Broken Wings (8 page)

“Robin, did you take Cory’s money?”

“No,” I said.

“She’s lying. You can see it in her face.”

“Robin?”

“No,” I said. She shook her head.

“I’m so sorry, Cory. I’ll give it to you,” she told him.

“I didn’t take it. You don’t have to give it to him.”

“You see what I’ve been livin‘ with,” she told him.

“I have some money left over from what you gave me,” I told her. “I don’t need anything from him.”

Before either of them could say another word, I left the apartment and went down to the laundry. All I could think was Kathy Ann spent her whole time at that front window because she saw me and came over to the laundry a second or two after I began to load in the sheet and blanket.

“Tell me what really happened,” she said.

“Just what my sister said.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I wanted it and I didn’t have enough money for it. You never stole anything?”

“Not like that,” she replied, shaking her head. “I’d be too scared. I was amazed at how you stole those cigarettes last night. Were you ever caught before?”

“Not often,” I told her. “I should have kept some of those cigarettes. You have any?”

“Sure,” she said, and dug one out of her shirt pocket. She lit one for herself too, and we sat there watching the washing machine churn away. “How is your sister punishing you?” she wanted to know.

“I’m not supposed to leave the apartment complex until she says it’s all right.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

“But she’s going to be busy nights, singing with the band. They have a job or a gig, as they call it.”

“So you’ll sneak out anyway?”

“What do you think?”

“Wow,” she said, and looked at me as if I was some sort of celebrity myself. “Where are you going to go?”

“I have to have a dent in my head fixed.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t tell you the truth when you asked me how I had gotten home last night. I went to see Keefer Dawson and he drove me here.”

“You didn’t?”

“All right, I didn’t.”

“Wow,” she said again.

Yes, I thought. Wow.

She sat with me until I was finished with my sheet and blanket and pillowcase. Now that she knew more about what had happened, she had a laundry list of questions to ask about my life in Ohio. I told her as much as I could. I wanted her to think I was taking her into my confidence because I had a favor I needed from her.

“You weren’t going anywhere tonight, were you?” I asked her.

“No. Why?”

“Can you do me a little favor?”

“Sure,” she said, excited that I was taking her into my confidence.

“Come up to my apartment to hang out.”

“Oh, sure. I’d like that.”

“And when my sister calls to see if I’m there, if she should, tell her I’m in the bathroom. As long as you answer the phone, she’ll believe it.”

“You mean you won’t be there?”

“No, silly,” I said. “I’ll be fixing my dent.”

She made an O with her mouth and nodded, and then she smiled at me.

“Wow,” she said.

Maybe that would become my new name, I thought. Wow.

After I made the bed with the fresh sheet, pillowcase, and blanket, I joined Mother darling and Cory, who were eating take-out Chinese Cory had had delivered. Mother darling was not much of a cook. I was a better cook than she was, in fact, because I was around Grandma more when she made our meals, and she taught me. “Your mother was never interested in learning any of this,” she said. “All she wanted to do was sing and hang out with nobodies.”

I smiled to myself, remembering that.

“You better sit down and eat ‘fore it gets cold, Robin,” Mother darling told me.

I plopped onto a seat, petulantly. Cory was feeding his face as fast as he could scoop the noodles, chicken, and shrimp into his mouth.

“You’re really in serious trouble now, Robin. I hope you appreciate the situation and behave.”

I picked up a fork and started to serve myself some food. Cory glanced at me and then burped.

“What she needs is a job,” he said, “but with her history, I don’t know nobody who’d hire her, except a pickpocket.”

“He’s right, Robin. That’s somethin‘ we should think about. You have weeks and weeks yet before school starts here.”

“I can’t look for work if I’m locked up in the apartment, now can I?”

She thought a moment.

“We’ll buy a paper and see what sort of work’s out there and then we’ll see about how to apply.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” I said.

“Damn girl, if you was my daughter…”

“I’d commit suicide,” I finished, and he sat with his mouth open for a moment and then shook his head and got up.

