Mean Woman Blues (3 page)

He was sitting in a chair, and someone was with him. A woman about Terri’s age, maybe even younger, was packing a suitcase lying open on his sofa. Terri got it instantly: The woman was about to go home after spending the weekend with him.

He had lied to her. He hadn’t gone away to see his mother at all. The serious little talk she’d had with him about whether he could possibly join her at her parents’ house now seemed a sham. He’d said he really cared about her, but he didn’t think they were at the stage yet of meeting each other’s parents.

She stopped dead in her tracks and watched a moment. But only a moment. Before she knew she was doing it, she threw the cake at the door. The plate her mother had left it on banged satisfactorily and maybe broke. She couldn’t be sure, she didn’t look back.

She only heard the door open suddenly and then voices, laughing, she thought.

Yes. She was almost sure she heard them laughing at her.

He had to know who it was, even from the back; who else had blue hair and a beat-up, dented, rusty old Toyota? He didn’t even call to her. That was how much she meant to him.

She drove back to her shabby little place in Carrollton, tears nearly blinding her, the tension of the evening giving way to despair. She flopped on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, wishing like hell for a cigarette, though she no longer smoked, not, for one thing, being able to afford it.

That— and everything— was so damned expensive. She did tutoring, errands, and intermittent clerical work for a few off-campus clients, but she never had two nickels, as her father would say, to rub together.

Almost not realizing she was doing it she got up, slipped into her shoes, picked up her keys, stuffed five dollars in her pocket and went back out to get cigarettes.

She was nearly home, a fat unopened pack on the seat beside her, when she saw the blue lights of a police car. Its driver was signaling her. Her? Terri? Thank God, she thought, she hadn’t been drinking.

Wondering what on earth was up, she pulled over and got out of the car, as she’d once read you were supposed to do— it made the cops feel more comfortable or something. Too late, she recalled she had blue hair; that may not have been so reassuring.

Oh, well
, she thought.
Good thing I resisted a nose ring.

The cop looked okay: mid-thirties, maybe, slightly heavy; but not a redneck. That was good.

“What’s going on?” she said.

“What’s your name?”

“Terri Whittaker. Have I done something wrong?”

“I noticed you don’t have a brake tag.” He pointed to her windshield. Louisiana law required a brake check every year; if you passed, you got a tag that said so. If you didn’t you got a ticket.

“I’m really embarrassed. I just… uh… well, I work two jobs and go to school…”

He smiled, showing he understood. “See your driver’s license?”

“My… uh… omigod. I came out without it I just went to… She turned around and reached through the windshield, meaning to show him the cigarettes. His hand closed around her arm, hard, and she screamed, it was so unexpected.

“Stay where you are, please.”

“I just… I mean I was going to…”

“Just stay where you are.” She saw him glance in at the seat and, apparently having reassured himself there was no gun there, he said to her, “Insurance?”

“I, uh, keep everything together. Someone broke into my car once and took everything, registration and all, so I…”

“You keep everything together.” He smiled at her.

She decided to flirt a little. “Now, how’d you know that?”

“Oh, just a lucky guess.” Thank God. He was being nice. “So you don’t have your registration, either.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t believe I was so dumb. I was upset and I just came tearing out without even thinking about it.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get cigarettes. I’ve already gotten them. I’m on my way home now, just a couple of blocks away.”

“Terri, have you been drinking?”

She shouldn’t have been shocked by the question, but she was. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Say the alphabet for me.”

Impatiently, she raced through it.

“You messed up, Terri.”

“I did? How?”

“You know what I want to know? How come every time I ask you a question you answer me with another one?”

“Am I doing that?”

“There you go again, Terri.”

This was getting out of hand. She tried to head it off. “Listen, Officer, I meant no disrespect. I really didn’t know I was doing it.”

“Let’s try it again. Say the alphabet.”

This time she went through it more slowly.

“Okay,” he said. “Close your eyes and touch your nose with your index finger.”

She did it easily.

