Nether Regions

by Nat Burns

  At first, she had been amazed, and then she went through a period of seething anger. Rosalie cried poverty all the time, extorting more and more money from Delora’s earnings. She also took Louie’s disability checks, cashed them and ferreted the money here. Delora found some satisfaction in knowing that in reality, most of the money stored there was her money. Rosalie’s only income was a veteran’s check from her dead husband, amounting to just about five hundred a month. The rest of it had come from Delora and Louie and her foster sisters when they moved back home.

  Later, sitting across from Rosalie and Louie at the dinner table, knowing about the affair and the cash so close by gave her a sense of power. She knew Louie had no inkling the money was there, otherwise he’d be spending it as fast as he could. She also knew that Rosalie didn’t know this one fact about her, that she knew about everything now. This one nugget of knowledge allowed a type of one-upmanship that she cherished.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “She’s in love, is all,” was Clary’s response to Stephen’s inquiry about Sophie’s distracted presence.

  Sophie sat forward. “It’s not like that...just, we don’t know that yet, okay?”

  Stephen’s smile crept across his face like a slow crack in a plaster wall. “Oh, my gawd. You don’t mean to tell me…who is it?”

  Sophie blushed and sat back, motioning for Clary to carry on with the gossip she’d started.

  Clary obliged. “Well. Her name is Delora November and she lives over on Royale in Redstar.”

  Righteous, still recovering from work the night before, yawned widely before speaking. “Tell us more. Where’d you meet her?”

  Sophie leaned forward, eyes twinkling. “She came to me.”

  “She did,” Clary added playfully. “She had some burns that needed tending.”

  “Damn. Is she okay?”

  “They’re old,” Sophie explained. “She just needed some patching.”

  “Well, we need to meet her. Invite her to dinner.” Stephen was eaten up with curiosity.

  “What else do you know about her?” Righteous directed his question to Clary, clearly believing her to be the more responsible of the women present.

  “I didn’t meet her that night—I wasn’t here—but I think I’ve seen her around. She’s that little blonde that works in Blossom’s, over on the highway.”

  “She works at the French Club too,” Sophie added. “And out at Spinner’s Fen on Carelton.”

  Stephen frowned. “Now wait a minute. How many jobs does this girl have?”

  “Too many for my way of thinking. I think her husband is pretty much useless so she has to.” She paused as she felt incredulous eyes on her.

  “She has a husband?” Righteous breathed. “What are you thinking? Do you know how crazy that is?”

  Stephen eyed his partner with exasperation even as he agreed. “Yeah, Sophie. Can’t you find a single woman?”

  Sophie shook her head ruefully. “Wouldn’t matter either way. She is who she is.”

  A prolonged silence fell.

  “Well, what the hell does that mean?” Righteous asked.

  Sophie watched Righteous as her eyes twinkled. “It means I have faith that everything will turn out okay.”

  “By this you mean she’ll leave him and come to you?”

  “That sounds reasonable,” she agreed with a shrug.

  “Ha!” Righteous insisted loudly. “You really think it’ll be that easy?”

  “Why not?”

  “Things just don’t work out that way. You can’t snap your fingers and have everything the way you want it.”

  “Why not?” Sophie’s gaze was calm and patient.

  Beulah chuckled. “Give it up, boy. You know you can’t get past her when she’s this way.”

  Righteous hung his head. “Okay, fine. We’ll see how it all plays out. I ain’t holdin’ my breath for no happy ending though.”

  “Well, I am,” Stephen said in a campy, queen voice. “I believe Sophie’ll get her little diner girl. What I want to know is just how far has this relationship gone. I mean, do you even know for sure she’s, you know, like us?”

  “Not for sure,” Sophie replied thoughtfully, her mind working possibilities. “Sure seems like it though.”

  “But she’s married!” Righteous persisted.

  “Doesn’t mean a lot. I don’t think it’s a match made in heaven.”

  “He’s mean, isn’t he?” Clary watched Sophie closely.

  “I think so.” Sophie sighed. “That and the accident have beaten her down some.”

  “What happened? Was it a house fire like my grandma?” Righteous asked.

