by Delia Ephron
“I’m staying out here for sure, but don’t do a lease or whatever,” says Tracee. “No matter how much that lady insists.”
That lady, whose name is Marlene, is talking on the phone. “For Pete’s sake, it’s on the second shelf,” she says, and then to Lana and Rita says, “Two hundred a month, cash. Where it always is,” she says into the phone.
She’s a large woman in small clothes—a tank and shorts she’s bursting out of. She wears a black knit hat pulled down low on her round face. It hides her hair. A black knit stocking cap in summer. This curious fashion choice, a mite threatening, makes Rita wary and Lana more inclined to provoke. Marlene counts their money while she keeps the receiver clamped between her ear and shoulder, picks a key off a hook, number nineteen, and slides it across the counter. Rita notices that the shades are drawn and they are blackout shades. Behind the counter, taking up all available space, is a maroon Barcalounger with the back down and the footrest up. It faces a TV on a wooden box. The TV is on, tuned to Iron Chef.
“How come there is cable in the office and we don’t have it in the room?” says Lana to Rita in a loud voice.
“Hold on.” Marlene puts the phone down.
“That’s an awfully big chair,” says Rita. “How many positions does it have?”
“Four.” Marlene keeps her beady eyes on Lana, who looks everywhere but at her, pointedly uninterested.
“You got complaints?” says Marlene.
“Oh, no, we’re fine,” says Rita.
“Get cable, who’s stopping you? This isn’t a motel.”
“It is to me,” says Lana.
“It’s not.”
“Just because you rent rooms by the month doesn’t make it not a motel. It looks like a motel. It’s called a motel.”
“Don’t forget your telephone call,” Rita tells Marlene. “Would you happen to have an empty cardboard box or two we can use?”
“Outside, around the back.”
“Thank you. We appreciate it.” Rita holds the door for Lana.
“It’s a motel,” says Lana, when Rita has almost but not quite pulled the door shut behind them.
“What did she do? Did you have to sign?” says Tracee.
“She has cable.” Lana gives the finger to the closed office door.
“I don’t get it.”
“She was watching Iron Chef.”
“So?”
“She has cable and we don’t.”
“We’ve never had cable.” Tracee looks to Rita for clarification.
“She has a box or two we can use,” says Rita. “Isn’t that good news? She says they’re around the back.”
Tim follows them as they pack their few things, even though there is no space in the room to follow them. Stepping this way and that, he pleads his case from one to the other. “It’s not necessary to move,” he repeats again and again.
“We can’t impose on you anymore,” says Lana firmly.
He insists on carrying the two boxes to number nineteen, two doors down.
“Just leave them at the door,” says Lana. “You’re going to be late for work.”
“Thank you, Tim,” says Rita.
“I’ll carry the wedding dress too,” he says.
“That’s not necessary,” says Tracee.
The nine of number nineteen is missing. There are two nail holes and, in the old paint, a shadow of a nine. The doorknob rattles a bit—it seems to be loose—as Lana unlocks and kicks open the door. Their new room, a twin of Tim’s, has a slightly moldy smell. Rita pulls up the blinds, some of which are bent, and opens the window. Lana tosses what remains of her pay on the bureau. “All I’ve got left is twelve dollars.”
Seeing that crumpled ten and two singles really drives it home. “We’re never going to make enough to have the car fixed. We’re going to be stuck in this shithole for fucking ever.”
“Don’t say that,” says Tracee, her bottom lip trembling.
“It’s true.”
Lana goes into the bathroom and slams the door.
Rita takes Tracee’s dress and hangs it up for her. She slides the closet open and shut several times as if testing it. She doesn’t want Tracee to see how happy she is and that she is smiling.
Lana empties her toiletries out of a paper bag into the sink and then arranges them in a row on top of the toilet tank. She pats her back pocket, remembering it’s still there, and slips it out. That’s the last thing she sets down, at the end of the row: the condom. She stands the packet on edge, resting against the Noxzema.
