Bonnie would cut back on her drinking. There were so many good reasons to do that anyway. Focus on her work, where she was valued and needed. It was time to clean up her act. Make a fresh start. Build a Better Bonnie.
Just that morning she’d received one more hilarious e-mail from the industrious spammers of Taiwan, “Do you have ploblems with your loving life?” Yes, that was it exactly! She had ploblems! Never had it been laid out so clearly to her! Bonnie enjoyed a little ha ha at that one, because you might as well see the humor in life when you could, and set off to find whatever it was Jane had sent her for, oh yes, the olives.
Jane set her groceries out for the checker and waited for the belt to advance them down to be scanned. The bright, overpackaged boxes of cereal, the plastic sheen of the meat trays, the frozen items. Of course you could not really predict the future, not exactly. But you could make other people wonder what was going to come rolling down the line next.
crisis intervention
The woman in the third floor apartment had locked herself inside after an escalating encounter during which she waved a kitchen knife and threatened to cut her stupid bitch neighbor if she did not shut her stupid bitch ass up. There had been some trouble over a man, although the man himself was long gone. A case of purloined affections. The police had been called, and upon their arrival Mrs. Jackson, Luella, had announced that the representatives of law enforcement could kiss her black ass. Now the two cops were at the apartment door, trying to get her to come out. She was not the sort of woman to open her door to police in a welcoming way.
Bonnie stayed outside, waiting to see if the officers upstairs would get tired of talking, splinter the door, and go for it. Her function was to encourage a less confrontational process. She wore a CPD vest but no uniform. Other neighbors had gathered, standing around and waiting for any entertaining developments. The day was fine and very hot. Some of the crowd had draped wet towels around their necks to cool off. Children were making the most of the last free days before school started, playing elaborate sidewalk games, taunting and whaling on each other, then ceasing combat and starting all over again. “I expect she drunk,” one woman told Bonnie. It was not quite noon. “She drunk all the time.”
Bonnie asked if anyone lived in the apartment with her. “Nah. Too mean and nasty.”
“She run her mans off,” another, younger, woman volunteered. “Nobody want to live wit her big head self. Sorry-drunk woman.”
“She cause any problems like this before?”
“Mosly jus run her mouth. Whooee. She would slap Jesus, she get in a mood.”
Through her shoulder mike, Bonnie could hear one of the officers talking outside the apartment: “Mrs. Jackson? We need to talk to you. Just open the door.” He wasn’t putting much energy into it.
Less distinctly, Bonnie heard the woman’s enraged, high-volume ranting. The officer spoke into his mike. “We’re kind of at the end of a conversation here,” he told Bonnie.
“Can you keep it going a little longer?”
“Yeah, we can all talk about our feelings.”
“Just a minute,” Bonnie said. She asked the neighbor woman, “Where does she get her alcohol?”
The woman pointed toward the end of the street.
“Corner store? What time does she go there, usually?”
“Like, now times. Prolly why she so mad.”
“Does she have any friends? Anybody who runs with her, who would help her?” Meaning, anybody who was on her side and might interfere.
“Not nobody. Pitiful.”
“OK,” Bonnie told the officer. “How about, shut it down. Tell her you’ll come back later.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Just come down and talk to me.” She heard some muffled talk between the two cops, no doubt agreeing what a big drag she was. “Oh, tell the neighbors to clear out. Tell them not to bother her. Walk wide.”
“Yeah, that’ll work. They’re a peace loving bunch.”
“Please,” Bonnie said, “let’s just try it.”
A few minutes later the two cops came out, pausing on the building’s stoop to talk to the people congregating there. Then they came up to Bonnie, still squinting from the sudden daylight, crescents of sweat beneath their arms. “Now what?”
“Those are her windows, right? Get in the cruiser and pull out. Make sure everybody can see you leave. Then, I’m not going to point, but down there’s her neighborhood juice bar. Give her twenty minutes. I bet she’ll head out to buy some of her favorite beverage. I’ll stay here and watch out for her.”
