The Checkdown

by Jamie Bennett

  Julian looked at me from the picture next to my bed. I picked it up, and out of habit rubbed away the smears on the glass. I hadn’t been talking to him much, lately. I hadn’t been thinking of him as much, either. When he had died, at first, I couldn’t picture how my life was going to be. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to exist from day to day without him there. Now, I couldn’t imagine how he would fit into my current life. It made me feel terrible. Guilty. But also, it made me feel kind of free.

  I put the picture down and turned it over so he couldn’t see me, and I thought about Davis.

  ∞

  “That’s all you’re going to bring?”

  “Huh?” I was almost asleep on my feet. It had been a long, long night with Ida.

  “Your bag is very small,” Lindy said slowly and carefully. She pointed at it. “You aren’t bringing very much with you to Davis’ house.”

  Thank God it was an away game, and unexpectedly, there were no practices, either. Trish was giving us all both Saturday and Sunday off, which she had announced via email late Friday night. Just one sentence: “No rehearsals this weekend, back Monday.” It was the first time she had ever done anything like it, and while I was happy, it made me nervous. She wasn’t a person who readily cancelled practice, and had in fact complained about contract restrictions that prevented us from practicing for eight hours or more, six days a week. Still, I thought that something was happening.

  But mostly, I was too tired to contemplate it. Even when I’d been able to sleep in between bouts of Ida’s crying the night before, I’d dreamed of Julian. In these dreams, he was angry and bitter. Staring at me and accusing me of things.

  “Katie! Holy shit, you’re out of it. You need to pack more!” Lindy said, exasperated. She opened my closet and pulled out more clothes. “Where’s that sexy nightie I gave you? The one with all the cutouts?”

  I ignored that question. It was already at the bottom of my bag, just in case I needed it. “I can’t bring more. It will look like I expect to stay a long time.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “What kind of message is that?”

  “I’d say the obvious one,” Lindy said. “The message of, ‘I’m staying with you for longer than five minutes.’”

  “It’s just because of Ida. That’s why I’m going.”

  Lindy started laughing. “Oh, man, Katie. There’s a river in Egypt…”

  “Tell me why you’re here,” I said. “I know you didn’t want to help me pack.” The sound of Ida crying filtered through the wall.

  “Is that what it’s going to be like?” Lindy asked nervously. “Is my baby going to cry like that, constantly?”

  “Of course not,” I stated. “Ida is very unusual. Most infants don’t cry like that.”

  “Wait, why am I asking you? You don’t know any more about babies than I do!” Lindy said sourly.

  “Yes, but didn’t I sound authoritative? I have to go,” I said, and picked up my very small bag. “Spit it out.”

  “I just feel like we haven’t seen each other in forever. The last time we hung out for real was at the lake at my parents’ house, like months ago.”

  “I’ve been busy. You know it gets like this during the football season.” I rushed out through the living room, waving to Corinna.

  “Good luck at your next house!” she called to me. “I hope to see you again some day!”

  I paused, then just kept walking. Sam was going to have to straighten this one out for her. “Lindy, we’ll hang out soon. This afternoon? Tomorrow?”

  She screwed up her face. “I can’t today, I have to go out with Logan and his family. Tomorrow we have to see my parents so no one feels left out.”

  “Ok, well, another day.” I turned back to look at her. “Is something going on?”

  “No. I’ll talk to you later. Have fun!” She grinned at me. “Try to do all the things I would do, and more.”

  It made my stomach flip. We might be doing those things. At the very least, we’d be around each other enough that those things might easily happen. During the day, Davis was going from doctor to doctor, appointment to appointment, working out, getting physical therapy. His recovery was a full-time job for him. Then I left almost every afternoon for my own practices. We were together a lot, but we didn’t have a lot of together time, if that meant anything. Now we would. I swallowed. We really would.

  I opened up Davis’ front door to the sound of…what was that? I stopped to listen. I wasn’t the most musical person, in that I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but even I was a little shocked by the sounds coming from the room that he had pointed out as the studio. I followed the discordant twanging.

