by APRIL ASHEIM
Lanie sat cross-legged, palms up, eyes rolled into the back of her head. Candles of various colors flickered around her. She seemed to be in a trance. He was about to leave the room, and tell Bob she was sleeping, when her eyes snapped open suddenly.
"Sorry to interrupt your devil worshipping. Your boyfriend is here. And so is Bob."
Lanie pursed her lips together and let her hands fall into her lap, shaking out her frazzled red hair. After a moment of collecting herself, she spoke. "I know what you are doing, and I suggest you rethink things before karma kicks you in the ass."
She picked up a card and flicked it in his direction.
It flipped and whirled in the air before landing gracefully beside him. Sam stooped to retrieve it, knees groaning in protest. The Tower, it read ominously. It was a tall, mortar building being struck by lightning. Bodies with arms flailing and Oh Shit faces plunged out of the windows and to their deaths. Charming.
"Don’t worry about me, Lanie," he said coolly. "I’ve got everything under control."
Sam tossed the card into the air and watched it flutter down, tumbling over itself, only to land face up on his toe. He kicked it off dismissively, gave Lanie one final look and left her bedroom.
Your time is coming, old woman.
Twenty-Five
Spring sat on the cold, metal folding chair, wishing she had worn a pair of pants instead of a skirt. Though it was blistering hot outdoors, it was like the arctic tundra inside the store. There were others with her––bored, chilly patrons looking for a great deal. She resisted the urge to crawl into a fetal position and fall asleep across three of the empty seats while she waited for Sam. A woman twirled the dials on an old television monitor that was bracketed to a wall. She flipped through the channels and grunted when she realized the only station it received was the local news, only partially visible through the static lines.
"Non-profit organization, Teens in Trouble, is under fire today," reported a blond newscaster, "After mascot, Casey the Condom, allegedly threatened a woman with office supplies at a local strip mall..."
They cut to a clip of a giant penis brandishing a pair of black-handled scissors near a woman with long, flaxen hair.
"Ta-da!" Sam emerged from the dressing room, dressed in black and white from head to toe. "What do you think?" he asked, adjusting a bow tie.
The hairs on his head stood up straight as if in salute. The material was shinier than any tuxedo material Spring had ever seen. It certainly did not fit him right. It was an inch too short in the arms and legs and too tight across the chest.
"It’s got quite the sheen to it,” she said, shielding her eyes.
Sam smiled and nodded approvingly. "That’s not even the best part," said Sam. "Watch this." Sam scurried back into the dressing room and returned with a shiny, matching top hat and a black lacquered cane. "See?" he said, leaning on his cane and tilting his top hat over his left eye. "I know you like the men in those old movies, so I wanted you to have your fantasy."
He did a little heel click and almost fell over on the dismount.
Spring’s mouth fell open as she struggled to find the words.
"I knew you’d love it, Pookie. To heck with renting. I think I’m going to buy it. Ring it up, Charlie." Sam snapped his fingers at a thin fellow who bustled obligingly to the register. When Sam was sure the salesperson was out of earshot he whispered. "Don’t say anything, but I think they made a mistake on pricing. It’s only $69.95."
Sam looked around the room, not at all affected by the cold blast of air that swept through the space. In fact, he was practically flushed.
"We can get you a dress, next. Charlie was showing me a darling pink taffeta number that would look so good on you. It’s even got a hoop skirt. You could be Scarlett O’Hara for our wedding and I could be your Rhett."
Sam bowed chivalrously, his top hat tumbling from his head and rolling towards a chubby adolescent boy who was sucking down an ice cream cone. Sam shot the kid a warning look and snapped it before the child could lay a sticky finger on it.
"Here, check this out." He handed Spring a folded piece of paper that had been tucked inside his hat.
"Are those bells sewn in around the collar?" Spring looked closer at the ad.
"Yes! Southern Bell. Get it?" He elbowed her in the ribs. "You’d look so beautiful in that, Spring. Maybe we can even dye your white pumps to match it."
