Mean Woman Blues

by Smith, Julie

  One thing he knew he was good at was dissembling. That was a word he’d learned in England. The thing he was good at was lying. He’d made a career of it. He was an accomplished actor long before he ever became a TV star; it was his stock-in-trade. There was no doubt in his mind he could pull this thing off.

  He breathed deeply till showtime, and then he went out and knocked their socks off. He could tell by the audience reaction, by the applause. And it fed him.

  He loved that applause. The more of it he heard, the better at his job he got. He damn near convinced himself that little Miss Prissy Whittaker was a saint who’d been wronged.

  Karen was in the front row tonight. Strange. She hadn’t told him she was coming. Tracie’d probably invited her, because it was such a big fucking show, the biggest since Karen’s own. Damn, what they could do with the IRS now! They were just getting started when Karen walked in with her precious gift, and even as it was— kind of half-assed, compared to tonight’s extravaganza— it had caused a statewide sensation. Of course, he realized in retrospect, a lot of it had to do with who Karen was.

  He had to do twice as good a job with Karen there. He focused deeply on getting the thing done, and he knew he did it well. Better than well. Better than any talk-show host in America could have. If he had a network show today, he’d be halfway to the presidency. Just look at the way people stood up to applaud; look at the way they parted with their money— dollars, too, not just coins; look at the way the women practically swooned. That was one of the best byproducts of this whole thing. Tonight he could probably have any woman in the whole studio, and his stupid wife had picked this night of all nights to show up!

  Easy there. Settle down, he told himself. He knew that was crazy. Karen was the only woman in his life now. He was thinking like he used to.

  After the show, he headed for the men’s room to wash his face. He had to have a moment alone to piece things together. On the way there, he began to feel nauseated, and in fact he just barely made it, throwing up before he even got the toilet seat up. He sat on the floor, recovering, and it was only a moment before the nausea came back. Shit! He was going to puke again. How the hell could that happen to him?

  The second time was almost worse; there was very little left, so it was mostly heaving. God, it was painful. His throat hurt, his stomach hurt, his breath was something out of a rhino. Jesus, who had done this to him?

  He was sitting there on the cold tile, when it came to him what had just happened. He had focused on the wrong fucking thing. He should have staged a fainting fit or something. A heart attack. Christ, why couldn’t he have thrown up like this in his damn office?

  What he should have done was stay off the air no matter what it cost him. Because if the girl was who she said she was, Isaac would watch the show.

  He tried to tell himself it was no big deal. He and Isaac had had practically no contact in recent years. Once, he’d wanted his whole family together so badly he’d actually sent his son Dan to take his granddaughter forcibly from her college campus. But he hadn’t even tried to get Isaac.

  Isaac was barely a Jacomine at all— at any rate, not like the others. He and Rosemarie had made Dan, and Dan and Jacqueline had made Lovelace. Isaac was Irene’s boy— plain, tired, stupid Irene whom he had rechristened Tourmaline, just to give her a little style. Hell, he had no fucking idea why he’d ever married her, and he wished to hell he hadn’t. She was about as far from Rosemarie and Karen as Mamie Eisenhower was from Nancy Reagan. No style, no savvy, no nothing. She’d birthed a son who might as well be from another planet, he was so peculiar.

  Errol had tried like hell to love him, even turned him into a preacher for a while. In those days the kid was a pleaser, a sad little thing always looking for attention, a child who’d do anything if he thought it was going to get him some brownie points. That was what gave Errol the idea; he thought if the kid tried that hard with his own parents, he’d probably be great with an audience. He was also a cute little bugger who, after a little coaching, would probably be pretty good at making the folks turn loose of their dollars. So Errol invested his good time and energy into teaching the little bastard to preach. Wouldn’t you know, he picked that one thing to say no to? He was shy, the little coward. Hated getting up in front of the crowds. His father had had to beat some sense into him.

