It's Not Like I Knew Her (24 page)

Still, most Saturdays, when Ted wasn't repairing some woman's car in Maxine's back yard, Teddy was badgering Jodie into shooting baskets, her enticement Maxine's fine home cooking following workouts.

J
odie and Bitsy emerged from the plant into a welcome Saturday morning, blinking against its brightness like two blind armadillos. As they made their bone-weary ways to their vehicles, Jodie spotted a late model green Oldsmobile. The driver slowed the car, appeared to fix her attention on her and Bitsy, and then sped away.

“Reckon how it is that rich bitch strayed from her side of the tracks?” Bitsy lit her last cigarette. “Don't figure her kind's looking to get on the graveyard shift.” Bitsy puffed a cloud of smoke into the frosty air.

“What do you know about someone like her?” Jodie grinned.

“Her?” Bitsy snorted smoke. “What I know is, the uppity bitch's old man preaches at that big-ass church downtown. And Bess says she's too proud to mix with the ladies of the congregation. On account of she went to one of them fancy Yankee schools just for rich girls. They may've taught her how to talk pretty and which fork to use, but I figure she don't look no different from any other woman flat of her back with her legs spread.”

“Why do you say shit like that?” Alarmed by her unchecked outburst, Jodie walked on.

Bitsy called to her, “Now, I'm just asking. Wouldn't such a school be the absolute pits?” Bitsy shook her skinny ass like a mare in heat.

“Maybe, but don't you sometimes think about doing better?” Some days it was hard to remember if she'd ever believed in her chance at playing ball with the Cowgirls.

“Girl, you're crazy. My mama jerked my dumb ass out of sixth grade and stuck me in the cotton fields. This shitty job's a sweet deal compared to chopping cotton in July. Hell, I got plenty of picking scars.” She held out her hands for Jodie to see.

“Yeah, but I'm thinking about enrolling at that new junior college. Pay for my wild-eyed fantasy with wishful thinking. What you think?” Jodie ached for better, an ache so real she felt her breathing had shut down.

“Go on with your damn foolishness. I got hungry kids waiting for breakfast. See you back here Monday for more of the same.” Bitsy's bitterness was the kind that destroyed dreams. She hung out the car window and waved, the cigarette dangling between her tar-stained fingers.

Jodie headed the truck in the direction of the A&P, intending to restock her fridge and maybe cook herself a decent meal. Patting down her hip pocket for her wallet, she walked into the store. It smelled of rotting bananas and cabbages. She wanted the shopping ordeal over and to get home to collapse into bed.

At the meat counter, she ordered a pound each of ground chuck and sliced bacon, then caved to the overpriced pork chops, ordering two. The distracted butcher pushed her three brown packages across the counter and called an earnest greeting to an approaching shopper. Her order in hand, Jodie turned to leave.

“Good morning, sir. It is indeed a fine day. And good morning to you, miss.”

At the silky-smooth sound of her voice, Jodie stood fixed to the floor, her words stuck in her throat, and she stared.

The preacher's wife stared back, then turned abruptly and hurried toward the door. Jodie watched as she rushed from the store, got into a green Oldsmobile Ninety-eight, and sped away.

The butcher muttered, “Strange, mighty strange, that pretty one.” His tone was not one of ridicule, but of mystery. He sighed and returned to slicing prime cuts from the hindquarter of a perfectly marbled beef.

Jodie cut her shopping short, and after stashing her few bags, she swung the truck onto the street and headed downtown.

The billboard in front of the large brick church read James R. Curtis, Minister. If her instinct was right, Mrs. James R. Curtis was hiding behind a respectable marriage. Clara Lee may have married Stuart Walker Junior, but Jodie believed the girl who'd moaned under her touch was the true Clara Lee. She pulled the bottle from beneath the seat, took a generous pull on the whiskey, its fire burning its familiar way through her, and pointed the truck toward the pink trailer.

For two straight Saturdays following her chance encounter with Sarah Curtis, Jodie went to the A&P, buying groceries she didn't need. Finally, rather than continuing to leave the store disappointed, she stopped going, except when she actually needed to restock the fridge. But she still went on Saturdays, even though it meant the store was more crowded.

