Matecumbe

by James A. Michener

  “And I know that having been sexually molested by my uncle when I was a kid is only partially to blame for the way I feel. Down deep inside, I think I hate my father and my brother, too.

  “I’ll never forget, back when I was in the fourth grade, Pop and Tony killing my pet rabbit. Later, they told me that the soup I was eating was rabbit stew. Every time I see a rabbit now, I remember staring at the soup and hearing laughter.

  “I guess if anything causes Paul to leave me, it’ll probably be because he’s well-educated, and I’m not. I realize that he’s smarter than me, and I wonder how an intelligent man such as him would break off an engagement. Would he tell me face-to-face?

  “Maybe I’ll ask him what he remembers most about his old girlfriends. Then I’ll get an idea of what he’d remember about me. And if I can keep adding to that store of pleasant memories, he might never leave me.

  “Now that I think about it, Paul is the first man in my life who doesn’t work in some kind of trade. Do bankers dump their women differently than the electricians, laborers, and landscapers of this world?

  “Seriously, though,” Mary Ann continued, pinching herself, “I’ve got to stop my mind from concentrating on these silly thoughts. Paul won’t disappear. This rambling is just me, Mary Ann, going through one of my insecure moods again. Paul’s a solid person. We’re in love. We have a future together. We’re family. God bless him.”

  With only four days left before their scheduled weekend together in Atlanta, Joe called Melissa with bad news.

  Just after seven-thirty in the morning, while Melissa was feeling absolutely void of glamour—her body covered by an ancient robe, her face makeup-free, and her hair in need of an overhaul—she listened on the phone to Joe’s lament.

  “I’m stuck, pure and simple. There’s no way I can get out of working on Saturday and Sunday.

  “One of the guys in our department just up and quit the other day, without giving any notice. He threw away nine years of seniority as a policeman to take a job driving a truck. For turning in his badge, he’ll be taking home a hundred bucks more every week, so I guess none of us here can blame him for making the move.”

  “Can’t someone else besides you fill in for him?” Melissa asked. “How about trying to get a policeman from another town?”

  “I’ve already looked at those options,” Joe responded. “For the last few days I’ve made one frustrating phone call after another trying to line up a replacement—with no luck.

  “I’m sorry, Melissa.”

  Melissa was speechless.

  For a time that seemed longer, no doubt, than it really was, she had no idea of what to say.

  She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared blankly into the speaker end, as if the phone were at fault. Meanwhile, the fractured thoughts in her mind were racing and stumbling as she attempted, frantically, to put the right words on her lips.

  “Are you still there, Melissa?

  “Listen, Melissa, I know you must be disappointed,” Joe continued. “But at this point there’s really nothing else I can do.

  “Why don’t we try to look on the positive side. Instead of feeling sorry for what could have been, we can make plans to get together on the weekend of Washington’s Birthday.”

  “You mean President’s Day?” Melissa whispered, trying to conceal any vocal evidence of the large, wet tears that were now coursing down her cheeks. “That’s more than a month from now!”

  “According to my new schedule, it’s really the only time I can get free, Melissa. I’m going to need some time to break in the rookie that the county promised to send me next week.”

  “I’m sorry, Joe. I must sound like a real bitch,” Melissa answered. “It’s just that I was looking forward so very much to our Atlanta weekend.”

  “I know, Mel. I was, too. Just remember that I love you, Melissa. And I miss you.”

  “I miss you terribly, Joe. I guess I shouldn’t be so selfish. I should show more concern for the things that matter to you—for your life as well as mine. Have you ever had any response yet to those resumes you’ve been sending out—to the police departments in Pennsylvania and New Jersey?”

  “I have, Melissa, but they’ve all been rejections. The kindest answers I’ve gotten so far were ‘we’ll keep your resume on file in case we have an opening.’ I’m not discouraged, though. I know it’ll take time. Finding a new job is not the easiest thing in the world. But all I have to do is find just one. And once I get that one, then all of the other police departments that rejected me won’t matter at all.”