"Sounds good, Sam. But not today, okay? I’m pretty tired." Spring took Sam’s hand as they made their way out of the store.
His fingers suddenly gripped hers very tightly.
"Isn’t that Trevor?" he asked, staring in the direction of a café across the street. "If it's not, he looks exactly like the picture of the guy you keep in your wallet..."
Spring swallowed. It was Trevor. He sat staring into a coffee cup, mindlessly ignoring everything that was going on around him. His hair was disheveled and his clothes had been thrown on haphazardly, but he looked sober.
Spring caught her breath as Sam pulled her into the car.
Sam yelled the whole drive home. Spring tried to tune most of it out but he wasn’t going to let up.
"Trevor?" Sam ran a red light. "What the hell is he doing in Phoenix? Have you seen him yet?" When she didn’t answer he shook his head. "Isn’t that just dandy!"
"You could be more understanding. I was in love with the man." She reached to turn on the radio but he caught her hand and closed on it tightly.
"Was? Or are?"
Spring shrugged, freeing her hand from his. "You don’t choose who you love."
This ignited Sam. "Oh, that’s right. You are so evolved you can love a whole herd of men at once. I forgot." Sam removed one of his hands from the wheel, holding up fingers to count. "How many studs are in Spring’s little man-harem? Let’s see...there’s Trevor. John. Me. Jason, when he chooses to show up. Any others I ought to know about? I bet we can rack up a few more before the wedding if we really work at it."
"You’re overreacting." Spring pulled at her hair in frustration.
"Am I? If anything, I think that I am under-reacting. All I can say is that you are very lucky we don’t live in a country where betrothed women are punished for adultery."
Spring crossed her arms defiantly. "Well, by all means, feel free to move to one, then. Better yet, marry a woman no one else would ever look at. Then you wouldn’t have to worry."
This caught Sam off-guard and he said nothing else the entire ride.
"I gotta bad feeling about this," Lanie said. She and Bob were cuddled up on her mattress, his unclothed body fully resting on hers. She played with the little hairs on his back, letting them curl around her finger as he shivered with delight.
"Now, now, Lanie," Bob cooed. "She’s a grown woman. You have to let her make her own mistakes."
Lanie sighed and watched as Bob’s body rose and fell. "I know. But I think marrying Sam will be the biggest mistake of her life. I mean," Lanie whispered in case anyone was listening. "...Half the time, I get the feeling he don’t even like girls."
Bob chuckled and bit her neck. "He needs to take a crack at you, then." Bob’s breathing progressively deepened until Lanie knew he was asleep. She stroked his cheek and smiled.
"I’m sorry," Lanie whispered to the Universe.
Why couldn’t there be do-overs like in her video games? You fuck up a video game and you restart, no harm done. But in life, you were stuck with whatever muck-ups you created and sometimes it just plain sucked. Sometimes the only thing you could do to get through was to pretend they never happened, because if you acknowledged it, even for a moment, it could destroy you for the rest of your life. The guilt choked her and she reached for a cigarette for salvation.
"You know smoking’s bad for you," said Bob, stirring from his sleep.
Lanie was surprised to find that she was not annoyed at this remark. In fact, it was comforting. Bob looked at her with his beautiful hound-dog eyes.
"I want you to be around for
a very long time."
Lanie nodded and crumbled the cigarette in her palm. She could go another hour without one. Maybe two.
"There’s something I need to ask you," Bob said, digging his elbows into her flesh in order to prop himself up. He smelled so good. Such a wonderful blend of cleanliness and raw masculine energy. She wanted to take a bath in that scent, perfume her body from head to toe with the essence of BOB.
"What’s that, darling?" Lanie stroked the little grey hairs on his head. They were soft as cotton candy.
"Do I make you happy?"
Lanie thought for a moment about all the things that made her happy. Ice Cream. Matlock. Nude beaches. Santana. But none of these made her as happy as Bob. Bob had his own category of happy.
"Yes. You make me very happy."
"Good," said Bob, falling back upon her breast. "That’s what I wanted to know."
