Calling Home

by Janna McMahan

  “He’s such a hypocrite,” Shannon said to him.

  “Didn’t he give you that pretty necklace?” Liz asked.

  “I shouldn’t have taken it,” Shannon said touching the chain at her neck. “We about broke up after prom. Then things got better for a while, but he’s so controlling. He wants me to be with him all the time.”

  “He does follow you around like a puppy,” Pam said.

  “Fuck him,” Will said. “Gimme that jewelry. I’ll tell him you don’t want to go with him anymore.”

  “No,” Shannon said. “That’s not right. He’s not mean to me. I shouldn’t be mean to him.” She took the ring wrapped in yarn off her finger and put it in her pocket. “But tonight, I’m me, not Kerry’s girl.”

  “I got a lot of friends who’ll be happy to hear that,” Will said.

  “I don’t want any guys from around here,” Shannon said. “I want to get out of this hellhole town as fast as I can.”

  “Now don’t be too down on us local boys,” Will said and put his arm around Shannon. “We’re an all-right bunch. Let’s forget about that old boyfriend of yours and talk about something better. Like me. Let’s talk about me.”

  “I’m hungry,” Liz said.

  “Then let’s eat some pig!” Will shouted. They joined a group picking gray-pink flesh off a crater-eyed explosion of a pig. A scream erupted from the creek bed and soon boys were throwing girls in the water. Behind a truck, one girl held another’s hair back while she puked. Before the night was over two cars would get stuck in the field and have to be towed out with a tractor the next day. A wreck would send a carload of kids to the hospital, and a couple in a steamy-windowed car would make a baby to be born in the spring.

  13

  Virginia’s unit was sewing men’s size 34 briefs today, and if she got good work from the flat seam and sew elastic, she could bind legs like she was on automatic. Virginia stretched to work knots out of her shoulders as she made her way down the aisle toward Myra, her favorite flat seam. Bind legs competed for Myra’s work since it was so perfect that it was never necessary to rip out and fix anything. Compared to Myra, other seamstresses were sloppy, sending crooked garments down the line that made a bind leg’s life a nightmare.

  “Hey,” Virginia shouted as she gathered up half a dozen bundles of Myra’s work.

  Myra looked up from her hunched position. “Hey.”

  “You’re doing great today.”

  “Slick as snot!” Myra laughed.

  Virginia’s fingers pressed the cotton under the needle and the beehive of thread above her head pop-pop-popped each time she hit the foot pedal. She deftly whipped one garment out of the machine and fed in another. Over and over she did this, racing herself. Virginia always made more than production. The work day ended at four p.m., but she might scoot out early because she wanted to stop by Big K and see if they had material that might work for Shannon’s Junior Miss dress. Shannon had said it had to flow on stage, and although slippery materials like satin and silk could be difficult to work with, it was better than having to set sequins, which Virginia didn’t have the patience for right now.

  Virginia tied her last bundle with string and slid it down the chute to the flatlock who would sew the crotch together and then send it on to the tacker who finished the garment and finally handed it off to the label girl. Virginia pulled an air hose down to her machine and blasted lint out of its mechanisms. Fine threads boiled out and rose up, joining the air already pale even thirty feet up near the overhead lights. She squirted a little oil inside the machine and covered it with a sheet of plastic, then pulled the cord that turned off the glaring bulb above her chair. Virginia grabbed her purse and raised her hand to coworkers on her way out.

  She stopped to tell her floor lady she was leaving early. Imogene was arguing with the examiner over ripping out garments with skipped stitches. Today they had been sewing for the army, a client much pickier about their briefs than JCPenney or Sears. Virginia waited until she got Imogene’s attention and then she held up a handful of bundle tickets and pointed to the break room. Imogene nodded and went back to her discussion. On the way to clock out, Virginia popped her head into the cinder block mechanics’ workshop in the middle of the factory floor.

  “Still need somebody to look at that bobbin feed for me,” she said.

