“I was so mad at my mama and myself for expecting her to change that I couldn’t see straight. I tore down Pullman Road—you had the privilege of seeing that beautiful residential street, Audrey—when who should pull up in his big old convertible but Lyle Dube, the biggest troublemaker my high school had ever seen. I jumped in without a thought, and when he asked me what I wanted to do, I said, ‘Anything you want, Lyle.’
“One of the many things I’ve neglected to tell you all these years,” I said, emotion like a tugboat engine chugging through me, “is that in my youth I was a bit of a . . . well, the word used by my fellow classmates was slut. Remember at book club when everyone was telling about when they first had sex and I said it was with Wade?” I shook my head. “Wade was about the . . . well, let’s just say he wasn’t the first. The first was when I was fifteen.”
The sun had begun its descent beyond a copse of trees by the horizon, and I remembered something you once said about sunset, Mama. I had come upon you standing in the threshold of the back door, holding the lip of a beer bottle with one finger, and I felt like crying because you looked so sad.
“How can things be so golden and beautiful when you feel like such shit?”
Of course, I didn’t have an answer for you then, Mama, and I didn’t have one for myself, sitting there on that bench feeling the same exact way.
“Faith,” Audrey said, “you don’t really think we’d think less of you because you lost your virginity at fifteen?”
I nodded, tasting snot in my throat.
“And everything else there is to know about me. Like what I did with Lyle.” I think if I had more in my stomach, I would have thrown up, Mama. But I was there to tell my whole story and so I forged on.
“See, Lyle had already quit school before I settled down. He didn’t know how I’d stayed out of trouble my senior year, didn’t know I had become a completely different person in Austin; all he knew was the old Faith Reynolds. And when he said, ‘Well, let’s go down to the pond,’ I said sure, and when we got there and he jumped all over me, I jumped right back. When we were all done we did it again, and when I was buttoning up my blouse, I wondered if there was ever a person in the history of the world who felt as low and little as I did right then.
“ ‘Aw, Christ,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I gotta go, Faith.’ He put his belt on, and the buckle clicked against the stick shift, and the sound of that made me want to howl in shame.
“ ‘Doreen gets off work at eight-thirty,’ he said, ‘so, uh, you mind if I drop you off downtown?’
“I shrugged—what did I care? I’d just fucked—excuse my French, but that’s what it was—someone I didn’t even like in a car next to a stagnant slough that wasn’t even close to being a pond.
“So he very unceremoniously dropped me off in our bustling ‘downtown’—he could have slowed the car down and pushed me out the door, for all I cared—and I wandered Main Street, all three blocks of it, thinking, What did I just do?
“Then I remembered my mother and I started thinking, It’s all her fault that this happened, and I decided to go find her at Red’s and tell her I never wanted to see her again.”
Oh, Mama, how was I to know that wish would come true?
“I walked all the way to Red’s,” I went on. “At least five miles away, but my anger was like a big wind just pushing me along.
“The place was packed when I got there, and I got squeezed and felt up and pinched as I walked to the bar, which didn’t do anything for my anger, I can tell you that. When I got to the bar, I tapped my mother on the shoulder, and when she turned around she smiled this big sloppy grin and said, ‘Hey, everybody, it’s my baby, Faith!’
“I pulled her off that bar stool like I’d pull a sack of flour off the grocery shelf.
“ ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘what are you doing?’
“ ‘I’m taking you home, Mama.’
“ ‘Well, I don’t think she wants to go home,’ said some guy who’d exceeded his limit long ago.
“ ‘Tough shit,’ I said, and Mama laughed.
“ ‘You tell ’em, Faithy,’ she said.
“She was plowed, my mother was, and I had a hard time steering her out of the bar. She was giggling like crazy, waving to people and saying, ‘Look at my daughter, Faithy—isn’t she pretty? She’s come to take me home.’
“It was hot and damp when we got outside, and I was so mad—just incensed. I was ready to beat up my own drunk mother right there in the parking lot.