Lanie listened to him snore as he rode the waves of her body. She could listen to him snore forever, she thought, and resisted the violent urge to squeeze him.
Twenty-Six
1982
Spring felt the hand break loose, felt her own slide from his like the untying of a bow on a Christmas present. She stood on tiptoe, craning her neck to peer over countless heads that separated them. But they all looked the same. Flappy faces and striped shirts. One nameless customer melding into the next. She twisted sideways, slithering in between two women large enough to work as fat ladies if Bernice ever found a fella (which Lanie insisted would never happen). No man wanted a woman who weighed twice as much as he did. And there was no excuse really, now that Jane Fonda had put out her video tapes.
The sun set the midway ablaze and Spring was careful not to touch anything metal. But the rides still whirred, ticked, tottered and clanged, paying no attention whatsoever to the heat. Make us stop! They challenged the elements in the cities they visited. But nature gave way to the carnival. Even the earthquakes in LA were not powerful enough to stop those who came in droves to experience The Bob Cat Show. Folks took their chances, foolish or not. It may have even added to the thrill.
Spring passed Donny and Falco, the old-timers who’d been on the circuit since the 1930s and liked to let everyone know it. They raised their cigarettes towards her and continued their conversation.
"Fuckin’ Reagonomics..."
"Problem is we don’t use real freaks anymore."
"...Ain't no one believing in headless ladies since cable tel’vision."
At last she saw him. "Daddy!"
She pushed through the crowd, bumping into a girl about her height and knocking her snow cone to the ground. She stopped to help the girl. She had been saving up the pennies she found and could probably buy her another. But her father was still moving and she didn’t want to lose him again.
"Daddy!"
She tugged on the tail of his denim work shirt and the man spun around. Her heart sunk. He was too bushy and old to be Daddy.
"You lost, little girl?" The man stooped down to get at her eye-level and Spring wanted to touch his mustache, but she wasn’t allowed to talk to grown men. Except for Roy the Strong Man, whom Lanie insisted was compensating for something and harmless as a tsetse fly.
Before the bushy stranger could ask her more questions, she darted away.
The carnival was a maze of concession stands, information booths, roller coasters and dime toss games set up differently for each town. Some places liked to have the food near the entrance, while others preferred the games. Spring tried to remember where each of Daddy’s booths were located, and she ended up backtracking several times. She was always able to find her way back to the center, as Marta, who ran the cotton candy stand, insisted on playing the Candy Man song in a continuous loop. It made for big headaches but easy navigation.
A popsicle stick fastened itself to the bottom of Spring’s shoe and she succeeded in kicking it off, only to find an ice cream sandwich wrapper stuck to her other. Spring scowled and wondered if people would continue to litter if they knew it was she and Chloe who got to stay up late to clean.
Spring stopped at the Ferris wheel and began to cry. She would never find her father. He was gone and the next time she would see him would probably be on the back of a milk carton. Chuck, the Ferris wheel man, who smelled like boiled eggs, noticed and nodded in the direction of the ladder climb game.
And there was Daddy.
She should have remembered. Daddy had been spending a lot of time there training the hitchhiker girl who was running it. Daddy liked to say he was showing her the ropes, but Lanie said it was because the girl didn’t wear any panties when she climbed the ladder. Spring suggested that maybe they could buy her a pair, but that put Lanie in such a foul mood that Spring never brought it up again.
"Darlin! Why are you crying? Come to me." Daddy’s arms were open wide. Spring ran towards her father, barreling through anyone unfortunate enough to be standing in her way. Her father received her with a big hug and spun her high in the air.
"You left me!" she accused, wiping her nose on his flannel shirt before he sat her down.
Daddy smiled and twisted the ends of her long hair in his hand. "I didn’t leave you. I would never leave you. You are Daddy’s girl." He looked at her for a long time and his blue eyes looked bluer than she had ever seen them.
"You promise?"
"I promise."
