by Mark Dunn
“That must have been a big table. Did you like the boy you were paired up with?”
“I did. He was nice. I think we wound up together because we’re both the youngest, but it worked out okay. He’s pretty cute, I’d have to say. He looks kind of like Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys—I mean, like if Nick Carter was a little bit older and didn’t have his teeth whitened so much. But I don’t think he’s all that smart—even though he just graduated from Ole Miss.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. He just seems like one of those guys who doesn’t pay much attention to things if he doesn’t have to.”
“You mean things in the news and such like?”
Molly nodded.
“Did he pay attention to you?”
“He did, Daddy. He paid a lot of attention to me. He wants to see me again.”
“Oh. Really?”
“I told him I’d think about it. I should probably go to bed. I’m really sleepy.” Molly got up from the sofa.
“Which shift do you girls have tomorrow?”
“Primetime. Five to one. You know we always get five to one on Friday and Saturday nights because that’s when they need the most waitresses. Daddy, don’t fall asleep on the couch. I’m home. I’m safe. Go to bed.”
“This boy—what’s his name?”
“Pat Harrison. He’s from Hattiesburg. I think he really likes me, Daddy.”
“I could give him a good whitening treatment if he wanted it. What does he plan to do with his life?”
“He’s pre-law.”
“Pre-law. Hmm.” Michael grinned. “I guess he wouldn’t be the first dimwitted lawyer practicing in the state of Mississippi.”
“You’re terrible, Daddy.” Molly tossed a throw pillow at her father. He tried to dodge, but it still made contact with his head.
“You sure you don’t want to watch a little of Dionne Warwick and her Psychic Friends Network? I think George Foreman’s just about said everything he’s gonna say.”
“Let me get into my P.J.s first.”
Fifteen minutes later, Molly Osborne—dressed in warm flannel pajamas, her hair and teeth brushed—was curled up at the end of the sofa. Within a couple of minutes, though, she was fast asleep, her head cushioned upon a throw pillow on the armrest. Michael Osborne, who often fell asleep in front of the TV himself, drifted off shortly thereafter.
At eight minutes past two father and daughter were both slumbering away, even though the woman on the television was being stridently giddy over having just been informed that she was about to come into a large sum of money.
It was her psychic friend who told her this.
At this same time, four blocks away, Carrie lay in bed not even the least bit sleepy. She stared into the enveloping darkness of her bedroom while stroking the family tabby, which was scrunched into a furry oval next to her. Over and over again she replayed the sequence of events from one of the most enjoyable nights of her life.
Her mother had wanted details. She had summoned Carrie to her bedroom upon her return to hear whatever interesting tidbits Carrie might wish to share with her. And Carrie did tell her things—a good many things—just not everything.
Because how on Earth could she? On this seemingly ordinary Thursday night, Carrie Hale’s ordinary life had stopped being ordinary, and it was hard for her to even put into words how she felt about this sudden turn of events.
It frightened her. It excited her. It actually made her feel a little woozy.
What she did tell her mother was this: that she really liked the one named Will. The one with the dreamy hazel eyes. The tall one. The one with the linebacker’s build and the overdeveloped biceps, which seemed close to bursting right through the fabric of his button-down shirt, like Bruce Banner’s shirt did while he was transforming into the Hulk. Even better: Will really seemed to like her from the second she’d climbed into the courtesy van.
The seat next to him had been empty. It was almost as if he’d been holding it for her. Carrie wondered if the five former fraternity brothers had already put in their dibs based on Tom’s descriptions, which had obviously been supplied by Jane when the two of them set things up. Carrie meant to ask Jane about this—how it was decided who got who—but she never got the chance. Things had moved so fast. Tom had gotten the fleet boss’s permission to borrow one of the casino’s vans for the night. It wasn’t a problem; Thursday was always a slow night for Lucky Aces. Tom, with his four buddies already on board, had picked up each of the girls at their respective homes and then, this time, instead of dropping everyone off at the Lucky Aces Casino as he had done on Monday morning, he took himself and his nine passengers all the way down Highway 61 to Clarksdale, to a blues club he’d been to there.
