All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

  “Val, why didn’t you tell me you needed to leave the kids with us?” Mom said.

  “I’m so sorry, Bren. It was a last-minute thing.”

  To make up, Aunt Val brought presents. Earrings for Mom, a money clip for Dad, necklaces for Leslie and me, a bracelet for Wavy, and a toy car for Donal. When he got up from his nap, she swung him around until he squealed.

  After that, we had to look around and acknowledge that Wavy wasn’t there.

  “Where’s Vonnie?” When nobody answered, Aunt Val said, “Oh, where’s Wavy? Kellen started that. So where is she?”

  “Amy, will you go upstairs and get your cousin?” Dad said.

  I found her in my closet, reading one of my library books. I hoped she wouldn’t steal it.

  “Your mom wants you to come down,” I said.

  With a deep sigh, Wavy got up and glided past me, leaving the book on the closet floor. Downstairs, she slipped between the sofa and the lamp, so nobody could touch her.

  “Hey, pretty girl. How have you been?” Aunt Val said. Wavy didn’t look at her. “I brought you a present.”

  Aunt Val held out a jewelry box, but I was the one who delivered it to Wavy. She didn’t even open the box to look at it.

  “Are you staying for supper, Val?” Dad looked at his watch.

  “Oh, no, Bill. Thanks, but we better get on the road before it’s dark.”

  “Well, let’s get the kids packed,” Mom said.

  I helped pack a bag of hand-me-down clothes from the ladies at church.

  On the front porch, Mom and Aunt Val hugged.

  “We don’t see enough of you,” Mom said.

  “I know. We keep saying we’ll get together, but it doesn’t work out.”

  “What about Christmas? Even if you and Liam are busy, maybe the kids could come for Christmas.”

  “That’d be nice. I know Wavy would like that,” Aunt Val said.

  I didn’t know if she would, because when they left, she walked out to the car carrying a grocery bag of clothes, and didn’t even look back at me. It hurt my feelings, but when I went to bed that night, I found the bracelet Aunt Val had given Wavy under my pillow. Maybe it didn’t mean anything to her, but it meant something to me.

  12

  KELLEN

  July 1978

  Most days, after school let out, I took Wavy to the shop, let her hang out while I worked. After Old Man Cutcheon showed her what the adding machine was for, she opened the folder of receipts and started adding them. She was good at math, unlike me and Cutcheon. Her deposits and receipts always added up the same. The garage was kinda run down and grease-smelling, but she seemed to like being there, even if she didn’t quite belong there. Sometimes, I’d come in from the shop and find her at the desk, like walking in on a wild fawn balancing the books.

  With school out, I didn’t get to see as much of her, but that afternoon, when I came back from the cemetery, she was in the office. She was kneeling in my chair, looking at the parts catalog. Seeing me come in so hot, she smiled and turned the fan on the desk toward me.

  Sweat was dripping out of my hair, and my dress shirt was so wet it stuck to me as I peeled it off. For a couple minutes, I stood in front of the fan, trying to get dry enough to put on a fresh shirt. On the corner of the desk stood a pop bottle. I picked it up, still cool and half full. As soon as I tipped the bottle to my mouth, Wavy jumped out of the chair with this yelp. Startled me so bad I damn near choked on a mouthful of pop.

  “Germs,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking. I’ll get you a new one. I know you don’t want to drink after me.”

  She shook her head. “My germs. In you.”

  “Your germs? I’m not afraid of your germs.” I winked at her, feeling like an idiot for making the mistake, and took another swig of her pop.

  She frowned at me so hard her forehead wrinkled up. I offered her the bottle. I didn’t figure she’d take a drink, but she put it up to her nose and sniffed. When she handed it back to me, she didn’t have anything else to say about germs. Instead, she took my sweaty shirt and put it on the hanger I’d left lying on the desk.

  “I went out to put flowers on my ma’s grave. I’m the only one left around to do it. It’s stupid, but I guess I always feel like I oughta dress up a little. Try to look nice when I go out there. I shoulda gone earlier, before it was a hundred goddamn degrees.”

