Heartbreak Town

by Marsha Moyer

Geneva and I stood propped against the kitchen counter, sipping margaritas and watching Connie work.

  "So how'd it go with the priest this afternoon?" she asked.

  "Who told you about that?"

  She smiled. "A little bird. More than one, actually."

  "It was all right. Kind of strange. He wasn't like any priest I ever saw before, that's for sure. He was young and sort of chubby, and he was wearing running clothes. Also, his name was—-is—Punch."

  "Punch?"

  "He said he used to box, in school. Oh, and he's a drunk." Geneva leaned back and gave me a head-on glance. "Well, not anymore. But he used to be. In fact, he's in charge of the AA group down in Jefferson. That's how Ash met him."

  "Ash is going to AA?"

  "Trust me, you can't be any more surprised than I was. I found a pint of Jack Daniel's in his bathroom cabinet last night."

  "What were you doing snooping in his bathroom cabinet?"

  "Like you wouldn't have been doing the same thing, under the circumstances. Anyway, I had a nice visit with him— Punch—but I'm not really sure what good it did. I thought I was there to talk about Ash's drinking, but the priest just kept saying stuff like I need to let Ash worry about his problems and start holding up my end of the bargain. Every time I brought up Ash, it seemed like, the priest said, 'But what about yow?' "

  Geneva picked up the blender jar and divided the last of its contents between our two glasses. "You want to know what I think?" she said. "I think Mitchell ruined you for real life."

  "What's Mitchell got to do with this?"

  "Think about it. You were married for a long time to a man who never once rocked the boat. You might have been bored out of your mind, but you never had to learn how to handle the rough stuff. Then he dies, and along comes Ash, and boom, you've got a bunch of great big old sloppy feelings you don't know how to deal with. So, at the first sign of trouble, instead of trying to work things out, you pick up and run."

  I stared into the depths of my drink. It occurred to me that the margaritas we were sipping were about the same color as Audrey's hair, or at least the color it had been, before tonight's intervention.

  "Listen," Geneva said. "You remember back when we had that trouble, Bailey and me, and I went to stay with Lynda awhile?" I nodded that I did. I'd been pregnant with Jude, and Geneva, heartbroken over a series of miscarriages, had lashed out at me and Bailey and everyone in her path, going so far as to quit her job and move in with her sister up in Atlanta for a few weeks. "Do you think Bailey and I just magically patched things up, back then?" Geneva said. "That the Love Fairy just swung down and waved her wand over us and everything was back to normal?"

  "He built you a gazebo," I reminded her.

  "Well, yeah, and that was nice, but it wasn't what brought us back together. We talked things out, talked them to death, just about, and we worked to make it good again. And it was hard work. It still is, every day. Anybody who says it isn't is either crazy or lying."

  "But Bailey isn't a drunk," I said.

  "Everybody screws up, Lucy, sometime, somehow. You can't just throw in the towel every time one of you looks at the other one cross-eyed."

  She took my empty glass and set it in the sink. "Look, I'm not necessarily talking about you and Ash getting back together," she said. "I'm talking about getting past what happened in Nashville. Not so much for his sake as for yours. So you can just let it go and, well, live your life."

  Outside the kitchen window, a pinpoint of light caught my attention, the evening star rising above the trees in a dark blue sky. Here it was, a moment of perfect grace and clarity, courtesy of Mr. Jose Cuervo—a glimpse into a corner of your life where something that once hovered just out of reach suddenly comes to rest like a small, shimmering bird in your hand. Soon to be followed, I knew, by misery and recrimination and a splitting hangover; but all that was in the future, a blur on the horizon.

  "Okay, who's next?" Connie shouted, moving Audrey to a seat at the far end of the table with a clear plastic cap over her head. "Come on, ladies, step right up! Lucy, how about you? A few highlights, maybe? Something to perk you up?"

  I glanced at Geneva, who was mixing up another blender full of margaritas. "Go for it," she said, as Audrey and Dove took up the chant.

  "You think?" I said. Geneva started making clucking sounds under her breath. "I've never put a chemical on my head in my life."

  "All the more reason to do it, then."

