Surviving Valencia

by Holly Tierney-Bedord

  The way Adrian loves my crazy dishes makes me feel like part of a real couple, instead of just one of the accessories in his life. Lately I often feel removed from him and our life, and somehow even myself. But remembering things like this brings me back. Calms me down. Gives me some proof that what we have is strong and real. Reassures me that I have something unique to give him, and that he truly wants it.

  When we got engaged we registered for lovely square white china, and received every single piece down to the oblong gravy boat. We have barely used any of it. Thanks to Adrian’s coaching, our guests insist on the monkey plates.

  Chapter 41

  So here were Jeb and I, seated at the Golden Dragon again. I ordered a whole meal and some potstickers to make up for being a cheapskate the other times.

  “I need some more money,” said Jeb.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Another fifteen hundred.”

  “I don’t have fifteen hundred dollars with me today, obviously.”

  “No, I know you’re good for it, I’m just setting you straight on where I’m at. I’ve got some good news: I got a guy who was arrested in Minneapolis in 1989 for raping women. He liked to put duct tape over their mouths, and he wrapped their hands up like your sister’s looked. He just got out about six months back or so and he looks like a good bet. But I need to do some more research. Got to get something with his writing on it for one thing. Follow him around a little. So fifteen hundred should cover the trip to Minneapolis, and I’m going to need that soon, and then I’ll let you know where we’re at after that.”

  Fifteen hundred dollars to go to Minneapolis and track down a murdering rapist, including meals and hotels? Seemed fair to me.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Mind if I have a couple of those, if you aren’t going to eat them?” asked Jeb, nodding to the plate between us.

  “Go ahead.”

  I rummaged in my purse for a pen. As I was about to give up I saw a small velvet case poking out from a tear in the lining and I discovered a really nice fountain pen Adrian had given me a year or two earlier. I thought I had lost it, and finding it again gave me a small rush similar to buying something new. I removed it from its case and briefly admired the delicate engraved scrolls on it.

  $1500 Jeb I wrote on the back of a receipt I found in my purse. After all this time the pen still wrote perfectly. I admired my handwriting, which is practically calligraphic.

  Psychic I wrote beneath it.

  Jeb was dipping my potstickers in a dish of hot mustard. I waited silently while he chewed on them.

  Through the dirty window by our table I watched our waitress walking in circles in the parking lot, smoking and talking on her phone. I had a sick, fleeting feeling that perhaps I was enjoying this experience. That the real me, that insecure weirdo buried deep inside, might be living vicariously through the fancy woman with the fancy pen.

  “What are you shaking your head about?” asked Jeb.

  “I wasn’t shaking my head. How should I get the money to you?” I asked.

  “Well, I got some work to do this afternoon. Meet me back here at seven tonight in the parking lot. And be careful. The guy who killed your sister knows where you live and is playing games with you. Think about that.”

  “So, you don’t think my husband is involved in this in any way, right?”

  “It wouldn’t make no sense to me if he was. Now take care of yourself, I gotta go.”

  “Okay, thanks Jeb. See you later.”

  He left but I stayed a little longer, sipping tea by myself, feeling invisible in the tall booth. There was something really unnerving about a private investigator warning you that a murderer was after you. Those Minneapolis postmarks had given me a false sense of security.

  I finished my pot of tea and pulled some cash from my wallet. It occurred to me that Adrian could be in danger even in that moment as I sat there. He was most likely back from the dog training class, sitting at home in his studio painting with the music so loud he wouldn’t even hear anyone approaching. Frisky would be barricaded on the back porch and the cast iron fence going halfway around our yard (the workmen had run out of materials and could not finish it for a week) would provide little protection.

  I paid my bill at the cash register and returned home to find Adrian outside teaching Frisky to sit, using tiny sausage snacks for a reward.

  “How was class?” I asked, surveying our surroundings for anyone who seemed out of place.

  “Good,” he said. “The instructor thinks Frisky will make a good dog someday, with a little work.” On cue, Frisky growled at me and showed his long, white teeth. Adrian immediately squirted him with the garden hose and Frisky slinked away, whimpering.

