Good Girl

by Wright, Susan

  ***

  For Kali, the second week apart was even harder than the first week. They went into work together so he could inspect the progress on the flagstones being laid in the plaza, and to consult with the subcontractors. Then he was gone to Pittsburgh again to oversee the actual casting of the sundial in bronze.

  She missed Hunter, missed having him in her bed at night. She was excited that he wanted to come back to see her hometown and meet her family. That’s exactly what she wanted—a man who wanted to share her life. But from the first moment, part of her dreaded the coming weekend. Her mom was going to ask the hard questions if she brought Hunter home. It could ruin everything.

  There was no stopping it now. Hunter had changed his return ticket before he left.

  They sent silly sweet text messages to each other every day, and spoke every evening so he could tell her what was happening with the casting. He liked the surface texture of the bronze when it came out of the mold, and Mr. Ryan had agreed that a matte sundial would be better. Kali thought it was an inspired change—the sundial would contrast much more against the shiny surface of the glass façade of their tower and the pale gray flagstones.

  Kali finally called her mom on Wednesday evening. “What are you doing this weekend?”

  “Nothing much. Your dad has an art opening on Saturday evening that he wants me to go to. Why?”

  “I was thinking about coming up.”

  There was a pause. “What’s going on, Kali? You were just here for a visit. Why are you coming back so soon?”

  “I thought you wanted me to come home a lot.”

  “Kalico…”

  She sighed. “I want to bring my new boyfriend. Hunter. He asked to meet you and dad, to see where I’m from.”

  Her mom’s voice got even more wary. “The artist? The good-looking one with too many girlfriends?”

  “We’re exclusive now.”

  Her mom paused, thinking about it. “It must be getting serious for him to want to meet us.”

  “I hope so. I really like this guy.”

  “Then bring him up, honey. That’s the best way for us to figure this out.”

  Kali chatted with her mom a bit about the train schedules, and when she said good-bye, she felt a lot better. She hadn’t brought a guy home since her sophomore year in college. No wonder she was nervous. But her mom was right, seeing Hunter at home would show her whether they were really right together.

  ***

  Hunter’s hopes for a successful casting were fulfilled when he checked over the finished bronze pieces. They only needed to be buffed slightly. He made sure the pieces were packed carefully for the truck ride to New York.

  Hunter was more focused this time because he knew he was going to Kali’s hometown on Friday. He would finally get the answers he needed to understand why she was so elusive.

  It was no problem for him to catch a puddle-jumper to Syracuse and rent a car. Money had its uses, and he was enjoying his flush state. From experience, he had learned how to make his cash last, to save for the spare times. But for Kali, he would apparently do anything.

  He had an hour before Kali’s train from the city got in, so he drove his rental car around checking out the area. Jefferson was a good thirty minutes from the station, so he didn’t go that far, but he saw enough to know he was in old farm-country. There were a lot of clapboard houses for sale, and a lot of depressed property. But the scenery was pretty, if rather tamed, with narrow roads winding up and down across the long parallel ridges of the hills.

  The first moment he saw Kali, his heart lurched. Her smile, her excitement to see him, was almost too much. He hugged her tightly, wondering how he had been able to be apart from her for so many days, suddenly unable to let her go.

  “You’re beautiful.” He brushed her hair from her cheek. “Perfectly my Kitty-cat.”

  She laughed, and they kissed some more. One part of his brain was watching everything around them, his senses on full alert because he had to take care of her. He couldn’t risk falling into rapture when some random asshole might try to take advantage of it. So he led her out to his rental car and kissed her some more there. She was so ready and willing, but even though it was dark, he knew she would draw the line at anything more overtly sexual right there at the train station.

  As if thinking the same thing, she finally drew back, warding him off. “I can’t get so worked up before we see my mom.”

  During the drive, she told him where to go with the assurance of someone who knew their way through the maze in the dark, as he drove along roads that twisted and turned until he was completely lost. He was getting even more eager, feeling as if she was taking him down to the center of the earth, into the depths of her own psyche.

  Jefferson was different from everything else he had seen upstate. They were driving down an ordinary two-lane highway between the fields, and suddenly they were in a picturesque village. Even by the light of old-fashioned street lamps along the tree-lined streets, he could tell this was expensive real estate. The Victorian houses were imposing brick with many stories and gabled eaves, with broad porches on front. Wrought iron benches were spaced along the sidewalks. The center of the village was a broad grassy square with several buildings at one end that looked like a 19th century courthouse and an old firehouse. A huge basket of flowers hung from every lamppost.

  They drove past the square and out the other side of the village. Down one of the side streets on the outskirts, Kali directed him to turn into the driveway of her home. It was a miniature version of the mansions that clustered closer to the square.

  “Where’s the college?” he asked.

  “On the east side. I’ll take you there tomorrow.”

  She sounded nervous, which was interesting. Was she worried about what he would think, or what her parents would think?

  Kali took him to the side door that led directly into the kitchen. It was old fashioned but very clean and neat. He had the feeling that every hand towel had its place. For a kitchen, there was remarkably little clutter or signs of activity.

