Dunaway's Crossing (33 page)

“Don’t stray from me again,” Ben murmured in her ear. His breath already reeked of whiskey. Then he called to his friend with a smile, “Roger! Good to see you, my man!”

Bea Dot also waved to Ben’s friend Roger before speaking. “What about the powder room?”

“I’ll be just outside the door,” he said. “Hurry. I don’t want to stand here all night.”

Bea Dot nodded, then slipped through the door. Immediately, her muscles relaxed as she seated herself at the vanity. She removed the brooch from her shoulder and dropped it in her drawstring bag, then sat quietly on the cushioned stool and put her head in her hands. Relieved by the short respite from Ben, she still wondered how she would ever endure this evening. And even if she did, what then? In the past fifteen minutes, Ben had destroyed any chance she might have for an ordinary life. Now, added to the agonizing uncertainty about Will was the shame that he, if alive, would learn her disgusting secret. Bea Dot raised her head and stared blankly at her reflection. Was there any point in trying to get away?

An opening door washed in the noise of the party, interrupting her thoughts. A woman about Netta’s age entered and sat before a mirror across the room. In her own looking glass, Bea Dot watched the woman dab the dew of perspiration from her upper lip and forehead.

“A crowded room gets mighty warm, doesn’t it?” Bea Dot asked.

“Yes, it certainly does.” The woman fiddled with her handkerchief without looking up. Then she coughed so severely, Bea Dot feared the woman would damage her throat. The woman covered her mouth with her hanky and coughed again, this time retching also.

Bea Dot bristled at the noise. “Can I get someone to help you?” she offered. “A friend or relative?”

“Thank you, but no,” the woman said, rubbing her temples. “My husband is just outside. I think I’ll ask him to take me home.”

Good idea
, Bea Dot thought. As the woman exited the powder room, Bea Dot wished her well, then shuddered at how close she sat to sickness. As she rose to leave, she stopped at the sight of the woman’s handkerchief, crumpled atop the opposite vanity. She first recoiled from it, but upon second thought she sat on the woman’s stool and stared at the lacy white fabric, its center soiled with the woman’s sputum. She’d had a temperature, a headache, a cough—every ailment pointed to influenza.

The hanky teased her. It could be her key to escape from Ben. But did she have the nerve to use it? She shook her head with shame, rose, and stepped to the door. But before she pulled it open, she lunged back to the vanity and opened wide the mouth of her drawstring purse. She retrieved the brooch, which she used to sweep the soiled handkerchief into the bag. Then she dropped the brooch back in and pulled the strings tight, muttering, “Just in case.”

#

Bea Dot endured the rest of the party in a daze. Ben attached himself to her side and craftily steered her away from conversations with any of her old friends. She’d managed to speak to Aunt Lavinia and Uncle David once, but Ben stood guard, her elbow in one hand, a glass of whiskey in the other. When Aunt Lavinia had invited them to dinner the next week, Ben quickly replied, “Oh, what a shame. We already have prior commitments. Some other time perhaps.” Then he’d led her away.

Never one to turn down a drink, Ben insisted they stay until the party’s end. When they’d finally returned home, Bea Dot was exhausted, not only from the erratic ride home, but also from her tempest of emotions. She’d hardly been able to mourn California’s death, and the worry over Will’s health tormented her. But now with Ben’s cruel letter on its way to Pineview, she felt spent, defeated, hopeless. She’d almost hoped he’d crash the car and kill them both.

After Ben parked the car behind the house, Bea Dot entered through the back door and dropped her drawstring purse on the telephone stand in the hallway. Without a word to her husband, she made her way to her bedroom, but Ben caught up to her and grabbed her arm, twisting her around to face him. With a grunt, he pressed his fat, wet lips onto hers and kissed her in that clumsy, besotted manner that had always disgusted her. She tried to shake away from him, but he gripped her tighter, then lost his balance and fell forward, pushing Bea Dot in front of him. She landed on her back on the sofa with Ben on top of her, his face pressed into her neck and his heavy breathing snorting into her ear. She turned her face to avoid the odor of liquor and cigars and pushed against his chest as his hand snaked up her skirt and fumbled with her stockings. He was too heavy for her, too drunk to realize she was resisting. Fortunately, alcohol got the best of him, and his hand went still. Within seconds, he was snoring into the pillow behind Bea Dot’s neck.

