All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (36 page)

Beth was older than me, maybe fifty. Old enough she had a couple grandkids and dyed her hair red to cover up gray. Like my ma, she had a big scar on her belly from a C-section. The one time I touched it, she slapped me.

I knew I'd waited too long to tell Beth about my conviction, because when I finally did, she gave me a dirty look and said, “What is wrong with men? What's the appeal of a fourteen-year-old? Are they just easier to control, is that it? They don't talk back?”

That was hard to take from a woman who bossed me around the same way she did her kids. Same woman who in the middle of sex once said to me, “Damn, Jesse, don't you wear deodorant? You fucking stink. Get off me.”

“I loved her. I wanted to marry her,” I said.

“Huh, but instead you just had sex with her.”

“Do you want me to leave?” I wanted to leave. Sitting on the sofa with her curling her lip up at me was as bad as a parole hearing.

“I don't know. Let me think about it,” Beth said.

I slept on the couch that night, and the next morning she said, “It was only the one time? You don't have a thing for little girls?”

“It was the one stupid mistake. She's the only girl I ever dated who was under eighteen.” Wavy was the only girl I'd ever really dated.

“Okay,” Beth said. I told her what I had to. The plea deal, the sentence, the no contact order, the sex offender registry. Whenever Beth's grandkids visited, I stayed at a motel. Other than that, she never brought it up, but I always felt like she was looking at me and thinking, “What is wrong with men?”

Being with Beth was mostly better than being alone, as long as I got drunk before we had sex. As long as she didn't say, “You need to lose some weight or you're gonna have a heart attack,” while I was trying to enjoy my dinner.

Other times being alone woulda been better, especially at night, when I was lying awake next to Beth. She never put her head on my shoulder and definitely never pressed her face into my neck or my armpit and sniffed me. She didn't know the names of any constellations.

Wavy had said, “Stay,” and I stayed. She'd said, “Hold on tight,” and I held on tight. I knew I oughta let go of her. I couldn't.

 

5

RENEE

May 1990

In the fall of 1989, Wavy and I got our apartment, this funky place with two bedrooms, a giant bathroom, and a tiny living room. It was part of a big old house, so there were lots of funny things about it, like the pair of faucets that poked out of the living room ceiling right over the couch. We never figured out what they were for.

I spent most of the first year in our apartment trying to convince Wavy that we should throw a party. Wasn't that the point of having our own apartment, being able to do whatever we wanted? Obviously, Wavy wasn't a big fan of parties, but she finally agreed that we should invite some people over to celebrate the end of the spring semester. A little fun before finals week.

I expected I would have to invite all the guests, but Wavy invited some math nerd classmates, and a few co-workers from the hospital, where she did insurance billing. She also cooked a mountain of food, and went around the party encouraging people to eat. That was how she showed affection. When I went through some soul-crushing breakup, she made elaborate meals and desserts for me.

She invited a custodian from the hospital, Darrin, who turned out to be really nice. He said, “I was worried about coming, because she's never said a word to me. But the invitation said there was food, so I figured why not?”

I wondered if Wavy liked him.
Liked
him liked him. He had a baby face and he was nowhere near the size of Kellen, but he was big-boned, so maybe she was thinking of fattening him up.

Except I spent all night talking to Darrin and she didn't seem to mind, even when we went out on the second-floor balcony to smoke a joint and make out. The Bubbly Butterfly strikes again. When I came back inside, Wavy was talking to Joshua from my Philosophy class. I'd invited him because he had a totally hot George Michael five o'clock shadow, but there I was flirting with Darrin, and she was flirting with my date.

Okay, it would be a stretch to describe what Wavy was doing as flirting. She was sitting on the couch, almost close enough to touch Joshua, with a pleasant, “Yes, I'm listening” expression on her face.

I had this proud Mom feeling. She was coming out of her shell! She was blooming!

*   *   *

A couple of days after the party, I was sprawled out on the couch, kind of watching TV and kind of working on my final essay for my Women's Studies class. It was the last assignment I had to turn in for the semester.