  Her mom was at the door waiting for them, and Kali gave her a hug hello, then introduced her to Hunter as “Jenny Jones.”

  “Hi, Jenny. I’m glad to meet you,” he said.

  Jenny’s smile was tight. She looked older than he had expected, thin and angular, smaller than Kali. “Welcome to our home. I was so happy when Kali said you both were coming up this weekend.”

  “Is dad here?” Kali asked.

  Jenny’s smile grew more brittle. “He’s running late, but he should be here soon.”

  Kali shook her head, looking away from them both as if uncomfortable. Interesting, he noted.

  “I’m sure you’re hungry,” Jenny said. “I’ve made some little nibbles for you. Go on upstairs and get settled, and we can meet back in the living room where it’s comfortable.”

  Even more interesting, Kali immediately grabbed her suitcase and headed out of the kitchen as ordered. She took him upstairs to her childhood room, and seemed very embarrassed to have so much of her college-self exposed to his searching gaze. He checked out the books she had read and the music she listened to, feeling like a sponge absorbing her through his pores like water.

  Her entertainment selection seemed much older than her age. Intermingled in the usual suspects were bands like ABBA and Air Supply from the 70s, and old movies, and lots of Danielle Steel romances, which made him grin and hold one up. “Really? A Perfect Stranger?”

  “Hey, judge not! That’s my mom’s.”

  “But you read it, too.”

  She shrugged. “I should get rid of all this old stuff. They could turn this room into an office or real spare bedroom. But I know my mom wants me to feel like I could come back any time I want to.”

  It was a treasure trove, and he poked his nose around until she repeatedly urged, “Let’s go down. My mom’s waiting for us.”

  He was already starting to see a pattern. What mom says, goes. He follo
wed Kali downstairs and sat where Jenny told him to, and ate the little sweet and savory appetizers Jenny had put out. He let Jenny lead their conversation, and Kali visibly relaxed the more they talked about the sundial project for SunTech and where they had gone on their various dates.

  Jenny smiled and was very gracious, but there was a slight patronizing tone, like she probably treated her students. Polite, but not buying the bullshit.

  “I’m going to show Hunter around tomorrow,” Kali said. “He’ll be able to see most of my life in just six square miles.”

  Jenny smiled. “Jefferson is a wonderful place to raise a child. Where did you grow up, Hunter?”

  “When I was young, my family moved around a lot, mostly on the east coast. For the past twelve years, they’ve been in Harrisburg.”

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “I never went to college. I’m an outsider artist.”

  Jenny stared at him. “That may be good enough for graffiti but when you’re talking about a career, you need an education.”

  “It’s called aerosol art,” Hunter corrected. “And formal education is not necessary for many things in life. Art is one of them.”

  Silence hung in the air, and Kali was frozen, not quite looking at either of them.

  Finally, Jenny said, “Don’t you have a backup plan, Hunter? Most artists can teach if their career falters. But you can’t do that without a degree.”

  “I’m an artist. I learned in the real world, and I’ll always be working with sculpture and casting metal. I’m sure I’ll have more than enough projects and ideas to fill a lifetime.”

  “But you rely on patrons to survive, as all artists do. If that dries up, you’ll starve. Or you’ll lose your home. That’s hard, especially if you have children.” Jenny looked at him harder. “Are you planning to have a family?”

  “I don’t plan out everything like that.” Like apparently you do, he wanted to add.

  “But you have to make plans if you have kids. It’s too much responsibility to go into it lightly and just hope that things work out.”

  It was offensive on so many levels, but it was serving his goal to figure out what was at the heart of Kali. So he went ahead and named what was going on. “It sounds like you think I’m not good enough for your daughter.”

  “She didn’t say that,” Kali put in quickly.

  Jenny didn’t agree, which was even more telling. “My first responsibility is to watch out for my daughter. I want to be sure she’s taken care of. I don’t want her to have to support her husband and her child. Like I did.”

  It rang in the air, her defiant defense of the judgment she had laid down against him.

  Unfortunately, at this most interesting turn, Kali’s dad arrived home and interrupted everything. He called out a big “hallo!” from the kitchen and Kali ran in to hug him with Hunter and Jenny following in awkward silence.

  After that, Danny Jones took the lead, opening up some wine for them and telling them about the rehearsal he had just gotten back from. He composed synthesizer music and worked with several different groups. One was a wedding band that he dismissed with a shrug. Hunter heard about his interests in music, wood-working, performing arts and community organizing.

  Because of their rocky start, Hunter didn’t talk much to Jenny, but she participated in their conversation, adding things from the campus point of view when it came to village planning or the plight of the local theater which had to compete with the much better-funded theater arts program at the college.

  Kali seemed happy again, now that the danger zone was in the rear-view mirror. But Hunter saw the threads of discontent crop up from time to time. Danny said at one point that he had tried and failed to create a children’s theater in the area, while Jenny sighed over the bills they still had to pay for it. Danny’s plan for transforming a vacant triangle of land into a bandstand area had also recently failed, and Jenny pointed out that it became a dog park despite his active campaigning. He taught music lessons to some very young pupils, but according to Jenny’s dismissive expression, that clearly wasn’t worth much. When Danny announced he’d been asked to write a review of the art opening tomorrow for the local free weekly paper on spec, Kali was the one who congratulated him not Jenny.