“Yeah? What if she comes out swinging her knife?” one of the officers asked. He was white and his partner was black. Bonnie didn’t really know either of them. They were young guys, full of muscles and boys’-club arrogance. Bonnie knew their type. Oh did she ever. They were required to undergo this course of training and were facing it with a heavy dose of cop-skepticism.
“I’ll be fine.”
“You will,” said the black cop, not impressed.
“Twenty-five yards east, in that alley. In my vehicle.”
“So then we have to come save your . . .” The white cop wanted to say, ass, settled for “bacon.”
“I promise I’ll keep the doors locked. Low risk.” She waited. They didn’t have to do anything she told them, or rather, suggested. It was all advisory. They didn’t want her to get knifed because then they’d have to call it in and get hung up on a lot of bullshit paperwork. The two cops traded looks that said, Let’s get this over with.
“What if she doesn’t come out?”
“You can always go back up there and kick in her door and drag her down three flights of stairs.”
“Too hot for that.”
“So give it a shot. So to speak.”
They weren’t inclined to do anything she said, but they didn’t mind getting back into the air-conditioned cruiser. And so they climbed in and took off, while Bonnie got into her own unmarked motor-pool car and circled the block. She eased through the alley and idled at its entrance, scanning the sidewalk for Luella Johnson, and not finding her, kept her eyes fixed on the building’s entrance.
It was only Wednesday and she was already dragging herself through the week. She felt restless, off her game. She’d made a point of asking to shadow Officers Hardee and Watkins, not because her shining example was going to keep them from cracking heads the next time they lost patience with somebody giving them attitude. Just to try and keep herself sharp, occupied, something other than a useless, mopey woman.
She was losing her touch. She used to be able to kid along with guys like this, show them she was on their side. Flirt and coax them into doing what she suggested. Now she guessed they looked at her like she was the high school English teacher they hadn’t been able to shake.
In the end they did not have long to wait for Luella. She came out to the stoop and stood there a minute, blinking. She was tall and whip skinny, a face and body that looked wasted, as if pieces had been gouged out of her. She had ashy skin and burnt-orange hair that stood out in stiff hanks. She wore tight pink jeans and a black sleeveless shirt that had stretched itself loose at the armholes. With care, she navigated the way to the street and took a few teetering, delicate steps along the sidewalk. Prolly drunk.
She wasn’t carrying a knife, or any kind of purse or bag that could contain a knife, but just as Bonnie went to radio this in, the cruiser pulled up behind Luella and both cops got out to confront her. Even taken by surprise like this, Luella put up a good fight, windmilling her long arms and twisting out of a shoulder grip, running her mouth at high speed until she was taken down and cuffed and with some effort bundled into the cruiser’s backseat.
Hardee and Watkins weren’t going to linger, Bonnie knew. It was always best to get yourself out of neighborhoods where arrests might prove unpopular, where hauling away
even somebody like Luella could remind people of all the things they didn’t like about the PoPo. By the time Bonnie was able to edge out of the alley, the cruiser was two blocks ahead. It took a while for one of them, Hardee, the white, smart-mouth one, to acknowledge her on the radio.
“Any more suggestions?”
“Nope. Just wanted to say, well done.”
“Yeah, I think we achieved a real, you know, rapport with her.” In the background Bonnie heard Luella, who had turned sorrowful and was howling, Hunnh, hunnh, hunnh.
“At least you didn’t have to deal with the stairs,” Bonnie said. She would have liked a little bit of grudging credit for that at least.
“Have a nice day,” Hardee said, and clicked off.
Asshole. Someday he was going to manhandle the wrong suspect, somebody deaf, disabled, somebody who didn’t speak English. And then there would be more of the headlines nobody wanted, and attorneys with microphones, and big money payouts, and it wouldn’t do her any good to say she told them so.