Somebody knocked on the front door, and when I answered it, Joshua stood out in the hallway. Finals had cost me enough sleep I thought I might be hallucinating. Perfect five o'clock shadow. Dreamy blue eyes. Cologne. Crisp white button-down shirt.

“Hey, is Wavy home?” he said. He was real.

I stood there like an idiot for a minute, while my brain tried to come up with a reason that Joshua would be standing at our door asking for Wavy. How did he even know her name? Had she actually introduced herself to him at the party?

“Sure. Come in.”

I parked him on the couch next to my essay-writing mess, and went to get Wavy. She was in her room, typing, with her Spanish dictionary open on the desk. I think she had a Spanish Lit essay and some kind of Quantum Mechanics final left.

“Joshua's here to see you,” I said.

Wavy shook her head and waved her hands at me in baffled horror. Under stress, she still defaulted to silence. While I waited to see what she would do, I had several unkind thoughts. If Joshua was attracted to fragile, ethereal Wavy, I'd never stood a chance with him. The nicest things I've been called are
exuberant
and
earthy
. Anyway, I was the one who invited him to the party. Where did he get off coming around to see my roommate?

“Not here,” she finally said.

“Too late. I already told him you were here.”

I stood there, enjoying the panicked look on her face, until I really thought about Wavy for a minute. Kellen was serving a ten-year sentence. What was she going to do—wait for him? He was never going to be not too old for her, and now he was a convicted felon. She needed to move on with her life.

“What could it hurt to talk to Joshua?” I said. “He's nice. He's funny. Plus, he's gorgeous. Seriously, have you looked at him? He's like a pre-med Adonis.”

Wavy made the face that meant, “Do you know what it's like being me?” I honestly didn't want to know, because she was pretty fucked up. I liked to play at tragedy, but she drank it out of her baby bottle.

“Just go talk to him,” I said. “I'll save you if it gets too awkward.”

Wavy stood up, and I thought she was going out to the living room. Instead, she walked over and shut her bedroom door in my face.

 

6

WAVY

I closed the door, but Renee opened it back up. We glared at each other until she said, “You're a coward, Wavonna Lee Quinn.”

I didn't fall for that trick in sixth grade. I wasn't going to now. I flipped Renee off and tried to close the door, but she held her ground.

“Pot calling kettle,” I said.

“That is such bullshit. Show me one time I was a coward.”

Renee thought recklessness was the same thing as bravery. I stepped past her into the hall and walked toward the kitchen. She came after me.

In the front room, we passed Joshua, who looked confused. Not a Kellen kind of confused, where he always worried he'd misunderstood or done or said something wrong. Joshua thought someone else had made a mistake.

I stopped in front of the refrigerator and Renee was under such a head of steam that she bumped into my back. At the party, she had written Darrin's phone number on a napkin and said, “Yeah, I'd love to go out with you.” The napkin was still stuck to the fridge. She hadn't called him. He wasn't her type. Not good-looking enough and probably too nice to break her heart.

“Are you seriously going to wait for a guy you haven't seen since you were fourteen? How do you know he even still wants you?” she said.

I jerked Darrin's number off the fridge, sending the magnet flying. When I pinned the napkin to Renee's chest with my forefinger, she made a surprised little O with her mouth.

“Coward,” I said.

She smirked.

“Tell you what. I'll call him
after
you talk to Joshua. And you have to try, Wavy. You can't sit there like a stone until he gives up. You have to try or it doesn't count.” Renee knew me. When I let go of the napkin, she stuck it back on the fridge.

I walked into the living room, feeling nauseated. Not because I was nervous about talking to Joshua, but because my stomach was full of the poison of Renee saying, “How do you know he even still wants you?” How did I know?

“Is something wrong?” Joshua stood up from the couch.

“No.” I took a deep breath and sat down on one end of the couch. Joshua sat down in the middle. Closer than I liked.

“I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by, since I didn't have your phone number,” he said.

