Fall

by Cora Brent

  She stroked the side of my face and I dropped one final kiss on her hand before walking her around the side of the building to the entrance. I returned to the bike as she hesitated by the door. This time I didn’t wait until she was inside the building because Jenny always looked back at me one last time. If she looked back at me right now I didn’t think I’d be able to leave and I had to leave, just for a while.

  I would be back.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  JENNY

  Lately I’d gotten into the habit of actively avoiding my roommate. Ally had been surly and obnoxious ever since returning from winter break and I was about ready to tell her to go stick her attitude up her well-used ass even before she confronted me.

  She stalked into the room less than five minutes after I said goodbye to Deck and made my way upstairs. I was still a little giddy with the glow of an outrageously good orgasm and smiling over Declan as I tried to decipher how a man could be so crude and so sincere at the same time.

  “It’s funny,” I said aloud to myself and it was. It was funny how I was surrounded every day with nice looking, clean cut college boys and not one of them interested me. It took an older, rough, altogether unsuitable man to shake me out of the neutral fog I’d been enveloped in for far too long.

  “What’s funny?” Ally asked grumpily and I turned around. My back had been to the door and my roommate had entered the room with a petulant scowl.

  “Your GPA,” I shot back, a little meanly because here in the second semester Ally was already on academic probation.

  She gave me a thin smile. “I saw you out there just now.”

  “So what?”

  “Jenny,” she said, primly sitting on her bed as if she were about to deliver a lengthy lecture to a dimwitted five year old. “I told you that guy will fuck-“

  “Anything with tits,” I finished. “Yeah, I heard you the first time you said it.”

  She tossed her hair. Ally Doria could win the Olympic gold medal in Dismissive Hair Tossing. “He’s a piece of Gentry trailer trash. For Christ sake, they stick their dicks into any hole they can find.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “I’d never let a Gentry pig touch me.”

  “Why? You let everyone else.”

  Ally let out a disgusted hiss and rose from the bed. “Fuck whoever you want to fuck, you dumb bitch. You’re all kinds of backwards anyway. Just don’t be shocked and shaken when Deck Gentry tosses you overboard like he does every other clueless snatch he gets his filthy hands on.”

  Instead of giving into my urge to belt Ally Doria in the mouth I turned around again and faced the window. She slammed the door a second later. Ally didn’t have much patience for people who didn’t do what she wanted them to do.

  After I indulged in thinking about Deck a little while longer, I sighed and opened up my backpack. I felt guilty; I’d been slacking so far this semester. After opening my Business Law book and watching the meaningless words swim past my eyes for a half hour I gave up and closed it again. My inability to focus wasn’t because of Deck. I just had no interest in any of it. The classes, the four-year tedium of papers and exams, all culminating in some meaningless credential that I could hang on a wall. No one else seemed troubled by the futility of it all except for me. They had goals, plans. And really I had no excuse for remaining adrift, for failing to join them. I turned off the light and stretched out on the bed, touching myself briefly as I relived those brief, intense moments I’d shared with Deck.

  Soon.

  I fell asleep in my clothes and for once slept soundly, dreaming of him.

  Ally wasn’t around when I woke up, but that wasn’t unusual. The insult I’d flung at her the night before wasn’t for nothing. Sometimes she brought her boy candy back to her bed but mostly she laid down wherever it lived. For a while I’d envied her ability to screw whomever and wherever with such casual abandon. When I’d followed her to Emblem it might have been in the back of my mind that I ought to be like her. At least now I’d learned that was the opposite of what I wanted.

  After I showered and returned to the room my phone started buzzing. My heart jumped a little, thinking maybe it was Deck, but instead it was Daniel, my brother. I was glad to hear from him and tried to sound enthusiastic about school and life in general. It was obvious he’d spoken to Promise and I heard the unspoken concern in his voice as he asked me if everything was all right.

  “You know, Jen, you can always come back here, go to school locally. We’d love to have you back.”