“All right. I’m going to write you up. Get back in the car, please.”

He asked her her date of birth and a few other questions, and then he got back in his car and scribbled for a long time, so long she was pretty sure he was playing some passive-aggressive game with her, making her wait for no reason, and then he picked up his radio mike.

He talked awhile and returned.

“Everything okay?” she said.

“You need to step out of the car again.”

She opened the door and got out, quickly stubbing out the cigarette she’d finally gotten to have.

“Now step away.”

“Why?”

“You’re answering me with a question.”

She obeyed him, feeling nervous.

“Now put your hands behind your back.”

Once again she obeyed, and before she had a chance to think about it, he’d handcuffed her. She stared at him, utterly bewildered. She wanted to ask him why he did it, but it seemed questions were suddenly against the law.

He said, “Terri, you got any warrants out against you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Have you done anything?”

“Well, no. I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have.”

She remembered her parking tickets. There were so many they’d threatened to boot her car, so she had a tittle stash at home meant to take care of them at the end of the month. “It must be my parking tickets.”

“I’m going to have to take you down to the police station. Maybe you can call somebody to come pay your tickets.”

He wouldn’t let her move her car, but it hardly mattered; she’d be out in an hour or two.

But he didn’t take her to the station. He took her somewhere with doors like an elevator that opened automatically and then you were standing in a space with more of those doors. Once you got in, there was a large room with lots of hard plastic chairs, like a bus station. The room was like a hub: opening off it were other rooms— cells. One, way at the back, was a holding tank for women.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Central Lockup.” He took her handcuffs off and left her. When he came back, he said, “You know what you did, Terri? You committed a felony. This isn’t about parking tickets. This is forgery. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Forgery? That’s ridiculous! Whose name would I sign?”

“There you go again. With that question thing.”

* * *

Before he opened his door to find it smeared with chocolate, Isaac James had been enjoying the last moments of a near perfect weekend, a weekend spent with his niece, Lovelace, who, because Isaac had a much older brother, was only a few years younger than he.

On seeing blue hair and a trim behind flying down the walk, he had taken in the hopelessness of the situation as quickly as a breath and laughed outright, there being little else to do. Lovelace, apparently simultaneously horrified at the chocolate, the hair, the retreat, and the laugh, looked as shocked as if someone had just opened fire. “What’s happening?” she said, and, knowing she had plenty to fear, he wanted to reassure her immediately. But he couldn’t. He thought later that it must have been the phenomenon called hysterical laughter.

“That’s Terri. It’s Terri,” he sputtered finally, knowing Lovelace would know who he meant. He’d talked about his girlfriend all weekend.

“Why is that funny?”

“I can’t say you’re my niece— who’d believe
that
?”

She looked so completely unbelieving that it sobered him up. He cared deeply what Lovelace thought about him; except for his mother, who was some kind of missionary and was never in the country, his niece was all he had— by no means his only relative but all he had nonetheless. And since she was almost a contemporary, she was more like a cousin or a sister than a niece.

She was born when he was seven and just entering second grade. At the time, the thought of having a niece— or, more accurately, of being an uncle— was far and away the most important thing that ever happened to him. His short life up till that point hadn’t been a bowl of cherries. He was the sort of child adults describe as sickly, and there was a reason for that. He hadn’t yet decided whether to live. He had bronchitis when Jacqueline gave birth, and it happened they were in the same hospital, so his mother, Irene, took him down to the nursery to look at the baby. There was a window in the wall like a television screen and through it he could see a nurse wearing a mask and holding a human being smaller than a cat. He’d seen plenty of babies, of course, but he had no idea they could come this small. He started to cry.

His mother said, “What’s wrong, honey?” and he could tell by her voice his response was what was wrong.

“Will the baby be all right?” he asked.

His mother looked confused for a second, and then comprehending. “Oh, yes. The baby isn’t sick. She just came here to be born.”

