Cool in Tucson (14 page)

Getting out the lettuce for a salad, pouring a glass of wine, she hummed a contented scrap of an old song.  The phone rang.  She looked at the number calling, picked it up and said, “Hi, Mom.” 

“You always spook me when you do that,” her mother said.  “Why do you want to know who’s calling before you even answer the phone?  I don’t get that.” 

You don’t get why a police detective in a major city might want to know who’s  calling before she answers the phone?
 
Or maybe you just feel like arguing tonight.
  Her mother had about as many anxieties as the average widow in her seventies, and there was no use letting her wine get warm while they bickered over any of them.  She kicked the refrigerator door closed, sat down on the stool and said, “It’s just handy sometimes.  How are you tonight?”

“I’m fine.  I just got back from bocce and I’ve got to hurry up with supper because it’s my bridge night.”  Retired from ranching, Aggie Decker had moved to a senior citizens’ community west of town and discovered games.  “But I thought I’d just check up on you first, are you behaving yourself?”  The wink-wink question betrayed  growing anxiety about what she saw as her elder daughter’s monkish existence since her divorce.  Aggie wanted to hear about a little hell-raising so she’d know the wounds inflicted by “that cheating wretch,” Andy Burke, had begun to heal. 

Sarah had several times resolved to make up a few credible lies about high times in the Old Pueblo, but her imagination boggled when she thought about it so she put it off.  Maybe she’d have verifiable dates to report on soon; she had been ready to start for a while but all the men who had laid the moves on her since her divorce had been married.  To change her mother’s drift she said, “How’s Sam?”

“He’s fine.  He went geocaching all morning and played five games of Spider this afternoon.  I believe he’s beginning to see life as one big puzzle.” 

“Well, you know what?  Tell him I think he may be right.”

“I won’t.  Don’t encourage him.  I want him to get away from that computer and take me ballroom dancing.”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely.  There’s a great group here and I could join it if I had a partner.” 

“I don’t remember ever seeing you dance with Dad.”

“We never did.  We worked too hard all day to dance at night.  So I should do it now.” 

“What does Sam say?”

“Oh, you know Stonewall Sam.  He says, ‘Better still, why don’t you get me some toe slippers and a tutu, and we’ll take ballet lessons?’ ”

“Oh, I love it!  Let’s make it pink!”  Sarah seized delightedly on the image of her mother’s boyfriend, thick-fingered, wattled and grizzled, in a tutu.  Aggie’s third boyfriend since she moved to town, he seemed to be lasting better than the first two, who left after she turned down their proposals.  “I don’t need the sex anymore,” she said, “so why do the laundry?”

Now she had finished with the dancing jokes and was ready to get down to the real business of her call, the Big Worry.  “Honey, have you talked to Janine lately?” 

“Um…not for a couple of days.” 
Not for two weeks, actually.  Since the last time she threw dishes at my head.
 That answer would delay dinner for everybody, and she was too tired for family drama tonight.  So she said quickly, “I was thinking I’d call tonight, maybe ask Denny over for the weekend.  Have you,” she passed the ball back to her mother’s court, “talked to Denny lately?”

“For a minute yesterday.  She was doing her homework.” 

“Good.  How’s she doing in school, did she say?” 

“Denny’s fine.  She was born fine, luckily.  The question is, how’s her mother?”

  Sarah got up with the phone cupped in her shoulder and began pulling salad dressing, onions, peppers and shredded cheese out of the refrigerator.  She was not that hungry but she wanted a distraction from the anger she felt bubbling up. 
All I want is a
little peace and quiet, do we have to talk about this every time?

“I’m sure Janine’s drinking again,” her mother said, “and I think she’s using too.”

“What makes you think that?”  Stalling. 

“I was over there on Friday and she acted really odd.  The most infuriating thing is that she always imagines she can hide it from me.  She strikes these elaborate poses about being terribly busy—getting ready to go to work in that bar with her lipstick on crooked.  ‘Gotta go, Mom,’ so she won’t have to talk to me.  It’s so demeaning to be lied to that way—”

Sarah set food down on the counter and closed her eyes.  How many times had they said these things? 

“So I always go along, like a fool, pretending I don’t notice as long as I can stand it.  Why do I do that?”

“Because she scares you.”

“And because I never know what I
could
say that might get her stopped.  Is there any right thing to say?”

“Probably not.  Where was Denny?”

“In her room, surrounded by books.  I tried to get her to come out with me for a while but she said she had homework.  On a Friday?  That’s the other thing that’s giving me a rash, is that now Denny doesn’t want to talk to me either.  What’s that all about, do you know?”

“She’s standoffish with me, too.  I think she’s afraid if we blow the whistle on Janine she’ll have to go back out to the ranch and live with Howard and Jane again.”

“So?  What’s so bad about that?  A nice house in the country and good meals.”

“Come on, Mom.  You know very well Jane and the kids treat her like dirt.”