  “We learned that in class,” said Adrian. “Just give him a squirt.”

  “That’s not abuse?”

  “I guess not.” Adrian sniffed. “Have you been eating Chinese food?”

  “Yeah. It just… you know. Sounded good.”

  “Huh. Okay. Well, I’m feeling creative so I’m going to get some work done. I’ll be in my studio if you need me.”

  I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I called the fence people and yelled at them a little for their false guarantee of a three day fence. They offered to give us a hundred pounds of mulch to make it up to us, which I accepted. Then I flipped through the yellow pages, looking at ads for psychics, talking myself more and more into this being the answer. Convinced, I got back in my car and drove to the bank to withdraw more money for Jeb, and an extra five hundred, since I had no idea how much it may cost to have my fortune told.

  I had plenty of time to kill before seven o’clock. I drove across town until I found Zemma’s House, a purple shack with gold shutters. It looked like something out of a Harry Potter book. I parked in front, and turned off the car, fully intending to walk right on up there and ring the bell. I was surprised at how nervous I felt. I was aware that I still smelled like food, and I felt self-conscious. Would I receive an accurate fortunetelling if all the psychic could think of was crab rangoon? I fiddled with the rickrack hem on my dress, wishing I had my cigarettes with me.

  The curtain on the front door moved a little and I panicked. I started the car and drove off, taking the first right turn that presented itself, just to get out of Zemma’s line of vision. The houses were getting shabbier and shabbier.

  “Are you going to do this or not?” I asked myself, aloud.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

  I got a little lost and the next thing I knew, I was driving past the little purple house again. A small, pale woman with white hair in a scraggly bun sat on a yellow metal chair beside her front door. She watched me go past, her eyes squinting at me accusingly. I hit the brake, but I thought better of it and went to the library instead.

  This seemed like a better plan. Safer. Brighter. More devoted to the factual.

  I got out of my car and went inside, sitting down at a computer carrel. From the plastic cup beside the computer, I took a scrap of paper and a little pencil that looked like it was for miniature golf. I began compiling a list of the things Jeb had told me about the potential murderer:

  From Minneapolis.

  Jailed for rape in 1989.

  Recently released from prison. 6 months ago?

  Without knowing the man’s name, the information I plugged into the computer did not get me very far. Eventually I got bored and went out to do some shopping. I figured it was necessary to come home with some new things, considering I had withdrawn two thousand dollars and been gone all day.

  I bought a couple things for Adrian as well, and then got an iced mocha for myself. As I sipped it, I wondered if I was being followed. It was still very strange to me that I had been before, and had never suspected a thing. I touched up my lipstick and pulled my hair back into a twisty bun, feeling alert and alive. I tried to catch someone darting about in my peripheral vision, but if I was being followed, my stalker was very dis
creet.

  Finally it was time to meet Jeb. I made unnecessary turns on my way to the Golden Dragon, trying to catch a potential tailgater, but again, I seemed to be alone and unmonitored. Jeb was standing outside the restaurant. He nodded to me when I pulled in and walked up to my window. I passed him the envelope.

  “Jeb, what’s the name of the man?”

  He took a quick look inside the envelope, and then he slid it inside his wallet. He did not answer me.

  “Hey,” I said, “this is what I’m paying you for!”

  “His name is John Spade, but until I can say otherwise, he’s a man who served his time, might not be the one who did this. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “I’m not going to do anything, but I have the right to know,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. But that’s the man I’m going to see. I’ll be up there as long as it takes for me to find what I’m looking for. Probably leave the day after tomorrow and I’ll follow up with you when I get back. Now you take good care.”

  “I will. You too.” I will admit, I felt ashamed that for the cost of a birthday gift or a weekend in Atlanta, he was going to risk his life for me.

  The next morning, bright and early, the fence men showed up. The rest of the materials had miraculously been located, and by evening our house and yard were a bastion of security. Adrian had worked all day finishing a small project for a client, and now that the painting was completed, he was relaxed and content with himself.