  It took a long damn time, but dear little Isaac finally came around. Turned into a right fine seven-year-old evangelist if Errol said so himself. Didn’t quit wetting the bed till he was nearly ten, but he could preach pretty good.

  But when he was twelve or thirteen, something like that, he got… how the hell did you describe it? He didn’t get religion; he got the opposite of religion. Refused to preach any more and started stuffing his face with everything he could find: hamburgers, milkshakes, french fries. Turned into a regular little butterball. Hell, that wouldn’t have been so bad, but his face broke out in zits the size of eyeballs. God, the kid was ugly. Hell, good thing he wouldn’t preach; nobody could stand to look at him. And ornery! Errol had to go back to the strap again.

  Little bastard. Years later, he’d betrayed his whole family in the perfidious manner of an enemy. He had lain with his brother’s wife and brought shame to the house of Jacomine.

  After that, not a one of them had any use for him. Errol wasn’t sure he’d recognize him if he passed him on the street. Why the hell should a dumb fuck like Isaac recognize him? Especially now that he’d changed his appearance, his accent even his height. He probably had nothing to fear from his lesser son. But he admitted to himself that there was a chance. This crazy thing had brought that home to him. There was a chance, and he’d overlooked it. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t had the little bastard killed.

  Karen was in his office, on her feet, beaming, squealing, waving her arms. She was wearing a short paisley skirt and a black T-shirt kind of thing with long sleeves. Her hair was up.

  “Ohhhhh, it’s Mr. Riiiiiight!” She leapt up and grabbed his face between her two hands and forcibly kissed him. He was in no mood to kiss back. God, she was irritating. “Sugar, that is gon’ put you over the top! That was the best best best thing I have ever seen in my entire life!”

  “Well, that hasn’t been very long, has it?”

  The joy drained out of her face. He liked that. He liked being able to put it there and take it away. It didn’t belong there now.

  She looked as if she’d gotten a war telegram— “regret-to-inform-you” kind of thing— and then compassion replaced the shock. She grabbed the back of his head, pulling his face close to hers. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t feel insecure. People loved it. They loved that poor girl, Terri, and they just hated the big bad bank. And they think Mr. Right is their knight in shining armor, just like I do.” She actually rubbed her nose against his. He was revolted. Before he thought he shoved a hand in her stomach and pushed her.

  “Get the hell away from me, whore!”

  She landed in a chair, breathing hard, some of her hair coming out of its tight twist. This time she registered only amazement. “What did you call me?” She pushed at the errant strand.

  Pushing her had felt good. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her up, drew her close. “Whore,” he whispered. “You look like a whore in that outfit.”

  He brought his mouth down on hers like a weapon. She shook him off. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He answered her in a loud whisper, more or less a hiss, partly designed to keep anyone outside from hearing. But it unnerved people even more than yelling. “You’re my wife, bitch. Act like it!” He pulled her back toward him.

  She twisted sideways and tried to pull away, but he still had a firm hold on her wrist. He reeled her back in, and now she shoved him with her free hand. That infuriated him. He backhanded her across the face, and before she could recover, he slung her by the arm he held and let go. She sailed across the room like a scarecrow, coming to rest only when she smacked the opposite wall, losing her balance and slidi
ng down it.

  Suddenly alarmed, he knelt beside her, “Darling. Karen, are you all right?”

  There was a tiny, almost inaudible knock, and the door opened. Tracie said, “Oh, God. What happened? Is there anything I can do?”

  He held Karen so tightly around the wrist that she had to take his meaning. “Mrs. Wright… tripped. She’s fine, aren’t you, darling?”

  Dutifully, as he had known she would, Karen smiled up at the producer. “New shoes,” she said. “David calls them Jezebel pumps.”

  “Ever the gentleman. That’s not what most people call them.” Tracie left and closed the door behind her.

  As soon as it clicked, he went into full-tilt apology. “Omigod, Karen, I don’t know what happened there. I saw you, and I was so excited… then when you wouldn’t… I don’t know… the adrenaline… we had so much riding on that show… I’ve really been under a lot of pressure.”

