press her little head against my shoulder, blocking her view. This was the sort of thing that warped babies, and I wasn’t about to let that happen. Then I leaned over Claude and draped the sweaters over his chest as best as I could. My mind seemed to clear a little and I hurried over to the phone. Jiggling the baby up and down, I dialed Cox Funeral Home and Ambulance Service. When Mrs. Cox answered, I stammered, “C-come get my husband! He hit his head and won’t wake up.”
“Who are you?” said Mrs. Cox.
“We’re at 508 T-Tarver Street. Please hurry.” I hung up the phone and kissed my daughter’s tousled curls. They smelled faintly of shampoo. Almost immediately the phone began to ring again. I had an idea it was the other woman, so I ignored it and gazed down at Claude. Wait for the ambulance? I thought, or run away and hide?
I carried Jennifer to the living room and set her down in the playpen. She immediately began to cry, but I had to get us out of there. I ran to the hall closet and pulled out a suitcase—it wasn’t one of my blue ones, it was Claude’s Gucci, a Christmas present from his family. But it would have to suffice. As I rushed around the house, hastily grabbing baby clothes, I found my Webster’s Dictionary opened to the Ms. Before I closed it, I looked at a word: malefactor. How fitting, I thought. The male factor. Butthen I scanned the definition and saw that it meant criminal. That was an even better fit.
I slipped the dictionary into the Gucci, then zipped it. My plan was to stay gone a day or two, long enough for everything to simmer down. I didn’t want to take Claude’s Corvette—my name wasn’t even on the title—but it wouldn’t break down like my Mustang. I imagined my car stalling on a dark, foggy highway. I even imagined what the newspapers would say: The blue 1972 Mustang was found abandoned on Cemetery Road. Police are still searching for the occupants, a teenaged mother and her tow-headed tot.
After I slung the Gucci into the back, I strode over to my Mustang and got Jennifer’s car seat. I fastened it into the Corvette then hurried toward the kitchen. Smoke wafted over the hibachi. I glanced down. The ribs were gone, although pieces of meat were stuck to the grate. I turned. Near the edge of the yard, Princeton dragged the ribs through the grass, leaving a greasy stain behind him. In the distance I could hear a siren. I ran back to the kitchen and grabbed Claude’s wallet and car keys. Then I hurried into the living room to fetch my little girl.
Bitsy
OPTIONS
Return to Crystal Falls and tell my side of the story.
Keep driving.
Check into a motel, preferably in a cute city, and decide if I should do #1 or #2.
Stop making lists. I don’t need to leave a paper trail for the police!
My mother’s paranoia surfaced in me as I sped along the highway, and I began to think that a policeman was hiding behind every billboard. Once the Wentworths realized that I’d left town, taking Claude’s baby and his Corvette, not to mention his Gucci, they would call the police. Miss Betty knew all the judges, and probably a few hit men. Oh, I knew what she thought of me. Years ago, when she’d remodeled her manse, she had let Claude decorate his bedroom. He’d just turned twelve, but he chose a circus motif: green grass cloth was pasted to the walls. Chintz curtains, printed with red and yellow balloons, were hung on the windows. A faux bamboo bunk bed was ordered from Nashville. Stuffed circus animals were strung up by their necks and hung from the ceiling with rope—a pleated, fabric-lined ceiling made to resemble a tent. The stuffed animals wore clothes—monkeys in jester hats and red vests, elephants in pantaloons, and tigers in tuxedos. It was colorful and cute, but totally unsuitable for a prepubescent boy. “Can’t you pick something else?” Miss Betty had complained. “Price is no object. In fact, the more it costs, the better it’ll look.”
As far as Miss Betty was concerned, I was like that bedroom—a cheap, childish lapse in judgment, a passing fancy, something her son would outgrow.
Once I decided the interstate wasn’t safe, I turned off at the next exit and began following Highway 70 toward Nashville. I drove through hilly towns named after flowers and trees. At dusk, I reached Crab Orchard, and I saw a woman in a yellow dress and chunky shoes step out of her house, carrying a tray to the carport where children were having a party. Floodlights burned on either side of the carport, and balloons streamed from the wrought-iron posts. I would have given anything to be this woman, to have her life, even though yellow wasn’t my color. It brought out the circles under my eyes.
After Crab Orchard, the road twisted up a steep ridge. Past the dented guardrails, I could see a sheer drop-off, nothing but blue mist and the distant etch of mountains. From the valleys and river towns, lights twinkled up. Jennifer began smacking the seat with her baby bottle. Inside, Coca-Cola fizzled. Dr. Spock would not approve; no one would condone my actions. I myself didn’t approve, but I couldn’t think of another option.
I gassed up in Lebanon. While the attendant scrubbed the bug-spattered windshield, I pulled out Claude’s wallet, counting the cash and shuffling through the credit cards. I didn’t want to use his cards at all—it was against the law, and I’d done enough—but Claude only had three hundred dollars, and in my own wallet was not quite twenty. I gave the Esso man a card and forged my husband’s name, my hand shaking so badly the pen slipped from my fingers. The clerk never glanced at my signature. If it was this easy to get away with fraud, then the world was in big trouble. Better the world than me.
