Jeanette’s face, for once, is not blank. It’s full of as much color and life as that cornfield.
“The next show at the planetarium starts in four minutes,” Dan says. “We could still make it.” Beth doesn’t have the energy to argue; all of her energy is focused on gathering herself back up. Instead, she lets her children lead her out of the Gaslight Village.
Elizabeth DeWitt
22
First date with the fireman. I want to date him because of his muscles, and because he wears nerd glasses, and because he tells me online that firemen work hard and play harder. I’ve never been a party girl, but I want to try.
I pay for dinner, to see if he’ll let me, but also because I don’t like to feel like I owe anyone anything. Even so, I find myself in a park with him in the dark. He sprawls out on the grass, pulls me on top of him. He’s kissing me drunkenly. He’s not a bad kisser. His hands go down my body, and I think he’s feeling me up, but then I hear his zipper. I’m drunk, too, but not drunk enough. He stops kissing me, pushes my head down. I get to his belly before I come back up, but he pushes my head down again.
I can do this. I can know how to have a good time.
Second date with the fireman, and in his truck on the way home from the movie, he tells me his friend is also dating a black girl. His friend says black girls will let you do anal; you just got to throw it up there, ha-ha. Dummy that I am, I’m not sure why he’s telling me this.
Back at my apartment, after he drinks all my wine coolers, he gets my clothes off quick. He flips me over and goes for it.
“That kind of hurts,” I say, but he keeps fumbling, keeps trying. “I mean I don’t like it.”
“You’re hella blunt,” he says, but he stops, goes back to plain old vanilla. And I should tell him to get out, not to let the door hit him in the ass, but instead I let him finish because I never was good at thinking quickly.
WRECKED
On a Wednesday in early December, the doorbell rings. It’s after noon. Beth tries to ignore it, but on the third ring, she gets out of bed, makes her way downstairs. She doesn’t want to open the door, not when her hair’s a mess and she hasn’t showered, but then she reminds herself it’s probably someone trying to sell her on Jesus. Who cares about making a good impression? What she finds instead is Steve Brody.
“What the hell?” she says, and he steps past her, into the house.
“Surprise,” he says, quietly.
“I don’t know where your niece is,” she says.
“Down at the hardware store,” Steve says. “Jared is showing her the ropes.”
Beth’s knee-jerk reaction is anger at Linda for leaving Ernest unattended, until she remembers that she’s supposed to be watching him today. Linda told her at dinner last night that she had somewhere to be, only Beth assumed she was getting her hair cut or a prenatal massage.
“Shit,” Beth says, and goes into the dining room to check on her father. There he is, his eyes open, though not exactly alert. She’s not sure what she was expecting—that he’d run off on her? The thought almost makes her laugh.
Steve comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her, a hand covering each of her breasts. The nerve of him, thinking he can paw her right here.
“What time is it?” she asks.
“Quarter till one,” he says. Her kids won’t be home from school until three. She leads him upstairs. At the top, he hesitates when she turns toward the master bedroom.
“You sure?” he asks.
“We can’t very well do this in the room I share with my daughter,” she says.
He follows her inside. They don’t even bother turning down the bed; they fuck on top of the flowered duvet that Linda, no doubt, had put on the bed. Even though it’s been a month and a half since her father’s stroke, the room still holds his green, fresh-mown smell. She imagines Linda coming home, entering the room where she now sleeps alone, and noticing something off. Maybe she would know right away, would recognize the smell of Beth’s unwashed body, of Steve’s cigarettes and drugstore aftershave. Maybe she would put it together, would realize what Beth was taking from Linda’s family, the relatively small payment she collected in exchange for Linda’s room and board.
As usual, Beth finds herself imagining some other couple, some other dynamic, like a boss and his employee, or a professor and his student. Always in these scenarios, she sees herself as the man. And while Steve goes about his task—distractedly, it seems—while he keeps fucking her, slowly, rhythmically, Beth has the first orgasm she’s had with him since they were twentysomething.
Afterward, in the stretch of infinity it takes for him to finish, it just now dawns on her that, no, he isn’t fucking her. She’s fucking him. She feels a surge of feverish energy at the thought, and when she realizes he is oblivious to this change in their dynamic, the energy only increases.
“Stop,” she says.
He doesn’t seem to have heard her.
“Stop,” she says again, pushing him off her.
“What’s wrong?” He looks genuinely confused.
“I’m done,” she says simply.
“You’re done?” His eyebrows lower. “Done with what? Done with us?”
“No, I mean I finished.” She gets up from the bed, not bothering to cover herself with a sheet. She has always been a little unsure of her body, but today, she doesn’t care if he looks.
“I didn’t,” he says, rolling toward her. He has a playful smile on now, and he reaches a hand out to grab a handful of whatever bit of her he can reach, but she steps away.
“That sounds like your problem,” she says, and goes into the bathroom stark naked.
In the bathroom, she finds that she’s shaking. She’s never done that before—left a man before he completed his task—though Lord knows, plenty of men have left her unsatisfied. She has to fight the urge to go back in there, to let him finish.