  “Hi,” I said, trying not to wince or cover my ears.

  Davis was sitting in the lone chair, an absorbed expression on his face, a beautiful acoustic guitar in his lap. There were two music stands, a pile of songbooks, an electric guitar, and an amp. He hadn’t stinted on the equipment. “Hi,” he said. “I brought my guitar back in.” He scowled viciously at it and carefully moved his fingers on the neck. “This is an A minor chord,” he explained. Davis swept his hand across the strings and an unusual sound issued from the instrument. “It doesn’t sound like the guy in the video. My fingers are too big to squeeze in like that.”

  I tilted my head. I had never heard a guitar make that particular noise. “I’m not sure what it’s supposed to sound like.”

  Davis’ mouth twisted. “Different. Better. Where’s your stuff?”

  I gestured to the bag I was carrying.

  “No, your easels. Canvases, paint. Is it in your car?” He stood up and put the poor guitar on a stand.

  “No, it’s at my house. I didn’t know…I didn’t think…” Where was I going here?

  “We’ll take my car and go get it,” Davis said. “I’ll help you.”

  Corinna was somewhat surprised to see me again so soon. “Oh, did it not work out at your new place?” she asked me.

  “Corinna, this is still my house. I’m just staying with Davis temporarily. Do you guys know each other?”

  “Yes, of course. I remember you from those ads on TV selling the pickup trucks,” she was saying to him as I ran down the basement stairs to get my art supplies.

  Four trips later, Davis’ big backseat and trunk were filled up. “Are you sure?” I kept saying as we left the house the final time. “It’s so much stuff.”

  He stepped over a bouncy seat and a pile of clothes and around Corinna’s spinning wheel, which she swore she usually used on almost a daily basis and needed to have available. “Very sure. Jesus Christ, you can’t stay here. This place is like a junkyard with all this baby shit everywhere.” He looked at Corinna. “I meant, things for the baby, not shit.”

  “No offence taken,” she said sweetly.

  “I don’t think you’re ever going to get them out of this house,” Davis said after we left, as I shut the door to the car.

  “Well, I have a plan. Tell me what you think. What if we, I mean, I, threw them a shower? Like a combined baby and wedding deal. They might be able to collect enough in cash and checks to take care of their security deposit. And then they would go, and I could move back in.”

  Davis shifted. “Hm.”

  “We, I mean, I, wouldn’t have to host it at your house.”

  “No, that would be all right. Your friend Lindy could make food. She needs money too, right?”

  I smiled at him. “Right.”

  “That might work. I could make the team go.”

  “Nothing says ‘party’ like forced attendance,” I commented.

  Davis didn’t answer. “I’ve been talking to the guys a lot more,” he said.

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “It’s good to hear what they have to say. Some of them have a lot of football IQ.”

  “What about Kayden?” I asked, and he swore.

  “Little prick. That kid couldn’t lead a team if he had them on a chain.”

  “I gu
ess we won’t be asking him to the shower,” I said, which made Davis swear again, then laugh a little.

  My phone was ringing as we came to a stop at his house. Davis started carrying in the gear, with me watching to make sure it wasn’t too heavy so that he strained his repaired knee. I answered the call from my grandmother.

  “Katie?” Her voice sounded high, and kind of weird.

  Damn. “Hi. Is my mom there?”

  “Yes. You’re very intuitive.”

  I sighed. “I’ll be right over.” I ran into the house and straight into Davis. He put his arms around me, looped behind my back. “I have to go,” I told him. “My mom just got into town and I have to ward her off from my grandmother.”

  “What does she do to Louise?” he growled.

  I threw up my hands. “Pester her for money, mostly. She doesn’t seem to understand the words ‘fixed income.’ It had to be something big, though, to get her to come back to Michigan. She hasn’t been here in,” I thought. “Five years.”