“Hey, I'm gonna go downstairs and get the mail,” Renee said. On her way to the front door, she gave me a warning look.

“So, Wavy. I think your name is so cool. Kind of hippy, but not in a goofy way. Not like Moon Unit,” Joshua said, once we were alone.

What was I supposed to say to that?
I'm glad you like my name. The man I love gave it to me
. That probably wasn't what Renee meant when she said I had to try. That was me being
impossible
. Aunt Brenda said that about me.
You're impossible!
Most days I was impossible. Like a unicorn.

“Short for Wavonna,” I said.

“Really? I never met anyone with either of those names. So that's pretty cool. I mean, I have a pretty common name, so it's neat to meet people who have unusual names.”

Joshua's teeth were perfect. He must have had braces. Renee talked about him like he was a statue. David standing naked in a museum in Italy. I thought he was more like a mannequin in a department store. He smelled like a mannequin, too. Soap, deodorant, cologne, mouthwash. How was I supposed to tell what
he
smelled like under all of that?

“So, what's your major?” he said.

“Astrophysics.” I didn't want him to panic, but as soon as I said it, his eyes got bigger.

“Oh, um, wow. So, uh, what do you do with a degree in astrophysics?”

“Become an astrophysicist.”

Joshua stared at me. I was being impossible again, saying things he didn't know how to respond to.
Serial conversation killer
, Renee called me.

When she came back with the mail, I expected her to give me an accusatory look, since Joshua and I were sitting there in silence. Instead, she slammed the front door and practically ran across the room to the kitchen.

“Wavy, will you come in here?” she called.

 

7

RENEE

I went down to get the mail to give Joshua and Wavy a chance to talk in private. She did need to get on with her life. Then I saw what was in the mailbox: a pizza coupon flier and one of those familiar, heartbreaking envelopes. A fancy envelope, addressed to Jesse Joe Barfoot, Jr. Inmate #451197. Stamped UNAUTHORIZED CORRESPONDENCE in big red letters. Except this one wasn't. This envelope had a big red stamp that said RELEASED.

A less romantic person might have taken a more measured approach. Me, I thought,
Screw moving on. This is true love
! Clutching the mail in one hand, and my boobs in the other, I ran up both flights of stairs.

I put the envelope down in the middle of the kitchen table, and when Wavy walked in, I was staring at it in disbelief. She picked up the letter and her hands started to shake. I can only imagine what was going on inside her head, because my brain was lit up like the Vegas strip.

“Does that mean he's been paroled? Don't they have to notify you? If he's out, why hasn't he come to see you?” I said.

Oh, right. If he hadn't been getting her letters, he wouldn't know our address. It wasn't like he could drop by her aunt's house and say, “Hey, where's Wavy?”

How was he going to find her?

He wasn't. We were going to find him. At last, I wasn't just a fat college girl watching a soap opera. I was part of the drama. I was going to rewrite the third act and change it from tragedy to happily ever after.

While Wavy sat there in shock, the envelope pressed between both her hands, I picked up the phone and started making calls, all of them long distance and out of state. I wondered what Mrs. Brenda Newling would say when Wavy's phone bill hit triple digits.

“Hey, what's up?” Joshua said. He stood in the doorway, looking unbelievably sexy.

“Give us a couple minutes, okay?” I was on hold with someone at the office where they kept the records for the state's sex offender registry, a thing I hadn't even known existed until somebody at the Department of Corrections transferred me there.

“Is she okay?” He was looking at Wavy, who seemed a little shaky.

“She's had some news—”

“Ma'am?” Someone came back on the other end of the phone line. “Do you have the offender's full legal name?”

“Jesse Joe Barfoot, Jr. I don't know what the process is—”

“One moment, please.”

Wavy looked at me expectantly.

The woman came back on the line and read me a street address, apartment number, and city. Wellburg, which was across the state line, less than three hours away. I wrote it down on the back of the pizza flier, and as soon as Wavy saw it, she jumped up from the table and brushed past Joshua in the doorway. I knew exactly where she was going: to get ready for her reunion with Kellen.