The Circle Game

by Tanya Nichols

  “I realize this is sudden and probably a little shocking, but there’s no way to ease into the subject.” Again, the comment was met with nothing but silence on the other end of the line, so the woman continued. “Why don’t you let this bit of news sink in, think about it, and we’ll talk in a day or so. It’s better if you let things process a little before moving on too quickly.”

  The woman’s voice was soft and soothing. She probably made these types of calls often, and had experienced every kind of reaction imaginable. She was the one with all the information in front of her. She knew things about Bernie, her past, where she came from, things Bernie had only guessed at over the years. A stranger on the phone knew more than Bernie did about her own life, her history.

  “Process, yes.” She switched the phone from her right hand to her left and rested her forehead in the palm of her right hand. “You see, I’m really busy right now. I’m an attorney, but uh . . .”

  “Yes, your mother was actually quite proud to learn that.”

  “She knows I’m a lawyer?” It puzzled her that the woman who gave her up also knew more than Bernie. She at least knew how Bernie spent her days.

  “Yes, but she does not know your name or any details about you. Without your permission, we can only give non-identifying information. She doesn’t even know the city where you live.”

  “That seems odd. She knows what I am, but not who I am.” Bernie felt her heart pounding in her throat, not her chest, forcing a rush of heat up her face and down to her trembling fingers. “What if I were a cocktail waitress? Or, say, a welfare mom? Would you still be making this call?”

  “Ms. Sheridan,” she cleared her throat, spoke slowly and evenly. “Your mother was extremely anxious about your welfare, so during my last conversation with her, I let her know you were a professional woman with your own business, an attorney. That is all. She had no idea what your life was like when she began the investigation. Regardless of how you feel, she liked hearing that you had done well. If she never learns more, she was reassured with the knowledge that you are successful in your own right. That you seemed to have had a,” she paused a bit before finishing, “a good life, the life you deserved.”

  “Good for her.” Contempt hummed across telephone lines to a woman simply doing her job, the only one available to receive the jab and sting of Bernie’s bite.

  “Ms. Sheridan, this is never easy. Trust me, take a day or two, and think it over. We don’t immediately bring the parties together. We usually start with letters. Perhaps you’d like to start by writing a letter. That is often easier than dealing with a face-to-face meeting right away. And, if it is agreeable, I can have your mother send you a letter, too. It would go through me, of course.”

  “I do need to think about this,” she agreed, slightly regretting her hints at rudeness. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Thank you. We’ll talk soon after some of this news settles.”

  Bernie hung up the phone and moved to the comfort of the red velvet sofa salvaged from her childhood, sagging, but comfortable. She pulled her feet up and wrapped her arms around her bent legs, hugging them close to her chest to form a tight ball with her body like she did when she was thirteen, huddled up and silent on that very same couch. Noni would urge her to do homework, go outside and play, set the table, anything to get her up and moving. But she would stay there in her silent cocoon until her feet tingled with a burning numbness. When Crystal walked in to say said good-night, Bernie was still clutching her knees to her chest, ignoring the pins and needles that pierced her calves and toes.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, just taking a minute.” She leaned back, released her legs and stretched out long, throwing her arms back over her head. “Long week. I’m glad it’s the weekend.”

  “Yeah, I’m taking off. Why don’t you leave your briefcase here? Just relax for a change this weekend. If you want to do something, give me a call. I’ll be around all weekend. Denny’s going to Phoenix.”

  “Thanks, Crystal. Maybe I’ll do that. You have a good weekend.” Bernie knew she would never call Crystal to go out and have a good time. They only socialized for special occasions, celebrations, holidays. And that was at lunch, during the week.

  “You too.” She turned away and called up the stairs, “Good night Mrs. Gordon,” her words lifting to a hollow echo as she bid a farewell to the phantom ghost of a woman that had lived where they now worked, the poor soul who was blamed for every lost file, each settling groan and creak the old house muttered in aging protest. The spiritual whipping post that never complained. “Leave the files alone,” Crystal demanded as she walked out the door.

