Burning for You (Blackwater) (3 page)

She points her plastic fork over to
the wall where a wedding picture of Heidi and her husband Jack hangs.  “Your
sister is two years older than you and can wear a size two!  Imagine that!”

“Mom, Heidi is anorexic.  She
doesn’t get points for that.”

“Leah,” she says in a warning
tone.  “Your sister does not have an eating disorder.  It’s not her fault she
has a sensitive stomach.”

Coincidentally after every meal, I
think to myself.  I know it’s futile to argue with her, though, so I keep my
mouth shut.  It’s as though she’s purposely trying to drive me crazy.  She
always seemed to antagonize me when I lived at home, and it’s apparent that as
an adult, she won’t treat me any differently.  Carlton rubs himself against my
legs, purring and letting me know that while I am not in the mood for dinner,
he would prefer not to skip a meal.  I help myself to a dish from a cabinet and
reach in my purse for a can of cat food and pop it open.  My mother’s nose
turns up instantly.

“Honestly Leah, with your asthma,
it’s a wonder you don’t get rid of that cat,” she points out.  “It’s almost
like smoking a cigarette.”

“Carlton doesn’t bother me, do you
Carlton?” I say, stooping down to give him his dinner.  I tip the solidified
gelatinous blob of wet food onto the plate from my mother’s cabinet.  He lets
me pet him for a few seconds as he digs in but gives me a “bitch, I’m hungry”
look with a low growl and I leave him alone.  “I know how you feel about cats,
Mother, and I promise that first thing tomorrow I will be looking for my own
apartment.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,
Leah,” she says in a hollow way, but I’m secretly relieved to hear it.  I’m
flat broke and I’m not too sure about my job prospects right now.  “Stay as
long as you need to.  Why get something as permanent as an apartment when you
might not stay in Blackwater for very long?”

I glare at her, immediately
suspicious.  “Why wouldn’t I stay in Blackwater for very long?”

She fidgets with her hair in the
back of her head, even though it hasn’t moved since 1986.  “Your divorce isn’t
final, which means Michael might take you back.”

I sigh loudly and do everything in
my power not to reach across the counter and slap her.  “Mother, I will be
signing divorce papers within the week.  Michael doesn’t want me back and has
it occurred to you that perhaps I don’t want him back?  Why does it seem like
you’ve never wanted me to stay in Blackwater?”

She freezes.  “Leah, I never-“

  “You’ve been driving me out since
before I left, and it worked once, and I was happy, but guess what?  I failed. 
I failed at marriage, like you did with Dad.”

“That’s enough, Leah!”

I pause, chewing on the inside of
my cheek in frustration.  “I’m sorry Mother.  I’m tired.  I’m upset.  I should
probably just go to bed.”

“Perhaps you should,” is all she
says, which makes me want to throw her Lean Cuisine at the white wall. 
Avoiding conflict as usual, I can always count on my mother for that.  “Why
don’t you set up in your old bedroom for tonight and you can decide whether
it’s comfortable or not.  Heidi’s mattress is nicer, I know, and since she’s
not using it, perhaps you might want to switch to her room.”

“My old room is fine,” I say,
shuddering at the thought of spending a whole night in Heidi’s baby blue
bedroom of dirty little secrets.  She probably still has a binge stash and
laxatives in there somewhere.  “I’m pretty tired, and I think I’ll turn in now
and catch up on sleep.”  She nods, relieved I’m dismissing her for now and I
scoop up Carlton and make for my old bedroom.  Carlton hisses because he hasn’t
finished licking the microscopic pieces of cat food off of the plate.  I
realize that my mother will actually have to wash a dish and feel smug about
leaving it behind. 

My bedroom has been kept as a
shrine to me, I note, and I’m reminded of how young and angsty I was when I
left Blackwater.  I take in the Misfits and Descendants posters, the purple
curtains I covered my windows with and the matching purple shaggy rug that has
definitely seen better days.  Even the hardwood underneath the rug has been
left alone, unlike the rest of the house.  My bed is the same, the duvet cover
silky and familiar against my hand as I stroke the material nostalgically.  I
can practically smell the cheese popcorn I used to eat in this bed, a favorite
habit of mine I’ve still maintained.  It annoyed Michael to no end when he’d
find kernels in the sheets.

