Sugarland

by Joni Rodgers

  Glossy magazines lined up in wire racks at the checkout stand, and lifting them reminded Kiki of the game Password, where the magic answer was hidden inside a little cardholder. You’d lift it enough to see the secret, but not enough to take it out.

  “GO GET HIM (Guy-Snagging Moves That Really Work!)”

  Kiki slid a slick issue of YM back into the wire rack. Apparently the Y and M stood for Young and Modern now. Kiki remembered how it used to be Young Miss, back when she and Kit read it, flashlight under the covers, working their way through the bramble of preadolescent turmoil.

  “Was My Face Red,” Kit would read aloud.

  The letters confessed lurid details of how one girl belched out loud in social studies and another tipped over backward in her chair at a birthday party. Then they’d take turns reading articles about what to do if people were calling you “teacher’s pet.” Or why boys are better at math. Or what might be wrong with you if nobody asked you to the junior high spring dance.

  There was much to learn about being female back then, when the idea of inserting a tampon gave her the willies, when the budding of her breasts inside a training bra felt like roses opening, and the telephone rang with all the crisp, light promise of a fortune cookie. But it seemed to Kiki that the general thrust of Young Miss was more about being coy and minding your etiquette, as opposed to this outright snagging around on people advocated by the current publication. Or perhaps it was only a different approach to fulfilling the same old expectation. Kiki hoped Chloe would have better luck with it all than she’d had.

  “Could you make the check for twenty dollars over, Wayne?” she asked, as the last of the groceries skimmed and blipped across the checkout scanner.

  “What for?”

  “Well,” she hedged, “Kit and me, we might take the kids over to Taco Cabana or something tomorrow.”

  “You want to stay in this week. You need your rest.”

  “Well, we’d just be sitting there talking.”

  “Nah, you’re gonna be busy catching up on things around the house.” Wayne handed his debit card to the checkout girl, shielding the little keypad with his hand as he input his PIN. Then he turned toward Kiki and stroked her cheek gently. “Maybe in a week or two, okay, baby? Let’s give things a chance to get back to normal first.”

  Kiki nodded and picked up a National Enquirer.

  “MYSTERIOUS WEREWOLF CHILDREN OF EUROPE”

  “Daddy, can I get Butterfinger Beebees?” Chloe begged.

  “It’s almost suppertime—” Kiki started, but Wayne set them on the conveyor belt.

  “Sure, Little Muffin,” he said. “How ‘bout you, sport? Want something to celebrate coming home?”

  “No thanks,” Oscar said.

  “Oh, c’mon, Sport. Sure you do,” Wayne said, and he handed the checkout girl a bag of Tropical Fruit Skittles.

  Kiki picked up a twin pack of Reese’s Peanutbutter Cups for herself, but Wayne gently took it from her hand and set it back in the rack.

  “DOLLY: MY SECRET PAIN”

  With all that money and spectacular hair? It must be something about her childhood. Or maybe her husband beat her. Maybe she couldn’t have babies. Kiki tried to remember if Dolly ever had any babies. Tried to remember how she and Kit used to harmonize on the bridge of that “Jolene” song of hers they used to sing.

  Jolene Jolene Jolene Joleeeeen I’m beggin’ of you please come take my man

  Wayne lifted a cellophaned bouquet from an aisle-side water bucket. “Flowers for my beautiful wife.”

  i’m beggin of you please

  “Kiki, honey?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I said, flowers for you, Peaches.” He patted her thigh lovingly. “Sweet as candy, but a lot less calories.”

  “Thank you, Wayne,” Kiki said, and he nodded, satisfied.

  “LIZ AND MICHAEL PLAN PLASTIC SURGERY SPA VACATION”

  Liposuction for her, of course. But what did he need? Maybe eyelids or something about that skin color disease or something horrendously personal.

  “Mommeeee...” Chloe tugged, “sing it sing it sing it!”

  “She fell in love with a guy named Smokey...”

  “MIRACLE BABY BORN TO COMATOSE MOMMY”

  There was this woman up in Oklahoma, apparently, who got her skull crushed in a car accident and gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby thirteen weeks later, even though she was totally brain dead, and so, of course, they shut off her life support right after the baby was born.