But that wasn’t what he meant at all. He knew perfectly well babies were born in the hospital. He couldn’t have said what he meant but seeing the baby terrified him. He was hugely, horribly afraid that she wouldn’t be all right, that something bad would happen to her. He couldn’t have said what; he didn’t even think he knew. He just knew she wouldn’t be safe.

At the time, he hadn’t eaten in three days, but he went back to his room and asked for a milkshake. He thought that he might as well put off dying for awhile and go on ahead and grow up. He made that decision without really knowing why, but he remembered it all his life, realizing much later that it was somehow connected to the baby.

Exactly how, he didn’t know to this day. But he had always taken an extraordinary interest in Lovelace. Always. People had remarked on it, said how sweet it was for a boy to be so interested, how unusual. Some people had thought it too sweet and called him a faggot, though mostly behind his back (his father being the exception to that).

Maybe she was lucky for him, maybe they were connected karmically. Whatever it was, he had a soft spot for Lovelace, and it had continued through the macho years of adolescence and the awkward, searching ones of his twenties. He always sent her birthday and Christmas cards, no matter if he had no connection at the time to another human being and no desire for one, and that was what, in the end, had brought them close.

When you’re the son and the granddaughter, respectively, of the most famous, maybe the most dangerous killer on the planet, you’d better be close. Especially since Lovelace’s mother was hopeless, and Isaac’s was not only never around, but also pretty much a broken woman from all the years she’d spent with his father.

Neither of them called themselves “Jacomine” any more. They had chosen “James” together, so they could still have a family name in common yet avoid embarrassing questions.

Lovelace’s father, who was Isaac’s brother, Daniel, was about to be sentenced for crimes he’d committed with his infamous father, and that was why Lovelace was here. Exams prevented her coming for the actual sentencing, but she had wanted to come down and see him this weekend instead, as some kind of gesture Isaac didn’t understand. Motivated by guilt, maybe. From everything he read, most people felt guilty for not loving their parents enough, not doing enough for them, just not being the cookie-cutter kids their parents had ordered and, truth to tell, Isaac felt somewhat that way toward his mother. He certainly didn’t toward his father.

The way he did feel toward his father didn’t bear thinking about, though maybe one day he’d have to sit down and go over it with a shrink, the way most people seemed to. But maybe not, because he painted. That took a lot of the edge off.

Lovelace was going to be fine, he thought. It was the first time they’d seen each other since Thanksgiving, and she was much stronger, much happier. She was like Isaac: Her work kept her going.

On Saturday, they’d gone to see Daniel and then to a movie, slowly getting reacquainted, and today they’d talked. He made her brunch, first one of his justly famous vegetarian omelettes with a side of home fries, and then they went for a walk along the lakefront.

Some things they’d already caught up on at Thanksgiving. Things like life among the talking classes. (Isaac had once lived under a vow of silence.) Things like her new environment— she’d transferred from Northwestern to Cornell to attend the hotel school. Today, they’d kind of filled in the details.

Lovelace wasn’t having her nightmares anymore, but she was still on Prozac. Isaac was on it too, and it was working (though his complaint was much different). He was living close to a normal life these days, having gotten tired of being an outsider artist and gone back to UNO for a fine arts degree. That way, he figured, he’d get respect and he could teach. And he had this girlfriend, Terri.

“What’s your favorite thing about her?” Lovelace had asked, which made him think about it. What
was
his favorite thing about her?

At first it was just that she was nice to him. She had been the one to make the advances: to strike up a conversation, to ask him to coffee, finally to ask to see him again. “I figure she must like me,” he said.

Lovelace laughed. “I’d say that’s a fair assumption. But why not Uncle dear? You’re a pretty handsome dude.”

“I’m not exactly the type you’d pick out of a crowd.”

She pretended to assess him. “Little short maybe.” And that was good for another laugh, as she was about five-ten.

He never thought of himself as handsome, and anyway the whole subject of sexual attraction embarrassed him, especially talking to his niece. Hastily, he soldiered on. “Well, we got to know each other, and, really, what I like about her is, I admire her.”