  Bernie smiled at her, realizing that was Crystal’s only goal.

  “Mrs. Gordon,” Bernie whispered to the now empty room, “what would you do? Would you want to meet the woman who didn’t want you? Would you write her a letter?” She sat quietly and waited for a creak or groan in reply, but the house was silent.

  When Bernie finally pulled herself up off the couch and out the door, Don Fielding was still out there, talking to a guy in coveralls splattered and stained with splotches and flecks of grey and brown paint. Like a Pollock painting, she thought, a living and breathing canvas.

  Her landlord had recently added the Victorian next door to his portfolio with plans to turn the entire block into his own personal avenue of office buildings. Crews of carpenters, plumbers, painters, and landscapers paraded in and out of the tired, old house, slowly transforming it to a work of art. She had watched the workmen come and go for months, their hissing saws and pounding hammers forcing her to close all the windows and run the air conditioner on rare summer days when a cross breeze carried the scent of jasmine.

  “Still here?” she asked.

  He said something to the painter, who nodded, then walked over to where she stood by her car. “Yeah. I noticed they were working on this house and got them to let me in to take a look inside to see what they’re doing. It’s a great place. Have you been in there?”

  “No. Not yet. Are you looking for office space?” She opened the passenger door of her small Subaru and laid her packed briefcase onto the empty seat. Her head was still spinning with the news of Joan Bennett’s phone call, a part of her talking and moving, her social skills on autopilot while she inwardly writhed in a slow simmer of anxiety and confusion.

  “No. I work out of my house, well, apartment, for now. But, I’d like to buy a little house in town and fix it up myself. You know, have something to work on here when I’m not working on the cabin, so I was just looking for ideas.” He pointed at the two houses side by side, her office and the vacant one. “I really like these colors. Nice.”

  “Yeah, they’re nice.” She followed his gaze to the roofline, then moved around to open the driver’s side door, but waited to get in, the conversation not over.

  “Well, I’m headed up the hill.” Don glanced to the east for a long moment, then turned back toward her as if he wanted to say something more, but thought better of it. He bowed slightly and made a gesture with his hand in farewell.

  “Have fun,” she said. Bernie watched him slide into his small truck, his thin body moving like a dancer, fluid and weightless. He drove away slowly, his eyes already focused on what was ahead.

  Bernie took the long way home, choosing the shady side streets, the ones she learned to drive on more than twenty years ago, avoiding the crowded freeway and Friday evening traffic. She rolled down the windows while she cruised along old Van Ness Avenue, moving away from downtown. She slowed her car at the sight of children splashing through a wading pool in their front yard and studied their tired mother sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette, her eyes resting on the boy and girl playing in the pool. Bernie recalled how her mother, the only mother she knew, anyway, used to watch her swim. They had a Doughboy pool in the backyard. Bernie had wanted a kidney shaped built-in pool, like Pam Wilson’s, so her father built steps and a small redwood deck all around t
he pool. It was, he claimed, even better than a built-in because you were up higher. Her mother would sit in a lawn chair on the patio, smoking Virginia Slims and reading paperback novels, while Bernie jumped from the deck into the cool water again and again, cannonballs and dives, one right after the other. Her mother only looked up when the splashing stopped, afraid of the silence. When Bernie finally turned into her narrow driveway, she was still thinking of her mother, sitting and reading, struggling to recall even one time that her mother jumped in and splashed with her. She was sure she had, but she couldn’t envision it. That memory was locked away somewhere. The only image she could conjure up at the moment was her mother looking up, startled and afraid.

  She unlocked the door and entered the cool darkness. The small Tudor home was where she had lived as a teenager, then again as an adult after she moved Noni to the Nazareth House, accepting the gift of a home from her grandmother for the second time in her life. Of course, in exchange, she paid the monthly rent at Nazareth, which was far more than any mortgage on the old house would be. Bernie could hardly wait to tell Noni about the call from Joan Bennett, about her birth mother trying to find her. She was sure the old woman would spit on the ground, then mutter or curse under her breath in Italian. Noni knew everything.

