Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “Oh. Hello, Wallace.” She gestured back and forth between us. “I guess it makes sense that the two of you are friends.”

  He put his hand over mine and pinched it, hard. “Hello, Melinda. And why is that?”

  “Well, you know, Emily’s ex-husband, and, um, stuff.”

  I lightly smacked Wallace’s hand and tried to block out her last words. Before I could think of a way to redirect her, she went on. “My goodness, Wallace, you are just covered in blood.” Her eyes gleamed with excitement, and she turned an eye for crime scenes on the inside of his car. “And you are, too, Emily. “

  She reached in and snatched my prescription bottle from my hand. I wrested it back from her, but not quick enough to keep her from grasping the essentials.

  “Yes, Dr. Patel, the surgeon, I’ve used him as an expert witness. Are you okay, Emily? Vicodin, that’s heavy stuff. What was it, were you injured at the scene where that woman was murdered? Or was it a car wreck?” She stood back and worked the car over with her eyes, looking for evidence.

  I stuffed the pills in my handbag. “Female problems.”

  Melinda put her hands back on the door, arms straight, shoulders high, face leaning in. She studied me like a chemistry experiment gone awry.

  “You didn’t, Emily, surely you didn’t—I mean, I can hardly bear to say it, but you didn’t abort your baby, did you?”

  My lips moved, but nothing came out. My hands flexed and closed into fists.

  Wallace grabbed both of my wrists and leaned over me to yell at Melinda. “What in the world would make you think it’s okay to ask that question? Emily had a miscarriage yesterday and emergency surgery today. She could have died, and you march up here like the Morality Police? Who do you think you are?”

  Melinda didn’t appear to realize she was getting her rear chewed, or at least she didn’t care if she did. She put a hand over her chest.

  “Oh, I am so glad to hear you didn’t do that, Emily.” She patted my shoulder. “A miscarriage, huh? It’s for the best, I’m sure.”

  I jerked my wrists away from Wallace, and with a quick twist to my right, I made room to draw my arm back. Then, in one diving lunge, I punched Melinda in the jaw, landing halfway out the window, with my sore gut across the door. It hurt my hand, my head, and my abdomen, but it made the rest of me feel so much better. I pulled myself back in, wincing.

  Melinda squealed like a stuck pig and covered the side of her face.

  Wallace banged the steering wheel with both hands. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.”

  Over her histrionics and Wallace’s hysteria, I said, “It’s my legal right to choose, but I wanted this baby, and I’m heartbroken to have lost it.”

  Melinda’s words came out muffled by her hand. “I think you broke my jaw!”

  “Impossible. I had a terrible angle.”

  She pointed at me. “I’m going to call the cops and have you charged for assault.”

  I gave her my mother’s address. “Be sure you tell them how much Vicodin I’m on. I’ve only been in criminal law for a week, but from what I’ve learned, I’m pretty sure they’ll find I lacked the capacity to know right from wrong at the time my fist met your face.” I rolled up the window.

  Wallace put the car in gear. “Holy shit,” he said again. “You just punched an ADA in the face.”

  I smiled weakly. “I’ve wanted to do that since fourth grade.”

  ***

  Dr. Patel hadn’t said a word about abstaining from alcohol, so I’d raided Mother’s box of white zinfandel again that night. Really, I hated the stuff and could barely get the first glass down without gagging, but the second was easier. I heard the door open, close, and lock when Mother got home. Wednesday nights are big church nights, but she was home early.

  “Emily?” She whispered from outside my door. “Pastor Robb said he ran into you today, with the wrong kind of person. And then I heard about you on the news.” She increased her volume. “Emily? Are you okay, honey?”

  Pastor Robb was one to talk. My light was out, so I stayed very still and didn’t answer. I didn’t have to tell her my news. If I did, she’d have it in the inbox of every member of Believers Church in seconds. I’d be mostly normal by tomorrow, anyway, so it wasn’t something she needed to worry about. Or worry me over.

  I made my voice sound half asleep, which wasn’t hard. “Fine. Sleeping. Love you. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Silence. She stood outside my door for a long time, then said. “Well, goodnight, then. I love you, too.”

