Heartbreak Town

by Marsha Moyer

  "Oh my God!" Denny cried, flinging her arms around Will. "What happened?"

  "He broke my fucking nose, that's what!"

  "Your fucking nose isn't broken," Ash said from inside the car. He got out slowly, prodding his jaw with his fingertips. There was blood on his shirt, too, though less than on Will's, and his bottom lip was split. "Anyway, you knocked my fucking teeth loose."

  "Hear now!" Marjo said. "What've I just been telling y'all on the ride over? We got plenty of empty beds in the jail. I'd be happy to give you both a ride back to town and a night to think this over." Both men stared at the ground like schoolboys after a scolding. "Now I want y'all to cool your jets, work this out like human bein's. And don't make me come out here again, 'cause if I get another call, I guarantee you I'm not gonna be in such a charitable mood." Marjo turned and nodded to me. '"Night, ladies," she said. "Sorry to bust up y'all's good time."

  "Thank you," I said, "for not— For bringing them home."

  "Like I said—let's work on keepin' it in the family from here on out, okay?" She lowered herself into the cruiser and drove away.

  Denny managed to get Will to drop the towel long enough to determine that the blood, while there was plenty of it, had stopped flowing, and even though his nose was swollen and purplish, it didn't seem broken. The ladies fluttered around eagerly, leaning in for a better look at this new husband of Denny's, made all the more tantalizing by his injury, chatting among themselves about what had happened, whether or not he ought to go to the hospital.

  I walked over to where Ash stood, working his jaw with his fingers. I stepped up and pried his hand from his face so that I

  could get a better look, but in the yard light it was hard to see. "Let's get you inside," I said. "Clean you up a little."

  "Not in there," Ash said as we watched Denny leading Will up the porch steps, his face still covered by the bloody towel, trailed by a gaggle of females. "He wants to turn this into a circus, let him. I've had a bigger piece of it than I reckoned on already."

  "Your place, then." He shrugged, turned toward the trailer. I managed to catch Dove's eye, waved that I was going with Ash, then followed him inside to the bathroom.

  As I switched on the overhead light, his reflection leapt into harsh relief, the horizontal ridges of his cheekbones, his busted lip, his eyes pink-rimmed and exhausted-looking. "Here," I said, tilting his jaw toward the light. He winced as I touched it gently with my fingers.

  "Tee furt,"hesaid.

  "What?"

  He pointed with his thumb toward his lower incisors.

  "Let's see," I said.

  He tipped back his chin and let his mouth fall open. There was no mistaking the smell of beer on his breath, but this didn't seem like the time to make a point of it. I prodded his molars as gingerly as I could. They didn't feel loose, though the gums were red and angry-looking. "I think they'll hold," I said. "That lip looks pretty ugly, though. Have you got anything to clean it up with?"

  "Whiskey."

  I guessed it would have to do. I grabbed the pint bottle out of the cabinet along with a washcloth and steered him toward the bedroom. Without a word he dropped onto the mattress, tilting back his chin and closing his eyes. I knelt beside him and opened the bottle and touched it to the cloth, pressing it against the cut on his bottom lip.

  "Ow," he whispered, but slowly his head fell back and he let go a long, bone-weary sigh. I touched and retouched the lip of the whiskey bottle to the washrag and dabbed it against his mouth.

  "Better?" I asked.

  "Mm." He lifted his hand and wrapped it around mine, holding the cloth to his lip. How, I wondered, was it possible to harbor such conflicted feelings about someone and not go crazy, to feel so tender and furious at the same time?

  "Hair's different," he said.

  "What?"

  "You did something to your hair. Looks good." He shut his eyes.

  "I met your priest today," I said. "Father Laughlin." Ash opened one eye and squinted at me. "You could've warned me," I said. "I wasn't prepared for a fat guy in running shorts named Punch."

  "He's not Bing Crosby, that's for sure."

  "He was pruning rosebushes when I got there. I thought he was the gardener."

  "He is the gardener. I think he wears about two dozen hats around that place."

  "Well, I hope he knows more about running a church than he does about roses. He'd never even heard of black spot before."