  Four

  1968

  She was sitting up, trying to clear her head, when Freddie stomped up the rough plank steps, each boot pounding and heavy-footed. Like most of his friends, the only shirt he wore on such a muggy night was a black leather vest, “Vipers” emblazoned in bold, white letters across the back, a red, hissing snake coiled up around the tail of the letter “p.”

  “Don’t get excited—you’re not done yet.” He paused to rub the heel of his hand over his bloodshot-red eyes. “Two more, then you can go.” He leaned his head to one side, lifted the edge of the red cover, glanced down at the sleeping baby then over at her mother before dropping the cloth from his fingertips. “Shit, that kid can sleep through anything. Must take after me,” he added with a laugh, sinister and low. “Here,” he said, picking a cigarette from his pocket, tossing it onto the bed where it landed between her legs. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.” He laughed again then tossed her the nearly empty pint of Jack Daniels that sat on the table. “You look like you could use a drink.”

  “How could you do this?” Juicy picked up the cigarette and tried to steady her hand as she put it in her mouth, then gently touched her face and winced in pain. He leaned over and lit the trembling tip with the Zippo she had given him on his last birthday, his twenty-fourth. The flame lit up her dirty face with streaks of smeared mascara and a purple shadow along the left side. Red blotches the size of fingers circled her upper arms. She inhaled deep and blew the smoke out in gasps. “I hate you. I really truly hate you, Freddie.” She grabbed the bottle and took two big gulps before the burn of straight whiskey on a split lip brought tears to her eyes and caused her to choke and cough.

  “Yeah, you’ll get over it.” Three perfectly round smoke rings popped from Freddie’s mouth, then a final stream of smoke. He took another drag before talking, bathing his words in smoke. “Two guys just rolled in from Oakland. They're just having a beer first.” He looked her over, his eyes moving from her face, down her naked body to her feet, and then spit on the floor. “And clean yourself up, for Christ’s sake; you’re a mess.” He pushed the door open with a kick and a blast of the plum-scented air filled the trailer.

  Through twisted metal blinds she could see Freddie standing outside smoking with his friends, their dark silhouettes blacker than the shadows of plum trees. She numbly watched one of them tilt his head back as he chugged a beer. Their voices drifted through the open window and dirty screen. She recognized him from the times when she’d been on the road with them, riding behind Freddie, her arms around his waist. “Fuck, man, you really got Juicy in there?” he asked.

  “Took the scratch I was holding for our Bass Lake run next week. She’s just paying it back in trade.” They laughed again, and someone coughed and spit.

  “That’s cold, man.”

  There was the sound of breaking glass and then the revving of engines. All night, there was the sound of engines, sometimes a lone humming and churning, other times a deafening roar as clusters came and went. When she was pregnant, she used to listen for the roar of a single engine, waiting for Freddie to come home from some weekend run or all-night party. She really believed that once the baby came, he might change. She had changed, and he could, too. Their lives would be better, she told him, if he would get a better job, one where he hung around with a different crowd. He should stay home with her and Little Ginny more too, she’d told him, especially at night. He ignored her when she suggested they get married and be a real family, but he didn’t say no, and for a while, she was sure he was trying to be different, to be a good dad. He even fed the baby a few times, smiled when she grasped the bottle and grunted in hungry enthusiasm. “Yeah,” he had said, smiling down into a perfect tiny face, “this kid likes to eat, just like her old man. Just wait till you taste an ice-cold Bud, you’ll forget about this nasty stuff.” Some folks might think it was a bad thing to talk to a baby about drinking beer, but Juicy knew he was just joking around; he was doing the best he could. But it didn’t last. And their money didn’t, either.

