April & Oliver (17 page)

Ken comes out of the house. “Time to go, baby cakes,” he says. “Ollie doesn’t want us here.”

Oliver straightens.

“Is that true?” April says. “Are you asking us to leave?”

“No,” Oliver says. “I never said that.”

“Let’s go,” Ken says.

She picks up her purse.

“April,” Oliver says. “I wish you’d stay.”

“Ken and I are together,” she says. “I thought you understood that.”

As they walk away, she hears Al say, “Good going, Oliver.”

When April gets into the passenger seat, she feels an ache like someone’s fingers pressing the back of her eyes. Why is she
such a fucking dramatist? Why can’t she be a normal person? Ken lets the tires screech as he lunges out of the parking space.
She leans her face in her hand.

“I don’t believe for a minute they’re your family,” Ken says. “You don’t even look like them.”

“I take after my father,” she says without looking up.

“I think Ollie has a thing for you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m going to take you for a little drive,” he says. “I know a special place.”

“No,” she says. “Not now.”

“You’re going to enjoy it,” he says. “Trust me.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“No? You’re sure dressed like you are. Or is that for your cousin, too?”

She feels herself go numb all at once, submerged.

“I was married once,” she says. “Did I ever tell you that?”

Ken glances at her. They are stopped at a light.

“My husband died.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ken says. “How’s that?”

“I slit his throat,” she says. “He fucked with me and I slit his throat.” It feels like the truth.

The light turns but Ken doesn’t move. “You’re crazy, lady. You’ve got a cuckoo family, and you’re the biggest nut of them
all.”

“Get out,” she says.

Ken laughs.

“Get out of my car before I kill you.”

Ken stares for a moment, dazed. He puts his hand on the door handle. April holds a breath. There is a ringing in her head,
like when she worked in a factory one summer and the deafening machines would come to a halt all at once, that mesmerizing
quiet, the startling ability to hear her own thoughts. If he gets out of the car, she thinks, her life will change.

A car honks and April flinches. Ken stares at her, a smile growing on his face. He accelerates. “You’ll kill me? Is that what
you said?”

He turns into the parking lot of a boarded-up grocery store, drives around to the back where the Dumpsters are. April opens
her door; Ken reaches across her and slams it shut. She feels a buzz in her brain like a distant chain saw.

Ken cuts the engine and lets the car roll to a quiet stop. It is dusk. She can hear sparrows clamoring in foliage beyond the
chain-link fence.

April did not notice the clouds massing, but now isolated drops splatter the windshield. Ken moves his palm down the length
of her hair and coils it around his fist like a rope. She thinks of Bernadette and Oliver rushing to bring the food indoors,
the ruined potato chips, laughter, the coals going out, the smell of wet clothing and her own panicky perspiration as they
hurtled down the water flume.

A frenzy of rain bombards the car, hammering the roof like fists, cascading in a thick, rapid blur down the windshield. April’s
hair is twisted in Kenny’s fist, but she tells herself he won’t strike. The big talkers never do. It’s the scrawny, inferior
guys who turn on you. Or the big dumb ones who never had a date in high school. Or the psychotics who can’t stop thinking
about their dead wives. Ken doesn’t fit into any of those categories. All he really wants is a blow job.

“Fuck off,” April tells him.

“That’s exactly what I had in mind.” Ken smiles.

But April is incapable of it. Maybe two years ago, maybe yesterday she could have, just to get him off her back, but something
has turned, like the day tequila—her drink of choice for years— suddenly became repulsive to her. “Not a chance,” she says.

“Come on,” he says, pulling her hair in a menacing tease. “You didn’t wear that skirt for nothing.” He opens his fly.

April sinks her fingernails into his wrist. Ken howls and lets go. “Bitch,” he cries. She grabs her keys from the ignition
and holds Buddy’s pocketknife, unopened, in her fist.

“Maniac,” he says, examining the fingernail marks on his wrist. “I bet you did kill your old man.”

For a fraction of a second April catches a glimpse of someone standing beside Ken’s window. She closes her eyes and hears
the explosive shattering of glass, pieces flying through the car, onto her clothing, into her hair. Rain wetting her face.
Blood trickling down the back of Kenny’s neck, blotting his shirt. The person outside the car drops whatever it was he used
to break the window.