  "So what'd you talk about? Besides roses."

  "He thinks you're the most interesting drunk in northeast Texas."

  "That's not saying much." He squeezed my hand again. "How about you?"

  "I don't know any other drunks, so I haven't got a lot of room for comparison."

  "I mean, what'd he say about you?"

  "He said—let's see. Well, the main thing I recall is that love is a gift. Not to be squandered, but neither to be… something."

  "You and Punch talked about love?"

  "Punch talked. I was just the audience."

  Ash lowered my hand to his chest. "What else did he say?" he asked.

  "That I need to deal with my own problems and let you deal with yours. But that's what you paid him to tell me, right?"

  "Sassy," he said, and closed his eyes again. "Sassy girl."

  "How come you hit Will Culpepper?"

  Ash shook his head without opening his eyes. "Do me a favor. Lie down here a second, would you?" He patted his shoulder. "Just lay your head right here."

  "But there's a party going on over at the house," I said. "I've got guests."

  "I hate to tell you, Lucy, but I think Girlfriend Night is over."

  I set down the washcloth and the bottle and stretched out beside him, nestling my head into the niche between his neck and his shoulder. He worked his hand into my hair, and I rested my hand lightly on his chest, his bloody T-shirt. In the months since I'd left Nashville, all those nights I'd woken up alone in the middle of the night, I wondered if this wasn't the thing I'd missed most, the rhythm of Ash's heart under my hand. What if we never found a way to make it work and I had to let it go for good, this drumbeat, the guarantee I needed that the world was still turning? Would I ever find anything to take its place? Would I have the heart myself to go on looking?

  His breathing grew deep and steady, and gradually mine slowed to match his, and we breathed that way, together, in and out, until we were both half-drowsing. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the side of his neck, inhaling soap and cotton and whiskey and dried blood. Who said everything had to have a reason, or, for that matter, that the reason had to be a good one? Morning would come anyway, regardless. I was dimly aware of voices in the yard, the sound of engines starting up and driving away as I lay breathing in, breathing out, counting the beats of Ash's heart under my hand.

  Before I got to a hundred, there came a sharp rap on the front door. Both Ash and I bolted upright, rolled off the mattress, and stumbled to our feet, and I jogged after him up the hall.

  Denny stood at the foot of the cinder blocks, barefoot and rumpled, her eyes swollen from crying. "I—we—" She raked her hands through her hair, looked wild-eyed over her shoulder. "I just came to tell you, we're leaving."

  "Leaving?" I pushed past Ash, into the yard. "But why?" Denny just shook her head miserably. I turned and looked at Ash. "This is your fault, isn't it? There's something you're not telling me."

  He spoke over me to Denny. "Baby girl, I think everybody needs to calm down a little. Go back inside and get some sleep. Things will look a whole lot different in the—"

  Out front of the house, an engine roared to life: the little two-seater rental car. I reached for Denny's arm, but she stepped backward, out of my grasp.

  "Oh, honey, please. What's going on? Can't we just talk about—whatever it is?"

  The back door opened and Will stepped out onto the step. "This bus is pulling out!" he shouted. "If you're coming, then come on!"

  "Wait a minute!" I moved across the
yard past Denny to where Will stood, gripping the handle of their duffel bag in both hands. His hair was wet and combed back, his nose a ripe plum. "What do you think you're doing?" I said. "You can't just take off like this, in the middle of the night, with no explanation! Denny? You're not going with him, are you?" She stood slump-shouldered, weeping. "Look, whatever happened, we can fix it. Just slow down a minute and—"

  "We haven't got time for this." Will leaned past me and grabbed for Denny's arm. He wasn't a big man, but for the first time I smelled real danger on him. He stared at Denny, mesmerizing her; I could see her start to sway like a snake.

  In an instant Ash had materialized beside me. "You lay a hand on her," he said, "and you're going to be looking at a lot more than a busted nose."

  For a minute they squared off, eye to eye. Then Will took a step backward and swung the duffel bag up the steps.

