The Super Ladies

by Petrone, Susan

  “I know,” Abra replied. “He’s a complete jerk.”

  Katherine snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Would an interest-free loan help in any way?” Margie asked quietly, even though she knew what the answer would be.

  “No,” Abra said firmly, then added more gently, “No, thank you. The one sure way to ruin a friendship is to borrow or lend money.”

  “It wouldn’t ruin—”

  “I just can’t. But I am eternally grateful for the offer.” Abra looked pained. “Can we change the subject, please? I wanted you to know about the bankruptcy, but I don’t really want to talk about it. Does that make sense?”

  They were silent for moment. A woman about their age in a too-tight red dress was standing by the piano singing her heart out while Billy played “Crazy.” Billy made probably half his income in tips from tipsy Metro customers who fancied themselves singers.

  Margie felt a wave of heat suddenly take hold. She took a sip of water and dabbed each of her cheeks and her forehead with her napkin to quell the rising inferno that stemmed from deep inside her gut.

  “Are you okay?” Katherine asked.

  “You look flushed,” Abra added.

  “I’m fine. Just schvitzing.”

  “You’re starting to talk like your mother-in-law,” Katherine said.

  “Just sweating a little.”

  Katherine studied Margie’s red face for a moment. “You usually only look like this when you’ve had too much to drink.”

  “And I haven’t. I’m driving tonight, remember? Really, it’s nothing.”

  Abra gasped. “Wait, are you…” She lowered her voice, although it was so noisy in the bar she could have sung the Ohio State fight song and no one would have noticed. “Are you having a hot flash?”

  Margie had been looking down at her glass. Why not be honest? She raised her head to meet her friend’s gaze. “I could power a small city, yes.”

  “I don’t think I’ve had one yet,” Abra said. She sounded fascinated. “What do they feel like?”

  “Like your own personal summer.”

  “How often do you get them?” Katherine asked.

  “Here and there. Not every day. One thing I’ve noticed is that sugar seems to trigger them for me. Which is okay—maybe I’ll finally drop a few pounds.”

  “Stop it. You’re gorgeous,” Abra and Katherine said in unison.

  “I’m chubby, but thank you anyway.” Margie looked at her two best friends, grateful for their presence. She could feel herself beginning to sweat, felt the uncomfortable heat that sometimes made her want to crawl out of her skin. A natural part of aging or not, it was kind of a drag.

  “Okay, if we’re playing What’s Really New,” Katherine said and took a deliberate pause, “I believe I’m entering my cronehood.”

  Margie looked at Abra, who shrugged, and then back at Katherine. “How’s that?” she asked.

  Katherine lowered her voice and took a quick glance around. “I don’t want to say it too loudly.”

  “Honey, we could barely find a server to take our drink order, so I doubt they’re listening in on our conversation,” Margie said. “Plus, if you’re embarrassed to say it too loud, it must be really good.”

  Katherine leaned forward slightly and said: “It’s been eight months since my last period.”

  “Whoa,” Margie said. “That’s impressive.”

  “And early. I mean, not to rain on your bloodless parade, but you’re only forty-seven. In a week,” Abra added. “I thought it wasn’t official until you hadn’t had it for twelve months.”

  “My cycle has run as efficiently as a German train schedule for thirty-four years. Believe me when I tell you that Aunt Flo has left the building.”

  “In that case, more power to you,” Abra said.

  “Indeed,” Margie said after a moment. She could guess at the tangle of emotions this had to be stirring up in her friend. “Honestly, I kind of wish I were in your shoes. I don’t need the eggs anymore.”

  “I never needed them,” Katherine said pointedly. This was true. Margie had seen Katherine’s years-long bout with infertility. And Margie and Abra both had been there when she and Hal finally adopted Anna.

  “Yes, your eggs have been a great disappointment to all of us.”

  “To be fair, most higher animals don’t breed well in captivity,” Abra added.

  Katherine gave them a small smile. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I think I’ve mostly dealt with all that. I mean, we have Anna…”

  “The Future Empress of the World,” Abra put in.

  “So we are parents. It just took so long to get there. When Anna came home, we almost jumped right back in with another home study and another application… Then my mom got sick and all these other things happened. I almost got laid off because the school levy didn’t pass, then Hal was denied tenure… life happened. A second adoption never did. This just feels like the closing of a door.” She paused a moment, looking down at her wineglass, then recovered. “Okay, if there are no objections, let’s finish the self-pitying, bad-analogy portion of the evening.”

  “Gladly,” Margie said. “When in doubt, have another drink.” Before Abra could object, she added, “I’m buying.” It wouldn’t make up for Abra’s heartbreak, but it was something.

  Chapter Four

  On the way home, Katherine called shotgun, so Abra had to sit in the back of Margie’s minivan amid soccer shin guards, baseballs, stray sneakers, swim goggles, granola bar wrappers, a rubber-banded stack of Pokemon cards, and a book on playing Minecraft. “How was this shoe not on the seat when we left?” Abra asked.

  “I really couldn’t tell you,” Margie replied over her shoulder. “Things back there just seem to migrate around on their own. Hold it up.” Abra did so, and Margie took a quick look at it in the rearview mirror as they pulled out of the parking lot and onto Superior Avenue. “I don’t even think that belongs to one of mine.”

