Hannah glanced away. Was this an apology?
She had heard it all before. Countless times. Women callers lamenting that their “heterosexual” husbands were caught watching gay porn, or checking out another guy on the sly; texting someone incessantly but insisting that there was “no other woman.” Who was the bigger fool? The one playing the game, or the one being played? She, for once, did not have the answer.
Chapter 46
May 2015
Hannah had planned the loveliest Saturday. First, she and Olivia would grab a stress-free hour yoga class at the hip new studio on Front Street with the teal and bamboo wood lounge area that served the most incredible vitamin-infused mineral water. Then, they would be off to the thrift store circuit and open air market, where they could try on floppy hats and peruse the local farm-to-table produce that Hannah used to make her famous vegetarian chili. It had already been a full year since Olivia had decided that she had sworn off eating meat, and it was a good bet that she was sticking to her convictions. This was no surprise to Hannah. Much like herself, when Olivia committed herself to something, she stuck to it.
They opted for two frozen yogurt cups and sat on a bench near a skate park. They watched as skinny young boys in ripped jeans zipped around the plaza on two wheels, jumping over hand railings along concrete steps and curbs onto large, curved ramps.
“Your brother could do all that,” Hannah said, wincing. “Not that I was happy about it.”
“Broderick used to be able to do that,” Olivia corrected. “Now he wouldn’t risk messing up his perfect Danny Zuko hair with even a sun visor caddying for that golf pro in Scottsdale.” Broderick still loved the game, and was paying his dues while currently getting his MBA out West.
“How do you know Danny Zuko?” Hannah said. “The movie ran in the seventies about a group of high school greasers set in the fifties.”
“Duh, Mom—Grease, the movie with John Travolta, is a classic!”
Hannah smiled. Of course. What did she think? That her daughter was living in a bubble? Sometimes she wondered.
“Still, that movie came out twenty-two years before you were born.”
“Well, it was about your time, right? I mean, the fifties.”
“Not exactly” Hannah smiled, swirling the chocolate and vanilla flavors of her yogurt together. “I was just a baby then. My time was the seventies. Bell-bottoms, anti-war protests, David Cassidy.”
“David who?”
Hannah chuckled. “I know that ancient pop culture is not your thing, but how can you not know about The Partridge Family?”
Olivia smacked her lips, tossing her mother a look. “Well, I could challenge you to a name-that-Kardashian trivia game, or an emoji game smackdown—and I’d own it!”
“No doubt, my lovely.” Hannah laughed. She adored her brilliant and beautiful daughter with her glistening auburn hair and smooth, ivory skin. She had grown into a stunning fifteen-year-old, and had, it seemed, inherited the strong, solid features that both she and Broderick shared from Peter’s Polish and Irish heritage. The only difference being that she had Hannah’s pensive gray-blue eyes—just the same as her Grandmother Charlotte. Additionally, Olivia had Hannah’s determination and never had to make anyone guess what she was thinking. That was one of the many things that Hannah loved about her. So, when the moment came to shift the conversation to the situation at hand, Hannah dove right in.
“I wanted to talk to you about what is going on right now, at home, I mean,” Hannah said.
Olivia’s body language suggested that she did not, as she crossed her arms. Still, she managed, “I know, Mom.”
“Know? What do you know, sweetheart?” Hannah’s breath caught in her throat.
“That you and Dad are splitting up,” she said it as simply, as if she was talking about a movie that she had seen, or a TV show plot-line.
“How do you know this?” Hannah hedged, careful to not lead her daughter’s response.
“I have eyes, that’s all. I can see that he is never around. He never has been, really. It’s just the way its always been. As long as I can remember.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Olivia tossed her yogurt cup, unfinished, into the trash. “I dunno. He’s not happy, I think.” Then, she painfully looked her mother in the eye and said, “Are you?”
Hannah sighed. “No. Neither of us have really been happy for a long time. I am just a bit surprised that you were able to pick up on that. I’m sorry that you didn’t get the best of us. It’s—what do you call it? An epic fail.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Please don’t ever say that. And don’t feel bad. Do you think that I am the only teenager whose parents are going through this? Really, it is what it is.”
Hannah was taken aback. How was it that her scholarly daughter who excelled so much in math and science could be so sure of matters of relationships and human nature? That was her area of expertise!
“I just don’t want you to worry about me, Mom. I am going to be fine, whatever you guys decide to do.”
“Even with us going our separate ways?” Hannah hedged. “You’ll be splitting your time between the two of us.”
“Like I said, I just want you both to be happy—whatever that means for each of you.”
Hannah, for once, was rendered speechless. What more was there to say? Any worry or fear that she might have had about her daughter’s need to deal with the inevitable, was assayed. Unless, of course, she was pretending. The Murphys for certain and apparently, the Courtlands, were known for their tendency to hide the truth.
“I’m going to believe you, honey. But I want you to know that if ever you want to talk about this, or if anything happens that you are not okay with, I want you to let me know, okay?”
“Deal,” she said and shouldered her vintage macramé cross-body bag. “Let’s go check out the second-hand music shop. I hear that they have LPs. How cool is that?”
