Gone With a Handsomer Man (8 page)

Right before school started, Aunt Bluette bought me a ’88 Olds convertible and paid a man to paint it turquoise. To help pay for gas, I got a carhop job at Sonic. When classes began, my seatmate in biology was Aaron Fisher, the cutest guy in school, the same guy I’d blown off at First Baptist. He passed me a note,
You’re totally rad. Go out with me.

The darlingest guy in school wanted to go out with me? I was totally rad? I was flattered but couldn’t respond. My heart felt all crinkly, like a green pepper that’s been left too long on the countertop.

Aaron kept passing notes. After six weeks, I wrote back,
OK
. We became the new “it” couple. The popular girls had never talked to me, but now they all wanted to be my best friend. In a polite way, they wanted to know how a girl who wore un-hot clothes could snag the hottest boy. I found their interest disturbing and kept my distance.

I stuck close to my real best friend, Rayette, who lived on a rice farm, and told her I wasn’t going to repeat the mistake I’d made with Coop. She called me a fool but gave me a pack of Trojans, just the same.

One night, when Aaron and I went parking at the lake, he put his hand up my dress, and I didn’t stop him. I couldn’t see into the future, of course. I couldn’t know that a year later, Aaron would go to Clemson and die of alcohol poisoning at a frat party, or that once again I’d be moping on Aunt Bluette’s porch, listening to sad love songs. The night I gave myself to Aaron, he was the furthest thing from my mind. I opened my arms to a young, gray-eyed man in a gray Mustang while Celine Dion sang “My Heart Will Go On.”

Cheesy, I know. It was the right song, wrong man. My heart didn’t go a damn place. I put it in a jar, added vinegar and dill, and totally pickled it.

ten

I dreamed that Bing was a giant cockroach, and he mistook the Spencer-Jackson House for a petit four. I awoke at dawn, clawing air, thinking I was trapped on a layer of raspberry jelly.

Then I realized the pinkness was coming from the toile wallpaper. The design showed a girl feeding chickens while a man in a wig sat on a horse watching from afar. The pattern repeated over and over, hundreds of girls, horses, pullets, and wigged gentlemen. I made up stories for them. One man had come to buy eggs and another was a stalker. Another had come home from war and the chicken girl was the daughter he didn’t know he had.

What a pity life didn’t offer multiple-choice solutions. If it did, I wouldn’t have gone to that pub. I would have stayed home and eaten coffee cake, leaving crumbs for the roaches. I wouldn’t have kissed Coop O’Malley—not that I hadn’t enjoyed it. I had. But lawyers didn’t take up with criminals unless they were getting paid by the hour.

Since I couldn’t go back to sleep, I prowled around the house. I found an old Electrolux in the hall closet and dragged it down the stairs. Aunt Bluette used to say it was impossible to cry and clean house at the same time. I’m sorry to report she was wrong. I was weepy-eyed when I started vacuuming the dining room. By the time I reached the kitchen, I was bawling.

I cried because I didn’t know the law and because I’d thrown dangerous objects. I cried because Bing was a dog-stealing, womanizing asshole. I cried because I’d be homeless in just a few hours and because I was spit polishing a house that wasn’t mine. I cried harder because the living room was pink and filled with breakable knickknacks. Then I laughed because I wouldn’t have to dust.

I was acting just like Mama. When I was eight, she finally escaped the peach farm by marrying Donnie Phelps, a school bus driver by day, beer guzzler at night. Mama and I went to the dollar store and filled our cart with doodads for Donnie’s trailer. It was a triple-wide, beige with white shutters and a front porch. Mama fixed it up right nice, adding wicker from Pier 1 and a straw rug she found at a garage sale. We’d sit up at night and watch the traffic on Savannah Highway. Aunt Bluette lived just beyond the curve, but Mama said we were taking a break from family.

When Donnie wasn’t driving innocent children to Musgrove Elementary, he restored antique cars for rich people. He took out a loan to buy a ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon. Mama said it was just like the one Jimmy Stewart drove in
Vertigo.
Me and her were major Hitchcock fans. She kind of looked like a brown-eyed Grace Kelly in
Rear Window,
with her thick blond hair and her graceful ways. You’d never know she was country-born, with an eighth-grade education.

Now that we had our own kitchen, Mama started cooking for real, pairing lip-smacking recipes with music and Bible verses, the way she had before.

“Why Bible verses?” Donnie asked her.