  I listened to her footsteps down the hall. I waited through the sounds of water in her bathroom and the click of her bedroom door closing. Then I tiptoed to the kitchen for a wine refill. When I was safely back in bed, I turned on the lamp and got out my phone.

  A text message had come in while I was in the kitchen.

  Wallace: I can’t believe I skipped church tonight to come to The Polo Club.

  Wallace: I bought a drink for Harvey, using my gaydar-blocking super powers. Got him to talk about Spike’s death. Tried to bait him about Sofia. He didn’t bite.

  Pfffffft. I typed fast: Keep me posted. Hate feeling helpless.

  Wallace: Helpless? WTF, when I’m on the case? Go to sleep.

  Fat chance I’d sleep, not with Western décor assaulting me from the outside and the ravages of my messed up life assaulting me from the inside. I took a slug of white zin. Another text came in, but it wasn’t Wallace. I swiped over to my Messages homepage.

  It was Jack: Worried about you.

  It was crazy, because I’d swung up and down and through every emotion in my repertoire in the last day and a half, but this was the moment that made me sob like a child. My shoulders heaved, but I muffled my cries, scared of attracting Mother. Tears overflowed my eyes. Why did Jack have to go and turn out to be so damn kind? As many people as I had run into here that reminded me of the things I didn’t like about this place, I’d met that many more that gave me hope, like Jack, Wallace, and Nadine. The problem with hope, though, is that it sometimes reminds you of the reality that keeps you from feeling hopeful in the first place.

  So here was my reality: I couldn’t have a baby. I tilted my wine glass up and drained the last drops from it.

  Sure, the doctor had said I had a slim chance. What that really meant was that I had barely any chance at all, almost none, which always ended up meaning none. No hope of a father coming back. No hope of my husband wanting me. No hope of babies. Tears pooled below my nose. I was thirty years old, alone, broke, and barren, a cautionary tale to every rodeo queen who’d ever worn the sash.

  I pulled out my phone and hit a number in my favorites.

  “Emily?” Katie’s voice was a happy squeal.

  I cut her off fast before she could congratulate me and said, “Something bad has happened.”

  A pause. The sound of a small child’s laughter. “Hang on,” Katie said. “Let me ask my mother-in-law to put Thomas in bed, and I’ll go where I can hear you better.”

  “Okay.”

  I heard jostling and muted voices for thirty seconds or so. Then she came back on. “I’m here. Tell me.”

  I started talking, fast, trying to beat the blubbery tears I knew would come. I almost made it. “I lost the baby today. Miscarriage. And I lost Rich, I lost the condo and our savings, and I’ve lost the baby, too. And now, and now . . .”

  “Shhh. It’s okay, I’m so sorry. Shhh now.” Her beautiful soothing voice harmonized with my sobs until I got myself under control.

  “I may not be able to have a baby now.”

  Katie knew my background, so I filled her in only on the new development.

  “I lost most of my only fallopian tube.”

  I downed the rest of my wine in one swallow.

  “I’m sorry, honey. Very sorry.” She paused. “You sound a little slurry.”

  I barked a laugh. “Yeah, I’ve been nipping at Mother’s stash of box wine.”

  “Do they have you on pai
n meds?”

  “Some.”

  “Go easy on the booze. Take it from a semi-pro. It’s not going to make it better.”

  Maybe not later, but it would now. “You know what else?”

  “What?”

  “I’m working for a criminal attorney, and his client’s little girl disappeared, and it’s like I’m the only one who really, really cares. How messed up do you think that is?”

  “I think what’s messed up right now is my sweet friend Emily. I think you need to stop thinking and go to sleep. Things will look better in the morning. You can start working on all this then.”

  “I’m not sweet,” I said. “I haven’t been sweet since Stormy came to dinner.”

  Shows how little she knew. Why had I called her again? What I needed was another glass of wine.

  “I gotta go, Katie.”

  “I love you, Emily,” she said. “Call me tomorrow—or any time.”

  “Love you.”