  He tried to help her up, but once again she writhed out of his grasp, and this time he let her go. “Don’t you touch me, you bastard.” She strode out of the room on her fuck-me pumps.

  Well, hell, she’d be all right. Mr. Right was philosophical about it. Why shouldn’t she be? No one was more of an expert on women than he was. They got upset; they got over it. In the end, it just made them more passionate. But this thing was going to cost him: He was going to have to give up sex with his wife tonight, and he was going to have to buy her some kind of fancy present to make up, and it was going to be tedious going through all the crap he was going to have to go through.

  Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! He wished he’d never seen that goddamn Terri Whittaker. Well, one thing— he sure wasn’t going to be betrayed by his own son.

  He went into the hollowed-out book where he’d kept the cell phone he’d bought to deal with Lobo and punched in the gangbanger’s pager number.

  When the phone rang, Lobo said nothing, just breathed.

  “It’s me.”

  “I know ya. Bettina frien’.”

  He told Lobo what he wanted him to do, and as he did so, a Bible verse came into his head. He thought that he had named his sons well: Daniel had certainly ended up in the lion’s den, and the Lord had his own plans for Isaac.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After the show, Isaac spent half an hour shaking, trying to recover. Several times, he picked up his phone, but he couldn’t get his fingers to work. And when his coordination finally returned, he couldn’t reach Terri; either she had her phone off, or she’d forgotten to charge it, as usual.

  He dialed the station and asked for her.

  “I believe Miss Whittaker’s left, sir.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “I didn’t see her walk out, but I’m fairly sure she’s gone.”

  “This is her boyfriend,” he told the receptionist. “Can you tell me where she’s staying? She left me a message, but it was garbled. The, uh…” He held his breath, hoping she wasn’t the suspicious type.

  “We put our guests up at the Bluebonnet Motor Lodge.”

  He exhaled. “Did she leave alone?”

  “The producer probably took her back.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “No sir.”

  He pushed it. “Does Mr. Right produce his own show?”

  “Sorry, sir. I have another call.” She rang off, having apparently gotten suspicious.

  She could be with his father. Errol could have asked her out to dinner or something, and she, in all innocence, would have been flattered, would have accepted. If his father understood the connection between her and Isaac, he’d kill her the second he thought he could get away with it.

  Hands shaking, he called the Bluebonnet Motor Lodge. “Whittaker?” a female clerk said. “Just a moment, please.”

  Isaac breathed a sigh of relief. At least he could leave a message here.

  The operator came back on the line. “Ms. Whittaker has checked out.”

  “What? When?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I do not have that information.”

  “Give me the front desk, please.” Maybe someone would remember her.

  “This is the front desk, sir.”

  “Oh. Do you remember Ms. Whittaker?”

  “No sir, I don’t.”

  “Is anyone else there?”

  “Mr. Ramos is helping a customer, sir.”

  Isaac gave up, thinking, Okay, that’s that. She was supposed to stay overnight; if she wasn’t there, something was wrong. Seriously wrong.

  He felt like he was going to pass out.

  His hands slick with his sweat, he picked up the phone to call the Dallas police, then realized how futile that would be. Well-known television personality’s about to kill my girlfriend? Uh-uh, it wouldn’t fly.

  Langdon! he thought. Langdon could get to them— they’d believe another cop. Where the hell had he put her number? He fumbled for it, his fingers dull and uncooperative. Eventually, he thought of calling the Third District.

  “Officer Langdon has been reassigned,” he was told. “Can someone else help you?”

  “No. No one.”

  Absolutely no one, he thought.

  * * *

  Karen left the studio with dignity, heels clicking, even mustering a smile for anyone who passed. Once in her car, she sat there in shock, trying to convince herself that what had happened was real, to give it some kind of a name.

  What about if I were trying to tell it? she thought. What would I say? Would I say my own husband tried to rape me? Would it be true?

