Dirty

  The waiter arrived to take our order, and my mother ordered her usual, a house salad with dressing on the side. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries with a chocolate milk shake.

  “Elspeth!” You’d have thought I’d ordered a roasted baby with a side of cute little puppy, from my mother’s horrified expression. I’m not sure which offended her more, the food itself or the fact I was ordering something as plebeian as a cheeseburger in a restaurant as fancy as Giardino’s.

  “Mother,” I replied, calm because that infuriated her more.

  She shook out her napkin. “You do it to upset me, don’t you.”

  “Oh, Mother. I’m just hungry, that’s all.”

  She made no secret of her appraising look. “At least black is very slimming.”

  I glanced at my black sweater and black fitted skirt. I don’t think there’s a woman alive who doesn’t wonder if her thighs could be thinner, her ass flatter. But overall, I’ve made peace with my body and the shape it takes.

  “You’ll get heavy again,” she continued. “And after you got so slim, too.”

  I had been “heavy,” as she put it, in self-defense, and slim from circumstance. It wasn’t a diet I’d like to go on again.

  “I’m happy with the way I look, Mother. Please drop it.”

  “Nobody’s ever happy with the way they look,” she said, echoing my thoughts of the moment before. “It’s woman’s curse, Ella. We’re doomed to always want to be thinner, have bigger breasts and longer legs.”

  “I am more than tits and ass. I have a brain, too.”

  She wrinkled her nose at my use of language. “Well, nobody can see your brain, can they?”

  As I’d told Dan, abandoning a task you know is futile and pointless is not giving up. It’s being smart. I didn’t bother arguing with her. She’d been giving me the same lecture for years. I sipped some water, instead, using the ice in my mouth to keep my tongue from snapping.

  For once, she let it go. The detailed, gossipy story she began telling me next was a little better, in that it in no way involved me, my weight or my brain, but instead was the story of my mother’s friend Debbie Miller’s daughter, Stella, who’d just had a baby.

  “…and she named it Atticus!” My mother shook her head, her opinion of such a name quite clear.

  “Atticus is very nice name. At least she didn’t name him Adolf.”

  “You’ve got a smart mouth,” my mother replied, “to go along with that smart brain.”

  “I’m sorry.” Funny how being an adult doesn’t always change our relationship with our parents. I wasn’t worried she’d reach across the table and smack me…but some part of me reacted as though she might.

  The waiter brought our food, though I was no longer hungry for it. I sipped the thick shake anyway, just so she wouldn’t have anything to remark upon.

  “Ella,” my mother said at last, her salad half-eaten and pushed away with a sigh. “I need to talk to you about your father.”

  “All right.”

  I put my own fork down and wiped my mouth with a napkin. I didn’t speak to my father much. We talked if he answered the phone on the rare occasions I called the house, and my mother referenced him often in terms of her daily routine: “Daddy and I watched that show about psychic pets” and “Daddy and I are thinking about redecorating the kitchen,” when really, the truth was my father spent the day in front of the television with an ever-full gin and tonic in one hand and the remote in the other.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  I’ve seen my mother shed enough false tears to fill a swimming pool. She does it so expertly her makeup never runs. So when a tear glittered in her eye that smudged her carefully applied liner, alarm shot through me.

  “Your father,” my mother said, “isn’t well.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  She made a little fluttering motion with her hands, and my alarm grew. She might be a martyr, but she was rarely without words. I watched her mouth work and nothing come out, and I had to link my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking.

  “What’s wrong with him, Mother?”

  She looked around before she answered, like the other diners might care about what she said. “Cirrhosis,” she whispered, then clapped a hand over her mouth as though she hadn’t meant to say it.

  It was no surprise, of course. My father had been a heavy drinker for most of his life. “Has he been to a doctor? What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s been too tired to get out of his chair, and he’s lost weight. He won’t eat.”

  “But he won’t stop drinking.”

