River Angel

by A. Manette Ansay

  “Give me time to talk to her first,” she said. “Promise?”

  Dad’s old dog, Mule, was lying under the kitchen table; he whined and thumped his tail. Cherish hung up, reached down, and smoothed back his ears. She found a flashlight in the drawer. Then she bundled up in her winter coat and boots. Out of habit, she checked the burners and the coffeepot to make sure everything was off. It was time to find out what, exactly, was going on. Almost a week had passed since Lisa Marie had been saved at the Blessed Victory Church of Christ Alive! Lisa Marie had been saved before, but this time Cherish was worried it might stick. She’d heard that Lisa Marie had actually taken a vow of chastity. She’d heard that Lisa Marie had stopped drinking and smoking. She’d broken up with Paul Zuggenhagen too, though Cherish suspected this was something she’d been wanting to do long before the night they’d gone to Milwaukee and things had kind of gotten out of hand.

  What had happened was this: The four of them had gone to a sports bar called the Alley Cat, where Randy had heard that no one was ever carded and Paul had heard the Brewers came to drink. They’d crushed into a back booth, ordered hot wings and double shots of tequila. “Time for some body shots,” Randy said, and Cherish leaned back, unbuttoned her shirt, let him lick a line of salt from the tops of her breasts.

  Paul turned to Lisa Marie, but she crossed her arms firmly over her chest. “No way,” she said. “Somebody’s going to see.”

  “Tough luck,” Randy said, thumping Paul on the shoulder. “But hey—if you’re nice, maybe Cherry’ll share.” He gave Cherish a shove in Paul’s direction, and the rest of the salt tumbled down her shirt.

  “Fuck you,” Cherish said, but she was laughing. She could feel how both Paul and Randy were looking at her throat, at the warm tops of her breasts. She did not look at Lisa Marie as she accidentally-on-purpose let another button of her shirt fall open.

  “All right, I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” Lisa Marie said. “But just on my arm, OK? You guys are going to get us thrown out.”

  “On her arm,” Randy said.

  “C’mon,” Paul said. “Live a little.”

  “On my wrist, then,” Lisa Marie said miserably.

  “On her wrist,” Randy hooted. “Paul, how can you stand it? This girl is a nympho. I want her for myself.”

  Paul blushed, glared at Lisa Marie. “I wish you’d relax once in a while,” he said. But Randy wasn’t finished with her yet. As soon as Paul had licked her wrist clean, Randy pinned her hand to the table and put his tongue to the wet trail where Paul’s had been. Lisa Marie screamed, Paul yelped, “Jesus!” and that was when the manager asked to see ID.

  They should have just laughed the whole thing off. They should have driven around for a while, found another bar. Or they should have ended up at Randy’s house, the way they often did. His mom and stepdad went to bed early; they had to get up at four to make the commute to their jobs in Milwaukee. But Lisa Marie was angry, angrier than Cherish had ever known her to be. “Take me home,” she said, not even bothering to wait until they’d left the Alley Cat. “I’ve had enough of this juvenile bullshit. Every weekend it’s the same damn story, and I’m sick of it, sick to death of it.”

  “Don’t hold back,” Randy said. “Feel free to express your feelings,” and right there where everyone in the Alley Cat could see, Lisa Marie punched him in the solar plexus, hard enough to make him gasp and take a step back.

  “Take me home,” Lisa Marie yelled again, and all the people watching applauded and cheered. Still, Randy recovered himself, held the door for her like a gentleman. “After you,” he said, but clearly he was pissed. Who wouldn’t have been? Paul was angry too. Lisa Marie had embarrassed them, all of them, right there in front of a roomful of strangers. Cherish couldn’t help but agree when Randy mouthed bitch as Lisa Marie stormed past.

  Cherish let herself out of the house. In the distance, a train was passing; its bold light swept over the darkness, scorched the icy surface of the river. It was two miles to Lisa Marie’s house in Ambient, and she usually could make it there in half an hour. She might even beat her mother back home; evening meetings often went well past midnight. They were held only when the Circle was praying for something particularly urgent, but Cherish knew better than to ask what tonight’s concern was. Not that she cared. Not anymore. Since she’d started seeing Randy, she hadn’t had much interest in her mother’s religious activities. Religious activities of any kind, for that matter. Her mother, of course, had no idea. She still thought Cherish was the same little girl who’d loved her doll collection, who’d begged to wear flowery dresses that matched her mother’s, who’d confided every thought, every secret. Ruthie often told people that she and Cherish were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Ruthie couldn’t wait for Cherish to turn eighteen so she could join the Circle of Faith.

