“You do?” His heavy hands shift across the counter. It unexpectedly nauseates her. Like heavy slugs suddenly pricked at the scent of food. Her. She’s the entree. She pushes away the shudder. She needs the money.
“Sure. Anything else you need while the coffee brews?” She braces for more.
“Lots. But now’s probably not the best time. If you know what I mean?”
For God’s sake, give it a rest, pal. But she nods. “Yeah.”
“You just let me know when,” he says, so full of himself. So full of what he has to offer. Let him know when?
Like never.
In another lifetime.
When I’ve been reincarnated into cheese mold.
But she pulls it together. “You bet,” she says in a thick buttery voice that has to be worth at least a ten-dollar tip. God, she hopes so. Reid would lay down a twenty for this performance. She forces out the pièce de résistance that would bring down the house. She leans across the counter to boost her cleavage. “You just never know…do you? When, that is.” Suck on that one, dirtbag. Enjoy it. It’s all you’ll ever get. She smiles and leisurely pushes away from the counter, relishing his flushed face and flared nostrils. So simple, she thinks. Like pushing buttons. Pathetic.
She pours his coffee and leaves to deliver other orders, but she knows his eyes follow her, his mind jerks out of control with the first come-on he’s probably had in years. He doesn’t finish his coffee, and when he leaves he fans his fat wad of bills at the register, like proof that he was deserving of her attentions.
She scoops up his offering. His five-dollar tip is more than she deserved for a simple order of coffee and a short stack. She should be grateful. But she’s not. It’s still not enough to make up for the rest of her tips. Sundays are usually her best day. She counts on that. Tables are fast and friendly. But not this Sunday.
And the worst is not over. She still has to go to Mama’s to search for the registration sticker. She’s put it off all weekend. She gathers her things and contemplates whether to tip the cook before she leaves. Tip for what? But if she doesn’t, things might be even worse next time. She drops two bucks in his tip jar. Two bucks she can’t afford to give up but can’t afford not to either. He notices and nods. Don’t forget that the next time I work and your thick brain can’t tell the difference between a french fry and a stick up your ass, she wants to say, but instead she ruffles the few dollars in her pocket, smiles, and waves good-bye.
Thirty-Five
“Mama?”
The word sticks in her throat. Barely leaves her lips. The front room is dark. A slice of golden light spills from the kitchen. Another dim glow comes from the hall. The house is unchanged. Newspapers stream from coffee table to floor. Half-filled glasses perch on vacant dusty surfaces, the TV, windowsill, floor, whatever is closest in reach. Blinds are drawn tight, as always, so day and night make no difference. But the smell hits Zoe the hardest. She can almost give it a name now, that rancid mixture of dust, darkness, and surrender. She keeps her breaths shallow, her steps light, so she doesn’t sink into it all. She is here for the sticker and nothing more. She has a room now—a room she aims to keep. Zoe knows how to read the quiet. Mama is in bed, but Zoe doesn’t want her to stir just the same. She wants to search through the mountain of mail, get the registration sticker, and be gone. How have these weeks changed Mama? She is not sure she wants to know.
She lifts her feet carefully as she walks to the kitchen, but as soon as she enters its doorway, she knows she will not be slipping in unnoticed. Hardly. Grandma sits at the kitchen table, alone, her head resting in her hands. She leans forward, her heavy breasts pushing against the table’s edge, her face unseen, only the wrinkled hands expressing anything to Zoe.
Grandma’s hands.
Chapped.
Knobby.
Clutching a face Zoe can’t see.
Grandma senses her presence and startles upward, her hands dropping to the table, but as she absorbs who has invaded her silence, she settles back into the kitchen chair, large and hard. Her face is expressionless, her eyes dark and circled.
“Where’s Mama?” Zoe asks.
“You come with bags, or without?”
“Is she okay?”
“Because I don’t have time to waste chewing fat with you. If you’re here to stay, that’s another thing—”
“Is she sleeping or out?”
“I’ll be the first to let bygones be bygones if you—”
“Without, Grandma! There are no bags. There will never be bags!”
