West of You

by Christina Metcalf

  She never looked at another man while she was in college, even when Zeke broke up with her because he didn’t want to date “an uppity college girl.” But as smart as Cricket was/is, she’s not smart enough to realize she could do better and so the minute we graduated, before the ink dried on our diplomas, she walked down the aisle with Zeke “I can’t drive 55” Collins.

  I was lined up to be her maid of honor in August but she and he couldn’t wait and got married at the Justice’s office in June. Which began my curse of never getting to be a bridesmaid.

  “What time does Jimmy get off work? Maybe I can wait.” I was about to put my can down on the coffee table but couldn’t find a coaster. I grabbed an ad for the Dollar General and used that instead.

  “You’re so silly. Just put it on the table. Jimmy’s not working. He’s sleeping. He’s on disability for his back. Sleep helps him.”

  I nodded and smiled trying to remember what she looked like before she was a grandma.

  “Will he be up soon?”

  “Oh, no. It’s only 10:30.” She winked but I didn’t understand the inside joke.

  Cricket leaned into me as if she was going to share one of her infamous secrets. She may never have wanted to be with another man in school but that never kept her from talking about the intrigue surrounding them.

  “What happened? Can we talk about it?”

  She said in a loud whisper most people save for words like “cancer” and “adultery.” I wasn’t sure what she was asking. What happened with me and Mike? What happened with our youth? What happened to Powder? Yes, I do like that name.

  I reached for my Mountain Dew.

  She rephrased, “What happened to M? I keep thinking about how panicked she must have felt seeing that train coming towards her. They say it paralyzes you.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I don’t know.”

  “Was her car old? Did it have a flat? Maybe some beer bottles on the tracks caused the tire to pop. Did she wear a headset when she drove? That happened to some kids down the road a ways last spring. Wearin’ headphones. Didn’t hear the train. Bless their hearts. Wrecked the family real bad.”

  “Car wasn’t old. Well, it was. It was Luke’s pride and joy. He and his brother had restored it. It was in perfect condition.”

  “Headphones then.” Cricket surmised.

  “She never used them. She never even talked on the phone in the car. Plus, it was a convertible. She would’ve heard it, smelled it, and...”

  I stopped at “felt it.” The words stuck in my throat, hot and gummy. How in the world can someone sit on the tracks in her boyfriend’s prized possession, something he and his brother had restored with their dad who passed away a year or so ago, and watch a locomotive barreling down the track headed toward her? Jumpers don’t have the ability to reconsider. She could’ve just pulled forward and gotten out of the way.

  She must’ve steeled herself for the impact but what exactly would that be like? You’re conscious one moment and pulp the next? How does it feel to cross over into nothingness? I suppose it feels a lot like entering a dream. Even if you’re aware of it while you’re in it, you never remember that actual moment of crossing over from awake to asleep. The only time you do is when someone pulls you from it.

  The conductor suffered a mild heart attack during the accident but was fortunate nothing more. Many times train collisions involve everyone in the first car...well, let’s just call them unrecognizable. The EMT who took care of the conductor at the scene told Luke he just kept saying over and over how he would never forget how she looked at him. No panic or terror. Just expectation. She was dressed like something out of an old movie, hair done up in a scarf, big sunglasses on. The conductor said she removed them and looked right at him. Like she was waiting for a bus.

  But why?

  Luke blames the face on shock.

  I had no answers for anyone who asked. Lucky for me, most people still thought of it as an accident. Even Luke, who knew more about the details than any of us, still clung to the idea that she never intended to stop his beloved car on the tracks. It was just a mistake. She couldn’t get it into gear. It stuck. He had messed something up in the transmission. Someone thought it was the sheriff driving, someone with criminal intent. There was nothing about M and her feminine allure that could remotely look like a man, especially not after the conductor’s description. And I don’t know what kind of crime syndicate they were running in Nowhere, Texas but I doubt it involved much more than pulling someone over for speeding. Why would anyone want to kill the sheriff? Luke was grasping at that one.

  I had listened to all of Luke’s ideas. But only one thing rang true. She did it on purpose and we’ll never know why. There was no note and that’s killing Luke.

  I’m at a loss. I appreciate everyone’s interest in putting a bow on it but I’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks now. Every Tuesday (and most weeks more than that) I spend playing free therapist to her distraught boyfriend and we’re not any closer to solving the mystery.

  There are times when it seems like her death can’t be true because it doesn’t make sense. We’re so conditioned to believe in logic and reasons. There’s a reason someone would take their life. But the universe doesn’t have Hollywood writers who can bring it all full circle for us in between lucrative product placements. At least that’s what my therapist told me. The last part about product placements is mine.

  “Her obit didn’t have a cause of death.” Cricket reminded me.

  “Death by train doesn’t look good in print.”

  Cricket nodded.

  It had been just another emotional IED on the road of life when I opened our college magazine and saw it there last week. My Facebook profile had been blowing up with messages ever since that publication hit alumni doorsteps. Mike had tried to warn me but I sent his call to voicemail and only heard it after the explosion of Facebook messages. One of the many times I refused to let him protect me, although in fairness, I had no idea that’s what he was doing this time.

