by T. Greenwood
Now it made sense. Ben couldn’t imagine what had brought Ricky to his neighborhood. It was miles from campus. But it was just down the road from Shadi’s. He must have gotten lost in the blizzard, passed out in the snow. Only feet from Ben’s door. Only steps from help. From him.
“We have to tell the cops,” Ben said. “Somebody’s got to know this happened.”
Lucky tossed his cigarette down on the ground and stomped it out with his Doc Marten.
“Don’t you think Ricky deserves justice?” Ben asked.
Lucky smiled and shook his head. “You just don’t get it, do you? There ain’t no such thing as justice.”
Sara made lists. This was always how she had organized her life, and now this was how she communicated with Ben. In bullet points: hierarchical directives and enumerated edicts. Take the trash out. Call cable company. Get milk. They didn’t talk about the job at the hospital. They didn’t talk about the move to Phoenix. What Sara did was make lists. To-do lists. Grocery lists. Lists of pros and cons for the move. Lists of things they might need in Phoenix. They hung under magnets on the refrigerator. They were stuck to walls, the insides of cabinets, to the dash of the truck. The self-adhesive instructions inserted like a scavenger hunt leading nowhere.
Today he had the Christmas shopping list.
Mom—new cashmere scarf (blue)
Dad—new barbeque utensils
George—leather attaché
Melanie—gift certificate to salon (mani/pedi)
Birdy—gift certificate to salon (pedi only)
Veronica—Godiva chocolates and a pound of coffee beans (ground) from Late for the Train
Dr. Newman—Home Depot gift card ($50)
His name was not on the list.
He told her that he would take care of the shopping. That all she needed to do was wrap the gifts. She was particular, a perfectionist when it came to wrapping presents, so he knew it wouldn’t help to offer to do this too.
He went to Home Depot first, got the gift certificate and found a nice set of barbeque tools for Frank. He went to the salon next and got the gift certificates. At the mall, he found a scarf at Dillard’s and the chocolates. The only thing left was the attaché case for her brother, George, and the coffee beans. It was only noon.
He grabbed a cheeseburger to go at the food court and figured he’d drive back into town to look for a case for George. They might have something at Gene’s Western Wear. Last would be the coffee beans.
He hadn’t planned on going to the antique store, but then he drove past the shop on 66 and his heart nearly stopped. He yanked the wheel and pulled the truck into the lot. A smile spread across his face. There, outside, next to an iron bed frame and a Ms. Pac-Man machine was an old drive-in movie speaker on a stand.
The speaker looked almost as if it had grown there, an errant sunflower, a chrome weed sprouting from the dirt.
He went inside the little shop, the sleigh bells on the door jingling. He had to search through a labyrinth of junk to find the saleslady, who was crouched on the floor next to a box inside of which was a black Lab that, Ben soon realized, was in the middle of giving birth to a litter of puppies.
“Excuse me?” he said.
The woman looked up, startled. “Hi. I’m so sorry. Molly just started whelping her pups, and she’s having kind of a rough time. Would you mind putting theCLOSED sign up in the window?”
“Sure, sure,” Ben said and went back to the front of the store. He flipped theOPEN sign around toCLOSED and locked the dead bolt.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
“I’m going to need some towels. They’re in my car,” she said, handing him a large set of keys.
He went back out to the parking lot. He walked over to the speaker to see if there was a price tag. He had exactly a hundred and fifty dollars left, with which he was supposed to get everything left on the list. Sara had swiped his credit card after he told her that he wouldn’t be teaching next semester. There wasn’t a tag; he’d have to ask the woman inside. He opened up the trunk of her car, grabbed the towels, and went back into the shop.
Inside, the mother dog had pushed out the first puppy. She was clearly suffering, whimpering and moaning, ignoring the puppy that slithered and wriggled on the cardboard beneath her.
“Looks like she’s going to need some help,” the woman said and grabbed one of the towels from him. She broke the sac and started rubbing the squirming little pup. And then the next one came out.