19
Rita has insisted from the beginning that Lana and Tracee sleep in the double bed while she bunks in the chair with her legs resting on the mattress. She pointed out the logic—she’s smaller, it’s an easier fit. Usually Tracee crashes first, falling asleep before the TV is off and the lights are out, and Rita conks out shortly thereafter. Lana, plagued by insomnia ever since childhood, secretly takes a Tylenol PM, something AA would disapprove of.
Tonight, with the unsettledness of a new room and the prospect of spending a lifetime in it, everyone is wired. The television has a loud hum, making it impossible to watch. They lie there wide-awake with the lights out.
“Who wants a cherry Life Saver?” Tracee passes around a roll that Tim has given her. “Have you gone to another AA meeting?”
“Why are you asking a question you know the answer to?”
“Sorry.” Tracee moves closer to the edge of the bed. She allows herself only a sliver of space. She worries about getting in Lana’s way even while they sleep. Lana kicks. Even sedated with a Tylenol PM she’s restless.
“Do you want company? I could go with you,” says Rita.
“It’s not that kind of thing. Besides…” Lana thinks about the guy, the one with the piercings. He knows her dad hung up on her. She tries to wipe out the memory. It’s harder to wipe out memory when you don’t drink, harder to make embarrassment and humiliation and guilt go away. He knows her dad won’t have anything to do with her. He’s guessed the truth, she’s sure, that it’s all her fault, that she deserves it. “I don’t need to go to AA, I’m fine.”
“It must be hard to work in a bar,” says Rita.
“No it’s not. Lots of AA people work in bars.”
“I didn’t realize that. Still—”
“Does anyone care if I eat the whole roll?” Without waiting for an answer, Lana stuffs all the Life Savers in her mouth at once.
She crushes them with her teeth. They lie there quietly while she chews and then sucks the last of them into extinction.
“Have you noticed how little that lion moves?” says Lana.
Tracee giggles. “He’s like furniture. It’s so weird. I’m getting someone a beer and walking past a lion. Yet I don’t even think about it. Because he’s not there.”
“He gives us his backside. It’s so ‘fuck you.’ Way to go, Marcel. Why doesn’t he hide in the cave?”
“Because his home is sad,” says Tracee. “That white hut. It looks like an igloo.”
“It’s elegant,” says Rita.
“What?” says Lana.
“The hut?” says Tracee.
Rita hesitates. Harry always told her to keep her thoughts to herself. “No one wants to know about you. No one cares what you think.” He drilled it into her, but Lana is persistent. “What do you mean, elegant?”
Rita tries to say this clearly in order to be worthy of their interest. “Facing away is elegant because it’s simple. What are his choices? He’s in a cage. How does he maintain his dignity? Every single day living in a cage he’s less of who he was.” Her voice trembles here, and she talks faster to compensate. “How does he hold on to something that perhaps he never had?” She has said more than she intended and fully expects them to burst out laughing. She always amused Harry when she didn’t mean to.
But Lana and Tracee seem to consider her words in a friendly silence. “Cool,” says Tracee eventually.
“He follows you,” says Lan
a.
“Oh?”
“That’s the only time he moves at all. When you’re around. I’ve noticed that.”
Lana turns on her side and tucks the pillow closer to her shoulder. Tracee knows that means that Lana will be asleep shortly. She listens for Rita’s soft and regular breathing. Rita sleeps so quietly. One night Tracee worried that she was in a coma. After a few minutes, certain that her roommates are deep in slumber, she draws the diamond necklace from under her pillow. She wraps the choker twice around her narrow wrist. The stones are so pretty, she thinks, like tiny stars.
Tracee
The first thing Tracee stole was a scrunchie. It was the Christmas season and she was in Squires, a small variety store in Fosberg, Maryland, where she and Lana grew up. She was nine years old and had wandered the six blocks to Broad Street by herself. Broad Street, festooned for the holidays with silver-and-green garlands spiraling up lampposts, had all of Fosberg’s fancy shops and, at the ends, a few low-rent stores like Squires. Broad divided the town, stately houses on double lots with grand trees on the north side, and, on the south side, where Tracee and Lana lived, small identical one-story houses with aluminum siding originally built for veterans after World War II.
