Lost in the Beehive

by Michele Young-Stone

  “I love you too.”

  Everyone was seated when Poppy arrived. She kissed my cheek and apologized for being late. Then, she fixed a plate and found a seat beside Big Mama. My parents were discussing our plans for the next day. Betty was telling Early Bird that she used buttermilk in the chocolate-cake recipe. I heard Poppy whisper to Big Mama, “Millie who works at the Woolworth’s saw Jacob’s truck at Darlene’s house yesterday.”

  Big Mama smiled at me before saying, “Gloria’s not deaf, Poppy.” To me, she said, “Don’t pay attention to hearsay.”

  My father’s attention had turned to Early Bird and my mother was talking to Jacob. All I wanted to do was get Betty alone and explain, I’m not sure how I got here. I don’t think this is how my life is supposed to be, but I stirred the coleslaw on my plate, stabbed at my steak, and smiled at Big Mama. “Just gossip,” I said. I’d feed my steak to Oscar later. The thing is, if you get very depressed about something, it’s hard as hell to swallow.

  25

  IT WAS A SUNNY SPRING day. Betty and I and were driving east toward Greeley after a day of shopping in Raleigh when I told Betty what Poppy had overheard. “His truck was at Darlene’s house.”

  “I know where Darlene lives,” she said.

  “He’d never cheat on me.”

  “Do you want to drive by there?”

  “I don’t know.” I felt sick to my stomach. I hadn’t even been married a year. Why would Jacob be with his ex? Why did I care? I reasoned that it was because I was trying hard to do this American-dream thing, to get it right.

  Betty drove into Greeley, taking a left on Wistar Lane. She pointed out Darlene’s house. “It’s up there, that cinder block one.” Betty slowed down. “Oh, shit,” she said.

  Jacob’s truck was in plain view. “Oh, shit,” I echoed.

  Betty drove to the end of the street, slowing down, and pulling the parking brake. “What do you want to do, Gloria?”

  “I don’t know. What should I do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I could knock on the door.”

  “You could,” Betty said.

  “But I don’t think I want to do that.”

  “I don’t think I would either.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Shit,” she repeated. “This looks bad.”

  “Let’s just get out of here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What are you going to do?” We drove toward my house.

  “I’m not going to assume the worst. I’m just going to ask him. I’m sure there’s some reasonable explanation.”

  “I bet you’re right.”

  When Betty dropped me off, she said, “Good luck.”

  Inside, I changed into the new blue sundress she’d bought me in Raleigh. It was sleeveless, fitted at the top with a full bottom that flared when I spun. Betty had also given me a couple bottles of red wine from her restaurant. “They’re not selling,” she’d said. I was twirling in the kitchen in my new dress when Jacob pulled into the driveway at six o’clock. When he came in through the kitchen door, I said, “How was your day?” Were you at Darlene’s house?

  “Not bad. How was yours?” He opened the refrigerator, looking for a beer. There was one left. “I thought you were going to the grocery store.”

  “No. I went clothes shopping in Raleigh with Betty.”

  “I don’t have any beer.”

  “There’s some red wine on the counter.”

  “I don’t drink wine.” He pulled the chair out from under the table, swung it around, and straddled it. “What’s for dinner?”

  “You drank Chianti with me in Maryville.”

  “That was different. What’s for dinner?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know. Why am I in charge?”

  “Are you serious, Gloria? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  “No.”

  “Then, you should’ve planned something for dinner.”

  I went into the pantry. “I can make spaghetti.”

  “I’m sick of spaghetti.”

  I looked to the corner. Through the crevice, I could see the bees circling their hive. I looked back at Jacob sitting at the table. “I saw your truck at Darlene’s house.”

  “What did you say?”

  I stepped out of the pantry, my hands behind my back, like I was a kid awaiting a parental verdict. “I saw your truck at Darlene’s house.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Betty and I passed by her house after we went shopping.”

  He got up, and the chair fell over. “What were you doing on Darlene’s street?” His jaw was clenched.

  “Poppy saw your truck there.” I swallowed, then squeezed my bottom lip.

  “Are you spying on me?”

  “So, you were there?”

  “No. I wasn’t there.”

  “Your truck was there.”

  “Early Bird borrowed my truck.”

  “Why?” I put my hands on my hips.

  “Something is seriously wrong with you. You’re touched in the head. Mental!” With his left hand, he shoved me. Then, he turned, picking up the chair where he’d just sat, throwing it at the cabinets. I covered my ears. One of the legs splintered in two. I backed up, flattened myself against the refrigerator. He passed by, his hands in fists, slamming the door shut as he left. I heard the truck engine start. Oscar came bounding down the stairs.

  An hour later, Early Bird was at the kitchen door.

  “Hey, Gloria. Can I come in?”

  I opened up.

  “Listen, Jacob phoned me about a half hour ago. I came over to tell you that he wasn’t at Darlene’s. He let me borrow his truck because I’m helping her move. My truck bed is all greasy, so we’ve been swapping sometimes.”

  “Where is she moving?”

  “Washington City.”