  “It makes me feel good that you’re so confident,” Melissa bubbled, her tears almost dry now. “I’m pulling hard for you, Joe. Something will come up, and soon. I just know it.”

  “I’ll call you again next week, Melissa. Love you. Put a big smile on your face for me. It’s easier for me, emotionally, to bear being without you when I think of your smile.”

  “Oh, Joe. I love you, too, and I’m smiling as hard as I can.”

  Almost as soon as she put down the phone, Melissa once again started to cry. She wished at first she could have Joe’s sympathetic shoulder to lean on. But, she realized, if he were here with her, there would be no reason to cry.

  “Being so far away from someone you love is unbearable,” Melissa told herself. “With Joe being in Florida, it’s just the same as if he were thousands of miles away fighting a war in some foreign country—with me sitting home watching the kids. I feel so helpless. And since I’m home without any kids, that’s probably also a disadvantage.

  “A woman blessed with two little children by her side has two more reasons why her husband would want to come home right away. Or at least she wouldn’t have time to worry about her husband being gone.”

  Her mind continued to wander.

  “It reminds me of when I was still a toddler myself and one of my cats was about to give birth. Someone would always be there to ask the inevitable question: ‘Are you going to give away the mother and keep one of the kittens?’ Did Joe Carlton already decide to give me away, because he has found someone younger?”

  All sorts of doubts crossed Melissa’s mind. And although she loved Joe and, above all, trusted him, she couldn’t help but think that this first broken date—the proposed weekend in Atlanta—was but a harbinger of yet more problems to come in the immediate future.

  Logically, Melissa examined her options.

  For one, she could take some time off from work right away and speed down to Florida to be with Joe. The benefit of this action would be that she could see him, touch him, and talk to him—satisfying all the needs to have him by her side.

  But, although his presence was something she yearned for overwhelmingly, she also considered that at this particular moment, it might be best to play the waiting game.

  “Sometimes, the character building that comes from a major disappointment is good for the soul,” she rationalized.

  “Besides, if I run to him now, it may set a pattern that would result, eventually, in my leaving Philadelphia for good to relocate in Florida.

  “And although Islamorada may be a very nice place to visit, as regards job prospects for an upwardly mobile librarian, there would be none there.

  “No,” she told herself, “what I need during this immediate crisis is female companionship—and advice from someone who has traveled this road before. Also, a double dose of something alcoholic wouldn’t hurt, either.”

  “Am I doomed to remain single?” Melissa asked, while holding onto her fourth margarita of a soul-searching but so far uneventful evening in the cocktail lounge of the Carafe Café.

  Jackie Barr, an ever-sympathetic high school chum who had been twice married and twice divorced, was slow to answer.

  “I’m not sure,” Jackie nodded, while sipping on her own serving of the greenish-tinted tequila. She paused then, contemplatively, to run her finger through the salted edge of the glass, scattering the silence.

  “For your sake, Me
lissa, I hope you’re not worried about staying unattached for the rest of your life. Or maybe you’re worried about winding up like me?” Jackie grumbled, forcing a laugh. “I may be forty-two years old, but, even at my age, I’ve still got all of a younger woman’s hopes and all of the dreams.”

  “No,” Melissa answered. “It’s not exactly the fear of being lonely that bothers me. It’s more the worry that Joe may be drifting away from me. If he says, ‘Sayonara, Mel,’ then I’ll start thinking about the other guys who come along later, who’ll probably do likewise.

  “If Joe leaves, it might be indicative of a pattern that I’m stuck with because of what I am. Melissa the librarian is no longer a single, young virgin who could qualify for the Miss America pageant. My youth is behind me. And rejection may be the penalty for age.

  “When I got married to Brady, I was gorgeous. Men would go out of their way to talk to me. When Brady and I were playing golf, for example, any guy who made an errant shot from a nearby fairway would run over and apologize for hitting the ball close to me. Now that I’m older, men don’t do things like that anymore. Guys will usually make small talk only to the young, the thin, and the beautiful.