Tom Katz, a student of the Mississippi Delta, knew all about its rich musical heritage. He’d grown up in Greenville, farther south. Tom had shown the others the exact spot where the blues singer Bessie Smith had met her tragic vehicular fate, and pointed out the crossroads where Robert Johnson—as legend had it—sold his soul to the devil.
This in spite of the fact that Jerry Castle, born in the exclusive white suburb of Memphis called Germantown, had crowed right in the middle of Tom’s commentary that he’d “had enough nigger history for one night,” so would Tommy please shut his “blabby-mouthed Jew pie-hole?” Maggie had cringed to hear such a string of filth belched from her date for the evening. Carrie was pleased, though, that Will had been the first to dress down his friend for it. She squeezed Will’s arm to demonstrate her approval.
When it was Carrie’s turn to be dropped off, Will walked her to the door of the 1960s-era brick ranch-style she shared with her mother on the north side of Bellevenue (where the second and third– generation middle-class white families lived). Carrie wondered if he was going to kiss her goodnight.
He’d wasted no time in satisfying her curiosity. They’d hardly reached the concrete porch before he pulled her against him and gave her a deep, hungry kiss, his powerful hands clamping her upper arms firmly, almost painfully. After releasing her, he’d whispered with incongruous tenderness, “I want you.”
She didn’t know quite how to respond.
He pushed on: “When can I see you again?”
“Call me,” she said.
He had nodded and clumped back to the shuttle van, planting each foot carefully upon the concrete walk to the driveway so as not to slip on the slick ice.
Carrie didn’t tell her mother about the kiss, or about Will seeming to really like her. But she was honest in admitting she was very interested in him, and yes, she’d probably be seeing him again.
Then she talked about the catfish and the ribs and the “crawdads.” She knew her mother, herself a child of the Delta (Greenwood), also loved crayfish. Carrie conveniently neglected to mention that there had also been some drinking on the order of two Lemon Drops (Molly), one Fuzzy Navel each (Jane and Carrie), two Sea Breezes (Ruth), and a Diet Coke, plus refill, for non-imbiber Maggie. And why shouldn’t she leave this out? None of the girls had overindulged. Ruth had left the club a little buzzed, but it had worn off long before she’d gotten home.
Of course, Sylvia knew. She smelled the peach schnapps on her daughter’s breath. After all, Sylvia Hale wasn’t born yesterday.
She let it pass. She only wished she’d been there too. She would have ordered a strawberry daiquiri.
Jane noticed upon her return to the rooms she shared with her brother at the back of the antique store that several lights had been left on. She turned them off while grumbling to herself that he could have thought a little about their electric bill before going out for the night. Or had he gone out? The previous night, when We Five had gotten together to eat Domino’s pepperoni and talk about what they were going to wear on their group date, he’d been in his room (and never once ventured out, just as he’d promised). More than likely, thought Jane, Lyle would make up for it tonight. He’d be off with his buddies till all hours, eith
er blowing money he couldn’t afford to blow at one of the nearby casinos or drinking himself cross-eyed at some titty bar fifteen miles up the road in Southaven. (Also something he couldn’t afford to do, but which he did anyway once or twice a week.)
She opened the door to his room nonetheless, and discovered she’d been mistaken in her first assumption. He was there. He was awake. And he was doing something she’d never seen him do before.
Startled, he threw himself involuntarily over the sketchpad which had been resting on his knees. There was a book next to him, propped open. He’d been working with colored pencils, copying one of the images from the book; Jane couldn’t quite make it out from where she stood in the doorway.
“What are you doin’?” she asked.
“Why do you just barge in here like that?”
“The door was unlocked. If you were in here with your girly magazines you’d have it locked and I’d mind my own business. Are you drawing?”
“So it appears.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean: why?”
“I don’t know. I just—Lyle, I never knew you liked to draw.”