Spring took his hand and they made their way together towards their trailer. Lanie was waiting with soup and hotdogs as Chloe shoved pork and beans up her nose. Spring lay her head on her father’s lap while he munched Fritos.
Chloe spent the afternoon with Spring, shopping for a wedding dress. Sam had given her two-hundred dollars to go wild. He wasn’t keen on Chloe shopping with her. He considered Chloe a bad influence, but he relented when she had threatened to go alone instead.
"Does he not understand that the only wedding dress you will find for that price is going to look like something from The Rocky Horror Picture Show?" Chloe asked as they left their third shop empty handed.
"I don’t think it matters what I wear," Spring said. "Sam’s reserved a place in line at some chapel, and it’s not like anyone will see us. We are spending the night in Sedona and then he’s whisking me away for a romantic honeymoon at Grandma Rosary’s house in Eggshell."
"An Eggshell Honeymoon," Chloe clucked. "Living the dream aren’t you, sis?"
"I like this one," Spring said, ignoring her sister’s comment as she pointed to a short, floral sundress in the next store. Spring found her size and examined the price tag. "One twenty-nine. Perfect."
"Sam’s gonna be pissed," said Chloe, as Spring emerged from the fitting room. Spring twirled and the skirt flared up in compliance, revealing a hint of her thigh. "So you get my seal of approval."
The girls took Spring’s package and made their way to a corner café. Spring had offered to buy Chloe lunch with the remainder of her wedding dress money.
"You don’t have to marry him," said Chloe as she picked through her salad, spearing a cherry tomato and popping it into her mouth. Her sister’s brown eyes misted and Spring saw a sincerity in them she wasn’t used to.
"It’s too late, Chloe. The wheel has been set in motion."
Chloe chewed, considering. "You aren’t going to lose the kids just because you aren’t married. This isn’t the Biblical days."
"It will make things easier on me. And Mom. And Blaine and Shane. I’m tired of struggling. It’s all I have ever done."
Chloe’s face reddened, and Spring wondered if her famous temper was going to make an appearance. "You’d rather settle than struggle?"
Spring turned her head and caught the image of a young couple holding hands outside. They were smiling at each other. Laughing. Looking into each other’s eyes. The woman stood on her tiptoes to kiss the man and he held the small of her back as their lips met.
"Ever have moments like that with Sam?" Chloe asked, pointing her fork in the direction of the two lovers.
&
nbsp; "No," Spring said, feeling the ache of the honesty.
Chloe pressed on. "Ever had moments like that with anyone?"
Spring took a drink of water and swallowed. You couldn’t cry and swallow at the same time. A little trick the man who ate swords had taught her.
"Dad’s never coming back, Spring," Chloe said, putting her fork down and leaning across the table. "You gotta stop replacing him."
Spring was stunned. "I’m not replacing Dad. That’s not what I’m doing."
"Really? You get one guy who was a deadbeat. One who abandons women. And now a guy who treats you like a child. Roll them all up and who do you have?"
"Shut up, Chloe." Spring's fingers tightened and she attempted to keep her voice steady, but her words were shaky and staggered. "You don’t know what you are talking about?"
"Don’t I?" Chloe’s own voice trembled. "I know you think you’ve lost your perfect love, but there is no such thing as perfect. Perfect only exists in fairy tales. So, you didn’t end up with Prince Charming. Does that mean you run away with the toad? Even if he does promise you a castle?"
Spring stared at her sister for a moment, not sure how she should respond. She wanted to be more like Chloe. Wild. Reckless. Free. "You make things sound so simple."
Chloe winked at the waiter as he poured more water. "Sometimes things really are that simple."
Jason was there when she pulled into the driveway; sitting in the van, tapping his fingers on the dash in time with Lynard Skynard. The sun beat down hot, searing the lawn and withering what few plants existed, but Jason seemed unaffected by the heat. In fact, he looked comfortable. "Hey, babe," he said as she got out of her car. "Good to see you."
"How do you tolerate this heat?" she asked, fanning herself with one hand and tying her hair up in a knot with the other.