“So you can say grace in style,” she told him.

Mama was right big on style. She went to the organic farmer’s market and paid a fortune for fresh sage leaves.

“Always wash the leaves real good, Teeny,” she’d say.

“’Cause they’re dirty?” I asked.

“Kinda. But you don’t want to accidentally fry a bug.”

“Have you ever done that?”

“A time or two,” she said. “But I sure hated it.”

One night, Mama picked yellow squash from the vine, then brought it into the kitchen to fry. As she was laying the golden crisps onto a plate, she saw a deep-fried baby grasshopper. Her eyes filled. She hadn’t meant to kill an innocent little grasshopper—she’d always had a great fondness for living creatures—but there it was, resting on a fried squash round. Before she could remove it, Donnie passed by, stuck out his hand, and gobbled up the insect.

Every Monday she filled his kitchen with homemade bread, the pans all lined up on the counter, the dough pushing up against red tea towels. She saved the stale loaves for me, and I’d crumble them in the yard to feed Donnie’s chickens. Then I’d twirl in circles until I collapsed in the grass. Sometimes Mama would stop cooking and twirl with me. We’d clasp our hands and close our eyes and spin through great drifts of smell: bread, zucchini soup, and stew, the sauce fragrant with Chianti. Then we’d fall down together and I’d clap my hands.

“I love you more than beans and rice,” I’d say.

“I love you more than anything,” she’d say back.

When she got agitated, I tried to pull her into the kitchen and make her cook like Aunt Bluette had done, but my efforts were less successful. She had to be in the mood to bake. Sometimes I’d inadvertently make the situation worse by showing Mama food pictures in cooking catalogs. She’d reach for the phone and order exotic ingredients like saffron, curry, and truffle oil. Donnie got sick of hauling off the empty shipping cartons, which were filled with Styrofoam peanuts. He told her to buy local.

One day he came home and found a three-foot-tall plastic orchid sitting on the coffee table. I cringed, waiting for the explosion. Mama had bought that flower at Mrs. O’Malley’s swanky shop for twenty-five dollars, but it was a good buy because it had been marked down from $99.99.

“You bitches been out spending my money?” he cried.

“I got it on sale for practically nothing,” Mama said.

Donnie pulled me up by my arm. “How much did it cost, Teeny?”

“A dollar,” I said, adding another lie to my tally.

Then one evening, it all fell apart, and it had nothing to do with Mama’s buying habits—it was due to Donnie’s temper and my clumsiness. Mama and I sat on the porch, sipping milkshakes from the Dairy Queen, watching him clean the engine. “You can eat off this carburetor,” he said.

“Like I’d want to.” Mama laughed.

Donnie threw down his rag and started toward her. I leaped out of the way, but he grabbed my arm. “Don’t you shy away from me, you little bastard.” I pulled back and my paper cup went flying. The milkshake hit the engine and exploded.

He blacked Mama’s eyes and stomped her in the kidneys. I crouched behind the car, trying not to have an asthma attack. This was my fault, every bit of it. After the flying fur settled, he told her to get inside and fix him something cool to drink. I found her in the bathroom, washing blood off her face. Then she raked through the medicine cabinet and grabbed a plastic bottle.

“What you fixing to do, Mama?” I asked.

“Teach him a lesson. Come on, help me pinch open these capsules.” She lifted me onto the counter. I watched her put the medicine in a tall glass. She added a little sugar and salt, then opened an ice cold Budweiser. Donnie stepped into the kitchen and she handed him the glass.

“That’s more like it,” he said and took a swig. Mama walked to the bedroom and started filing her nails. Her right eye was almost swollen shut. Donnie stumbled into the room and flopped spread-eagle onto the bed.

“Man, I’m dizzy,” he said.

“Take you a little rest,” Mama said.

He shut his eyes and got real still. Then he began to snore. Mama ripped off the edges of the bottom sheet. “Teeny?” she whispered, “Fetch me the stapler, duct tape, and a Coke.”

When I returned, she’d already folded the bottom sheet around Donnie. She grabbed the stapler and went to work. I squatted beside the bed, twitching each time the gun snapped. She fastened the edges of the sheet until Donnie resembled a mummy. He didn’t wake up until she wrapped tape around his ankles. “Ruby?” he croaked.

She ignored him and kept wrapping him in tape. Once she started a project, she didn’t like to stop. Donnie’s arms twitched, but they were fastened tight. He watched her with a puzzled expression and tried to raise up. She pushed him down. Then she reached for the Coke bottle and took a dainty sip.