“ ‘What we gonna do, Faithy—throw our own little party?’ Mama asked, and I said, ‘I don’t think so!’ and she laughed and said, ‘I got ears, you don’t have to yell, honey.’
“ ‘I do have to yell,’ I said, ‘because I want you to hear how much I hate you!’
“You’ve got to understand—up to this point Mama was having a good time—I think she thought it was cute that her daughter came and dragged her out of a bar. But when I said that, her face sort of caved in.
“ ‘I know you don’t mean that, Faithy,’ she said finally, and smiled like she was having a hard time remembering how to.
“ ‘I do, Mama,’ I said. ‘I just came by to tell you I’m leaving. I’m going back to Dallas, and if I’m lucky, I’m never coming back here, and if I’m even luckier, I’m never going to see you again.’”
Talk about kicking a dog when it’s down, huh, Mama? Remember how you looked at me? Confused as if you hadn’t heard right, but behind that was a deep pain because you knew you had.
“A couple bumped into us. They were on their way to a hangover too, and the woman said to you, ‘What’s the matter, honey? You look like you just lost your best friend.’ And you said, ‘No, but my daughter just told me she doesn’t want to see me anymore.’
“ ‘Well, hello to you, Miss Ungrateful Little Bitch,’ said the man, and I said, ‘Shut up and mind your own business, you old drunk,’ and I’m sure fists would have flown if somebody hadn’t popped their head out of the screen door and yelled at the couple to come on inside because Booney Cunningham was buying everyone drinks.
“My mama staggered to her old Chevy; she was wearing high heels and trying to walk like she had every right to wear them, but her ankles kept turning.
“ ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ I asked, and she said, ‘Out of your life—that’s what you want, isn’t it?’
“ ‘You can’t drive,’ I said as she got in the car. ‘You’re plastered.’
“She laughed. ‘If you don’t think I can drive like this, you don’t know a thing about me.’
“She backed out and the car made a wide arc, and I grabbed the door handle and jumped in. Then instead of pulling out of the parking lot, Mama rested her head on the steering wheel and started crying hard.
“ ‘Oh, God, Mama, I do not need this right now.’
“ ‘I know that,’ she wailed, “ ‘I know you’ve never needed anything I had to give you.’ “
I felt a hot gush of anger again remembering that night, but, Mama, it was nothing like the inferno that was in me at the time. I don’t think I could have hated you more at that moment, and that hate was like lava pouring through my body. I got up from the bench; Audrey’s body heat was making me feel choked. The sun had set by now, and dusk was unfolding its purple blanket.
“ ‘Anything you had to give me?’ I said, my voice high-pitched with rage. ‘And what might that be? Nights alone when you stayed out with some lowlife like that—that guy in the bar? Whole days when I wasn’t allowed to make any noise at all—not even talk—because you had such a bad hangover? Or maybe you’re referring to today, when what you gave me was another one of your promises that I should know by now don’t come any way but broken.’
“Mama lifted her head, wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands, and said, ‘I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you,’ and then she stepped on the gas and tore out of the parking lot.
“ ‘Mama, pull over and let me drive!’ I said as
she barreled out onto the potholed road.
“ ‘Why should I? I drive home every night, and most of the time I’m a lot drunker than I am now,’ she said, stepping on the gas, and I could see she was trying to hold on to whatever power she still might have over me.
“ ‘Mama, please,’ I said, scared as the car plowed through the dark night.
“She turned onto the county road, driving fast but not weaving.
“ ‘Please what, Faith? Please apologize for being such a godawful mother? Don’t you think I apologize for that every day of my life?’
“ ‘What?’ I asked. It was not something I’d expected to hear.
“ ‘Christ, Faith,’ my mother said, her voice bitter. ‘Don’t you think I apologize every day for everything?’
“ ‘Who do you apologize to?’
“ ‘Why, you, baby.’
