Third Girl from the Left (19 page)

“Like what?” he said.

“That pretty. Like . . . I don't know. I don't look that pretty.”

William smiled. She had to go in a few minutes. “No. You look prettier.” His face turned serious. “I wish . . .”

“What?”

“I wish that I'd met you a long time ago.”

Mildred was silent. Her head was pounding. What was she supposed to say? “I wish I'd met you then too. I mean . . . I love Johnny Lee too, but . . . I don't know . . . things. Things can't change so easy. You know? Sometimes they just can't.”

“I know. I know. But . . . Listen. You might see me round with somebody else. You might hear some stuff. I'm just a man. But you need to know this. I'm here if you want me. If you ever want me. I'll be right there.” They stared at each other for a long time after that, not even touching. What else was there to say?

 

Johnny Lee said to her once, “Girl, your head been in the clouds a lot lately.” She smiled at him and said, “Naw, I'm right here. But you know I got a lot to do around here. I get distracted, that's all.” It went on only another few weeks after that. Only until the day she came home a bit later than usual from her stolen time with William and found Angie and Johnny Lee at home, Angie's face tear-stained, a large new plaster cast on her arm. They were both sitting at the dining room table, Angie drinking a chocolate soda from the drugstore. Her father must have made it special. At first Mildred's voice seemed to have stopped working. Johnny Lee just looked at her. Angie blew bubbles into her glass but was otherwise uncharacteristically silent. Johnny Lee rose to his feet. He seemed taller than he'd ever been. “Woman, where the devil have you been?” he said.

“What?”

“I said, where the devil have you been? In case you ain't notice, your daughter broke her arm running 'round the yard at school first thing this morning. They been calling and calling you from the school. Finally had to come down to the store to get me so I could sit with her at the hospital. You been out this house since nine-fifteen and I don't see no groceries or no signs no how that you been doin' nothin' you supposed to around here.”

The sink was full of pots and pans, the yard unswept, the breakfast dishes not put away. The smooth surface she'd worked so hard to maintain was gone. She'd kept it up a month, then two, then three, keeping it all going, doing the housework doubletime. But now her baby sat with a broken arm and those big eyes fixed on her, asking the same question her husband was. “Yeah, where was you, Mama? I was on the highest bar, higher than even Pookey can climb. But I fell,” she finished wistfully. “Where was you at, Mama?”

Johnny Lee stepped right up to Mildred, his face a few inches away. “Who is he? Who the hell is he, you goddamn whore?” His hands, hands that had always been so gentle with her, were balled into fists. Suddenly, he turned away from her and swept the kitchen table clear of dirty dishes. Some of them shattered on the floor. Food went everywhere. “Clean that up,” he said in a murderous voice. Then he strode out of the house, never looking back. Mildred still hadn't said a single word, feeling wet between her legs where she and William had just finished making love, the heat of his eyes on her, the killing look in her good Johnny Lee's. She couldn't move. Angie was silent. Tears ran down Angie's face. Then she stood up. “I'll help you clean up, Mama.”

“You'll do no such thing. Sitting there with your arm broke. It's my job. You go on upstairs and lie down.”

“OK, Mama.” She went obediently out of the room. Mildred knelt before the mess on the floor. She knelt for a long time before she collapsed forward, smearing her hair with her family's morning food, sobbing harsh, animal cries. Her daughter must have heard her. But she stayed upstairs as she'd been told. They were separated by the floor, the wall, the slow knowledge of what could happen if you broke the rules. You might be happy. But the price would be high.

W
HEN JOHNNY LEE EDWARDS HAD BEEN BACK
from the war for about a week and a half, he was walking with Mildred on the other side of the tracks, running an errand. He was feeling good. His wife was pregnant with his first, he was back from serving his country with honor, he was getting back into the saddle at the pharmacy, the delicate work he had trained so hard for. They were walking along a narrow sidewalk when an old white woman came tottering right down the middle. In passing her, Johnny Lee brushed her coat sleeve with his elbow.