“They don’t.  What a thing to say.  Howard’s girls aren’t bright and clever like Denny and maybe Jane doesn’t enjoy the contrast too much—”

“Maybe if you didn’t rub their noses in it quite so often—”

“Oh, now it’s all my fault.  You’re on a rampage this afternoon, aren’t you?  What’s the matter, did you have a bad day?”

“Long.  Started with a homicide at five in the morning.” 

“That job of yours, how do you stand it?  Oh, well, I mustn’t start that again.  Sam said if I don’t stop agonizing over your job and Janine’s lifestyle he’s going to find a new birding partner.”

“That’s just a bluff.  Where would he find another lady who can remember phainopepla and pyrrhuloxia?” 

Aggie giggled.  “You’re right, he’s lucky to have me.  Listen—” Sarah heard her mother take a deep breath—“Can we just agree on what kind of a …benchmark we’re looking for here?  When are we going to say that’s it, we can’t wait any longer?”

Why don’t you ask your son, the rancher?  Or Janine’s counselor?  Why do I have to decide?
  But Sarah knew how adroitly the paid professionals who counseled addicts for the county passed the buck back to the family.  Y
ou’re the best judge, of
that, of
course…
Decisions about Janine always came back to Sarah and her mother, with maybe a furtive boost from brother Howard when his wife would let him open his mouth. 

There now, I guess I thumped everybody enough for one day
.  Aloud she said,

“Mom, you know we can’t get ahead of it.   Something will happen—she’ll disappear for two days or smash up the car—and then we’ll decide something.”  She made a face at the refrigerator.  “I’ve been hoping she’d put it off a while.”

“God, you make us all sound crazy.”

“Well, we’re not exactly sane, are we?  Addict’s families never are.”

“Sarah, you don’t think Janine would hurt Denny, do you?”

“No, she dotes on Denny like we all do.  It’s just…when she gets into the beer and the pot she neglects her sometimes.  I’ll try to get Denny over here for a weekend, give her some help with her clothes.  She’s looking kind of tacky.”

 “That sounds good.  And she knows your number, right?  She can call if—“ 

“Absolutely.  While she was staying with me last fall, I typed my phone numbers and my e-mail address on a card and framed it for her desk.  I gave it to her that last day, just before I took her to Janine’s house, and I made her promise she’d call me if she ever needed anything.”

“And you think she’d do it?”

“Of course she would, why not?  Denny knows how much I love her.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When Denny got home from school Wednesday afternoon there was a loud-talking man with yellow teeth in the kitchen with Mom.  Denny wanted a glass of milk to go with the cookie she’d brought from school, but the man gave her a funny crooked smile and said to Mom, “Well, hey, you got yourself a real little honey here, haven’t you?”  He reached for her, saying, “How about a hug, Honey?” but he was kind of sprawled in his chair, and his hand-eye co-ordination wasn’t all it might have been after several hits on the bong.  Denny slipped past him and got into her room, closed the door quickly and wedged a chair under the handle.   

She could hear him through the door, growling, “Well, shit, what’s she being so snotty for?  I’s just being friendly.”

Mom said, “Oh, she’s just shy.  Forget it!  Let’s have another beer.”  The flip-tops popped, the lighter wheel grated against the flint.  In a minute a fresh haze of cannabis wafted under the door, and they were laughing again.   

Denny did the first half of her Social Studies workbook, all but the essay questions.  She liked to take her time with them and get the sentences just right, and the increasingly giddy laughter in the next room made it hard to concentrate.  She decided to save the essay questions for last.  Maybe the man would leave. 

She started on math, and stuck with it as their talk got quieter, turning gradually into whispers and giggling.  They made a couple of groaning noises, a chair scraped back, and they moved into Mom’s bedroom.  Denny turned her radio on, turned it up as the sounds of their pleasure grew louder, and finally found a rock station that all but drowned them out.  Even so, she got so angry she stared at the same math problem for several minutes, unable to think about anything but how much she hated this rottenly stupid F-minus day. 

Finally the noises ended in more giggling and then silence.  She turned the radio down and went on to the next math problem, and the next.  She was getting hungry, trying to decide if she wanted to risk going into the kitchen for some food, when she heard Mom say something softly about cigarettes, and ask for money.  Denny heard padding footsteps and some throat-clearing and then a quiet tap on the door.

Mom said, “Denny?” and the doorknob turned.  She knocked again and said, “Honey, are you all right?” 

Denny got up, moved the chair two inches, put her face in the opening and said, “I’m hungry.”

“Oh, well, I’m just going to run to the store.  I’ll get you some—what would you like?  Hot dogs?”

“Is he gone?”

“Who?  Oh—no, he’s, um, he’s sleeping.”

“I’m not staying here alone with that creep.”

“Oh, Honey, now—well, all right, come along.”

“I haven’t finished my homework.”

“I’m just going over to Fry’s, it’ll only take a minute.  Do you always have to argue?  Come on.” 

Denny followed her through the kitchen, watching back over her shoulder for the big smelly man, and ran and jumped in the backseat where the belt was adjusted to fit her.  She tried not to watch Mom’s driving, but at the corner she couldn’t resist looking and said, “Look out for the pickup, it’s turning
¾
”