How the Hula Girl Sings (8 page)

“Forget it,” I murmured. Just for the hell of it, I looked up into her face, right into her eyes. Charlene raised her bare leg and ran it along the back of the other, peering down at the counter as I looked across the dull white linoleum to her hands. They were small and white and plain, no rings, just plain white digits, which looked really nice and clean and pretty. I looked down at her hands, she looked down at her hands, I couldn’t look up, I don’t know why, I couldn’t say a damn thing, all I could think about was her hands, about wanting to hold her hand and take her outside to kiss her, but I was pretty sure there was no way that was going to happen anytime soon, because no one was talking or even breathing now.

“Maybe we could go out … when you’re done working …” I heard myself kind of stammer.

“This is really a bad time. My boss is here. I have to get back to work. You should go.”

“Maybe …”

Her eyes lifted a little, right into mine. I thought I was going to burst into bloom, like flowers were going to blossom from behind my mouth and eyes, but then Charlene just kind of dashed from the counter and pulled away some dirty dishes and disappeared into the back behind a silver door. Then that was it. That was all. I rubbed the side of my face and then tapped the counter.

“OK, well, it was … ahh, nice talkin’ to you again,” I said to thin air. I turned and fell into the booth beside Junior.

“Did you just ask that girl out?” He smiled.

I nodded just once in reply. “Christ, yeah.”

“Well, how did it go?”

“Poorly.”

“That’s OK, pal.” Junior grinned. “There’s more than one pretty girl in town. The pretty ones are usually trouble, I’ve come to learn.”

that sweet young bird ain’t sweet no more

No dainty gloom could make a body feel more lonesome than missing a tooth. It made me feel improper to smile. Losing that molar over a girl who wouldn’t even spare me a kiss made me feel like the imperial king of all fools.

Nothing else could make me feel so low.

Then Dahlia did.

Trouble in a tight white skirt and bargain-basement makeup strode right in. There was a slender silhouette that appeared in front of the glass doors of the Gas-N-Go. The last thing a single man wanted to see. There was her tiny behind bobbing from side to side as she applied her thirty-second coat of red lipstick. I stared out that awful window looking up at Junior’s poor sign, trying to look away.

Road flares $1.00 ea

rosy n

fulmin-ating

as two cheeks

in folly’d spring

The glare from Dahlia’s purple eye shadow must have stunned me for a moment, because the next I knew, I could hear the bell above the door give its dull, pallid toll. There was nowhere to go. Dahlia had found me in my worst, most desperate state, missing a tooth and lonely as hell.

“Plum thought I was half mad. Thought you were some kind of oily dream standing there all heavenly like that.”

I knew it was her right away. That voice. That undeniable low honey-toned drawl. Dahlia spoke each word in a whisper designed to move any man she wanted inches closer. I don’t know if they teach that after you become the head cheerleader in a small town, but it was one of the many attributes that set Dahlia apart from the rest of the girls I had known. Dal had been born a woman and made every boy in her grade crazy until they were old enough to truly understand that an unsatiable belle breathed the same breath as them.

Dahlia stepped right up to the counter and looked straight into my eyes with the biggest, sweetest smile I had ever seen her wear, except when I had asked her to our Junior Promenade, which was, of course, against my will.

“Tell me now, what’s a body supposed to do when she finds her one true love’s back in town?”

“Christ Jesus,” I murmured, staring at the way the light from all the windows burned through her white skirt and showed her fine lines. There were her tight blue panties hidden somewhere beneath. The same blue pair of panties had kept me to Dahlia’s side for all of my junior year at La Harpie High and had assuaged me through the Junior Promenade, which had eventually ended with her bare white hips beside mine in a parked car somewhere down her parents’ street.

“Luce Lemay, God’s insufferable improvement for any of my wildest dreams.” Dal glimmered. “How come you don’t call me to get yourself off anymore?” Dal hadn’t changed in the three years I’d been away. I had called her a few times from the prison up in Pontiac during the first months, overcome with lust, dying to hear her voice dripping with dirty talk. I would call her up and then she’d say something like, “I have on only a wet white blouse,” then I’d nearly faint. Soon enough I found out all the lies she spun around me, and the whole sordid affair made me sick. No man needs a dishonest lover, imprisoned or not.

