Her Wild Oats (2 page)

It took some effort to stay calm as she tried to make sense of the situation. When she’d asked Jerry to help her figure out why, with two executive-level salaries, they always seemed to be broke, he’d patted her ass and said, “Don’t worry, baby” in a condescending tone. So she’d quietly opened her own checking account and arranged for direct-deposit of her salary—but somehow he’d managed to get hold of her checks and once again they would barely be able to cover their monthly nut. The situation had gone from mystifying to annoying to alarming, and this was downright creepy.

*

Arizona opened her email and typed in her password.

“Access denied,” said a cheerful little pop-up icon.

“Whoa girl, calm down,” she whispered. “You’re going too fast. Let’s try this again.” Slowly, carefully, she entered the password once more—this time it worked.

Looking at her email and the saved folders, she realized that everything about her—her social security number, bank account numbers, all her contacts—was available to anyone who could get into this email account. Hadn’t she once told Jerry the password she hadn’t changed in years?

She wouldn’t have imagined he would stoop this low, but then neither would she have thought that he’d steal her checks. Why was he doing this? What had changed? Who was the snoring man in the other room, really?

Searching for clues, she crept into the living room and found Jerry’s briefcase on the coffee table. She told herself that the check he’d forged trumped his right to privacy as she started sifting through the contents. There were the usual papers from his job at Hansen, Whitehurst, Phillips, and Barnes, where he worked as an entertainment attorney—along with the latest issue of
Men’s Fitness
—nothing weird there. But in a zippered pouch inside the briefcase she found a packet of condoms, a small plastic bottle of Listerine, and a tiny pad with cryptic scribbled notes:
Monday, 7 PM, SL at Hollywood and Vine; Tuesday—Venice Beach 3 PM
. There were also some photos of a very curvy blonde wearing nothing but tiny panties that barely had enough room to display the charming motto, “Jesus has got my butt.”

There was a handwritten note on the back of one of the photos. In glittery purple ink, someone had written
Counting the minutes until Orlando, baby, can’t wait!
The handwriting was round, the i’s dotted with hearts, and the note was signed with a hot-pink lipstick kiss.

Arizona waited for her discovery of Jerry’s obvious affair to hit her stomach in that cold, hollow place. She waited for rage to make her ears buzz and tears to spring to her eyes. When none of the usual physical reactions to betrayal appeared, she realized the news wasn’t a surprise. As Arizona closed the pad and opened his briefcase to put it back, an index card fluttered out from between two of the pages, bearing Jerry’s handwritten scrawl:
’Tis meet for those who perish at men’s hands to cherish hope divine that they shall be raised up by God again but thou…shalt have no resurrection to life
, followed by Arizona’s name and a date and time: 8:00 AM, that very morning, just a few hours away.

There in the middle of her living room, in the middle of the night, nothing felt right, or good, or safe—Jerry’s odd behavior, the missing money, a bizarre threat in biblical language, a gun—she had no idea what was happening but this was worse than an affair. And it was then that the cold, hollow feeling in her gut, and the buzzing in her ears, kicked in.

Arizona tiptoed into the kitchen to fill a paper sack with a few provisions: a couple of bottles of water, a leftover half-sandwich (pastrami, turkey, and coleslaw), a small bag of Sun Chips, an orange. She found the old Cuban cigar box in which they kept a stash of cash for emergencies, counted out exactly half, and began putting the box away when the thought hit her.
Wait a minute! He’s stolen thousands from my account and he’s plotting to kill me! Why should I leave him half?
So she opened the box again and emptied the contents into her purse. Then she found a scrap of paper, scribbled a note, and left it on the table.

Jerry
, she wrote hastily.
I’m going out of town for a few days. Talk soon.

Ari

She thought about leaving her heavy gold wedding band on top of the note, but feared the gesture too melodramatic. Besides, a chunk of 24-carat might come in handy later on.

Arizona pulled a soft canvas bag out of the hall closet, stepped into the bathroom, and began gathering essentials: toothpaste, deodorant, bubble bath, and the six different high-end products she used to maintain her long mane of hair. Clothes might be harder to finesse; she made a mental list and could only hope that Jerry would sleep soundly enough not to notice her collecting a couple of changes of underwear; shorts and socks and sandals; the worn green hoodie she’d had since college; a bathing suit.

