Joanna looked back to see him still standing there in the semi-darkness.
“What did you say to Mr. Jackson, anyway?” she asked, smoothing her hand over the front of her blouse.
There was a second’s hesitation. “I said it looked like somebody would be taking care of him at his age, so that he wouldn’t have to work.”
There was even less hesitation from Joanna herself. “No—I bet what you said was that, at his age, somebody ought to take care of someone like him so that he wouldn’t have to work,” she said.
He only stared at her in response, and she knew that she was right.
“But, then again, what else could he expect from someone like you,” she said, then turned without another word and crossed the remainder of the sidewalk to push at the glass door and enter McDonald’s.
20
The car had not made a sound, at least nothing beyond its normal, running wheeze before it simply died, coasted to a rolling stop alongside the road, and refused to start again.
Joanna sat that following Saturday morning staring through the windshield at the faded hood of the old Galaxie, then beyond it to the dry and patchy grass along the roadside where she had pulled off between Pine and Cedar Flatts, willing the car to start the next time she turned the key. Not today, she kept telling herself. Not this morning of all mornings. She turned the key again, holding her breath, afraid she would somehow keep the engine from turning if she made even a sound—but the engine did not turn, the damned car did not make a sound, and she released the key with a terrible sense of frustration. She had gotten a call at mid-week from Dwight, the ex-husband she had not heard from in more than two years. He had come to see Katie only twice since her birth, but he wanted to see her now—today in fact—and the thought of seeing Dwight after all this time had Joanna in a state of worry and panic.
She turned the key again—please, God, make it start. Please, God—start, car, start. Start—
She had gone into town to get Katie’s asthma medicine filled, for the little girl had had an attack that morning, her first in close to a year, and Joanna was horrified now that Dwight might reach the house before she could get home. There was no way Katie would recognize him, even though she had seen his photographs; Dwight had never once even tried to talk to his daughter on the phone—Joanna leaned across the seat and yanked open the door to the glove box, fished inside for the screwdriver and pliers she usually kept there, then slammed the glove box shut as she reached to jerk on the door handle. She stepped out onto the edge of the pavement, feeling large pieces of gravel and broken blacktop beneath the soles of her tennis shoes. Several cars whizzed by, one honking its horn loudly in a sound that increased in pitch as it approached, and then deepened as it zoomed away.
She slammed shut the door and went around to the front of the car to raise the hood, then stood inspecting the greasy black mass topped by its covered air filter, smelling oil and gas as she stared at the thing in disgust. She set the screwdriver and pliers down on the edge of the rain gutter under the hood, then twisted one of the battery cable ends to see if it was tight—but she already knew it would do little good. The car was broken down more often than it was running, and it never had an ailment that was easily diagnosed, or easily fixed.
A vehicle was approaching from the direction of Cedar Flatts, headed toward town, and Joanna heard it slowing. She glanced back over her shoulder, squinting against the glare of the sun, as it drew almost alongside her, and saw that it was a truck, dirt caked over a finish that must have once been near to white, with lettering on the driver’s door—but she did not have time to see more than that before she lifted her eyes to meet those of the man behind the wheel of the vehicle, and she immediately looked away. There was something slightly familiar in the face she had seen behind the slowly lowering driver’s-side window, a familiarity that had sparked a faint sense of unease. That unease had increased at the thought that the man had been staring at her, and not at the obviously incapacitated car.
She heard the truck drive on past, then knew without looking that it made a u-turn and was headed back, this time on her side of the road.
When she looked from beneath the raised hood, it was to see the front of the truck move up slowly alongside where she stood, then the passenger-side of the windshield, and the passenger door, and she noticed with an odd sense of irony that the words stenciled crookedly on the door were “Goode Helpers Septic Service.”
She knew she would rather clean out a septic tank herself than to accept a ride or any other help from the man who was now staring at her through the window that he was reaching across the seat to jerkily roll down.
When he sat back, he hooked his left arm over the steering wheel, and then reached with his right to take up a grimy Styrofoam cup that had been sitting on the dashboard—Joanna swallowed hard, knowing before the man said or did anything that the cup did not contain coffee or Coke or any other drink known to humankind. He spat into it, black goop from a jaw full of chewing tobacco, and then he grinned at her, displaying teeth stained brown and so disgusting that she had to turn her eyes away. The man could be no more than twenty-five, but with his dirty brown hair that straggled back from his forehead, and filthy overalls that had not seen washing in any recent time, he looked to her to be almost rotting alive. The smell that reached her from the open window confirmed her impression—tobacco and sweat, mixed with body odor, and worse.
“Car got a problem, sweetheart?” he asked, and Joanna knew that he had looked her up and down. She did not have to see the look to know that it had been there. It was just the kind of man this one was.
She made herself look at him at last, then forced herself not to gag as he grinned wider and she got a better look at his teeth, rotted as well as tobacco-stained. His eyes left hers immediately to move down to her chest, where they remained.
