Me and Mom Fall for Spencer (7 page)

What am I doing with my life? How have I
stood here in the stream for so long, the current cold and strong against my
legs? How did I take my stand here, dig my feet into the rocks and stand here
while everyone else floats past…except the ones like me…who are stuck?

Who am I protecting, them…or
myself
?

I run up the sidewalk, into the house. I
don’t put my flashlight on the charger. I hurry in to my room. I can’t breathe.
I go to the window, fumble to unlock it, to raise it. I drop to my knees, chin
on the sill, and I pull off my cap, rip the band out of my hair, my eyes are
closed and I’m trying to breathe and I think of the kitten who died. It couldn’t
breathe. Not even Spencer could save it.

I hold onto the sill, dig my nails into
the layers of paint on the wood. Breathe
slow
, breathe
slow, let your belly fill, I am thinking. I am breathing.

I hear Mom come
home,
hear the door shut against the night. Morning will come, it’s just a matter of
time, morning will come and the lines and shapes will draw themselves sharply
again and everything imagined in the dark will go away, just go away…that night
when he had me by the shoulder, fingers digging so hard, me walking fast to
keep up, so he could take me back to my mother. And
Cyro
came then, across the street, his gun and his cries to his partner Fred…Fred…who
yelled back, the sound of those words, even now, the highs and lows and strain,
their wild, wild words.

I sleep on the floor in front of my
window. Mom calls up the stairs and it is morning. I ask myself what morning
and I
answer,
Sunday morning genius.

I roll onto my back and I hurt and I
stretch. It feels so good, but I feel heavy as lead when it’s over.

She’ll want me to go to church. She
goes. Frieda started it, Mom continues, Pastor Stanley helping her along,
through her recovery, through the tragedy, and now from habit, she goes.

I can’t imagine why, but she says church
is for everybody and it’s not her fault if folks don’t know it.

So we do this. And she’s invited Spencer.
I remember that and I groan.

I trip around my room to get ready. I
pull a dress out of my closet, like the cutest dress in the world. I’d
forgotten about it. I haven’t worn it in a while
cause
it’s a little embarrassing how much I like it. I check my
legs,
run my hands up the stubble. This is what I hate about hair removal…the
commitment.

So I stumble into the bathroom and add
shaving to my limited routine.

By the time I’m downstairs she’s there. She’s
ready, on top of it, she’s humming. She’s wiping down the counter. “You ready?”
she says.

I am ready. I don’t ask if or when we
are meeting Spencer cause he’s standing outside by Mom’s car, waiting, dark
pants and a white, white shirt. They had some kind of a bet, him and her, and
she owes him dinner now because he’s there on time and he’s laughing too.

“Morning sunshine,” he says to me, and
before I’m in the front passenger’s side he pulls on my pony tail, and his
knuckles graze the bare skin on my back
cause
there’s
a small cut out on the back of my dress.

We get in the car and Mom is telling me Spencer’s
going to paint his kitchen yellow, and Spencer pretends to cough and says, “Not
a chance.”

And Mom screams, my ears ring, and they
laugh. And I spy Jason’s car still gone, but he doesn’t always come home.

So I’m quiet on the way to church. I’m
tired. I need some sleep, and maybe I’ll get a nap today when pigs fly and the
stars fall from the sky.

At church Spencer is trying to go for my
door, and I pretend not to see, and I walk first, then Mom, then he’s behind,
but he gets ahead as we near the doors and he opens one and smiles at me, and I
go in, and the three of us are looking in the doors that open onto the middle
aisle and Mom knows the rules, my rules, as close to the back as we can get,
never higher than three rows from the back or we go into the side wing to sit
in obscurity.
Period.

The usher comes and Mom goes first and I
feel Spencer’s light touch on the small of my back and lo and behold we are
taken clear to the middle and Mom goes boldly into the pew as people scoot to
make room and I hold back, and Spencer goes around me and says, “Come on, Sarah,”
and he takes my hand even and in we go, but now he’s in-between me and Mom and
that puts me on the aisle at least so I can get out quick if I need to.