Hannah smiled. Her precious daughter definitely had an old soul, indeed. She only hoped that it was as resilient as it was beautiful.
Chapter 47
May 19th
He sat in the back of the class, staring at the threads fraying on the sleeve of his hoodie, which he wore in the August heat, waiting for the bell to ring. A pair of baggy jeans, a black T-shirt, and heavy combat-style boots completed his I-don’t-give-a-fuck look. He had folded his freakishly tall frame into the steel and plywood desk, his russet-brown hair gelled on top of his head into spiked cowlicks and shaved liberally in the back close to his skull and around his enormously protruding ears. A gangly one hundred twenty pounds, he was stick-thin and would never be mistaken for being an athlete. In fact, he hated the cock-sucking bastards. The painful-looking acne on his face crept into an angry rash line snaking around to the back of his neck. It was heaviest on his cheeks and forehead—a grease slick mess of hot, swollen welts and oozy whiteheads ready to burst, just like him.
He had one jagged brow, where a self-piercing went bad. He had switched to the other side, where he had better luck, courtesy of a safety pin. Blackheads dotted the bridge of his nose and his lower lip, which was also pierced with a single stud. He wore Gothic-looking rings on nearly every finger, and heavy chains jutted from an actual leather dog collar around his neck. His fingernails were gnawed to the quick; every other one blackened with a Sharpie. Now, he was using it to doodle blood-dripping images of dragons on the leg of his shredded jeans. Beneath his tattered sleeves, he had track marks across his forearms, from when he regularly used to carve himself up with a razor, back when he was twelve. On his left forearm was his proudest work—an infinity symbol in which was displayed his eternal affection for Melissa Gates, a cheerleader with the prettiest smile he had ever seen. He had used his dad’s hunting knife for the handiwork. It bled for three straight days and hurt like a mother, but then healed up nicely into a perfectly raise
d red scar. It was his badge of eternal devotion, which he would share with his beloved just in time for summer break. They would have the warm days and nights together with no distractions. He would let her into his world.
His darting brown eyes watched the minutes tick away to the hour mark.
The bell finally sounded, and he bolted from the desk to join the sea of students in the hall. He spotted Melissa immediately as she approached her locker with a gaggle of giddy cohorts. Her blonde highlights fell in swirling layers around her heart-shaped face and grazed the tops of her tan shoulders. She flashed a fifty-watt pageant smile. In a moment, she would find it—the note he had left for her tucked into her locker. It was unimaginative, but would prove to be the surest way to see if she felt the same. He had poured piety and loving words into the prose, asking her to meet him at the fountain in the park that evening. Then, he included his number so they could connect. It would be a simple request that would award him the opportunity to talk with her—alone, away from the others with their bourgeoisie mentality and materialistic pursuits. He was transcendent, and he was certain that Melissa was too. He knew it like he knew most things. She was the one singled out for him and, together, they would walk in the light. All she would need to do would be to say yes.
He watched from a safe distance as she opened her locker and the note fell out onto the floor. She picked it up and looked around, a bit perplexed. Then she slipped it into her folder.
He twitched nervously. It was about to happen. Everything he had hoped for.
Chapter 48
Melissa Gates was a Jehovah’s Witness. She lived with her father, Sebastian, who was a loving, simple man, who lived in fear of his own shadow ever since his wife died in a tragic accident five years prior. Melissa needed to be for him wife, mother, and daughter when it came to running the household and keeping her dear father from drinking himself to death from a guilty heart. He never forgave himself for not being able to save his wife when a thug gunned her down in a botched robbery on her way to make the bank deposit for the beauty salon that she owned and ran. He found her, sprawled on the sidewalk next to the parking lot in a pool of blood, her hands still clutching the now-empty moneybag. The cops had said that the killing was unintentional, the work of a befuddled junkie.
Time had done little to ease the pain for either of them, but Melissa, remarkably, had managed to rejoin the land of the living and stepped up to console and care for her despondent father. Now, as a junior in high school, it was all that she could do to keep up the house, help with the business, and maintain her grades—all at the same time.
When a mysterious and misguided boy expressed his feelings for her in a hand-written note shoved in her locker, it only reinforced her need to be truthful with him. Eric Johansson was not her type, and she would never waste her time and energy in encouraging his kind, with his brooding and outcast ways that other girls might find tantalizing or dangerous. All it spelled out for her was T-R-O-U-B-L-E. She would ignore the misguided advance and hope that he would get the message.
“I’m going out, Daddy,” Melissa said as she bent to kiss her father’s grizzly cheek. He was ensconced in his La-Z-Boy recliner for the night, already popping open beer number three. “Dinner’s on the stove. Don’t wait up. I have to go in to the beauty shop to help Carmella shampoo, and then I’m meeting some friends from school for a bite.”
The disheveled man nodded and gave a little grunt, patting her hand. “Okay, Princess.”
She jumped into her relic ’90s Accord, which at over a hundred thousand miles had more up-and-go than she could ever ask for in a vintage ride. She lowered the windows to let the warm evening breeze toss her hair as the radio blared FM tunes.