“I’m gettin‘ ready to go,” he told Mother darling.

“Why are you so mean to him?” Mother darling whispered. “Don’t you realize we’d have nothin‘ and be nowhere if he wasn’t helpin’ me? The least you can do is show him some respect and appreciation, Robin.”

“What? He—”

“Don’t start,” she snapped. “If you can’t be nice, then just don’t be anythin‘. Just keep your mouth shut, hear?”

I pushed the food away and pouted.

“I don’t have time to baby you now, Robin. I’ve got to make a career happen. You’re just goin‘ to have to grow up or suffer the consequences. Meanwhile, you clean up,” she declared, and left to follow Cory.

I sat fuming until I heard them come out of their bedroom.

“I’ll be callin‘ you first break I get, Robin,” Mother darling said. “Least you could do is wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” I spit back at her.

After they were gone, I cleared off the table and washed the silverware and dishes. I began to think Kathy Ann wasn’t going to come up to the apartment, but she finally did appear.

“When are you coming back?” she asked.

“I’ll be back before midnight,” I said. “I won’t forget this favor.”

“Can’t you be arrested for leaving the apartment?” she wanted to know.

“No. You’re not guilty of anything until the court says.”

“I was never in a courtroom,” she told me, as if she had been denied some pleasure that all girls our age had already enjoyed.

“Lucky you,” I said.

“Does Keefer know you’re going to see him?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“I told Charlotte Lily about you. She was very interested.”

“Like I care,” I said.

“Bring me back a chocolate bar with nuts. My stepmother threw every piece of candy out of the house today.”

“Axel will like you more if you lose weight.”

“That’s not what he said. He said he likes a woman with something to grab on her.”

“Okay,” I said. “One chocolate bar with nuts.”

I was getting away cheaply, I thought, and after I put on the skirt I had bought with Cory’s money and found a blouse that came close to the one I had stolen, I went to the bathroom to fix my hair and put on some lipstick. Then I started to leave before Kathy Ann could change her mind. Fortunately, she was already hooked on a television program.

“Call me,” she said as I started toward the front door, “and let me know what’s happening.”

“Will do. Don’t forget. I’m in the bathroom, and if she calls again, say I’ve got the runs. She’ll believe that.”

“I bet you’ve been lying all your life, haven’t you?”

I thought a moment.

“No, my whole life’s been a lie,” I told her. She smiled in confusion.

“Huh?”

“Thanks, Kathy Ann. I owe you,” I said, and left quickly.

I had to wait longer for the bus and at one point wondered if I should try hitching a ride. Finally, it came. I went directly to the shop, but stopped dead in my tracks when I turned the corner and looked at the building. There were no lights on like there had been the night before. Disappointment settled over me like a leaden cape. I felt like crying. Then I remembered Keefer saying he had an apartment behind the shop.

I went around the building and saw a small window with a light on behind it. What if he was with someone? I thought. It would be very embarrassing for both of us. I should have called him first. Feeling timid now, I went to the window and peeked through the flimsy curtain. I saw it was as he had described: a single room with a pullout sofa, a small stove and sink on the right, and a television set across from the sofa. There was a table with two chairs as well. The walls were bare. The truth was, it looked more like some sort of a storage room that had been converted into a living space. The floor was bare, and the only light came from two lamps. How depressing, I thought.

“See anything you like?” I heard, and nearly jumped out of my skin.

I turned, holding my breath. There was Keefer, a bag of groceries in his arms. When he saw it was me, he broke into a big smile.

“Robin, what the hell are you doin‘?”

“I was just seeing if you were in, or if you had any company,” I explained.

He nodded.

“Company? Here? It’s just me, myself, and I,” he told me. “What are you doin‘ here?”

“I had to get away from my place,” I said. “I got into trouble today.”

“Oh? C’mon inside then and tell me about it. I love to hear about trouble.”

He opened the door, and I followed him into the one-room apartment. He had a very small refrigerator, actually more like a portable thing. He had to bend down to put his food in it. He took two quarts of beer out of bis bag and put one in the refrigerator.