  She couldn’t explain that part at all. She wondered if, in some crazy, sick fashion, he was sexually excited by the thrill of his performance, turned on in some kind of twisted, violent way. But there were two kinds of violence at issue: sexual and physical. He may or may not have tried to rape her, but he’d most certainly knocked her around. You really couldn’t call it anything else, and you couldn’t forgive or excuse it. She wanted to; she really, really wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. But her back hurt too badly.

  Falling against the wall, she’d hurt herself. Her back was killing her; she had to get some ice on it. And she couldn’t go home. David would be home soon; if he wasn’t, so much the worse. She’d be there alone, contemplating the ruins of her marriage.

  She wanted her mama.

  Without thinking much about it she drove to her parents’ house. If she’d analyzed it she’d have remembered that they had fought and then made up, would still have gone there, as countless women did when their husbands hit them. But she didn’t think; she just drove. After her first marriage exploded, she’d had to live at first simply and then in poverty. Now, with David, she was slowly, painfully trying to recreate the warmth and luxury of her parents’ home, but she wasn’t succeeding, and she felt it. Felt the lack of warmth she didn’t know how to find. She hadn’t her mother’s knack or, for that matter, her mother’s money. She really didn’t know where to start and she was too proud to ask anyone except a decorator. Her wonderful new home looked like someone else’s; it had an iciness, an aloofness. It didn’t look loved.

  She thought of her parents’ den, with its two wide-screen TVs and its books; its worn, cozy furniture and her mother’s needlework; its framed photos of family vacations; its seldom-used fireplace; her dad’s golf trophies. Now that was home. She wanted nothing more than to be in that room, with her mother’s arms around her as if she were a little girl again. She realized with surprise that her own home had hardly a book in it, hadn’t any of the earmarks of two people’s mutual interests, their shared life.

  She knocked shave-and-a-haircut (the family signal) and entered through the door that was never locked till bedtime. Her parents were having dinner on trays in front of one of the televisions. Even though she’d grown up in this house, in this room, she felt like an intruder. “Oh. I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner.”

  Her father didn’t speak. He returned to his lamb chop with an aggrieved air.

  Her
mother was gracious as always. She crossed the room to kiss her daughter lightly. “Karen. Congratulations. We saw the show and it was wonderful.” She sounded underwhelmed.

  “Mother… Mother…” Karen felt her face breaking; no need to hold it in anymore. “Mother, he hit me.” She let it all out as she collapsed in her mother’s arms— the tears, the sobs, the body shakes, everything that conveyed her desperation. She wasn’t just hurt; she was heartbroken. And she’d had to walk out of that studio and drive over here as if nothing had happened. Now she was screaming.

  Her mother said, “Calm down now. Calm down.” That was the last thing she wanted to do; she’d been calm for the last forty-five minutes. She wanted to be her mother’s child. “Boyd, get her some water.”

  In a moment, she looked up to see her father holding a glass of water. The expression on his face terrified her almost more than the thought of her husband.

  Her mother took the glass and held it out to her. “Drink this now. Drink this.” Karen hated the way people repeated themselves when someone lost it. She took the glass, and she sipped, momentarily quiet. And then she began hicupping.

  Her dad sat down on one of the big, shabby sofas, looking like something that belonged on Mt. Rushmore. He didn’t speak at all, didn’t even look at her, just stared at the wall. He had turned off the television.

  “You’re all right now. Tell us what happened.”

  “Oh, Mother, I was so happy tonight! I wanted to surprise him. So I went to the studio and sat in the front row.” Her mother nodded. Karen hiccupped.

  Her father said, “For God’s sake, drink that water.”

  Karen obeyed. “He wasn’t happy to see me. I don’t… know why. I tried to kiss him, and he called me a whore.”

  At this, her father’s face whipped toward her, stonier than ever, as if he agreed with David. “Then he started to get… sexual…” She glanced furtively at her father, oddly embarrassed. “…and I pushed him away.”

  Her father spoke angrily. “Now why the hell would you do a thing like that? You just said you tried to kiss him.”