  Daniel wasn’t just saying that. He’d bent over backwards to fit me into his family, gracefully assuming a parental role and trying to gently guide me as well as he could. As much as I loved my brother and his family, their home had just never been my home, not really. I hated myself for feeling that way.

  But I would never say such hurtful things to Daniel. I turned the conversation back to him, asking about work. He expressed enthusiasm for the comeback of the housing market in Southern California. Then his voice grew excited as he told me the news that Lupe was expecting again. Little Bella was overjoyed at the prospect of being a big sister.

  “That’s fabulous news, Daniel. Really.” It was. I was smiling.

  He hesitated. “So, what are your plans for spring break? We were thinking of taking Bells to Disneyland. You’d be more than welcome to come with us.”

  Disneyland?

  I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to spring break. The weeklong break from school was in March and it was only the end of January.

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

  “Please do.”

  “Hey Daniel?”

  “Yeah, little sis?”

  Don’t do it to him. Don’t bring it all back.

  When I’d first come to live with his family, Daniel had hired a therapist for me. My caseworker had recommended the idea when he was granted guardianship and he was eager to cooperate by getting me whatever ‘help’ the courts decided I needed. Twice a week for six months I sat in a comfortable room with an aging socialite while I brightly insisted that I was fine. I was happy. I liked the boys in my school. I had no nightmares. I forgave my mother. I even forgave my father. The whole experience was very upbeat and antiseptic and my therapist, who insisted I call her by her first name of Frieda, scrawled obsessively in a notebook with a small smile on her face. Maybe if I’d dealt with it all sooner then I wouldn’t be so messed up now. I had never been abused the way my sister was. No man had ever laid an unwelcome hand on me. But they had used me like a chess piece. They had made me feel as if my rights and my freedom didn’t matter. I understood now that could be just as damaging as physical abuse.

  “Just wanted to say that I’ll remember to call more. Give my love to Lupe and Bella.”

  “Will do, Jen. Take care.”

  Daniel had a different mother than I did. He must harbor his own private pain over being cast out of Jericho Valley as a boy, but he was never willing to dwell on it. Or at least he was able to keep it from defining him. Daniel was like Promise that way. I hadn’t told either of them about the woman in the mall. I expected she was right where I’d seen her last. What would she have done if I’d walked right up to her? What would I have said anyway?

  “Remember me, mama? It’s Jennetta. Do you ever think about me? Are you sorry??”

  It was the weekend and I was restless, especially when I had no idea of when I would see Deck next. It seemed I was rather low on friends. Quent and Tevin’s anniversary was coming up and they’d taken a trip up to a ski resort by Flagstaff. I wandered around campus for a while. The day was overcast and chilly but it felt good to be out and I walked briskly. Eventually I found myself in front of the tacky chicken joint where Truly and Stephanie worked and as my belly grumbled it occurred to me that I could stand to eat.

  “Hey,” Truly greeted me with a pitcher of soda in her hand and an authentic smile on her face. I was a little disappointed that Stephanie wasn’t arou
nd. Now that Ally and I were on the outs, Stephanie was the closest thing I had to a girl friend. Truly, however, seemed eager to add herself to the list. Right after she brought me my meal she took a break and cheerfully sat down at my table. I was happy to have the company. She radiated delight when I mentioned how impressed I’d been with Creed’s singing. It was obvious she loved him deeply.

  “So where’s Deck today?” she asked me.

  “He had to go home. To Emblem. Family emergency or something.”

  I could have bitten my own tongue off because Truly was suddenly troubled.

  “What kind of family emergency?” she asked.

  I’d forgotten that Deck and Creed shared the same family. Whatever he’d returned to face would likely be of interest to her boyfriend. And from what I’d gathered of Deck’s end of last night’s phone conversation, he’d prefer not to broadcast the news.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Actually I think it was a friend who called.”

  “Oh,” said Truly but she looked unconvinced. She twirled a lock of black hair around her index finger and watched me but there was only friendly interest in her dark eyes. She smiled and instantly reminded me of my beauty queen cousin, Rachel.

