by Delia Ephron
“I didn’t know that. Consider it done.”
“And a femur?”
“Whose femur?”
“A cow, I suppose. Once a week he needs to gnaw on a femur bone.”
“I’ll be sure he gets one.”
“Thank you.” Rita stands and pushes her chair in neatly, much as she did when she first arrived, erasing her own presence. She goes to the door that joins the kitchen to the bar. Marcel has parked himself at the side of the cage nearest the kitchen, in the corner where he always waits for her. Far away, at the open entrance to The Lion, Harry blocks the light.
“We’re waiting for you,” he calls. His familiar reedy, needy voice barely conceals a hint of triumph.
“We have to stop at the motel and pick up the rest of my things.”
“I know. I’m just saying I’m anxious to get the job done and get home.”
“I’ll be out in a minute.”
As soon as Harry leaves, Rita wraps a hand around one of the thick iron bars of the cage and then, with her eyes, follows the black pole up to its spiked point. Marcel, inside the cage, breathes heavily. “You are patient,” she whispers. “Will that to me.” She runs her hand along from bar to bar, crossing to the cage door. Marcel follows along.
She unlocks the heavy padlock, lifts it off for the last time, and steps inside.
Recalling what she has read, she knows she can’t try this head-on. Marcel might interpret it as aggression. If you want to hug a lion, approach from the side, that’s what it said. She stands next to Marcel so that they are both facing the same direction. She is seeing the world as he sees it: someone locked in looking out. She knows this feeling well from her confined life as Harry’s wife. There is a comfort in the familiar even when it’s deprivation. This old friend, she thinks, is back to stay.
She slips an arm around Marcel’s neck and, with her other arm, circles around. She buries her head in his mane. It’s thick and bristly and smelly in the mustiest way. She closes her eyes and hopes she will remember the feeling.
She steps back outside and refastens the padlock. Marcel presses forward, his nose against the bars.
“It’s been an honor to know you,” says Rita. “You are a king—noble and kind the way a king should be. And you’re a wonderful partner. You’ve made me happy.”
Marcel roars. The force of his breath knocks her backward into a chair.
Rita remains where he’s sent her, astonished. Marcel lowers his head in a deep bow, and now she knows he knows she’s leaving.
Rita rushes out.
45
Tracee, the lookout, has stopped looking. It’s been at least an hour; the cops have not shown up. Her attention tends to wander, apparently even under circumstances such as these. She has slid down the wall to a catcher’s crouch and, in this unexpectedly comfortable position, has been taking a mental meander through her latest lovemaking with Tim, the stirring and quiet nature of it. I could never, ever, she thinks, in a million years be worthy of him.
Lana, slumped now in the chair, one leg flung over the arm, drifts too, considering the summer, her father, her life. She has a cool, damp washcloth that she idly moves from one spot on her arm to another, pats her forehead with it, wipes the back of her neck. She’s chewing Dentyne Ice—she consumes a few packs a day. Soon I will give this up, she thinks. I will swear it off in a big way and find something else. Something else to fill the void. She cracks the gum loudly.
“Do you want to go to Disney World?” says Tracee.
“Now?”
“No, just sometime.”
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“I’d like to go.”
“I’m sure Tim would take you.”
“I wonder if May and Gil would like to go.”
“Who are they?”
“Tim’s mom and her boyfriend. I didn’t really get to talk to Gil, because he went back to bed. Families are always going to Disney World, it seems like. Lana, Tim’s mom is so nice. She’s the nicest person. She was a Miss North Carolina. She was in the Miss America pageant.”
“You’re kidding.”
Tracee smiles widely. “I knew you’d be impressed.”
“Tim’s mom?” Lana says incredulously.
“He’s cute,” says Tracee, derailing Lana from the direction she’s taking—some mention of how you’d never think someone who looks like Tim, whom Lana once referred to as “goofy guy,” would have a beautiful mother.
“Sure. Of course he’s cute. How far did she get?”
“Not too far. She didn’t get to sing.”
“Still…”
“I know. She’s still gorgeous, isn’t she?”
Lana tries to remember. “I barely looked at her, I was so angry.”
“Do you really think I’m a mess?” says Tracee.
“What?”
“I’m a mess. You’re right, I am.”
“No, I’m a mess,” says Lana. “I blame everyone else for what I am. For what’s wrong with me. Marcel… something about hanging out with him makes things clearer, but then I lose it. Turn me loose and I lose it. I’m sorry I wailed at you.”
“It’s okay.”
“It isn’t really. You’re just used to it. I cleaned out his checking account.”
“You what?”
“My dad’s. I stood behind him at the bank while he tapped in his code. Snuck his ATM card one night, you know how he kept his wallet on his bureau, emptied his pockets and put everything there, wallet, change, keys.… I used it and returned it. He never knew, well, not until he went to the bank again. Easy as pie.”
Lana’s a thief. Lana’s a thief like me. How astonishing. How awful, and yet Tracee can’t help herself. She feels something else too. A flutter of happiness.
“What?” says Lana, noticing some thought passing through Tracee’s brain from the subtlest indicator, a brightening of her eyes.
“Nothing. How much did you take?”