Tracee wasn’t tall—that came later, when she had a growth spurt at thirteen—and as she stopped here and there in various aisles, she had to stand on her toes to see the merchandise laid out in compartments on the counter. She played with the scrunchies, rolling them on and off her wrist, pulling at the elastic. The assortment was enormous, at least it seemed so to her. They came in every color and fun fabrics like shiny plaids, polka dots, denims, and velvets. Mr. Squires was behind the counter, smack-dab in front of her, when she found herself slipping a red velvet one into her pocket. It was sparkly, sewn all over with sequins.
“What’d you take, missy?”
It was strange to be called that.
“Nothing.”
Quick as a flash he was around the counter and pulled the scrunchie out of her pocket. “Where’s your parents?”
Tracee shook her head.
“Who you with?”
Tracee shook her head.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her past staring customers into his little dark office in back. “You’re bad news.” He stared down at her, his face flushed and puffed with anger. To Tracee he looked like a red balloon. She thought he might explode. “I’m calling your parents, what’s the number?” He had to ask her three times before she could tell him, because she was shaking all over.
While he dialed he glared at her. Tracee blinked, trying not to cry. “Sit down,” he said, but she didn’t move as he waited for her mom or dad to answer. No one did. They weren’t home.
“Sit,” he said again, and this time she obeyed.
“Keep your butt in that chair.” He went out and slammed the door. She thought he was getting the police and didn’t move a muscle while she waited to be arrested. But he turned up a while later and phoned her parents again. Still no answer.
“I’m sorry,” said Tracee.
“You’re not getting out of it that easy.”
He didn’t realize that she was apologizing for her parents, for their not being there.
“Where are your parents?”
Tracee shook her head. She had no idea. She never did. Her dad did short-distance trucking, day trips or hauls lasting two or three days. Often her mom jumped in the cab at the last minute and took off with him. They’d be laughing, nuzzling—her mom basically climbing all over her dad. Occasionally they waved good-bye. Usually not. Tracee had to fend for herself.
Mr. Squires left again.
The next time he came back to call, he sat down at his wooden desk and tapped it impatiently as the phone rang. Giving up, he banged open and shut a few drawers, finally locating a transistor radio. He set it on the blotter next to the scrunchie and turned it on. “Fiddle with the dial. Find something you like. Don’t steal it.” He laughed at that and left again. Tracee didn’t touch the dial and for two hours listened to Christmas music. She hummed a little to the songs she knew.
When it was six o’clock, time to close, and there was still no answer at Tracee’s house, Mr. Squires said, “Christ, you’re a stray cat. What am I supposed to do with you?”
“I could go to Lana’s.”
“Who’s that?”
“Next door.”
“I’ll drop you.”
Tracee got up, and at that moment he noticed she was wearing her parka. She’d been sitting there for hours in a heavy coat.
“Weren’t you hot? It’s pretty hot in here.”
She shook her head.
“Let me try one more time.” By this time he knew the number by heart and put the speaker on. The scrunchie was still on the desk blotter, and he spun it while they listened to the phone ring. Finally he gave up.
He offered the scrunchie. “Why don’t you keep this, an early Christmas present.”
Tracee started to shake her head no but stuck her hand out instead.
He drove her home in his large car, and when he pulled up at Tracee’s, she was certain he noticed that her house was the only one on the block without a wreath or fancy red bow or lights strung through a scraggly bush or neatly rimming a porch. Lana’s house had all those things, and a big plastic reindeer too.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Mr. Squires, again not for stealing, this time for her house.
“Don’t do it again.”
He didn’t drive off until she rang the doorbell at Lana’s and Lana’s dad let her in.
Tracee took the scrunchie home and stuck it in her dresser drawer as if, when she was considering what to wear, it was simply one of the possibilities, albeit one she never picked. “What should I wear today?” she would ask herself every morning, although the choices were meager.