  I ended the call and snuck to the kitchen for another refill. I left the lights off, opened the refrigerator and pulled the box out. It felt almost empty. I shook it and the meager remains sloshed around. I knew that this was at least my third glass, but certainly no more than my fourth. And they were very small glasses. It sure wasn’t my mother who’d drained the box. She drank thimblefuls every Friday night and then apologized for it. If she were Catholic she’d probably even confess it—though, to her, Catholicism was a sin in and of itself. My head spun. Religion was just too dang confusing for me.

  I lifted the hem of the red flannel nightgown I’d borrowed from Mother and wiped the tears from my face, then lost my balance just a little bit. I caught myself against the doorway to the kitchen. I sipped my wine. I couldn’t end up like my mother. I didn’t want to be a bitter church secretary living alone in a house as far past its prime as me, judging and begrudging everyone else. I loved her. She was my mother. But that didn’t make these things untrue. I weaved down the hall, trying to be Sacajawea again and running headfirst into the door to my room instead.

  “Ouch,” I whispered.

  “Is that you, Emily?” Mother called.

  I shook my head and put a finger over my lips. “Just using the bathroom. G’night.”

  “Goodnight.”

  I opened my door. Maybe this was my fourth glass after all. I crawled back in bed, leaned against the wall, and pulled the cowgirl-covered bedspread up to my chin. So, yeah, I couldn’t have hope, and that included about Jack. Still, I couldn’t not answer the man’s nice text. He was worried about me. I stared at my phone on the bedside table until my eyes closed. Opened them and stared at it some more. Thought about Jack’s half smile and dimple and twinkling eyes and great boots. I really did love his boots. And his jeans. Yes, I loved those Wranglers. My eyes closed again.

  The phone rang, waking me. I had listed over and drooled on my pillow. I reached for the phone and turned it to face me. Wallace. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I sat up straight again. It could be about Valentina.

  I answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey, I’m driving Nadine home, so I decided to call instead of text and die.”

  “Good choice.” Choice came out like “choyse.” I touched my lips, but they felt okay.

  “Your voice sounds funny. Did you take too many pain pills?”

  I spoke carefully, enunciating brightly. “Nope. I only took one.”

  “Emily?”

  “I’ve had a little . . . wine.”’

  He sighed. “Stop it. You’re going to make yourself sick mixing booze and painkillers. And I need you to sober up so I can tell you about Harvey. I’m putting you on speaker, okay?”

  I stretched my jaw and eyelids, trying for sober. “I’m good. Tell me.”

  “Hi, Emily.” Nadine’s voice.

  “Hi,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem. This is fun.”

  Wallace took over. “Okay, so here’s the scoop. We followed Harvey home, and—”

  “Noooo, Wallace, that’s dangerous.” As hard as I’d tried, dangerous came out “dangerush.”

  “Look who’s talking—or trying to,” he said.

  I nodded to myself. True on both counts. “Whaddya find?”

  “We know where he’s shacking up—with one of the Polo Club dancers. Not one of the better-looking ones, if you ask me, but my opinion may not count for much.”

  Nadine said, “You have a keen eye for beauty, Wallace.”

  “Thank you, Nadine.”

  I made a gagging sound. “Not important. What about Valentina?”

  “I couldn’t exactly barge in after him, or knock on the door in the middle of the night. But I can tell the cops about him now, and we can check it out, later.”

  I tried to sound like I was in charge. “Tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re on bed rest through tomorrow,” Wallace said. “And you’re about to have a wicked hangover.”

  “But the cops won’t do spit.”

  He laughed. Nadine did, too. She asked, “Did you just say spit?”

  “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong with spit?”

  They both laughed harder, and Wallace clucked. “Go to sleep, Emily.”

  I hadn’t said anything funny, at least I didn’t think I had. Plus, I needed to know something. “Wallace, wait.”

  “What?”

  “Do you think any man will ever want to marry me now that I’m thirty and barren?”

  He yelled in my ear. “What? A) You’re gorgeous. Maybe even more gorgeous than I am, thanks to that perfectly precious gap between your teeth, although it’s still a very close contest. B) You’re not barren, and no one uses that word anymore. C) Stop choosing gay men and you’ll find plenty who want to marry you. Shit, you’ve almost got me wanting to propose.”