“What you looking at?” she asked him.

“Goddamn you, Ruby. Undo me. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

While he talked, she poured the cola into his mouth. It spilled down his face, onto the mattress. A gargling sound rose up. He spit, and Coke spewed into Mama’s face. She turned the bottle upside down and shook out the last few drops. Then she grasped the bottle by its neck and beat the hell out of him. He screamed, his hips bucking up and down.

“Hurts, don’t it?” Mama cracked the bottle on his nose. “Teach you to hit me again.”

He screeched. I felt bad for him, but he had it coming. I opened my mouth, trying to move air in and out of my lungs. Each breath sounded like an iron door with a rusty hinge.

“Teeny, we don’t have time for an asthma attack,” she said. “Pack your things.”

My medicines were lined up in the kitchen window. I put them in a sack with a few clothes. We ran out to his station wagon. The engine backfired, then it caught. Mama turned onto the highway. I tried not to wheeze. Catching my breath was like climbing a mountain and getting slapped down by the wind. Every now and then, I’d reach the top, only to see another hill.

I hollered when she sped by Aunt Bluette’s farm. “Teeny, we can’t live in this town anymore.” She sucked the back of her hand. “Donnie’ll hunt me down. He’ll kill me and you both. I’m sorry, baby, but you’re only eight years old. I can’t let you die. And we can’t go home.”

I wiped my eyes. Home wasn’t Donnie’s triple-wide. It was my pink bedroom at the farm. It was Aunt Bluette’s hand on my cheek. Home was the place where all my scattered pieces came to rest.

Mama pushed her foot against the accelerator, and we flew into the night, farther and farther from Donnie and Aunt Bluette.

*   *   *

Miss Dora and her man servant, Estaurado, showed up before lunch. He resembled a Spanish version of the Blues Brothers—sunglasses, hat, and a black polyester suit. He was tall and emaciated, with a pointy beard, and cast a spiky shadow along the floor.

Miss Dora bustled around in a pink bouclé suit, her pocketbook swinging back and forth. Her hands and face were a violent shade of red. “Have you been in the sun?” I asked.

“I’m a sight!” Her hand flew to her face. “You would not
believe
what I’ve been through. I stopped for lunch at Chez Cassie. I’m highly allergic to sucralose. That’s what makes things like Splenda so sweet. I don’t know how it got into my dessert—or maybe it was that latte I drank—but it did.”

“Can people be allergic to that?” I asked.

“Apparently so. The first time it happened, I thought I had a rash. And it didn’t hit me right away, so I never associated it with sucralose. After that, whenever I ate something with artificial sweetening, my symptoms got worse and worse. This time, I turned blood red and started itching. Even my ears swelled.”

“You poor thing.” I studied her face. Her ears did look big.

“Not everybody with sucralose allergies does this.” She reached into her purse, pulled out a gold compact, and studied her face. “The emergency room doctor blamed it on my quirky body chemistry. Well, I
am
allergic to just about everything. He pumped me full of steroids and told me to avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague.”

“I wish I’d known,” I said. “I could have made your supper.”

“You’re too sweet.” She snapped the compact shut, her bracelets clattering. “Estaurado, run and get Teeny’s clothes.”

He twisted his head, as if trying to understand.

She repeated her command with exaggerated slowness and Estaurado stepped into the corridor. “I have to be so careful with him, Teeny. He misunderstands every word I say. Just yesterday, he told me he was getting sick and threw out a foreign word,
constipación
. Well, I dosed him up with Ex-Lax. Little did I know
constipación
was the common cold.”

“Get a Spanish dictionary,” I said.

“Oh, I’ve got several. The man is just too literal—though I’m sure he’d say it’s the other way around.” She rolled her eyes. “Never mind him. I got into a huge fight with Bing Laden. But I got your clothes.”

Estaurado returned with four bulging Hefty bags. “
Su ropa, senorita.
”

“See what I mean?” Miss Dora rolled her eyes. “Now he’s mixing up ropes and clothing. Darlin’, I’m sure your pretty outfits are wrinkled to high heaven. When I got to Bing’s, everything you owned was laying in his front yard.”

While she talked, she bustled around the entry hall, straightening pictures and rearranging knickknacks. “This place needs fluffing in the worst way,” she said. “It’s not formal enough.”