By now she was in a lowdown bad mood. She would have bought Luella a drink, if she’d had the chance. The sky was the hazed-over urban gray of pollution and heat. You breathed in asphalt and chemical stink. The air-conditioning in her shitbox vehicle made the engine run hot, so rather than get stranded in this choice neighborhood next to the Dan Ryan, she switched it off and opened the window to let the rush of hot air blow over her. Good times.
Her phone rang. She snarled at it. Reached for it on the seat, fumbled, came up with it. It was Eric. What the hell. She hadn’t talked to him in a month and she didn’t want to talk to him now. She let the call go to voice mail and tried to maneuver from out behind a panel truck with a bad paint job that was belching clouds of evil exhaust. Would he leave a message? Bonnie waited, then the ping sounded, and she guessed she didn’t have to listen to it but she knew she would.
She waited until she was back at her office and she had the place to herself, everybody else gone to lunch, to call up his message. “Bonnie, hi, I don’t know if Jane’s called you yet, but she wants to meet with us. Both of us. Yeah, I know. I mean, I don’t exactly know. So . . .” A pause while he did not say some number of things. “. . . I guess we’ll see. OK. Talk to you later.”
There it was. She put the phone down and let herself sit without thinking or moving, letting dread rise in her. Whatever Jane had to say or do, she guessed they had it coming. It might even be a relief to get it out in the open. But not right away.
First she’d have to get through whatever confrontation Jane wanted to have. Or a meeting? Why did he say meeting? Like, an ambush? Jane wasn’t the type to go after anyone with a kitchen knife, at least, it was hard to imagine her threatening to draw blood with her wedding present Wusthof Classics. She would tell Bonnie she never wanted to see her again. Heap some names on her. Fair enough. She was accustomed to heaping those same names on herself.
Or maybe it was something entirely different. Jane was going to open a yoga studio or some other exciting plan, she wanted their blessing.
Eric had not said that she should call him back, and Bonnie didn’t want to do so. Nor could she call Jane and say, I understand you’d like to set up a meeting, possibly to discuss my behind-your-back affair with your husband. There was nothing to do except wait for Jane’s call. Which came in the form of another voice mail message the next day while Bonnie was in a conference and had her phone off.
“Bonnie? Can you come to dinner on Sunday? I’m thinking around seven. I’ll feed the kids ahead of time, they really can’t wait that late. Let me know if you can’t come, otherwise just show up. Oh, no need to bring anything. Bye.”
No need to bring what, lawyers? Armaments? Reparations? Jane had sounded the way she always did. Sunday night dinner, as they’d done any number of times before. Maybe it was the yoga studio.
She went back and forth, thinking about calling Eric, calling Jane, fishing around to find out what was in store, or launching a preemptive apology. In the end she did not. Partly out of cowardice, partly because she figured she deserved whatever was coming to her.
Sunday came and Bonnie got herself as ready as she could and drove out to the suburbs. A spell of rain had broken the heat. Her tires made a whisking sound on the wet pavement. In spite of what Jane had said, she equipped herself with a bottle of decent red wine that could serve as a peace offering, or an anesthetic, or even to help disguise bloodstains.
She parked on the street, as she always did, and stopped to look around at the pretty houses. Even with the recent rains the lawns looked bleached out from the dry summer. The sun was setting earlier now, the kind of thing Bonnie never noticed until she was in a place where you might actually have a chance to see the horizon. What if she took herself out to the wilderness? A mountaintop or a seashore? Would she activate some preindustrial portion of her brain, learn to navigate by the stars and gather edible plants? But now she was procrastinating.
Jane met her at the door. “I told you not to bring anything,” she said, taking custody of the wine. “Come on in, I’ve got to . . .” Trailing off, leading the way back to the kitchen. Normal Jane, preoccupied with getting the meal on the table. Bonnie followed. The house was quiet. No television. The children otherwise occupied. Eric not in evidence. Sound of water running upstairs.