  Back in aisle five, they’d walked right under a high shelf of enormous cans. Applesauce, pear halves, fruit cocktail. Those great big cans you’d buy for a family reunion or if you had several foster care kids and you wanted to feed them something sweet after a sensible and nutritious foster care kind of meal. If one of those gigantic cans fell on your head, Kiki mused, if it was just teetering there and tipped off just as you came by, it would probably crush your skull right into your neck, and you’d never know what hit you, probably.

  “Again,” Chloe rocked and rattled in the seat of the metal cart. “Sing it, Mommy, sing it.”

  “May I see you home, Miss Ma’am?” Wayne smiled, his hand under her elbow.

  Applesauce, pear halves, pork and beans. The cling peaches looked especially close to the edge.

  “Must have been quite a project,” Mel grumbled when Kit trudged wearily into the kitchen. He leaned on the doorway to the garage, opening and closing some kind of pliers.

  “Where is everybody?” Kit asked.

  “I guess they decided to work it out. They came and got the kids this afternoon.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “You know how they are,” Mel shrugged, “like a trailer house and a tornado.”

  “Is that why Cooper’s crying? Because Oscar left?”

  “No,” Mel lowered his eyes. “We sort of got into it.”

  He shrugged again and slunk back to the garage. He lay down on a caster platform and rolled under the car so only his feet were sticking out.

  “What do you mean you ‘got into it’?” Kit asked, but there was no reply from Mel or his feet, so she went out back and climbed up to Cooper’s tree fort.

  “What’s up, budsky?” she called softly.

  Cooper cuddled over to her with his head on her chest, and Kit kissed the top of his head.

  “Hmm? What’s going on with the guy?”

  He ground his face into her shoulder and squirmed onto her lap.

  “Did you and Daddy get into it?”

  Cooper nodded against her shirt.

  “I saw your ball on top of the fridge. Did your ball hit something? Did it hit the car?”

  “It was on accident!” he sobbed and held her tighter.

  “It’s okay, Coo-Coo-burra... shhhhhh. You know Daddy’s car is very important to him.”

  “But not as important as me,” Cooper said with conviction.

  Kit could tell that Mel must have tried to backpedal it already.

  “That’s right, Coo. You know Daddy loves you more than anything, but you also know you’re not supposed to throw your ball in the garage. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Daddy gets kinda nervous and crabby when we go to Grandma’s house. He just gets in a big ugly, and it’s not your fault, but we need extra good cooperation and behavior, okay? Can you be Dad’s big guy?”

  Cooper nodded again.

  “Are you gonna be my big guy, too?”

  “Okay.”

  She realized sadly that Cooper really was getting big. This was a rare treasure he was allowing right now, and she cherished it, humming into his temple, stroking his back until he gathered his dignity and wrangled free.

  “Girls aren’t allowed up here,” he told her. “Tree fort rules.”

  “Not even moms?” She tickled him under the arms.

  “Especially not moms!” he giggled, tucking his elbows tight to his ribs.

  Kit climbed down and went looking for Mitzi, f
inally discovering her sleeping in front of the TV, head on the floor, feet high up on a beanbag chair, a box of Lucky Charms spilling across her chest. Like rock, scissors, and paper, Kit relished a righteous stab of annoyance toward Mel, which was immediately squashed by a boulder of guilt, which made her fling the Lucky Charms at the TV screen, accidentally knocking down his high school football trophy that sat on top, which made her feel even more guilty, which made her practically hate him.

  He was scrubbing his hands in the kitchen sink.

  “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to spank them.”

  “I didn’t spank him, Kit.”

  “Experts say it only shows them hitting is the way to settle—”

  “I said I didn’t spank him, okay? I grabbed his arm, I yelled at him. I didn’t hit him. And maybe if you didn’t mollycoddle him all the time, he’d be man enough to take it when somebody looks at him cross-eyed. What do the experts say about that?”

  “Did you know she was eating these?” Kit held up the empty Lucky Charms box.

  “She was hungry.”

  “And you were too butt lazy to open a can of soup? It’s after nine o’clock, Mel. They should have been in bed an hour ago.

  “So where the hell were you? Don’t they have a telephone over there anymore? Or were you just too butt lazy to call me?”

  “I was—I told you I—I might have to stay late.”

  “You didn’t say you were going to stay till nine-thirty at night.”

  “You could have at least fed them some supper!”