  Two hours later, Audrey had become a mostly-natural-looking honey blond, Dove's snow-white head was a radiant silver, and my own faded mane, more brown than red since having my son, was shot through with random strands of copper and chestnut and bronze. I stood gazing at my new reflection in the bathroom mirror, ignoring the rattling of the doorknob from the outside. The highlights, along with the eye shadow and lip gloss Connie'd insisted on adding, made me look mysterious and slightly sultry, like someone I could imagine admiring from afar, especially since the mirror didn't reveal my bare feet or torn cutoffs. I didn't feel one bit like me. I puckered up and blew the woman in the mirror a kiss, then laughed out loud.

  The knob jiggled again, violently, and I reached behind me and unlatched it.

  "Next time you decide to have Girlfriend Night, how about renting a couple of Porta Potties?" Audrey exclaimed, unzipping her jeans as she pushed me into the hall and kicked the door shut between us.

  I passed through the living room just as Denny was coming in through the screen door, flipping her cell phone shut.

  "Hey," she said. As she pushed her hair out of her face, I couldn't help noticing that her eyes were puffy, her nostrils pink.

  "Was that Will?" I asked. All evening long, the thought of him and Ash had been fluttering right at the edge of my consciousness, like a pesky fly that wouldn't go away.

  She shook her head, sticking the phone in her jeans pocket. "Can I ask you a question?" she said.

  "Sure."

  "Come back outside with me," she said, taking my arm. "My head feels funny."

  The night air was warm and damp and smelled of pine mulch. I sank onto the top step, pulling Denny down beside me. Low clouds had gathered overhead, and a few stars shone through the milky haze. Behind my temples, the first hint of a headache loomed.

  "What was it you wanted to ask me?"

  "Do you think it's possible to be in love with two people at once?"

  "What brought that up? Who was that you were talking to, just now?"

  "You haven't answered my question," she said.

  "You haven't answered mine."

  "Erasmus," she said. "I was talking to Erasmus."

  "I didn't realize the two of you were still in touch."

  She closed her eyes, raking a hand through her hair, a gesture that, intentional or not, put me in mind of her daddy.

  "We've always been in touch. He was in France over spring break, touring with some hotshot keyboardist. He called me as soon as he got back to New York."

  "So, did he know about you and Will?"

  "He knew I'd been seeing somebody. But— Let's just say the wedding came as a surprise."

  "I take it he's not planning on sending y'all a place setting of china."

  "He's threatening to come down here and kill Will, is what he's doing."

  I laughed. "Oh, honey. Erasmus wouldn't kill a fly. He isn't about to start messing with Will Culpepper. That's just a lot of bluff. It's what guys do."

  "You didn't hear him on the phone just now!" she said. "You didn't hear the things he said!" Tears brimmed in her eyes, spilling over onto her cheeks. "He called me a sellout and a chickenshit."

  "What?"

  "He said I've always been too scared to admit how I feel about him. That I'm scared of what people think. Because of, you know—the race thing."

  "Is that true?"

  "No! I couldn't care less about that stuff. It's just— There are too many other things. There always have been. I don't know if I can even explain it."

&nbs
p; "But do you love him? Do you love him like you love Will?"

  "It's not the same."

  "How? You love him less than Will? More?"

  She shook her head. "It's just— It's different."

  We sat silently for a few minutes, listening to the din inside, the drone of crickets and a hoot owl off in the woods. "I'm about to do something really gross, okay?" she said, then lifted the hem of her tank top and blew her nose on it.

  I scooted over and put my arm around her. Through the screen door we could hear Dove and Rowena laughing, the whir of the blender, Miss Loretta singing, "I miss being Mrs. tonight."

  "What if he's right, Lucy?" she said. "What if Erasmus is the person I'm really supposed to be with, and Will really is just some, some smooth-talking schmoozer, and I've just made this huge, terrible mistake?"

  "Oh, honey. I don't think you can—"

  "Girlfriends? Hello!" Geneva's voice floated out through the screen from the front hallway. In a trilling soprano she began to sing:" 'Where have all the Farrells gone? Long time pa-assing…'" She elbowed open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch, crooning," 'When will they e-e-ver learn?'"

  Denny and I looked at each other and laughed. "We now come to the musical portion of our program," I said as she brushed away the last of her tears with her fingertips.

