A Virtuous Woman (Oprah's Book Club) (13 page)

He left the window open and walked outside to the pony shelter to retrieve his liquor bottle. Today would be the first time since he married Ruby that there would be a bottle in the house.
King of my goddamn castle now, by God. Somebody passing by sees my pajamas, let them look. Take a picture! It’ll last longer!
He was glad he’d worn his shoes, dew was still on the grass. He thought how the shoes would’ve made Ruby laugh. You
do tickle me, always up to something.

He stopped in the yard and looked at the woods across the field. He didn’t want to think about her anymore, her leaving, her not coming back, especially her leaving.
You laying there in the pink dress June bought, my insides they yelled out, No! God, you were a beautiful woman to me. I’d told June to take the money and go the best place there was and buy the best thing they had, something the color I’d married you in. I couldn’t let you go in the wedding dress. I wanted that here to look at it. Burr gave me the money to buy you that one, bless him, and took us to the courthouse, bless him again. And when we put you in the ground, I told mama to accept you next to her, you were a good woman, never meant anybody any harm, neither one, just ways different, that’s all, and Burr told me my mama and my daddy and this earth would accept you because your grace was something no one could turn away, and I cried then, Ruby, I cried all the way home.

June told her father that when she finished cleaning Jack’s house she’d like to go back into town and buy some things for supper and they could all eat together.
Something Jack would like, the way Ruby would’ve made it. She showed me how to make the dough, and we sat at the table, rolled it out and cut it into long strips. Then she held me over the pot and let me drop them in, couldn’t tell mama. She had enough evidence against Ruby. Maybe she’s happy
now, shed of us all, but Roland. Those two. I’m bound to run into her, probably shopping one day, spending daddy’s money. I can’t believe he supports her. She could work. But I guess the checks keep her happy, no telling how much she socks away for Roland. No, Shelbourne’s certainly not big enough for me and my mama. God, I’ll walk into the firm one day and she’ll be sitting at my desk, tapping a big switch on her knee, saying she’d forgotten to give it to me the time I made Ruby a Mother’s Day card, ignored her, or when I started the flower seeds Ruby’d given me in the side yard. Last week, Mr. Johnson, Someone’s been waiting to see you, June, I told her to go on in. A woman? Yes. Know her? No. I didn’t want to open the door. Not that time, but another. Daddy says if I’m that worried I should move, he’d never tell her where, if she asked. But he’s so close out here. I can’t. This is my home.

Jack came back inside, paused in the kitchen, wondering if he should rinse a glass, but he decided to drink from the bottle, matched his mood. Then he pushed the bottle into the waist of his pajama pants, went into the living room, unplugged the television, draped the cord over his shoulder, and began slowly and carefully wheeling the cart down the hall as one would wheel a patient into surgery.
Drink me a little liquor, watch the cartoons, watch them all day if I goddamn feel like it, that’s the cure, nobody to stop me. Yes, it’s a plenty of ways to stay out from under a
woman, stay drunk, stay in front of the television, neither way you don’t think, don’t feel nothing. These goddamn sheets got to go, shoes, too, silliness.

He stopped the cart beside the foot of the bed, but before he plugged it in he stripped the bed, took off his shoes, put the sheets in the bottom of the closet and dropped his shoes in on top of them. Then he plugged in the television, flipped channels until he found a very busy, bright cartoon, set the liquor bottle on the nightstand and made himself comfortable on the mattress. He reached over for the bottle, unscrewed the cap, took the longest pull he could stand.
Aaaa, goddamn. Won’t take long like that. Look. Coyote’ll drop a atom bomb on that roadrunner, then that little fool pops up and goes Beep-Beep!
He admired the roadrunner’s resiliency, and after its next escapade he had another long drink, then another. His distractions were working, but not quickly enough. Thoughts of Ruby, full and boundless as they were, would not be displaced by the colors, sounds, fresh air, or drunkenness he had brought into her room, and that frustrated him.
What do I have to do?

He didn’t hear Burr’s car outside, nor the car doors slamming, nor Burr knocking at the back door.