When I reached Nashville, highway traffic was heavy, so I drove down shady streets, past houses with circular driveways, past white board fences where horses grazed in sloping pastures. In Bellevue, the highway curved, dropping off into cool, green darkness. I rolled my window down and the wind washed over my face, blowing my hair. The Corvette felt like a boat, and I imagined that I was riding waves instead of hills, the air pungent and salty.
When I crested a hill, the lights of west Nashville reflected in the rearview mirror, then dropped off abruptly.
Mexico, I thought. That’s where I’ll go. I can disappear in Mexico. But tonight I had to at least reach Memphis. I was thinking of dying my hair, and Jennifer’s too, maybe blue-black like Priscilla Presley. She was somewhere in Memphis, waiting for Elvis to come home and shoot out the television set. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he’d cheated on her, too—with Ann-Margret, no less. I wondered how Priscilla had handled that, if she’d looked the other way or chased him around Graceland with a lethal weapon.
In Waverly, I filled up with gas again, then turned onto I-40, toward Memphis. Now the paranoia wasn’t as bad. Besides, no one was looking for me and Jennifer. Not yet, anyway. If Claude died—and it was possible—then I would be a man slaughterer. But right now I wasn’t a wanted woman. I was just a mother driving down the highway with her baby.
When Jennifer began to fret, I stopped at a restaurant in Jackson, one of those “all you can eat” smorgasbords. I put the baby in a high chair, rolled her over to a table, then grabbed a red tray and darted through the line. Normally, I never ate. I just picked at food. Claude thought that childbirth had changed my body, and it had sort of melted, like that soft Parkay margarine they showed on TV. Do not mess with Mother Nature, the ad warned. One time Claude gave me his mother’s diet pills but I never took them, even though they were shaped like pink hearts. Claude worried about my figure, he said I was too short to eat. If it was up to him, I’d live on Dexedrine, Tab, and carrot sticks. But tonight I was stuffing myself. People glanced at me as I piled dishes onto the tray—roast beef, meat loaf, fried chicken, mashed potatoes. Then I saw baby back ribs, each one glistening in barbecue sauce, and I staggered backward.
“What’s the matter, honey?” asked a woman with saucer-size earrings. “Are you fixing to faint?”
“No, ma’am. I’m just hungry.” I kept loading my tray with dishes. Fried okra, macaroni, broccoli, corn muffins, chocolate pie. Maybe if I gained weight, the Wentworths wouldn’t recognize me. I hurried back to my table and crumbled up the meat loaf for Jennifer, adding tiny bits of corn bread. The baby dug into the food, and I ate quickly, too. Pretty soon my empty plates shone with a greasy radiance. Before we left, I filled Jennifer’s bottles with milk—according to Dr. Spock, babies need calcium or they get rickets.
I drove until I reached the Mississippi River, turning just before the bridge. The Peabody Hotel loomed in front of me. I had once made Claude promise that he’d bring me and Jennifer to see the ducks, but he was always in a golfing tournament. Or maybe he’d been up to something else.
In the hotel’s parking lot, I handed Claude’s keys to a valet and then unhooked Jennifer from the car seat. The valet followed me into the dark, air-conditioned lobby, past a three-foot-tall arrangement of gladioli and bells of Ireland. A pretty brunette receptionist smiled at the baby, then at me.
“I’d like a room, please,” I said, fishing out Claude’s American Express. It was stamped C. E. Wentworth IV, which stood for Claude Edmund, but if push came to shove, I’d tell a fib. I’d say it stood for Candy. I thought it was too bad that his initials weren’t E. C., because then I could say my name was Eat Candy.
“Certainly,” said the receptionist, glancing at the card. “Will there be anything else, Miss Wentworth? Or is it Mrs.?”
“I’ll need a Portacrib,” I said, trying to change the subject.
The woman looked at the card again, and my heart sped up. Trying to appear innocent, I glanced toward the open lounge, toward the fountain. It was famous for its ducks, but tonight it was empty.
“Enjoy your stay in Memphis,” said the clerk, sliding the card across the marble counter. I snatched it up, then started to dash off, but the clerk called out, “Miss?”
I froze. This was it. Somehow I had been caught. I turned, ready to confess everything.
“You forgot your key,” she said, holding it in the air.
From the windows of my room, I gazed down at the lights along the river. The bridge reminded me of a carnival ride. Although I hadn’t studied a map, I was pretty sure that Arkansas was the quickest route to Texas—and Mexico. I put my head in my arms, thinking of the mess I’d had left behind in Crystal Falls. And without meaning to, I was making things worse. I could now add credit card fraud to my catalog of crimes. Soon the people at MasterCard, Esso, and American Express would start looking for me—if they weren’t already on my trail.