  “I was going to send out for some pizza after—”

  “Oh, great. But of course, the car has to come first.”

  “It’s not my fault if the damn alternator—”

  “Damn your damn alternator! I needed you to take care of a few things for once.”

  “What you need is to tell ol’ Sven and Olee over there you’ve got a family who needs you at home. You’re only supposed to be half-time over there. You put in almost forty hours this week! Christ! This place is a pigsty. Nothing is packed for tomorrow. I don’t even have a clean shirt to wear on the way down there!”

  “I said I’d get to it, Mel! I’m getting to it! Right now! See?” She shook a load of clothes into the washer and brandished the empty basket. “I’ll get to all of it! As soon as I get the kids fed and bathed and put to bed and load the dishwasher and pick up the living room and run the vacuum and do everything else that needs to get done around here while you go play with your car and have a brewski and look at ‘Baywatch.’”

  “Oh, bullshit! I’m just saying they don’t pay you enough to own your whole damn life, Kit!”

  “Neither do you!” She slammed a saucepan on the burner. “But I guess it won’t be a problem anymore, Mel. You’ll be pleased to know that I just got fired.”

  Kit was pretty sure that was the gist of what Ruda was screaming in Swedish when she came in and found Ander struggling to get his pants on inside out.

  “What?” Mel stared at her.

  “I’m fired,” Kit repeated. “I’m history. I am no longer employed.”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding! After all these years? How could—”

  “So are you happy now?” Kit started to cry. “Is everybody happy? Did everybody get what they want?”

  “Mom?” Cooper stood in the doorway, his eyes very wide. “Will we still get to go to Disney World?”

  “It’s okay, Coop,” Mel said quietly. “Don’t worry about it. C’mon in, and I’ll make you a grilled cheese while Mom takes a nice hot bath.”

  When he rubbed his hand across her back, gently massaging her aching neck and shoulders, Kit felt biblical coals of fire searing into the top of her head.

  “Okay, Mom?” Mel touched her face, took the can of tomato soup from her hand.

  Kit walked away as quickly as possible. She felt herself losing it and didn’t want Cooper to see her sobbing.

  Upstairs, she stood in the shower, weeping into a loofa sponge, clutching a bar of Ivory soap against her chest, trying to figure out what the heck just happened, trying to shut out Mel’s sympathetic expression and Ruda’s heartbroken wails. Ander had babbled and begged, of course, but Kit couldn’t understand the language any more than she could understand how, after eleven faithful years, she could betray her husband two times in as many weeks.

  Apparently, it gets easier, she figured. Apparently, screwing around on your husband isn’t something you do. It’s something you are.

  It was a good four hours down to Corpus Christi, and Grandpa and Grandma Prizer lived just beyond there in New Rippy, so Kit was able to get some sleep, dozing with her head hammocked in the shoulder harness of her seat belt.

  She’d finished the last of the laundry a little after three, stumbling through the obstacle course of Legos and action figures to fill Cooper’s dresser. But she’d left Mitzi’s basket on top of her vanity instead of putting things away, so of course, Mitzi had dumped it over on the floor within five seconds of getting up at six.

  “I wanted pink socks,” she sobbed when Kit scolded her for it. “Yellow socks are stupid!” Now she sat in the backseat, laboriously sounding out words in a reading workbook. “... sssseeeeee t-i-mmmm... See tim? See Tim!”

  Kit opened her eyes. Port Lavaca, Lamar, and now Aransas? Apparently, Mel was taking the same direct route the Israelites followed on a forty-year trek through a ten-mile desert.

  “Seeeee... K-i-mmmm... See Kim!”

  “Hey, guys,” Mel called to the back seat. “Should we take the shortcut or the ferry?”

  “Ferry! Ferry!” Mitzi squealed.

  “Shortcut!” Cooper yelled, only because he knew it would make her shriek, and it did.

  “Mitzi!” Kit said, at the same time Mel said, “Cooper!” and then in unison, they said, “Settle it back there.”

  Kit pushed her sunglasses on top of her head.

  “Mel, it’s after eleven.”

  “Just relax, honey,” Mel squeezed her knee and went on pointing out landmarks and tourist traps to the kids in a big, overly cheerful, daddy way.