  Back when Faith meetings still were held in the living room, Cherish had sometimes squeezed behind the couch to eavesdrop. Mostly the women just talked about somebody’s job or illness, but sometimes they’d talk about people Cherish knew. Every now and then, they talked about Cherish’s father, and when that happened Cherish held particularly still. Once, Ruthie told the group she’d had a revelation: Trouble was God’s way of getting people’s attention. “When life is fine, we ignore Him,” she said. “It’s when we’re in pain that we reach out. I’ve come to realize that even tragedy has its purpose.” The others agreed that this made sense, but Cherish thought, Just because it makes sense doesn’t mean it’s true. How did you know you weren’t simply seeing what you wanted to see? Like what had happened at Dad’s funeral, when Cherish saw the coffin move very slightly, as if Dad had only been sleeping and now he was trying to sit up. Ruthie explained, in her most patient voice, that Cherish’s brain was giving her eyes happy pictures to see so that she wouldn’t be sad, and that was called imagination, and imagination was a good thing, but you had to know the difference between imagination and truth. Cherish tried to listen to what her mother was saying, but all she could think of was how it would be when they opened the coffin and Dad jumped out and said, What on earth is going on here? “Ask them to open it,” she pleaded, “just in case,” and Ruthie finally said, in a totally different voice, “Some of him isn’t even in there; they’re still hunting pieces by the road, do you understand!”

  Lucy Kimmeldorf had taken Cherish’s hand and led her outside, past all those people—more than five hundred, the Ambient Weekly would say—who’d come to pay their respects. Later, at the burial, Ruthie hadn’t cried a single tear, and the mothers of Cherish’s school friends all told Cherish how brave Ruthie was, and soon they were saying the same thing about Cherish, for whenever they asked how she was doing, she answered the way Ruthie told her to: It’s selfish to be sad when Dad’s so happy in heaven.

  The fact was that after her father died, lots of things stopped making sense to Cherish. Familiar things became unfamiliar. The house seemed smaller, the fields larger, the sky as pale as a bowl of weak soup. Yet she acted as if things were the way they’d always been, and her mother did the same. Year after year, they woke up in the morning and went to bed at night, attended Mass, did farmwork, housework, charity work. They visited the cemetery Sunday afternoons, and when they happened to pass the small white cross on County O, they each made the sign of the cross as they drove by.

  Cherish was seven years older than she’d been the last time her father had seen her. Sometimes she wondered if he’d even recognize her. Sometimes she wondered if she’d recognize him. Now, cutting across the frozen field toward County O, she pulled up the hood of her coat. With her scarf concealing everything but her eyes, she was completely, deliciously anonymous. No one who happened to see her would recognize last summer’s Festival Queen, the beautiful doll everyone admired: active in charity work and school fund-raisers, upbeat and cheerful, confident, outgoing. The brave girl whose father had died a terrible, pointless death. Ruthie Mader’s daughter.

  Ruthie never suspected tha
t Cherish was sneaking out this way, night after night, walking to town. Often, Cherish only had to make it through the field to where Randy would be waiting in his Mustang, the thud of the bass from his stereo like a living, beating heart. Sometimes, after sex, he’d push his face between her breasts, breathe deeply, whisper, “Precious.” Precious. As Cherish turned north onto County C, following the plow drifts along the shoulder, she imagined Randy speaking her name. Randy lighting a joint, releasing the smoke into her mouth. Randy moving wet between her thighs. Her breathing sounded hollow inside her hood, as if she were walking under water. The wind gusted at her chest. When you were with Randy, anything might happen. Anything was possible.