  “He likes you, Jenny. He likes you a heck of a lot. After you two took off last night that was all the boys could talk about. They never saw him so into any girl and Creedence would likely scold a storm if he knew I was telling you this but I don’t think it will hurt a thing to let you know that Deck Gentry sure as hell doesn’t fall easily.”

  I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face. “Well I can admit that the feeling is mutual.”

  “No wonder,” she laughed, reaching across the table to playfully swat my arm. “He’s got the whole tortured bad boy vibe down, coupled with an unholy charisma. When Declan walks into a room everyone knows it. Everyone feels it. Everyone stares.”

  I looked down at myself, at my jeans and plaid shirt. I knew I wasn’t ugly but neither was I the most dazzling slice this side of Phoenix.

  “So what do you think he sees in me?” The question embarrassed me immediately. I shouldn’t be chasing after reassurance like this, like an uncertain schoolgirl squealing “Does he like me? Does he? Does he??” to anyone who might answer.

  Truly clucked her tongue and looked me over shrewdly. “What wouldn’t he see in you, sugar? I’d bet all the cookies in my cupboard that when Deck Gentry looks your way he sees something he’s been missing in all the gutters he’s used to shopping in. He sees a future, a woman worth falling for.”

  I let her words sink in. Truly seemed like the kind of girl who was perceptive about men. She continued to twirl her hair and her voice took on a dreamy quality.

  “None of these Gentry men are easy. But I can tell you they don’t build ‘em any better than this.”

  “They sure don’t,” I said quietly.

  Truly snapped out of her reverie and asked me some innocent questions about myself. I told her a little bit, the same kind of half-truths I’d told Stephanie. The facts would have been too much to digest over fried chicken and a room full of boisterous diners.

  After a while I left Truly to her waitressing and decided to hike up A Mountain. It wasn’t a difficult climb but it still required a decent amount of exercise. I stood on the summit and peered down at the world below, at the sprawling university, and then to the blue pool that was Tempe Town Lake, a formerly dry bed that served as the terminus of the meager Salt River. I’d heard they had shipped water from Colorado to fill it, although that was tough to imagine, hauling all that water across an entire state just to give people something nice to look at. In the backdrop the radio spires atop South Mountain shot up out of the rock like riotously stiff vines of thick hair. Miles away on the eastern horizon, the forbidding wilderness of the Superstitions dared anyone to get too close. My eyes were drawn to the south though, beyond what was visible to me. I knew it was there nonetheless, the hard luck desert town of Emblem.

  Emblem; where Deck was.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DECK

  I’d barely been inside Benton and Maggie’s place for years and whenever I did get through the door I took care not to look around too much. Now though, it was unavoidable. When I got to the Dirty Cactus, Charlie Royner had blocked the door of the back room with a chair in the hopes of keeping Maggie contained. He’d tried to give her some blankets to cover up but when I walked into the room she was sitting in the center of the floor with her legs splayed and one shriveled tit hanging out of her dress. But to my relief she knew exactly who I was.

  “Deck,” she said with some surprise and accepted my hand when I reached out to her. She was too unsteady to sit on my bike so Charlie loaned me his pickup to get her home. I wrapped her in some thick wool blankets that were decorated with prancing kokopellis and carried her out of there. A few folks were hanging around the bar and they stared but didn’t say a word.

  Maggie pressed her face against the passenger window and was silent as I drove home. She weighed next to nothing and it was no trouble to carry her from the truck to the rancid hole she inhabited with my fuck stain of an uncle. I had to turn my head to the side because she smelled like she hadn’t touched a bar of soap since last summer. But once I got inside the trailer there was no avoiding the stink. It choked the air like a demonic entity and after I dropped her off on the foul mess of a sofa I headed to the kitchen sink and retched for a minute.

  “Bent?”

  I heard the note of hope in her voice and had the urge to just leave her, flailing around and searching for the bastard. She might have wandered off again though. Briefly I had wondered if I ought to take her to the hospital. I didn’t know much about hypothermia but I was guessing it was something that might happen to a person who roamed for miles in near freezing temperatures. Her feet were also cut up and she would be looking for a fix soon. She would get the shakes when she didn’t receive it.