  “And what about you, Jackie? After awhile, don’t you get tired of putting your heart on the line—to have it knocked down like some pockmarked target in a shooting gallery?”

  “One of the things I’ve learned,” Jackie counseled, “is not to let myself think so much about the forest but to concentrate on my own special tree. The same goes for you.

  “You’ve got to forget about everything else—your future, your age, your job—and just worry about keeping your man. Put all of your energies into Joe and hope that, in the meantime, everything else in your life can take care of itself.”

  “So, if what you say is true, Jackie—my genius, my guru—what’s the number one step?”

  “The first thing I’d do is to make him jealous. From all we’ve talked about tonight, this would be your best alternative, believe me. I mean, after all, he is engaged to you. Therefore, he should become jealous if he thinks there’s another man trying to get into your pants.”

  “Won’t that be kind of hard to do, what with him living over a thousand miles away?”

  “It can be done, Melissa. I read in Flirt Magazine not too long ago about a woman who set up a fake recording on the tape that answers her phone calls.”

  “I guess,” Melissa shrugged, cynically, “it wouldn’t do any good for me to tell you to stop your story right there, before it begins to sound like one of those farfetched tales that gets passed around at a hairdressing salon on Saturday mornings.”

  “Now don’t be so negative, Melissa. It appears to be something that could really work,” Jackie continued, moving to the edge of her seat to begin what was seemingly a straight-faced explanation.

  “The way it happened in the magazine story,” Jackie went on, “was that this woman wanted to make her guy jealous, so she got her brother to phone her apartment and leave a message on the answering machine—saying that he definitely would show up for their ‘date.’

  “But, of course, her brother didn’t say he was her brother.”

  “Of course.”

  “She rigged the tape so that when her real boyfriend called, he would first hear her standard ‘I’m not here now’ speech, but then, instead of a beep, the machine would play back part of the tape that had her brother pretending to be the unknown boyfriend—who was going to meet her for champagne, quiche, and a spinach salad at some trendy restaurant.”

  “Sounds like Flirt Magazine, all right.”

  “But it worked, Melissa. Her real boyfriend got so jealous that he grabbed the next plane available, scooped her up, and whisked her right off to see a Justice of the Peace.”

  “I think I’ll pass on that idea, Jackie. I think I’ve had enough of these margaritas, too,” Melissa concluded, rising shakily to leave. The implausibility of Jackie’s suggestions signaled to her that the evening’s jabber would no longer be productive—that, coupled with her increasing inability to keep from slurring her words.

  “When I wake up with a hangover tomorrow morning,” Melissa added, “I may change my mind. But for now, I have to give Joe the benefit of the doubt. In my current situation, that translates into a donothing decision.

  “Up to this point, Joe has done everything honest and up-front in our relationship. So, if I were to make a rash move now that shows I distrust him, or indicates that I’m some sort of a conniving broad, then it would be me, Melissa the Terrible, who wouldn’t be worthy of Joe ‘White Knight’ Carlton.”

  Chapter 10

  Mary Ann experienced a great deal of happiness during the time period immediately following her engagement. For one thing, Paul seemed to spend much more time with her and the girls. He would visit almost every evening—a ritual that helped him learn the role of being a father. He assisted the girls with their homework, gave them advice whenever they asked for it, and even used his skill with a pair of scissors to trim their curls and bangs.

  “Melissa is the only one who won’t let me cut her hair,” Paul told Mary Ann.

  “That’s all right,” Mary Ann countered, consoling him. “I guess only her Mom is allowed to see her if she bleeds—not her stepfather-to-be.”

  For Valentine’s Day, Paul gave Mary Ann yet another gift of jewelry—a pearl necklace. Its beauty added a luxurious touch to her clothing whenever she and Paul would go out to dinner or to a show.

  “They’re freshwater pearls,” Mary Ann explained, showing them to her daughters. “That’s why they look like Rice Krispies.”

