Sugarland

by Joni Rodgers

  Kit and Kiki ended with their heads back, bathrobes falling open over their nightshirts, syrupy forks held high over their mouths, and then they hugged each other and laughed until they started crying again: Kiki for her failed marriage, Kit for her guilty conscience, and both of them for the elusive gold lamé dreams they’d eventually outgrown.

  The drone of the garage door opener signalled Mel’s homecoming, and Kit and Kiki pulled apart and blew their noses into paper towels from a dispenser over the sink. Kit automatically filled a coffee cup from the cupboard and hastily pulled two towels from the laundry basket, folding them so they’d look clean.

  “Morning, honey,” she said as he shuffled in the back door, bringing with him the smell of an airplane’s underbelly. “How was your night?”

  “Morning,” he mumbled and bent down a little to meet her reaching up to give him a quick kiss. She offered him the coffee, but he took his towels and headed for the shower.

  Kit poured his coffee back into the pot.

  “Must have been a rough one.”

  “I should go,” Kiki said.

  “Where?” Kit hated to point out the obvious and was relieved when Kiki kept her composure.

  “Actually, I was hoping ...” Her mouth trembled just a little. “Maybe now he’s had a chance to sleep it off, and he realizes—”

  “Kiki! You can’t be thinking of going back again. Not this time. Not after he—”

  “Oh, I know, I know, but see—the problem is ... there’s this hanging bougainvillea out on the patio, and these mourning doves made a nest in it. And the babies are only just now hatched. Just day before yesterday, Kit. They’re still all tiny and scraggly looking and everything.”

  “Sweetie, I don’t understand what that has to do with—”

  “Well, what if Wayne doesn’t water the basket and the bougainvillea dies? Or what if he waters it, and he’s not careful about the birds? I should be there, Kit. To take care of things. It’s my home.”

  “Then go home and throw him out!” Kit exclaimed. “He’s the one who’s running around. Let him go to a motel or move in with Miss Spandex or something! You’ve got the kids to think about, Kiki. And the baby.”

  “You’re right,” Kiki nodded. “That’s right. He should go.” She looked up at her big sister. “Will you tell him?”

  “Sure,” said Kit. “You bet I’ll tell him. I’d be glad to tell him. Meanwhile,” and she took Kiki’s hands in hers to show her she really meant it, “you stay here as long as you need to. We’ll take good care of you.”

  “I know,” Kiki said miserably. “You always do. But I hope it doesn’t last too long this time.”

  Mel was upstairs thumping around the bedroom over their heads now, and hearing his dresser drawers banging open and closed, Kit hastily dug some underwear out of the laundry. Folding it didn’t really make it look clean, but it was the best she could do at the moment. Mel wouldn’t care, anyway. He could wear the same boxers and sweats for a week without a second thought. He’d pick them up off the floor each morning, give them a shake to dislodge the balled-up socks stuck in the ankles, flick off an egg noodle from last night’s supper, and figure, hey, good to go. When Kit came in with the folded BVD’s, he was foraging through a pile of dirty clothes on the floor, naked and hairy as a caveman rooting for the makings of his first tool.

  “Here.” She handed him his shorts and sheepishly indicated the pile in the corner. “I’m gonna get to that today. After I get home from work.”

  “You’re working today?” Mel glanced up. “On Saturday?”

  “Well, Ander had these window boxes—”

  “Whatever.” Mel pulled on the boxers and shook the socks out of a pair of jeans.” Whaf s up with the Keekster?”

  “She left him.”

  “Again?” he huffed.

  “Yeah, again,” Kit said irritably. “And I hope she means it this time.”

  “Why? What’s it about now?”

  “I thought your good ol’ buddy Wayne told you all about it.”

  “Ah, for—geez! Don’t tell me that jackass went and told her about that—that... Ah, for—” Mel discovered a clean T-shirt in a far recess of his empty drawer and stretched it over his stomach. “I told that pinhead to keep his mouth shut and leave a good thing alone.”

  “A good thing?” Kit was more than irritated now. “A good thing?”