  Geneva attempted to wedge herself between us on the top step while balancing a full tumbler, but there wasn't enough room for us to go three across, and Denny got squeezed onto the step below.

  "It's not nice to walk out on your own party," Geneva said. "What are y'all doing out here?"

  "Talking about Jesus and world peace," I said.

  "Liar! You're talking about men."

  "Denny's talking. I'm just the sounding board."

  "What do you want to know, baby doll?" Geneva asked, slapping herself on the thigh. "Ask the expert!"

  "I don't think you can help her," I said. "Seeing as you've been married to the same man for a hundred million years."

  "You don't think that makes me an expert?"

  Denny's cell phone chirruped, and she dug it out of her pocket and flipped it open to check the display.

  "God!" she said. She stood up and walked out into the yard, wandering in figure-eights as she murmured into the tiny silver phone.

  "So, what's going on?" Geneva asked.

  "It seems Denny's not one-hundred-percent certain she married the right guy."

  "Shit! Are you serious?" I nodded. "Were our lives ever that complicated?" Geneva sounded a little wistful, the way I guessed only a woman who'd been married to the same man for a hundred million years could.

  "Two boys asked me to the homecoming dance once," I said. "Bob Whiting and Leonard Crocker. It was no contest, though. Bob was running back on the football team, all-state, and Leonard was just a nerd with a slide rule and a pocket protector." I reached for Geneva's tumbler and took a swallow.

  "I bet you anything Bob's sacking groceries someplace and Leonard's running his own computer empire, flying around the world on his private plane. Hanging out with Donald Trump in Atlantic City."

  I laughed. "Probably. But I got all the drama I needed for one lifetime anyhow." I took one last swallow and handed back her glass, which was down to mostly water. "How about you?" I asked as we watched Denny pace, bent over the phone and gesturing with her free hand, like the speaker was right in front of her and not fifteen hundred miles away. "Do you think much about what you missed?"

  Geneva didn't answer me right away, and then she stood up. "You know what I could really use right now?"

  "A week in Tahiti with Brad Pitt?"

  "Hold that thought."

  She went into the house and came back carrying a crush-proof box of Marlboro Lights. She shook one out of the pack, lighting it with a cheap plastic lighter, and dropped down beside me again, pulling in a chestful of smoke and then releasing it in a fine, practiced stream. "Want one?" she asked, tipping the pack toward me.

  "Why not?"

  She passed me a cigarette and lit it for me like I was an old pro. At the first puff my eyes watered and my lungs burned, but I managed not to choke. The second puff went a little smoother, and we smoked awhile in amiable silence.

  "So," I said finally, "you were saying…"

  "What was I saying?"

  "Brad Pitt? Tahiti?"

  "Oh yeah," she said. "You asked if I ever thought about what I'd missed."

  "Well, do you?"

  "I don't know, Lucy. We all make our little deals."

  "What deals?"

  "You know, with God, or the devil—whoever it is you think is running things. They're hard to keep sometimes, though."

  I shook my head. Either I'd had too much to drink or not enough, because Geneva wasn't making any sense.

  "I thought once we got Lily, it wouldn't be so hard," she said, "not being able to have a baby of my own. But it's been tougher than I thought, letting go."

  "That new doctor, in Dallas," I said. "I thought he was supposed to be some kind of miracle-worker." She'd gone up a few weeks before for tests.

  "He's a doctor, not a magician," she answered. It sounded like a line she'd picked up somewhere, or had been rehearsing in private. "He said my uterus is an inhospitable environment and it needs to come out. Those were his exact words."

  "Jesus! That's the most hostile thing I've ever heard."

  "Yeah, he's not much on bedside manner, but he's tops in his field."

  "I don't care! I can't believe you'd even think of letting somebody like that cut you open."

  "Oh, he won't be doing the cutting. Dr. Crawford will. Next Tuesday morning, six a.m., at County." She dropped her cigarette to the ground and together we watched it smolder. "I meant to tell you earlier. I just— Well, I didn't want to spoil the party."

  I put out my own cigarette, half-smoked, and reached for her nearest hand. It was icy, and I held it between both of mine.