“God, you’re a bitch,” Eliza tells her.
“Maybe I am,” Beth says, her hands on either side of the sink. In truth, she knows she is. And she likes it.
* * *
• • •
At the end of the week, Dan and Jeanette want to go to Allison Dekker’s Ugly Sweater Christmas Party. Beth knows the Dekker family. Allison Dekker comes to the house from time to time to invite all of the DeWitts to church. Beth doesn’t really want her kids hanging around with the Dekker family, but she doesn’t have a good reason to say no.
“Who’s going to be there?” Beth asks them.
“Just some kids,” Jeanette says.
“Will there be parents?”
“Of course. God, Mom,” Dan says.
Dan comes downstairs later that evening wearing his normal clothes: tee shirt, blue cardigan hoodie, skinny jeans, tennis shoes.
“You too cool for ugly sweaters?” Beth asks.
“He wants to look good for his girlfriend,” Jeanette says.
“You have a girlfriend?”
He shrugs. “Sort of.”
“Well? Do you?”
“God, Mom. Leave it alone.”
“Who is she?”
“Just a girl from school.”
“Which girl?”
“Mandy Brody,” Jeanette says.
“You’re such a pain in my ass!” Dan stomps out of the house.
The news hits Beth like a tidal wave. Mandy Brody. She knew she should never have moved back here.
“How long have they been dating?”
“I don’t know. A month?” Jeanette is eating Skittles for dinner, smacking her lips with every handful. She wears black pants and a fuzzy red sweater. Beth doesn’t remember seeing either piece of clothing before, and she wonders where Jeanette got them. On Jeanette’s neck, the scar from where Beth burned her is shiny and pink, bright against Jeanette’s dark clothing.
“No.”
“I think I have a reindeer one somewhere.”
“I got it covered,” she says, and tilts her head back, emptying the rest of her Skittles into her mouth. She goes to the fridge and pours herself a glass of Faygo before heading upstairs.
Why did Dan have to get involved with a Brody? Thinking of her son with that family, Beth can’t ignore all the things she hates about Steve. His drunkard’s drawl and old cigarette smell. His clothes, full of holes and stained with paint and roofing tar. His sense of humor, which he thinks is so wry, but is really just redneck. His gaze, shifty at all times except when he’s lying; when he’s lying, he looks you dead in the eye.
* * *
• • •
An hour later, Jeanette comes back downstairs with makeup on. Her eyes look professionally done, in heavy eyeliner and smoky shadow. Her sweater is pinned with felt candy canes and ornaments and snowmen. Worse yet, her little afro is pressed straight. Up close, Beth can see and smell that Linda at least used coconut oil this time.
“Nice sweater,” Beth says, but she can’t keep the bristles from her voice.
“Thanks,” Jeannette says. “Linda helped make them.”
“You need to scrub off some of that makeup, though.”
“But it’s a party,” Jeanette says, her voice quiet, even. Jeanette, too, has a woman inside her, a woman who screams until the windows shatter. She’s just better at containing her screaming woman, because she has to be.
“You’re only twelve,” Beth says, and for a moment, she finds herself counting back the years to make sure she’s right. Is Jeanette only twelve? The look she gives Beth—calm, assured—seems so much older.
“Allison Dekker wears more makeup than this every day,” she says.
“Allison Dekker isn’t my daughter.”
“This isn’t the nineteen-hundreds,” she says. And really, what’s her mother’s problem? It’s not like she’s wearing a short skirt or low-cut top. Some of the girls at school, they’re always testing the dress code. Tonight, Jeanette figures it’ll be a free-for-all.
“You can wear makeup when you get to high school.” Beth’s voice has gone higher, while Jeanette’s is still even. “Now go wash your face.”
“I really don’t want to.”
“Wash your face or you’re not going,” Beth says. She sounds shrill even to herself.
Jeanette doesn’t move. Motionlessly, she stares her mother down. With so much eye makeup on, her eyes look huge, like those of a Disney princess. This makes Beth even more emotional. She doesn’t want her daughter thinking she has to look like a princess, like a cartoon. The look Jeanette gives, though—her face placid, her eyes focused, squinted ever so slightly, as if she’s studying Beth, measuring her—leaves Beth feeling proud of her daughter, but also scared at the same time.
When Beth was her age, she would have gone upstairs, washed her face, and then packed the makeup to reapply after she left the house.
“Never mind,” Jeanette says. “It’s going to be a stupid party anyway.” And she goes upstairs. Quietly. She doesn’t stomp, doesn’t slam her bedroom door. Jeanette protests the only way she knows how: She plays country music in the sour bedroom she shares with her mother. Not loudly—she doesn’t want to risk her mother having a full-blown meltdown. She figures it’s just loud enough for her mother to hear downstairs, an assault calculated to grind her nerves.
Country is about as far from her mother’s music as Jeanette can get. Her mother is ridiculous, though she dare not ridicule her. It’s like her mother thinks there’s danger lurking in this town, but how can there be? There aren’t enough people here for real danger, and these farmers are too busy working and going to church and judging each other to pose any real threat. How Jeanette wishes she could move back to Charlotte, back to her old school. Her dad isn’t nearly as strict, but then, her dad also doesn’t want her there, she’s sure of it. Or, no, maybe he does want her and Dan to live with him, but not as much as he wants to make things work with his new wife.