  “I’m talking about Kiki and the kids. Not that—that other thing,” Mel struggled. “If he’d just kept his mouth shut, he could have at least kept her—”

  “What? Blissfully ignorant? In the dark? Is that how you’d like to be treated?”

  “Yes! Yes it is! They have a marriage, Kit. A family.” He groped under the bed for one of the sock balls. “You don’t just toss that down the dumper.”

  “No,” Kit said. Guilt washed over her like a floodplain, and Mel made it a thousand times worse when he reached over and took her hand.

  “But I should have told you, Kit. I’m sorry. I wasn’t condoning it or anything. I just figured it would be weird for you sitting there knowing something like that. I know how stuff like that eats on you.”

  “Whatever,” Kit turned away. “C’mon down. I’ll get your breakfast.”

  “Wait.” He sat on the edge of their bed and pulled her onto his lap. “You gotta know I’d never do anything like that, Kit. Never.”

  “I know,” Kit said, writhing inside because she did know.

  “Never did, never will. Don’t even want to.”

  When he opened the front of her robe and touched her through her nightshirt, Kit wanted to cut her own hands off. When he pressed his nose between her breasts, she wanted to cut them off, too, but she lifted her nightshirt instead, needing every ounce of atonement she could get.

  “Mmm. You smell good,” Mel told her. “Like pancakes.”

  comma comma

  teardrop

  comma comma

  slide

  comma comma

  teardrop

  comma comma

  slide

  Down the side of a teal blue hoosier, Kit worked her way, focusing on the exactness of the pattern: two moss-green comma strokes, an azure teardrop, two more commas, then a slightly irregular slide in naphtol crimson #2. She balanced a pallet of color on her palm, alternating different shaped brushes, clenching the spares between her teeth. Her jaw was beginning to ache, and the brush strokes were beginning to blur before her eyes. All these nights of staying up late with Kiki. Tonight, she would tell her they had to get some sleep. For now, Kit closed her eyes tight, then opened them wide, refocusing on the hoosier.

  When the kitchen cupboard first arrived in Ander’s workshop, it stood tall and austere as a prairie woman, but over the weeks, Kit had festooned this plain pioneer with florid memories of the old country. On the plain bodice where dishes were shelved behind glass-paned doors, she set apples and pears to ripen at the corners, breaking a delicate border that scrolled like a fine embroidery around the frame. At the slender waist, Kit outlined the dry sink area with a flowing yellow ripple stroke, but used simple white and a straight edge to give a more utilitarian hemline to the cutting board that slid out from under the countertop like an apron that could be taken on and off as needed. The lower cupboard was adorned with her own particular ferns: a hybrid of the stroke Ander had taught her and a vague memory of the fiddleheads that curled upward, bright green among the blue-violet irises behind her grandmother’s house in Sugar Land. Irises, she smiled when she remembered that again, and she decided to put irises just outside the wide wooden doors on the hoosier’s full, boxy skirt.

  Kit crouched now, continuing toward the floor a border pattern she’d begun on tip-toes that morning.

  comma comma

  teardrop

  comma slide —

  “Shoot,” she muttered, dabbing at the mistake with a rag dipped in mineral spirits.

  “You look to be some tired, Kit.” Ander set a large warm hand on her sh
oulder. “Are you feel tedious today?”

  His finger-paint English always made her smile, even when her shoulders cramped and her neck stiffened. Mitzi and Coo always said he sounded like the Swedish chef on “The Muppet Show.” “Hershty bershty gershty.”

  “Come, you take this break now, Kit.” Only he said it like “Ket.”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “I know this week is many extra hours for you, but we pay to hell we don’t deliver this thing Monday in morning. I know is big job for you, but I tell Ruda already, put some bonus paycheck to my girl Kit this week. This week she is very hard work.”

  Kit didn’t mind the overtime. She was proud of the fact that, working three days a week plus extra for special projects, she’d been able to buy a washer and dryer, an upstairs vacuum cleaner, and a five-piece living room set from Gallery Furniture’s clearance pavilion. She’d replaced the swing set when it was outgrown, funded several weekend trips to Corpus Christi and San Antonio, and was now saving up for the mother of all family vacations: Disney World.