  We lounged on the porch, sipping minty iced tea and admiring our fortress. Frisky patrolled the grounds, snarling as gaping, nosy neighbors walked past to get a look. A feeling of peace like I hadn’t known for weeks, months even, had come over me. Each cast iron post was sharpened to a dagger-like point. The creaking gates were operated by a remote control that Adrian was busy examining. If that were not enough, Frisky’s enormous chompers had a never-ending stream of elastic drool hanging from them, making them both conventionally frightening and grody-scary. When he poked his nose through the rails, globs of saliva were left behind as a menacing reminder that there was nothing worth stopping for here, so move along.

  He seemed to be warming up to me, since I’d spent most of the day feeding him lunch meat and Slim Jims while Adrian had been holed up in his studio. As the sun began to set, Frisky plunked down by our feet, his tongue hanging out, and Adrian wrapped his arm around me.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you too.”

  Adrian is the only person, in my entire life, who has said that to me.

  Chapter 42

  I’m pregnant.

  Pregnant!

  I can’t say it enough.

  I. Am. Pregnant.

  With so much on my mind, I was two weeks late before I even realized it.

  I briefly considered not telling Adrian that I was late, letting the news be mine alone for a little while, but I couldn’t do it.

  I had slept until almost eleven o’clock after many, many weeks of waking up at five or six in the morning. When I finally awoke, stretching out on our new bamboo sheets (what a luxury!) and looking out the window at the tall, black fence, I felt great. Like the old me from before all the trouble had begun. I was lying there, feeling lazy and content, when it occurred to me how much time had passed since I’d last been bothered by my period. And then I just knew.

  Adrian was cleaning up his studio. I walked in announcing, “I’m late. Really late. Let’s get a pregnancy test!”

  “Do you feel pregnant?” he asked as we drove to the store.

  “I don’t know. I dreamed like crazy last night. Does that sound like I’m pregnant?”

  “What did you dream about?”

  “I can’t remember. Ice cream? Cheese?”

  “Sounds like you’re pregnant to me.” He squeezed my knee, beaming.

  “Honestly, I’m sure I am. I’m never late.”

  “How late are you?”

  “Adrian,” I pouted, “don’t you keep track of my period?”

  We both started laughing, and then we looked at each other and laughed some more, almost causing a car accident. Right then and there, for the first time in a very long time, nothing mattered but us.

  I went in to the drugstore alone, since no matter how famous Adrian gets, I seem to be staying under the radar. Ever since what we were now calling the Bob Chance Encounter, Adrian was convinced that he was even more famous than he’d previously thought. He now assumed the paparazzi and his fans were everywhere. He also thought that the day when I was photographed had been an overflow of the energy normally directed at him. In fact, everything that was happening to us, he attributed to his crazed fans. He truly believed he was Savannah’s Picasso. Or Brad Pitt.

  “If I go in there someone might leak the information that we’re expecting a baby,” he explained, turning on the radio and reclining his seat.

  “Fine,” I said, too excited to argue. I could not wait to do it at home, so I ran into the drugstore’s bathroom and peed on the little stick. Immediately, two faint lines appeared.

  No way. Despite my confidence in the car, I could not believe it.

  It was a two-pack of tests, so I ripped the spare open and forced a few more drops of pee on that one’s stick, and set it beside the other test. I watched as the first test’s pink lines progressed to magenta, and the second test’s pair of lines faintly came into focus.

  I felt an almost physical reaction, as if I were being pressed to the ground by a wave of hot, hot air from above. Becoming pregnant seemed like something that only happened to other people. Could both tests be wrong? I sat down on the edge of the toilet seat and reread the back of the box. It showed one line for not pregnant and two for pregnant. A fainter second line may still indicate that you are pregnant said the writing on the box. Both tests I had taken each had clear, bold lines. So there really wasn’t any doubt about it.