  “Anything for you, beautiful,” Bill Smith said as he wiped grease on his coveralls.

  “Yeah, that’s what you always say.”

  “If you weren’t so attached to that old machine I could fix you up with a new one.”

  “No thanks. Just keep her running.”

  “New model runs lots better.”

  “I’m comfortable with this machine. I know its quirks. Can’t you patch her together one more time?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The clamor of a thousand machines faded as Virginia walked out of the building into the sunlight. She stopped outside the front door and waited for her eyes to adjust. Bill Smith was always hitting on her even though he was married. Some women did things for Bill so they could get their machines fixed fast (each mechanic was responsible for a couple of units). They would bring him brownies or meet him in the basement knitting room for a grope session so they could garner favors. Virginia frowned at the thought of Bill’s hands with their perpetually black fingernails.

  For the first time in Virginia’s adult life she was allowed to look at men, but the sensation still seemed wrong. There was one mechanic who worked on another unit who Virginia had thought about flirting with, but if things didn’t go well, then she’d have to see him every day at work and it didn’t seem worth the effort. That was one of the things that Roger had always complained about—that she wasn’t spontaneous. That she always saw potential problems instead of possibilities. But try as she might, Virginia couldn’t think up anything bad about Jim Pickett.

  Jim had asked her to go to Lebanon with him this weekend to see a bluegrass band at The Golden Horseshoe. Lebanon was the only town in four counties that was wet, so it had a few night spots and decent restaurants. Virginia only recently realized that people could drink socially. Up until last year, she had been a teetotaler, not for religious reasons like Patsy, but because the only people she knew who drank were flat out alcoholics, like her father had been, like her brother Wayne still was. She had always viewed Lebanon as a little Sodom and Gomorrah. Like the pool hall on Main Street, it was the sort of place to which a decent person didn’t go.

  Virginia slid into her car, cranked the driver’s window down and sat there. Her skin prickled with the heat inside the car and thoughts of Jim. She didn’t know how she could turn Jim down when she had enjoyed everything he had suggested so far. Exile played over at Lebanon a lot. Sometimes Jim would be driving along and he’d be humming their song about kissing somebody all over and she’d wonder what it would feel like if he kissed her all over. She doubted that she would ever have dated again if she had been left to her own resources. She needed another man like she needed a hole in the head, but Jim was so nice. He actually looked at her when she talked.

  When Roger left, Virginia had been the hot topic of conversation at the factory. Oh, how tongues wagged! She’d overheard those pity-mouthers whispering about her in the bathroom. Like all their husbands were as loyal as golden retrievers. Everybody knew Edna Thompson’s husband, who was the manager of the meat department at Houchens, had been sticking it to one of the checkout girls for a year. Why, Virginia could count nearly every woman in her unit with, well, if not a cheating husband, some sort of family misery. At least she hadn’t had to get her kids out of jail for drugs like Phyllis Wilson was always having to do. Or Rachel Lee, whose son flipped out and went on a shooting spree over in Casey County because of some girl.

  Virginia drove down Main Street, her shoulders aching, her hands numb from a day of repetitious work. She passed the Dairy Queen and thought about her chubby little Will standing on the front seat beside her pointi
ng to the ice cream shop and saying, “Hotdog! Hotdog!” Many times she had counted change in the bottom of her purse to see if she had fifty cents. He’d been the most beautiful baby. His hair straight blond and so silky that his head glowed in the sun. He was sweet-natured, and passive around arguments or other family unease.

