Such a Pretty Girl

by Laura Wiess

  If.

  Afterward.

  Oh no. No, I can’t.

  I don’t want to be the sacrificial lamb. I can’t go through it again, not unless I’m guaranteed a nick-of-time save and unshakable sanity, neither of which seem available. It’s too much to ask of anyone, and yet…if I don’t stake myself out, sooner or later somebody else, somebody innocent and still pure, is going to get caught in my father’s web and it will be my fault for not stopping him.

  “Meredith?” Leah Louisa prods.

  I blink and am back on the battlefield, scrabbling desperately for another way. “Why do I have to be around him, Mom? You’re happy he’s back. I’m not. You want time alone with him and I’m trying to stay away, but you just keep forcing him down my throat.” I pause and my mother’s mouth tightens. She thinks I’ve said it to taunt her, but I haven’t. “Why can’t you just leave me out of it?”

  “Because family sticks together.” Her mascara’s left raccoon smudges under her eyes and her armpit stubble needs shaving. She won’t like what she sees when she gets home and will blame me for causing her sloppy grooming.

  “Then why don’t you stick with me?” I ask. “Why don’t you tell him that some things aren’t forgivable and there’s no making nice or starting over—”

  “You see?” my mother says bitterly, spreading her hands and glaring at my grandmother as if it’s somehow all her fault. “There’s no talking to her. She hears what she wants to and that’s it. The world revolves around Meredith and nobody else counts.”

  “Sharon, be reasonable,” my grandmother says.

  “I’m done being reasonable,” my mother says, pushing away from the counter. “I’ve talked myself hoarse and it’s gotten me nowhere. I know Charles made mistakes. He’s sorry and has promised it’ll never happen again, okay? If you think he’s stupid enough to get himself sent back there, then you don’t know anything at all!” She scowls. “I’m not leaving him, no matter what anybody says. I promised to stand by him for better or for worse, until death did us part. Get it through your heads: I meant it.”

  The clock over the sink ticks like a bomb.

  “So there’s nothing he could do that would drive you away,” my grandmother says, knotting her hands together on the table.

  “No,” my mother says without hesitation. “He’s my soul mate, I love him and…well, as a matter of fact, we’re trying to have another baby.”

  “What?” my grandmother says.

  I’m up and out of my chair. “You can’t be serious!”

  “Of course I am.” My mother’s eyes are lit with an odd sort of triumph. “Charles has always wanted a big family and what better way to show faith in our marriage than to have another baby? A son would be wonderful, don’t you think?”

  “Sure, Mom, a son would be perfect,” I say. “And convenient, too.”

  But this time my mother doesn’t rise to the bait. Doesn’t lose control. Doesn’t do anything but smile because she knows she has us and there’s nothing we can do about it except pray for sluggish sperm and withered eggs.

  I plop back into my chair.

  “Have you taken your age into consideration?” my grandmother babbles, clinging to the edge of the table like the house has tilted and she’s trying not to fall into the abyss. “A woman your age is in a higher risk category for certain birth defects….” She meets my mother’s unperturbed smile and forges on. “It’s such a huge, irreversible step, Sharon. What about your career? Are you planning on being a stay-at-home mom this time?”

  My mother’s laugh curdles my stomach. I realize what she’s going to say before she even speaks and I cannot bear to hear it.

  “Mother, be serious,” she drawls. “Charles and I have already talked about this and since I’m the only one earning a decent salary, he’ll stay home with the baby. Meredith can help after school. She’s going to be sixteen soon and it’s time she learned a little responsibility.” She glances at me. “So now you see why it’s important to put the past behind us. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone yet, but I didn’t know how else to make you understand how strong our commitment is to each other.” She slips into the chair across from me, face glowing. “Don’t you see? This baby-to-be deserves a whole family—”

  Leah Louisa clears her throat. “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? You’re not pregnant yet. And, well…Charles just got out yesterday!”

  “You’d be surprised at how much you can accomplish in ten minutes,” my mother says and actually giggles. “Talk about absence making the heart grow fonder!”