Her first client was Mrs. Jenkins—a fixture in the beauty shop for her once-a-week shampoo and style standing appointment. She was an older black matron who knew everyone—and everything about everyone—in the community. Melissa thought she reminded her of the woman in a short story she read in English class, named Miss Strangeworth, who was a busybody of sorts and who terrorized her neighbors with “kindness.” But Mrs. Jenkins was nothing like that. Her intentions were pure and everyone loved her and sought her often-sage advice. There was not an evil bone in her body.
“What’s new, sugar?” the old woman asked, beaming with not-from-these-parts, southern charm. Originally from Alabama, the woman’s accent had not faded a lick during the twenty-year span she had lived in Harrisburg.
Melissa helped her into the chair and adjusted the plastic gown’s grip around her broad neck. “Not much, Mrs. Jenkins. Just trying to make it to summer break.”
“Oh, you kids must be so excited. How’s the cheerleading going?”
“We’re done for the season, but we’ll get together over the break to practice in the gym.”
“Got any other summer plans?” she asked, removing her wire frames and leaning back into the shampoo bowl.
“I’m graduating next fall, so I suppose I’ll be working on those college applications.” Melissa winked, helping Mrs. Jenkins settle in and turning on the water jets. “Tell me if this is too warm.”
Minutes later, Melissa had wrapped Mrs. Jenkins’s head with a tight turban and moved her to the stylist’s chair.
“Any prospects on your dance card, I mean?” the old woman pried quite unabashedly.
Melissa demurred. “Well, we’ll have to see about that. If I can avoid attracting the Emo-types that look like they are straight out of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
“Is that like those Goth kids who like wearing all black?” Mrs. Jenkins asked.
“Worse. They are in a league of their own. They think they’re so dope, but I’m not into that just-got-out-of-a-coffin look.”
Mrs. Jenkins guffawed. “You just keep holdin’ out for that Mr. Right. I know he’s out there looking for you. Make him wait, I say. It won’t do him any harm!”
Melissa smiled and patted the woman on the back. “You wait here for Sylvia, now. She will make you look straight-fire gorgeous! Nice seeing you, Mrs. Jenkins.”
Just then Melissa’s phone buzzed. There was no Caller ID, so she let it go to voice mail. It was six thirty-five, and she had two more clients before she could go meet up with her friends.
When evening had fallen, Eric had showed up at the fountain to find that Melissa was not there. He first thought the worst—that something must have happened to detain her. He decided that he would wait. When eight o’clock rolled around, he began to grow uneasy, and finally, at ten p.m., he straddled his mountain bike and pedaled home in the dark.
Once in his room, he clicked away at his screen, bypassing the anti-government activist sites and militia group chat rooms, which he frequented under an alias and settled on a Facebook profile featuring Melissa’s smiling face. An IM chimed on his screen, causing his heart to jump, but it was only a right-wing skinhead named Deeter with a litany of scores to settle with big government and the corporate pigs that continue to rape and ruin the country. Eric regularly “liked” his posts and comments, but had other things on his mind tonight. He clicked off the site and dialed Melissa once again from a masked number that he had hacked with a few well-placed strokes of the keyboard months earlier. He didn’t want her to know that had her direct number. He needed her to call him first. If she answered, he would know that she was indeed all right. The line rang, and then bounced to voice mail once again.
I’ll wait until tomorrow and find out what happened, he told himself. Then, he proceeded to pore over his many pictures of her taken from the yearbook and school paper, which he had arranged and then rearranged on his wall near the closet. His favorite was one of her in her cheerleading outfit, beaming, with arms outstretched and pom-poms high in the air at the top of a three-person pyramid. She looked so pure and radiant.
When he bored of that, he began clicking around the Internet for some advice that might help h
im with courting Melissa. He Googled the term “soul mate” and the algorithms delivered ten links to articles and reviews for a syndicated radio talk show shrink who simply went by the name of “Dr. Hannah.” She was, among other things, a relationships expert. Her radio show, Straight Talk with Dr. Hannah, seemed legit.
He clicked on her publicity photo. The image of a middle-aged woman with golden-blonde hair and a pearl choker beamed with arms crossed confidently in the headshot. She seemed to have a kind face. He sat up the rest of the night downloading her books and listening to sound bites of her show from her website. Although skeptical, he concluded that she might be able to help him—it was worth a try.
Chapter 49
The next day, when Eric approached Melissa Gates on the front steps of the gymnasium, she acted cool and aloof. She was uncharacteristically alone, but wouldn’t be for long, so he had to move fast. “Hey,” he said in a casual tone unmatched by his stormy, agitated eyes. “You didn’t show up yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah,” she stammered. “I am sorry about that. Um, it’s Eric, right? I am sorry, but I am sort of seeing someone,” she said, which in effect, was not completely untrue. She had eyes for the incredibly handsome linebacker, Grant Leary, and word around school was that he liked her too. Besides, this one creeped her out in more ways than she could count.
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