  The one thing Jenny and Danny agreed on was coddling Kali. The love flowed freely between them and their daughter, with both parents competing for her attention. Kali didn’t have to do anything but be their focus. She absorbed it all with her sweet, placating nature, making peace between them just by existing.

  It was so enlightening.

  ***

  Hunter was grateful that Kali’s parents weren’t so straight-laced that they made them sleep apart at night. He couldn’t keep his hands off her, though her parents were sleeping across the hall from them. Kali was inhibited for the first time, unable to really let go as she worried about creaky springs and loud breathing. She didn’t orgasm until he went down on her, and then she stifled her own sounds by smashing the pillow against her face. It was hot making her orgasm in spite of her walls, pushing her resistance in a new way.

  The next day she showed him around her tiny world. She was one of the lucky ones. Many of the villagers she introduced Hunter to had never left the county for any length of time. The campus had just released the students, so there weren’t many people around. Those he saw were either working on the grounds or were privileged kids, sleek and handsome, dawdling on campus after the end of the semester. They lived in actual mansions converted into sororities and fraternities with large Greek letters over the doorways, attending classes in the high-tech labs and luxurious old-world buildings.

  It was almost nauseating. But it hadn’t ruined Kali, so there had to be something going for it.

  Hunter gestured to a group sitting on the edge of a fountain looking like a catalogue for L.L. Bean. “Your mom would have been glad to have you marry one of those guys. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about money.”

  Kali raised a hand as if to ward off the suggestion. “Guys like that only want one thing from a townie. Especially when they’re in college.”

  “But you were one of them. You went to school with them.”

  “I was a charity pupil. There’s no way I could have done it without my mom’s discount, and even then I had to get a scholarship to help pay for it. I never really fit in.”

  “Caught between two worlds.”

  “True. Once I started going to school here, some of my old friends dropped me. Maybe it was my fault, too. I was doing new things, and was busy on campus instead of hanging out with them.”

  “That probably made it easier for you to leave town.”

  She looked surprised. “Maybe. I sometimes wonder why my old friends stay here when there’s not much opportunity for improving their lives.”

  “It’s because they’re comfortable here.”

  She nodded. “Comfort vs. opportunity. It is a problem.”

  A few people they bumped into in the village mentioned getting together at the local dive that night—the guy at the bakery and a tired-looking woman with two toddlers they met on the street. But Kali begged off, citing her dad’s friend’s art opening in one of the municipal buildings. Her old friends looked Hunter over, wide-eyed, like a movie star had suddenly fallen into town and they weren’t quite sure what to say at first, and then said too much as Kali was trying to get away.

  Jenny made dinner for them that night before the opening. She was back to being politely distant with Hunter, as if biding her time.

  On the other hand, Danny had embraced him as a fellow artist with no questions asked. Literally. He had yet to ask Hunter anything. He had an astonishing capacity for self-absorption. He seemed much more interested in showing off to Hunter than finding out what kind of man his daughter had brought home.

  At the art opening, Danny introduced Hunter around to his friends and the local civil servants. All of them knew Danny Jones. Jenny was also at her best, shining in
the reflected light of her husband. Whereas Danny was loud and exuberant, Jenny had conversations of substance and made her mark in a quieter, more effective way.

  Hunter lost track of Kali at one point, and finally saw her cornered by her mom near the bathrooms. Jenny spoke in low, urgent tones. He quickly realized she was talking to Kali about him, using the opportunity of the art opening to get her daughter alone. Kali looked unhappy. He knew what Jenny was saying even though he couldn’t hear her: “He’ll never be able to take care of you, you can’t trust him, he’s an irresponsible artist….” And most of all: “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  And Kali said hardly a word, just shaking her head from time to time, or reluctantly nodding agreement.

  It sent a cold shiver down his spine. Like he was seeing his death warrant. He was going to have to deal with this head-on, or he was going to lose her.

  Later that night as Kali sat cross-legged on her bed watching him get undressed, he said, “Your mother was talking to you about me tonight. What did she say?”

  Kali looked embarrassed. “I know she wasn’t very tactful last night.”

  “I don’t care about that. I want you to be honest with me. We can’t get anywhere if we keep secrets from each other.”

  She took a deep breath. “She says I’m just repeating a pattern from my own childhood, choosing a man like my dad.”

  “An artist?”

  “Yes, that. And what it brings with it. Lack of stability. Having to be the responsible one.”

  He didn’t smile, though he wanted to. “Tell me, Kali, who has the power in your parent’s relationship? Which one is in control?”

  “I guess my dad is. He does exactly what he wants. My mom had to work to support all of us.”

  “It’s true that your dad has absolute freedom outside the house. But Jenny Jones rules this family, make no mistake about that.”

  Kali shook her head, her brow furrowed. “You think she likes it that he doesn’t show up when he says he will? That he’s always off doing his own thing?”