Everyday People (14 page)

“Who's my good boy?” she asked Rashaan, lowering her nose to his. “Who's my bestest, goodest little boy?”

Later, when Vanessa had come and gone, she went back into the living room.
Oprah
was over. It was suppertime. She looked in the fridge, then searched the freezer for a tin of macaroni and cheese. She struggled with the plastic wrap, lifted off the cardboard instructions, preheated the oven to 400. It would be dark in another hour, the world shrunk to a room, a light, the book she was reading.

Outside, the Coleman children were squealing, running Joey into a lather. She stood at the window, a hand gathering back the drapes. The dog knocked one of the littler girls
over, and she sat on the sidewalk, bawling and cradling her hand. Miss Fisk thought she should go out and help, but in a minute the girl's brother came by and knelt down, examining her like a doctor.

And then Miss Fisk was on the porch—oh, years ago, when Benny had just come from Milwaukee. He'd been riding some other boy's bike and lost control, and his palms were torn raw. The scrapes were filled with grit and she had to take him in to the sink and scrub them with hot, soapy water. He screamed and wrenched back and she had to pin him against the counter with her body, grip his wrists hard under the running water as he struggled. “It's the only way,” she said, trying not to be angry with him. When she was done, he looked up at her, trembling, tears leaking out his eyes as if he didn't understand how she could be so mean. “Oh, baby,” she said, “I'm sorry. Come here.” She went to her knees and held him then, saying she was sorry, that she loved him. Didn't he know that? He had to know that.

“Benny,” she said. “Baby, please.”

“I know that,” he said, and she crushed him against her, grateful—oh yes, blessed—vowing that as long as he was with her, she would never let anything hurt him ever again.

DID HE THINK
she didn't know everything? Did he honestly think that? She knew. She knew everything from the beginning and even before that. There are things a man does when he's in love, her mother taught her, ways he makes it known before he even knows it himself. Shaving every day, taking special care of his hair. Trimming his eyebrows with her scissors and then leaving the evidence right there by the sink. Smelling different. Did he really think she was that stupid?

The sheer disrespect of it made Jackie work faster. She killed the last one in the stack and waved to Sandy, standing by with the cart.

“Ready over here,” she said.

“Go 'head, Jacks,” Sandy said, and passed her another bundle of checks from the metal basket. She whipped the rubber band from it and dug in, punching up the numbers, double-checking them against the deposit number of the other bank or sometimes Mellon Bank's own familiar green
ink stamp. The room was bright and filled with the clicking of keys and the constant hum of the printer. They weren't allowed to have the radio on—too many mistakes. Around her wrist Jackie had three rubber bands, meaning she'd done three bundles tonight, each worth thirty dollars. It was the beginning of the month, a busy time for them. Rent, electric, credit cards, car policies; they all came due at the same time. She wondered where people got the money.

Sometimes it was plain by the address on their checks. You had to know the city zip codes, the streets. People from Sewickley came from money, or people from Squirrel Hill. You didn't see a seventy-five-dollar cable bill from someone in East Liberty. But there were always surprises. Last month Jackie had entered one for sixty thousand dollars to Rohrich Cadillac by a man from Garfield. Paid in full. Walked right in, signed his name and drove it away. How many times in her life had Jackie heard their song on WAMO—
Sit back, relax, in a Rohrich Cadillac
—thinking how ridiculous buying a new one would be. Yet here was proof that people did just that, cash money—and someone from Garfield.

Tonight's weren't half as glamorous, a steady succession of water bills and magazine renewals. A speeding ticket, the signature a vicious squiggle, the pen digging into the paper, nearly tearing it.

How would she put it to Harold? Part of her wanted to just pack her bags while he was at work and leave a note, but another part of her craved the satisfaction of saying it to his face, telling him this was her house, that he could leave right now. Think you're slick, think you're all that. So you
want to give up this good thing for some little tramp—after all the good years I gave you? Then you go right ahead but you had best know it's gonna cost you. I will get everything I can, cause I do not deserve this, do you understand? Every red cent, you can bet on it.