“Enough. I drank it away.”
“No wonder—”
“What?”
“Just no wonder he doesn’t talk to you.”
“Yeah. No wonder.”
Lana fusses in her purse, produces a pack of Dentyne Ice, pops out several pieces, tosses them in her mouth, and crunches. “This gum thing is an addiction, you know. Addiction morphs.”
“I still don’t really understand,” says Tracee.
“Addiction is something you’re stuck with for life.” Lana attempts to sound cheerful about this.
“I mean about your dad?” Tracee moves over to perch on the edge of the bed, facing Lana. She wants to take her hand, she wants to hug her, but now Lana has that hard look where her jaw stiffens.
“He figured out I was drinking. He figured out everything, that I’d flunked out, all the lies.” Exasperated at having to explain and hearing her own agitation, Lana gives up. She ripped off her dad and stole his pride in her. She can’t cry. She won’t let herself. She has no right. Still, she’s wobbling the way she does when she’s loaded, when she can’t keep a fix on her feelings. Just say it, she tells herself. Say it as if it means nothing. “He told me I had to get straight.”
“Straight?”
“Sober. Or he wouldn’t help me out, I couldn’t come home. So I took his money, got him back. Besides, I had to stay juiced.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He wasted his life on me. I finally proved I wasn’t worth it. Good for me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the necklace? Just hiding the ugly parts of ourselves, right?” Lana gets up quickly, walks to the window, and lifts a blind.
“Peter will drive the van. You and I will ride with Tucker. He knows the way.”
“I know the way,” says Rita.
“I’m sure he knows it better,” says Harry, getting into the front seat of the patrol car, leaving Rita to get herself into the back, which isn’t a problem, since it’s a four-door, except
it leaves her standing alone in the parking lot looking straight at Marcel’s tree, and all she can think is, I’m never going to see him lounging along a petrified branch, his head hanging over, smiling down at me.
“That tree is an eyesore,” she hears Harry say as she opens Tucker’s door and checks out the inside. There’s a metal grate separating the front seat from the back. It must be there for safety, she figures, to prevent a crook from beaning or strangling the cop who is driving. She’s traveling in a cage. Is she leaving the way Marcel arrived?
They roll out of the lot and turn onto Winstead Road for Rita’s last trip from The Lion to the Tulip Tree Motel. Harry sticks a hand out the window, waving for their family to follow, although he has already given instructions to that effect.
“My wife is grateful to you, Tucker, for saving her,” says Harry, and, summoning his more resonant preacher voice, adds, “‘The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral… they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.’”
“Whoa,” says Tucker.
“The Bible. Revelations.”
“And I thought I was only tracking down a runaway wife.”
“Before this strange occurrence I had no complaints,” says Harry.
“Not many men can say that about their wives.”
“Are you married?”
“Not even close. But one day I hope to be, sir.”
“I’ll put that in my prayers.”
Tucker glances into the rearview mirror at Rita’s face, as pale as soap. “What did make you take off, if you don’t mind my asking? I should put it in the report.”
Rita opens her mouth but Harry answers first. “A madness.”
She wraps her arms across her chest, squeezing herself tight. The back of Harry’s head appears a mite flat. Definitely, for a head, flat. None of their sons inherited that, thank goodness. “How many criminals have sat where I’m sitting?” she asks.
“Don’t hold yourself above them. That’s prideful,” says Harry. “Don’t answer her either, Tucker. It only satisfies a wicked curiosity.”
“Speaking of,” says Tucker. “Gotta say I’d like to know, how did you join up with the others? The younger ladies.”
“We met…”
Rita sees his head turn sideways, awaiting the rest of her answer, but her thought vaporizes. On the highway. We met on the highway was all she meant to say, but it’s gone.
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” says Harry.
“No police, no warrant, no search. I guess we overreacted.” Lana squints out the window into a glaring sun, trying to ascertain what, if anything, is going on in the parking lot, whose dirty gray surface gleams like silver. Everything out there is shimmering in the heat, and there is absolutely no sign of life except for a patrol car on the street coming this way, followed by a white van. They both turn at the sign, TULIP TREE MOTEL.
Lana throws herself back in the chair. “Police.”
Tracee screams.
“On the bed, get on the bed. Tracee, now!”
Tracee flops down. There they stay, nearly paralyzed. Imagining the police car parking, the trek up the stairs. Hearing the balcony rail rattle the way it always does when someone approaches. Waiting for the knock. Knowing it’s a second away. Expecting it. Still, when it comes they nearly leap out of their skins.
Lana counts to three, walks to the door, and opens it. In spite of coming face-to-face with Tucker and seeing Rita as limp as a dummy, she finds herself distracted. The one who pulls her focus is the grim older man with thinning black hair and a clerical collar.
“This is Harry,” says Rita.
He puts out a hand.
Lana, thrown, takes a second to reciprocate. His grip is wet. He’s sweating. “I’m Lana. And this is Tracee,” she adds, sensing Tracee behind her, closing in for a better view.
“If you’re all set, I’ll take off,” says Tucker.
Take off? Lana and Tracee exchange the briefest of looks.
“Thank you for your help,” says Harry. “God bless.”
