The Rockin' Chair (6 page)

Unemployed and homeless, the man continued to work harder than most, though his efforts proved futile. Whatever dignity that did remain was methodically and painfully stripped away by those who had plenty to spare.

At last, the merciful shadow of a lame, elderly woman caused the pauper to gaze up. Slowly bending, she dropped a dollar bill into his cup. The two shared a genuine smile that only those in need could understand. Their simple exchange sent that same uncomfortable chill down Evan's spine. As she walked away, her gentle face was replaced by the judgmental stares of a thousand cruel eyes. The homeless man's smile was erased, his gaze dropped and again, among the masses, he sat alone.

Evan shook his head in disgust. While so many passed by, scratching their lottery tickets, Evan thought,
They're better off gambling on the homeless man than the lottery. From the look of things, many of them are only one or two paychecks away from where he's sitting.
Yet, most had the gall to question why God gave so much to so few and so little to so many. Grampa John had once said, “God gave enough but somewhere along the line folks forgot how to share His gifts.”
Grampa John would be mortified
, Evan thought, and dropped a couple bucks into the cup. He then turned to find someone in even worse shape. Squinting to get a closer look, he nearly passed out. “It's … it's … Tara.”

Only two doorways from the homeless man, his sister was sitting on the jagged edge of life. Evan needed to walk a few steps closer to make sure there was no mistake. There was none.
My God … it's really her
. She was twenty pounds lighter than the thinnest Evan had ever seen her. Her pretty face had been replaced by white, pasty skin and her once excited eyes were now sunken and devoid of life. The distinct lines of harsh experience completely covered her days of innocence, and her flowing strawberry locks were now matted and dirty.
She looks like death warmed over
, Evan thought, and nearly cried at the sight of her.

Vowing to be strong, he fought to emerge from his own fog of pain and approached her. “Tara?” he asked. The world seemed to slow down for the long-awaited reunion. For a few terrible moments, her eyes scanned every inch of his face without reaction. This made Evan feel even sicker than he did when he'd left his and Carley's apartment. At last, Tara's glassy eyes threw off a spark of recognition and her crooked mouth did its best to form a smile.
My face has finally registered in her memory
, he realized.

Without a word, Tara stood and spread her bony arms. As if she'd waited for years on this very stoop for someone to come and save her, she began weeping. Evan couldn't tell if they were tears of joy or sorrow. As they soaked his collar, he decided it was a combination of the two. Tara wasn't just crying. She was mourning and Evan could feel her pain. He always could. Though he never would have guessed it an hour before, she was the one who needed to be healed. For so many reasons, he cried right along with her.

Evan could feel the hardness of her bones tremble against his broken heart. Pulling back, he peered into her distant eyes. “T, where's the baby?”

She sniffled and resumed the hug, whining louder with every sway of his familiar frame. “Lila's with Nancy … a friend,” she managed between sobs.

He grabbed her face and forced his own smile. “I'm here now, T. Let's get a bite to eat and you can tell me everything.”

She avoided his eyes. “I'm not sure you'll wanna hear it,” she said shamefully. As if she finally felt the shock of his presence, she looked into his eyes. “What are you doing here, Ev?” she asked.

He smiled again—only this time he meant it. “Grampa John sent me here to take you home.” Recalling the letter, he sighed. “Grandma's not doing well.”

Tara never flinched at the news and retained her empty stare.

“I want to hear what's been going on with you,” Evan confirmed, and realized again that his concern for another's feelings numbed his own pain.

Hand in hand, they walked down the crowded street. As they passed the homeless man, Evan gestured toward him with a nod.

Like it was common knowledge, Tara shrugged. “That's Benny. They say he used to work on Wall Street until he and his family got into a car accident. He lost the use of his right leg but he was the lucky one. His wife and kids never made it.”

Evan fumbled in his wallet and dropped a ten-dollar bill into the cup. The man smiled softly, but quickly returned his gaze to the cruel world before him.