  I took the shirt from her and went to hang it in my locker. While I rummaged around for a dry shirt, I could feel her watching me. When I turned around, she pointed at me and drew an X in the air.

  My tattoo. There I was with my shirt off and that musta been the first time she’d seen it.

  “It’s a calumet. You know, a peace pipe, and the three arrows for the tribal districts. For the three Choctaw chiefs: Apuckshunnubbee, Mushulatubbee, and Pushmataha. Like my belt buckle. I got it after I left home. Went down to live with my granny on the rez. Hung around, thinking I was gonna … be an Indian or something. Pissed my granny off. She wanted me to stay in school.”

  The calumet’s pipe bowl was just under my left collarbone. The three arrowheads came up and touched the right. They crossed over my chest, all the way down to the bottom of my ribs. I never thought much about it, but it kinda embarrassed me. Not the tattoo, but trying to explain it with Wavy giving me the look that meant I was important. I got to blushing with her staring, memorizing me, so I pulled on the first shirt I could lay my hand to. An old uniform shirt from four years back when I first started working for Cutcheon, Jesse Joe embroidered over the breast pocket and tight in the shoulders. I buttoned it on anyway, because I felt strange having my shirt off now that Wavy had seen my tattoo.

  When I sat down at the desk, I saw what she was doing with the parts catalog. She’d gone through all my scribbly notes and filled out the order form. I drank up the rest of her pop while I checked it over. She didn’t get annoyed about that. Like she figured I was the boss so she needed to get my okay.

  Leaning on the desk next to me, Wavy ran her finger across the blotter calendar and brought it to rest on the seventh. At some point, just doodling, I’d drawn a heart around the number.

  “Yeah, today’s my ma’s birthday. That’s why I took the flowers out.” Wavy still had her finger on the day, so I knew she was waiting for more. I was afraid to say anything else for fear I’d get to crying, when I’d managed the whole day not to. “Her name was Adina. She died four years ago. In the winter, but she liked the summer better. That’s why I take her flowers for her birthday.”

  I wiped my eyes quick and Wavy was polite enough not to look at me while I did it. She moved her finger down to the nineteenth and then brought it up to touch her chest.

  “Is that your birthday? The nineteenth?”

  Wavy nodded. That was rare, her telling me something I hadn’t even asked. She was usually more interested in finding things out, like with the tattoo. When I picked up a pen, she leaned forward on her elbows, waiting to see what I was gonna do. It needed to be big, to let her know I thought it was important. In big enough letters to fill the whole square, I wrote WAVY’S BIRTHDAY. She looked so happy I went back to the date and drew a heart around the nineteen.

  When I laid the pen down, she put her hand on my arm, like she trusted me. Then she stepped between my knees and slid her hand up my arm to the back of my neck. She leaned in so close, her cheek almost touched mine. I kept real still, like you would if a little bird came and landed on your finger. For half a minute, I didn’t even breathe.

  It wasn’t like me trying to hug her on the farmhouse porch. She’d done this herself.

  She pressed her chin into my shoulder, and then damned if she didn’t sniff my hair. I knew I had to be rank, but she sniffed at me like I was fresh as daisies. Exhaled in my ear, and took another deep breath.

  To leave her a way to escape, I only put one arm around her. She trembled so hard, I figured she was set to run away, so I loosened my arm to let her, but i
nstead she put her other arm around my neck and pressed her bony little self against my belly. She was so small it kinda scared me.

  “Hold on tight,” she said, so I put both my arms around her and squeezed.

  I turned my head to sniff her hair the way she did mine. Honeysuckle and what I figured the ocean must smell like—sharp and salty. She giggled, and I had the weirdest feeling she was about to say something else, but someone in the shop called, “Is Kellen around?”

  Liam.

  I let go of Wavy, and as soon as I pushed my chair back, she got on her knees and scrambled under the desk. Barely made it before Liam opened the office door and started in about this party he was throwing out at the ranch. Before the party, he wanted me to go out drinking with him. He never was happy having just one thing going.

  “There’s this girl I want you to meet out at the Rusted Bucket,” he said.