  But more than the money was the peace. As long as she was here, brush in hand, she was able to forgive herself the messy house, the overdue library books, the looming balloon payment on the mortgage. Her mind rested, went with the familiar lines and grapevines that grew right out of her own hand. There was no such thing as ghosts in this perfect world of dapple-cheeked fruit and soft-shouldered flowers and her own special ferns that feathered down the wood, delicate as moss. Kit loved her job. She was good at it, and it was good for her. It gave her something to be. When someone asked, “What do you do?” this job let her say, “Oh, I paint.”

  Ander was a good friend, and he and his wife, Ruda, were easy employers. They gave Kit two weeks off with pay when Mitzi was born and understood when the kids had ear infections or well-baby checkups and even let her bring them to the store if her babysitter flaked out at the last minute. That was fine with them. There were books, blocks, and a Little Tykes jungle gym in a gated back room where their own preschoolers played while Ruda came in twice a week to do the bookkeeping on a computer that beeped softly and spoke Swedish.

  The seven Anderson children ranged from newborn to nine, every one a blunt, blonde clone of their father. They had sweet natures, round cherub faces, flawless rosy skin, cerulean blue eyes, and smooth, straw-colored haircuts: shoulder length bobs on the girls, bicycle helmets on the boys. Mitzi with her fly-away, dishwater pigtails and Cooper with his rowdy red crew cut stood out like a couple of gangsters in this crowd of angels, but Kit kept hoping some of that rosy, blonde sweetness would rub off.

  “Shoot!” Kit dabbed in annoyance at another wayward brush stroke and bit the end of her brush.

  Ruda came in, smiling and bouncing the latest baby on her hip.

  “Ah! G’dagen,” Ander lit up, motioned her over, and started speaking enthusiastically in Swedish. Kit caught her name and the word “Monday,” but the rest really did sound like the Muppet, and that made her smile again.

  Ruda said something in Swedish, and Ander relayed, “Do you want to be done for today, Kit?”

  “No, thanks. I better keep at it.”

  “Don’t worry you don’t finish today. There still is Wednesday, Friday. You come in Thursday. I tell Ruda is OK. Is no problem for you to come in even on Saturday, too.”

  “I can’t,” Kit rolled her head forward and rubbed her neck. “Mel and I are taking the kids to see his parents this weekend. It’s their anniversary, so we really can’t get out of it.” She pulled a footstool over to the bottom of the hoosier and went back to the pattern. She’d confided enough about the Prizer family rodeo of disfunctionality over the years for Ander to know she’d rather be painting.

  “Oh, ya, those in-law problem,” Ander nodded. “You know how I handle those in-law problem? I leave that country! No more problem!”

  They both laughed, and Ander repeated the joke in Swedish for Ruda, and she laughed, too. Even the baby giggled on her hip. Kit turned back to the hoosier.

  comma comma

  teardrop

  comma comma

  slide

  She tried to go with the strokes but was dragged back by the feeling this behemoth was going to take the rest of her natural life to complete while the dishes and dirty laundry and yet-to-be-packed suitcase telegraphed her from the utility room at home.

  She thought about the serving tray she’d spent a whole day rosemaling for Neeva and Otto’s anniversary, knowing full well that Neeva would hate it just like she hated every other gift she’d ever been given. Fuzzy slippers, night-lights, air popper, Mr. Coffee—even The Clapper! Gifts sent by mail were never acknowledged, and those presented in person disappeared into the vortex of her disheveled house. Then Kit would notice a few months later that Neeva had gone out and bought something nearly identical.

  It drove her nuts.

  She tried giving them cash once, and you would have thought there was a tarantula in the card the way Neeva carried on. Kit kept trying, though, hoping against reason that someday she’d strike on something Neeva liked, and then Mel wouldn’t have to listen to the semiannual diatribe, and Kit wouldn’t have to put up with his black cloud of silence all the way home.

  He always got into a big, dark funk as the obligatory visit drew closer. He was already out of joint earlier that morning because Kit left a Woman’s Own magazine on the back of the toilet, open to an article on how “You Can Teach Your Man (You Deserve an Orgasm Every Time!),” and Mel took it as some kind of veiled insult.