Lyle closed the sketchpad so Jane, who was craning her neck to get a better look, wouldn’t have any idea as to what he’d been sketching. The open book gave her a clue, though. Stepping closer, she was able to glimpse a pastoral scene—a verdant grassy hill with a flock of sheep on it—before he slammed that shut too.
“I thought you’d still be out,” Jane said, “or conked out in front of the television with a can of Budweiser balanced on your knee. I found you like that one night. I almost took a picture. I can’t believe you don’t even have the radio on.”
“I like silence when I draw. Total quiet.”
Jane sat down on the bed. Lyle was sitting Indian-style at the end, his back pushed against the wall, his cluttered side table pulled over so he’d have a place to prop up the book he was sketching from.
“How long have you been doin’ this?”
Lyle shrugged. “I don’t know. A while.”
“Can I see your sketchbook?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I think it’s great.”
“Thanks, but your approval don’t make no difference to me.”
Lyle got up. He tucked his sketchpad and the art book into his bookcase. It was mostly an open junk cabinet, but it did have a few books there. Jane hadn’t noticed before, but almost all the books were art-related.
“I mean seriously, Lyle. How long have you been sketching?”
“You really interested? Five, six months.”
“Wow.” The word was nearly inaudible, as if Jane had intended to keep her amazement to herself.
“Isn’t it way past your bedtime?” he asked.
“I know it’s late, but I’m keyed up. Now I know what you mean when you sometimes say you’re too wired to sleep.”
“Did you let him in your pants?”
“Don’t be gross. We all had a nice time.”
“Does he want to see you again?”
Jane smiled. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help herself. “I think so.”
“What’s he look like? Is he mule-faced like us?”
Jane got up. “Why do you do this? Why do you assume the only man who’d ever want to take me out would have to look like Beavis or or or or Butthead? Which one’s the ugly one?”
“They’re both pretty fucking ugly. I’m sorry. Sit down.”
Jane sat back down.
“Do you want a beer?”
“Okay.”
Lyle went to the little mini fridge he kept in his room and got a frosty can of Bud for each of them. He popped the cap on both before he sat down.
Then he said, “You know those paintings of the countryside the old woman brought in a few weeks ago?”
“You mean the ones we took for the frames? You were gonna toss the pictures into the incinerator.”
“Well, I never did.”
“They were pretty awful, Lyle.”
“Of course they were. But the more I looked at ’em, the more they got me to thinkin’—Dad was a good artist, I mean, back when he was young. And I liked to draw when I was kid, remember?”
Jane nodded.
“So it’s kind of in the genes. Well, I kept lookin’ at those crappy paintings the woman brought in and I started sayin’ to myself: ‘Hell, I could paint better than that. I mean, if I worked at it.’”
“I like it you’re tryin’ something different.” Jane touched her brother’s hand, taking a swig of her beer.
“Don’t talk down to me.”
“I don’t know any other way to talk to you, Lyle.”
“You’re funny. My life is a shit pit. This ain’t no big news bulletin. Both of our lives are shit. You’re workin’ as a cocktail waitress at a casino. And when I do have the store open, the people who come in—they know the stuff we’re sellin’ here ain’t antiques, even though that’s what the sign says. They know it’s all junk. Crap. And I’m tired of trying to sell it to them. I wanna do somethin’ different. So that’s what I’m doing: I’m trying somethin’ different. Like you meeting that Katz guy and all of a sudden you’re walkin’ around here with a kind of smile on your face I ain’t never seen before.”
“I made a New Year’s resolution, Lyle: that I was gonna shake up my life this year.”
Lyle smiled. “It looks like you’re shaking up everybody’s lives in the bargain. I mean, you and your four gal pals. Never thought I’d see the five of you going out on a what—a quadruple—”
“Quintuple, I think it is.”
“—date. It’s like I’m in some kind of alternate reality where everybody’s almost normal.”
Jane play-glowered. “I’m glad you’re happy for me. Show me your sketchbook.”
“Why?”
“I wanna see your work. Please.”