* * *
• • •
Beth hears Jeanette’s music upstairs. She can only just hear it, though. She tries to convince herself it’s not a personal attack. Her daughter is simply listening to music. She has more pressing issues anyway.
She finds Linda in the dining room, sitting next to Ernest’s hospital bed. She’s reading a book silently, holding his hand. Beth doesn’t look at her father, at the face that she knows has gone sallow, at his boney arms. She looks at the wall above his bed, or at the floor, trying to fit him into her blind spot.
“I would appreciate it if you would stop smearing my twelve-year-old daughter in makeup.”
“I’m sorry?”
“She’s a middle schooler, for God’s sake.”
“Okay,” Linda says, shutting her book.
“She can wear makeup when she gets to high school.”
“I hear you. Loud and clear.” Linda has her hands up in surrender. “I was just trying to cheer her up. She’s having a rough time at school.”
This deflates Beth. She’d hoped this would pass. “Bullies?” Beth asks.
“No, nothing like that,” Linda says. “She’s been having boy trouble.”
“Boys her age are immature,” Beth says, waving Linda away.
“The boy she likes? He likes her, but he’s not allowed to date her.”
“Fucking River Bend,” Beth says.
“They are awful young,” Linda says.
“And you thought pressing her hair would help?” She feels the urge to shake Linda, to wake her up. Instead, she folds her arms, keeps herself to herself.
“I just thought it might boost her confidence,” Linda says.
“You can make her look whiter, but she still won’t be white enough for this town,” Beth says. Inside, Eliza cringes.
“What’s her skin color have to do with it?” Linda says, and she looks genuinely perplexed. Of course she is. She’s never before had a reason to question someone’s racial motives. When Beth was not much older than Jeanette, she’d had a boyfriend who would date her only in secret. He said he was allowed to be friends with her, but his parents would never let him date her. What Beth hadn’t understood—not at the time, although it falls into place now—was why he wouldn’t even tell his friends.
“Her skin color has everything to do with it,” Beth says.
Linda rolls her eyes. “Not everything is about race, Beth.”
And how to make Linda understand? What she needs is definitive proof that this is about race, but Beth has been around long enough to know that trying to wake someone like Linda is an exercise in futility; there will never be proof enough.
“You’re not her mother,” Beth says, with more anger than is due her. Beth knows this isn’t entirely Linda’s fault, but she is fighting mad now, and Linda is the only person present.
“No. I’m not her mother,” Linda says, sighing.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I agree. I’m agreeing with you.”
“No, you’re sneering at me.”
“No, I’m not, Beth,” Linda says, her hands up. “I’m sorry. I should have checked with you before I let her use my makeup.”
“And I’m perfectly capable of making an ugly sweater.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“There it is again. You don’t believe me. But what do you know? You don’t have kids. You don’t know how much work and worry they are. You get to play stylist with my daughter, but you just wait. You wait until you have a twelve-year-old. You don’t know, but you will.”
“I don’t know what you want from me,” Linda says, hugging her arms to her chest.
/> “Just wait.”
Linda gets up from her chair and moves toward Beth, who flinches, thinking Linda is going to hit her. Beth closes her eyes, waiting for the impact. Instead, Linda pulls Beth into a hug. “You’re grieving,” she says.
Beth shrugs out of her grip. “I don’t need your pity.” The side of her face is wet. “And don’t you think it’s time you moved out? You got a job now, right? At the hardware store?”
Linda’s eyebrows lower, and her mouth scrunches to one side. “I’m not leaving Ernest,” she says.
“I can take care of my father.”
“Just think of me as the live-in nurse you can’t afford.”
“I can afford to care for my father.”
“With what money? Your little cooking job?” The color slips from Linda’s face.
“Then I’ll sell this place and move somewhere smaller.”
“Smaller,” Linda says. Her voice sounds strained. She puts a hand on her forehead. “The four of you? In what, a two-bedroom house?”
“Don’t tell me how to run my household.”
“I’m not telling—”
“You’re not even a part of this family. Nobody wants you here.”
“I do,” Jeanette says behind Beth. “Granddad does.”
“Granddad’s an invalid,” Beth says.
“Don’t say that,” Jeanette says quietly, and Beth thinks she’s finally crossed a line. She thinks Jeanette might be on the verge of wailing like she used to when she was a baby, of spilling over all the emotion she struggles to contain.
“He is,” Beth says. “He’s basically a high-maintenance houseplant.”
Jeanette bursts forward, and again, Beth flinches. When she opens her eyes, she sees Jeanette catch Linda as she falls.
* * *
• • •
At the hospital, Derek Williams wheels Linda into an exam room. Beth sits alone in the empty lobby. Eliza uses the time to list all the ways in which Beth is failing.
“This is your fault,” she insists. “You just kept pushing until this happened.”
The House of Deep Water Page 20