  She lifted her chin. “Your father deserves a little relaxer in the evenings. He’s worked hard to support us all these years.”

  I didn’t push her on it. “Will he have to go to the hospital?”

  “I haven’t told anyone,” she whispered. She dabbed her eyes, and the brief moment of honesty we’d shared disintegrated.

  “Of course not. We wouldn’t want the neighbors to know.”

  She gave me a glass-edged glance. “Absolutely not. What happens at home stays at home.”

  What happens at home, stays at home.

  How many times had I heard that, growing up?

  We stared at each other across the table, two women any stranger would have guessed belonged together. I was the child who looked like her, with the same full mouth and the same crooked hairline. My eyes were more gray and hers more blue, but they were the same shape and size, wide set in a way that could make us both look innocent when we were not.

  “Won’t you ever forgive me?” I didn’t want my voice to shake but it did. I gripped my napkin again. “Mother, damn it, won’t you ever let that go?”

  She sniffed again, like I wasn’t even worth a response and I wasn’t Elle anymore but Ella again, and I hated it.

  She didn’t deny my question though, or pretend she didn’t know what I was talking about, and I set my gaze on my half-eaten burger in order to gain some perspective. The waiter saved me from blurting more by asking if I wanted a box.

  “No, thank you.”

  That made her cluck her tongue again. “Waste!”

  “I’m paying for lunch, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

  “That’s not the point,” she told me. “Ella, you can’t afford to go throwing your money away.”

  “Because I don’t have a man to take care of me,” I finished for her. “I know. Can we have the check, please?”

  The waiter, caught between us like a dolphin in a tuna net, backed away. My mother glared at me. I had no more glare left inside me. I could only stare.

  “The waiter doesn’t even know you,” I told her. “And what’s more, he doesn’t care.”

  “That’s not the point.” She shifted in her chair, frowning.

  I couldn’t fight her any longer. My lunch had settled in my stomach like a stone. I wiped my mouth again, then my hands, and set the napkin over my unfinished lunch so it could no longer accuse me.

  “You really should come visit. Before it’s too late.”

  Ah, simple. The real purpose of this lunch had raised its head at last. I shrugged.

  “I’m very busy with work.”

  She reached forward, too fast for a woman who complained her fibromyalgia made her too clumsy to do her own cleaning. She flicked open the top button of my blouse, exposing my skin. Her face twisted.

  “Work. Is that what you call it?”

  I put my hand over my throat in automatic response, then rebuttoned my shirt over the small purple mark she’d exposed. “I have a job—”

  “Are you a whore?” She sneered. “Is that your work? Or maybe it’s not just work that keeps you from doing what any decent daughter would do. Maybe it’s something else? Maybe you’re too busy being…dirty.”

  Unless you’re staring into a mirror it’s impossible to know what your own expression looks like, but I felt mine go cold and blank. It must have looked something like that
, because her mouth twitched in the familiar way that meant she’d triumphed, earned a reaction from me. Oh, the games we play, even when we know we can’t win.

  “Are you screwing your boss, Ella? Is he the one who gave you that suck mark?”

  “I thought you were worried I’d never find a man,” I replied in the same sickly sweet tone she’d just used.

  We share more than eyes and hair. We share a keen sense of vengeance, too, my mother and I. She’s the queen of holding grudges, but I might well be the duchess. I learned how words can wound more than a knife, and I learned it from the best.

  She shook her head. “I’m so ashamed of you, Ella.”

  I said nothing. Not a word, and thus, won. She couldn’t stand against silence. She needed fuel to continue her tirade, and I gave her none, though my tongue ached later from biting it.

  She stood, clutching her fashionable bag. “Don’t bother to walk me out. I’ll catch my own cab. And, Ella, you really should visit, if not for me, at least for your father.”

  “And for the neighbors, maybe?”

  And thus, I lost, because I couldn’t manage to keep my silence.

