Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakthrough (3 page)

  "What I want to know is who watched the verdict yesterday?"

  A cross between a sigh and a moan broke from between all the lips in the room except Sarah's, which were pinched firmly together until she made herself loosen them. The rest of the women liked her pumpkin idea. It would pass.

  "Wasn't that awful?" Betty shook her head of dull blond curls that looked like a wig no matter what shade she tried. "That awful woman. O. J. all over again. Is there no justice except in our Lord's heaven?"

  "It was terrible." Nancy nodded again, reminding Sarah of those perpetually nodding animals people put in the backs of their cars. "I cried for him and for the Branson family. Losing a son, a brother, a father in such a violent way. I can't imagine it."

  Erin jerked in her chair. Her mouth opened. Color actually rose in her cheeks. "She was protecting herself."

  "From what?" Joan blew out a puff of air that very nearly sounded like a rude raspberry. "Him being able to spend any of his own money?"

  Erin's glance shot toward her mother-in-law, then down. "He hit her."

  "So
she
said." Joan continued staring straight ahead, as if acknowledging Erin had spoken was effort enough. "She had to come up with
some
defense. Someone like her would never come out and admit she killed him. There was never any proof he hit her."

  "Lord no." Betty slapped her generous thighs. "A handsome man like Ed Branson would never do anything like that."

  "Certainly not," Joan snapped. "He was a gentleman."

  "He cheated on her." Erin's face was turning red.

  "Men will be men," Joan said. "She wasn't worth staying faithful to for a man like Ed Branson."

  Sarah could feel Nancy's hologram eyes on her, waiting to see how Sarah reacted before uttering her own opinion. Sarah felt a prickle of irritation and had to consciously relax.

  "Well." She used her gentlest let's -close-the-subject voice. "No doubt she's sitting pretty now. Shall we—"

"She got nothing out of it." Erin sat ramrod straight in her

chair, hands clenched together, fingers straining at each other as if they wanted to fly free and attack someone or something. "The family got all his money."

  The women in the room shifted uneasily. Sarah couldn't believe this many sentences were coming out of poor Erin's mouth. Who knew if she was working up to one of her infamous screaming fits, the kind she'd had at school sometimes, a horrible tantrum from a child too old to have one.

  Sarah would have to smooth this over quickly. "I'm sure Lorelei will fi nd another man to prey on. Now, can we—"

  "I heard . . ." Nancy moved her head nervously one side to another, making her hair swing again. She cleared her throat. "You can't tell anyone. Fred would kill me if he knew I blabbed. Promise?"

  The women promised solemnly, but of course Sarah knew the town would be buzzing by nightfall. No one would hear it from her lips, though. A promise was a promise.

  "You know how it came out during the trial that Lorelei's real name is Vivian Harcourt?" Nancy blinked her hologram eyes. "Well, last night when I was cleaning up from dinner, Fred said Edna Sinclair is being told to leave the Harcourt house."

  "What?" Joan bellowed the syllable, her off -kilter body stiffening in her chair. "Edna's been there for years. Estelle let her rent it, furnished, for as long as she needed it. What are you saying?"

  Sarah turned her head back to Nancy so abruptly, she got a burning twinge in her neck.

  
Lorelei Taylor. Née Vivian Harcourt. Broke after the trial. The Harcourt house.

  Nancy opened her mouth to continue. Sarah held her breath, feeling as if her morning—no, as if her very life—was starting to teeter slowly out of control.

  "It's being kept quiet so the paparazzi don't find out. Estelle Harcourt was Vivian Harcourt's paternal
grandmother
. Mom says she remembers a little girl coming to visit once or maybe twice. Estelle called her Vi." Nancy plunked her hands onto her hips, practically buzzed with power. "That little girl turned into Lorelei Taylor."

  Three loud gasps, Sarah's probably the loudest, even though they all must have fi gured it out thirty seconds ago.

  "And Lorelei—Vivian—wants to disappear for a while. And so . . . yes." Nancy took in a long, shuddering breath, no doubt enjoying herself immensely while the rest of the room suffered. "That woman is moving to Kettle."