I roll over my suitcase and toss
Carlton down on the hardwood floor.  He lands with a “thud” and looks at me,
annoyed, and lumbers up to the bed to do his favorite thing – take up space.  I
can’t help but laugh at how he attempts to gracefully jump onto furniture but
usually gets stuck midway and has to claw the rest of the way up.  He leaves a
few nice holes in the duvet and I laugh even more.  “Make yourself at home,” I
tell him as I unzip my suitcase and eye the few contents I bothered to bring
with me.  I strip down and throw on an oversized t-shirt advertising a bar I’d
been to once in Chicago, and a pair of Michael’s old boxer briefs that I
adopted as my own for sleeping purposes.      

Not even three hours back home and
I’m already having difficulty breathing.  It’s not asthma related, either.  It
started with the accident, and that man…Ash.  I lay back and close my eyes and
try to picture him.  I see his dark eyes, his full lips, and I smell him.  It’s
a sulfur kind of smell, actually, weird and unpleasant.  My eyes pop open, my
vision disturbed by Carlton’s ass trying to plop down on my hair.  “Get off,” I
say, shoving him over a bit.  He howls but complies.  Monday I intend to get a
job and a place to live and get the fuck out of here.  My mother isn’t even
trying to get along with me, and we can only take so much of each other before
an explosion occurs.  It won’t be pretty.  I plan to try my best to make sure
it doesn’t come to that, and that means finding my own place and a job to pay
for it.  Perhaps I can stay with Heidi, except now she’s married with a husband
and I’m sure they don’t want me around either.  Besides, it’s not as though I
ever got along with Heidi any better than my mother.  They’re like peas in a
pod, so alike in looks and attitude.  It’s horrible to feel unwelcome pretty
much everywhere you can go in your own hometown.

As for a job, I have no idea what
to expect in that department.  I spent four years as a claims adjuster for a
small local health insurance company in Chicago but doubt I could find
something like that here.  Chicago is a big city full of jobs and opportunity. 
Blackwater is a black hole of becoming a Stepford wife or wishing you were
someplace else. 

I hope my mother still gets a newspaper. 
First thing tomorrow I’ll be checking the classifieds, if Blackwater even has
those.  Oh, and calling my insurance company about Betsey.  Poor Betsey.  I’m
so tired I can’t even cry about it, so instead I just decide to pass out and care
tomorrow.

I wake up to the sound of
vacuuming, which is odd since my mother’s domestic skills are completely
nonexistent.  Then it occurs to me.  “Isabel,” I whisper, throwing my legs over
the side of my bed and running out the door of my room.

There she is in the hallway, all of
five feet tall, with dark blonde hair to her waist that billows in a silken
curtain with each thrust of the vacuum.  She wears a lime green velour track
suit with “ISABEL” written down the leg in dark green rhinestones.  Her feet
are bare and her toenails are pedicured to match her track suit, completely
“blinged” out in lime green rhinestones.  She turns at the sound of my door
opening and grins, showing even white teeth and sparkling green eyes. 

Isabel is a Romanichal gypsy and
told me once that she ran away and married her third cousin when she was
fifteen.  She has also never had a drink of alcohol, which I find more
appalling than marrying her cousin.  She came to work for our family when she
was nineteen and had run away from her husband, who apparently used to beat
her.  Ours isn’t the only family she cleans for, but when I was growing up I
considered her mine since she mainly lived with us from since I could remember
up until I was twelve.  Now she has her own apartment in Blackwater.  Even
though her hair and eyes are light, her skin is a golden brown.  When I was
younger, I thought she was the most beautiful woman alive.  She’s never been
married again since leaving her husband, saying that her community shuns girls
who leave their husbands and won’t marry a girl who isn’t “pure”.  Frankly, I
don’t think Isabel is the kind of person who needs to be married.  She’s
wonderful as she is.

We embrace like old friends.  Even
though she’s twenty years older than me, she practically looks my age.  I tell
her this and she laughs.  “Gypsy blood,” she remarks, holding me at arm’s
length and looking up at me.  “You never stopped growing,” she says.  “I told
you to stop, and you didn’t listen.”

“I can’t help being tall,” I laugh,
thrilled to see her again.  “You should have started growing.  You make my neck
hurt looking down so far.”

“You make my neck hurt!” she
exclaims.  “Oh, but something has changed in you,” she continues, her mood sobering
almost instantly, her green eyes darkening. 