“How have you been, sweet tart?” Dahlia whispered, leaning way over the counter. Her big white sweater hung way off her bare white shoulder and I could see the fabric of her blue brassiere strap poking out from beneath. “Tell me I’m the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.”

“That might not be a lie,” I mumbled.

“Good enough for me.” She smiled. “How long has it been since you took me in the backseat of a car and made mad passionate love to me?”

I shook my head and looked down at her nimble soft hands.

“Dal, you’re wearing a wedding ring,” I mumbled. There right on her left ring finger was a huge diamond that sparkled nearly as bright as Dahlia’s blue eyes.

“That’s right. I’m spoken for now.” She sighed. “Missed your one great chance.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“You could have had me. Who knows what would have been?”

“So who’s the lucky feller?” I asked.

“Favor Muller. Damn near made an honest woman out of me.”

“Well, that’s sweet. Captain of the football team and head cheerleader getting hitched.” Favor Muller was dumb as a rotten log. Much worse off, too. He ran the garbage dump at the end of town. Inherited his fine fortune from his old man. Poor Dal was now the Princess of the Trash Removal Kingdom of La Harpie, Illinois. It seemed like a just post.

“Was only a matter of time before we got together, I guess.”

Dal smiled. “I’d still let you take me in the back to show you what you missed.”

“That’s awful sweet, Dal.”

“Don’t know any other way, puddin’. So you’re working here now, huh?” Her eyes sparkled kind of emptily as she looked around. “You like it here?”

“It’s not so bad. Clutch trusts me with the place by myself. Not too many men would do the same.”

Dal blushed a little, then looked away. “So where are you living now? With a friend?”

“I live at the hotel down the street.”

“With that crazy old lady? Well, that isn’t right. A sugarplum like you shouldn’t have to turn to the pity of strangers.”

“I don’t mind so much. I’ve got a pal of mine who lives in the building. It’s not so lonesome since I started working nights.”

“Don’t you lie to me, Luce. Remember, I know you. You must be feeling awful living there in that ugly old hotel. Which reminds me, what happened to your poor face?”

“Fell down a flight of stairs.”

“That’s not what I heard. I heard you ran right into the end of Earl Peet’s fist. Messing around with his girl.”

“We just happen to be old friends,” I said.

“That’s not what I heard at all. I heard Earl caught you climbing out her bedroom window one night, grinning.”

“You know me better than that.” I sighed. “I’m not one to mess with another man’s girl.”

“That is too bad.” Dahlia grinned, running her fingers over my hand. I smiled, feeling her breath move all across my neck and face. “Because we could meet sometime. Me and you. You and me. We could get together and see what there is to see.”

I swallowed, forcing all the spit from my lips down my throat.

“Christ, Dal, you sure know how to make a man feel all right. That Favor is a lucky man.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” She frowned, brushing some hair out of her eyes. “Call on me during the day if you ever wanna learn the rest.”

Lord.

Dahlia blew me a kiss and shook on out back into the heat. I tried to light a cigarette but my fingers were trembling too much. The square kept slipping out of my hands. This was all from the same woman who had led me to that luckless state. Somehow I was an awful forgiving man where lust was concerned.

The bell above the door gave another ring.

These two young, dirty-faced, round-headed kids kind of weaseled in. They had their hands dug deep into their jeans pockets and their eyes were down at their feet. They crept up to the counter and stared me right in my eye. There was one red-faced kid with freckles and red hair and the other had greasy black hair and pink lips. They looked like they had just got done wrestling with each other in the dirt.

“Gimme a pack of Viceroy Golds,” the red-faced kid stammered. I gave a little smile, lifting my head off the counter.

“How old are you, pal?” I asked. He couldn’t have been any more than twelve or so. He licked some sweat from his upper lip.