Tough Choices

by Erin Packer

Mrs. Jantzen's sixth grade

Assignment: Please think of some tough choices

someone might face in his or her life, and tell us

how you would solve them and why.

  
Having milk or juice for breakfast can be a tough choice if your life is happy. Choosing to live or die would be tough if you were very sick. Or choosing if you could leave someone you love who is mean to you or not.

  
Still, having tough choices is better than having no choices at all.

  Erin lay in her bed. It was probably her favorite place to be these days. Not like before, when she had more energy. Usually she liked to paint when Joe was at work, or send e-mails. Paint or send e -mails or read
What to Expect When You're Expecting.
She wasn't pregnant anymore, hadn't been for ten years. It made Joe mad when she read it, but she liked to read it and pretend she was still pregnant. Every day she read part of it.

  Today was different, though. Today she found out something important that had made electric charges go off in her body, like she was getting shock treatment, or like she was some experiment animal in a science lab. Or maybe like Frankenstein coming to life again. That's how she imagined those things would feel.

  The Social Club meeting was usually agony. Especially since Betty had gotten pregnant again, sitting there, plump and full not only of her own life but someone else's. Doubly alive. Which made Erin feel sad and empty, even more than usual.

  Nancy mostly sniveled at Sarah's feet, which was tedious. Joan tried to make everyone around her feel bad; that's what she was put on earth to do. She did a bang -up job, too. No regrets for Joan on her deathbed. At sixty, she'd already done more of her life's work than most people did who lived to be ninety.

  After Joe married Erin his senior year because she was pregnant, Erin had resisted hating Joan for a long time. It was hard work, but she'd taken pride in it. Then she lost that baby and too many others, and after Joy, whom she carried almost to term, there had been no more babies since, which meant her one potential source of usefulness to Joan had come to an end. That's when Erin figured why bother, and went ahead and hated her. It felt good. An unsatisfying type of power, but it was some.

  Sarah was okay. Sarah was smart except for one thing. Sarah didn't realize she was unhappy. Erin thought Sarah fooled pretty much everyone else, except maybe Mike. Unhappy people could recognize unhappy when they saw it. Almost no one else in this town was unhappy, just Erin, Mike, and Sarah. Joan didn't count, she was just a bitch.

  Today's meeting might have been horrible, as usual, since they'd had to start planning the Halloween party. Erin stood at that party year after year serving punch, feeling out of place in her hometown, watching other people pretend to be having the time of their lives when it was the same people saying the same things they said the rest of the year, but with costumes on.

  Joe always drank too much and leered at other women. The town looked on, wondering what Erin wasn't giving him that made him leer like that, and what did he ever see in her anyway. Then Joe would come home and want to know who she'd talked to and what she'd said to them, and why wouldn't she give him a baby, damn it. And in a mean drunk mood he'd want to do all that other stuff that made sex more exciting for him and hurt her.

  She hated parties. So much energy put into forcing people to pretend to be happy on a certain date at a certain time, when real joy came from inside, not from parties or people or pumpkins.

  Erin's baby, Joy, was born dead eight months into the only pregnancy that lasted. Joy was taken away, Erin didn't know where, before Erin could hold her. Nobody mentioned the loss of the baby except Joe. Bad things didn't happen in Kettle. Everybody knew that.

  Erin couldn't even visit a grave because she didn't know if the baby had one. She'd made a grave out in the woods, but didn't go often. Her baby wasn't really there.

  Now Vivian was moving here. Back to the Harcourt house, which she'd visited a couple of times to see her grandmother. Erin remembered her. "Vi" was three years older and had wandered by and played with Erin one afternoon when Erin was six. When Erin's father had yelled, they'd both run away without stopping to hear what he was saying. They'd hidden in a thicket in the woods behind Erin's house, arms around each other, and laughed so they wouldn't cry. Well, maybe Vi hadn't wanted to cry, but Erin had. Then another day Erin had gone over to the Harcourt house and they'd played with the immense dollhouse in Vivian's grandmother's room, a toy with more furniture than was in Erin's whole house.