  That night, driving home from Milwaukee, Randy started mimicking Lisa Marie, talking about how everything was juvenile bullshit, how every damn weekend was the same damn thing. By the time they reached the Solomon strip, Paul and Cherish were laughing too. He took the D road over to Ambient, but instead of turning south onto Main, where Lisa Marie lived, he continued on to the River Road. The whole time, Lisa Marie stared out the window. She refused to look at any of them, to speak.

  “A girl needs a little excitement once in a while,” Randy said, making his voice high and silly.

  “A girl needs variety,” Paul added from the backseat, “not just the same old juvenile bullshit.”

  Randy laughed so hard that the car swerved across the yellow line, and Cherish had to grab the wheel to steady it. She felt sorry for Lisa Marie, but at the same time, she didn’t. The truth was that none of them really liked Lisa Marie that much anymore. She was always getting her feelings hurt, leaving parties early, complaining about Paul and Randy. She worried that things were getting too wild, that her parents were going to find out.

  “We’re sorry, Lisa Marie,” Randy said. “Really. Let us make it up to you.” He turned into one of the residential neighborhoods north of Cradle Park and drove up and down the streets, slowly, as if he were looking for something. “I know!” he said, snapping his fingers dramatically. “We’ll get you a present. Something special. Something that will make this a night to remember.”

  “What about one of those fat ladies?” Paul said. They were passing a small brick bungalow. A plywood woman was bent over beside the mailbox, as if she were planting flowers in the snow, her fanny aimed at the road. The headlights bleached her panties a brilliant, blinding white. “Come on, Lisa Marie. Lighten up. You want us to get you one of those?”

  Cherish said, “Yeah, let’s collect a whole bunch. We can stick them in front of the railroad museum.”

  Randy pulled over beside the mailbox, looked back at Lisa Marie. “Do you accept our apology?”

  “Just say yes,” Paul pleaded. “Seriously. We were just kidding around.”

  The whole thing could have ended there. But Lisa Marie said nothing.

  “Guess not,” Randy said. “Lisa Marie is holding out for something better. A lady of taste, our Lisa Marie.”

  “Aw, cut it out,” Paul said. He sounded tired of the game. Cherish was too, and she said, “Let’s just take her home.” But Randy ignored them both. “Our Lisa Marie won’t settle for any old reproduction. Our Lisa Marie demands the real thing.”

  Paul got very quiet then. “What do you mean?” he said.

  Randy pulled away and continued down the street. Behind each living room window, the blue square of a TV screen poured its odd, insistent light into the darkness. Sleds and hunchbacked snowmen were scattered over the lawns. They passed a woman out for a walk, enjoying the quietness of the evening. It was early still. Barely nine o’clock.

  “I think you know what I mean,” Randy said.

  “Wait a minute,” Paul said, “You said last time was it; you promised.”

  “What are you talking about?” Cherish said.

  “You’re going to get us arrested, man.”

  “Our Lisa Marie is worth the risk, don’t you think?” Randy said, and he rounded the corner, where two little girls were standing beneath a streetlight. The oldest was eleven or so, and she wore a woolly stocking cap with a tassel on the end. Randy threw the car in park, and like something in a dream, he slid from behind the wheel, leaped the curb, and had one steel arm around her before she or the younger girl understood what was happening. Paul jumped out then and held the door, calling, “Hurry, hurry,” as Randy half carried, half dragged the girl the last few feet, her stocking cap pulled down over her eyes. “Quiet and no one gets hurt,” he said, and she tumbled in against Lisa Marie. Paul squished in beside her, Randy got behind the wheel again, doors slammed and locked, and off they went—it was as simple as that. The younger girl watched them go, stock-still, as if she thought she might have imagined the whole thing.

  “Are you crazy?” Cherish said. She couldn’t believe they’d just kidnapped somebody. “What are we going to do with her?”

  The girl had her arms wrapped around herself; she breathed loudly through her mouth. The ridiculous tassel bounced against one shoulder.

  “That’s up to Lisa Marie,” Randy said.

  Lisa Marie was crying. “Let her go,” she said.

  Randy said, “What? You don’t like your present? After all the trouble we went through? I thought you wanted some excitement, sweetheart. I thought you wanted a night to remember.” But after another block or two, he pulled over, let the little girl out. She fled between two houses; Lisa Marie jumped out and ran down the street.