  "Fine." He jerked his chin at Denny. "It's your call. You can stand here all night and boo-hoo to Daddy, or you can come with me."

  He went up the steps carrying the bag and through the screen door, letting it slam. Denny stood, barefoot in the dirt, weaving and hiccupping. Out front, the trunk of the rental car slammed shut; the motor revved.

  "I have to go," she whispered.

  "No! You can't!" Something terrible was going to happen; it was one of those gut mother fears, of twisted metal, lights and sirens, the sheriff, for the second time in one night, knocking on your door. I followed Denny up the steps and through the house, but she was pushing away from me with everything she had, batting at me blindly like a swarm of wasps. "Wait!" I called as she crawled into the passenger seat and Will reached across her and slammed the door shut, and the little black car fired up and pulled out, scorching a trail of red dust and rubber I could taste on my tongue as it careened down the road and out toward the highway. I listened to the transmission whine its way through the gears for a quarter of a mile before it finally faded into the night.

  Dazed, I wandered back into the house, up the hall to the bedroom, where lights still burned, the bedcovers were disheveled, a damp towel lay on the floor. It didn't seem possible that things could have fallen apart so fast, like Denny and Will had just vaporized into thin air.

  I heard Ash behind me, and turned to face him in the doorway, clenching my hands together. "What did you do? Ash, you have to tell me."

  He sighed, shook his head "We went to the Tap, right? To watch the ball game, have a couple beers."

  "Okay."

  "So things weren't exactly going great guns, conversation-wise. I mean, the guy's only interested in one subject, as far as I can tell—Will Culpepper. He didn't even know who the Rangers' pitcher was."

  "That doesn't begin to explain how things ended up this way."

  "We'd been sitting there awhile, and some guy walks over. Says, 'Hey, aren't you Ash Farrell? My wife and I love your records, man. Can't hardly wait for the next one.' He's sticking this cocktail napkin under my nose for my autograph when Will Culpepper pipes up, 'Well, it's gonna be a long wait.'"

  I felt a hollow growing in the pit of my stomach.

  "The guy looked at Will a little weird, but he just said thanks when I signed his napkin and walked away. I asked Will what the hell he thought he was doing. 'Just talking truth. It is the truth, ain't it?' he says. 'What business is it of yours if it is?' I ask him. 'None at all. Except that your baby girl thinks you're some kind of hero. How you think she feels about this, you dragging around like a sorry-ass has-been?'" I sat down on the bed. A stray sock lay abandoned in the middle of the mattress, and I picked it up and held it in my lap. "Jesus, Lucy—what was I supposed to do?"

  "What did you do?"

  "Stood up and called him a little shit. He stood up and called me a self-centered asshole. 'You're a fine one to talk,' I said, and gave him a tap. He tapped me back, and next thing you know, we're rolling around like a couple of pit bulls on the barroom floor."

  I dropped the sock, stood up, went to the closet, and dug out my old track shoes and sat down to lace them on. I found my purse, my car keys.

  "You'll never bring her back, you know," Ash said as I walked past him and out the door. "Not till she wises up to the bastard on her own."

  But I hardly needed him to tell me that.

  Half an hour later I found myself at the curb in front of Geneva and Bailey's house in town, the motor of my Blazer running, staring at the kitchen window where, at one-thirty in the morning, a light burned.

  A face appeared at the window, and seconds later the porch light came on and the front door opened and there stood Geneva in a fuzzy robe and slippers. I shut off the motor. Somehow I managed to get out of the car, to make it up the walk.

  Geneva took my arm and pulled me inside. "What are you doing here?"

  "Is Jude okay?"

  "Sure. Come see."

  I stood at the doorway to Lily's bedroom, gazing at her in the top bunk and Jude in the lower, their sleeping faces illuminated by the faint glow of the night-light. Jude had kicked his covers into a ball at the foot of the bed, and lay sprawled with one arm over his head and one bare foot dangling toward the floor.