  Alice came soon after that. She looked exactly like Vi.

  Of course the woman Vi grew into—Vivian—might think Erin was a mousy fool. Maybe she would be right. But Erin was pretty sure she and Vivian would lock eyes and understand each other. Maybe not right away. But eventually. And having someone in Kettle who understood her could make life a little more okay. Probably for both of them.

  The only person who ever understood Erin was Alice. When her parents found out about Alice, they made Alice leave. Which was stupid of them, and stupid of Erin for sending her, because Alice only existed in Erin's mind.

  In Erin's mind, Alice had been beautiful and understanding and kind, and they'd played together every day. They'd gone running, painted, and sat talking in the woods surrounding the town. Alice was the one thing no one should have been able to control.

  Sometimes Erin worried that suffering was so familiar, that if the chance for something as strange and ill -fitting as happiness came along, she wouldn't know to make a grab for it.

Three

Vivian Harcourt's Report on The Lorelei

by Heinrich Heine

Mr. Barclay's twelfth grade

Chicago, Illinois

This poem is about a beautiful woman, with one stunning head of hair. She sits on a big cliff in Germany called The Lorelei, at a dangerous narrow place on the Rhine River and combs her alluring tresses, mourning her lost love, which strikes me as a tremendous waste of a woman's time, but then I can't say I miss anyone who's ever left me or died, so I can't relate.

  
Apparently this woman has a voice Beverly Sills would give her two left teeth for. Men sail by and are so entranced by her beauty, song, and hair -grooming technique, they lose their sense of direction and appar
ently also their survival instinct. Crash, smash, boats hit rock, body parts everywhere, good -bye sailors. I imagine the bones piled up after a while.

  
Anyway, no surprise there, all men steer by their rudder, if you know what I mean. But you'd think once word got around that hearing this woman's voice caused death by disorientation, the sailors would start wearing aural prophylactics. Or at least put the gay guys at the wheel.

Vivian—Please plan to meet with me to discuss your grade. Usual place and time. Mr. Barclay.

  Lorelei Taylor, used to be Vivian Harcourt and now Vivian Harcourt again, glanced at the white lettering on the green roadway sign: K
ettle 2
.

  "Two miiiles to Kettle." She sang the words, first as a nasal country tune, then low and gruff like Louis Armstrong, fi nally creating a Bee Gees falsetto disco hit, tapping the accelerator so the car jerked down the two -lane road.
Put the pedal to the metal, it's two miiiiiles to Kettle.

  Punchy. Driving too many hours in a row on too much caffeine and crappy food and not enough sleep. To avoid paparazzi, she'd had to creep out of her lawyer's NYC apartment in the middle of the night and into this piece -of-shit car he'd given her, God bless his greasy combover. His son's, he said. Was going to buy him a new one anyway.

  She'd been so grateful, she was actually nice to him.

  
Kettle 1.
For God's sake, these people were anxious you

know how long before you hit their town. What was next,
Kettle, 10 yds
? K
ettle 5'6"
?

  Her stomach flipped, then settled as the green forest gave way to farmland and the occasional blue arrow sign pointed out side -road local businesses. Karen's Krafts. Hanson's Venison. Haircuts by Doris. Gravestones. Guns. Worms.

  Christ. From midtown Manhattan to Hunt and Fish, USA. She'd probably lose her mind.

  A sign fl ashed by,
Reduce Speed Ahead, 25 MPH.
She glanced at the speedometer, hovering near fifty, and eased up on the gas. No point getting hauled into jail so soon after she got out.

  She could still hardly believe it. She'd been so primed to hear "guilty" from the mouth of that prim jury member, that when the "not" came out, she hadn't even really understood for several seconds. Not? As in
not?
As in they actually fi gured it out?

  She was free. Of the specter of lifelong incarceration and, damn it, of Ed. The concepts took their sweet time sinking in. She woke in the middle of the night every night, drenched in sweat, back in jail in her dreams. Or worse, back staring in horror at Ed, dead in the tub, realizing she'd be the fi rst one suspected, knowing she had months of trial hell ahead of her. She still woke every morning nauseated with dread over her fate before it registered she'd come through fi ne.