“Holy shit,” Ben said. He’d never seen anything like it in his life.
He got down next to the woman. She handed him the blanketed bundle with the first puppy and started to repeat the procedure with the next. He rubbed the puppy, looked at its sealed eyes, marveling that this life had literally just begun before him. It wriggled in his hands, its heart beating hard against his chest.
He’d gotten Maude when she was nearly seven months old, halfway grown. She was a rescue dog, brutalized by her owner. She had welts on her belly, a bullet hole in her ear, though remarkably, she wasn’t afraid of people. She never barked, not even at other dogs. Not when people came to the door. He’d never seen her as a puppy. Not like this.
The puppies kept coming and coming, and Ben and the woman kept rubbing the life into them until the mother, at last, lay back panting. Then, as if realizing for the first time what had happened to her, she began to take care. She nudged and licked, prodded and poked each puppy into place until all of them were finally snuggled in a furry row, nursing on her swollen teats.
“This is her first litter,” the woman said. “Sometimes they don’t know what to do the first time.”
Ben watched as the puppies sucked, and the mother closed her eyes. Contented. Exhausted.
“I am so sorry,” the woman said, wiping a hand on her jeans and then reaching out to shake his. “Not very good customer service.”
“Oh no, I totally understand,” Ben said. “Wow.”
“Was there something in particular you were looking for?”
Ben stood up, his knees resisting after having sat on the floor for so long.
“Actually, yes. I was wondering if you knew where that drive-in speaker was from.”
The woman stood up as well, and stretched her back. She was wearing jeans and cowboy boots. Her hair was the color of vanilla pudding, all spun into an elaborate hive. Her chest was freckled and tan. Her eyes were a shocking blue.
“I believe it’s from the Tonto Drive-In. They tore that place down in 2002. It’s not the original stand, of course, but I’m pretty sure it still works.”
The mother dog was making noise again.
“She’s lucky they all lived. I’ve had eight mama dogs, and almost every litter has had a pup that didn’t make it. No runts this time, though.”
“You said the Tonto Drive-In? Where was that?” he asked.
“In Winslow. I never went there, but my husband, God rest his soul, grew up there. He used to talk about going there as a kid.”
Ben thought about Shadi and Ricky in the back of that pickup, staring up at the pale white screen, waiting for the movie to start. The speaker hooked to the window of the truck. Buttery popcorn, and the air growing cold as the sun went down. He thought about the crackly static of the speaker, about the old mattress in the back. About their grandfather sitting in the front of the pickup, tuning in to the right station.
“Hush, Molly,” the woman said to the dog as she whimpered in the corner. “It’s not rocket science, it’s just feeding time.”
“How much are you asking for it?” Ben asked.
“Well, I think I was asking a hundred bucks, but I can give it to you for fifty. A thank-you for helping out today,” she said. “And of course, if you find yourself in need of a puppy in about six weeks, you just come on back.”
Fifty bucks. He wondered if there was any way he could get the rest of the stuff on Sara’s list with only a hundred dollars. He tried to think if he had any tips stashed in his
drawer or in the pockets of his coat.
“You mind me asking what you’re gonna do with it?” the woman asked.
“It’s a Christmas gift,” he said. And then, just to try the words out, just to imagine for a stolen minute this glistening impossibility, he added,"It’s for my wife.”
As Ben drove past the turnoff to his neighborhood and kept going to deliver the speaker to Shadi, his phone buzzed on the passenger seat next to him. He looked down as it shook across the seat. A text message. He picked it up and clickedOK. 9-1-1. COME HOME ASAP
He did a U-turn on Fort Valley Road and pushed the accelerator. The speaker rolled across the bed of the truck. His mind raced with all of the possible scenarios. Something was wrong with Frank, a heart attack or worse. A car accident.
Maybe the house was on fire. Had he turned off the Christmas lights this morning when he left? The baby. God, no.
He thought about the mother dog, about those tiny little puppies. About how small and fragile they were. About the tiny beating hearts beneath the thin skin of their chests as he rubbed them to life.