  “Yeah, but it was set by her husband,” Clary interjected. “Word is he was drunk and tried to burn the two of them up.”

  Righteous’s mouth fell open.

  “You don’t mean it,” Stephen said, his voice horrified.

  Sophie sat back in her chair, the fingers of her right hand tightening around the base of her glass. The cool moisture of the condensation erupted and slid along the back of her hand.

  “Aye, the past is past,” Grandam said. “Y’all leave Sophie be and come get some of this peach ice cream Tass churned for us this afternoon. Clary, you got some of that whip for the top?”

  Clary laughed as she rose and headed toward the refrigerator. “You got such a sweet jones, Miss Beulah. It’s a wonder you ain’t got sugar in the blood.”

  Grandam laughed and lifted the dessert plates from the counter behind her. “Probably do at my age. Can’t live forever, though, and I can’t think of a better way to go than eatin’ that whip spray.”

  Stephen leaned over to pat the hand that lay supine in Sophie’s lap. “I’m real happy for you, Sophie. No one deserves love like you do. I think it’ll all work out. Are you gonna let us meet her soon?”

  Sophie studied Stephen’s all-American features. “I’d be honored for y’all to meet, sweetie. I’ll set it up as quick as I can.”

  Stephen had cocked his head to one side and was studying the healer. “She’s special, isn’t she?”

  Sophie nodded. “Yeah. I believe she is.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “So, why won’t you marry me?” Hinchey’s voice was calm, bordering on nonchalant. He leaned against the bar, twirling an empty beer bottle on the polished bar. The repetitive sound of its passage was making Delora a little crazy.

  Some teenager had come into the French Club and drawn crayon-marker farmscapes across the glass front of the jukebox. Grimacing, Delora worked at it with a green plastic scrubbee.

  “Because I’m already married,” she answered. “You know that.”

  “Louie November’s not a husband. He’s a waste of breath and flesh.”

  Delora paused to lift one eyebrow in his direction. “So sayeth Hinchey Barlow.”

  “Just get me another, will you?”

  She gave the jukebox one last strike with the cleaning cloth and moved to fetch him a fresh Michelob from behind the bar.

  “Louie’s all right. He has his own issues just like all of us.” She leaned on the bar and studied Hinchey’s pouting face.

  Hinchey was never the handsome one at school. But he was fun. Had a ready wit and a smile for everyone. She and Nita May had talked about him some, as they did all the boys at Tyson County High School, imagining how it would be to kiss him and have him “lay on top,” their freshman euphemism for sexual congress. How would it be to lie in Hinchey’s arms? she wondered idly. She could almost feel his hands on her and when he raised his eyes to hers, she dropped her gaze, afraid he might read her thoughts and be encouraged. Her hand strayed low, protectively covering that tender area of her body that no one must see.

  “There’s lots of girls who would want to marry you, Hinchey. How come you’re not hanging out with them? I’m a lost cause and you know it.”

  Hinchey took his turn studying her. “No. I don’t know that. All I do know is there’s no one out there like you.
I’ve wanted to be with you since we were in school together and that’s not changed.”

  Delora’s fingers tugged on loose threads in the white cleaning cloth. “So much has happened, Hinchey, so much changed. You have no idea.”

  He pulled her hand into his. His fingers were soft, hot, possessive. “My feelings haven’t changed. Not one bit. Louie don’t deserve a fine woman like you. I remember how he treats you and it’s no better since the fire. I bet that’s exactly why God took his eyes. Things like what he does have a way of circling back.”

  Delora had a crazy urge to touch the back of his neck, the place where the skin folded over his collar like a pudgy pink envelope. She knew how it would feel without touching it—soft, yet puffy firm.

  “I know,” she sighed. “He can be mean as a copperhead, still is. That doesn’t mean I can step out and ignore my responsibilities.”

  “What?” His grip on her hand was painful. “Driving him around town? Working two, no three, jobs to support y’all?”

  “You know what I mean.” She gently loosened his fingers and stepped back to light a cigarette.

  “Tell me the truth, Delora. Do you love him?”

