“This isn’t exactly what it looks like, even though it’s bad,” Chuck said.
Derek Head spewed some more and flushed. “Quit flushing, it’s gonna back up,” I yelled. “You, Chuck, have children sleeping upstairs.”
“They sleep like the dead,” he barely said.
“And no money for you,” I said to Constance Poblanski, corrupted babysitter. I jerked her into the hall.
Chuck slid into his pants. “No, wait,” he said, reaching for his wallet. He handed her a ten.
“You must never, ever speak of this.” I grabbed her wrist. “Never. Understand?”
“I’m not an idiot,” she said.
“Yes, you are.”
“I am,” Chuck said, looking beat and sick. There was more heaving, a wretched noise, and more flushing and finally a watery froth spilled under the door.
“Quit the fucking flushing, you moron,” I said.
“I want this bra,” Constance said, reaching into Frankie’s laundry basket.
“Like hell!” I said.
She turned to me. “I’m not going to say anything.” And she grabbed her see-through purse and walked out into the night.
“Chuck, Chuck,” I wailed. “You dog!”
“Look, Fiona, my ride drops me off. I come in and find her parading around our bedroom in Frankie’s bra. ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she tells me. She takes it off right in front of me.” Chuck looked at me with drowning eyes. “We didn’t do it,” he whispered. “I wanted to see if I could…”
“Chuck?” I sang.
“Frankie’s so hard…” He looked like he might cry.
Derek Head swung open the bathroom door, “Fine Fiona, I am in trouble.” He was dabbled with puke.
“Good grief!” Chuck said.
I ran outside and caught up with Constance, who was headed for the Anderson house, where presumably Laura Rossi was babysitting. I reached into my pocketbook and took a handful of that disability money and thrust it at her. “Make it so you go to the Andersons’ from now on and Laura comes here. Can you do that?” She brushed the money away. I pressed it into her hand.
“All right,” she said in a little-girl voice. But I couldn’t protect my sister. Frankie was in for a fall. There wasn’t anything for me to do. Frankie needed to change and accept her life; it was a good life. I walked away, feeling sober and strangely calm.
Inside, Chuck had coffee going and had set the kids’ throw-up bowl next to Derek Head. Derek was cleaned up—except for his wet sludgy knees—and sitting at the table with his head in his hands. Chuck was telling Derek Head to drink lots of water and do a shot of Nyquil before bed. I’d never not told Frankie anything. But I wouldn’t turn in Chuck. How strange it would feel to hold such a big secret.
Several cups of coffee later, Chuck gave me his keys and I drove Derek Head to the Chowder Pot, where he lay down on his couch. I fished in his pocket for the key and took out his blanket and pillow and tucked him in. “Give me a kiss, Fioner,” he slurred. The smell wasn’t good, and I patted his shoulder.
I sat there for a moment, watching Lord and Lady Anderson rise to leave. The dark, smoky room had pretty much cleared out and was littered with empty glasses, dirty plates, and butt marks on the soft couches. The Andersons looked tired and a bit disheveled, and they walked in single file toward the exit. Regular folks. I felt sticky and forlorn.
“Derek,” I whispered, suddenly. I didn’t quite believe what I was seeing. “Open your eyes. Isn’t that the thief from Wawa? On the love seat?”
Derek opened his sleepy eyes and yawned pukey air at me. He nodded and then snuggled up on his pillow, licking his lips.
I called Chuck from a pay phone downstairs, and while I was filling him in, the thief walked down the stairs and right past me. I told Chuck the guy was leaving, and Chuck said he’d have someone at the Chowder Pot lickety-split. “Trust me, Fiona,” he said. I did.
I sat at the bar and took out one of my crisp disability fifties and ordered a Bailey’s Irish Cream. I wasn’t exactly happy—and it was certainly true that everything was a mess—but even still, sitting there in the bar I felt a kind of thaw happening, as if shoots were pushing through the cool ground, little green tendrils, insistent and inevitable.
I had to go back to Manhattan—back to my third-floor walk-up on Cherry Lane and back to member services at Wildlife of America. I would keep some of my old friends—the friends who’d checked in on me, the friend who’d mailed me a postcard on which he had given the Statue of Liberty a pair of binoculars and written, “See you soon?” I’d let Mr. Snodgrass fix me up with his veterinarian nephew. I was beginning to long for the city with all its noise and hazards and surprises.
Two squad cars sat outside the Chowder Pot, flashing their red lights. The thief—in handcuffs—was pushed into the backseat of one of the cars while Lord and Lady Anderson stood in the headlights, the red siren lights whirling across their faces. The smell of pot hung in the air. “They were only smoking a joint, for godsakes,” a waitress said to me. Our noble Lord and Lady liked to smoke weed! I couldn’t help but smile, though I felt badly, too; they looked so damn mortified standing there with the cops. It was hard to imagine they’d spend the night in the slammer.
Frankie had probably returned home from her evening-of-beauty. I wondered what it was like, all that dipping, sanding, and steam cleaning. I pictured her pink and tender, momentarily blissful. Walking along the sidewalk toward the car, I wondered if I was betraying Frankie by keeping Chuck’s secret, and I honestly didn’t know the answer. There wasn’t much to feel good about, and yet I did know one thing: Frankie would love hearing the latest evolution in the Lord and Lady Anderson saga. One last tale for the road, and then we both needed to get a move on.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Bighearted thanks to all the good people along the way who helped with these stories, especially Sue Collard, Sara Eckel, Shelley Griffin, Cara Kaiser, Nancy Ludmerer, and Bob Schirmer. So many thanks to my parents for their support and encouragement. Special thanks to The Writers Community, the New York Mills Arts Retreat, and the Jerome Foundation. Thanks also to Tom Vinges for his enthusiastic reads of the early drafts and lending me the laptop. And endless thanks to Tina Bennett and Anika Streitfeld for their commitment to this book.
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