by Ayers, Ava
When we arrived at JFK, I told India she didn’t have to come in and we hugged at Departures.
“Call me when you get home,” she said as she got into the limo.
“I don’t want to go home,” I said as I walked into the airport
I sat down in my aisle seat on the plane next to a young couple. They whispered to each other as they giggled. I put my headphones in and turned to the guy.
“I’m listening to Tuesday’s Gone by Lynyrd Skynyrd,” I said to his shoulder.
He did not notice.
When I arrived in Atlanta and waited for my connection, Stephanie called me.
“Hey, are you picking me up?” I said.
“No, Rebel Love is,” she said. “Hey, I--”
“I’m surprised you didn’t respond to my text about Declan White. Can you believe? You would have shit Twinkies, Steph. He is so hot! He said Luckless is doing some shows over the next couple of weeks. They have a video coming out too.”
“Yeah, so hot. Listen, I have to tell you something and I don’t want you to--”
“Freak out?” I said as I looked at the flight attendants walking toward the hall to go to the plane. “Um, well, tell me quick, we should be boarding soon.”
“Okay, it’s about Billy.”
“I don’t care about Billy,” I said as I closed my eyes.
“Billy is in the hospital, Beth. It’s pretty bad.”
My heart amped up as I thought of Ivory-Lou.
“Oh, yeah? What happened?”
“He was jumped. It happened right outside his apartment. Ally...the chick...was with him,” she said.
“Did they hurt her?” I said and sat up in my seat.
“They knocked her out, she didn’t see...I’m not sure if there was any damage. But, Billy, well, they don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
“That bad, huh?” I said and sighed.
“Yeah, that bad. Cops think it was a gang thing, no one’s talking. I’m sorry to tell you now. I hope I didn’t ruin your trip.”
“I’m coming home, Steph. That is what’s ruining my trip. Thanks for telling me about Billy.”
“Are you okay, Beth? I mean, I know he did some terrible things to you and you’ve moved on, but if he dies... I don’t know, maybe he won’t.”
“You reap what you sow, I suppose,” I said. “I’ll call you when I get home.”
After I told the old lady next to me on my flight back to Charleston that I was listening to Tuesday’s Gone, I looked out the window and thought about Billy. I searched for that feeling of heartbreak I felt when he broke up with me and could not find it. Nor did I feel anything for him about the news that he was jumped by a mysterious gang.
The day Billy Rider broke up with me, I felt like someone put their foot through my heart and now I had that feeling when I thought about Nicolas and going back to West Virginia.
As Rebel Love drove home, I gave her a bar of soap and told her all about the trip.
“They’re incredible, the things they say and do,” I said. “India’s so lucky.”
“They sound incredible, Beth,” Rebel Love said. “See, I told you this trip would be inspiring. Tell me more about Declan White!”
“Jesus, he’s hot. So sexy. He was in bed and I was staring at him and all I could think of is how incredible it must be to be him. All that power and adoration? He can do whatever he wants. And I thought he was flirting with me, but I had my doubts after I saw my reflection.”
“That’s the kind of man you need, Beth,” Rebel Love said and smiled.
“Where am I gonna find him around here?” I said as we passed the row houses and vacant lots blanketed in dirty snow. “Nicolas could be that man, though it seems he’s going to be that man for some other girl.”
“What about Declan White?” Beth said.
“Are you drunk?” I said and stared at her. “What would someone like him want with me?”
“I didn’t mean someone like him, Beth, I meant him. It sometimes shocks me that you can’t see what you have going for you. So, Stephanie told you about Billy?”
“Yeah,” I said and stared at my reflection in the window. “I was thinking about that on the plane. You know, I don’t feel a thing. Isn’t that weird? Steph told me how bad he is and I couldn’t even conjure a tear. I’m going to Google the symptoms of sociopathic personalities.”
“Well, you may yet feel something,” Beth said and glanced at me. “Um, Mama was asking about you.”