  Delora let smoke trail from her mouth as she mulled over his question. She had asked herself that exact question hundreds of times and still had no answer. “Hinchey, I don’t know what love is,” she said finally.

  “I do,” he said, leaning across the bar, his eyes roaming, as if mapping every inch of her face. “It’s being willing to give up the world for someone. It’s wanting that person to be happier than you are yourself. It’s the way I feel when I see you after working my ass off all day selling those damned cars. That’s all.”

  Embarrassed by his passion, Delora laughed lightly. “How you do go on, Hinchey.”

  “I bet you’ve never felt any of that for Louie. Admit it.”

  She thought a minute, eyes playing across his lips. “Would it matter? Here I am. Here we are. Nothing is going to change any of that.”

  “Listen to me. I want you, Delora. I want to hold you in the evenings, fall asleep beside you. I want to kiss you anytime I please.” His pale face flushed quickly; he looked as if he’d been in the sun all day. His pastel blue eyes pleaded for her to hear him.

  “Hinchey…”

  “You’re so beautiful, Delora. Can’t you see what you mean to me?”

  She watched him evenly, trying not to buy into his emotion. “Me, beautiful.”

  “Yes, you. I always thought so.” He was whispering urgently, working hard to make sure she heard him.

  She heard him but felt bound by helplessness.

  “Hinchey, look. There’s things you don’t know about. Problems with me. When we had the fire, well…it was bad, Hinchey.”

  “I know, Delora. God, it almost killed me. I just knew you were gonna die over there in Mobile. And I’d never see you again. I think that’s when I realized how much I do love you. The thought of losing you almost did me in.”

  His voice, low and weighed down by southern drawl, usually comforted her but not today. Friends with him since high school, Delora often puzzled over their relationship. It was superficial, manifested because there was so much she would never tell him and because she knew he believed—no, expected—the two of them to be together as a couple someday.

  Delora felt derailed and a small whirlwind of anger stirred within. It was always about everyone else, wasn’t it? None of them really gave a damn about what she wanted to say.

  Now, as she saw the way he looked at her, sorrow and guilt beset her. She had tried so many times, gently, to tell him there could be nothing more between them. He didn’t know about her scars and exactly how she got them, and she liked it that way. Pity was too easy and she’d have none of that. He knew she’d been at the hospital for some time but not the extent of her injuries. Better not to speak of what Louie had done. Best not to give it new life by voicing it. Hinchey didn’t think much of Louie anyway and this knowledge would only confirm his feelings. Delora didn’t want anyone knowing how a marriage could descend into such a hellish place.

  Yet there was no help for it.

  “Hinchey, I can’t fuck you. Ever. The burns from the fire go up inside and I can’t have sex anymore. The rest of my life.”

  Hinchey grew silent, and Delora could feel the sadness building between them. And regret. She set her mouth in a firm line. She would not cry about this mess anymore. There’d been too much of that already.

  “But Louie...Don’t y’all…?”

  He actually seemed surprised. And she was surprised he hadn’t guessed. It seemed to her that people, knowing she’d been burned bad by a house fire, would’ve figured out that if her face wasn’t burned, her body had to be.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not since the fire. Never will again.”

  He settled back, away from her, his mind masticating each morsel of information until it became fuel for a new reality. This new reality spilled from him in a glorious defecation.

  “You know what? I don’t care.” He took her hands in his. “There’s ways around that Delora, for two people who love one another. There’s other ways to please a man.”

  “To please a man.” Delora’s feeling of grimness grew. “And me?” she asked. “How will you please me?”

  He stared blankly. The idea hadn’t even occurred to him.

  “Any way you want, honey. You call the shots. All I’m trying to say is, I need to be with you. I’ll work with you, I swear. Just tell me what to do. We’ll work it out. Leave Louie and come with me.”

  “Where?” she asked calmly.

  “What do you mean, where? Anywhere you want to go. I don’t care. I can sell cars anyplace. Where do you want to go?”

  Delora thought about it, her hands twisting out of his. She thought of the maps, waiting for her in her bedroom.