  “I thought your grandfather died three years ago.”

  “He did.” I shrugged. “She was busy, and they never got along. So today is a little shot for the two of us to hang out, but let’s plan something fun for tomorrow, I mean, if you don’t have anything else going on. I thought it would be good for you to stay away from football for the day. The weather is going to be nice, and maybe we could go to Mission Point. Or the art museum at the college? Or…” I named about 10 more potential activities.

  Davis stepped closer and pulled me to him. “Is this making you nervous, chipmunk? Staying here? You’re acting Nutty.”

  “Ha ha,” I said. I put my arms around him under his coat. “Maybe a little nervous.”

  “We’ll talk about it when you get home, then.” As if the words “we’ll talk” would ever make anyone feel less nervous.

  I disengaged from his warm, solid, delicious-smelling body and drove my car over to the Lakeside Cottage to see my mom for the first time in a long time.

  My grandma was still in bed, looking beleaguered, and Mrs. Lusk was sitting at the desk listening avidly. She was so into what was going on that when I walked in, she didn’t even say there was only one visitor allowed or start to complain about the smell of the shampoo I’d used that morning.

  And there was my mom, not looking too different from when I had last seen her five years before. Beautiful, but most likely as useless as ever.

  My mom had been the prettiest girl in her high school. Probably the prettiest girl in the county—in northern Michigan. That mattered to her, a lot. She had taken her beauty as a sign that she was destined for stardom. So first she went to Los Angeles, but she didn’t make it far. Bit parts and waitressing, and from what I had found out when I looked up her name online, she’d also done some porn. Then she had decided that she was meant for the stage. Specifically, she decided that she was going to be a star on Broadway. New York was the place for her, and she moved across the whole country to see her name in lights. She was perpetually certain that fame and fortune were just around the corner, and in the meantime, she was still waitressing and hostessing and probably doing things I didn’t want to think about for money.

  A baby—me—hadn’t fit into this scenario. Somewhere in Los Angeles, or maybe on the journey across country, I had come into existence—despite rigorous questioning by my grandpa (one of the many reasons they didn’t get along), she had never divulged my father’s identity, or maybe she didn’t even know it. My mom came back from New York to have me, and to give her credit, she did stay for almost six months with my grandparents after I was born. Then New York, Broadway, was calling, and she had to answer. She had been there ever since.

  When I was a kid, and even up into high school, I had wanted a relationship with her. I had talked about her a lot, and pretended to myself and others that she was a successful actor who wanted me around, but was just too busy to give me the care and devotion I deserved. When Julian had gotten sick at the end of his senior year and I had summoned all-hands-on-deck, like I needed everyone’s help immediately, she hadn’t bothered to answer. Later she told me that she’d been up for a small part, off-Broadway, but she had been sure it was going to be the stepping stone to achieve everything on the list of what she’d always wanted. It was at that point that I really realized I hadn’t ever been on that list. I probably wasn’t even on a list of things that she had kind of wanted, somewhat, a little. When my grandpa had died, my grandma had notified my mom but she said she couldn’t leave New York, and then when Julian had died, and she hadn’t bothered to come home for his funeral either, that was truly it. I wasn’t angry, not anymore. Not too much.

  “Hello, Veronica,” I said. “What brings you to Michigan?”

  “Katriona.” She was the only one who called me that. She thought that “Katie” sounded like a dog’s name, something she might have mentioned a thousand or so times. She hugged me. “How are you doing? How is school?” As long as I didn’t age, neither did she.

  “School is probably great,” I told her, and met my grandma’s eyes. “What brings you to Michigan?” I repeated.

  “I just wanted to see my family,” Veronica said. But it didn’t take too long before I got the full story. She had lost her apartment, the one she’d had since 1997, because of problems she had with the landlord. She tried to insinuate that he had behaved “inappropriately” toward her, but I was sure the truth had more to do with late and/or missing rent money and probably involved an eviction. And, heavens to Betsy and shock of shocks, but she wasn’t able to find anything near what she had been paying for her rent-stabilized apartment. She had a lot to say on the New York city real estate market, different types of leases, and lecherous men who took advantage of single mothers (she meant herself). A whole lot to say, with no response required.