She crept quietly up the stairs and into the bedroom. Timing the opening of closet doors and drawers with his loud snores, she tried to stay calm, tried not to pay attention to the gun on the night stand, or the wild pounding of her heart. It was crucial that she get herself dressed, packed, and out of the house before Jerry woke up, before he realized what she’d found.

*

3:53: Jerry stirred and mumbled something—someone’s name. Arizona strained to hear; then realized it didn’t matter because it wasn’t hers. She stood across the dark bedroom, stifling a gasp as she saw that Jerry’s arms were wrapped around Madison, who had somehow made his way from the sofa in the den into their bed. Madison’s shiny black teddy-bear eyes were open, pleading, looking right at her—she’d been a sucker for his yearning stare for so long. She couldn’t leave without Madison! As she crept toward the bed, Jerry settled back into slumber. She might just have a shot at prying Madison out of Jerry’s arms without waking him up. She sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, and slowly—inch by nerve-wracking inch—loosened Jerry’s grip on Madison, stopping still, stopping breathing, every time Jerry moved. She almost had him free when Jerry shouted out, pushed her away, and reached for the bed stand.

*

3:57: She stood flat against the wall, trying to blend into the darkness as he groped for the weapon.

Jerry, now clutching the gun in his sleep, lay back against the pillows. Arizona willed herself to wait until he settled down again. Half a dozen seconds felt like hours, but she finally heard his snores resume. Her heart beating so fast and loud she could hear it, Arizona began to ease her beloved Madison out of Jerry’s grasp.

“Madison, oh, come on…” She didn’t realize she’d said anything out loud, but watched in horror as Jerry bolted upright and looked around the room in a panic, waving his gun wildly. Arizona placed her hand on her husband’s forehead and managed to soothe him with “Ssh, it’s OK, it’s just me, go back to sleep.”

She watched, not daring to move, as he settled back against the pillows and into sleep—and she was finally able to pull Madison gently out of his arms, replacing him with a pillow. Holding Madison against her chest, she finished packing. Without knowing why, she threw a pair of high-heeled pumps, a soft crinkly little black dress, and rhinestone earrings on top of the jumble of cotton and denim. Never know when you’ll be invited to a prom was the odd thought that crossed her mind as she zipped up her bag.

On her way downstairs she turned for a moment, to take one last look at her sleeping husband before closing the door. No matter how much weird-ass stuff he’d done, he looked harmless enough now, with his muscular arms clinging to that 500-thread-count pillow in their big soft bed.

For a moment she wondered if she should wake Jerry and try to talk things over, then shook the thought away. She was always trying to talk things over with him, but lately every discussion turned into an argument—circular, dissatisfying, and ultimately pointless as he’d grown more and more defensive and secretive. The things she’d discovered tonight were too unsettling, too frightening to talk about without taking some serious time to think. She’d feel safer talking about these things from a distance, on the phone, where he couldn’t shoot her.

Jerry rolled over, snoring loudly while releasing a large sleepy fart, and she decided to memorize the image for future use in moments of loneliness or doubt.

At the bottom of the stairs she slipped on her beloved red eelskin western boots, threw a denim jacket over her shoulders, and took one last look around. As she scooped Madison up into her arms, the room exploded in a rendition of “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” in his cheerful, tinkling voice. Arizona yelped as she jumped back, almost dropped him, then froze on the bottom step. He stopped as suddenly as he’d begun, and Arizona stood still for a moment, finally relieved to hear Jerry’s snores from the bedroom upstairs.

Later, she would wonder if she’d have had the courage to leave if not for Jerry’s perfectly timed fart and snoring combo; if Madison bursting into song was some kind of an omen. Madison had once been a very expressive teddy bear; a little turn-key on his back engaged an internal music box that had long since died. His mouth was still stained with the hard remains of a soft-boiled egg Arizona had tried to feed him when she was four; his hide reduced to bare patches in certain huggable places. The teddy bear’s music box had not worked since the late seventies—until now.

Boots, snack, overnight bag, Madison, and Arizona Rosenblatt all left together. As she let her car coast down the driveway, she wondered if she would see her little house again. Arizona gunned the engine at the end of the block and headed out toward the freeway. As the car came to life so did Gertrude, a portable GPS unit she kept plugged into the cigarette lighter.