Who was she kidding? All they had was bills, and with Chris it was just going to get worse.

The money wasn't the point. Maybe she wasn't the girl she once was, but look at him, gone gray and slack years ago, never could dance a lick, all herky-jerky. Had to teach him everything about loving, even how to kiss, and then he went and quit on her. Only thing he did anymore was lie on the couch and watch TV, say he was taking a walk and come back late from the Liberty stinking of whiskey and cigarettes, Lord knows who he was with. Then he'd drop off to sleep like an old dog, twitching, mumbling things she couldn't make out, and she'd lie there silent, wide awake now, untouched and unwanted, like she wasn't good enough anymore, like she'd gone bad sometime, spoiled on him.

Goddamn that man. After she'd had his babies. How could he do this to Chris? Forget about her—didn't he know that Chris needed both of them now?

It was because of Chris that he'd stayed this long, she thought. Eugene too. Probably got tired of looking for a good time to leave, realized there was no such thing. But it was true: He was leaving them as much as he was leaving her. It made her hate him even more. Nothing lower than a man, her mother used to say, and Jackie had to admit she was right again.

She punched in a check from some woman to Kroger's and thought about how she needed to go shopping, how she needed to plan her meals for next week. Heaven knew no one else was going to do it.

She should go on strike, she thought, just stop doing what she did for him.

Think he'd notice? Ha.

Maybe after his clothes started piling up and smelling all funky and there was nothing to eat in the house.

The thought of it made her smile wickedly, but would it really change anything?

No, nothing would. He did not want her. He made that clear to her every second they were together. They didn't talk in bed anymore the way they used to, going over the day and its little pleasures, their worries and dreams for the boys. When she talked about her work she could see he wasn't listening. It was boring, she knew that, a roomful of canceled checks, but how many Nabisco stories had she sat through? It was rude, and she told him so, but then all he did was nod along, waiting for her to be done.

“Forget it,” she said.

“No,” he said, “finish telling it.”

What's the difference, she wanted to say. You're not interested.

Aw baby, of course I am, he'd say, and then he would roll over to face her and take her warm in his arms and make love to her like a good man should. I was just tired, he'd say. I was just thinking how pretty you looked.

No. He slept and she lay awake, night after night.

She concentrated on the pile, dipped the orange rubber thimble in the little tin of Tacky-Finger for a better grip. Someone was buying antiques, someone else was paying off a car loan. Here was a check with a lighthouse background, here was a tabby cat licking its paw. Downstairs they would be sorted and shipped back to the people who wrote them so at the end of the month they could balance their checkbooks or just toss them in the garbage. Planes full of them took off every night, headed west to Chicago and Denver, the big Treasury banks, while she lay there listening for the frosty rush of their engines.

It could not go on like this. Her mother didn't raise a fool. She just needed to decide on the right way to go about it. The funny thing was it helped her work. The last few weeks she'd been the fastest, the rubber bands piling up on her wrist.

Sandy saw she was almost done and rolled the cart over. “'nother one?”

“No,” Jackie said. “Four's enough for me,” though she could have fit another one in. There was twenty minutes left. She'd get home early, have it out with him now. It made sense. She'd put it off too long already.

She peeled off her thimble, capped her Tacky-Finger, and tidied her work station of stray paper. In the bathroom, washing her hands, she peered at herself in the mirror. In the cold light, she could see she was too old, her skin pouchy and lined beneath the eyes. She didn't try a smile, knowing what thirty years of coffee drinking had done to her teeth. Even her eyes seemed yellow tonight, a dot of blood in one
of them, chocolate syrup dropped in milk. She backed away and the water went off automatically.

How she looked was not the problem, she thought at the bus stop, watching the clouds cross the stars. She'd looked like this the last ten years and she didn't hear any complaints then. It was that she was being compared to someone else now, that he'd gone shopping behind her back. He wouldn't look so good against Denzel either, now would he?