“Beer?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Now that I was inside, I felt even more depressed. The walls seemed to close in, and I could hear what sounded like a leaking pipe in the wall.

“There’s a couple of rats livin‘ here, too,” he said, seeing how I was listening. “Friendly. I even put out some cheese for them.”

“Keefer!”

“I’m just kiddin‘. That’s the hot water heater. So, tell me about your trouble,” he said, pouring me a glass of beer. He sat beside me and I described it all. He went from a smile to a serious face and then a very pensive look.

“I doubt they’d send you to jail,” he said, “but you will get some sort of probation. You don’t need a lawyer. Tell your sister to just throw you on the mercy of the court.”

“How do you know so much about it?”

He poured himself another glass of beer, filled mine again, and smiled.

“I wasn’t exactly an Eagle Scout myself.” He stopped smiling. “Only when I got home, my daddy didn’t just tell me to stay put. He took his belt out and gave me welts that lasted for a month.”

“What had you done?”

“Stole a car,” he said nonchalantly. “Just for a joyride.”

“Was that when you had your fight with your father?”

“Who told you about that?”

“KathyAnn.”

“Yeah, I had a real fistfight with my father. I didn’t do well. He nearly broke my cheek bone, in fact, but I wouldn’t stop until he backed off. He knew he had to kill me to get me to stop, and that’s when he told me to get out and stay out, winch is just what I did. He never wanted me anyway. I wasn’t just an accident, I was a train wreck as far as my father was concerned.”

He finished the beer in his glass and poured another. I stared at him long enough for him to widen his eyes and say, “What?”

“I’m living a lie here,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not here with my sister. I’m here with my mother. She makes me say she’s my sister because she wants music people to think she’s younger than she is.”

“Oh. Then that story about the plane crash…”

“I just made that up on the spur of the moment to tell Kathy Ann something.”

“Well, what about your father?”

“Your father could be my father for all I know,” I said. His eyes widened more. “No, I’m kidding, but not as much as you think. My mother can’t be sure who made me. She was high on something at a wild party, and she says she was with more than one man the same night.”

“Wow,” Keefer said.

“That seems to be a popular word around here, or maybe just around me.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” I said. I finished my beer. “I guess you and I are more alike than I first thought, only you’re lucky. You got away.”

“Got away? To this?” He looked around the room. “No, ma’am, this isn’t luck. It’s a stopover on the way to something better, I hope.”

I held out my glass and he filled it again.

“What made you want to come to see me after all this?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“You mend things that are banged around, dented, and broken, don’t you?”

He laughed, and then he looked at me long and hard before leaning over to do what I wished he would from the moment I saw him sitting in a pool of sparks.

He kissed me.

And I kissed him back, harder and longer than I had ever kissed anyone.

In my mind the sparks were flying all around us.

“You sure you want to get mixed up with the likes of me?” Keefer asked before he kissed me again.

“I could ask you the same question,” I replied. He liked that.

“Girls like Charlotte Lily always make me feel small, feel like something disposable.”

I saw how angry he became just thinking about it, so I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips.

“I’m not Charlotte Lily,” I told him, and the smile returned to his face.

“You sure ain’t,” he said, put his beer glass down, and kissed me on the cheek, the neck, and the lips while he turned me in so he could embrace me more easily. I felt his hands move down to the zipper on my skirt.

“I don’t want to get pregnant,” I said.

“Don’t worry, you won’t,” he promised. He paused, took out his wallet, and then took out a contraceptive.

He held it up as if he was showing off a diamond in the lamplight. My heart was pounding. He thinks I’ve done this before, I thought. I was going to tell him I hadn’t, but he kissed me again and then began to slowly undress me, kissing every naked part of me he uncovered until he stood up and undid his pants while he looked down at me and said, “You’re really beautiful, Robin.”

My heart was pounding so, I could barely breathe. When he was beside me, I finally confessed. He hesitated so long, I thought he was going to stop, but then he smiled and said, “You’ll never forget me then. Women never forget the first man.”