  Did I choose gay men? I counted back. Rich. That was one. Now Wallace. That was two. Hardly a trend. Then I remembered. Gordon, my rodeo team mentor, had come out his sophomore year. Okay, that made three.

  Nadine chimed in. “I’d marry you.”

  This confused me. “I thought you were straight, Nadine? You have kids.”

  “I’m just jumping on the bandwagon.”

  I held my hand up in the stop gesture, then dropped it because I realized they couldn’t see. “But even if some straight man does want to marry me,” I said, “if I do turn out to be barren, he’ll leave me then. Or he might even leave me anyway, regardless.”

  Both of them yelled “No” at the same time. Then Wallace said, “No shit, Emily, stop drinking right now. Pour the wine out. You’ve poisoned your brain.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know you are, but you’re also wrong.”

  “So I should text Jack back?”

  Wallace sort of shouted at me and I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at it in surprise. I could still hear him, though. “What? Where did that come from? Oh my God, woman, you make no sense. Yes, if Jack texted you, answer him, after you sober up. Right now, pour out the wine, and when you’re done with that, go to bed. And don’t get up until tomorrow night. You hear me?”

  I put the phone back to my ear. “I hear you.” I started to hang up. “Wait!”

  Wallace sighed. “I’m pulling up in front of Nadine’s place. Make it snappy. I want to get home and go to bed.”

  “You said you skipped church. What church do you go to?”

  “Unitarian.”

  Nadine said, “Agnostic here.”

  “I’m not sure what I am.” I stopped, thinking hard. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what agnostic was either and how it was different from atheist, but now probably wasn’t the time to ask. I knew, though, that the three of us, we were like refugees from the Island of Misfit Toys. Thinking that made me smile. “Wallace, I need a church. Can I visit with you?”

  “Yes, you can. Now, goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  I pressed end and stared at Jack’s text again, trying
to think of what to say to him, this time holding my phone by my head on the pillow. I typed: Had minor procedure, I’m fine. Thanks for checking on me. I’ve been thinking about you all day, and I was really happy to get your text.

  That sounded ridiculous and schoolgirl-ish. I changed it to: Had minor procedure, I’m fine. Thanks for checking on me. See you Friday.

  It still sucked, I knew, but I couldn’t send the first one, and I couldn’t come up with anything better than the second. I sent it, then stared at the ceiling, thinking about Jack in his boots and babies and lost little girls until I fell asleep.

  ***

  When I walked into work Friday morning, I had the wicked two-day Vicodin and box wine hangover Wallace had predicted. I also had a bad case of the blues over my single remaining Fallopian tube—a sliver so tiny it was about as useful as teats on a boar hog. I thrust the door to the Williams & Associates office open. Lost in my own thoughts, I nearly ran over the man kneeling to lay tile in the lobby/my office. It was beautiful tile—a large, beigey-rusty-streaky tile. The brand new carpet that had been removed to make room for the tile was now in a roll leaning against the wall. If the lobby had needed remodeling, this tile would’ve been a great choice. But it hadn’t, unless something drastic had happened since I’d last seen it on Tuesday.

  Snowflake danced back and forth between the tile guy and me. I reached into my handbag and tossed her some toast crusts. She gobbled them and returned her full attention to the tile guy.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Mornin’,” he replied.

  He didn’t stop his work. He was kneeling on the concrete subfloor in dirty white kneepads over baggy blue jeans. He had just finished smoothing and cutting lines into gray grout, wielding his hand trowel like a paintbrush. Now he placed one of the tiles on the grout, perfectly aligned with the one beside it. When he’d finished securing it, he wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his New Orleans Saints sweatshirt, knocking his LSU Tigers cap loose and revealing his shaved black head.

  I walked around him to my desk and sat down. It was going to be hard to concentrate with a construction project going on in my personal space, not to mention with the shrill whir of the tile saw and the chalky smell of fresh cut tile. I rested my head in my arms for a moment, trying to pull myself together. I’d slept until five p.m. yesterday, and my days and nights were all mashed and mixed up. I breathed in and out slowly. All I had to do was manage to get through today. After that, I could take my last few Vicodin and put my brain to sleep for the weekend, with my door shut, and the world at bay.