“Hearing the total defeat in my mama’s voice, I was suddenly ready to forgive everything, to start over, to try to understand her more, but then she started laughing, laughing like crazy, and I don’t know if it was a release from an awkward moment or just my mama being mean.
“The car swerved then, and I shouted at her to pay attention, which must have tickled her rancid funny bone all the more, because she swerved the car again and then again, like the road was some slalom course.
“By this time my fury was enormous. If I’d been older, I’d probably have had a stroke. First she’d toyed with me and now she was making fun of me. Then I saw the headlights.
“ ‘Mama, there’s a car coming!’
“ ‘I see it,’ Mama said, still chuckling away. ‘I got eyes.’
“ ‘Well, then, move!’ I screamed.
“ ‘I am,’ she said, still doing that infernal swerving.
“ ‘Mama!’
“ ‘You used to think this was fun when you were younger.’
“ ‘I don’t think it’s fun now!’
“The headlights were getting closer and I could hear the blare of a horn and Mama’s laughter, and then we were in the right lane and I thought we were okay, but then she swerved again into the oncoming lane and I lunged over and grabbed the wheel, turning it to the right. I guess I turned too hard because a second later we were off the road and a second after that I heard this big explosion. Then there was dead silence except for the tinkling of glass, which sounded like chimes in a light breeze.”
I looked at Audrey, whose false eyelashes fringed wide-open eyes.
“And that’s how I killed my own mama.”
Well, Mama, of course I was taken up in my friend’s arms and told how I certainly did not kill you and how awful it must have been for me keeping that inside all those years, etc., etc., etc., and then when we got back to New Orleans, Beau heard the whole story, and he called Wade and Bonnie and they flew down here, and we even visited your tiny little grave next to MawMaw’s. Wade and Bonnie seem pretty shell-shocked, so I’m a little scared as to what the repercussions might be. Still, while I don’t know if it’s peace I feel, I feel better than I have in a long time.
I’m sorry, but I’ll bet you are too,
Faith
February 1987
HOST: SLIP
BOOK: The Awakening by Kate Chopin
REASON CHOSEN: “It’s one of the books that should be on everyone’s must-read list.”
“Holy burden to bear,” I said after we heard Faith’s story. “Is that how you hurt your hip?”
Faith nodded. “I was thrown out of the car, but that was the only thing that broke. It healed fast, although I probably shouldn’t have gone back to cheerleading that fall.”
“Geez, Faith, what a lot to keep to yourself.”
“It dragged me down for years.” She looked around at the group. It was the day after Faith came back, and she had summoned us to her house. She had brewed a pot of coffee, but there were no accompanying treats—a sure sign of the seriousness of the meeting.
“So why didn’t you tell us?” I asked. “Don’t you know we would have helped you? Why didn’t you trust us?”
“Slip,” said Kari, “don’t yell at her.”
“I wasn’t yelling,” I said with a little pout. “Or if I was, it’s just because I’m . . . well, I’m hurt, Faith. I don’t like you shutting us out.”
“That’s the same thing Wade and Bonnie said,” said Faith. “In fact, Wade left for a trip today, but he said that when he gets back, he might need some time away from me, just to sort things out.” She let out a little sob. “And Bonnie’s feelings are really hurt. She brought up this family tree story she had to do for school when she was about eleven, and she just screamed at me, ‘Not only did you lie—you made up this whole ridiculous fantasy! You made me a liar!’ ” Faith dropped her chin and her shoulders shook. “But Beau—Beau just sent me those flowers.” She nodded to a huge spray of yellow roses. “The card read . . .” But her crying made her unable to finish.
I took it upon myself to take the card out of its little plastic holder.
“ ‘I’m too far away to hold your hand in person,’ ” I read, “ ‘so I’m holding it in my heart.’ ”
Holy misplaced vengeance. I’d been so ready to punish Faith for not trusting me with her secrets—isn’t that what friends are for, hearing about the things that don’t make you perfect and loving you anyway?—that I’d failed to see how long she’d been punishing herself.