  Early Bird checked the refrigerator for a beer and sat down empty-handed. “He said that you were spying on him and that you don’t trust him … Maybe you didn’t give him a chance to explain. I don’t know. I’m no mind reader.”

  “I don’t know either.” I poured a glass of wine and sat at the table. Pieces of the broken chair littered the floor.

  “He’s got a temper,” Early Bird said, “but he loves you.”

  I nodded.

  “And he don’t love Darlene.”

  “Why are you helping her?” I asked.

  “She’s nice enough. She asked.” Early Bird shrugged.

  “Do you want a glass of wine?”

  “I best skedaddle.”

  I wondered if Jacob was coming home. I stayed up until the late-night news went off, and then I went upstairs to bed. I was a real shit wife, and I knew it. Maybe deep down, I wanted to think he was cheating. It would give me a reason to leave.

  The next morning, I woke at six as Jacob was just getting out of bed, pulling on his jeans. “What time did you come home?”

  “Late.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “for thinking you were with Darlene.”

  He shook his head disappointedly. “I thought you knew me.”

  “I do.”

  “No, you don’t.” He pulled a T-shirt over his head. “I’m sorry I pushed you, but you shouldn’t have brought up Darlene. I was upset. I told you to leave her and me and all of that alone. It’s past history. I don’t care about her.”

  “I won’t bring her up again.”

  One afternoon, I went to the shed for a trowel. I was going to weed the garden. The honeybees trailed, flying through the doorway, swarming the ceiling. I grabbed the gardening gloves and looked up. More came. And more. There were thousands of them. I was astonished. “Is Sheff with you?” I asked, expecting an answer, as odd as that sounds. I watched and waited. They gathered in a T-shaped mass that framed the rafters, and I got down on my knees. Then, down on my back, the gardening gloves still in hand, I waited for them to say something. Rather, they came together, a gold-
and-amber disco ball, bees zipping out from the spinning center, then descending, not falling, but aiming, a thousand bullets, on my skin. They were going to kill me maybe, finish what they started when I was seven, but then I felt their tiny fuzzy legs on my skin. My limbs vibrating with theirs. I slipped off my sneakers as the bees crowded onto my face and neck. I was not afraid. We hummed together. Their legs were sticky on my eyelids. Ascending. Defying gravity. They felt like salvation. The sound had walls, tissue thin, and deep inside the cell, I saw Sheff shooting his arm into the air, a rocket, the bees flying out. We had our whole lives ahead of us. He straddled my red suitcase at the New York Public Library. I shot my arm into the air. Then, saw that it was golden with bees. I heard a man’s voice, Jacob calling my name. The bees rose like sunlit dust.

  Jacob’s dark boots were by my face. “What the hell are you doing on the floor?”

  I squeezed the gardening gloves in my hand and sat up.

  “Are you all right? Did you fall?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “I’m seriously worried about you.”

  Maybe I wasn’t all right. That was a possibility. I looked at my arms, at where the bees had been. I looked to the ceiling. They weren’t there. I sat up. “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “I was getting a trowel.” I showed him the gloves as though that helped explain why I’d been lying on the floor of the shed.

  As Jacob pulled me to my feet, I looked once more for the bees. There was no sign of them. Had I imagined them? I felt caught between two worlds, one where I was special, some magical beekeeper, and another where I did what I was told. I kept the house neat, made dinner, spread my thighs as wide as they would go. I was a trapeze artist walking a tightrope. On one side just beneath me bubbled the oblivion of living like this forever, this angry man never letting me forget that I was always wrong. I wasn’t sure exactly when it started, when it became clear that I was no longer in control of my life, that everything, including my own happiness, depended on Jacob’s happiness. One day, it just was. I think that the seeds were planted early on. Maybe I should’ve known that something was seriously amiss when he said that no professor could teach him anything. Maybe I should’ve known when he was rude to Cora’s doctor. Maybe I was so caught up with the idea of marriage and normalcy that I lost the ability to distinguish between cruelty and kindness. All I knew for sure was that two years into our marriage, I was sorry every day for everything. I could do nothing right. I said the wrong thing, looked at him the wrong way.

  Because I was always wrong, he shoved me. It was my fault. I shouldn’t infuriate him so. Then, he put his hand to my throat because I wouldn’t shut up. I said the wrong thing again. He said, “If you really love me, you’ll stop pushing my buttons.”

  I tried, and I failed. When I fought back, he laughed. Later, he cried, “Why do you make me act this way? All I want to do is love you.” And some part of me believed him. Maybe I’d heard him tell me too many times that I was to blame, or maybe it was easier to believe him than fight back. And there were no bruises, not on the outside, and I was too embarrassed to tell anyone.

  Either way, two years in, I had mastered walking on eggshells. I listened for agitation in his voice, for sarcasm. I said whatever I thought Jacob wanted to hear. I agreed with everything he said, backtracked and apologized if I upset him. I accepted responsibility for his anger, found good hiding spots, the shed and sometimes the pantry. I thought about leaving him, but my life, the eggshells, took on a surprising normalcy, and the more time that passed, the easier it was to keep doing what I was doing, to pretend to be someone I wasn’t, to tolerate behavior that Jacob argued “is perfectly normal. A man loses his temper. Just because your father’s a pansy doesn’t mean every man is.”

