The Manager (8 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

W
e'd driven about fifteen miles past the diner, and must have been at least twenty from the next town when it happened. I heard what sounded like a small explosion in the engine, then Brandy went
thunk thunk thunk
and Jesse turned off the highway and down a country road. He pulled onto the shoulder and wound up at the end of someone's lane. The mailbox read, “Dot and Ellwood Valentine.”

Weeds and brush and shrubs and bushes dominated the landscape, but there was a house in there, its roof barely peeping over the greenery.

Brandy needed time to cool off before we could even look at her engine. Jesse checked the trunk for extra coolant. The jug was almost empty.

“Oh, God,” said Tina. “What are we going to do now?”

“Don't have too many options.” Jesse unfurled the convertible top and locked the car doors. “We'll see if these people have some coolant; if not, we'll have to call for help.”

We marched up the long, overgrown lane. The sky was clear and blue overhead, with billowy white clouds floating effortlessly across the sky. On either side of the driveway a row of bored-looking pine trees grew so idly, you'd swear they were yawning as you passed by.

A few buildings became visible once we were halfway up the lane. The square white clapboard house looked like if you blew hard enough, it would come down in pieces. Several barns in various stages of disintegration stood precariously among the weeds, and we had to skirt around so many old cars and parts of old cars that I thought the place must have previously been a junkyard or the terminus of a dead-end road from which some poor souls had never returned. The only other explanation was that the Valentines' farm had been the landing site of the refuse from a passing tornado; broken lawn chairs, bicycles and tricycles and steering wheels and fenders were strewn a half mile in every direction from the house.

The tornado must have hit the house, too, because part of the roof had blown off, and shingles were lodged in the grass, hanging from trees and caught in bramble bushes.

We kept walking, and before long the front porch was visible. Across it sat an entire family: Mom and Dad and what appeared to be about seven or eight kids – you couldn't tell because the younger ones kept chasing each other in and out the front door. The parents and two teenaged daughters looked comfortable, reclined in an old car seat that served as a dandy couch. From the same era as Brandy, it was long and red, made of vinyl and cloth and had holes along the edge where white stuff was sticking out.

When the family saw us, the whole bunch of them waved. Not one of those quick little “I wonder who that could be coming up our lane” kind of waves, but rather a greeting normally reserved for a friend you've known forever but haven't seen in years.

I waved back, but Tina and Jesse chose instead to simply nod their heads and plod forward. They were more concerned with getting the car fixed and getting to Portland; I was fascinated by the Valentines.

The one who I figured must be Dot was a large woman in a dirty housedress; her legs were thick and looked like they'd been driven into her shoes. She had long, straight hair that hadn't been trimmed in twenty years. And you could see clear divisions: the oldest swatch was bleached yellow; it ran from her waist almost up to her chest. The next was auburn, then came a greyer version of the auburn and the rest of her hair was just grey. In her right hand was a beer and in her left a cigarette and in her lap was a half-eaten bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. Beside her on the car seat was a copy of
True Confessions
magazine.

“How are you?” she bellowed, and the kids charged at us and grabbed at our clothes and started hollering a bunch of stuff like, “Do you wanna see where my sister found mushrooms and threw up?” and “Our cat had eleven kittens and they're orange.”

Dot and Ellwood introduced themselves and all the kids, but the only names I could remember were Darlene and Charlene because they were twins and the same age as me. They had long brown hair, glistening teeth, thick white skin and half-closed eyes. Charlene blinked every time she spoke and had a nasty habit of bending her thumb all the way back to her wrist. She screamed, then giggled, when she noticed Tina was a dwarf.

The eldest of the Valentine children was eighteen-year-old Walter. He was busy working underneath a beat-up old truck, so they pointed at his feet. I think he said something like “Howdy” but can't be sure. He waved at us with an adjustable wrench.

Darlene and Charlene, once they'd taken a good long look at Jesse, ran into the house. Dot kept insisting we sit down; she pushed Ellwood off the end of the car seat with one foot. Then she patted it to encourage Jesse to sit beside her.

“Get these folks a beer,” she told her husband, so he opened up a blue metal cooler that was inches away from his ankle and started handing them out.

“No thanks,” said Tina.

“You're guests here,” said Dot, gesturing to Ellwood to open the bottles and placing the open bag of potato chips on Jesse's knee. He handed them to me, got up and stood next to Tina.

“What we really need is a bit of coolant for our rad,” said Tina, “if you can spare some.”

At that point, the screen door flapped open and out flew Darlene and Charlene, this time in halter tops that were so low cut, I fully expected something to spill out at any moment. I think Jesse did too because his eyes kept swooshing across their chests like a search light over the water. There was enough makeup plastered on their faces to service a small theatre company, and they'd even found the time to rub on some fake tan but not evenly, so the fronts of their arms and legs were a pumpkin colour, while the backs of their limbs remained as white as crocuses in the snow.