Young, that's what he'd want, just like her father. Some little hoochie at work, probably on the same line with him. Thin and pretty, not a thought in her head. Low-class trash. If that's what he wanted, he could have it. Girl would turn around and leave him like he deserved. Then he'd come crawling back, and guess what, she wouldn't listen to a word of it, hunh-unh. Change the locks on him so he'd holler at the door till Mr. Linney called the cops. Whyn't you go back to your nasty little bitch? I thought that's what you wanted, cause you
sure
weren't interested in what I got.

The bus rolled up and she climbed on, flashing her pass. It was mostly empty, so she took a seat up front, close by the driver, her bag in her lap. Across from her sat an older couple, dressed for a night on the town. The woman was her mother's age, with a wig and big pearl earrings that had to be fake. She was sleeping against her husband, her lips brushing his pink carnation. The man had a long scarf, a walking stick and gleaming patent-leather shoes. He smiled at Jackie with perfect dentures, and she nodded back, but secretly she was jealous, as if their happiness were rightfully hers.

It was Harold's fault, not theirs, just as it was not her mother's fault her father had left them. Don't you ever be
surprised, her mother said. A man will do anything anytime for any reason at all. A dog'll eat anything, doesn't matter if it's hungry.

She was tired, and so she silently agreed, sat there looking over their heads as the bus rocked along, stopping at the stops. They passed through the Hill, the bright lights of downtown giving way to dark blocks of row houses, vacant lots and chain-link fence, a stripped car under an overpass. Why did people have to be like that, she thought. No more sense than to go messing up their own homes. Least they can be is clean.

At Negley, the dressed-up couple got off, tottering arm in arm. A number of the old hotels were apartment buildings now, some of them fancy nursing homes. She was glad the two of them had their own place, that they could still get around with their senior-citizen passes. Her mother had stopped going out after a while, and her sister Daphne had to go over every day to check on her, make sure she was eating. Had the Meals on Wheels for a little bit but she didn't like it, said it was always cold. Finally Daphne had to take her in. It was only Indiana, but they never seemed to visit her. Harold had work, the kids had school, there was always something. They made it for Christmas and Easter, all four of them crammed into the guest bedroom. Jackie flew out herself when her mother was dying, then Harold drove the boys in for the funeral. A month later, Daphne sent Jackie a list of furniture and jewelry to choose from; she could have first pick, Daphne said, and this shamed her more than anything. She took just the love seat from the parlor and her jade bracelet, neither of which she really looked at anymore.

Her father was gone, possibly dead. Her mother had lost track of him. The last they'd heard, in the mid-eighties, he was in Europe—doing what, no one was sure.

Her mother would say: Don't treat a man too good, he'll only get used to it. She said: You need to keep him on his toes all the time.

Well, she had experience, didn't she? Nothing teaches like it, Jackie thought. No sir, no ma'am.

But her mother always liked Harold, that was the thing. She always talked like Melvin would be catting around on Daphne because he was a salesman, a fast talker driving all over the Midwest in his shiny Chrysler. Harold she liked because he was quiet and modest, tender with the children. He called her Mrs. Maynard, and for some reason she thought that was the most charming thing.

They turned onto Penn Circle, the bus leaning into the endless curve, the big diesel growling. Outside, trapped inside the ring, East Liberty flew by in the night, glowing under a halo of streetlights—the steeple of the old Presbyterian Church and the closed Sears towering above the other buildings. Again she thought of the shopping she needed to do, what to have for supper tomorrow.

Ham and cheesy potatoes. Lima beans, except Chris hated them. Biscuits and alaga syrup.

She wouldn't do it. She'd go on strike. She'd treated him too good for too long, that was a fact. This time she'd finally listen to her mother.

She wouldn't even tell him. Think she didn't know everything from the jump. Two could play that game. See
how long it took him to figure it out. Then when he said something, she'd just let it drop on the floor between them, let him try and pick it up. It's your mess, she'd say. I got nothing to do with it.

Her stop was next. The bus slowed, and she shouldered her purse and clutched the pole, shifted sideways and let the momentum lift her to her feet and swing her toward the door. She was the only one getting off. Spofford was deserted, the parked cars throwing shadows, the ceiling of trees above the sidewalk menacing. She held her bag tight and walked softly, thinking any decent man would be waiting for her at the stop.