Lordie
it’s a tight fit and I
fold
my arms, but he’s right
up against me and there’s nowhere to go. He nudges me, makes me look at him,
and I do, briefly but I don’t smile.

The guy asks us to stand, and I want to
say, just leave us alone, but here we go, and Spencer offers me his elbow and I
go ahead and take it and we stand and he grasps my hand beneath his arm, and
wiggles my hand some, and the guy says to greet one another, and the whole time
he’s saying to me, “Are you sad today Sarah?”

“No.”

“You’re very serious.”

“I’m in church. We’re about to be yelled
at for something. How happy should I be, Spencer?”

But the guy starts talking and tells us
to sit again, and Spencer and I have a hip crash. And once
smooshed
in
I
lean forward and look around Spencer and hiss at
Mom, “Can’t you move?”

She ignores me because my voice has no
impact on the woman, not ever. So the singing starts, and his arms are folded
because there’s not room for him to relax, but the fingers nearest are
tap-dancing on my arm. I am trying to ignore him the way Mom does me, but I’m
only thinking of everything of his touching everything of mine, and then the
added effort of the fingers, playing my arm like the guitar.

He’s playing along with the singing,
that’s all. He’s enjoying it. I’m barely aware there is music, because there’s
no sensory perception left in me for things like music and light or stained
glass or anything beyond the fact that he’s touching me.

The preacher is finally up there. He
says, “It’s not good for man to be alone.”

Spencer takes one of the mission
envelopes from the slot in the pew. I notice how his thighs are so much longer
than mine. He takes the little pencil and writes on the envelope, “Amen!”

Mom is smiling, I see that. Then Spencer
and I play Hangman. He wins.

Then he folds our paper and puts it in
his shirt pocket and tells me to pay attention. I scowl a little. I listen to
the preacher expound, but I’m wondering why God seems to have forgotten me. We’ve
come here pretty regularly. Pastor Stanley rushed right in to our difficulties
and saved Mom. And he’s tried his best with me too. I even got baptized years
back to cover all my bases.

But God, I don’t mess with him much. I
figure He’s going to do what He’s going to do. It doesn’t mean I can rest on my
ass (which is a bible word). But according to
Cyro
I
can. I should just give up? Just let us all be sitting ducks?

“What?” I say to Spencer. He takes my
hand.
It’s
hold hands and pray time. I’m so glad I’m
on the aisle because I do not hold hands. But I am holding Spencer’s. Or he’s
holding mine. I am looking at my hand in his hand. He holds Mom’s hand too. He
rests our hands on his legs while he clings to us.

Pastor Stanley is doing the voice, the
come to Jesus voice. It’s very pleading.
Right now he’s
talking about being burdened, being troubled.
He’s talking to the weary,
the heavy
ladened
. Spencer’s head is bowed, and he’s
staring at his knees. He’s squeezing my hand so hard my fingertips are white. But
I won’t say anything. It feels…like he needs it.

Finally it’s over. His grip eases and
his head lifts, and he tells me he’s sorry, and Mom too. Mom pats his knee, but
I take my hand and fold my arms and work my fingers a little so he can’t see. I
guess I’d been staring at him. He looks at me, his eyes are glassy. He licks
his lips. He nudges me with his shoulder and smiles a little. I can’t smile
back because he’s hurt and I’m the worst comforter God ever created.

Spencer doesn’t get out of there without
meeting Pastor Stanley. Now the guy will visit, but I don’t tell Spencer. Mom
also tells Stanley that Spencer moved into Frieda’s house. Stanley has a ‘no
shit’ look, but we leave him pretty much with his vestments and chin flapping
in the wind.

We have to hurry to the restaurant to
get our chicken dinner. The longer you wait, the more it fills.

“Fried chicken, mashed potatoes with
white or brown gravy and green beans,” Mom is telling Spencer.

“That sounds fantastic,” he says, very willing
to go. He yanks a little on my ponytail and he moves it over the seat and keeps
holding on to it.