  “Lisa Marie!” Paul called after her, but Randy pulled him back inside. A porch light flickered on. “Don’t worry,” Randy said, peeling away. “She’ll get over it.”

  But Lisa Marie hadn’t gotten over it. Instead she’d gone to her mother, just as Cherish had worried she might do. She’d been avoiding Paul and Randy and even Cherish ever since. And when she opened the door and saw Cherish standing on the steps, she looked anything but pleased.

  “Hey,” Cherish said. “I was worried about you. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Lisa Marie said. She was wearing sweatpants and a stained sweatshirt. Her hair looked unwashed, her permanent frizzy.

  “Nice hair,” Cherish said. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

  “OK,” Lisa Marie said doubtfully, but she led Cherish down the hall to the kitchen, where she opened the oven door. A frozen cheese pizza bubbled on the top rack, releasing its greasy smells. “This’ll be ready in five minutes,” she said.

  “Great,” Cherish said. “Afterward, maybe we can take a walk down to Cradle Park, see who’s there.”

  “It’s freezing out,” Lisa Marie said, setting out paper plates. “I’m staying in.”

  “Or we could find a ride out to International Harvester.” There was usually a party going on at IH, and if your feet started going numb, you simply built a fire out of the cardboard boxes, paper, and furniture that people dumped there. Cherish hoped that Lisa Marie would suggest they call Randy and Paul to drive them. Then she could tell her that, well, actually they were already on their way. Things would get back to normal. She could stop worrying about what Lisa Marie might tell her mother next.

  But Lisa Marie shook her head. “I’m done with all that,” she said. “I know it sounds hokey, but I’ve been washed by the blood of the lamb. If you want to hang out with me, you’re going to have to respect that.” She laid out two forks, two knives, a couple of potholders. “My mom left a couple of movies,” she said. “We can watch them, if you want.”

  “Movies,” Cherish said. “Oh, boy.”

  “We used to watch movies together all the time,” Lisa Marie said. “We used to do our homework together. We used to help our moms with stuff at the Faith house. We used to date boys who didn’t get us thrown out of every place we went.”

  “And we used to complain about how boring it all was,” Cherish said.

  “Well, maybe it was boring then,” Lisa Marie said. “But it’s different, now that I’ve found God.”

  Cherish stared at Lisa Marie. It was like talking to a com
plete and total stranger. Before Lisa Marie got saved, they might have risked hitching out to the Hodag, flirted with some old married guy until he shared his pitcher. They might have met up with Randy and Paul to set off firecrackers in the millpond, or else to get blasted in the parking lot of the Moonwink Motel, or else to play mailbox baseball along the River Road. Sometimes they’d race the freight train across the tracks just past the highway bridge; sometimes they combed the fast-food dumpsters after closing, gorging on bags of cheeseburgers and lukewarm apple pies. Sometimes there’d be parties at the homes of kids whose parents were away. But now God sat between them, the same way he sat between Cherish and her mother: an immense, warty toad, bloated with importance.

  “There’s this story,” Lisa Marie finally said, “about this little boy who always takes five minutes to ride his bike to church before school. Every day, he kneels down at the back of the church and says, Hello, God, this is—” Lisa Marie stopped. “Wait, I can’t remember his name.”

  “Timmy,” Cherish said. “I know this one.”

  “Hello, God, this is Timmy.” Lisa Marie didn’t seem to care if Cherish knew the story or not. “That’s all Timmy ever says, and he does this for, I don’t know, years. Then one day, as he’s biking away, he gets hit by a car. And as people gather around his lifeless body, they hear a voice, and it says—”

  Cherish broke in, making her voice deep and solemn. “Hello, Timmy, this is God.”

  She waited for Lisa Marie to laugh, but Lisa Marie said, “I’m serious, OK? The point is that if you take time for God, He’ll take time for you.”

  Cherish gave Lisa Marie a flat, disbelieving stare. “Or maybe if you take time for God, He’ll shove you under a car.”

  “That’s not what it means, and you know it,” Lisa Marie said.

  The pizza, which had smelled so good just moments before, now smelled like the slab of bubbling fat that it was. Cherish said, “I can’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to believe a story like that.”