  After a while, with my grandma and even Mrs. Lusk rapidly flagging, I interrupted my mother. “How can we help you today, right at this moment?”

  Veronica stood, and moved to the window. I could tell by the way she set her shoulders that she had prepared a soliloquy. She was beautiful, yes, but there was a reason she never succeeded in acting: her wooden delivery and poker face made it difficult to see her in any other role besides that of a mannequin. She cleared her throat. “I’m so tired of all the hustle and bustle of the city,” she said musingly, as if to herself. “I miss an easier life, a simpler time.” She made a stiff gesture with her arm as she paused for effect, and let a dawning recognition appear on her face. “What if I settled back up here? I could involve myself in regional, community theater. With my extensive experience on the New York stage, I could be a technical coach, artistic director, or even company manager. Why didn’t I think of this before? I could be close to my aging mother and the daughter who needs my guidance, while still pursuing my love of theater.” She brought her focus down to us, smiling. Cue the flashing red “APPLAUSE” sign. We all stared at her.

  “Sure,” I nodded. “And as you wait for one of these amazing jobs to materialize, you need somewhere to stay?”

  Veronica nodded. “I thought I’d spend some time at your old place, Mom,” she said to my grandma.

  “That’s Katie’s house now…” my grandma started, but I rudely interrupted.

  “No, I think that’s a great idea. Grammy, remember how Sam is staying there?”

  Slowly, my grandmother nodded. “Oh, yes. Yes, that will be interesting.”

  I got my mom out of my grandma’s hair by inviting her out to lunch. My treat. It was kind of exciting to hear all her stories of her life in the city, no matter if they were true or not. She seemed to believe them, and when I had been a kid, I had too. My dream had been to move to New York, like my mom, but I would find my own success as an artist. I had been putting together my portfolio for art school when Julian got sick.

  “Do you have a car?” I asked her when we were leaving the restaurant. No, of course not. “I’ll drop you over at the house and introduce you to Sam.
I need to pick up a few things.” Like a lot more clothing. I wasn’t going back to live in that house anytime soon with the four of them staying there.

  “You’re not living there?”

  “No, I’m rooming with a friend right now,” I said, determined to give her as few details as possible.

  “Who is this Sam you mentioned?” my mom asked, flipping down the mirror and checking herself out thoroughly. She really was so, so pretty. The Woodsmen Dames had nothing on her.

  “He’s a guy I work with.” She would soon see for herself. I chuckled evilly inside my head. Maybe I wasn’t quite over my anger towards her. “He’s married.”

  “Oh.” She flipped the mirror back up, dismissing Sam. “I’m really looking forward to spending more time with you, Katriona. I’ve missed you so much.”

  Despite myself, and despite what I knew about her, I felt a little leap of happiness in my heart. It was nice to have her want me and miss me.

  “Maybe,” she said, very, very casually, “maybe you know someone over in the talent department of the Woodsmen who might need my help. I never did much dancing, but I could be some type of drama coach, you know, for appearances or press conferences, things like that. I have so much experience and personal flair. Just something for you to keep your eye out for.”

  Oh. Right, for a moment I forgot I was talking to Veronica. My mother, Veronica.

  Chapter 15

  By the time night rolled around back at Davis’ house, I was shaking like a toy poodle with nerves and excitement. The more I tried to calm myself down by saying things like, “It’s just sex with Davis Blake, the handsome and famous football star you really care about, so what’s the big deal?”, the more I seemed to flip out. Odd.

  Davis was not making it any easier. He was just watching me with his gorgeous blue eyes, looking so freaking good-looking it was hard to focus on anything else. We made dinner together and I told him about my mom, and how I had dropped her off at my house with Corinna and the baby.