  A survivor. A goddamn survivor. They could put her on a reality show and launch her into a closet with thirty leopards and a thousand black widow spiders for a week, and at the end she'd skip on out and dance a tango for the cameras.

  Free! She laughed, a weird, screechy, manic sound, and nearly choked when her breath caught wrong in her chest. Hot damn. This side of forty, coming to Small -Town America. Who would expect this of Lorelei Taylor?

  But since when had she done the expected?

  Gas station, lumberyard, diner, and then suddenly Spring Street, on the edge of town. She vaguely remembered the look of Main Street. Quiet, untouched, as if it had stood there since the dawn of time in some isolation bubble protecting it from the decay of progress.

  Probably no Starbucks. Shit.

  She turned left on Spring, where the white church stood on the corner, steeple soaring up, lofty and self -righteous.

  Her elation sank into uncertainty. Was she really going to live here? Trading one prison for another? But what the hell choice did she have? The press and paparazzi were all over her; she couldn't stay in New York. In the days she'd been there since the verdict, she'd been recognized, screamed at, insulted, jostled. Of course, in New York, that was pretty much your average day.

  But where else could she go? Stan Combover's legal bills had nearly bankrupted her. She'd depended on Ed to take care of her; he was twenty years older, not in great health, and he'd promised to. But after fourteen years together, the bastard had left her next to nothing. Enough to get by here until the storm blew over, but in New York, gone in a heartbeat. His stinking family must have worked on him not to change his will. Or maybe he was just a rat bastard. God knew she had a talent for fi nding them.

  From Spring Street she turned onto Maple Avenue—did they not have one original street name in this town?—and squinted at the neat rows of houses, looking for signs of a familar one. God oh God, it was all so damn precious -looking.

  There. White with dark green shutters, looking like home sweet-home for Donna Reed. The house her paternal great great-grandmother had built when she moved here from Chicago with her husband, who gave up city life to be a country doctor.

  She pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.

  Deathly silence. How did people stand it? She needed a drink after ten seconds.

  She opened her door and shoved it way out, stepped onto the cement, pockmarked like bad skin. Her stomach churned, head swirled, the buzzing, bleary -eyed wooziness of too many hours on the road. A glance around, shoving her sunglasses on top of her head. Perfect, orderly houses with perfect, orderly lawns. Nobody around, nothing, zip, nada. She was going to go nuts here.

  Wait. A curtain moving across the street. And one next door, to the north.

  Jesus.

  She narrowed her eyes, then a slow smile spread over her lips. O -kay. If Kettle wanted to see the arrival of Lorelei Taylor, Kettle would.

  She took her sunglasses off her head, stuck the end of one temple into her mouth, and took a trip to the end of the driveway in her best do -me saunter. Better if she'd been wearing her Rene Caovilla leopard -print stiletto sandals and a bright yellow miniskirt, but no way would she drive two days in that outfi t.

  Skintight, low -riding Miss Sixty jeans and an equally tight cropped, scoop -necked top would have to do. She stuck her tits out and made sure her top rode high enough to show off her firm stomach. Pushing forty, maybe, but she damn well didn't look it.

  At the end of the driveway, she looked up the street, then down, as if her pimp was due any second and what could be keeping him? Then tossed her hair, made a big show of stretching, arms up, undulating her hips, then bent at the waist to touch her toes, flipping her hair over her head and rolling slowly up.

  Across the street, another curtain twitched. She guessed phone calls were being made.
She's here, she's making a spectacle of herself in the street, hurry, before you miss it.

  Grand finale: She drew her hands up her thighs, then straight up over her stomach, cupped her breasts briefl y on the way to her shoulders, then raised her hair and let it fall.

  There.

  If there was anyone on this street who didn't think they knew what she was about, they thought they did now.