  I tiptoed into the room and knelt beside him, watching his lashes flutter against his cheeks, his rusty crew cut dark against the pillow. I rested my head beside his, breathing him in. I had to resist the urge to crawl in beside him, to cover his body with mine, curling myself around him the way I hadn't since he was a baby, to snatch him out of bed and drag him out to the car and drive away with him into the night. To tell the truth, I don't know what I

  might have done if Geneva hadn't put her hand on my arm and, slowly but firmly, eased me to my feet and back toward the door.

  "There's coffee, just made," she whispered, leading me up the hall.

  "What are you doing up at one-thirty in the morning?" I asked, slumping into a kitchen chair.

  "I think that's supposed to be my line."

  A magazine lay on the table, the checkout-stand kind with stories about how to spice up your marriage and lose those last stubborn ten pounds. The cover showed a scrawny model in a thong bikini alongside the headline, "How Much Is Too Much? Get the Orgasms You Deserve!"

  "I'm glad to see you're improving your mind," I said.

  "I guess I'm supposed to be reading some eight-hundred-page Russian novel at this hour?" She took down a couple of flower-printed mugs from the cupboard and rilled them from the industrial-size coffeemaker on the counter.

  "No, you're supposed to be sleeping next to your adoring husband."

  "So are you."

  "Last time I checked, I didn't have one."

  Geneva handed me my coffee and I started talking. As I described the part where Denny and Will drove off, she got up and took a Sara Lee cheesecake out of the freezer and cut two generous slabs and placed one in front of each of us. When I got to the part where Ash explained what had sparked their departure, she got up again and put the rest of the cheesecake in the middle of the table, and we dug straight into the aluminum tin, carving out jagged pieces with our forks, washing them down with hot black coffee.

  "But, Lucy," she said when I'd finished, "it's plain as day, isn't it? He feels threatened."

  "Will Culpepper? Threatened?"

  "Of Ash. He wants to be the main man in Denny's life, and he's afraid he won't measure up."

  "That doesn't make any sense. He's her husband."

  "Honey, that's just men for you. I remember when I first took Bailey home to meet my folks, Daddy treated him like a serial killer. Then, our second Thanksgiving together, out of the pure blue, Daddy invited Bailey to go hunting. I don't think I slept that whole weekend. I kept waiting for the sheriff to drive up and say one of them had shot the other one. But all they did was get drunk on peach brandy and fall in a creek and freeze their asses off. And things have been fine between them ever since."

  "Well, Will Culpepper scares me shitless. You should've seen how he talked to Denny. But it's like she's so confused she can
't see straight. And now they've taken off for Lord knows where…"

  "I hate to tell you, Lucy, but Denny's a big girl now. So long as she got in that car of her own free will—"

  "Funny," I said.

  "What?"

  "Free will?" I repeated. Geneva made a face and shook her head. "Sorry. I guess I'm a little punchy." I sighed, pushed away my plate. "Your turn," I said.

  "For what?"

  "True confessions. Why you're prowling around the house drinking coffee at one in the morning."

  "I don't know. I haven't been sleeping much lately. It doesn't seem fair to Bailey, lying there tossing and turning, keeping him awake, so…"

  "So, you sit up reading articles about"—I glanced at the magazine—"death by orgasm?"

  "No, I sit up and think about what it's gonna be like, five days from now, waking up in County General without a uterus."

  "You aren't really scared about the operation, are you?"

  Geneva shook her head. "Dr. C.'s done so many hysterectomies by now, he could probably do them in his sleep. It's just that—-well, I guess I've been thinking about how this really is the end of the line for me."

  "That you'll never have a baby, you mean."

  "It's crazy, I know, but I've been thinking about you. How you and Mitchell tried for fourteen years, then he died and you met Ash and just like that…" She held up her fingers and snapped them. "Don't look at me like that. I know it means the problem was most likely with Mitchell, not you. Still, I've always had it in the back of my mind…"

  "What? That you should have slept with Ash a few times, just to be sure?"

  "No! But you know what it's like. How your mind gets. I got to thinking maybe there was some weird combination of Bailey's sperm and my egg, something that made me keep losing the babies. That maybe some other guy might have the—what should I call it?"

  "The magic bullet?"