  Mary Ann believed that her ever-glistening engagement ring was having a stoplight effect on unwanted suitors.

  “At work, plenty of men, especially the guys in the plant, used to say hello to me,” Mary Ann recalled. “And when I’d be shopping for food or just walking around town, other men would occasionally try to strike up conversations.

  “Not anymore. This big engagement ring probably scares them off. I’d always get annoyed when those guys with the dirty elbows and the bad breath would try to be friendly. The words they never said were spoken by their appearance and their facial expressions—dirt, lust, and dirty minds.

  “It makes me happy that I don’t have to worry about guys coming on to me much anymore.”

  Mary Ann’s tranquil existence, however, was disturbed one Friday afternoon in March when she was laid off from her full-time job at the power plant. Paul picked her up after work and was the first to hear the bad news.

  “They say they don’t have enough work anymore for three secretaries,” she explained, trying to hold back her tears. “But I think they got rid of me because I’m always speaking my mind. Boss or no boss, I always let people know how I feel.

  “I guess,” she added, reflectively, “that I’d be hell on the Senate floor— because I’m a good complainer. But it’s probably best I’m not in politics. Without a doubt, I’m one of those who would definitely get shot.

  “I won’t miss the place, I’ll just miss working with the few good friends I made there. The long hours, the drafty building, and the low pay made it a not-so-pleasant place to work. Yet, my friends will always be my friends, and I’ll get together with them whenever I can.

  “Do you realize,” Mary Ann asked Paul, changing the subject slightly, “that most of the waitresses in Pottstown get a salary of only one or two dollars an hour? They have to depend on tips. That’s not fair at all.”

  Mary Ann’s tears were visible now, but she seemed determined not to let the layoff get the best of her. Paul was amazed at how Mary Ann, in the midst of a major lifetime disappointment, was able to look out the car window and point to a small storefront only a block or so from her apartment.

  “That yarn store over there,” she noted. “That’s where I’m going to enroll in a class to learn how to do counted cross-stitch.”

  “Whether you’re working at a job,” Paul added, “or you’re do
ing this cross-stitch, I’ll be around to help you. Don’t worry about the bills. I’ll pay them. Your role right now is to relax for a while and then look for work. Maybe that convenience store will be able to give you some part-time work again. But whatever you do, don’t take something ‘just because it’s a job.’ Keep looking. Stick it out until you find what you really like. We can afford to wait.”

  “I remember the last time I lost a job,” Mary Ann continued, with quivers of a smile slowly replacing her tears. “Back then, whenever I’d cash my unemployment check and go to the supermarket, I’d wind up spending more than half of the money I had in the world on a week’s worth of food. We were poor then, too, and we had bad water in our apartment.

  “So I had to borrow water from a neighbor for me and the girls. When you’re working long hours and you’re forced to carry heavy buckets of borrowed water, then that’s when you worry about whether you’re still sane and whether the world around you is still sane.”

  “Forget all about the water,” Paul responded, in a positive tone. “As long as I can stay healthy, I’ll do my best to keep all of us in champagne.”

  Melissa had every item in her house arranged and spruced perfectly for Joe’s visit.

  For several days prior to President’s Day weekend, she attacked every chore—from cleaning the rooms to stocking up on all of Joe’s favorite foods.

  Her house was spotless. In the bedroom, she had installed new curtains and matching pillowcases. The yellow on blue pastel designs, she thought, now gave the room an airy, warm, Florida look.

  For the three nights of Joe’s proposed stay, she had purchased sufficient gourmet edibles that the two of them would never have to leave the house for dinner.

  Her food-shopping spree included the purchase of gigantic sirloin steaks, a huge bag of frozen shrimp, and two cans of expensive backfin crabmeat. A third can she’d bought the week before provided a practice run when she had satisfactorily cooked a crab au gratin recipe—Joe’s favorite entrée. Coke had purred continuously throughout his pussycat sampling.