First, I needed to ditch the Corvette and replace it with a cheap, untraceable vehicle. I’d never bought a car—my blue Mustang had been a gift from my daddy. In fact, I’d never bought anything other than lipstick and Bobbie Brooks coordinates. If I paid cash for a car, would they make me sign forms? Ask for my driver’s license? References? Just how much information would I have to reveal?
I moved away from the window and flopped onto the bed. I wasn’t worried about waking Jennifer after the day she’d had. The coverlet was strewn with peach-colored flowers, and I buried my face in one. If only I were far, far away, living in an exotic place, a city that smelled of mandarin oranges and incense. Years ago my family and I had eaten at House of Fu in Panama City, Florida, and my fortune cookie had said: Swim with abandon into vast sea of life. I had prayed this would come to pass, even though I knew it wouldn’t. Crystal Falls was hundreds of miles from an ocean. Not only that, it didn’t even have a Chinese restaurant. Still, there was more to a town than thick yellow pages, and unlike some of the people in my family, I’d never felt the itchy urge to leave. I’d meant to stay put with Claude and our baby. I wanted to cook and sew and rearrange the furniture. And when I got old, I’d grow tomatoes. Great big ones that I’d enter in the fair.
Now it looked as if the fortune cookie had been correct. I wondered if I’d be safe living in Mexico. I couldn’t drink the water and couldn’t speak the language. It was too bad that I couldn’t go to France. When I was younger, I’d taught myself to speak French. Claude had loved it, even when the phrases I’d whispered into his ear didn’t make sense. He had encouraged my pursuit of foreign languages until I made a fool of myself at the Wentworths’ annual Valentine’s dinner. After two glasses of wine, I’d felt brave enough to speak a little French, and I asked the woman beside me to pass the beets, only what I said was “pass the dicks.” The guests had burst into laughter, but Claude’s mother spilled her wine. It was burgundy, and I cringed as the heirloom tablecloth turned dark red.
I got up from the bed and started poking around the room. I found a complimentary copy of the Commercial-Appeal on the dresser, and I opened it to classifieds. One advertisement caught my eye: ’67 green Cadillac, grt cond, new tires, cheep.
I could just imagine what Miss Betty would say about this ad—any person who misspelled cheap was bound to drive a hard bargain. Throwing down the paper, I reached for the phone and dialed Violet’s dorm room in Knoxville. I started to hang up, then Violet answered with a curt hello.
“It’s me, Bitsy.”
“Jesus Christ!” Violet cried. “Where are you?”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
“The Wentworths have been calling and raising hell. They’re saying that you lost your mind and tried to kill Claude.”
“No, it’s the other way around. He tried to kill me.”
“That’s not what he’s saying. He’s sitting up in the ICU, cursing your name.”
“ICU? So it’s that serious?”
“Well, it’s Crystal Falls, not Mass General. But never mind. You’re in huge trouble. There’s an APB out for you—they’re calling this attempted murder, kidnapping, and grand theft auto. If you don’t come back and tell your side of the story, you’ll look guilty.”
“But I’m not!”
“What happened, Bitsy? I thought you two were finally working things out.”
“Well, we were, but I think he’s been seeing another woman. We got into a fight, and he pushed my head into th
e sink. It was full of water. See, I was defrosting some baby back ribs? He intended to drown me, Violet. I couldn’t breathe. So I…I hit him.”
“And ran away. You little coward.”
“But I can’t go to jail. I can’t leave my daughter.”
“So you’ll keep on running? Is this the sort of life you want for her?”
“No, of course not.”
“Think of what’s best for Jennifer.”
“I am!” I cried. “Oh, Violet. Don’t you see? No matter what I do, it’ll be wrong.”
After I hung up, I flopped back on the bed. Maybe Violet was right. Maybe I could call and explain everything to Claude’s father—Chick was by far the most reasonable of all the Wentworths. I glanced at the bedside clock—it was almost ten-thirty. Had I left Crystal Falls only five hours ago? By now both Chick and Miss Betty had probably passed out, but with all the commotion, and with Claude being in the hospital, they might have stayed sober. However, if they were drunk, they probably wouldn’t remember that I’d even called. It was a chance I had to take. I pulled the phone into my lap and dialed.
Miss Betty answered, her hello crisp and clear. I could imagine cigarette smoke curling above her head. I started to hang up, but her voice stopped me. “Bitsy?” she said. “Is that you?”
She paused and released a raspy, irritated sigh. In the background ice clinked in a glass. “It is you.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to tell her that Claude had a mistress named Candy—Miss Betty just hated gooey names for women. I wanted to tell her that her son had tried to drown me, but I still loved him. Before I could put the words together, she said, “You are in trouble, young lady. I’ve engaged the top law firm in Nashville, and they have a whole slew of investigators. They will find you and my son’s Corvette. And Bitsy, prison life may not suit you, but one thing’s for certain, you’ll look divine in stripes.”
Mad Girls In Love Page 3