  Someone moans and I’m not surprised to discover it’s me.

  “Sharon, please,” my grandmother says, casting me a pointed glance.

  “Relax, Mother,” she says, smirking and leaning back in her chair. “Meredith’s a big girl. She knows how babies are made, don’t you, Mer?”

  I nod, numb and weary. “ ’Course I do. Same guy that taught you taught me.”

  Her hand flashes out and slams into the side of my face.

  My head explodes and the kitchen swims in kaleidoscope seas.

  “Sharon!” My grandmother jumps up. “Meredith, are you all right?”

  I make a strange sound and put my hand to my throbbing face.

  Leah Louisa grabs my mother’s arm and jerks her to her feet. “That’s it. Get out.” Her fair, mayoral persona is nothing but a memory.

  My mother twists free and stares at her. “All right, stop. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t change what just happened.”

  “But—” my mother says.

  “There are no buts!” My grandmother snatches the dirty plates from the table, whirls, and crashes them down into the sink. A chunk of ceramic bounces up and hits the window. “It’s too late and it will be too late forever. I’m not going to stand by and watch this happen again because you’re too stupid to put an end to it!”

  I stop breathing.

  Incredibly, my mother holds her ground. “Oh, like you ended it when you caught Daddy cheating on you with Mrs. Burt? Funny, I don’t seem to remember you guys getting a divorce.”

  My grandmother goes ashen.

  “What, you thought it was a secret?” My mother laughs again, uglier this time. “Sorry, Mom, nothing in this neighborhood was a secret. Every kid on the block knew what was going on, me included. Hell, I knew before you did.”

  My grandmother falls back a step, staring at my mother as if she’s never seen her before. Seconds pass and when she finally speaks, her words start out shaky but quickly gain strength. “You need to leave now or I’ll call the police and have you arrested. We’ll see how quickly Charles pawns his late father’s jewelry to pay your bail. Or maybe he won’t. Maybe it’d be more convenient to have you out of the way so he can—”

  “Stop it!” I shout, caught up in a full-body tremble.

  Both women turn in surprise, like they’ve forgotten I’m even here. My presence abruptly ends the battle.

  My mother gives my grandmother one last foul look and heads for the foyer. “Supper at six, Meredith,” she tosses back and slams the front door.

  The washer buzzes in the background, signaling the end of a load. Robotlike, my grandmother turns and walks out of the kitchen to the laundry room. The dryer starts. The clasps on my overalls clank and clatter, rude in the throbbing silence.

  I sit frozen, staring down at the last bite of sandwich. My face feels huge, and a dark weight crushes the center of my brain. My own grandfather…and my grandmother had stayed with him. I can hardly stand being in my own family anymore.

  Leah Louisa returns, stiff as a sentry, and gazes at the broken dishes as if she can’t quite make sense of them. “It wasn’t the same thing at all,” she says. “Hazel Burt had the morals of an alley cat, and don’t think her poor husband didn’t know it. Your grandfather was just one of the many fools who fell into her net.” She clears her throat and tries again. “Things were different back then. Respectable people didn’t a
ir their dirty laundry for the world to see like they do now. Things like that were swept under the rug and the less said, the better. I did what I thought best, given the circumstances. If it happened again today…” She shakes her head, lips tight. “I can’t prevent your mother from throwing her life away, but I’ll be damned if I’ll just sit back and let her throw yours away, too.”

  The declaration is powerful and on some level welcome, but it comes too late. I’d always thought of Leah Louisa as the strong one, the one who spoke her mind and stood up for what was right, the one who never settled or sold out. I’d run to her believing that if she said this mess was over then it would be over, but now I can’t unknow what I know and my faith in her is weakened. “How are you going to stop him?”

  She summons a grim smile. “You’ll move in here with me. He wouldn’t dare try anything while you’re under my roof.” She strides across the room, authority in motion, and snatches up a pad and pen. “We have a lot to accomplish and it must be done correctly.” She paces, stops, and jots something on the page. “Darn it. Norman always leaves early on Saturday for the lake. I’ll have to see him on Monday.”