June told him to go on in, Jack might be napping. They went into the kitchen. June walked straight to the pantry, got out Ruby’s apron and tied it around her waist and collected
the dirty dishes into the sink. Burr called out, “You in here?” And when he got no answer, the same dread passed through him as when he’d called out that same question in his mother-in-law’s home years before.
Beside her bed, robe open, must’ve happened getting dressed. God, it was awful. To be sure not Jack. No, here’s here. But he should’ve met us at the door, always has.
“Jack, you decent? I’ve got June with me.” June smiled at that and ran the sink full of soapy water.

Oh shit. Me in this liquory powder-smelling mess. Burr’ll think I lost my mind. See, if you’d got drunker sooner you’d be passed out now. What am I supposed to do? He’s bound to come in, and got June with him.
He decided to feign sleep. So with the television still going and the uncapped bottle on the nightstand, Jack rolled over on his side, facing Ruby’s place, and started to snore.

Burr followed the cartoon sounds down the hall, knowing something was wrong and feeling it would be up to him to face and fix whatever he was walking into.
He should’ve met us at the door. The television goes in the living room. Something’s bad wrong.

He pushed open the door and saw the scene Jack had set for himself, heard him snoring over a commercial jingle.
He turned the television off and closed the window, flies were getting in the room.
He’s bound to be drunk, picked up that bottle for him, just got it for him yesterday.

The liquor that was meant to relax him was now making him nauseous.
What am I going to say?
He maintained his rhythmic snoring, counting off the beats, while Burr noticed everything that was strange and out of place about the room, especially the odor. He walked over to the bed, shook Jack’s shoulder and said, “Wake up! You drunk? What’s going on in here?”

Jack decided to act nonchalant as long as it’d work, then he’d decide what to do next. So he rolled over onto his back, yawned, rubbed his eyes and acted very surprised to see he had company.

“What you doing here?”

“I told you I was bringing June this weekend. What’s going on?” Burr measured his tone. Jack Stokes on the defensive was no good, impossible to handle.

“I just wanted to lay up awhile.” Jack fluffed the pillows, arranged them, and sat up against them, wishing he’d thought to slide the bottle under the bed. “Sit down and take a load off. Yeah, I forgot about June coming. I hate she had to walk in on a mess in there.”

“Looks like the mess is back here,” Burr said as he sat down on the edge of the bed.
Why’re the sheets piled in the
closet? To be sure he didn’t mess himself up, no, to be sure not.

“Well, I just haven’t got around to doing anything.” Jack squirmed against the pillows.

“Except drinking half a pint of bourbon.”
Well, that’s it. That’ll piss him off sure enough. Now you’ll never get a straight answer.

Smart-ass, how many times did I take you under that pony shelter with me and let you take a drink when Tiny Fran was giving you hell? I’d say, Pour some of this on them bitch bites.
“You got something against somebody drinking in his own house? Act like you never seen me take a drink.”

“I’ve never known you to in the house.”

Well, he can get it good as Cecil got it, come messing. Everybody ought to leave me alone.
Jack felt himself ready to say things he neither meant nor believed. “Well, I guess you don’t know me too good, do you?”

“It’s not a matter of knowing you or not knowing you, I just know it’s not something you’d ordinarily do.” Burr hoped that sounded firm but inoffensive. He needed the truth so he could help. He didn’t want to be lied to.

Jack didn’t know how to reply and not have the conversation continue its circle around the truth he was hiding. “This ain’t a ordinary day, so you just go on back home, and you can tell June I’m back here resting and she can skip this room. I’ll clean it up sometime directly.”

“But what you’re really going to do is lay back here on this bare mattress and drink liquor and watch television all day.”

“I will if I’ve a mind to.”
Why don’t he just go on?

“Well, I’ll tell June just to come pick up the wash out of here. She can run a load, the sheets over there, while she’s here.”

Powders in them.
“Don’t nobody touch the sheets! I’ll take care of the sheets!” Jack started off the mattress and headed for the closet. He didn’t know what he’d do with the sheets once he had them, but he didn’t want June saying, “His sheets smell funny, daddy, they smell like lilacs, look at the powder fogging out of them.” Then Burr would really want to know something.

Burr sat and watched Jack, amazed.
He’s clean, so he didn’t have an accident. What’s he doing?
Jack rolled the shoes up in the sheets, grabbed the bundle up, and held it tightly as he crawled back onto the mattress.

“Are you out of your mind, Jack? Now I want to know what’s going on. I know you’re half lit, but this is pure craziness!”