The long-lost twins sat in the corner booth of some greasy spoon. While his troubled sister hyperventilated and struggled to regain her composure, Evan couldn't believe his eyes. This broken doll who sat across from him looked like anyone but the happy girl he'd grown up with in Montana.
So much time has passed,
he thought,
and time has not been kind.

The waitress took the order for more food than two people could have ever eaten, but Tara looked famished and Evan wanted her to have one of everything on the menu. As they waited for the banquet to arrive, Tara stared out the window and—through a long line of sniffles—began her twisted tale. The distance in her eyes told Evan that her mind was no longer with him—if, in fact, it had been at all. Starting as far back as it mattered, she told everything that her mind had not mercifully erased.

With little money and less understanding of the real world—or at least the world that existed beyond the Rocky Mountains—Tara reached the Big Apple. From the moment she caught sight of this great discovery, she couldn't take her eyes off of it. Oddly enough, it never once looked back—not one set of eyes.

For the first time in her brief, sheltered life, Tara stood among millions but felt alone. It was the complete opposite of Montana, where a soul living miles away created the warm feeling of having company. Those first few hours in New York were sort of eerie but, at the same time, the most exciting time she'd ever known. She decided to savor it, wander the streets and watch.

After grabbing a rubbery sausage sandwich from a heckling street vendor, she bought a newspaper and started on her quest to locate the address her college friend had given her. It was the residence of Nancy Vallee, a kind soul who'd agreed to take Tara in until she found a place of her own. Tara hated to impose and equally disliked the idea of bunking with someone she didn't know—
but every dream has its price,
she reasoned. Besides, at that time, the quicker she got out of Dodge, the sooner she could pull down the star that had her name written all over it.

With large-rimmed glasses and her hair pulled back in a tight bun, Nancy Vallee was one of the nicest people Tara had ever met.

While Tara slowly settled in, Nancy set up two auditions for the star-struck dreamer. Before long, the older woman also provided the lead on a good job. The Polo Club was the hottest nightclub in Manhattan. “They're always looking for a young, pretty face,” she claimed.

At her new job, Tara served cocktails to sweet-smelling men and their well-dressed ladies at tightly packed tables. Bryce, the owner, really squeezed them in. Tara filled her pockets with tips. She couldn't believe it.
One of my chores back home was to keep Pa's mug topped off with cold beer and I never got a red cent for it. New York is unbelievable!

Before long, Tara was dating Bryce and attending auditions—only to discover she had been the biggest fish from the smallest pond in America.
I used to be the prettiest girl on stage
, she thought.
Now, unless I'm willing to peddle programs, I can't get ten feet from one
.
And I'm certainly not the prettiest anymore
. All the girls who tried out for parts were gorgeous, coming in different shapes, sizes and colors. She tried to tread water in the middle of this new ocean, but without the experience or contacts the other girls had, she was in way over her strawberry blond head. Not a single director was impressed with a farm girl who'd once played Cinderella in some God-forsaken hole in Montana.

Each time, she would get all hyped up for a possible role or an opportunity that seemed just within reach. And then poof, it disappeared. And every time, it was some long-winded reason that added up to, “We'll call you.” But they never did.

To counter the oppressive frustration, Tara drowned herself in alcohol. It created a sense of pleasure and removed all her inhibitions. For the first time, she understood her pa's strong attraction to the happy serum.
When it takes hold, there isn't a problem in the world that can't wait 'til tomorrow.

Time went by. There were more auditions, more rejections and more disappointments. It was always a close call and never a curtain call. Tara became even more comfortable at the club, a place that provided a cheap and continuous sedation.

Constantly bouncing between bouts of anxiety and a state of depression, Bryce invited her worries to sleep with marijuana. Reluctantly, she indulged him. She felt submerged, as if placed in a thick pool of warm pudding. Her worries slowed to a creep. It relaxed her and made her concentrate on the present. That was Bryce's theory anyway. “Who knows if there'll be a tomorrow,” he claimed, and lived religiously by his motto. The more Tara smoked, the more she liked it. There were no more hangovers and no more bed spins.