Ken is breathing in a quick, shallow panic, hyperventilating. He stares at the glass, the tiny cuts on his arms, and sees
that his fly is still open. Tears well in his eyes as he flicks a shard of glass from his lap and zips.

The man opens the door and reaches in. His right hand is covered with small dark hairs, speckled with blood; the left is hairless,
pearly and smooth. He hauls Kenny out onto the pavement.

April gets out, feeling rain drill against her skin, saturating her clothing all at once. She can barely see.

By the time she reaches the other side of the car, Kenny is rolling on the ground, holding his side. T.J. stands beside him
wearing drenched blue jeans and heavy Western boots, his face knotted. He shifts his weight, poised to kick.

“No,” April shouts, lunging at him. She aims to shove him off balance, but T.J. stands his ground like a monument. He snatches
her arm.

“You want to defend him?” he says.

Be calm,
she thinks. Trying to push him was a mistake. “T.J.,” she says. “It’s not worth it. Let him go.”

He takes her other arm, gripping tightly. She tries not to wince.
Don’t concede anything,
she thinks. T.J.’s face is clenched like a baby about to wail, eyes narrowed to slits, shining with frustration. He looks
helpless and desolate, yet buoyant with rage, intensely awake. April averts her eyes. She can almost feel the weight of his
misery, a cinder block on her chest. She struggles for breath. Behind him, Ken stands up and takes a few steps. He stumbles
on the demolished camera T.J. used to break the window, gets to his feet again, and hobbles toward the far end of the lot.

T.J. doesn’t look. He stares at April, holding her arms. Her knees shake. Water glistening down the sides of his face makes
his scars blur together. “I thought you were different,” he says. “But you’re not.”

Keep breathing,
she thinks.

“Look at you,” he says. “Playing the bitch in heat.”

She almost laughs at the cliché, his lack of imagination. She remembers the time she was caught in a riptide and no one knew
because in her panic all she could do was giggle.

“Act like a slut and you’ll be treated like one,” he says, shaking her a little. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that?”

April licks her lips, clothes clinging to her. She feels his eyes moving over her body.

T.J. smiles painfully. April’s fingers are numb. She remembers the keys in her hand, the pocketknife. Can she open it one-handed?
“He might call the police,” she says, looking in the direction Kenny ran. “You don’t have much time to get away.”

T.J. releases her. She catches her breath.
Don’t rub your arms,
she thinks;
don’t give him the satisfaction
. She holds the keys in front of her with both hands, fingering the knife. T.J. glances in the direction Ken went. There is
no sign of him. Just behind the car is T.J.’s powder-blue pickup.

“Always were an easy liar,” he says. “I’ll give you that.” He lets go of her face, runs his hand through his dripping hair,
staring at her from head to toe. His chin quivers. She sees a flash of desire in his eyes. Or hatred. “I loved you,” he says.
“But you didn’t deserve it.”

“You loved Denise,” she says, maneuvering the knife. “You never saw me.”

T.J.’s reflex is instantaneous, his hand flying from his side to her face in a perfect arc. No thought, no decision, just
reflex. It is a kind of kinetic brilliance, physical perfection, pure efficacy inside a second. April never sees it. She is
on the ground, tasting blood in her mouth.

He points at her, his finger trembling.

As she gets to her knees, she sees herself arguing with her father, knowing it would end badly for her, but unable to stop.

She reaches for the fallen keys, but T.J. steps on them, staring down at her. He picks up the key chain and, seeing the pocketknife,
opens it. He tests the blade against his thumb, closes it again, and tosses it at her. “You should have thought to carry some
proper protection.” Reaching into his denim jacket, he pulls out a revolver. “Like this.”

April sways on her feet. She hears rain hissing on asphalt, pinging the hood of the car, thunder rumbling in the distance
like her father’s voice, her own breath. The gun is silver, slick and wet, small in T.J.’s hand. The regrets come at once,
countless and simultaneous—that the police, finding her body here, will likely assume her a prostitute; that even if it is
deemed murder, her family will construe it as a kind of suicide; and that Oliver’s last memory of her will be in this absurd
skirt, her face smug and cold, concealing everything.