He’s not getting my sheets.
“All that work you need to do, to be sure you can find something to do besides bother somebody about his laundry. This is my business. You better go tend to yours.”

Perfume. There’s perfume on them.
“What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”
It’s your upper lip. Wishing for something,
see if I do again.
He knew he was doing a poor job keeping Burr back. His defiance was not working for him but against him. He crammed the bundle between his legs and hoped that that would be adequate in keeping more lilac scent from wafting towards Burr.

June washed all the dishes, swept the floor and wiped down the cabinets. Before cleaning the next room she decided to check on Jack, so she dried her hands on Ruby’s apron and walked down the hall.

“I asked you, what’s that odor?”
I might as well be talking to Roland. That’s exactly how he’d look at me, holding money he’d taken out of my wallet, hiding it behind his back, I know you took it, now give it to me, and he’d stare me right in the eyes like I was an idiot for thinking so.

You want to know? It’s lilac dusting powder. You want to know what else? I put it all on these sheets last night, thinking she’d like it. I bet you’d have loved to’ve seen me in here sprinkling like a goddamn fool. And you know why? I honest to God believed she was coming back to me. Now shut up.
Jack was forming his answer when June walked in.
God, that’s a pretty thing in Ruby’s apron.

June knew she’d walked in on the middle of something. She trusted that her father was finding out exactly what.
I love those two. Fix this, daddy, something’s wrong with Jack, fix it.

Burr looked up at June and said, “Baby, Jack’s about to tell me why his sheets smell like gardenia blossoms.”

Don’t take that tone with him, daddy. You’ll never get anywhere with him. Remember how Ruby’d have to handle him sometimes? You know him. Talk to him like you do.

Jack was happy to see June, and he wished he weren’t in the middle of this tussle with her father or he’d tell her so. He decided to talk with her when this was over, when he found a way to make Burr back down. But he had to finish this first.

“And I was just telling your daddy here he ought to go on and leave me back here, let you clean the front, everybody mind his own business.”
Now I got two sniffing around. And it is not gardenia blossoms!

Burr wanted the truth. “June, go ahead and throw those sheets there in the washer, and I’ll bet they’d dry outside in no time.” And when she started for the bed, Jack jerked the bundle up into his chest and screamed out, “I told you to leave the goddamn sheets be! It’s all I and Ruby’s business, but you’re bound and determined to know something. Well, I fixed them for her. Last night I made things ready for her. I thought she was coming home to me. You satisfied? That make you happy?”

Neither Burr nor June had heard that voice or seen that face before, and they were stunned by the force of his words. Pulling his knees up to his chest, he cradled the
sheets, pressed his face into them and began to cry.
I told him to leave me alone. It’s all mine and Ruby’s business. I told him to go.

June sat down beside Jack and rubbed the back of his neck.
It’s okay. We all miss her. It’s okay.
“You can talk to us, Jack. You talk to us if you need to. Daddy didn’t mean any harm. He didn’t know.”

Jack spoke half to himself, half to them, words muffled in the sheets, “Nothing to say. I’ll be all right. Started out with nothing, ending up with nothing. Just go on home and leave me be.”
Made do with nothing when mama and daddy died too, not like I don’t know how, don’t want to though. I want Ruby. That’d cure me. Why am I in this bed? Never been sick or sorry enough to do this. I’ve got to get up, embarrassing. Ruby’d say when you don’t feel like you want to get up and go and do, that’s when you’ve got to make yourself, one foot in front of the other. I better sober up first.

Why’d I have to push Jack? Why didn’t I just let it go? Satisfying your own goddamn curiosity. Couldn’t you tell? This is not my business, give him credit for having some. Give him credit, for God’s sakes, for being a man.
Without saying a word, Burr looked at his daughter and asked what he should do.

I don’t know, daddy. Maybe that’s not the right question.
Just help him. You’ve known him all this time, you must know what he needs.

Burr looked at Jack, hunched over the sheets, arms around his knees.
He needed his mother, and she died. He needed Ruby, she also died. He needed children and a place of his own, he never had them. I can’t raise the dead, but I have shared my child with him, with Ruby. I do have land. I’ve always thought of this place as his, and hasn’t he known that? Whether he has or he hasn’t, it doesn’t matter, it’s not his. What else can he have now?