Darlene shoved Tina aside, then grabbed Jesse's arm and started caressing his muscles.

“Where'd you get these?” she said.

“The supermarket,” quipped Tina. “Look, I'm sorry, but we've got to get to Portland and all we need is some rad coolant, which we'd be happy to pay for….”

By that time Charlene had Jesse's other arm.

“Walter will fix your car,” she said. “Tomorrow.” She blinked at Jesse. “You can stay with me tonight.”

“You leave him alone, now,” scolded Dot, like her daughter was mauling one of the new kittens. I noticed Jesse didn't make an attempt to break free of the girls, and Tina saw it too; she rolled her eyes at Jesse so many times I thought they'd drop out of her head.

“Look,” Tina asked Dot, “can you help us or not?” She turned to Jesse. “You haven't said a word.”

“You're doing enough talking for all of us.”

Ellwood was still opening beers, and when Darlene reached for one, Dot slapped her hand.

“You're not old enough. I don't want folks sayin' I've brung you up wrong,” she said, but I had a feeling it was one of those “locking the barn door after the horse was out” kind of things.

Realizing it was Walter that she needed, Tina bent down next to the driver's side of the truck and tried to talk to him, but he just kept banging away at something with a mallet. So she reached inside the cab and honked the horn in order to get his attention, but that only served to get the kids screaming more than they were already. Finally, she grabbed both of Walter's legs and pulled, but he was a bulky guy and she couldn't budge him.

“Stays under there for hours.” Dot sucked back some beer. “He'll be out come suppertime.” She shook her head. “The boy eats like he's gonna be hung.”

“Can he stay for supper?” asked Darlene, caressing Jesse and obviously not the least concerned about Tina and me.

“You'll be our guests,” beamed Dot. “I've got stew on.” The smell that wafted out of the screen door was about as appetizing as the stuff at Bill's, so I was hoping we could convince Walter to look at the car before having to face dinner with the Valentines.

Tina couldn't stand Darlene and Charlene anymore and out of desperation, drank the beer. Then she wished she hadn't.

When she asked to use the washroom, and they pointed to an outhouse – doorless and sitting a mere ten feet from the porch – I was glad I hadn't accepted anything to drink.

Jesse laughed out loud.

“Go to hell,” replied my sister, choosing to walk a half mile through a thicket of bramble bushes and thorns rather than use the facilities.

The Valentines did have indoor plumbing in their house, but the well was nearly dry at that point in the summer and couldn't be used for frivolities like a toilet.

By the time Tina returned, Walter was out from under the car and heading down the lane with Jesse to look at Brandy. The twins still hadn't let go. Ellwood was using the outhouse. And I'd had the pleasure of hearing the details – from conception to birth – of all Dot's pregnancies and miscarriages, along with the four reasons she can't eat lettuce and a list of foods that bind her up.

I changed the subject by asking if they'd always lived there, where the children went to school and if Ellwood was a farmer, but Dot just laughed and didn't answer.

I was relieved to see Tina come out of the woods, although she didn't look any too pleased, since the kids had followed her to watch.

“Sit down.” Dot patted the car seat again. “Tell me about yourself.” When Tina sat down next to her, Dot shoved herself around so she could face my sister. Then nonchalantly, like she was asking her the time or whether she preferred onions in her stew, she looked Tina in the eye and said, “How long will you be in California?”

“Now, Mother,” said Ellwood from the outhouse, “that's none of our business.”

“California?” Tina didn't know what she was talking about, but I did.

“She thinks you're going to Hollywood,” I explained. “You know – to be an actress.” It didn't occur to Tina – at least, not right away – that Dot figured all dwarves wind up in Tinseltown.

“What movie are you going to be in?” Dot's eyes were big and round.

Tina's were small and angry. “Look, Mrs. Valentine—”

“Dot.” She grabbed my sister's arm. “I know, it's all hush hush with those Hollywood producers.”

“Leave the girl alone, Mother.” Ellwood stood up; his pants were still down and I looked away.

Dot held up a finger then waddled into the house.

“Where the hell is Jesse?” Tina hissed. “I want out of this place.”

When Jesse and Walter returned, it was with our suitcases and the bad news that we weren't going anyplace. Not until a new rad could be found to match Brandy.

“I'm gonna tow her up now,” said Walter. “Can't leave a car like that at the road.” He left to start up the tractor and fetch a rope.

“We've got no choice,” said Jesse.

“Oh, God,” I said under my breath.

“Oh, crap,” said Tina, not under her breath.

“Oh, good,” said the twins, still attached to Jesse.