Jodie made a quick stop at a well-known filling station to purchase gas and a fifth of the cheaper, label-free bootleg whiskey sold there. Reaching the dirt road, she glanced into the rearview mirror and swore. She waited next to the mailbox, but the green Oldsmobile she believed she'd seen following was no longer there. Her growing obsession with Sarah Curtis, an untouchable, was downright stupid.

A
week's worth of pressed jeans and flannel shirts hung in the bedroom closet. An overflowing sink of dirty dishes had been washed, dried, and put away, garbage burned in the drum out back, and a pot of ham hocks and lima beans simmered on the stove. Jodie's restored sense of order had earned her a long Saturday afternoon nap.

She dropped onto the couch, a glass of cold milk and a stack of two-day-old donuts within reach. But before finishing either, she drifted into a restful sleep, only to be startled awake by the sound of an approaching vehicle.

She swung her sock feet onto the chilly floor and eliminated a visit from Teddy. Bobby had a tag football game, and she knew Ted straddled
his
machine out of sight of Maxine's mother, who sat with Maxine in the section of the grandstands meant for family. The old woman despised Ted, thinking
him
crude—beneath her daughter and unfit to be around her grandchildren. She'd threatened to file for custody in her latest attempt at cutting Teddy out of the lives of Maxine and her kids.

The timid knock on the door most likely belonged to the Jehovah's Witness who called herself a disciple. She was a tight-lipped woman of few words, and Jodie had decided her silence came with all that she knew but left unsaid. Jodie took her doomsday pamphlets and pressed dimes into her outstretched hand for no better reason than the woman's blind allegiance to duty. At the second light tap, Jodie slipped on her work shoes, crossed the room, and opened the door.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, it's you!” Jodie blushed so, she was sure she smelled her own scorched hair.

“I'm sorry to have startled you. I'm intruding.” Mrs. Curtis turned away, hurrying back toward the idling car.

Jodie called, “No, Sarah, wait. You just got here.” At the sound of her voice calling Sarah's name, Jodie's stomach lurched, and it was as though she actually knew her.

Sarah Curtis turned back. Her shallow breath pushed through her parted red lips, her reticence betrayed, igniting in Jodie a sense of her own vulnerability, and she struggled to regain some semblance of control.

“Unless you've come to invite me to church, you're welcome.”

“No, I'd never do that. Invite you to church, I mean.” Sarah's lip quivered.

“Then why are you here?” Jodie ran her fingers through her cropped hair. Every fiber of her body warned against her willingness to become this woman's ticket to the wild side, if that was what she wanted from her.

“I hoped you might take a drive. With me, that is.” Her voice shook and she clutched a slender hand to her throat. She wasn't wearing a wedding band.

Jodie turned the fire off from under the beans, pulled the door closed behind her, and got into the car. They drove an unfamiliar back road into the next county, and Jodie gave little thought as to where they might be going. She'd stopped caring the moment she saw Sarah at the hospital.

“How'd you find me?” Maybe she knew already.

“Forgive me, but I followed you home from work one day last week.”

“Just so you know, I kept going back to the store for a time.”

“Yes, I know. I saw you there from across the street.”

They turned off the highway onto a dirt road that ended at a green metal gate. Jodie took the key from Sarah's hand, got out of the car, and unlocked the gate, careful to secure the lock behind them. The fence enclosed a collection of six cabins arranged in the shape of a horseshoe, a larger building at its open end. Beyond these cabins, they ascended an incline into a heavily wooded stretch of a narrow lane. She stopped the car in front of an isolated cabin that stood beneath a canopy of naked trees.

The cold pricked Jodie's flushed cheeks as she waited while Sarah Curtis fumbled a second key into the lock. The one-room cabin was bare except for a double bed and a lone, green, straight-back chair, its paint chipped. Above the bed, a picture of a crucified Jesus hung crooked from the wall.

Dust motes and lint fibers floated upward from the worn chenille bedspread when they sat, and Jodie's heart pounded with an even mix of desire and fear. She reached and took Sarah's moist hands in hers. While Jodie's hands were rough, nails worn jagged, cuticles stained blue from denim, Sarah Curtis's were deathly pale with long, tapered fingers and palms smooth as ice. Her near-perfect face was adeptly fashioned into what Jodie imagined was the feminine ideal. Jodie's hands trembled, but she took the woman's face between her palms, and with her thumb she gently wiped Mrs. Curtis's painted mouth.