  “Now you know why I called shotgun. The backseat scares me,” Katherine said. “I sometimes get overwhelmed with one kid. How do you manage three?”

  “I have no life. Duh,” Margie replied.

  Margie cut south onto East 12th Street and then turned east onto Chester Avenue, which would take them through Midtown, up Cedar Hill, and back home. As they drove by Cleveland State University, she asked Katherine, “Do we still have to flip the bird to CSU for denying Hal tenure?”

  “Nah, the statute of limitations has expired on that one, I think.”

  “I like the new housing they’re building down here,” Abra said. “If I ever move downtown, would you two come and visit me?”

  “Hell yes,” said Katherine.

  “Sure,” Margie added. “Are you seriously thinking of moving or just toying with it?”

  “Toying. If I can unload the house to the bank, I’ll have to rent somewhere. And I’d be closer to work.”

  “If you move, who will I run with every morning?”

  “I don’t know. Get another dog?”

  Chester was a wide, three-lanes-in-each-direction boulevard that took them past the university neighborhood and through the dead zone in between downtown, where most of the office buildings and entertainment areas were, and University Circle, where most of the city’s museums and cultural gems were ensconced. Economic development hadn’t hit this middle area, and much of it was taken up by vacant buildings, empty lots, and boarded-up houses.

  Nine fifteen on a Thursday night in mid-May isn’t late and isn’t scary. Still, Margie got a bad feeling when she saw a young woman on the sidewalk walking fast, hands folded across her chest, not looking at the man who walked next to her. The girl was a stranger—not her age, not her race, not her neighborhood, but still, the girl was someone, some mother’s daughter.

  Margie pulle
d over to the curb, leaving the engine running.

  “Why are you stopping?” Katherine asked.

  The few other cars on the wide road passed by without slowing. No cars were parked on the street; Margie’s van was the only stopped vehicle for blocks. Katherine and Abra followed Margie’s gaze to the scene unfolding on the sidewalk. The man was yelling at the woman now. They couldn’t make out exactly what he was yelling but heard the words “bitch” and “money” a few times. And they could see his flailing arms, his face leering up against hers. She stopped walking and said something to him, and he hit her. She lost her balance and fell against the chain-link fence that ran along the sidewalk. They were in front of an empty lot, where once there might have been a house but now was only a square of crabgrass and crumbling concrete and stray garbage. For a moment, there were no other cars on the road. There was no one else on the street, no inhabited buildings for a couple blocks either way. If not for them, the woman was on her own.

  “Call nine-one-one,” Abra said as the man hit the woman again. The woman tried to get away, but he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her hard against the fence.

  “There’s no time,” Katherine said. In a heartbeat, she was out of the car.

  “Darn it, come on…” Abra muttered as she fumbled with the sliding side door and jumped out. “Keep the engine running,” she said as she followed Katherine.

  “I’ll go with you…” Margie started to say. No, Abra was right. Someone had to stay with the van, keep the engine running, stay behind the wheel in case they needed to make a quick getaway. Glancing behind her, she backed up alongside the people on the sidewalk. It felt proactive. She could hear Katherine’s strong teacher voice saying loudly but calmly, “Leave her alone” and the woman yelling, “Call the police!” It suddenly occurred to Margie that she had a phone. She could call the police. Hands trembling and heart racing, Margie frantically fumbled through her bag for her phone.

  She told the 911 dispatcher where she was and what was happening, the whole time watching Katherine and Abra and the couple on the sidewalk. Suddenly, there was a glint of something shiny in the streetlight as the man rushed toward Katherine. She heard a scream, and then she couldn’t see Abra anymore.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Katherine got out of the car purely through instinct. There was someone in trouble—helping is what you were supposed to do, right? It wasn’t until she was on the sidewalk, walking toward the man and woman, saying loudly, “Leave her alone” and watching the man turn to face her that she realized she had absolutely no idea what to do next. None. It was then that her heart started pounding and a hot wave of fear tingled through her arms and legs.

  Up close, she could see the guy was taller and more muscular than he appeared from the safety of the van. He was maybe white, maybe light-skinned African American with a shaved head. An indecipherable neck tattoo peeked out from under his close-fitting, long-sleeved black T-shirt. She tried to burn a police description into her brain. The woman yelled, “Call the police!” at the same time the guy said, “This is none of your damn business, lady” to Katherine. The utter disdain in his voice cleared everything out of her brain except one thought: This was such a mistake. This was such a stupid mistake. There was no way this could end well. For a split second, she imagined Hal and Anna without her, wondered if they would think her foolish for getting herself killed in this way. She heard Abra say softly, “Just let her go, man.”

  Katherine could just see Abra off to her right. Margie had backed up, and the open doors of the van were only a few yards away. She could faintly hear Margie’s voice, talking to 911 maybe? Knowing they were both nearby gave her a tiny bit more courage. Katherine took a tentative step toward the woman, who was kneeling by the fence. Her face was bloodied, the sleeve of her shirt ripped. “Miss?” she asked. She looked about nineteen or twenty. Not a woman. A girl. “Why don’t you come with us? We’ll give you a ride.”