  Kit was embarrassed. She was secretly hoping he’d read it.

  Should have known better, she chided herself. The article on “Take Fifteen (And Put the Passion Back in Your Marriage!)” sat there for a good six weeks without results.

  The premise was so simple: every married couple should kiss for fifteen seconds every day. It could be three five-second kisses or five three-second kisses or one long, luxurious fifteen-second kiss, but it had to add up. It hadn’t occurred to Kit before how pathetically little she was willing to settle for, what a tiny token, what a Lilliputian effort it would take to make her feel wanted, desired, delicious. Fifteen seconds. But apparently Mel was too large to conceive of such a small gesture. Even when he was coming home, his quick kisses felt like leaving, and their lovemaking had settled into a well-worn groove that circumvented lips and limbs, plotting the most direct course between the useful portions of their torsos, his straight line and her triangle, like safety-railed boardwalks around the organic dangers of a national park.

  Sometimes at night, when Mitzi and Coo were breathing softly in the other room, and Mel was somewhere out on his dark tarmac, Kit lay in bed, so hungry for that unnamable feeling, she pressed the back of her own hand to her lips, dwelling on what it used to feel like when they sat for hours out on Galveston Island, car doors open like wings getting ready, windshield full of shining waters, setting sun, and the confused reflection of searching hands, hungry bodies, desperate mouths.

  Back then, she was driving the vintage taxicab yellow Mustang she’d bought with the last of the money she’d earned performing with Kiki. “The 69er,” Wayne had leered, but Mel always called it “The Golden Chariot” and claimed it was Kit’s appreciation for this classic, classic car that left him powerless to resist her.

  Back then, he begged her not to turn the key in the ignition, begged her to tell her mother they’d run out of gas, had a flat, thrown a gasket, had to drive three hitchhiking nuns back to their convent on the San Jacinto—anything—just to stay, just to kiss and kiss while the night sky reeled over them, till the stars set and the sun came up and Kit knew her mother would be eight shades of livid.

  Stay ...oh, baby, please... please stay, he would beg her back then, pressing her hard against the black vinyl seat, just one more hour... just a half hour more...

  Back then, he never gave up searching until he found the feeling he knew would keep her there.

  comma comma

  tea
rdrop

  comma comma

  slide

  Now, she couldn’t sell him fifteen seconds of that ride.

  Kiki pushed into the dishwater, scrubbing at a pool of syrup that had crystallized to sugar on a Melmac plate. This was the eleventh consecutive day Kit had served up pancakes for breakfast, and the first time she’d allowed Kiki to get her hands wet. But rather than wonder about it, Kiki was trying to reconstruct that great “River Medley” they used to do. Their mother had persuaded Pa-Daddy and Mee-Ma to put up almost six hundred dollars for the arrangement and backup tapes for it, and it was a real crowd pleaser at the livestock show and the Petrol-Tech company picnic and the AARP Bicentennial Motor Home Rally the summer of 1976.

  “Ol’ Man River, that Ol’ Man River...”

  She’d need something to fall back on now, Kiki told herself, ‘cause there was no way she’d take Wayne back this time. She thought a moment about that phrase, fall back on, feeling the foundation shift and dissipate beneath her feet, her body casting backward in a hellish version of the Nestea plunge, plummeting into an abyss of unknowns.

  She’d married Wayne the summer after her graduation from Sugar Land High. She was eighteen plus two months, and she was two months pregnant. He was twenty-three and handsome and funny and already out of vocational school, making good money as a taxidermist. It was a little unnerving, at first, being around all those snarly, glass-eyed dead things, but the clothes and vacations and new station wagon more than made up for it. If she got tired of looking at all those porcelain teeth and high polished horns, she could go out shopping and use a credit card to buy something.

  Now she was more frightened at the prospect of having to look at living things like employers and coworkers. She’d have to resist those irresistible clearance sales. She was going to be hard-pressed without the security of those credit cards, but being without Wayne to tell her who she was and what to do with her hair and how her mind ought to be set would more than make up for it.

  “ ... that Ol’ Man River, he just keeps rollin’ and rollin’ and roooooollin’...”