“Watch where you're walking, nigger,” she said. Didn't even look up. Didn't miss a step. Just said it as they always did. Mildred and Johnny Lee had both learned since they were children not to respond, almost not to hear. But this time, he felt his face turn into a fist, his hands tighten into weapons. Mildred stepped quickly to his side, seeing that he was close to lashing out, with his mouth or his hands, and knowing that to do so could get them both, could get them all, killed. She lowered her head, and her voice became servile. “Sorry, ma'am. He wasn't lookin' where he was going. Sorry.”

“Well, you ought to be. Damn lazy niggers.” She was too old, had done this rant too many times, to give it full vigor. She went on her way. Johnny Lee's head pounded. Mildred looked up at him, and he could see fear in her face. She tried to smile. “Johnny Lee, you all right?” she asked. “You know how white folks is. That's one thing that ain't changed a bit while you been gone.” She laughed a little. But he didn't. He couldn't.

“You know, in France, I was never once called ‘nigger,'” he said. “Not one time. We went into this one village and this girl, this
white
girl, cried and hugged me like I was Jesus Christ come down from the cross. I'd come to save her village. That's all she cared about. Everybody, crying and hugging us. And now I'm back here . . .” They had stood together in the middle of the sidewalk, speechless.

He never thought he would feel that kind of fury toward the woman who stood by his side that day. But he'd never have believed she could do what she'd done. He loved her. He loved the curve of her hips and buttocks under the modest dresses she favored, the sound of her laughter. Most times she was as orderly as any Tulsa housewife could be and he loved that too. But he also loved having a woman with a heart. He didn't claim to understand it, but he knew it was there. He was a lucky man.

After he left home that morning, he walked. He walked and walked. He didn't even know where he was going. His hands were fists, his eyes blind. He must have walked for nearly two hours, maybe longer, a little past lunchtime, before he got so hot and dizzy that he had to stop. He stood in the sun for a few minutes, trying to get his bearings. Then he realized that he wasn't far from Frank's. Frank's with its cool interior and sawdust-covered floor and cold beer and strong whiskey. He walked that way. He didn't care who saw him go in, and plenty of people did. People who knew him. People who knew Mildred. He didn't care.

The interior of Frank's was dark and comforting and at this time of day, nearly empty. A bartender made sleepy circles on the bar with a damp rag. From the jukebox, Muddy Waters offered a good morning to a little schoolgirl. The stools offered respite. Johnny Lee sank onto one gratefully and ordered a beer and a shot—something he'd never done in daylight in his entire life. But in the sweet darkness of Frank's, no one would ask any questions he didn't want to answer.

He sat there a long time, drinking and stewing, the liquor softening the day around him. People came, people left. The kind of people who would go to Frank's during the day were the kind of people who didn't talk to one another much. They were just there to drink. That's why he was startled when he became aware of a presence at his elbow. He turned and found Mabel Littlefield sitting next to him. Johnny knew her from the store. He knew everybody from the store. She came in a lot for various headache remedies and was never seen in church on Sunday. She had the kind of beauty that is mere months from being lost to drink and despair. But she was still just barely young enough and hungry enough for affection that a man could find some solace in her arms. “Why, Johnny Lee Edwards,” she said, her voice bright and insinuating, “I declare, I ain't never seen you in here. This place is only for bad girls like me.”

“Aww, Mabel, you ain't so bad. Don't look so bad no way.”

“Listen to you.” She laughed and leaned into him. “Ain't you sweet?”

Johnny Lee turned back to his beer. He felt something gathering in him, through the haze of anger and sadness and liquor. Then he turned back to Mabel. “I 'on't know. You wanna find out?”

She smiled. “Buy me a drink and see what you can talk me into.”