“I have it taken care of,” she said, deliberately forcing her attention, and her gaze, back under the hood. She wiggled a battery cable, though she knew it would do the car little good.
“I’ll give you a ride. Com’ on,” he said, and she heard a grunt just before she heard the click of the truck door unlatching.
She looked up to see him sit back up again from where he had leaned across to pull up the door lock on the passenger side.
“You can use th’ phone at my house. I live just down th’ way.” His eyes were set on her chest again.
Her skin crawled at the thought of getting in the truck with him, and even more at the thought of what he most assuredly thought she would be willing to do if she went with him to his house. He must have noted her refusal coming, for she could hear the truck’s emergency brake being engaged as the vehicle sat still running and blocking that lane of the road.
The driver’s side door popped and made a groaning sound as it opened.
“I said I don’t need any help,” she said, louder this time. “Go on. My—my husband has gone to call someone and he’ll be back any minute,” she lied, afraid all the while that he knew she lied.
He came around the front of the truck, grinning at her again as she turned fully to look at him, his eyes moving down her body all the way to the scuffed toes of her tennis shoes, then back up again. He spat into the cup he had brought with him, and then reached to the side to place it on the hood of his vehicle.
“You don’t remember me, do you, Joanna?” he asked, grinning again but for once keeping his eyes on her face and not her chest. “I wa’nt but a few years ahead ’a you in school. I heard you got divorced and that you got a little girl—you know, when we was in school, I always use t’ wonder what it’d feel like t’ have those long legs ’a yours wrapped around me. Why don’t we—”
“Get out of here,” she said, spitting the words at him with every bit of the disgust she felt. She turned her back on him and reached up to grab the hood with the intention of slamming it down—but it stuck, leavi
ng her feeling helpless as she yanked at it again, stretched up to her tiptoes. She knew that he stepped closer, heard the crunch of gravel beneath his shoes, and she turned loose of the hood to reach instinctively for the screwdriver she had left sitting alongside the motor, glad that she had not managed to bring the hood down—she would drive the flat head right into his filthy hide if he tried to touch her. She would—
When she turned she found him so close that she had to back up against the front of the car. He was grinning, and the smell, along with the sight of those rotting, brown teeth at such close quarters, made her want to gag.
“You gonna poke me with that thing?” he asked, the grin in his voice as well as on his face. He stepped closer, and she felt his hand touch hers that held the screwdriver at the ready, his grin becoming nasty in a way that went far beyond his teeth—then his eyes moved away, angry disappointment coming to his face. His gaze narrowed and his mouth shut, and then he turned away just as Joanna heard why, the sound of a vehicle coming to a stop nose-in toward her own.
She stepped to the side, breathing what seemed like incredibly clean air after having been in such close quarters with the Goode Septic man. She looked past him to what appeared to be a new Dodge truck, its silver ram’s head ornament at the front of its shining blue hood. The driver’s door opened and Joanna saw Septic take a breath and she knew that he was about to tell whoever this was that they did not need any help.
“Hey, I got it—” he started even as Joanna moved past him and toward the blue truck, keeping her eyes on Goode Septic all the while—then his words stopped mid-sentence, his eyes narrowing further, set on the other truck. Joanna saw that his mouth remained open, and a trickle of tobacco juice escaped from the side—then he swallowed hard and started coughing, and Joanna knew he had either swallowed a mouthful of the mess or possibly the cud itself.
She hoped he would choke.
She turned her eyes toward the Ram pickup, hearing shoes now scrunch on gravel, and then she thought she would choke—it was the man from the Feed and Seed, the man who had accosted her outside McDonald’s. He looked at her, then at the coughing man.
“You okay, man?” he asked.
Goode Septic nodded his head, still coughing, then started to move away, snatching up the Styrofoam cup from the hood of his truck and slopping out part of its contents before he made his way around its front end toward the other side. He got into the vehicle and slammed the door after himself, and after a moment it started away. Joanna could hear him still coughing.
She turned to the tall man beside the Ram truck again, finding he was staring at her.
“Is your car in running condition?” he asked.
Joanna shook her head, the irrational thought occurring to her that he did not even talk like a normal man. “No,” she said simply, turning to look under the hood again. She realized suddenly that she felt exhausted. It seemed an eternity since the car died.
“Do you need a ride?”
She could never remember saying yes, but found herself a few minutes later sitting on the leather seat inside his Ram pickup, staring out the window as the truck started away. She kept her chin in her hand, her elbow resting on the door’s padding alongside the window. Her other hand held the white sack containing Katie’s medicine, both the hand and the medicine resting atop the purse in her lap as she felt the cool air wash over her from the truck’s air conditioner.
“You forgot the mud tires,” she said, almost without thought. She dug her chin into the palm of her hand, her eyes fixed out the window, remembering how she had told herself he would soon have to have a pickup in his effort to look like everyone else.
“They’re installing them on Monday,” he said, surprise and questioning in his tone.
She was too tired even to laugh at him this time.