  “I can’t imagine dying that way.” Cricket said.

  I nod again but my mind is on Mike. Why had I been so rotten to him? Sure, after Cynamon he deserved it but not before. And I was ruthless, even before we dated. But I guess that says something about him too that he put up with it. I’m not that pretty.

  I remember standing behind him in the line at graduation and right before he went on stage, I thumped off his graduation cap. A wind with a sense of humor took it long enough to fly like a Frisbee right onto the stage and settle at the dean’s feet. He never even turned around to give me a dirty look. He simply accepted the congratulations and his diploma and bent down like he was bowing and retrieved his cap. Two years and five days later he asked me to marry him to keep me out of trouble he had said.

  “She did it on purpose.” A voice, my voice, said.

  “How can you say that? You don’t know for sure. No one does.”

  I nodded. I realized I do a lot of that when I don’t think the people around me can handle what I’m thinking.

  A half-naked man exited the adjacent room and nodded to me on his way to the fridge like I was someone he saw every day. He’s hot in a dirty way like the kind of man my mom would’ve told me to stay away from if she had been around to give such types of motherly advice.

  Cricket jumped up from her perch and ran over to him. With a flurry of kisses and caresses that made me feel like I was completely invisible, she catered to him in the PG-13 version of Leave it to Beaver.

  ✽✽✽

  #277 on the list of things M will never do again: feel awkward when couples kiss like you aren’t in the room.

  ✽✽✽

  He swatted Cricket’s ample bottom and came in to keep me company as she cooked up what I can only assume was his meal.

  “So….” he points at me with his beer bottle. I would’ve taken him for a can kind of guy.

  “It’s 10:45….” I answered like he was asking. It was mor
e a comment about the beer than an answer to his question.

  “Naw. Your name. What is it again?” Jimmy asked.

  “Sara.”

  “Saucy Sara.”

  “No, just plain Sara.”

  “So, Saucy…”

  “Sara.”

  “Saucy Sara.”

  “Sara without the sauce.”

  “Fine. You’re a fun sponge. Anyone ever tell you that?” He called into the kitchen after Cricket, “You didn’t tell me your old roommate was so damn boring.”

  “She’s not.” Cricket yelled back to him.

  And then presumably said to me, “He’s just teasing you Sara.”

  It didn’t feel like teasing. It felt like flirting. He leered at me. He is the poster child of leering. His dirty grin reminds me of a short story I read long ago by Joyce Carol Oates. It didn't end well.

  Jimmy sauntered over from his easy chair and joined me on the couch, a little too close. The pleather made a sucking sound as he leaned his bare back against it.

  “Sorry to hear about your friend. I had a buddy blew his brains out last year. War vet.”

  I nod not sure what the appropriate answer to that statement is. It’s funny how when you lose someone people say the craziest things like God needed another flower or angel and picked the best from earth. Jimmy talks about brains and clean up. Nobody ever says “God is a son of a bitch.” Guess everyone’s a little too superstitious for that. Even if you don’t believe in the big guy, no one wants to call him the son of a dog. I think that was in The Omen, the original. Not one of those dumb remakes.

  “Did your friend like to drink, Saucy? Mine did. Maybe they’re gettin’ it on during last call in the after life. That’d be cool.”

  This guy now topped me for being inappropriate. I hadn’t given my friend’s afterlife sex life any thought.

  “Stop that Jim. She’s not used to your humor.” Cricket called from the kitchen.

  “No one knows that she did it on purpose.” I said.

  Now I was contradicting myself just so I wouldn’t be on his side.

  “Oh she did. I’ll tell you that much Saucy. No one stops on train tracks by accident. Getting hit trying to beat a train? Sure. That happens all the time. But sitting there waiting for it? That’s sumt-in you do on purpose.”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  Jim looked at me for an uncomfortable amount of time. Was he waiting for a reaction, a fight?

  Still watching me, he called to Cricket, “She’s alright. She can take it. Can’t you Saucy?”

  I shrugged but I was secretly wondering if he was just getting started.

  “Anyone ever call you Jiminy?”

  He looked at me like I had just told him Hillary Clinton was the finest woman in all the land.

  “Nope. Can’t says they ever have.”

  “Because that would make the two of you Jiminy Cricket.”

  I raised my Mountain Dew can to him. I entertain myself with very little material. He watched me as if expecting me to morph into something strange. When I didn’t, he took a long swig from his beer keeping an eye on me while he drank.

  “How’d you meet?” I asked trying to make conversation and remind him my friend is in the next room.

  “What me and Cricket?”

  “No. You and your friend without a head.”

  He raised his bottle to me and winked.

  “You are saucy, Saucy Sara. I knew her old man.” he added.

  “Was it love at first sight? Did you want to be with her when she was with him?”

  “This ain’t no Lifetime movie.” he corrected.

  “Maybe not, but did you?”

  “Nah,” then he leaned into me and whispered, “She’s not exactly the kinda girl who turns heads, ya know.”

  Then he added louder than he needed to, “I got to know her better after Zeke died. And she had a break in up here. Kinda rattled her cage, ya know? She asked me to come over and I guess I never left.”