Wrinkling her nose, she wriggled from underneath him and thumped to the floor. Then, leaving him unconscious in the parlor, she tiptoed to her room. At a faint sound across the hall, she turned and peered through the shadows. She heard nothing more, but she could have sworn she saw a movement by the guest room door.

“Mr. Bonner?” she asked hoarsely.

Hearing no reply, she slipped into her room and went to bed. She awoke three hours later to her husband’s furious bellow. “What the hell is this? What kind of a fool do you think I am?”

What is it this time?
she wondered as she tied her robe around her and opened the bedroom door. At the same time, Mr. Bonner emerged from his bedroom, the tail of his night shirt overlapping his trousers. Ben, still intoxicated, stood swaying at the telephone stand. He shook his fist, which held Bea Dot’s drawstring bag.

“You’ve been using the telephone!” he screamed. Then he railed at Bonner. “I told you to keep an eye on her!”

“Ben, no,” Bea Dot said calmly, trying to dispel his temper. “We’ve all been asleep. You feel asleep on the sofa, and we’ve been in our rooms.”  Her heart pounded, not so much at his fury, but at the notion that her husband might not only be brutal but insane.

“Liar,” he said. “Who did you call? Someone back in that podunk town, I’m sure.” He sprayed saliva as he spoke, and a drop of spit clung to his lower lip as he ripped open the drawstring. “What do you have in here? A secret telephone number? An address?”

“I left the bag on the telephone stand when we came home tonight. Didn’t you see me?” Her neck and shoulders muscles contracted at the strain of trying to calm him.

“The operator.” Bonner stepped forward, his palms facing forward in submission. “I’ll ask if any calls have been made from this number tonight.” He went to the hallway, and Bea Dot listened as he picked up the ear piece. “Hello, operator…yes, I know it’s late…”

Still suspicious and seething, Ben plunged his fat hand into her bag, ripping at its seams as he did so. He pulled out the soiled handkerchief and tossed it onto the floor. Then he plunged his hand back into the bag.

“Dammit!” he yelled, yanking his hand away with Bea Dot’s broken brooch puncturing the heel of his palm so deeply that it was embedded into his hand. He tugged the brooch away from his skin and hurled it across the room. He picked up the handkerchief and wiped away the blood. “You meant for me to do that,” he growled through gritted teeth.

“No,” Bea Dot said quietly, almost hopelessly, as she knew he would not believe her.

Still huffing like an angry bull, he stepped toward her, his fierce eyes still focused on hers. Bonner stepped between them, facing Ben.

“The operator says no telephone calls have come from this number tonight,” he said. “It’s all been a misunderstanding.”

Ben paused, then, still frowning, backed away a step. Bea Dot exhaled and put her hand to her chest. Never would she have thought she’d be thankful for Bonner’s intervention.

“Mrs. Ferguson, you should go back to bed. It’s very late. Mr. Ferguson, if you’ll allow me, I’ll help you dress your hand. That’s a nasty wound.” Bonner took Ben by the elbow and eased him down the hall away from Bea Dot. Relieved to have weathered Ben’s storm, she turned to go back to bed. Suddenly, she lurched forward, as the heel of Ben’s boot shoved her back side. She fell against her door frame, hitting her chin and biting her lip.

“Mrs. Ferguson!” Bonner rushed to her side and took her arm as she put her hand to her mouth.

“Leave her alone,” Ben boomed, and Bonner immediately stepped back. Bea Dot listened for their footsteps to disappear before she moved again.

Back in her room, she checked the clock before returning to bed. It was quarter after three. As she reclined on her pillows, she sighed and laid her arm over her forehead. Her shoulders pinched at her, and an ache radiated up her neck and the back of her head. She tried to will the tension away, but at the same time, she knew it would return at each encounter with Ben. How would she ever manage a way out of this mess when she constantly tiptoed around him? She’d have to sleep—or pretend to sleep—well into the morning after Ben left for work. Maybe during his absence she could manipulate Bonner into opening a window of escape.