“Speaking of sociopaths...”
“She said she felt bad about flinging Mickey Sexual’s information at you.”
“Yeah, real bad,” I said and shook my head.
“Are you gonna look him up?”
“I don’t know. I just want to know my last name,” I said.
“Least Mama narrowed it down to one guy for you. I remember the day she told me about the four possibilities I have for a father...each one as bad as the next.”
“Your father was Johnny Munroe and he was a decent and honorable man, Rebel Love. That’s who your father is,” I said and looked out the window as we neared Ivory-Lou’s. “I don’t want to be here.”
“I know you don’t. You will get out, Beth. You’ll see.”
“I want everything now. I don’t want to wait anymore,” I said as I watched a homeless lady pushing a cart down the side of the road.
We pulled into Ivory-Lou’s driveway and I saw my mother’s car parked under a tree.
“Why is she here?”
“She came for dinner. I made a turkey; you don’t have to eat it. I made lots of veggies.”
“Jesus, I just want to relax,” I said and shook my head.
“She promised she’ll be on her best behavior. I told her to lay off you.”
“God, is Merry-Bell here?” I said as I got out of the car.
“No, I invited her but she said she would not cross a “colored’s” threshold,” she said and laughed.
I walked into the house and my mother sat on the couch listening to Yolanda telling a story.
She looked up at me and frowned.
“Beth, you look tired. You always get those dark circles,” my mother said.
“Thanks, good to see you too,” I said.
“Hey, how was New York?” Yolanda said.
“Amazing!”
“Dangerous,” my mother said.
“No, I wasn’t slumming, believe me. I took a ton of pictures, Yolanda. I’ll show you when I get them developed.”
“Costs money to develop pictures and go on fancy trips to New York,” my mother said.
“Mama,” Rebel Love said, “don’t start.”
“Hey, dirt bag, how was New York?” Ivory-Lou said as he walked into the living room.
“Amazing, thank you,” I said.
My mother and Rebel Love sat across from me and Yolanda at the dining room table. Ivory-Lou sat at the head next to me.
“Turkey looks, good, Rebel Love,” my mother said.
We filled our plates with food and my mother stared across the table at me.
“What’s wrong, no turkey?” she said.
“She don’t eat meat,” Ivory-Lou said as he bit into a turkey leg.
“Since when?” my mother said.
“Since Halloween,” Ivory-Lou said. “It’s fine. She’s hardly wasting away.”
“Thanks,” I said.
My mother shook her head and looked at Yolanda.
“So, Yolanda, do you live here too?”
“My mother is asking,” I said and turned to Yolanda, “because she is trying to figure out if there’s some psycho circus orgy going on between you, Rebel Love and Ivory-Lou.”
“I was thinking no such thing,” my mother said.
“No,” Yolanda said, “I have my own place. I’m just here a lot for meetings.”
“Meetings is not code for anything, Mother,” I said and shoved some spinach into my mouth.
“Beth?” Rebel Love said and shook her
head. “Why don’t you tell us about the trip? What’s India’s mother like?”
“God, Lucia is amazing. She really cares, you know?” I said and stared at my mother. “And she’s always asking India’s opinion on everything. I mean every detail from the most mundane to the most important, Lucia wants her opinion.”
“Sounds silly to me,” my mother said as she took a sip of beer.
“No, Tandy, it isn’t,” I said and Ivory-Lou gave me a dirty look.
“Tandy?” my mother said.
“What does she do?” Rebel Love said.
“She crafts,” I said. “And, well, she has a two-year-old and they all travel a lot.”
“That’s why she has time to ask her kid’s opinion,” my mother said as she looked at Rebel Love. “She doesn’t work.”
“No, Tandy,” I said and narrowed my eyes, “she asks her opinion because she wants her opinion.”
“So, um,” Rebel Love said, “they’re organizing some sort of visitor schedule for Billy, you know for his friends to say...goodbye. I think they’re going to pull him off life support.”