Dot returned to the porch with a little pink and red book, about the size of a cheque book only plasticized and with a picture of Marilyn Monroe on the front. She handed it to Tina, along with a pen, then started to dictate.

“To Dot, from your devoted friend….”

“What are you talking about?” snarled Tina.

“Your autograph. I want your autograph.”

Tina wrote something in there all right, but I could tell by the way she was crossing her t's that it had nothing to do with devotion.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T
ina and I shared a hot little room upstairs that had one dirty curtain (the other had lost most of its hooks and kept falling off the rod) and one bed. The kids told us that's where their cat had had kittens, and I didn't doubt it because the spread was coated in fur and had stains that I couldn't identify and didn't want to. Large spiders had built webs across every corner of the ceiling and their big white eggs were about to drop onto my head at any minute.

It was a relief, though, not to have that motel sign flashing across my face, and there was a breeze coming through the window. A country breeze – not like the one created by the fan at the motel that felt like it was coming out the back of a clothes dryer.

But I still had trouble sleeping. And this time, so did Tina. I don't think she really cared about the condition of the place, but the fact that Jesse was sleeping in the barn made her uneasy. It wasn't that she objected to his bedding down in a pile of hay, it was whom he was bedding down with that provoked her.

“Yeah,” she said, peering through the window toward the barn and pointing like a schoolteacher at a kid with gum, “there they go. I knew it.”

I got up to watch as the twins sneaked across the lawn, wearing nothing but tiny nighties and big smiles.

Tina pulled back the curtain, tore off the one that had no hooks, and jerked open the window.

“Where the hell do you think you're going?” she hollered.

“Get lost,” said one of them; I think it was Darlene, since she was the twin with the mouth on her.

“Okay, that does it,” fumed Tina, pulling on her sweats and heading out to stop them. Or murder them – I wasn't sure.

I ran behind her, down the stairs and out the back door. She didn't feel the thistles, stones and rubble under her feet, and managed to fly to the barn in seconds. I hobbled there, stopping twice to pull tiny bits of sharp gravel from the ball of my foot.

Tina threw open the barn door and found Jesse, a twin on each side of him, in the early stages of what was clearly going to be a long night of pleasure.

“Get out of here,” quipped Charlene, and Darlene added her own “thoughts” on the matter, which involved no thinking and quite a lot of swearing.

Tina marched over and told Jesse to get the hell up or she'd quit as his manager.

“Quit. I don't care.”

“This kind of thing is exactly what you don't need right now. You need every bit of energy for the ring, you stupid idiot.” She grabbed a pitchfork and spiked it hard into the straw, about one inch from Darlene's backside. “Are these two really worth losing for? Are they worth throwing away your chance?” She did the pitchfork thing again, and this time Darlene jumped up. “I didn't think you were so stupid.”

“A man has needs. You wouldn't know about that.” He pulled Darlene back down beside him.

“What about your family's needs? If you're not in top shape, Mankiller, you will not win the title fight. No way. And frankly, these two ….” She stopped herself (I wished she hadn't). “These two are not worth it.”

“You wouldn't know if it was worth it or not,” he said, and Tina stormed out.

“That was a low blow, Jesse,” I said. “My sister didn't deserve that.” I left, too.

Tina was in bed by the time I made it back, after stopping again to remove a shard of glass. She didn't acknowledge me, which meant she didn't want to talk.

But I'd discovered a reserve of bravery hidden inside myself, probably nurtured by having to pee in the dark woods (with wild animals, bugs and Walter looming), having to eat Dot's stew (she laughed when I asked what was in it) and having to drink water from a well that was only a stone's throw from the outhouse.

So I asked her, “Tina, are you jealous?”

And had we been in a cartoon (instead of just feeling like we were), that would be the moment when the rest of the Valentines' roof blew off.

—

When we came down for breakfast, Walter was already taking Brandy apart. He enjoyed the process so much, stripping off each piece of the engine with a merciless grin, that I figured Dot must have missed an important detail when she told me about how she conceived Walter – that she'd been dating Dr. Ilizarov at the time.

“Good morning,” hollered Ellwood, pouring huge piles of corn flakes into green plastic bowls for us. “Hope the owls didn't keep you up.” The kids had already finished eating and were running around outside. Being a staunch believer in the old adage “waste not, want not,” Ellwood was busy scraping the leftovers out of their bowls and into his. Darlene and Charlene were sitting side by side and were sure to give us a long and drawn out evil eye when we entered the room.

“The owls didn't,” answered Tina, casting a warlike glance at the twins, “but your daughters—”

“Oh, put a sock in it,” said Darlene, pushing flakes of cereal under the milk like she was trying to drown them. I could tell by the look on her face, and Charlene's too, that they didn't get too far with Jesse. If they'd been successful, I was pretty sure they'd be quick to gloat about it.