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Thirteen

Chicken Part One

The restaurant is packed. I hate that,
but the food is nearly worth it. Usually I make Mom put our name in while I
wait in her car and she calls me on my cell when we get a table. Usually Horny
meets us here. Horny doesn’t do church, but she is all about the fried chicken.
For her it’s breakfast, great hangover food, she says. And then I have to hear
it while they swap Saturday night stories, Saturday all night stories. Unless
they were together, and sometimes it goes like that, then they talk in code,
crackable
code, but I try to imagine black holes in the
center of galaxies spitting out a lot to swallow a little…or something.

But here’s how to get your money out of
the dating site, hook up with a dude and get him to bring a friend for your
friend.
A two-
fer
.
Mom and Christine
love a man-bargain.

But today, I can’t hide out in the car,
so I walk into the hub-
bub
with Mom and Spencer. “I’m
getting this,” he tells Mom, meaning he’s wants to pay.

“Alright,” Mom says to my mortification,
as she opens her mouth and puts thumb and forefinger at the corners of her lips
to blot her lipstick.

“I’m getting mine,” I say.

“No you’re not,” Spencer says the way
you’d speak to a petulant child. “We’ll have a throw-down right here in front
of all these church folks, Sullivan,” he warns me.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I say, and I
might be flirting. Me. But I mean it.
         

He pulls my tail again, while Mom is at
the little desk giving the lady our name. “End of discussion Miss Sarah. And
you didn’t come over with your mom last night,” he says.

Well, I hadn’t.

“I saw you walking.”

Well, I had.

But he didn’t see me walking, he saw me
standing, in front of my house like a creeper because of Jason running off to
the army and deserting
Cyro
, and what
Cyro
said to me making me question my whole life. But I
could never say all of that in a million years.

“So now you look at me with those big
beautiful eyes so full of things you never say,” he says, shoving his hands in
his pockets and going up on his toes, back on his heels.

Oh God, I make that sound in my neck,
and I quickly clear my throat. But I want a repeat…of his words, not my
sound…God no not that.

Big beautiful eyes.
“Big Bad Wolf,” I say. But I mean, it’s what Red Riding Hood said to
the…wolf…’what beautiful eyes you have,’ but Spencer is not Red Riding Hood and
I’m not the wolf so…crap!

He laughs some, and he flushes a little
red, and I know I’m red because I’m an embarrassment to myself…feminism…and the
whole human race.

“Fifteen minutes,” Mom says having put
our name in the hat, “not bad. Hold my place guys, while I go tinkle.”

She did not say tinkle. “She said
twinkle,” I say, smiling at Spencer,
cause
we’re not
middle-
schoolers
, or pre-
schoolers
,
or nursing home residents.

Spencer has his lips pressed tight, and
he laughs again, like he’s trying not to. “Your mom is great,” he says.

And that’s so…nice. Why can’t I say
nice, easy things like that? I rub my beautiful eye, so glad I didn’t wear the
mascara I might possibly not need anyway…unless he was teasing. Was he
teasing…about my eyes?

I can see three women standing behind Spencer,
talking about him. He doesn’t know it, but he is causing quite a stir now that
they don’t have Jesus to take their minds off of him. He is fresh…beautiful, to
steal his word, beautiful meat in a man-meat desert cause anyone single and
male around here has been torn to shreds already and left to
jerkify
in the hot sun in this barren practically
single-man-free land.

And let’s face
it,
the eyes in this place have not seen the wonder that is Spencer Gundry, not anytime,
not anyplace.

“Sarah?” Spencer touches my arm. He’s
been saying my name.

They have our table ready. Spencer is
worried Mom won’t be able to find us. I assure him she will find us.

So he gestures I should lead and I
square my shoulders and plow into the dining room behind the hostess who holds
our menus high and blazes a trail through the melee of diners.

Leeanne
is here with Merle and Pearlie. I wave at them from across the room glad to see
Leeanne
has surfaced once more.

We are taken all the way to the back
wall. I know there is an emergency door back here, and I prefer to sit on the
wall, so this is perfect.

I get in the booth, and Spencer gets in
next to me. I am looking at him.

“What?” he says scooting about as close
to me as we’d been at church, so practically in my lap, shattering my personal
space.