Amazed, Lana and Tracee watch Tucker hustle down the stairs. Is this possible? Should they ask? Why in the world did he want them before? Why had Clayton summoned them? But the answer is in front of their faces. Tucker needed them because he wanted to ask about Rita and her whereabouts.
Something that is now unnecessary.
“I’m going back,” says Rita. “I’ve got to pack up.”
Her voice is a deadly monotone. She can barely drag her feet across the room to the closet, where her few thrift shop dresses hang. Sliding the door, which scratches on its runner, giving everyone a shiver, she stops short of exposing the white wonder, Tracee’s stolen wedding dress. Still, her few things occupy much more space than they need. Rita fingers the mint green dress, the one she usually wears for her act.
Harry pulls out a drawer in the bedside table. “No Bible,” he says.
“This isn’t a motel anymore,” says Lana. “It’s rooms by the month.”
Rita lifts out the hanger. Already this gaudy, bright thing seems to belong to somebody else. “Why would I need this?” she says softly.
“You don’t,” says Harry.
Lana looks back and forth from Rita to Harry. Rita appears to be inches shorter, and she is short to begin with. It seems as if Harry has been pounding her like a nail into the floor.
“Are you leaving the place this way?” says Lana.
“Excuse me?” says Rita.
Lana takes the dress from her and hangs it back up. “This room is a pigsty. Your pigsty. Tracee and I came back this morning after spending the night at—”
Rita looks at her curiously while Lana tries to figure out where she and Tracee might have been. “A religious retreat near…”
“Eg-ger-sten-ton,” says Tracee.
Lana turns to Harry. “We left your wife here all alone while we went to meditate and pray, and this morning we come back and what do we find? Your thong.” She pinches it off the floor and tosses it onto the bed.
“My thong?” says Rita.
“Her thong?” says Harry.
“It’s not mine. I don’t have bows on mine, do you, Tracee?”
“No.”
“But—” says Rita.
Lana cuts her off. “She’s embarrassed in front of you,” she tells Harry.
“So what if you wear a thong and no bra,” says Tracee.
Harry takes a quick look-see outside the door. Can anyone hear them? The balcony is empty. He ambles a short distance in each direction to be sure, and checks the whereabouts of his brood. The grandkids are below, playing tag in the lot.
Meanwhile Rita whispers to Lana, “What’s going on?”
“You’re not leaving,” says Lana.
“I have responsibilities.”
“What about Marcel?” Lana grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her. “You cannot go back to being that pasty half a person we picked up on the highway. Not on my life.” Abruptly she releases her as Harry takes a step in and shuts the door.
“Look at the bed,” says Lana.
“The bed?” says Rita.
“Are you leaving it this way?”
“I won’t,” says Rita, utterly confused but always helpful.
“Don’t you dare make us make your bed,” says Lana.
“Of course,” says Rita, “whatever you want.”
“Stop arguing,” says Lana. “You slept in it, make it.” She yanks the covers down. There is the condom.
They all stare. Lana, as if startled, throws the covers back on.
The silence that follows seems long enough for the sun to have risen and set.
Harry lifts the blanket and top sheet, leans down to peek under them again, and lays them back down.
“We’ll wait outside,” says Lana.
“I can’t forgive this, Rita,” says Harry as soon as they are alone. He purses his lips. They start to move silently.
&n
bsp; Rita grabs a pillow and whacks him. “Don’t you dare pray for my soul.”
“Someone has to.”
“Not you.”
“Better you’re not around the children.”
“My children are grown. They can bring my grandchildren to visit anytime. If you have a spark of decency, you won’t interfere.” She goes to the door to let him out but he blocks her way. His eyes narrow and darken. For an instant she thinks he’s going to seize her and kiss her, a dreadful notion. And ridiculous. There’s never been an ember of passion in Harry. He gets only sterner when crossed. “You’re going to hell,” he says.
“Don’t push me, Harry, or I’ll tell you what hell is.” Rita presses past him and turns the knob, showing him the way out.
The moment he’s gone, her legs buckle. She reaches for the bureau to stabilize herself and works her way over to the chair. She buries her head in her hands, not surprised to find she has not a tear to shed. “I’m free,” she says under her breath, and looks up to see Harry standing there.
“Oh,” says Rita. “What?”
“Who is the other man?” he says. “Is it that man in the bar?”
“I have many admirers,” says Rita.
“So, anyone then? Anyone and no one special?”
“Marcel.”
“Marcel?”
“Marcel.”
“Does he have a last name?”
“I really don’t know.”
Harry shakes his head, marveling at the depth to which his wife has sunk. “Is he foreign?”
Rita smiles. “Yes. African.”
Lana and Tracee do not trust that Harry is gone until he actually is. They hang over the rail until the van has disappeared down the road and around a curve. Only then do they return to the room. Rita is not there. The covers on the bed are folded down. There is no condom.
“Rita,” calls Lana.
She comes out of the bathroom.
“I flushed it,” she says.
46
There is a sign on the door. Written in pen, a hasty scribble on a piece of white paper taped on with masking tape, impossible to make out until you get close. No More Shows.
Rita rips it off and enters The Lion.