T.J. places the revolver in April’s hands. She stares at it, confused. He steps closer, positioning it with the barrel pointed
at his chest. He caresses her fingers to stop them from shaking.

“No,” she says.

He leans into her, pressing her back against the car. His hand moves over hers on the gun, searching for the trigger. April
can’t breathe, terror sparking through her like an electrical current. With his free hand, T.J. touches her hip, her waist,
her breast, his face calm for the first time. Then he kisses her, crushing her against the car, the gun wedged between them.
She feels his tongue in her mouth, the taste of blood and rain, the handle of the pistol cutting into her rib, the tip pressed
to his sternum
.
He lifts her skirt.

“No.”

“Do it,” he says. “No one will blame you.”

But April doesn’t touch the trigger. She tries to splay her fingers, work them free of the weapon. Her voice is raspy, barely
there. “I won’t,” she says.

He lowers her skirt, smooths it down over her thigh, and stands back to see her. His face is different. Still pained, but
not twisted up like before. His eyes are more open, lips parted, expectant, like a boy. The rain is letting up. He runs his
fingers down her face, over her nose, the bruised lip. “I been to Kansas,” he says. “There’s work out there, and the living’s
so cheap, lots of people have their own horses.” He hesitates. “I remember you said when you were a kid, that’s all you ever
wanted.”

She swallows, clutching the car behind her.

“We could leave tonight. Be in Wichita by Thursday. All we need is gas.”

“T.J., put the gun away.”

He lowers it, holding it in his palm like a dead bird. “What’s the matter?” he says. “Don’t like horses anymore?”

April’s teeth chatter. She has never felt so cold. T.J. stuffs the revolver in his pocket and touches her face again with
the flat of his hand, feeling her like a blind person. “Should have pulled the trigger when you had the chance,” he says and
walks to his truck.

As he pulls away, April’s skin convulses in shivers, hands shaking as she reaches for her keys. The interior of the car is
covered with glass. She takes a blanket from the trunk and drapes it over the seat, tosses the demolished camera in the back,
and gets in. She drives home checking her rearview every few seconds, hands rattling on the wheel, rain stinging her face
from the shattered window.

Once in her apartment, she double-locks the door, closes the shades, stands over the garbage and shakes glass from her hair.
She throws out her skirt and runs a hot shower. Finally, when she is almost too weak to stand, she turns off the water, wraps
herself in her robe, and goes to the phone. She checks the number twice before punching the buttons. As she listens to the
endless pause between each ring, she thinks how easy it would be to hang up. Then the sound of a human voice on the other
end startles her. “Yes,” she hears herself say. “Detective Arredondo, please.”

A
PRIL LOOKS IN THE MIRROR
, gliding her finger over the temporary cap in the side of her mouth. The color does not match her real teeth; she wonders
if it is noticeable when she smiles. The dentist was suspicious, of course, but everyone buys her clumsy stories eventually;
they don’t want to think otherwise. Next she examines the bruise, patting it gently with concealing cream. It’s important
not to use too much or the caking is a giveaway.

Hoping to catch a three o’clock bus to the collision shop, she glances at her watch. It was cheaper to replace the whole door
with one from a junkyard than to have a new window installed. With luck they found a white one to match the car, or she’s
in for a lot of questions. She opens the refrigerator, stares, and closes it again; she hasn’t been able to eat more than
a piece of toast for two days.

April pushes the button on her answering machine and replays Oliver’s message: “Hey, April, it’s Oliver. I, uh, just wanted
to say I’m sorry about yesterday. Do me a favor and give me a ring so I know you got home okay.”

She ought to have called back yesterday, but she wanted to wait until now, when she figures he’s not home. His machine picks
up. “It’s April,” she says, trying to sound cheerful, but it’s not in her. “I’m sorry for putting a damper on your party.
And yes, I got home fine.”

When April arrives at her grandmother’s the next day for her weekly hair setting, Nana is in the alcove off the living room,
scrounging through a pile of pictures. The nook was an addition, built as a cantilever off the face of the house, overlooking
the busy street. The floor sags, and April wonders how long before the whole thing collapses. Nana is wearing a pink shower
cap pulled down over her ears.