“I want to taste you. The real you.”

She lifted her gaze to Jodie, but she didn't speak.

“You don't need to be afraid. You're safe with me.”

Jodie's sought her own courage, courage enough to act blindly, and with only her desire fueling her boldness, Jodie drew Sarah Curtis down next to her on the bed. She brushed her thick hair back from her face, and the darker flecks in her irises flashed some terrible memory. She pressed Jodie's fingertips against rough patches of skin at her temples, her one imperfection, it would seem.

“The electric shock treatments were supposed to cure me of my sickness. I pleaded with the doctor that if God created me, then Jesus Christ embraced me. But he shouted me down, insisting that such an absurdity was further proof of my insanity.” Her tears reached Jodie's fingertips.

The State of Florida had “Old Smokey” to punish murderers, but she'd never heard of electricity curing anything. If this all-important Jesus had come to establish goodness, then such cruelty had silenced any such intentions. She recalled the directive that she and Clara Lee should
see mental illness
, and what should have terrified her in this moment only emboldened her. She pulled the woman to her, kissed her fully on the lips, and Mrs. Curtis tasted of grief.

Their kisses grew more demanding, and Jodie matched Sarah's experience with her own eagerness. Their desires meshed and earlier fears of awkwardness melted with their shared arousal. Jodie welcomed her pent-up desires, and when they were spent, they lay back in each other's arms. Jodie shed quiet, shameless tears of relief.

“Just now you called me Katherine.” She hadn't minded at the time, but now was different.

“I did? Oh, I'm so sorry.” She pulled from Jodie's arms and sat upright on the edge of the bed.

“No, it's okay. But you can't keep calling me Katherine. My name is .…”

Sarah pressed a finger to Jodie's lips, and their scent was strong on her skin. “No, please. They do things—horrible things—to make me tell.”

“I'm Jodie Taylor. And I'm not afraid.”

“Oh, but you should be afraid.”

Jodie didn't want to consider Sarah's warning. She reached, taking Sarah into her arms. But she pulled out of Jodie's embrace, stood, and began to hurriedly dress. She ran a quick comb through her hair and reapplied lipstick, growing more anxious, urging Jodie to hurry.

M
onday night, Jodie clocked in and walked into the break room where three gossipy women huddled in a corner. At her approach, their circle of hushed talk drew tighter. Jodie stashed her supper pail and walked out in search of Bitsy while working at tamping down her sudden spike of anxiety.

She was still baffled over Sarah's hasty retreat from the cabin and her even stranger departure from the clearing without as much as a good-bye. Jodie had sat on the steps much of Sunday, near enough to hear the phone, and listened for sounds of the big Oldsmobile. Then, Sarah's Sundays, like those of Miss Ruth, were lost to God.

Among her co-workers, Jodie practiced the art of invisibility, and she was damn good at it. The others spoke openly of their miserable lives: their family and kin's early and hard deaths due to random and intentional violence, their many lesser scrapes and narrow escapes. They even shared their most intimate sexual fantasies, while cursing the trifling men they swore to love and hate with equal fervor.

Over time, a consensus had emerged, one that portrayed her as owning no stories, at least ones that mattered in the ways theirs did. Her fear reflex drove her denial, and in that way she bore part of the blame for her seeming lack of humanity. It was the price she paid to hold on to the small part of her that was honest.

Bitsy stood in a side door, sucking nicotine into her lungs, and Jodie called to her. “Hey, gal, what's up with that mug? Some guy slipped the vice of those great thighs?” Jodie forced a smile, but Bitsy was in no mood for jokes.

“No, it ain't like that.” Bitsy was fighting mad, and if not about some guy, Jodie was at a loss to know.

“You remember that woman we joked about wanting a job here? The preacher's wife?”

Jodie shrugged. “So, what about her?” She was certain no one had seen them together, yet her blood surged.

“I'll tell you what. She put a gun to her temple and blew her pretty face away. That's what.”

Jodie's fingertips remembered the sensation of the rough patches at Sarah's temples. She felt the round coolness of the gun barrel pressed into her own flesh, and she turned away from Bitsy, her heart pounding so hard against her ribs she imagined them splintering.