Grandma bolts upright and strains her voice into a hushed command. “Keep your voice down, you hear? I don’t have these circles under my eyes because I had a good night’s sleep! I was up half the night and into the morning with your mama. Her legs cramping, her stomach turned inside out, and then crying and carrying on till she finally cried herself to sleep. Whimpering for the likes of you.”
Zoe leans against the doorjamb and breathes out a long deliberate sigh. “Welcome to the world of Mama, Grandma. You just tuned into this station. I’ve been listening to it for years.”
Grandma grunts. “Oh, sure, now that you have your own place you think you know so all-fired much. Well, let me tell you how it really is—”
“No. I know all about Mama, and I don’t need to hear it from you. You’re so wrapped up in what you want her to be, you don’t see what she really is.” She pushes away from the door and walks to the counter. “I’m just here to pick up my mail. That’s it.”
Zoe begins shuffling through piles of paper searching for an envelope with a County Tax Office return address. Grandma is quiet. For the first time in Zoe’s memory, Grandma has nothing to say. The silence is long and heavy. The words Zoe has spoken have punched the air out of Grandma, and she isn’t even sure why. It can’t be news. Zoe’s shuffling slows as she looks sideways at Grandma, who is leaning back, staring at a kitchen wall that only holds stains and a flyswatter. Lost in the world of Mama. Swallowed up by a kitchen where she doesn’t belong, looking smaller than Zoe remembers, not looking like Grandma at all. The mail is forgotten and Zoe stares. She sees flesh and bones of another person. Someone she doesn’t know. Who is this woman? Who is she? Did she ever have a life outside Mama? Did she ever plan for a spring garden? Did she ever walk past a storefront and yearn for the dress inside? Plan to lose five pounds, just for her? Just because it made her feel good? Did she ever make love with a man? Not sex. She knows there was that with Grandpa—at least three times. But love. On a kitchen table with silverware clattering to the floor. Passionate and urgent, with sweat and screams and laughter. Grandma? Was she ever a woman all her own? And if she was, what happened to her? Where did that woman go? When did she stop believing in herself and start only believing in Mama? When did she lose that part of herself that was truly just hers? How do you lose yourself like that? How long does it take for someone to dissolve away to nothing?
“And you do?”
Grandma has been quiet for so long, Zoe has lost the question.
“Do what?”
Grandma turns in her chair to face Zoe fully. “Think you know so much about your mama. Where’d you get all those smarts from, Beth? From your daddy?”
Daddy. Like it’s a dirty word.
The quiet was to refuel. Reorganize. Zoe can see that now. No one beats Grandma at strategy. Zoe is silent. She doesn’t want to talk about Daddy. Not with Grandma.
“Nothing to say? Well let me tell you about his smarts—”
“Please, Grandma.” Her voice is breathy, and she feels the ground she has lost. “Drop it,” she says more firmly. “It won’t get us anywhere.”
“Oh no, I think it will. It’ll get some fool notions out of your head that you’ve been nursing. You brought all this up, so let’s clear the air.”
Clear air is vulgar and bare coming from Grandma’s lips. Needles stab at her throat. “Daddy has nothing to do with this, so let’s just leave him out of it.”
&nb
sp; “You don’t know, do you? You don’t even remember?” Grandma laughs and shakes her head. “I told your mama that. I told her, but she didn’t believe me. I told her you were so sound asleep all you remember was the screaming. Her screaming and throwing your daddy out. That’s all you remember.” She laughs again.
Zoe throws down the stack of mail in her hands. “I’m going to check the stacks on Mama’s dresser.” She knows. That will do it. That will change Grandma’s gears. That will jerk them out of their determined clear-the-air track.
“Stop! Don’t you wake her!”
A point for Zoe.