*

4:08: “Make the first available U-turn,” chirped Gertrude in her mechanical British accent, as Ari ignored all instructions and headed toward the interstate.

“Just cool it, Gertrude. I could pull your plug any time, you know.” Arizona’s employer had provided her with a brand-new iPhone, an instrument with far more sophisticated GPS capabilities than the Trude’s, but—as with Madison—she felt a sentimental attachment to her old device and immediately felt sorry for her scolding tone. “It’s just you and me now, Gertrude. It’s gonna be OK.”

Gertrude wasn’t so sure. She repeatedly urged the first available U-turn, but instead of unplugging the little machine, Arizona noticed a tone of edginess, then agitation, creeping into Gertrude’s voice, and she found herself wondering how far she could go until Gertrude gave up or popped a gasket. As the sky grew lighter, Arizona compared Gertrude’s imaginary frustration with her own agitation and growing fears about Jerry, still asleep in their Santa Monica bungalow.

“Recalculating,” said Gertrude.

“You bet your ass I am,” answered Arizona Rosenblatt.

Another One Rides the Bus

2

Several hundred miles north, a thirteen-year-old boy stepped outside his front door and sat down on the steps to wait for a bus. He was a slender kid with freckles—too many freckles to count, though he’d tried often enough—and curly red hair, which he wore short except for a tail down his back that had never been cut. It was one of his trademarks, along with the old-fashioned green valise that held his large collection of harmonicas.

He’d been too excited to sleep. It was still dark outside, and the early-morning fog rolling in off the lake was chilly. He reached into his duffel bag for a sweatshirt to wrap around his shoulders, then opened his ancient valise, pulled out his favorite “A” harp, and started playing softly—Little Walter’s “Juke,” in the key of “E”—along with the kick-ass rhythm section that often took up residence in his head, a rhythm section good enough to get the subtleties of Little Walter’s phrasing.

Otis Ray “Wild Oats” Pixlie, boy-genius harmonica player, was about to go out on his first real grown-up band tour. Although he’d had plenty of experience performing on county fair kids’ stages and playgrounds on years of Lollipopalooza tours, this was different. Lollipopalooza was all kids playing for kids. It was chaperoned by Otis Ray’s own parents, and there was school—a couple of hours each day even in the summer—required by law. Today he’d be joining Bobby Lee Crenshaw’s Hell Bent and Whiskey Bound tour as the only guy under thirty. His parents wouldn’t be there, and neither would his little brother, Hank Wilson—or any of the other kids he usually toured with in the summer. It would just be him and a bunch of grown-up guys, playing real gigs on real stages, opening for the likes of country stars like Toby Keith and Gretchen Wilson. There wasn’t going to be any school, or group word games, or field trips to local points of educational interest—just a bunch of guys playing music every night on the road.

He was terrified and he couldn’t wait.

He leaned into “Juke” a little harder, trying to get the tongue-block octave really clean, as good a way as any to get ready for the honky-tonk adventure of a lifetime.

*

Lollipopalooza had started falling apart a few weeks before summer vacation, when Otis Ray’s mother broke her leg. She was a “show must go on” kind of mom, but it was hard for her to get around on crutches; then a couple of gigs got cancelled, the other headliners (tap-dancing twins) bailed in favor of ballet camp, and it was decided that this might be a good year for Lollipopalooza to take a summer off. Otis Ray wasn’t heartbroken. To be honest, the kids’ stages were getting a little boring, and so was his family—especially his dad, who seemed to be on his ass about everything lately. So not doing Lollipopalooza wasn’t so terrible, but he faced the looming boredom of a summer with nothing to do except make fun of waterskiing tourists and hang around the Fosters Freeze with the one or two friends who’d also had their summer plans fall through.

Then came Bobby Lee’s phone call.

It was a quiet weekday afternoon at the Dewdrop Inn, a Lake County roadhouse owned and operated by the Pixlie-Carsons, Otis Ray’s family. They all lived upstairs, using the restaurant and bar as their living room. Otis Ray and Hank Wilson sat hunched over homework at the family table while the kitchen crew prepped for the dinner crowd and a Lyle Lovett CD played softly over the club P.A.