Jane stood at the counter, chopping something. She was always careful and precise about her kitchen work and the knife made methodical snicking sounds. The oven was on, but Bonnie couldn’t detect any smell from it. “What’s for dinner?” she asked.
“It’s a surprise.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Or more like, an experiment.” Jane left the heap of radishes she’d been turning into thin rounds and opened the refrigerator.
“Can I help?”
“Open the wine, maybe.”
“Sure.” Bonnie found the corkscrew. “Want some?”
“Not right now. Take some to Eric, why don’t you, he’s out back.”
“Sure.” Bonnie poured out two tumbler-style glasses and maneuvered carefully past the open refrigerator and Jane’s contemplation of it. It was hard to tell if she should feel more or less nervous after this normal-seeming encounter. Jane still had not really looked at her. But maybe she was just intent on whatever it was she was cooking. A pig’s head. A parboiled bunny.
Eric was sitting in a lawn chair on the paved patio, surrounded by a summer’s worth of sports equipment and outdoor toys. He looked up as Bonnie came out, then away. “Hi,” she said, handing him the glass. “For you.”
He took it without speaking. Bonnie sat down in a chair angling away from his. It was still damp from the rain and she felt the plastic webbing soak into the seat of her pants. Eric appeared to be contemplating Grace’s pink bicycle, resting up against the garage wall. Pink streamers had been affixed to the handlebars and there was a white basket ornamented with daisies over the front wheel. After a moment Bonnie said, “So what—”
“I really don’t know.”
They sat in silence. Eric drank half his wine in one pull. Then he got up and climbed the steps to the back door.
Stay or go? She could walk right around the house, get into her car and drive off, never see either of them again. Or no, she could not, because she had left her purse and keys inside on the kitchen counter. She swore under her breath, although there was no one there to hear her. Having come this far, there was no retreat.
The back door cracked open. “Dinner,” Jane called.
Bonnie took a fortifying drink of wine and rose to go inside.
In the kitchen, Jane’s voice floated back to her. “Go ahead and sit down, I’m just going up to get the kids settled.”
Eric was already in the dining room and Bonnie took her usual place to one side. The table was set with one of Jane’s flowered cloths and the earthenware dishes she favored for everyday dinners.
Eric turned to look at her as she sat down, without expression, then went back to kneading his chin with one hand and staring out the front windows. A green salad was to the side of each plate, and a loaf of brown bread, unsliced, was in the center of the table. A stick of butter and a small pitcher that was probably salad dressing.
Bonnie might have made a joke about the unpromising look of the meal, but it didn’t seem like a jokey situation. They heard Jane upstairs, telling one of the kids to stop doing whatever it was they were doing. Then her feet descending. Jane came into the dining room in a rush. “All right, then. Let me just . . .”
She went into the kitchen and they heard her opening, closing things. “Eric? Would you put down a trivet? There’s one in the silver drawer.” Eric got up, placed a circle of cork on the table, sat back down. Jane came in with a casserole swaddled in hot pads. “Oh, the bread. One second.” She maneuvered the casserole onto the cork and returned to the kitchen.
Bonnie and Eric regarded the casserole. It was brown, with the lumpy surface of an unplowed field. It was hard to identify the ingredients. Something white and weblike that might be cheese. “Christ,” Eric said, to himself, not Bonnie.
Jane came back in with a wicker basket of the sliced bread. “All right, everybody can serve themselves.”
Nobody did. “What is it?” Bonnie asked, trying not to sound like one of Jane’s children.
“Feta and Chili-Vegetable Crumble. Here.” Jane took the serving spoon, pried up a corner of the casserole, and deposited a helping on Bonnie’s plate. “It’s butternut squash and sweet potatoes. And the feta. And sriracha sauce, that gives it a little kick. Eric?”
Jane handed the serving spoon to him. Eric used it to put a scant portion on his plate. He reached for two slices of bread and buttered them thickly.
She Poured Out Her Heart Page 30