When she opened her eyes, the clock showed eight a.m. She listened intently, hoping Ben was out of the house. Hearing nothing, she rose and bathed before dressing for the day. She put on a spring dress with long sleeves, entirely inappropriate for November, but since she’d ruined most of her clothes in Pineview, she had little else to wear. She wrapped a crocheted shawl around her shoulders for warmth.

As she stepped to her bedroom door, she spied a slip of paper on the floor. A smile spread across her face as she read it:

Dear Mrs. Ferguson,

After leaving a letter of resignation with your husband, I depart. When he hired me, I mistakenly believed his disparaging descriptions of you, but recent events convince me of my error. I cannot in good conscience work for a violent man. As I suspect he will remain asleep for some time, I strongly recommend that you take yourself to a friend or relative who can offer you a safe place to stay. I wish you well.

Kermit Bonner

Bea Dot leapt to her closet and retrieved her satchel, putting in it only Will’s mother’s riding pants and shirt, plus the small stash of money she’d taken from Ben’s pocket a few days prior. If she hurried, she could dash out the door before Ben awoke. Quickly she fastened the latch on the bag, but with her hand on the bedroom door, she halted at Ben’s booming voice.

“Bonner!”

Her pulse quickening, Bea Dot slid her satchel under the bed, then steeled herself before greeting her husband.

“Bonner!” he called again, obviously not yet aware of his employee’s departure.  Well, she wouldn’t be the bearer of the news. Let him discover that on his own.

Bea Dot stepped into the hallway and followed her husband’s voice into the parlor, where she found him dressed for work, but looking haggard with red-rimmed eyes. He rubbed his forehead with a bandaged hand.

“What’s the commotion about?” Bea Dot asked, feigning ignorance.

“Where’s Bonner?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” she lied. “Have you checked his room?”

“Of course I checked his room, you idiot.” Ben glared at her. “I’ve checked all over the house.”

Bea Dot doubted that, but said nothing.

Ben plopped on the sofa and put his head in his hands.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look awful.”

“My head’s killing me,” he groaned. “That cheap liquor at the club.”

Bea Dot nodded, lifting the corner of her mouth. True to form, Ben blamed his hangover on the alcohol, not his drinking it.

“Have you taken any medicine?”

“Of course I have,” he snapped back.

Bea Dot backed away at his hostility. Her back tensing again, she spoke softly. The sooner she could get him off to work, the sooner she could leave herself. “Let me cook you some breakfast. That might make you feel better before you go to work.”

“I can’t go to the office until I find Bonner,” he said, standing, clenching his fists.

“He may be in the bathroom,” Bea Dot suggested. “Did you check the yard? Maybe he had to go outside for something.” She wished Bonner had delayed his departure an hour or two. At least that way both of them could have left unnoticed.  She moved to the kitchen, hoping Ben would forget Bonner for a moment. He followed her as far as the breakfast table, but as she took the skillet out of the cabinet, he asked, “What’s this?”

She turned to find him holding an envelope, which he’d taken off the mantle. Anticipating his rage, she slipped toward the door as he tore the envelope open. As he read the letter of resignation, his breathing intensified, and Bea Dot braced for his fury, hoping Bonner’s letter omitted any mention of last night’s outburst. Upon finishing the letter, Ben crumpled it in his hand, and Bea Dot gripped the door sill as she watched sweat form on his forehead.

“That son of a bitch,” he growled as he threw the ball of paper at her. “Left in the middle of the night.” He pounded his fist on the table, then turned his glare to her. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?”

“Of course not,” she said. She picked up Bonner’s wadded up note and read it. Fortunately, he’d simply told Ben that for personal reasons he had to rush back home to Macon.

The telephone rang. Ben ignored it, his shoulders rising and falling as he seethed. It rang two more times before Bea Dot spoke. “Am I allowed to answer that?”