“I’m not too far away to hold your hand,” I said, sitting back on the couch and taking her hand.
“Me neither,” said Merit, taking her other hand, and we all sat there sniffling, thinking our own thoughts.
“I’m sure glad you were there with Faith,” said Kari finally to Audrey.
“I was honored,” said Audrey in a surprisingly humble voice.
“Why’d you go down there anyway?” I asked.
When Audrey didn’t answer right away, Merit asked, “Did you . . . know something was going to happen?”
Audrey nodded, and I saw there were tears in her eyes.
“Audrey,” said Kari, “are you all right?”
“I . . . well, something happened to me in New Orleans too.”
“You mean other than saving my life?”
Audrey laughed and brushed away her tears with her two middle fingers, being careful not to poke herself in the eye with her long nails.
“You’re being a little dramatic, Faith. All I did was listen.”
“And I think that’s all a person needs sometimes to . . . well, to stay alive. Someone who’ll listen.” Faith widened her eyes and took a deep breath. “From now on, I’m never going to keep anything secret.”
“Now, don’t go crazy,” I said. “Speaking for myself, I don’t want to know everything. I just don’t like to be frozen out.”
“In that case,” said Merit, “maybe I should tell you my secret.”
“Oh, no,” I said, “this isn’t going to turn into a group confessional, is it? Because I don’t really want to know who picked their nose as a kid or who slept with Todd Trottman while Leslie was soliciting for the Heart Fund.”
“Todd Trottman,” said Audrey with a laugh. “Eww, not even I would sleep with that fascist.”
“It’s only a secret,” said Merit, ignoring our conversation about our old neighbors, “because I haven’t told anyone yet. Get this: I think I’m going through menopause.”
“Menopause,” said Kari. “But you’re only, what—forty-three?”
Merit nodded. “But I haven’t had my period for two months.”
There was a knowing exchange of looks.
“Merit,” said Audrey, “maybe you’re pregnant.”
Merit did a spit take worthy of a Marx Brothers movie.
“Pregnant?” she said after wiping her mouth. “I can’t be pregnant. Frank told me he’s sterile.”
“Maybe,” I said, “he meant in the extra-clean sense.”
THAT NIGHT I lay awake, staring at Jerry. He was always such a sound sleeper. Certainly that
was the mark of a man with no secrets . . . or was it? I moved closer to him, trying to discern whether the peacefulness on his face was earned or whether he was trying to hide something.
“Jerry,” I said, shaking his shoulder.
He was awake instantly, with that wild-eyed what’s-wrong? look.
“Whuh?”
“Jerry, do you have any secrets you want to get off your chest?”
The man stared at me for a moment.
“Go to sleep, Slip,” he said, rolling over.
I was comforted by Jerry’s failure to humor me. Any other reaction would have convinced me that he might have secrets after all, although what kind, I could hardly imagine. If there’s one thing I know, it’s my husband. Then again, I had thought I knew Faith too.
I swatted my pillow a couple of times, as if recontouring it were going to help me go to sleep faster. Faith’s confession had unsettled me—it wasn’t what she told us now, but what she hadn’t told us for so long. I don’t like what I know to be true not to be true, because if it isn’t, then what do I know?
I lay there in the dark, trying to think of any secret I might have kept from the Angry Housewives, and honestly, I couldn’t. They knew that I had cheated on my twelfth-grade English exam (“That’s one of your great shames?” Audrey had asked, practically hooting. “For crying out loud, I copied all my math homework from seventh grade on!”), knew that I felt inadequate for not nursing my first two kids, knew that in an effort to become taller I had tried all sorts of strange remedies, including tying my ankles to the bed frame and stretching to reach the headboard every single night of my thirteenth year.
That’s not to say I didn’t keep some things private—I didn’t tell anyone about my sex life because I don’t believe a sex life is anybody’s business but that of the participants—but I had never misrepresented myself with a secret.
My head was buzzing (why did I drink coffee past five P.M.?), so, conceding defeat to insomnia, I got out of bed.