  "How's Bailey taking it?" I asked.

  "He's been after me to do it for a long time. Not just because of the miscarriages. Everybody—Dr. C, the guy in Dallas, everybody—says I'll feel better, be a lot healthier, once it's done. Anyway, Bailey's never been as single-minded about having a baby as I have. I mean, he's got Lily now."

  "You've got Lily, too."

  "I do. I know." I realized she was trembling all over, like a lightly blown leaf.

  "Gen?" I said.

  "Just do me a favor, would you? Don't tell me how lucky I am. I am, I know I am, but just don't say it to me right now, okay?"

  She inched closer to me on the step and I wrapped my arms around her and we huddled together like Eskimos.

  "I want you to promise me something," she said, resting her head on my shoulder. "If anything ever happens to me—"

  "Hush," I said. "Don't you know it's bad luck to talk that way?"

  "Promise, anyway."

  "Nothing's going to happen to you. We're both going to live forever." In my mind's eye I could see us plain as day, two old ladies, as craggy and fierce and gray as battleships, sitting on a porch like this one and watching the sun set, with grandbabies in our laps and dogs at our feet. Jude and Lily would visit, and Denny, of course, bringing us candy and cigarettes and trashy magazines and gossip. Denny would be an old lady by then, too, but a glamorous one, like Loretta Lynn, with bones like scaffolding and a complicated personal life and still, forever, that voice.

  Geneva sighed. "Did anybody ever tell you you're a saint?"

  "All the time."

  Denny shut her phone and started back toward the house. She didn't even blink at the sight of Geneva and me hunched in each other's arms like a pair of cliff-hangers, just sank down on the step below us and wedged her body between our knees, then picked up Geneva's Marlboro Lights, plucked one out of the package, and lit it with expert fingers. She inhaled, then blew out a plume of smoke, peering at me through slanted eyes.

  "Everything okay?" I asked, making my voice light.

 
; "Let's not talk about it right now, okay? It's Girlfriend Night." She pulled on her cigarette. She looked agitated and fierce and beautiful, like a warrior princess, and I felt a swell of pride weighted with sadness that, other than my love and my company and my useless advice, she was wholly herself, that there was nothing else in the world she needed from me.

  I looked at Geneva, who smiled and shut her eyes and lowered her head back to my shoulder. Denny leaned back against my knees, and I reached down and lifted her hair in my hands. There are so many places mothers can't go; the older kids get, the more ways they find, on purpose or not, to shut you out, and so I knew to take what I could get: the sharp jut of her shoulder blades against my shins, my fingers in her heavy, sweet-smelling hair.

  Headlights appeared at the end of the road, rising and falling between the trees. Geneva lifted her head, and the three of us sat up straight as they approached.

  "That's not the boys, back already?"

  "It better not be," Denny said. "I told them not to even think about coming home before midnight."

  But this wasn't Ash's pickup rolling slowly up the unpaved road toward the house. As the vehicle turned into the yard and swung in behind Geneva's pickup, there was no mistaking the light brown cruiser with the Cade County Sheriff's Department seal on the side.

  chapter thirteen

  I struggled to my feet, feeling like my legs had cotton batting where the bones used to be. The cruiser's door opened and Marjo Malone climbed out, adjusting her gun belt.

  "Evenin', ladies," she called. "How's the party?"

  Maybe this was a social visit. Maybe Marjo had heard about Girlfriend Night and had decided to drive out and avail herself of a dye job and some spicy Velveeta dip. Or maybe they'd caught Audrey on tape, buying Smirnoff Ice at the Miracle Mart. The possibilities were infinite, but they all seemed to keep circling back to the same, sure center.

  Marjo turned and opened the rear door of the cruiser. "Okay, boys," she said. "Climb on out. And no funny stuff, okay? I've had about enough of y'all for one evening already."

  "I knew it," I said, grabbing Denny's arm. "I knew this was a bad idea the minute you said it."

  Will emerged first, head bent. As Denny and I rushed down the steps into the glare of the cruiser's headlights, I saw that he held a blood-soaked bar towel to his face, and the front of his shirt was splattered as well. The front door of the house opened and women came pouring out, jabbering like a flock of magpies.