  “So you owe your romantic life to a thief.”

  “Ain’t never thought of it that ways, I guess.”

  He looked pensive as he gazed at the wood paneling.

  “If it wasn’t for that, she wouldn’t have been scared and you wouldn’t have played the gallant knight.”

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. I could tell I had buttered it on too thick but relationships fascinate me.

  “So what’s your story, Saucy.”

  “I think I’m still working on it.”

  “Naw. You got an old man at home?” he asked.

  But before I could answer he filled in, “I don’t reckon you do. No man’s gonna let his little lady get in a car and drive ‘cross country alone.”

  “The kind I would be with would.” I bragged nearly inflated with girl power.

  “Then you like guys who don’t like you very much.”

  He pointed at me with his bottle again.

  “Jim, stop!” Cricket whined from the kitchen.

  He shook his head.

  “This may come as a shock to you, Jimbo,” I waved my feminist flag, “but we were given the right to vote a few years back and some states let us drive cars just like the womenfolk in Saudi Arabia.”

  “They may let you drive but don’t mean ya should.” He smiled slyly, obviously very proud of his witty repertoire.

  “I can’t believe you were on the market. Cricket is a lucky lady.”

  “Stop you two.” Cricket called from the kitchen again. “I’m gonna have to separate you.” She turned the water on thankfully because knowing she can hear this heated exchange bothers me.

  Like going to the zoo and wanting to pet the wolf, I knew it was a bad idea to go back and forth with this jerk but it made me feel alive again. He silently watched me only inches separating us. Head down, eyes up. Just like that fluffy, pacing wolf. He eased forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He turned to me and his lips parted slightly but no words emerged. Jim picked up his beer and held it to his lips. His tongue slid out and teased the bottle opening. He saw me stare and flashed me a glimpse of his boyish dimple then he chugged the beer smashing it on the table so hard it wobbled before falling over and pointing to the kitchen.

  Cricket came into the room looking every bit as worried as she should’ve been. He sprung from his spot on the couch, crossing the room to her in seconds. He pounced, cornering her against the wall and pressing himself into her. They kissed urgently and I wanted to be anywhere else but Singleville, Population: me.

  He pulled away, looked at me over his shoulder and announced he was going out. Cricket’s cheeks were red with desire or embarrassment, I didn’t know. She looked down at her feet rather than in my eyes. Her guy was a complete ass but there was something about that confidence and assurity that made me want to live in this Mountain Dew-swigging, Nascar-race-watching town, even if just for a summer.

  “I don’t know what got into him. He’s not usually like that.” she said brushing down her hair like some old sitcom star.

  Later that day we took the grandbabies and the rest of the Oliver Twist-like gang to some lady named Myrtle who looked older than time but pretty happy about the brood invading her front porch. Then Cricket took me to a bar that reminded me of the confederate version of some of my hometown bars. It felt good to be home.

  I asked her if we should bring M with us, just like old times, but the look on her face said absolutely not even though her mouth said, “that would be kinda morbid dontcha think? But totally up to you.”

  I left M in the car. She probably wouldn’t have added much to the conversation.

  I had always liked Cricket. She was one of the few non-blue bloods in college. Both of us were free-riding it and there was always some helpful person willing to point out that we were there thanks to the generosity of their daddies. When I was drunk I would gladly remind these helpful upperclassmen that all of us are anywhere in life because of the generosity or amorosity of our daddies and willing
ness of our mommies. This generally shut them up. But really talking about anyone’s parents’ sex life pretty much ends every conversation in my experience.

  ✽✽✽

  #278 of things she will never do again: make someone uncomfortable by bringing up sex.

  #279 have bad sex. Funny most guys will tell you sex is like pizza. Even if it’s really bad it’s still kinda good. But bad sex for a woman is awful. It’s lonely, it hurts, and it’s boring. It may even make you sick if you’re prone to that sort of thing. Some people can’t handle the rocking. Then afterwards you get to lay there listening to him snore and feeling sticky goo drip out pooling onto the sheets and mattress. No, this is one of the great joys in life I’m sure she’s glad she’s been spared.

  ✽✽✽

  Cricket told me she gave up drinking, which made me feel slightly ill at ease. You can’t trust someone who won’t join you in a drink. It means they either had a problem or they put poison in yours. Neither is one you want to spend a lot of time with.

  “What do you think of Jim?” she asked.

  “He seems nice.”

  She smiled a slow growing smirk.

  “He’s hot, ain’t he?”

  I’m not one who really cares about grammar but Cricket did attend a school that cost more a year than what most average families make annually in her town.

  “You got yourself a good one.” I add, when in Rome.

  “I can’t stand him.”

  I nearly spat out my beer thinking she was pulling my leg.

  “He’s a pompous ass.” she added.

  I love a girl who can use “ain’t” and pompous in the same conversation. It occurs to me then that Cricket puts on this dumb housewife act just for her local friends. She wants to blend in. I did that for a while in college when I tried desperately to pronounce my “R’s” but everytime I’d get drunk it was right back to “Let’s get the cah and go to Bahga King.”