  She turned back, still sauntering, twirling her sunglasses oh-so-nonchalantly. A movement on the porch of the house south of hers nearly made her fall off her stride. A man, a young man—early thirties, maybe—watching the show unapologetically, one hand on his hip, the other holding a beer, legs apart in a strong stance. Broad shoulders, nicely fi tting jeans, T-shirt half covered by an open green fl annel work shirt that looked worn and soft. Underneath she could see the bulge and valley of developed pecs, mmmm. That solid masculine landscape under soft cotton was a total turn -on. Features: strong, handsome. Hair: short, dirty blond. Expression: solemn and unreadable.

  "Hi." She stopped at the edge of her driveway and tipped her head, looking him over as if she hadn't already made her assessment. "I'm Vivian."

  "I know."

  Still no reaction; she wasn't used to that. One way or the other, Lorelei generally made an impact. "I'm your new murderess neighbor."

  "I know that, too." He lifted his beer, took a swig.

  "Well, you are a veritable encyclopedia, aren't you."

  A grin lifted one side of his mouth. That was good. She liked men who could take a joke.

  "I'm Mike."

  "Hello, Mike."

  She let the silence linger, watching him calmly, allowing the hint of a smile on her mouth so he'd know she was interested, amused, in control.

  He took another swig of beer and watched her back, apparently comfortable with the silence. If his eyes weren't so intense, she'd say there wasn't much going on in the brain department.

  "Aren't you going to offer me a beer?" Okay, she was impressed. She'd had to break the silence fi rst.

  "This is my last one."

  
Brrrrr
. All was chilly on the southern front. Apparently Mike belonged in the she's -a-murdering-bitch camp along with most of the country. "All righty then. Nice meeting you."

  She turned toward her car, suddenly exhausted and near tears, which freaked her out. She hadn't cried during this en tire ordeal except when her cellmate socked her once and the tears had been from surprise and pain. Maybe now that the stress had let up, she'd be able to grieve, deal with the fact that Ed was dead and her life had to go on without him.

  Oh, she was so looking forward to it.

  "Need help unloading?"

  She pivoted on one heel. "What?"

  "Do you need help unloading your car?"

  Vivian put her hand to her hips and narrowed her eyes. "Was that really your last beer?"

  "That's what I said."

  She looked over at her grandmother's white one -car garage, and brought the look back to him. "Help would be nice. Thank you."

  He set his bottle on the railing and came off the porch with light, easy steps. "Been driving awhile today?"

  "From Indiana. Nice traffi c."

  "You must have started at dawn."

  "Before."

  He stood next to her while she unlocked her trunk, a solid, silent presence. She was amused to find herself desperately grateful for his offer of help. Lorelei Taylor, who had faced police interrogation, relentless prosecutors, crazed prisoners, angry crowds, Ed's bloodthirsty relatives, and hostile erstwhile friends without flinching, dreaded going into her grandmother's house.

  Until the moment she crossed that threshold, the entire nightmare of the last year could have been just that, a horrible fantasy. Once inside, the changes in her life would be undeniable. Kettle, Wisconsin, would be her new home.

Oh. Goody.

  She reached into the chaos of suitcases, loose clothes, and bags of shoes and jewelry, and grabbed an armful, waited while he did the same.

  "Not enough suitcases?"

  "I had to leave in a hurry."

  "Right."

  His unquestioning acceptance was a relief. She didn't want to share details of the last few days with anyone, not that she would have hesitated to tell him to butt out if he asked. She marched toward the back door with her load of clothes, leaving the sexy saunter for when she wasn't at risk of tripping over whatever her currently invisible feet might encounter.

  March, march, march to the end of the driveway, up three steps, pressing the load of clothes against the door with her body so she could reach the keys the tenant had left in the newspaper box. Tight security around here. Didn't they claim there was no crime in Kettle? Hard to imagine. Maybe she should get accused of another few murders and liven things up.

  She lifted the lid, half hoping the keys weren't there, though she couldn't stand another minute in the car having to drive off and find them. They were. Two, on a chain with a little dangling plastic Mickey Mouse figure, puffy gloved white hand raised in a cheery wave.

  Insipid rodent.

  The storm door screeched like a dying monkey, but her key went smoothly into the dead bolt, turned and unlocked; the second key went in hard; she had to jiggle it a few times before she could turn it.

  "Come . . .
on
."