He pulled into the driveway, grateful to see that the house was intact, and the screen door opened before he could even get out of the truck.
Sara was still in her scrubs. He glanced at his watch. It was two o’clock, too early for her to be home. But she looked okay. Nothing was wrong with her, or the baby, as far as he could tell.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Shit, don’t let anything be wrong with her folks.
Her eyes were wide and bright, and a slow smile crept across her face.
He ran up the steps to the porch. “Why are you home so early?” he asked.
“I got the job, Ben. The hospital called today. I applied for a position in Rehab, but something opened up in Oncology and they want me. I know it’s going to be tough, but I think this is what I’m meant to do, Ben. I really think I can be good at this. They want me to start right after the new year. I left work early. Please? Can we celebrate this?”
YELLOW WORLD
Ben dreamed the sunset colors of Shadi’s woven blanket: the amber, gold, and rust. The mahogany sky and golden mountains. In the dream, he was parched, walking across a barren desert spotted with cacti and shrubs. The ground scorched his feet, and the air burned his lungs. The air before him was thick and distorted, making mirages. He was lost. He was thirsty. But in the dream, he knew that if he could just find blue, he could drink. Yellow. Gold. Orange. Not a drop of blue in sight. And he knew, as his feet blistered and his chest burned, he would die of thirst.
He woke up sweating, his legs twisted and tangled in the sheets on Sara’s childhood bed. It took a minute to orient himself. Sara slept peacefully next to him. Oblivious. He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, stared at the wreckage in the mirror. His cheeks were hollow, his chin nicked with cuts from the last shaving attempt. His eyes were swollen, with dark shadows looming beneath.
It was Christmas Eve, and they were in Phoenix. It was Christmas Eve, and in less than five hours they would be the owners of a brand-new town house in a brand-new development only two blocks from Sara’s parents’ place. It was a modest home with three small bedrooms, one and a half baths, a kidney-shaped pool out back, and a sprinkler system already installed. Every house on the street was the same, only some of them flip-flopped, their architectural plans mirror images of each other.
A week before, Ben had walked through the empty shell and tried to fathom living there. Tried to imagine coming home to that white kitchen, those white walls, the white carpet.
Sara had gone to the never-used refrigerator, and leaned into the cold, clean air. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Ben?” Sara asked. “It’s so new!”
Their house in Flagstaff was a 1920s bungalow. The hot water heater didn’t work very well, the dishwasher was always on the fritz, and some of the windowsills were starting to rot. But it felt like home, like a real home. It had a smell, like ash and musk. It had a history.
“It’s so … white,” Ben said.
“We can paint, silly,” she said. “Look.” And she pulled a folder out of her purse, full of paint chips, shades of yellow and gold and peach. She pressed a chip against the wall.
“The baby’s room is up here,” she said, pulling him by the hand up the stairs and down a short hallway. She opened the door to a small bedroom with two windows and pale yellow carpeting. “Can’t you picture it?’ she asked, touching her stomach.
And he tried. God, how he tried. But there was nothing but white, a blank space where the crib and changing table and glider should be. The air conditioner whirring through the vents, and the distant sound of a lawn mower, were like a pale suburban lullaby.
Frank had offered them the down payment as a Christmas gift. He said that when the house in Flagstaff sold, they could take the equity and put it in an account for the baby. He was with them at the signing, standing at the white tiled counter in the kitchen, going over the papers with his realtor as Ben and Sara watched and waited to be asked for their signatures. Frank was dressed for golf. He planned to take Ben out for a quick nine holes after the signing while Sara and her mother prepared for Christmas dinner.
“Thank you, Frank,” Ben said, handing him the pen. “This is very generous.”
Frank smacked Ben on the back and said, “S’my pleasure.”
It was a hot day for December. Almost eighty degrees, and Ben was sweating. They were on the last hole and Ben had been playing like shit.