An hour later, they leaned on each other, giggling and trying not to fall down, all the way back to her small room. She walked up the stairs ahead of him, trying to sway her hips seductively but too drunk to pull it off. Once they got inside, she went into the bedroom, giggling some line about changing into something more comfortable. He stumbled to the bathroom, muttering, “Just give me a minute. I'll be . . . I'll be right wish you.” After he'd finished urinating, he looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin a clear dark brown. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes to push back the tears that threatened. He took a deep breath and went out to the woman who awaited him, the woman who was not his wife. She lay on her bed, her legs spread a little, wearing a cheap lace camisole. She gazed at him. Her eyes were full of hope. Her breasts were loose and sagging. Johnny Lee stood and looked at her. Then he groaned and shook his head. Shook his head and went out her door and stumbled back to Frank's. He thought he could hear her crying as he went down the first couple of steps. But he didn't worry about it. He was going to get drunk enough to forget.

 

The bartender brought him home when his shift ended. He smelled like three distilleries and was nearly incoherent. Mildred accepted his foul-smelling arm around her neck with a brief word of thanks to the bartender, who nodded. She walked him upstairs. He kept talking. She didn't know what he was saying.

She helped him lie down in the bed, knelt to remove his shoes. As she took his foot in her hand gently just for a second before she moved on to the next shoe, the sobs he hadn't cried all day tore out of him with staggering force. Mildred sat stock-still for a moment. But then sat him up and pulled him toward her. He allowed it. He cried for a long time and when he could finally speak, he said only one word. A clear one this time: “Why?”

“Oh, J.L., I . . . I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't want this to happen, I just . . .”

“For God's sake woman, why?”

“Because I loved him. That's why.” Her hand stilled on his back. The truth was out, unalterable.

“You loved him.”

“Yes.”

“Do you still?” A long silence. “Don't lie to me,” Johnny Lee finally said.

“Yes, I still love him.”

“Can you tell me who he is?”

“I don't want to.” Another red surge of anger, but he couldn't sustain it. He just needed to hear their voices interweaving for now.

“Are you going to leave?”

“No. I love you too. And the kids.”

“Ain't no reason I shouldn't beat your ass black and blue and put you out the house for good.”

“I know.”

Johnny Lee lay back on the bed, tears still leaking out of his eyes. The room whirled desperately. He had a vision of Mabel's stretched-out, worked-over body splayed out on the bed. He felt as though several foul animals had died in his mouth. What was he going to do? Mildred had broken his heart. But he still loved her so. He lay on the bed, her hand moving on his forehead, his fists at his sides. He got up to vomit, horribly and long, and then stumbled back to bed. She wet a rag and wiped his face and then resumed her gentle stroking, never saying a word. He fell asleep like that. He had no idea what the morning would bring.

T
WO MONTHS HAD PASSED. BEFORE HE LEFT FOR
the store, Mildred said to Johnny Lee, “I'm doing the wash today and then gonna work in my garden for a while if it's time before the kids get home. Constance usually out at the same time, she'll probably see me out there.” He nodded. Since he'd found out, Mildred had begun volunteering information on what she was doing every day, whether he asked or not. At first he asked, but then he stopped and she kept on telling him anyway: an offering. He could tell things had changed by the dutiful way she moved about the house, the sad silence beneath her every movement, even as she spoke to him or the children, but he still accepted her offerings.

He was in the back mixing up something for the Foster baby's colic when he heard the bell. He went out front and sighed when he saw who was there. That old busybody Joe Moore. He was just like a woman, way he had to know every single thing that went on, who said what to who and when and what for. Seem like the man just came into the store to see who else would come in, not because he needed anything. Fool needed to get a job. He'd sit at the counter nursing a Coke all day and trying to pry stuff out of him. But Johnny Lee kept his mouth shut. That's what people valued about him. “Hey, Joe,” he said. “What can I do for you today? Anything different than I do any other day?” He laughed.

“Hey, Johnny Lee. I'm all right. Think I'm gonna have my usual. And gimme a pack of Sen-Sen and a copy of the paper. What you know good today?”

“Same as yesterday, my man, same as yesterday.” He busied himself getting the Coke and Sen-Sen and newspaper. Joe settled himself with a great rattling of paper and a lot of sipping and commenting on the stories there. Johnny Lee made noises of agreement. Didn't need to do much else for Joe. He just liked to know that he had half an ear.