  It was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do, but all I cared about was getting Liam out of there without seeing Wavy. Sometimes when I’d look at that scar on her lip, I thought about killing him. Right then, I thought about the big old Colt revolver Cutcheon kept in the desk drawer. Instead, I came around the desk toward the door, so Liam had to step back into the garage.

  “Well, I need a shower first. I’m filthy,” I said, as I pulled the office door shut behind me.

  “So go take a shower and meet me out there.”

  “At the Bucket?”

  “Yeah. We’ll have a few drinks and then take the girls out to the ranch.”

  Girls. By the time I showed up at the bar, Liam had these two girls in a booth with him. A pretty blonde with stripper tits and this brunette with a snake tattoo running up her arm from her hand to her shoulder. That’s the one Liam wanted me to meet. I wasn’t stupid. I could figure the situation easy enough. Both girls were interested in Liam and he wanted to keep them both on the hook.

  Two drinks later and Snake Girl was at least pretending to be interested in me. Her name was too confusing to remember: something like Marie-Elena or Maria-Lena.

  “So, you’re a mechanic? Liam said you rebuilt his Harley,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s cool. What kind of bike do you ride?”

  “A ’56 Panhead.”

  “You gonna take me out on it or what?” She smiled, but she was looking over my shoulder at Liam, watching him kiss the blond girl.

  “Whenever you’re ready to go.”

  I was long past ready to leave. I couldn’t hardly make small talk with a girl to save my life, but having Liam there was ten times worse. He made me nervous.

  While we were on the bike, Snake Girl acted like she was happy enough to be with me. Kept her arms around me, put her head on my shoulder. Once we got to the ranch, though, she was back to staring at Liam. The trailer was packed and the stereo was up so loud it made the floor shake. I couldn’t hardly hear anything Snake Girl said.

  I leaned down to her and said, “Let’s go outside where it’s not as crowded.”

  She didn’t stop looking at Liam, but she nodded and followed me out through the living room to the porch.

  For a couple minutes we sat on the glider, not talking. Not even rocking.

  “So what do you do?” I said. “Where do you work?”

  “Not anywhere right now. Sandy said Liam might be looking for some people.”

  “Who’s Sandy?”

  “That blond bitch,” she said. Man, she was mad about that girl.

  “You wanna walk up in the meadow? It’s pretty out there at night with the stars and all.”

  “No thanks.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about, but when I put my arm around her, she let me. She even let me kiss her for a minute, before she turned her head. She tasted like cigarettes so I didn’t really care. I gave up, and then she reached down and unbuckled my belt. I was thinking we should go somewhere more private, but she started unzipping me right there. Didn’t want to kiss me or talk to me and now she had her hand on my dick? Took me long enough to sort it out. She wanted me to go away and that was how she figured to do it.

  I was gonna tell her to stop, but then I decided what the hell? Being on the receiving end of that kind of brush-off was a lousy feeling, but maybe it wasn’t any lousier than going home alone without a hand job.

  The snake’s head on the back of her hand was weird, but if I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, I could kinda forget about it. Turned out to be about as exciting as doing it myself and a lot more awkward. When it was over, she got up and went back inside. I zipped up, thinking about going out to the meadow by myself. Instead I went back inside, where the party had shifted gears. People were making out all over the place, and Liam and the blonde had disappeared. I sat down on the end of one sofa and took a few hits off a bong on the coffee table. Then I took more than a few hits.

  Dee sat next to me for a while, jiggling her foot until it made the whole sofa shake. I didn’t try nothing, because probably the trip to Myrtle Beach was a one-time thing. Besides, she wouldn’t even kiss me.

  “So, did you lose your date?” she said.

  “She only came out here for Liam.”

  Dee’s foot jiggled faster.

  “Sorry,” I said. I didn’t guess her life was all that fun sometimes. Not that I could figure why she stuck with Liam. He was good-looking, but the way he acted was messed up. Dee shrugged and stood up.

  “I knew what I was getting into with him. I wonder if that bimbo he’s with does.”

  Later, Snake Girl wandered in and sat on the sofa next to me like we were strangers. That was alright with me. She picked up the bong and started smoking. Just like I had on the porch, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I wished I could go home, but I was too fucked up to ride.