  Esther Fifth entered from the kitchen and approached the bar. She draped one heavy arm across the top, then leaned on it, her upper body almost horizontal. “I swear that man is just asking for trouble, spouting all that Jesus crap.”

  “Aww, Esther, you’re gonna go to hell for sure,” Delora told her.

  “What are y’all talking about?” Hinchey asked. He seemed composed, but his eyes were pained.

  “It’s the new dishwasher, Munsy Braun,” Delora explained, her gaze apologetic. “He’s got religion and wants us to have it too.”

  “I told him I go to Freedom Baptist, but he just ain’t listening,” Esther complained.

  “What church does he go to?” Hinchey asked. He looked away from Delora.

  “One of the holy rollers, I’m thinking,” said Esther. She rose from the counter and surveyed the mostly empty lounge. “Where the hell is everybody? Is the Dollar Store having a sale or something?”

  “Probably over looking in the Jobes’s windows.” Hinchey took a deep swallow of his new beer.

  “What happened to the Jobes?” Esther watched Hinchey, eyes roaming curiously across his face.

  Hinchey looked pointedly at Delora. Delora ground out her cigarette.

  “What now?” Esther persisted.

  “The damnedest thing. Mary Jobes is married to Peachy, right? And you remember they were best friends with the Moyers who lived next door?”

  Esther nodded and Hinchey continued in a sarcastic tone. “Well, turns out that Mary and Danny Moyer have been having a little thing on the side and they’ve fallen mad in love, of course, so Mary decides she’s telling Peachy that she’s leaving him for Danny.”

  “Platter up,” said Michael as he slid Hinchey’s roast beef sandwich onto the warmer that separated the bar from the kitchen. Delora moved to place it in front of Hinchey.

  “So what happened?” Esther asked.

  “Well, she moves out and Danny moves out, of course leaving Nora all alone. So, wouldn’t you know it, now Peachy and Nora are keeping company.” He methodically spread prepackaged horseradish sauce across the top bun of his sandwich.

>   “What happened with Danny and Mary?” Delora asked, filching one of his steak fries and dipping it in the horseradish sauce.

  “I told you, they ran off together.”

  “Yeah, but where?” Her eyes roamed Hinchey’s features as she chewed.

  “Sammy at the car lot says Goshen. He sold Danny a truck on his trade-in.”

  “Isn’t that something? And her working for the county administrator, I guess she had to give up her job?”

  Hinchey chewed and swigged his beer, wiping his mouth with his paper napkin as he looked away from Delora. “Uh-huh. Jean Painter got it.”

  “Blink your eyes in this town and things change,” Delora said thoughtfully.

  “Peachy’s much cuter than Danny,” Esther added. “What was Mary thinking? I went to school with her, you know. Always was a wild thing.”

  “Poor Nora, though. I hope she and Peachy do okay.”

  “Just rebound,” Hinchey said. “I bet it don’t last six months.”

  “Eat your sandwich, Mr. Negativity,” Delora said. “Esther, I’m gonna go do the bathroom while it’s slow, okay?”

  “Sure, honey. I don’t think it’s too bad, though.”

  Delora thought about seeing another man, having an affair. She knew it was physically impossible, but still she tried the idea on for size as she absently changed the empty soap cartridge in the ladies’ bathroom. There was no way she could relate. Though she’d desired men before, or perhaps desired their need for her, she couldn’t imagine instigating such a major life change just for that feeling. Did other people feel more strongly than she did? Why wasn’t she plagued by the hard needs that could destroy lives?

  Maybe it was her inexperience. There’d been only two men before Louie, each lasting about eighteen months. She had really liked Mitch Payne. He was a tiny fellow, not much bigger than she, and had always treated her well. Their fumbled lovemaking had been filled with goodwill and laughter. She’d never be good enough for him, however, according to his mother. Being the wife of renowned lawyer Patrick Payne had really done a number on little Maryanne Garrett: she became someone who hated her past and certainly wanted her son to have better than an orphan based in Redstar, Alabama. So off the Paynes had gone, to rural New York where things were more to her liking. Mitch had promised to write, but the letters never came.