  But then, holding my balancing stick, my feet wobbly on the tightrope, was the other side: the soft sweet side where Betty and the bees gathered. In that spot, there was cool water and sunlight, and I could be myself. Only I didn’t think I deserved that—happiness. I was confused. I teetered.

  In the summer of 1973, Jacob and Early Bird built a workshop on our land. They constructed the building out of two-by-fours and aluminum siding. Jacob’s salvage business had developed into a furniture repair, refinishing, and restoration operation. He and Early Bird scoured antique malls, estate sales, thrift stores, and flea markets for battered antique pieces to repair and sell for a profit. Early Bird did most of the hardware repair, while Jacob did the sanding and ding repair. I worked eight to ten hours a day with the stains and lacquers, so I saw less of Betty. She was the other reason I hadn’t run home to Maryville. I liked being around her. I never told her about Jacob’s tantrums. That’s what I called them, “tantrums.” It was just another secret to keep.

  In July, Betty telephoned while I was in the kitchen getting a glass of water. She said, “Tell Jacob that you’re taking the day off. Even God took a day off. We need some girl time. And wear your bathing suit. We’re going to have some fun.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I was excited.

  I went upstairs. Jacob was shaving. “Hey, can I take the day off?”

  “What for?”

  “Betty and I are going to do something fun.”

  “Are you shopping again?”

  “No. It sounds like we’re going swimming.”

  “You know I don’t like her,” he said. “What time will you be home?”

  “Before dark.”

  “Don’t be late.” As I headed to the bedroom for my bathing suit, Jacob said, “I love you.” He was being nice. I never knew which Jacob I’d encounter. I turned to see him in the doorway. “You didn’t say, ‘I love you too.’ ”

  “I love you too. I’m going to get dressed.”

  “I’m just making sure you love me.”

  I waited for him to go back to the bathroom. Then, I put on my only swimsuit, a black-and-white-striped one-piece that was saggy in the rear. It reminded me of my childhood, how Sparky’s sisters had made fun of me at the pool. I smiled before heading downstairs to pack sandwiches. Then, I saw Betty’s convertible through the kitchen window. I called to Jacob, “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  “If I’m here.”

  He wanted me to stop, turn around, and rethink my decision. I was supposed to ask, Where are you going? but I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I ran outside carrying an old bread bag filled with peanut-butter-and-jellies.

  Betty had a fancy wicker picnic basket in the back seat. “I thought of lunch,” she said.

  “Me too.” I got into the front seat. I was excited. It’d been another long, hot dull summer.

  Betty said, “I like your sunglasses.”

  “Thanks. Early Bird spotted them at some thrift store and thought they’d suit me.”

  “They really do. So did Jacob give you any shit about taking the day off?”

  “Nope. None.”

  Betty glanced at my hands. “Your fingernails are black, Gloria.”

  “Well, the stain doesn’t come out, you know. I can’t do anything about it. They’re not dirty.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  I slipped them under my thighs. “Where are we going?”

  “To one of my favorite places, a place I used to go with my mom.”

  “I feel special.”

  “You are.” I hadn’t seen Betty since May. I’d been busy staining furniture, and she’d been busy at the restaurant. Every Saturday afternoon, she went to Durham. She didn’t come back until Monday night or Tuesday morning. I knew, because I’d tried to call her on quite a few Sundays, when I felt low and lonely, when I wanted to tell someone that I was unhappy.

  As we were driving, she said, “I’m not going to Durham for a while.”

  “How come? Is the restaurant too busy?” This was good news.

  “No. It’s not that.”

  “What is it?”

  From the passenger seat, I could see that Betty was upset. She swallowed hard, then clicked her tongue against
the roof of her mouth. “I was actually dating someone. Her name was Susie. We went to Chapel Hill together. We were just friends, but then last year, we started dating.” I now understood why Betty wasn’t married. I also wished that I wasn’t married.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “She met someone else. At least that’s what she said, but I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think she’s telling the truth.”

  “I’m sorry.” There was nothing else to say.

  “I hope it doesn’t freak you out that I’m a lesbian.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Of course not.” But I was freaked out. She was like me. Beautiful, sweet Betty was like me. It was bittersweet for obvious reasons.

  As we drove farther from Greeley, the flatland turned woody. There were hills. The road curved. We neared a thicket of briars, and Betty said, “This is Wampus Creek.” She parked the car and grabbed the picnic basket. She wore a red-and-white gingham dress and red flip-flops. Her hair was in pigtails. There was a state park sign and beyond it a wooded trail. I followed Betty down the path.

  I said, “You still have other friends in Durham though, right?”

  “I do,” she said, “but it’s weird. They only just found out that Susie and I were more than friends, and now that we’ve split up, I don’t know how it’s going to be. I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to take a side. It didn’t end well. Susie and I aren’t speaking.”

  “Even if I knew Susie, I’d take your side.”

  She said, “You’re so sweet, Gloria,” which made me smile.

  The path ended at a creek. Betty said, “I know it looks shallow, but right out there in the middle”—she pointed—“it’s about five feet deep. And you see that rock?”