“Where's Dot?” I asked Ellwood.

“Oh, Mother likes to sleep in. You won't see her before noon unless it's Christmas. And it's Johnny's fault.”

“Johnny?” I asked, wondering if he was the hired hand and what he was hired for.

“Johnny Carson.
The Tonight Show
.” He picked up the empty bowls and dumped them into the sink. “I can't stand the man,” he added.

“What's wrong with Johnny Carson?”

“Nothing. But he comes on the same time as my reruns of
Gunsmoke
and Mother won't let me watch.” He got a far-away look in his eyes. “
Gunsmoke
. Now there's a good show.” Then he headed to the chicken coop to fetch eggs.

“Where does your father work?” I asked Charlene in an attempt to make conversation.

She ignored me and did that thing where she bent her thumb back.

I tried again. “I'd like to be a teacher. Do you have any profession in mind?”

She didn't reply so Tina answered for her.

“Sure she does. A very old one.”

Charlene didn't get it. She shoved her bowl into the middle of the table and went upstairs to get dressed. Darlene followed suit.

“I want the hell out of this place,” said Tina.

“We should pay them for the food,” I said.

“Whatever.”

Jesse came in the side door; he had on faded jeans and a black T-shirt, a string of beads with a feather around his neck, and his hair was braided at the back. When he sat down at the table, my heart did that racing thing again, and I thought to myself that many more days looking at Jesse and his perfect body was going to kill me in the end. I pulled my eyes back into my head as he reached for the corn flakes. Then Walter came in and sent me tumbling back to earth like a parachutist who forgot to pull the cord.

“Yeah,” mumbled Walter, rubbing his greasy hands across the front of his round belly. “She needs a new rad all right, and the front fan's in bad shape too. Could do without the fan for awhile, but you're gonna need—”

“Okay, okay,” said Tina. “So where do we get one? Can you help us? We'll pay you for your time.”

“Oh, that's all right,” said Walter, opening up the fridge and taking out a chicken leg. “It's a pleasure to work on a car like that.”

“We have to get to Portland in a matter of days,” said Tina. “Can you find us a rad, like today?”

“Well now,” said Walter, sitting down next to Jesse and taking what seemed to be five minutes to chew and swallow one bite of chicken, “I'm gonna make some calls.”

Jesse offered again to pay him for his work. I watched as the twins walked by the kitchen window and crept in the back door. Darlene came up behind Jesse, put her hands over his eyes and said, “Boo!”

Then Charlene did the same, only she said, “Guess who?”

Tina answered for him. “Can't be sure, but there's two of them, and I think they're sharing one brain.”

Jesse fought back a smile.

“We're going to pick berries in the back field,” said Darlene. “Wanna come?” She gave a super seductive smile, lifted up his braid and rolled it across her chest.

Jesse declined, the girls left (but gave detailed instructions as to where they could be found, should he change his mind and want to indulge in some berry picking and other sweet delights) and Tina wrote a bunch of stuff down in her memo pad. About what, I had no idea, but it made her look important.

I picked up the rest of the bowls, found some detergent under the sink and started washing the dishes. Walter gave me his chicken bones, rubbed his hands on his shirt again, and told us he was going next door to use their phone and try to find us a rad.

“You don't have a phone?” asked Tina, her eyes one step away from a hyena's.

“Did have,” said Walter. “Wasn't any use. Dar and Char were on it from sun up to sun down and one night – around ten or so it was – my mother pulled it out of the wall and threw it into the pond.” He pointed to where the pond was. I wished they had mentioned the pond sooner, because I'd almost fallen into it during the night, searching for a place to go other than the doorless outhouse.

I kept hoping Jesse and Tina would talk to each other. But they didn't say a word. Tina kept scribbling stuff down, and Jesse looked out the window, clearly preoccupied with something.

Then Tina stood up, pushed back her chair and announced that she had worked out seven new combinations for Jesse, and he was to change into his workout clothes and meet her on the lawn.

“I thought you'd quit as my trainer,” he chided.

“I said I'd quit if you slept with those girls.”

“How do you know I didn't?”

“Because you're not that stupid.”

“Look,” said Jesse, “I'll be back in a few minutes. I've got to catch up with Walter.” He went to the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He felt in his pocket for his wallet. “We should tell your friend Bonita about her car. I want to give Paul a call.”

By the look on his face both Tina and I knew that he wasn't concerned about Bonita and her car. He was worried about what was happening at home. He took off down the laneway.

“Tina,” I said, “I want to call Dad.”

“Forget it.”

“Aren't you wondering how he's doing?”

“No.”