  I stood back up and pressed my forehead against the smooth, cool partition wall. Normally I would have been way too concerned about germs to get so cozy with a public restroom, but in that moment I didn’t even think about the germs.

  There’s nothing like finding out you’re pregnant to make you take an honest look at your life. Standing there in a bathroom stall, realizing you have another life growing inside you, knowing that someone killed your sister and might intend to kill you… It makes you think you can and should run away.

  Didn’t I owe this baby, if not myself, the truth? Adrian’s and my world did not resemble the charmed, sophisticated existence that local magazines portrayed. There was a little more going on than a new fence and puppy, despite what the neighbors thought. Who was I living this charade for? It’s not as if I had many friends. They were Adrian’s friends, not mine.

  “Who are you doing this for?” I whispered. The bathroom was silent, save for the slow, steady drip of the faucet.

  For a moment I entertained the thought of selling oranges from a van, from an Airstream. Just the baby and me. We’d wear clothes I sewed from old feed sacks and live an honest life. I’d change our names then change them again, just to be safe.

  That’s what I would like to do. That’s what would feel like the truth.

  But then again, I reasoned, if there was ever a time I needed Adrian, it was now.

  I stood there, frozen, knowing he was waiting to hear my answer. If I took off, slipped through a side door of the drugstore and ran away, how long would it take for him to come inside looking for me? What would I do? I had a debit card in my wallet. I could withdraw a bunch of money, and then what?

  Stop it.

  You’re being ridiculous.

  I let myself out of the stall, holding both tests in my hand. I set them on the edge of the sink, washed my hands, splashed water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to see if I looked different now. But I looked the same as always. I smiled and cleared my throat. Touched up my lip-gloss for good measure.

  Seriously, yo
u could do it. You could disappear. Sometimes you forget that it is all up to you. The reflection of me nodded solemnly, the eyes wavering between inspiration and defeat. I looked away, preferring the sturdy absoluteness of sinks, soap dispensers, white tile walls, over that wavering woman in the mirror.

  I wrapped the tests neatly in a paper towel and put them in my purse. I drew in a deep breath, held it, exhaled.

  Okay. Let’s do this.

  Then I ran back to the car and thrust the pregnancy tests at Adrian, exuding confidence and joy. And the funny part is, it wasn’t really a lie.

  Chapter 43

  It was summer vacation, 1989. Since I no longer had a bicycle, I needed to find a job I could walk to, and a way to afford some new clothes for high school. When she wasn’t lying on her bed, suffering from migraines and watching talk shows, my mother was still working at the dentist office. But I hated to be at home, even if I was the only one there. I hated the twins’ transformed, empty rooms. I hated the loud ticking clock, my out-of-date wardrobe, the way nothing was ever fresh or new. We were using watered down discount shampoo and were frequently out of groceries. And I could never relax; I knew that at any moment either of my parents could unexpectedly come home from work and there we would be, stuck together. Then I would inevitably get grounded. Everything set them off. A dish in the sink, a blemish on my face, or a dropped piece of mail that wasn’t even ours blowing across the yard. Just being there practically gave me an ulcer.

  Having had the brief experience of caring for Kennedy the previous summer, I decided to become a high class babysitter extraordinaire. I was inspired by The Baby-sitters Club books, as well as Valencia’s old three ring binder I’d found on a shelf in the TV room downstairs. The cover of the binder was a rich coral pink, which was Valencia’s favorite color, favorite organic substance, favorite girl’s name, favorite everything, and it said 1982 Babysitter’s Guidebook. It had a gold badge sticker proclaiming I passed my childcare test with flying colors! On the back cover she had written I love Rob McCray forever and Remember: In case of swallowing poison, make babies drink some milk. Inside were tabs dividing the binder into all sorts of informative sections. I quickly learned how to perform CPR, heat up a bottle, and seek cover from an earthquake. This fabulous guide, somehow missed by my mother in her eradicating sweeps, elevated babysitting from lowly after-school job to respectable career. I flipped through it, excited. If Valencia could do it, with flying colors no less, so could I.