“Didn’t bring your ‘A’ game today, huh, Benny?” Frank asked as he parred. Ben had duck-hooked, shanked, and trapped his ball twice on number 9, which was also, unfortunately, the number he posted.
“Jesus,” Ben said, wiping his forehead with his golf towel.
“Let’s finish up and go to the clubhouse. Get ourselves a little Christmas cheer.”
It took another fifteen minutes for Ben to hole his ball, and he was relieved afterward to be in the golf cart, headed off the course and to the bar.
In the clubhouse, Frank ordered a couple of drinks for them while Ben went to use the restroom. He figured he’d check in with Sara while he was in there, make sure she and her mother were doing okay. Her brother and his wife weren’t due to arrive from Tucson until tomorrow. There were no messages from Sara, but there was a text message from an unfamiliar number. He scrolled quickly through the message:
Lucky contacted me. Took your advice, called PD. Need to talk to you. P.S. Thx for the gift.
Ben’s hands started to shake, and he shoved the phone back in his pocket.
Ben had brought the drive-in speaker to Shadi’s house the morning after Sara told him about the job in Phoenix. Luckily, she hadn’t seen it in the back of the truck. He’d hoped to find Shadi there, so that he could at least say good-bye, but she wasn’t home. He’d set the post up by the door to her trailer and slipped a note into the chrome grill: Found this treasure from the Tonto Drive-In in Winslow and couldn’t resist. There were a thousand other things he wanted to say, but he knew it would only make it worse, and so he just wrote, Merry Christmas. —Ben. As he drove away, he looked at the speaker in the rearview mirror and knew that this would be, had to be, the last time he drove away. He was going to be a father. A husband. He would not fuck this up. He would not ruin any more lives.
Now, in the cold, clean restroom of the country club, he felt a rush of heat through his body and he started to sweat. He used the restroom and then pulled his phone out and looked at the message again. If she contacted the police, then the investigation might be reopened. If this were the case, the police would probably want to talk to him. He couldn’t believe that Lucky had sought out Shadi. Ben smiled at the thought that his conversation with him had made any sort of impact. Maybe this meant he was ready to talk to the cops about what happened that night. If he did, it could mean they might catch that asshole Fitch and put him away for what he and his buddies did to Ricky.
Tomorrow was Christmas. He an
d Sara weren’t moving their stuff out of the house in Flag until New Year’s Eve. In the meantime, he was supposed to get started with Frank at the new shop. Sara was starting her job at Children’s right after the new year. Their new life was supposed to begin. Right now.
He looked at the message again, and thought about Shadi’s fingers tapping out the words. About the way her fingers had traced the line of his jaw, the trail from throat to chest to belly button and lower. He thought about her fingers intertwined with his and neither of them wanting to let go.
He glanced around the empty restroom and looked back at his phone. And then he hitREPLY and wrote: In PHX for X-mas, will be back ASAP. Promise.
When he got back to the bar, Frank was slapping some guy on the back.
“Ben!” he said loudly. “I want you to meet somebody.”
The guy, who looked like an aging Ken doll in a yellow golf shirt and duck pants, thrust out his hand and shook Ben’s firmly.
“This is my future son-in-law,” Frank said. Proudly, Ben thought. “And this is the future governor of Arizona.”
“Ah, Frank, don’t get ahead of yourself,” the guy said. “I haven’t even officially announced that I’m running yet.”
“Mister Modesty,” Frank said, shaking his head. “He’s been like this since college. How about some ice cream with that humble pie?”
The guy laughed heartily.
“Ben Bailey.” Frank smiled. “Marty Bello.”
Ben’s mind was racing.
Sara went to bed right after Christmas Eve dinner, and not long afterward, Frank and Jeanine excused themselves as well.
“Get some sleep so Santa can come,” Jeanine said. She’d been hitting the eggnog pretty hard and her words were slippery.
“Mind if I take a swim?” he asked. He needed a few minutes to be alone, to think things through.
“Enjoy,” Frank said. “And the Christmas lights are on a timer, so you just need to turn out the overheads.”