The tall man was at least courteous in driving her home. He spoke little, and Joanna could not keep from glancing around within the cab of the truck while thinking of the things she had seen in his car the day she first met him in Pine.
He said his name was Stephen Dawes, and that he worked for his grandfather.
“But, what do you do?” Joanna had asked.
He seemed to shrug, for she had turned to look at him fully now. “Whatever he wants me to do.”
Joanna found herself glancing at his left hand where it rested on the steering wheel, checking for a wedding ring, then she became angry with herself at even the thought that she had done it. She did not have time for a man, and most especially not for this one. He had at least one woman to keep him entertained—after all she could well remember the Trojans she had seen in his car.
And his magazines if he was ever alone.
She could do without that, as well.
“What do you do?” he asked her after she had at last told him her name.
“We have a farm.”
“A farm?” He laughed, which surprised her—he stifled it almost immediately, but there was no doubt of what she had heard. He glanced down at her left hand where it held the pharmacy sack clenched in her lap. “Who’s we?—you’re not wearing a wedding ring.”
She took her elbow from the leather padding of the door and covered her left hand with her right. “My family—my father and grandfather and I, if you must know.” Her voice sounded angry, but she did not care. It was no business of his whether she was married or not.
“You’re a farmer?” There was amusement in his voice so clear that she knew she was being laughed at.
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“Could explain why you’re not married.”
“I’m divorced,” she said, then wished she had not answered.
Could explain why you’re divorced—she could almost hear him say the words, though he never did.
“So, do you do anything—other than what your grandfather tells you to do?” she asked, wanting him to feel uncomfortable as well.
For a moment there was silence.
“No, I don’t,” he said at last, and Joanna thought she had never heard such finality in so few words. That was the last thing he said until they reached Sanders land.
“Oh, damn,” Joanna said as they drew within sight of the white house and could see a rather expensive-looking gray car with a padded landau roof in the driveway. It was a car that she would never have pictured Dwight Lee driving, and it looked oddly out of place behind her father’s rusting Ford pickup truck.
“What’s wrong?” the man sitting beside her asked.
“My husband’s here already,” Joanna said without thinking.
“Husband?”
“Ex-husband—whatever,” she said irritatedly, scooting forward on the truck’s leather seat, unease gripping her stomach muscles at the thought that she had not been there when Katie met Dwight—met him, because there was no way her daughter would remember him from the last time when she had been no more than six months old. “We weren’t married long enough for me to get used to calling him my ‘husband’ then, and I haven’t seen him since then enough times to get used to calling him my ‘ex.’ He wanted to see my daughter—our daughter—today. He’s only seen her twice since she was born. She’s three now. She won’t even know who he was—is—wouldn’t have—”
She realized she was babbling and made herself stop. When she looked at Stephen Dawes again as he turned the truck into the drive, she saw his eyes on the gray car, a frown on his face. She yanked the truck door open almost before he had brought the vehicle to a stop.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said, not looking at him again, then she dismissed him immediately from her thoughts, slamming the truck door as she started for the front steps.
Dwight had come to see Katie only to annoy Joanna; she was certain of that later. He paid the child very little attention, and called her Kate each time he referred to her, as if he could not remember his own
daughter’s name, which made Joanna angry and Katie outright livid, even at the age of three.
“My—name—is—Katie. My—name—is—not—Kate,” she told him at last, emphasizing each word with a noticeable pause, finishing with a stamp of her foot.
She stared up at him, hands on her hips, teddy bear hooked under one arm, and Dwight seemed suddenly at a loss for words. His blond hair was thinning noticeably at the top and receding at both temples, which pleased Joanna to no ends; he would probably be noticeably bald by the next time she saw him, if she ever saw him again. She remembered vividly his rude remarks years before about a balding professor at Auburn—“professor cue ball,” and “old slick-as-a-boiled-egg.” Perhaps he would even have a comb-over. She could well remember his remarks about those, too.
His first comment when entered the house that afternoon had been to ask who had been driving the truck she had gotten out of.
“Your boyfriend?” he asked.
Joanna had not dignified the question with an answer.
Dwight did not stay long, and did not mention visiting Katie again when he rose to leave.
“He don’t know my name,” Katie said after he left the house. She jumped up to sit on the couch beside her mother, sitting Teddy on her knee to stare at him thoughtfully.
“He knows your name,” Joanna assured her, bringing a smile to her face when Katie looked up to her, all the while wanting to throttle Dwight Lee for being the man he was. Or, perhaps, for not being the man she had once thought him to be. She stared at her daughter’s face, seeing something of both herself and Dwight there—Katie had Joanna’s coloring, and in many ways resembled the image Joanna had seen in photographs of her great-grandmother when Elise Whitley Sanders had been a small girl. Katie’s features were more like Dwight’s, however, especially in the shape of her eyes and nose. She was also the one good thing he had done in his life, though Joanna thought that he did not have enough sense to realize it.
There Is a River Page 22