It was tough to remember when the transformation from marijuana to cocaine took place, but it had to have been at one of Bryce's rich parties. Everyone was doing it and everyone was happy. Tara took her first snort and waited. Within seconds, she'd taken the northbound express straight to heaven. Using cocaine was like experiencing full-body euphoria. She not only felt on top of the world, she felt like she owned it—with the right to destroy it all if she chose to. It was a feeling of utter suspension.
Nothing can touch me,
she thought.
I'm a star.
Cocaine provided the sensation of everything she ever dreamed of feeling and suddenly the dreams of being on stage seemed childish.
Who needs the constant disappointment when I can shine in a different light?
she thought.

Life went along. Tara worked the club for a couple hundred dollars a night, while Bryce paid all the bills at their apartment and supplied mounds of white powder—that is, until she announced, “We're pregnant!”

Whether it was the morning sickness or the look on Bryce's face, she actually dry heaved. He said they'd talk about it but they never did. Instead, on his way out of their apartment he shot her a look that could only have been described as hatred.

Tara wept for days, tears shed more for their unborn child than anything.
What could be more horrible than to start out life unwanted?
she wondered, and mourned the thought of it.

Depression took its strong hold, as Tara struggled to push the drugs away for the love of her unborn baby. On some days, it was a losing battle. Bryce wasted no time throwing her out of the apartment and the nightclub. Tara was in trouble.
I haven't done anything but serve drinks for a man who knows everyone in the business
, she thought.
Besides, no one wants a cocktail waitress with a swollen belly.
Adding insult to injury, she hadn't set foot on one stage and had no real skills to fall back on. In more than one way, she was in big trouble.

Left at the mercy of welfare and other humiliating means of struggling to make ends meet, Tara swallowed her pride and knocked on Nancy's door again. Without a word, her only true friend in New York offered a hug and a roof to keep the rain off Tara's aching head.

Tara eventually picked up work waiting tables at a breakfast nook. If it weren't for Nancy, she probably would have been working the streets as a prostitute. Bryce had trained her well. Tara had hit bottom with a greedy addiction, the fears of bringing a child into Bryce Badley's self-centered world and the realization that she was unsure whether she could take care of herself—never mind a baby. It was terrifying and to her shame, it caused her to seek an escape. She knew only one—alcohol.

The miracle of life was overshadowed by the guilt of drinking while pregnant and Tara fell into an abysmal depression. She steered clear of the weed and coke and the baby was born perfectly healthy. In fact, Lila was a beautiful girl. Still, Tara had compromised her child to feed her own destructive urges. The very thought made her turn to harder narcotics again. Right around then, she ceased all correspondence with Montana.
There's nothing good to report back to the family
, she decided.
Thank God for Nancy.
The woman nearly adopted baby Lila, while Tara all but committed suicide the slow way.

The remaining months in New York drifted by like big puffy clouds, each forming a very different picture until her sky became so overcast that the entire world grew dark. The rest was a fog, time lost to unbridled fears, a weakness in willpower and the strength of America's fiercest enemy—drugs. That was it. A year and a half back, Tara's recorder had been stuck on pause. As she searched for more, the look in her eyes said it all.

Tara's body convulsed like she was suffering a seizure. It was pouring out of her—the fear, the shame, the guilt, the anger—all of it. She managed to find the courage to look into Evan's eyes. Between gasping breaths, she confessed, “Dear God, I can't tell you when Lila took her first steps or the first word she ever spoke.” Almost at a scream, she finished. “I'm such a horrible person. How could I?”

Evan dropped the fork into his plate and reached for her hand. Grabbing it tightly, he raised his voice. “No you're not, T. You've just been surrounded by the wrong people for too long. You've forgotten who you are.” He shook his head. “And you're not the only one.”

Either she never caught the last comment or didn't have the energy to look deeper, but it was clear. Between the depression and addictions, she'd missed a solid eighteen months of her life. It was gone with no way to ever retrieve it.