  Even when her belly grew round like a basketball and her ankles swelled into tree stumps, Juicy managed to bring home enough money to at least keep them going whenever Freddie was out of work. Construction work always slowed down in the rainy season, and they never saved a dime, so when Freddie’s paychecks stopped, Juicy picked up the slack. Every time. Six days a week, she would tie a stained, white apron around her waist, fix her hair and makeup, and head down to Nolan’s Diner on the interstate. She served bacon and eggs all morning, filling coffee cups again and again, then shifted to the burger-and-coke lunch crowd, saying thank you for the quarter tip, smiling all the while she thought her lower back might break in two.

  It was only fair, she thought, that after the baby was born Freddie would cover their rent for a few weeks, at least until she found a reliable babysitter. She could have gone back sooner, but she didn’t feel comfortable leaving a newborn with Freddie all day. No doubt he’d be out in the garage, working on his bike, and forget all about his daughter inside—or he’d get high and pass out on the sofa, oblivious to the baby’s cries to be held and loved, to have a clean diaper, a fresh bottle. She should have known something was up when he handed her the wad of bills and warned her, “You’d better hope we find a way to pay this back, or there’ll be some serious shit to pay.” She’d just wanted a little break, a chance to be with her baby, his baby, so she took the money he gave her and never asked where it came from.

  With a convulsive shudder, as if she could possibly be freezing in the hot and stuffy trailer, she hugged her body tight, rocking and smoking, until finally she pulled hard on the last drag of her cigarette and crushed it out against the paneled wall, the ash and sparks spilling to the floor like a faltering fireworks display. Never did she imagine that those few dollars would turn her into one of those girls the guys trash talked after a wild night of partying with the “pass arounds,” the ones willing to do anything to be a biker babe. Not her. She was Freddie’s old lady, even better than a Mama. She was Juicy. Everyone knew her. Everyone liked her. She was like a sister to those guys, gave them free coffee and sodas when they showed up at the diner. She was one of them, or at least she thought she was.

  In the dingy bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face, then pressed a cold washcloth between her legs and tried to ease the burning pain where she was tender and bruised. She scrubbed at a patch of dried blood on her inner thigh and along her knee. It burned to pee, but she had to go. She held her breath and closed her eyes to the pain and nausea that swept through her. There was nothing left for her to vomit, her stomach long ago emptied into the rust-corroded toilet.

  The face in the mirror was only vaguely fam
iliar to the one she had studied that morning, carefully lining the eyes, brushing on mascara, wanting to look good when they went out for a drive in Freddie’s truck. The day had held such promise, the bike back in the garage while the three of them rode through the countryside together, a little family. Her carefully teased hair was now flat and matted; her skin a yellowish green, and she was sure that somehow the color of her eyes had changed, that any hint or trace of blue had leaked away. They were grey now, not grey-blue or blue-grey, just grey. Anyone who looked into those empty eyes would know what she had become in one night, what she had done, just to pay the rent. She wanted to kill him, kill all of them. She took one more drink from the bottle and returned to the filthy bed as the door opened. Two more.

  Nasty Dan came in first, grinning like a fool, his stringy hair hanging in his face. Lizard was close behind, already unzipping his pants, his mouth wet with drool.

  “Juicy, Juicy,” Dan said. “Lizard here wants to watch a little first.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lizard said, laughing and wiping his chin. “I’m going to get in there, too.”

  Juicy cringed and struggled to find that place deep inside herself once again to hide her disgust. She squeezed her eyes shut as Dan unbuckled his belt, telling herself it was almost over, telling herself to survive the night, imagining this room at a happier time. It didn’t matter what happened to her anymore, but Ginny needed her. Dan’s dirty fingers squeezed her breasts hard, making Lizard groan in approval while Juicy groaned in pain. Before this . . . After this . . . Before this . . .After this. The stench of the men, Dan on top of her and Lizard nearly smothering her with his filthy fingers on her face, made her want to wretch.