Ivory-Lou tapped my foot with his under the table.
“I heard about that, damn shame,” my mother said and looked at me. “They have that crime in New York too, Beth, before you say it. Are you going?”
“What, to the hospital? No, Billy said goodbye to me a long time ago.”
My mother looked at me and shook her head as she chuckled.
“That’s surprising,” she said.
“What’s so surprising, Tandy?” I said.
“I dunno, seems kind of fair-weathered to me. I mean, this is the boy you loved so much, right? I thought you would at least want to say goodbye to the boy before he dies.”
“Tandy, should I pine over him next to an open window and sob while I play Cut Dead?”
“What the hell is Cut Dead?” Yolanda said.
“It’s a song,” I said. “Very sad.”
“Tandy again?” my mother said. “That’s three times you’ve called me by my first name.”
“What’s the big deal?” I said. “India calls Lucia by her first name. They do not believe in labels.”
“Mama,” Rebel Love said and put her hand on my mother’s arm, “Beth has moved on. She’ll say goodbye to Billy in her own way.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Lucia analyzed my relationship with Nicolas. India wanted me to dump him, but Lucia said it’s not the right time. She says because I’m an empath, everything he does or does not do I am sensitive to and she’d like me to wait a bit before deciding.”
“Empath? Psychopath, maybe,” Ivory-Lou said and winked at me.
“She analyzed your relationship?” my mother said. “Well, that must have been real interesting. And the intelligent Lucia said you should not dump him? I’m sure that’s much better. Yes, you should definitely continue to spend all your time going off on the Internet like a crazy person.”
Rebel Love looked up at me with her mouth open.
“I have never called you crazy, Beth,” she said and shook her head.
“No, she did not. I did,” my mother said.
“Well, I’m not doing that anymore. Lucia said that I have to trust the process and that’s what I’m going to do...trust the process.”
“That’s wise,” Rebel Love said.
“Trust the process?” my mother said and scoffed. “What other crazy notions did these hippy freaks put into your brain?”
“They are not hippy freaks, Tandy,” I said. “They are intuitive.”
My mother finished her beer and shook her head.
“That’s the fourth and last time, Beth,” she said.
“Beth,” Ivory-Lou said as he put his hand on my arm, “stop calling your mama by her first name.”
I looked at him and nodded.
“Fine,” I said. “But they are not hippy freaks. They craft.”
“Craft?” my mother. “If I had nothing but time and money, maybe I’d craft too. Must be nice.”
“Lucia and India always make things together. What did you ever make with us?” I said.
“I think we made things,” Rebel Love said. “Oh, we made those paper cut-outs that we hung in our room. Remember?”
“She was not there. The three of us made those on our own,” I said.
“Because she was probably at work,” my mother said and drank her beer.
“Or she was in a bar picking up some strange,” I said.
“Holy shit,” Ivory-Lou said under his breath and put his fork down.
My mother looked at me and pointed.
“That’s real nice talk, Beth, real nice! You know, I--”
“Another beer, Tandy...Mrs. Munroe?” Yolanda said and stood from the table.
“Yes, thank you,” my mother said and stared at me. “That’d be real nice.”
“See, Yolanda,” I said, “you discovered the secret to shutting her up...offer more alcohol.”
“Beth?” Ivory-Lou said and shook his head.
Yolanda handed my mother another beer and she took a sip and stared at me.
“I spent very little time in bars when you kids were young,” she said.
“Bull!” I said. “You know, India and Sahara are included in the dinner parties at the house because their parents want their kids around them.”
“Oh, that sounds nice...parents partying with kids! That I never did,” my mother said as she looked at Ivory-Lou and nodded. “My girls were always safe.”
“Different strokes,” Ivory-Lou said and sighed.
“Yeah, well Lucia hangs with a higher caliber crowd than you do, Mother,” I said.