She walks down the hall, Grandma in pursuit, trying to keep up. Zoe is already opening the door, and Grandma retreats, breathless, afraid to rock the tenuous fleeting world of Mama’s peace. Zoe avoids the floorboards that creak. She has them memorized. She has safeguarded the peace more times than Grandma. But in just a second or two it is apparent. Zoe recognizes the soft rumbling breaths and Mama’s body pressing into the mattress like she is sewn there. Her slumber is deep. Prescription-pill deep. Drink deep. Pain-free deep. A little peace for Mama. The light is dim, only faint twilight seeps through drawn shades and heavy drapes. But it’s enough. Enough to see the beauty of Mama. Enough to see the delicate china doll that is coming undone.
Zoe sits on the edge of the bed, easing down so gently the bedsprings hardly wheeze. The room is different. Grandma has been here. The nightstand is free of glasses and pill bottles, free of rings of dust and clutter. Grandma, trying. Always trying. The dresser is clear, too. Polished and almost attractive. Sheets have been washed. Lampshades straightened. Clothes picked up from the floor. Cobwebs swiped from corners. It could almost pass for a bedroom like any other, if not for Mama. Grandma can change some things, but not all. The picture just over the lampshade still hangs crooked. Grandma didn’t bother straightening that. It’s Zoe’s favorite picture. Mama standing on the courthouse steps with flowers in her hair, smiling at the camera. Her fingernails are like ten little rose petals spread in a row across her white suit. Her face, happy and young and hopeful. Daddy is standing next to her, not looking at the camera but at Mama. Boyish. Love and wonder filling his face. And Zoe is there, too. Unseen. Mama’s tummy still flat. But there. And Mama knew it and was still smiling.
Her hand moves from her lap to lie on top of Mama’s hand. “I won all my matches last Friday, Mama,” she whispers. “I was the star. Remember what Daddy used to say about the stars—” She swallows against the ache in her throat. “I think you would’ve been proud. I’ve come a long way. A couple of years ago, I was dead-last, and now people pay attention when they see Zoe Beth Buckman walk on the court. I even have a cheering section. My own cheering section. Mama? Maybe next Friday you can come.” Mama doesn’t stir. Zoe knows she won’t. “Or another time.” Zoe stands and reaches out to straighten the picture over the lamp. She touches the small white inch of glass that is Mama’s tummy. Where did that person go?
She looks away. Don’t sink in, Zoe. The validation sticker is all you need. Get it and get out. Before it’s too late. She opens the closet door but Grandma has been here, too. There is no mail. Back to the kitchen. Grandma is waiting for her in the hallway.
“This what you’re looking for?” She holds up a white envelope. Zoe sees the return address. County Tax Office.
“Yes. Thank you,” she says and reaches for it.
Grandma pulls the envelope away. “Whoa. Hold on. Just a minute. These things aren’t free you know.”
“It’s Mama’s validation sticker. Not yours.”
“Your Mama forgot to take care of it with everything that’s been on her mind.”
Always the spin.
“So I paid for it. And I guess, well, that does make it mine.”
Zoe doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Thinks. But there is no strategy. “I need the sticker,” she says. “Without it I can’t drive, and if I can’t drive I can’t get to work.”
“Oh, Beth. Don’t you worry. I’m going to give you the sticker. But with you being such an independent career girl and all, I know you’ll want to pay me back for it.”
“But I can’t afford—”
“Beth.” Grandma’s face changes. Small wrinkles soften her eyes. The trying grandma. The smoothing-over grandma. “Let me take care of this. Come home and let’s put all this behind us. Start fresh. Come on, now. Be a good girl.”
A good girl. She almost could. Except for the lost woman Grandma has become. Except for the lost woman in the photo over Mama’s bed. A good girl might come easy, almost, if not for that.
“How much?” she asks.
“Beth—”
“I’m never coming back. Get used to it. Never coming. Never crawling. Never.”
The hard face returns. Soft lines fold into stone. “Never say never, Beth. I learned that two lifetimes ago. So did your mama. So will you.”
“But I’m not you—and I’m sure as hell not Mama.” Zoe’s hands shake. Damn, she needs a cigarette. But she waits.
“Eighty-eight dollars.” Grandma holds her palm out.
“Eighty-eight dollars! For a lousy—”
“Twenty percent late fee penalty.” Grandma turns and walks back into the kitchen. “Plus toll road fees. Adds up doesn’t it? Still want it?”