  My mother didn’t believe having the last word was most important. An aggrieved sigh could be far more effective, and she gave me one before she swept off, carrying her righteous indignation around her like a cloud.

  Me, I paid the check and then, my father’s daughter despite my best efforts, I went to the bar down the street and found a spot in the back where I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone.

  The painting in my dining room progressed with painful slowness. Guilt plucked me every time I saw the paint cans and bucket of brushes soaking in my laundry room, but closing the door solved the problem neatly. I blamed Dan. Since the night of his class reunion a week ago, he’d called me almost every night. Our schedules hadn’t allowed for more than phone conversations, which was fine with me. Most nights when I got home from work all I wanted to do was reheat something for dinner, shower and crawl into bed. Dan seemed to understand and hadn’t asked for another appointment. I was a little disappointed.None of that was helping my dining room. I love my house. It was the first thing that was really mine. I bought it before I even bought my first car. My house is my haven, my refuge.

  But I hated the dining room. Not for its odd shape that wouldn’t easily accommodate a table and chairs and sideboard. Not for its lack of windows, or the horrendous hanging fixture I hadn’t yet replaced. I hated the dining room because it mocked me with its state of disrepair, and because every time I passed it I was reminded of how unmotivated I was to finish the task I’d begun.

  I’d bought what had once been a decrepit row home in a part of town the mayor called “underprivileged.” The neighborhood hadn’t been great, but it was getting better. The city government, attempting to revitalize the downtown Harrisburg area, had put substantial financial support into projects assisting its efforts. It was nice to have neighbors who drove sports cars instead of stealing them.

  I’d renovated, not remodeled, preferring to keep the house’s original rooms intact, though it meant some inconvenience in such matters as closets and bathrooms. I’d worked room by room as money and time allowed, hiring professionals to repair damage done by time and neglect but doing all the cosmetic work myself.

  Not that I had a flair for decorating. Like my wardrobe, I preferred to keep my decor simple. Neutral. White walls. Sturdy furniture, most of it acquired piecemeal from auctions and thrift stores, not because I couldn’t afford new but because I liked old pieces. I had some framed black-and-white art, a few candlesticks and vases, mostly gifts. I had built-in bookshelves filled with books, and a working fireplace to read them by.

  Tonight I also had Gavin. I had seen little of him for the past week or so, though I’d heard the muffled sound of shouting voices from next door more than once. He waited for me on the doorstep, a book clutched in his hands. Despite the temperate weather, he wore a giant black sweatshirt, hood up, looking so much like Anakin Skywalker on his way to becoming Darth Vader, I couldn’t help commenting.

  “The dark side of the Force is just too hard to resist, huh?”

  My joke fell flat. Gavin looked up from the shadows of his hood, his pale face not smiling. He stood up.

  “Huh?”

  “The dark side…never mind.” I wasn’t going to ask him if he’d seen the Star Wars epics. I unlocked my door and he followed me inside. “Come to help me paint?”

  “Yeah.”

  He’d never been a chatty kid, but this was uncommunicative, even for him. I gave him a glance as I settled my mail and my bag on the table. He headed for the dining room, stripping off his sweatshirt over his head and hanging it neatly on the back of a chair. Beneath he wore a plain gray T-shirt. He bent to pry open the paint can, and the fabric pulled out of his jeans, exposing the knobs of his spine. He looked thinner to me than he had before. I hadn’t seen his mother’s car lately, which meant nothing other than she’d been out when I was home. Maybe she hadn’t been home to make him dinner.

  “Want something to eat?”

  On his knees, he looked over his shoulder at me. “Sure.”

  I put a couple frozen pizzas in the oven and went upstairs to change into paint clothes. By the time I came down, Gavin had spread out the brushes and rollers and poured the paint into the trays. The oven dinged and he stood, turning toward me.

  I stopped short at the sight of his arms. The sleeve of one had pushed up on his bicep, exposing skin normally covered. He had lines there. Three or four, thin and angry red lines. Cuts.