Lana knew that Tracee stole, but she learned about it so gradually, she didn’t think much about it. Lots of kids stole things. A group of girls in sixth grade used to laugh about their raids on Costco, bragging about what they took and who was the decoy and who was the thief. Tracee simply never outgrew it. She went through a Hello Kitty phase (key chains, pencils, pins, plastic wallets decorated with that pink-and-white cartoon kitty), all of which ended up in a heap on her closet floor. For a while she favored stealing from Rite Aid, where it was understaffed and easy to scarf a Maybelline eyebrow pencil or a pretty tin of mints. But mostly her plunder was random, born of a sudden urge wherever she happened to be and for whatever caught her eye.
Folks in Fosberg knew that Tracee’s parents were often away and left the young girl roaming around a fairly empty house. They also knew that Bob Byrne, Lana’s father, looked after her and that she and Lana were inseparable. Tracee had a wide-eyed innocence, and she was such a skinny girl—no matter how much she ate it never stuck to her. She was not only a waif, she looked like one. She got used to the sad smiles people bestowed when they said hello. She didn’t mind the pats on the head, although she didn’t understand why she was getting them.
Boys quickly learned that compliments went farther with Tracee. Needy for affection and approval, she liked to please. With a little flattery they could have their way with her. Thanks to the routine and help at Lana’s, she got through high school, but she had to be cajoled to study. She preferred to watch The Cosby Show in reruns every afternoon and evening. She loved that TV family: Cliff and Clair Huxtable and their four kids, especially Denise, the sassy teenage daughter. She loved the Huxtable house, cozy and crowded. Theo’s bedroom was such a mess. She loved how Cliff and Clair were always figuring out what trouble their kids were up to and paying a visit at bedtime to have a heart-to-heart about it. And they were all so funny. It seemed like everyone in that family was having fun.
After high school, when Lana moved to Baltimore, Tracee moved with her. They shared a room at the top of a three-story brick row house. Four hundred dollars a month. Lana went to the university until she flunked out, while Tracee worke
d a succession of jobs—Ace Same-Day Photo, Betsy’s Hair (she gave shampoos, swept the floor, and cleaned the bathroom), and then the Sun Spot, a tanning salon where she met J.C., who liked a fake bake every now and again. Tracee answered the phone, greeted customers, and took the money.
J.C. thought she was hot, and knew she was gullible because he underpaid her for his tanning session and convinced her she hadn’t counted properly before relenting and admitting the truth. He took her for buffalo wings and slept with her that first night, and when he woke up the next morning he found she’d cleaned up his room, put everything away, and he appreciated that. She got to be a habit.
Tracee thought J.C. was gorgeous. He had a wicked sexy grin, wore sunglasses with reflector lenses, and his brown hair was streaked the color of Velveeta. She soon took over the job of keeping his hair looking exactly the way he liked it. She was a pro with Clairol, had a real knack for highlighting. She’d learned from observing at Betsy’s Hair.
J.C. was a weight lifter, and, because he liked an audience, Tracee often accompanied him to the gym. She sat on the stationary bike, not pedaling, and watched him bend over, grunt, and raise one hundred fifty pounds over his head. He could lift her too like a barbell, and often asked to do it, and then dropped her on the bed. She hated it, it frightened her, but she didn’t want to tell him. If she ever complained, like about the time he slept with Joanne, a trainer at the gym, he said, “You want to break up?” He jumped right to it. Tracee backed off. She put up with being lifted like a barbell and J.C.’s barely concealed transgressions, and never told Lana about it. Lana and J.C. were oil and water.
After three years with Tracee, J.C., who worked at the bar in a Hampton Inn, enrolled in audio school part-time to become a professional in the music business. Even though he had no real gift at the computer engineering part, barely passing those courses, he thought he’d be good at spotting talent. He was going to graduate, finally, on June fifteenth—twelve days after Lana and Tracee left Maryland in haste. All through spring, Tracee and J.C. talked about how they would move to Nashville. “And get married, right?” Tracee would add. J.C. didn’t disagree. They’d get a U-Haul, pile everything in, and take off. Tracee was excited, figuring that J.C. was about to pop the question. Wondering each day if today was the day.