Zoe pushes past her and grabs her purse from the counter. She counts out ninety dollars and snatches the envelope from Grandma’s hand. “Keep the change.”
She leaves, slamming the door, hoping it wakes Mama. When she says never, she means never, even though more than half her rent money now lies in Grandma’s know-it-all palm.
Thirty-Six
The road, too familiar. Too much of the sameness to hold her. It melts away. She glides through Ruby. Glides to then.
Flashes of light.
Screams.
Kyle’s startled cries.
She remembers.
Elbows.
Arms.
Clothes flying out the door.
Remembers.
Sharp pieces of memory.
Frozen fragments.
And more.
Grandma is wrong.
She remembers more.
It has come to her piece by sleepy piece—through fog and time.
She remembers. Daddy. Naked. Hovering over her. Stumbling from the bathroom, blind with vodka, through a door. The wrong door.
Her door.
He never touched her. But she thinks, maybe he didn’t know that. Mama’s screaming shocked him from his stupor. Mama shoving him through the door. Shoving him to the porch. Beating him. Throwing clothes out on the lawn and screaming to never come back. Never.
He didn’t.
Mama saving her and hating her at the same time for everything that happened. Daddy hating himself for what might have happened. What could have happened.
Was it more than he could live with that night?
Or just an accident like the coroner said?
The wondering is the worst. The wondering that eats. Never full, never satisfied, just eating away, a finger, a toe, an eyeball, until maybe it reaches your soul and there is nothing left.
Secrets upon secrets. Secrets that would never be revealed, because Daddy took all the answers with him. Secrets all revolving around her in a distant, untouchable way.
Yes, Grandma.
I remember.
I remember it all.
Thirty-Seven
She swerves into the parking lot of the Rocket Gourmet. Tips at Murray’s alone won’t cut it now. Not by a long shot. One hundred fifty rent due on Friday and she has thirty-one dollars and a can of pennies. Sunday night is not prime time to be looking for work, but she doesn’t have the luxury of time.
“Table for one?” the hostess asks.
“No. Just looking for work. You hiring?”
“Not right now. Not even taking applications, but maybe in a month or—”
“Nothing? Not even busing tables?”
The hostess shak
es her head. “Sorry.”
“Thanks anyway,” Zoe says, and leaves.
She drives to Angelino’s Deli, the Buffet Basket in Cooper Springs, and even the greasy truck stop off the interstate, but all that comes of it is an empty gas tank. She conserves her bills and empties out all her spare change onto the counter at Thrifty Gas. The clerk rolls his eyes and begins counting.
“One dollar and forty-seven cents,” he says. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She pumps out the gas and then stoops to pick up a dirty penny near her tire—for luck or survival, she isn’t sure. But what she would have ignored yesterday she brushes off and slides into her pocket today. She leaves, and when she’s halfway down Main she glances at the gas tank needle. It is only just this side of empty.
The drive home is quiet. Ruby is quiet. The streets are empty, the orange glow of the streetlights holding in the silence. Only the oil pump at the corner of Main and Third disturbs the calm. Her car idles at the stop sign. She watches the pump, still so much the horse of her childhood. Her eyes trace the edge of chain-link holding it in. A car behind her honks, and she moves on through the intersection.
She piles the pennies into groups of one hundred. They lie like little hills on her ivy print bedspread. Eleven copper hills waiting to be rolled into rent. The coffee can was backup. Only if she absolutely needed it. She needs it now.
Thirty-Eight
She runs through her mental list, the small circle of maybes in her life. Uncle Clint and Aunt Patsy are still paying off Aunt Patsy’s medical bills. It wouldn’t be right. Besides, they might tell. Monica never has two cents to her name. Reid? No. Not Reid. Not now.
She can’t ask just anyone. She wouldn’t. It would make her no different than Mama. But a can of pennies and hope aren’t enough now. She winces and presses her stomach. It burns. She ate the last stale chocolate cookie for breakfast this morning and washed it down with a flat Dr Pepper.