“I left my husband,” I tell her. 
“And I’m filing for divorce.”

She shakes her head.  “No, no,
that’s not it,” she says.  “That’s a weight off your shoulders.  I know it is. 
Best thing I ever did was leave Paul.  It’s something else.”  She takes my
hands in hers and holds them to her forehead and I sigh.  I know where this is
going.

Isabel has the gift of “sight”. 
It’s hard to explain, but the best way I can is to call her a fortune teller. 
She does cards and palms and tea leaves, but she says that’s all for show,
mostly.  It made for some interesting ladies’ lunches at our house.  I believe
she can read tea leaves and tarot cards and palms, but I don’t think she
actually needs them.  I think they’re just props or extra confirmation of what
she already knows.  Before I left for Chicago, she said I would be back, but
not for a while, and she was absolutely right.  But it’s other things.  She
always knew whether Heidi and I would do well on a test.  She knew if someone
we knew would be in an accident, or sick, or hurt.  She knew my father would
leave before we did, or maybe even before he did.

“You met someone,” she says.  She
quietly puts my hands down and looks up at me.  Her glowing eyes look haunted. 
“Your catalyst.”

“My what?” I ask stupidly.  “What
the heck is a catalyst?  I suck at science, Isabel, you know that.  Remember
when Mr. Dworkin told me never to take science again, if I could help it?”

“I told your mother to teach you
these things, but she would never listen,” Isabel sighs, leaning on the vacuum
cleaner dramatically.  “I’m almost done up here.  Go downstairs to the kitchen
and see what you can dig up in that bare fridge downstairs and fix us something
to eat.  Not a Lean Cuisine.  Real food.  Then we’ll talk.”

“I’ll probably have to order a
pizza,” I joke.  Isabel rolls her eyes and switches the vacuum back on,
returning to the hallway carpet.

I pad downstairs, looking for signs
of my mother but see a note from her.  “Went to lunch with Renee.  Back in a
few hours.”  Renee is Renee Dubois, my mother’s best friend.  Her daughter
Eleanor is my age, and the three of us were often thrown together to play. 
Eleanor and I got along pretty well.  We would bond by making fun of Heidi
together, mostly because Heidi is insane.  I look up at the clock, wondering
how it could be lunchtime already, but there it is, past noon.  I can’t
remember the last time I slept so long, but a five hour drive and an emotional
day wiped me out.  I’d planned my escape from Michael for some time.  Now that
it was finally executed, I wondered how long it would take for the shit to hit
the fan.  So far he hasn’t called, which puts me on edge.  I’d almost rather
hear from him and know what his reaction is than expecting to see him pop out
from around every corner.  Just thinking about it makes my heart pound and my
throat clench up in fear, and so instead I attempt to distract myself with
food.

Except of course there’s
practically nothing to eat, which is revealed when I open the fridge.  The
cliché bottle of ketchup and box of baking soda are there, as well as twelve
stocked cans of cold Diet Coke.  Upon further inspection, I do find six eggs, a
stick of butter that very well may be expired, some heavy cream, a block of
white mystery cheese and two apples.  I take those out and smile, realizing
that all of the things I need to make the only thing I actually know how to
cook are here.  I inspect the butter and see the expiration date is still in
the future, and my memory serves me well enough to locate a bowl, a whisk, a
frying pan and two plates.  I help myself to a Diet Coke as I start to cook,
cracking the eggs into a bowl, adding a generous amount of heavy cream, salt,
pepper and small chunks of butter into the eggs.  I’ll make French eggs for
Isabel’s and my lunch.  I even find some truffle oil to coat the pan, which is
something I haven’t indulged in since I left Blackwater.  As the egg mixture
bubbles and solidifies on the frying pan, I cut chunks of cheese and the apples
up into slices on a wooden chopping board and lay them out on the plates.  In
three minutes, the eggs are done.  I serve them on the two plates and set them
on the small kitchen table, built to seat four people.  The likely truth is
that four people haven’t sat at this table since my dad left.

Isabel has finished upstairs and
comes to sit with me at the table, grabbing a Diet Coke out of the fridge
first.  I watch her pop it open, wondering how she can open a can without
breaking her perfectly manicured and blinged out acrylic nails.  She uses her
fork to cut into the eggs and takes a bite.  She moans dramatically.  “You
always did make the best French eggs.”