Lyle went to the bookcase to retrieve the pad. “I’m just starting out,” he hedged.
“I won’t judge you.”
The sketches, each taken from famous landscape paintings and rendered in colored pencil, were good. Very good. Jane didn’t say a word. She just shook her head in undisguised amazement. And for the next twenty minutes, she didn’t think of Tom Katz at all.
However, later, alone in her bedroom, she allowed her thoughts to return to the young man who had made her laugh and think quite differently about herself. Sleep wouldn’t be coming any time soon for Jane Higgins.
Maggie stood in the doorway watching her mother sleep. Clara Barton didn’t snore per se, but because of constantly clogged sinuses, she often breathed through her mouth when she slept. Someone once told Maggie the word for it; her mother chuffled.
Part of Maggie wished her mother had been awake when she got home so she could tell her all about the night she’d just spent. In spite of her pair-up for the night being a first-class dick, she’d still had a great time. It was fun seeing her sisters let their hair down and get silly and flirty—showing sides to themselves Maggie hadn’t thought existed.
But how the hell did she get Jerry Castle? He wasn’t even all that good-looking—that is, compared to Carrie’s Will and Molly’s Pat, and Jane’s Tom, who looked like a particular rock star whose name she couldn’t quite conjure up. Jerry had a high forehead, which came partly from the fact that there was simply a lot of head above his eyebrows. But, as it turned out, his hair was also receding. An “early receder.” Just like Maggie’s father. She guessed Jerry would be totally bald by the time he was thirty.
And it would serve him right. Jerry Castle had a Mack truck– sized ego and a real mouth on him; he was brash and smart-assed in a way that could never be considered attractive. Plus, he kept grabbing her leg to the point where she had to tell him off. In front of everybody. Maggie wondered why his friends put up with him. In the ladies’ room, she asked Jane if she knew. Jane guessed it was because Jerry had had to overcome a pretty sucky childhood. According to Tom, Jerry’s fat
her had been a real tightwad. He was assistant manager of a Hickory Farms store and Jerry grew up eating mostly castoff cheese and nitrite-embalmed summer sausage. Jerry’s buddies probably felt sorry for him.
“Just because you had bad breaks when you were a kid is no reason to act like an asshole when you grow up,” Maggie had replied, checking her teeth in the mirror to make sure some of the rib meat hadn’t gotten stuck in a way that would be unsightly when she opened her large Julia Roberts–esque mouth to laugh or talk. “Look at Ruth,” Maggie pushed her point with Jane, who was applying a little of Molly’s Tommy Girl perfume to the back of her ears. “Ruth had the very same messed-up childhood and she’s as nice as can be.”
“Did you just wake up from a coma?” retorted Jane. “Ruth has an edge you could use for a Weed Wacker. I’ve seen it. You have too.”
“But she doesn’t talk over people and blabber her opinion all the time and use the ‘F’ word for all the different parts of speech.”
Jane snickered. “He does have one big ol’ gutter mouth on him, don’t he?” Jane turned to Maggie, her look suddenly sympathetic. “Oh, you really don’t like him, do you? I’m so sorry, Mags. I tried to match everybody up right, but it looks like you got the short straw, didn’t you? You’re not gonna hold that against me, are you? I mean, you don’t have to ever see him again.”
“I won’t hold it against you, if you do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Talk me up to…” She pointed to the word ‘Tommy’ on the perfume bottle. “I think I like him.”
Jane sucked in her lips. Then, dourly: “You can’t have Tommy. Tommy is spoken for.”
“Really, Jane?” said Maggie, not even trying to hide her annoyance. “You and Tommy? You’re serious?”
“Mags, you can be such a bitch. Yes, I’m serious. As it so happens, he’s already said he wants to see me again. Without his entourage. And I said yes.”
Maggie’s bead-eyed stare said she still didn’t believe her.
“You’ll just have to make do with Jerry or nobody at all,” said Jane, now in a full-fledged huff. “I’m sure he don’t act like that much of an asshole when his buddies aren’t around. He’s just a showoff, is all.”