  Virginia passed Scott’s Ladies’ Clothing, where she’d never bought even one dress. The turreted old Merchant’s Hotel on the corner had been made into apartments for the professors over at the bible college. There was Liz’s family’s pharmacy, Coyle Drug, which still had an old-fashioned chrome lunch counter that served the best chili buns in the world. She passed Shivley’s Jewelry, where all the kids got their class rings, and McMahan’s Shoes with the Red Goose glowing in the window. Virginia passed Supertone, the photography studio that had taken every photo of her children. Red wheelbarrows lined the sidewalk in front of the hardware store. A few men had spilled out of the stairs that led to the pool hall on the top floor of one of the turn-of-the-century buildings that lined the street. The Cozy Theater, where she had gone when she was young, sat vacant, its little marquee hanging lopsided. Virginia saw this as the first sign that Main Street had deteriorated since a McDonald’s and a couple of strip malls opened next to the high school. Things were changing, and a twinge of guilt passed over Virginia when she didn’t stop to look in Sue Myers’s fabric shop, but instead drove out to the Big K where she could check on fabric and still buy buns for the hamburger meat she had laid out this morning.

  She fought a metal cart from a tangle in the parking lot and pushed the shimmying thing through the double doors. She grabbed a bag of plain hamburger buns. She couldn’t buy sesame seed buns anymore because of Patsy’s diverticulitis. No bread with seeds. What a crock. Virginia checked the prices on Mason jars and lids and rings. Peaches were in, but she thought she would count how many empties she had in the basement before she bought more.

  She stopped at the wide tables in the fabric department and flipped through pattern books. She liked it here among the happy cards of buttons and ric rac. The bolts of fabric cushioned the noise of the giant store and surrounded her like a colorful forest. The dress Virginia made for Shannon’s prom had been a pale blue sheath with an organza overlay. She had looked so good next to that handsome Rucker boy, but now prom was over and Shannon had even gotten rid of that boy, which Virginia had thought would never happen. She was focused only on Junior Miss now and said her dress for that had to look graceful on stage. She said it had to move. Slinky fabrics were expensive, but Shannon had said she would pay for it out of her first paycheck from the marina.

  A blue light cranked to life above Virginia, and the announcer, whom she recognized, said there was a special on basketballs, tennis rackets, and aluminum softball bats. Will’s birthday was coming up and Virginia remembered seeing his basketball, scarred and deflated, in the bed of his truck. She hated to always give him clothes, even though he would need a couple of pairs of jeans and some shirts for starting college this fall. She paused, thinking about her son walking onto campus. Will would be the first person in her family ever to attend college. He deserved something fun for his eighteenth birthday. A basketball would be good.

  She walked down the detergent aisle and tossed a box of steel wool pads into her cart. At the next turn, she remembered she needed lightbulbs, and after grimacing at the prices, she selected a four-pack. Virginia maneuvered around a mesh tower of bright rubber children’s balls. She thought it appropriate that the sports section was right next to the toys. Men always acted like they were working hard when they were hunting or fishing or swinging a softball bat, as if it was part of the manly burden to play hard. Roger had even tried to legitimize his hunting obsession into a job so he would never have to be home to paint anything or mow the yard or help when it came time to kill chickens or put up corn. Oh, it was perfectly fine for Virginia to work at the factory all day and then come home to a dirty house. Roger didn’t do laundry or child care or housekeeping or cooking—that was women’s work. But he wouldn’t even do things that everybody knew were a man’s job, like keeping up the cars and hauling the trash away. Thank God the town council finally decided to extend trash pickup out to their house or Will would have had to go to the dump every week.

  The sports section was topped with a fringe of fishing rod tips and anchored by camping equipment. On the back wall were glass-encased upright racks of shotguns and rifles. Virginia whipped her cart down an aisle that ended in a basketball goal and there was Roger on a ladder adjusting a display. Her first inclination was to skitter away before he saw her. Then she thought that she should ram her cart into the ladder and knock him flying into the fishing lures with all their hooks. The hunting knives were in range, too.

  She watched him for a moment and finally said, “Hello, Roger.”

  He twisted back. “Hey, Virginia.” He forced cheerfulness into his voice. “How’ve you been?”

  “I’m getting along.”

  He stepped onto the bottom rung, but not on down to the floor, and rested his elbow on the ladder.

  He did that so he would still be looking down on me.

  “How’s the kids?”

  “Doing great.”