Does he know what he’s doing to me? I
don’t even share a booth with Mom. She and Horny have to sit across from me so
I can at least stay out of the crossfire of their conversation. Do I like Spencer
so close? Well I don’t mind it so much, but it’s not easy either. And there are
some eyes on us on top of it. I am twenty kinds of violated right now. I open
the tall menu and close my eyes for a minute. God help me. I didn’t pray this
earnestly in church, but I’m trapped here, and I’m vibrating up against this
man.

Spencer has spoken to the waitress,
telling her he’ll just have water. He pulls my menu aside, actually opens it
wider, like a door I’ve been crouched behind.
“Your drink, Sarah?”

“Um…water.”

“What about Mom?”

“She’ll um…Diet Coke.” She wouldn’t
exactly love him calling her Mom. And she won’t be to the table until she’s
worked the room, visited everyone she knows, bent over tables so her
hiney
sticks out at the rest of the room, while her boob
crack hits everyone she’s talking to square in the face. I usually order and
play with my phone until the food comes.

When Christine is here she works the
part of the room Mom isn’t in cause you can’t be in two places at once, and
Mom’s usually slept with someone here, and law of averages so has Christine, so
they have to do some careful maneuvering, and by the time they get to their
chicken dinners I’ve eaten all the applesauce and most of the green beans cause
it’s family style and they’ve got enough gossip to swap clear through dessert.

I hope Spencer doesn’t tell me my eyes
are beautiful again. Trapped in the corner like this…I don’t know what I’m
capable of, but I have a picture in my mind of me taking off over the table, in
my dress, shooting the beaver and just to get out of here because compliments
make me so embarrassed I can barely breathe the few times I’ve gotten one, and
compliments from Spencer could easily make me spastic.

The waitress is gone, and I’ve closed
him off with my menu again and he says, ‘knock-knock,’ and pretends my menu is
a door and he’s knocking upon it.

I shut the thing and lay it down, coming
to terms. I can’t hide all afternoon. He is right here, and so, so, so, so….

“Where were we Sarah? Yes…you didn’t
come over last night but your mom brought the soup you made and it was
delicious.”

I have watched the words…his lips that
make the words. I know it is English, but the process of vowels and
consonants…I’ve not considered the sheer workmanship that goes into making words
before now…words like ‘delicious.’ So much flexing flesh is involved.

“Where is your mind? Like right now? Tell
me exactly what you’re thinking, what I’m seeing in those big brown eyes?”

He’s trying to kill me. I can feel my
throat quivering.

The waitress brings our drinks. She
looks at Spencer the whole time, nearly sets Mom’s Coke on my silverware and
catches it when I gasp. She stumbles over her words when asking if she can,
“Fake our order?”

“If you fake take it will we still get
our food?” Spencer asks with a brilliant smile, and the girl can’t laugh, she
is just stuck looking at him.

I clear my throat to help her out. Her
poor performance has actually helped me come to my senses. “Chicken for three,”
I say with authority.

“Oh,” she says, trying three times to
slide her order pad into her apron pocket, then giving up and walking away with
it still in her hand.

“Smoking a
dubee
on her break no doubt,” I say, suddenly back, mean as a snake and sharp as a
tack.

Spencer laughs and bumps his shoulder
into mine. “You never answered my question.”

My big brown eyes.
“I just gave you a glimpse,” I say, meaning my
dubee
remark. That’s pretty much what’s in there, a wagon train of uselessness and
twenty teams of braying mules.

“I’m starving,” he says, his eyes
looking at my lips.

My hand goes there. I hope I don’t have
a moustache that’s showing up in this light or something.
Or
worse an old milk moustache that’s hardened in place.
When’s the last
time I had milk?

“What are you doing?” he laughs, pulling
my hand from the fuzz check. Now he’s holding my hand under the table, on his
leg again, like in church, but nothing like that. And I have questions too, the
great weight that gets him now and
then, that
rises in
his big beautiful green eyes. Even I can see that, but nobody gets to lift the
other’s scalp and poke in the gray matter. No thanks.

“You’re doing it again,” he says,
this glee face
.

“What?”

“Thinking and not sharing,” he says. “How
do I get in there Miss Sarah?” The other hand, the long pointer finger taps me
on the forehead and I rear back a little.
Spastic.