  “Who’s Norman?” I ask because it seems to matter.

  “The family court judge,” she says absently, scribbling. “I have to call my attorney, my secretary…. Oh, I have a meeting I can’t postpone on Monday.” She frowns and taps the pen on the paper. “Well, we’ll just have to schedule around it.”

  She makes it sound so simple, so matter-of-fact, like with her taking charge my survival is assured. I can’t let myself believe it, and yet there’s no stopping me from craving more, from wanting to offer her all my dragons. “My father won’t let me go.”

  She snorts and peers at me over the top of her glasses. “Your father will have no choice. By the time we’re done with him, he’ll be lucky if he ends up with an occasional supervised visit, and if I thought I could block those, too, rest assured I would.”

  I try to hold back, but her words are more potent than vitamins and I sit, blood thrumming, knowing it can’t be this easy, and yet…“Which room do I get?”

  “The blue or the rose, your choice,” she says, writing again. “The mattress in the blue room is new, but the view from the rose room is better.”

  “What about my stuff? My clothes and all, I mean?”

  She glances up with a quick frown, like I tripped her in the middle of a full-out stride. “We’ll get to that at some point. I don’t want you going near that complex by yourself. Now, I need to make some important calls, so why don’t you go up and choose a room?”

  “Okay.” I push back my chair and stand, awkward, wanting to let her know that I’m trying to believe, but all that comes out is, “Which one would you take?”

  “The one with the new mattress,” she says, picking up the phone. “A good sleep makes all things possible.” She studies my face and she sees something, maybe everything I can’t say, because she replaces the receiver, crosses the room, and folds me into a fierce hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I should have forced the issue and done something sooner.”

  Two people, four arms. Strong numbers. “What could you have done, Gran? Kidnap me? I mean, up until yesterday everything was fine. If he hadn’t gotten out early, none of this would be happening.”

  “Well, now it is, so let’s get busy and solve this problem once and for all.” She releases me with a brisk smile and goes back to the phone.

  I gather her bathrobe around me and trot upstairs. The bedrooms are beautiful, guest rooms out of a magazine, with polished wood floors and thick throw rugs, matching sheets and comforters, and tons of fringed pillows. The walls have framed old-fashioned paintings on them, one with rich, blue hydrangea bushes and one with lush pink roses. The women in both pictures are wearing long, flowing dresses and have kittens romping at their feet.

  I perch on the bed in the blue room, careful not to crease the comforter, and then do the same in the rose room. My cigarettes and knife thud against my thigh as I cross and re-cross the hall. I can’t tell the difference in mattresses. The door locks are the same, press-in buttons and flimsy like home. The rose room looks out over Gran’s flower garden, the blue room over the quiet street, but neither has a tree branch or a drainpipe near enough to use if I ever need an escape route.

  “Meredith?” Gran’s voice echoes up the stairs.

  I trot out to the landing. “What?”

  “I’ve spoken with my assistant and he’s going to meet me down at my office to work on our strategy and set things up for Monday. We’re going to try and reach my attorney, too, so I may be gone for a couple of hours.” Pause. “Do you want to come with me or will you be all right here alone?”

  I feel my cigarettes nudging my leg. “No, you go ahead. I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “Just lock the door and I’ll be fine,” I call back.

  “All right, then, I’m on my way.” Keys jingle. “I left the direct phone line to my office on the pad by the phone. The TV remote is on the coffee table in the den. I’m taking my laptop with me, but you’re free to read any of the books or use the other computer if you’d like. When I get back, we’ll order Chinese for supper. How would that be?”

  “Fine,” I say and wave as she bustles out the door. I listen for the lock’s click, then zoom down the steps and double-check it. I remember the back door and race through the kitchen, narrowly missing a stray shard of ceramic plate on the floor, and check that door, too. It’s locked and so is the sliding glass. I dart from room to room, checking all the windows, hunkering down to stay below the sills until the last moment so if my father is out there watching the house, he won’t be able to follow my progress.