  But anyone who was on staff at the Emblem Medical Center would know who Maggie Gentry was. They might decide to keep her, to push her into the rehab programs she’d failed at so many times before. They wouldn’t have listened if I told them it was pointless, and that last time they locked her up and tried to get her clean she gave suicide a try.

  “He’s not here, Aunt Maggie.” I splashed some cold water over my face and searched for a towel but there was nothing in sight that looked like something I wanted to have against my skin.

  Maggie sat up and blinked at me, bright-eyed and confused. “Whatcha doin’ home, Deck?”

  I hovered over her on the couch, tucking Charlie’s blanket around her body. “I came to see you.”

  She nodded and sighed. “Did Isobel bring over a cake? Is it chocolate?”

  Isobel had been my mother. I didn’t know what era of the past Maggie was lost in.

  “Not this time. She had to work and couldn’t get it done.”

  “Oh,” she sighed in a deflated way. “Boys’ll be sad.”

  The boys. A cake. She knows what day it is, even if she doesn’t know what year it is.

  “I tried to do it myself,” she said and I caught a bit of a Carolina twang in her speech, a remnant of her childhood, nearly eclipsed by so many years in Arizona. Once her drawl had been strong. It had charmed me as a child, so different from my mother’s Spanish-accented melody. Maggie used to laugh riotously when I tried to imitate her “y’all’s”. Years later, when I found myself close to the same part of the world she’d come from, I heard that same drawl again. It was all around me, in the speech of the people who lived near the base. Hearing it out of the mouths of giggling local girls had comforted and disturbed me all at once.

  My aunt allowed me to tuck the edges of the blanket in and then she gave me one of her awful smiles. I couldn’t smile back; I was too shaken by something that should have occurred to me long ago.

  Jesus Christ, was that why? Was it because of Maggie?

  Yes, I realized now. Amelia had even
looked like her.

  “I tried to do it myself,” she said again and I realized she was looking in the direction of the tiny kitchen.

  There was a table that I knew had belonged to my grandparents. It was probably a nice piece of furniture once but after decades of abuse it was one wobble away from the garbage heap. Benton had wrapped electrical tape around one leg and a metal folding chair was the only seat in sight. Even the chair was apart and askew, as if it didn’t want to be associated with the thing. The surface of the table was caked with dried spills and the floor beneath was littered with either cornmeal or sawdust. Yet in the middle of the table was a chipped plastic mixing bowl into which had been poured a pile of something that looked like brown dust. Beside the bowl was a battered, empty box of chocolate cake mix. I picked it up. Somewhere in Maggie’s scrambled head she’d gotten the idea to bake a cake for the triplets. She’d dumped the mix into the bowl but then apparently didn’t get any further. I looked at the bottom of the box, noting that the expiration date was five years past.

  “I needed eggs,” she explained, lisping because of the way her teeth were gone or badly loose. “Bent’s gettin’ me eggs.”

  I didn’t answer. Gently I placed the box back on the table and sat heavily in the metal chair. It threatened to buckle under my weight but I simply couldn’t stand at the moment. Maggie had emerged from her own prison long enough to remember that on this day, at some point in the past, she had given birth to three baby boys. It wasn’t hard for me to summon the images of snow, red snow, red from the lights of the ambulance taking Maggie to the hospital after Benton beat her, causing an early labor. More than the sight of the terrible snow I remembered the way my own mother had held me tightly and whispered a prayer in Spanish. She’d tried to keep me close, safe, always loved. I’d never thanked her for that.

  Maggie had fallen asleep. Once she let out a pitiful moan and curled herself into a tighter ball. I was glad there was no way for one person to see inside the head of another. I had no desire to know what demons occupied Maggie’s dreams. I stared at the empty box of cake mix until my eyes began to hurt. They felt heavy enough to close for a long time.