  “Good, good. I hear Will’s going to Western.”

  “That’s right. We’re going down to check out the campus next week.”

  “Can you believe it? He did it. What a boy.”

  “He’s a good kid.”

  “Virginia. You did a great job with him. I can’t take credit for how Will turned out. That was all your doing.”

  Virginia examined the basketballs. “Thank you, Roger. I appreciate your saying so, but he did it all on his own.”

  “Yeah, you’re right about that. What’s Shannon doing?”

  “Working down to the marina.”

  “Lone Valley?”

  “She runs that little store on the boat dock.”

  “How’s she like it?”

  “Fine far as I can tell. She has to be up early to fix breakfast for all those fishermen, which I don’t think she likes much. You know Shannon. She’s a sleepyhead.”

  He chuckled and checked his display. “Yeah, she always was a big sleeper.”

  “She’s trying to earn money for Junior Miss. You could give her some money to help out.”

  “How much does she need?”

  “A couple of hundred would do.”

  He whistled.

  “It would mean a lot to her if her daddy supported her.”

  “I’ll have to see if I have that much.”

  “How’s business?”

  “It’s been slow, but things are improving.”

  “We could use some money.”

  “Look, Virginia. I been thinking, and I want you to take the house. It’s worth more than I’ll make in the next ten years, so why don’t you take the house and we’ll call it even. Shannon’ll be long gone in a couple of years and you can sell it and keep the money.”

  “And you get to walk away?”

  “That was my parents’ home. You know that I could ask you to move out.”

  “We were married when we got that house. It’s half mine legally, so no, you couldn’t make me move out.”

  “Well, you can’t get blood out of a turnip.”

  “Maybe the courts could make you cough up a little blood.”

  Roger lowered his voice. “You know if we go to court that’ll mean dragging out our laundry for the whole town to see, and you know who’s going to end up hurt? The kids, that’s who. You’d do better to keep your mouth shut and take the house. I don’t think you want anybody to know the truth. Especially not the kids.”

  “The truth? I don’t even know what the truth is anymore.” Virginia whirled the cart around. “Maybe the truth needs to come out.”

  Roger jumped down off the ladder. “Don’t be foolish, Virginia. It would tear this town apart. There’s no telling what would happen to the kids. It’s better this way. If the kid
s think I’m the bad guy here, that’s okay by me.”

  “Don’t fool yourself. You’re not a martyr.”

  “Don’t hate me, Virginia. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t deserve any of this, so fuck you, Roger. I don’t want you back anymore. I’ll take the house and I’ll take the kids. I’ll even take the blame for our marriage failing, if that’s what you want. But what I won’t do is take blame for what happened. I’m the victim here.”

  Virginia shoved the cart down the aisle, knocking basketballs to the floor where they bounced wildly at Roger’s feet.

  14

  Heavy morning fog haloed lights from the marina. Fish smell, faint in the parking lot, became stronger as Shannon neared the dock. Her footsteps were timid and hollow on the aluminum ramp. Lazy, sweet chirps called from the cricket box. Stiff silvery bodies stuck to the walkway around the minnow well. The dock rocked slightly and boats bobbed in countermotion in their slips.

  Sarah had worked with her the previous week showing her how things were done, but today Shannon was on her own. Sarah said Mondays were slow, that she could handle it by herself. The marina owner, Coleman, was already on a stool behind the counter, counting money into the cash drawer. Sarah said it was his habit to come in and count money periodically. She also warned that he had roaming hands.

  “Let’s see can you make a decent pot of coffee,” Coleman said.

  “Sure,” Shannon said. “How you take it?”

  The old man snorted. “Any way I can get it, honey.” He tapped his cigarette into an ashtray and the gold bracelet around his wrist clattered against the countertop.

  She filled a carafe, measured warm-smelling coffee, and flipped the machine on to brew. Last weekend was the first time Shannon had ever had coffee, and drinking the bitter brew made her feel jittery but adult.