“Let’s stop beating around the bush and get to the bone of this, Beth,” my mother said and took a sip of her beer. “Because I didn’t craft, ask your opinion and party with you, you’re saying I didn’t care? Is that right?”
“Something like that,” I said and picked at the cover of the sour cream container on the table.
“Well, maybe if I had a rich man to take care of me like Lucia, I coulda done all those things, but I didn’t. My husband died, Beth, it was not my fault. And your father--”
“Never gave a shit about you,” I said and stared at her.
“Beth?” Ivory-Lou said and kicked me under the table.
“Maybe so...can’t say, but what I can say is that everything I did, I did for you and your sisters. And, I did it by myself,” my mother said and pulled her chair in closer to the table. “Tell me, Beth, where are you hiding your rich man who’s taking care of you?”
I stared at her and shook my head.
“Thought so,” she said. “Not around, huh? Oh, well, I guess you can just live here and sponge off your sister and her boyfriend for the rest of your life, creating imaginary relationships and imaginary problems to torture everyone with. Seems to be your way.”
Rebel Love gasped and reached across the table.
“I never said sponging, Beth,” she said. “Me and Ivory-Lou love having you here. We’d have you here forever if you want. Isn’t that right, baby?”
“Yeah, right, love it...forever. Why don’t we change the subject?” Ivory-Lou said as he cut into a piece of turkey on his plate.
“I don’t have imaginary relationships, Mother. They are very real. And I will find a man who loves me and he will also be very real.”
“Everything about your life is a fantasy, Beth, and that’s a huge problem,” my mother said. “You need to get your ass out of the clouds and come back down and take a look around you.”
As she held her beer bottle to her lips and drained it, I seethed as I thought of Nicolas.
She put her empty bottle on the table and looked at Yolanda and nodded. Yolanda stood from the table.
“Do you want another--”
“Nah, Yolanda,” Ivory-Lou said. “Have a seat.”
“Since when is living like you the right way?” I said to her. “I want better and that’s considered a problem? Why is m
y ass in the clouds for that?”
My mother sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at me.
“Because you are a lazy little girl who expects everything to be handed to her because she’s pretty,” my mother said.
“No, Mama,” Rebel Love said and shook her head, “Beth does not think that way. She doesn’t even...know.”
“The hell she don’t! What was she always doing when she was little? Chasing up after you all the time...Rebel Love, put makeup on me!, Take my picture, Rebel Love! That girl,” she said and pointed at me, “had her face in the mirror 24/7.”
“That was my fault, Mama, not Beth’s,” Rebel Love said and stared at me.
“Nothing is your fault, Rebel Love,” I said and smiled.
“She’s right,” my mother said, “that’s all on her. Oh, I tried to tell her to stop looking at herself, to stop being so damn conceited. I tried to drill it into her head that no one cares what she looks like, but she’s so damn pig-headed she never listens! Shit, I couldn’t even have my boyfriends around. She’d always be flitting around like a butterfly...look at me, look at me! All she ever did. It was embarrassing.”
I looked at Ivory-Lou and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and nodded.
“Boyfriends, Mother, really?” I said and stared at her. “Who were these boyfriends? You mean your boyfriend from the electric company?”
“Beth!” Rebel Love said as she gasped.
“What?” my mother said and looked around the table and then at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“That guy who worked for the electric company! You remember, don’t you?” I said.
Rebel Love moved closer to Ivory-Lou and whispered into his ear.
“Oh, fuck,” he said as he looked at me and shook his head.
“No, no,” my mother said, “we’re all adults here. There doesn’t have to be any whispering. I have no idea what Beth’s talking about, as usual, and she’s just making up lies, as usual, to make herself feel better about her sad life.”
“You blew the guy from the electric company so he wouldn’t turn our power off!” I said as I slammed my hands on the table.
Ivory-Lou put his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes. Yolanda looked at her plate and shook her head. And Rebel Love looked like she was about to cry.
“Beth,” my mother said, “I have no earthly idea--”