  I scurry back up the stairs to the blue bathroom, turn on the fan, and shut the door. Crack the tiny window and light a cigarette. Perch on the cold, hard edge of the tub and use the toilet as an ashtray. It’s not the most satisfying way to smoke, nothing at all like hanging out at Andy’s….

  Andy.

  He’s leaving for Iowa tomorrow and I never kissed him good-bye. Never even said good-bye, just ran out of there like some kind of paranoid lunatic. He doesn’t even know I’m safe at Leah Louisa’s. No one does.

  I should call and tell him, but I can’t leave the room with my cigarette. I wish I still had a cellphone, but my mother took it back after my friend Azzah and her family moved to Miami and I’d racked up a six-hundred-dollar bill calling her.

  Funny, how bad I’d missed her until Andy moved in and then it was like I’d almost forgotten she’d existed. She forgot me, too, I guess, as she never returned my last call.

  I take one last drag, drop the cigarette in the toilet, and flush. Tighten the sash on Gran’s robe, crack the door, and slither out, closing it behind me so the smell won’t taint the rest of the house. I hate the thought, but I have a feeling my smoking days are numbered. I hurry down to the kitchen and lift the receiver, punch out half of Andy’s number, and then stop.

  I don’t want to say good-bye to Andy over the phone. I need to see him, and I need him to see me. I need to be fixed solid in his arms and his mind, not as the one who’d led the nightmare straight to his door this morning, and then freaked and bolted, but as me, Meredith, something good enough to sustain him to Iowa and back. Leaving him with that last awful memory, saying “See ya” over the phone, or sneaking him a covert wave as Leah Louisa and I move my stuff out of my condo isn’t going to do it.

  I can lose a lot, but I can’t lose Andy.

  I replace the receiver and scribble my grandmother a note saying I’ll be back. I have no key so chances are she’s going to come home and find me sitting on her doorstep waiting for her anyway, but still.

  My overalls and tank top are almost dry. I change, transferring my stuff from pocket to pocket. I hang my grandmother’s bathrobe on a hook and, tucking my hair back behind my ears, slip out through the mudroom door and into the sunlight.

  Cha
pter Thirteen

  I take the direct route back and within fifteen minutes am turning off Main Street into the complex. My overalls are wrinkled but dry from the hot, whooshing breeze stirred by passing motorists.

  “FFWHEEEEEEEEEEEEPPP!”

  I wince, pause, and track the shrill whistle.

  Nigel Balthazar is on his front stoop. “Finally. Come here.” His face is florid and the pits of his shirt are dark with sweat. “Christ, don’t make me yell. It’ll kill me.”

  I hesitate, then pad up his front walk. I can spare a couple of minutes. “What?”

  Gilly appears in the smeary living room window and barks to join us.

  “Have a seat,” he says, waving me toward one of the two rusty, nylon-strapped lawn chairs squatting in the sun. “I want to show you something.”

  “You must be kidding,” I say, eyeing the spiderweb shrouds draping the chair legs and the bug corpses dangling from the arms, wafting and bumping lazily in the breeze like macabre wind chimes. “What did you do, steal these out of Stephen King’s cellar?”

  “They’re the best I could do on short notice,” he says crankily, maneuvering his bulk in front of a chair. He grips the plastic armrests and gingerly lowers himself until the chair stops screeching in protest. His butt scrapes the ground and I have no idea how he will ever get up. “Are you gonna plant it or what?”

  I sigh and settle into my hellish throne. Light a cigarette and lay the pack on the rickety table next to a mummified daddy longlegs. My throat is parched and the cigarette makes me cough. “Water?” I look around for a hose.

  He frowns at my staccato hack. “You should have said something before I wedged my ass into this torture device. Go into the fridge and grab a couple of Snapples. And you might as well bring Gilly out, too. Her leash is by the door.”

  “You sure?” I rasp, because I’ve never been in his condo before.