  “Whose little girl is this?” said some woman with a sloppy drunk voice.

  I sat up and opened my eyes. Wavy stood in the trailer doorway, wearing her nightgown and looking lost.

  High as a fucking kite, Dee made a beeline for the door, saying, “Wavy, baby, what are you doing here?”

  Wavy dodged Dee’s hand and Yvonne and Neil’s legs, doing whatever they were doing on the other sofa. Before I could get on my feet, she came around the coffee table and wedged herself in beside me on the sofa.

  “Hey, is everything alright?”

  Wavy nodded.

  “Is she okay?” Dee said.

  “Yeah, she’s fine.”

  “Should I maybe take her back home and put her to bed?”

  Wavy scooted closer to me, resting her hand on my belly to steady herself. It seemed like an invitation, so I put my arm around her.

  “I’ll take her home,” I said.

  Snake Girl, who’d been crashed out on the other end of the sofa, sat up and said, “Where did she come from?”

  “She’s Liam’s daughter,” Dee said.

  Wavy glared at her.

  For the first time since Liam left the room, Snake Girl looked interested in something. She held her arms out and said, “Aww, she’s so cute. Come here, sweetie, you wanna come sit on my lap?”

  Wavy ignored Snake Girl and slid her arm around my neck. Then she laid her head on my shoulder. Her hair was wet.

  “She won’t come to you,” Dee said. “She won’t sit on anyone’s lap except Kellen’s. He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he, Wavy?”

  Wavy nodded. Surprised me. So I was her boyfriend?

  “How’d your hair get wet?” I said.

  She pressed her cheek against mine and whispered, “Swimming.”

  “You want a snack or something before Kellen takes you home? We have yummy brownies,” Dee said.

  “Those brownies have pot in ’em.” I wished Dee would shut up and let Wavy talk to me. Her coming there like that, to talk to me, it meant something.

  Before anybody else could say something stupid, Wavy put her lips to my ear and said, “Come into the meadow.”

  It made my skin prickle all
over. I’d wanted to go out to the meadow before, and I’d got myself stuck at that stupid party. I scooted forward to the edge of the sofa and said, “Saddle up.”

  She put her arms around my neck and I gave her my hands for stirrups. Like I was her horse, and she was a cowgirl trying to make a quick escape from some hostile Indians. Except that I was the Indian and we were both trying to escape from hostile saloon girls. It made better sense if I didn’t think about it too hard, but it made me giggle.

  Out in the meadow, the hay was up past my waist, ready for cutting. Bugs chattered, went quiet as I walked by, and started up again once I was past. The air was less heavy out in the open, not hot and sticky the way it was around the trailers. It felt good to be out, getting further from the lights in the yard, so that I could see the stars overhead.

  I kept walking until Wavy pulled up on the reins, tugging on my T-shirt and pushing the heels of her boots into my hands. I got down on one knee to let her hop off, and when I stood back up, she took my hand. She led me past a stand of cottonwoods that made a windbreak for an old five-hundred-gallon galvanized stock tank. There was just enough breeze to make the windmill blades creak, and make the pipe dribble water. The tank looked black and bottomless at night. I wouldn’t be brave enough to swim in it, but she was.

  Up above the cottonwoods, there was a bluff cut into the hill. In between, there was an open patch of hay. The grass was tamped down in a circle just about her size.

  It was what I wanted before: someone to lie out under the stars with me. I could see how it never woulda worked with Snake Girl. She was only interested in bikes, getting high, and Liam. Wavy, though, she smiled at me like she was inviting me into her house. I flattened a bigger section of the hay, enough room for both of us. When I spread my arms out, she laid down next to me and rested her head on my arm. I felt so weird inside my skin, like the stars were pressing me down into the earth, pressing Wavy’s head down on me. Part of that was the weed, I knew, but it was the stars, too. All that light traveling from so far away.

  I held my breath, kind of waiting. Usually we looked at the stars after dinner, out in front of the farmhouse, playing with Donal. Wavy would start by pointing out a few constellations, and then I’d pick out some I knew. Or thought I knew.