  Kit lowered her shades and rested her head against the window, trying not to feel the pleasant little morning-after ache Ander had left inside her.

  “P... at... c-aaaaannnn... rr-u-nnn. Run, Pat, run!”

  The vague daydreams that had passed through her mind over the years had always seemed so safe. Ander belonged to Ruda. Kit belonged to Mel. That was all. She’d never placed Mel or Ruda in those ambiguous imaginings, never wished them dead nor divorced nor deceived. They simply weren’t a factor because the envisioned moment was like a knothole out of a smooth plank, something that swirled dark and circular, separate from the comparatively straight-forward lines of real life.

  Kit wished she’d stepped around it, differed and detoured the way the wood grain sways so as not to be interrupted. Sitting with her legs crossed on the front seat of the station wagon, she could still feel Ander’s easy, open-mouthed kiss between them. She’d crawled up over him, straddled, and clung like a shipwrecked sailor on a broken mast, knowing even as he floated her upward from the floor that Mel was the dry land she was struggling for. That pleasant little ache was not much consolation when she recognized it was all she had left of a once-solid marriage, two longtime friendships, and the closest thing to a career she’d ever have.

  Mel squeezed her knee again, and Kit started crying behind her sunglasses. The most painful thing of all was how his hand made her feel worse instead of better.

  “Don’t worry about it, babe,” he said. “I’ll hit the overtime as hard as I can when we get back, you’ll hit the classifieds, and something will turn up sooner or later. Hey, that new Albertson’s grocery store just opened. And all those places up on 1960 are always hiring.”

  Yee ha, she sulked. WalMart pet department, here I come.

  It didn’t seem worth the effort to explain to Mel that, while she didn’t claim to be an artist or anything, what she’d been doing t
he last nine years at Scandinavian Design was more than a job, it was ... whatever.

  And now, she had to go face Neeva and Otto for the entire weekend, gagging on cigarette smoke as she picked her way through a minefield of fulminating nerves and volatile chitchat. Along with cheerful reminders of how, now that Kit’s mother had breast cancer, she and Mitzi were prime targets for the disease, she’d have to hear the story of Neeva’s double radical mastectomy, including a graphic description of every cycle of chemotherapy, how she decorated a coffee can with contact paper and carried it with her at all times, and how all the health care professionals, to whom Neeva always referred in respectful terms like “Dr. Whatsercake” and “Nurse Prissy-face,” told her she was sicker than anyone they’d ever seen. (Apparently, they hadn’t seen all the dead women.)

  With the sensibilities of a tracking missile, Neeva knew the reaction most human beings have to the C word: an amalgam of sympathy, fear, and revulsion; a twisted admiration for the survival instinct and something that confuses respect with an unwillingness to speak ill of the soon-to-be-dead. She held her cancer like a cudgel over the heads of her loved ones. Her martyred breasts had been enormous and beautiful, but she bore her equally oversized prostheses like foam rubber trophies, never hesitating to talk about where she got them, how much they cost, and the fact that 38 double-D’s had to be specially ordered. They weren’t just a couple of mushrooms off the shelf, like Kit’s 36 C’s would be. It took a heck of a woman to make Kit feel flat-chested, but Neeva could do it, the same way she could make her six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound son feel like sobbing in his tree fort.

  “My mother is very... dynamic,” Mel told Kit on their first date when she wondered why he hadn’t seen his parents in several years. Kit pressed him over the years to get in touch with them and finally convinced him to go for a visit just before Cooper’s first Christmas. She saw something broken in Mel’s life, and she wanted to heal it. She thought she could do that for him. But she soon discovered that she couldn’t, and there were times she wished she hadn’t even tried. This definitely was one of them.

  When they finally pulled up to the pink stucco house where Mel had spent his childhood, Neeva was standing in the doorway, looking like Texas: all tall and windy and leathered by seventy-four years of too much sun. Otto was in the side yard snipping at a boxwood hedge, his striped walking shorts rising high over his round middle, swallowing him like a python overtaking a dumpling. Each time Kit saw him, his legs thinned a little bonier, and his height diminished a little stoopisher. Lately, there seemed to be more pants than person, and she couldn’t help but envision how his head would eventually converge with his hips, and he would turn into Mr. Potato Head—arms, legs, and eyes all radiating from the same pelvic center with a little straw sun hat perched on top.