  “What happened to your arm?”

  He pulled the shirt down lower to hide them. “My cat scratched me.”

  I used the excuse of pulling the pizza from the oven to not answer that. Maybe his cat had scratched him. Maybe he was telling the truth. I didn’t mention it again.

  He ate only two pieces of pizza instead of his usual four, but I didn’t comment on that, either. I wrapped up the extra and set it on the counter.

  “Take this with you when you go,” I told him. “I won’t eat it.”

  He smiled, a little. “Okay.”

  I stifled the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair. He was a kid, but he wasn’t my kid, and he was fifteen. Fifteen-year-old boys aren’t too fond of having their hair ruffled, I’m pretty sure.

  We got to work, and he asked if he could put on some music. My CD collection seemed to surprise him.

  “You’ve got some cool tunes, Miss Kavanagh.” He held up the latest by a new alternative rock band.

  I tried not to be offended by the unspoken addition “for an old lady.” “Thanks. Why don’t you put that on?”

  He did, and we worked some more. Sometimes side by side, sometimes in different sections. He’d shot up over the past few months and now stood an inch or so taller than I, so I let him get up on the stepstool to do the parts closest to the ceiling.

  “You know, Gavin,” I said after a bit. “You don’t have to call me Miss Kavanagh. You can call me Elle.”

  He looked down from his perch. “My mom told me I have to show respect for people.”

  “Your mom was right. But I don’t consider you calling me by my first name to be disrespectful.” I finished the last corner and stood back to put my roller in the tray. “I’m giving you permission.”

  He rolled some more paint onto the wall for a moment. “Okay. I guess I could do that.”

  The room looked good, though another coat of paint would finish it off. I started cleaning up. Gavin helped. The laundry room was small, and we bumped into each other, dancing with awkward smiles as he tried to put a roller in the sink while I tried to back out of the way. I knocked against the shelf where I kept my detergent and extra hangers. Some of them started to fall, and Gavin reached for them.

  It was all innocent, aboveboard. He wasn’t even touching me, just reaching around to keep the hangers from sliding off the shelf. We were laughing. I looked up to my back door, the windo
w of which showed a face peering in.

  I stopped laughing long enough to scream, embarrassed a moment later by recognizing the face of Mrs. Ossley. Heart pounding, I pushed past Gavin to thumb open the lock. “You scared me.”

  “I knocked at the front, but nobody answered.” She gave me a narrow-eyed smile. “Gavin. It’s time to come home.”

  “I want to help Elle finish cleaning—”

  “Now.” Her tone brooked no argument.

  “It’s all right, Gavin,” I said. “There’s only a bit more to do. You go ahead.”

  “Lemme grab my sweatshirt,” he said and went to retrieve it.

  Mrs. Ossley and I stood in awkward silence in my tiny laundry room. She seemed disinclined to speak to me, and I had nothing to say to her. We were saved from true discomfort a moment later when Gavin returned, hooded once more, and followed his mother out the door.

  I locked the door behind them, thinking I’d made an enemy of her somehow but not sure why.

  It wasn’t unusual for me not to hear from Chad for weeks on end. We kept in touch through e-mail and cards, with phone calls thrown in when one or the other of us realized it had been a long time since we’d spoken. Or one of us was undergoing a crisis. When I didn’t hear back from my brother after I’d left a message thanking him for returning “Princess Pennywhistle” to me, I wasn’t concerned. As the days passed, though, and even e-mails went unanswered, I knew something was going on.His voice sank my stomach. He sounded like he had a mouthful of syrup, oozing, making him slur. “Hello?”

  He perked up a little when he heard my voice, but the bubbly, effusive chatterbox who usually greeted me was gone. He mumbled on about being busy with work and the amateur theater group he’d joined, and about Luke’s sister who’d just had a baby. Inconsequential things that filled the space between us but revealed nothing.