  “She don’t need a ride,” the man said.

  The rest of the street seemed eerily quiet. Couldn’t someone else stop and help? Someone big? Someone male maybe? Katherine wasn’t that big, but she was big enough, strong enough. She could help. Slowly she extended her left arm. If the woman wanted to take her hand, she could. Katherine held the woman’s gaze, hoping she could silently convince her that leaving with some strangers was preferable to getting beaten up by her boyfriend. Katherine was so focused that she didn’t see the knife until it was against her arm, in her arm. The man cut so fast that she hardly saw the blade, only the flash of metal against her pale white skin. It occurred to her that she needed to get out in the sun. Why am I worried about how pale I am? I just got cut. She felt the sensation of the blade slicing through flesh, felt a momentary spark of pain, and then the pain was gone. It happened faster than a flu shot—a quick prick, then nothing.

  The man only made one swipe, then stopped, triumphant, staring at her arm, expecting blood, expecting her to scream, to fall. There wasn’t any blood on her arm or the knife. No blood, just Katherine staring at him wide-eyed and unharmed.

  Then the man was on the ground, hit from the side by…something, something Katherine couldn’t see. The knife dropped from his hands and landed near her foot. She kicked it away at the same time she heard Abra’s voice yell, “Run!” But where the hell was Abra? She must be in the van. Katherine couldn’t see her.

  Katherine said, “Come on” to the woman, who was now up and moving toward her. The woman needed no more convincing and was in the car before Katherine, even before Abra. Where had Abra been? How could she be the last one to pile into the minivan, yelling, “Go! Go!” to Margie, who was slamming on the gas before the door was even closed.

  Nobody said anything for a moment. The only sound in the car was that of four women catching their breath, being glad they had breath left in their bodies. Then all of them simultaneously erupted into words of relief and fear, asking each other “Are you all right? Are you all right?”

  “Oh sweet mother, I can’t believe you all just did that,” Margie said. “I thought—Katherine, I honestly thought he was going to kill you.”

  “So did I,” Abra said. “How the hell did he not cut you? How did he miss you?”

  “He didn’t miss me,” Katherine replied quietly. Feeling fine seemed intrinsically wrong, but there it was. Unreal sense of calm? Yes. Pain and blood? No.

  Before Margie or Abra could respond, the woman exclaimed, “Oh my God, thank you! Sean would’ve done me in this time, I know it. Y’all were like superheroes or something. You saved my life.”

  The three women were quiet for a heartbeat. For the moment, the hyperbole of the phrase “You saved my life” was gone. It was arguably true. This was a new sensation. Frightening and humbling. Then Margie said, “Shoot, I dropped the phone.” With one hand on the wheel, she felt around in the great vortex of tissues, empty cups, and scraps of paper in the molded plastic section in between the two front seats.

  “I got it,” Katherine said, coming up with the phone. The 911 dispatcher was still on the line, wondering what was going on. “Hello?” Katherine said. “We’re okay. We got away, the woman is safe. We’re going—where are we going?”

  “Anywhere away from Sean,” the woman in the back said.

  “There’s a police station right down the street at one hundred and fifth,” Abra said.

  “Right, I know where that is,” Margie said.

  A police car with the siren off but lights flashing came roaring down Chester Avenue in the opposite direction.

  “Was that for us?” Margie asked.

  “I think so,” Abra said.

  Katherine hardly had time to explain what had happened to the dispatcher before they were at the station. There was a long hour-plus of giving witness statements to a jaded-looking police officer who told them several times how lucky they were to have gotten out of the situation with no harm done. �
��What you three ladies did was very brave and very stupid,” he said in closing.

  “We know,” Abra replied.

  They were told they might be called as witnesses if the woman, Janelle, decided to press charges against her boyfriend. Then they were free to go. The three of them walked out of the police station and to the waiting minivan. It was nearing midnight, and the spring evening had moved from cool to downright chilly. Even so, none of them moved to get into the van. Margie unlocked it and opened the driver’s door, then just stood looking at the ground, one hand on the door, the other on the side of the van, breathing slowly. Abra paced in a slow oval near the back of the van, while Katherine leaned against it and gazed up at the few faint stars that could be seen against the city lights. She suddenly wanted to be somewhere quiet, away from the city, away from people. Margie’s voice brought her back: “I’m sorry I didn’t do anything to help.”

  What are you talking about?” Katherine said. “If it weren’t for you, we never would have gotten out of there.”

  Abra walked around the van to Margie. “You were the only smart one. I’m sorry I got out of the car. That was stupid.” As Abra said this, she shivered, her lips trembled, and she started to shake. “That was so stupid.”

  “I got out first,” Katherine said. “I’m the stupid one.”

  Katherine almost never saw Margie cry. Even when her eldest child was going through hell, Katherine had been amazed and admiring of her friend’s resilience. But now Margie seemed overwhelmed by heaving sobs. “I’m just so glad the two of you are okay,” Margie stammered. Crying people generally made her nervous, but Katherine joined Margie and Abra on the other side of the van. When your friends need you, they need you.