“Eighteen,” he lied, digging his fists around in his pockets.

“Eighteen? You got some sort of ID?”

They kind of looked at each other.

“Nope.” The freckled kid frowned.

“You’re gonna tell me you two are both eighteen?”

They both nodded slowly.

“Can’t sell ’em to you boys. Sorry. Wish I could. But I don’t wanna lose my job. I happen to know there’s a cigarette machine at the diner down the street. Maybe you can scare some up there.”

“Thanks a lot, asshole,” the little red-faced kid mumbled. Him and his pal walked on out, swinging the door closed without another profane word.

The next day at the gas station, I couldn’t get Dahlia out of my head. I straightened out a rack of snack cakes and fruit pies trying to keep my hands busy. A big, wide-faced trucker in a cowboy hat came in to buy three or four nudie magazines and gave me a good wink as I slipped them into a brown paper bag.

“More discreet that way,” I mumbled.

“To tell you the truth, son, my wife prefers me reading these nudie books to getting screwed behind her back. Nothing worse than a dishonest spouse, I’ll tell you.”

I nodded.

“Hell, I knew a man down the way from here, Diamond Lou Feltis, a hog man. He had himself a pretty little wife, few kids, a plot of land, nothing too expensive, but everything was real nice and sweet. Well, this fool took to fooling around with motel whores and then he lost it all for lust. Someone’s husband came after him with a shotgun and leveled off his head while he was in bed with some other guy’s wife. There was so many pieces of his brain and head and face left stuck in that wall, his sweet wife had them bury a piece of the wall. Saddest thing you ever seen. Burying a yellow-wallpapered part of the wall like that.”

I gave a low whistle and shook my head.

“Nearly got killed for the same thing myself. Used to see a lady every Thursday for a drink and some pool and a nice romantic interlude at her house while her husband was at work, and one day he came home and found the bed was unmade and nearly chopped off her damn head with a butcher’s knife. Wouldn’t have blamed him if he came after me. Don’t think there are things worse than cheating on your wife. Not even murder. Hell, if you murder a man, he’s dead. Don’t feel any more pain. Break someone’s heart, well, that kind of heartache goes a long way. Might as well just shoot ’em dead so they can’t feel any more pain. Nothing I can stand worse than a dishonest man.”

“Amen to that,” I said.

The cowboy patted me on the shoulder, then gave a big, greasy-toothed smile. “I like you all right, boy. Look a little wanton, but I can tell you got a good heart. Stay the hell out of unmade beds.”

I rang him up for ten gallons of diesel fuel, a bag of corn chips, and three magazines.

The next day, I met with my parole officer, a man named Billy Blakes, from Colterville, who drove on down and had me sign some papers. He was his own little picture of defeat. He was a short, balding man with brown hair and thick glasses, but a thick man, a man who might bust your nose with one stiff blow if properly pissed off. He talked quiet as hell. He gave me a little interview, asked me if I had been involved in anything illegal since my release, asked me how I was adjusting, if I needed anything. He didn’t seem to have much hope for me, and I sure as hell wasn’t a hardened criminal. He had probably seen a thousand cons like me get released, then fall off the straight-and-narrow and end up back in the pen. You couldn’t blame ol’ Billy. He was working against a thing as undeniable as human nature.

“Please, Luce, if you run into any problems, give me a call. How’s the job working out?”

“Fine, Billy, fine,” I said.

“OK. And the living situation?”

“Just fine.”

“You’re staying away from the booze?”

“Best as I can,” I told him.

“That’s all we ask.” Billy smiled. “That’s all we ask.”

“Billy, can I ask you something myself?” I said.

“Sure, I guess.”

“How come you talk to me like you’re wasting your breath?”

Billy rubbed the white bald spot on the top of his head and frowned. Some light made a halo right above that crown. “I generally am wasting it, I guess. There’s not much hope for people to change the way they are.”

“Sounds mighty uplifting.”

“I’m not here to inspire, Lemay, I’m here to keep you outta jail. Go to a goddamn priest if you wanna be lied to. I’ve seen too many of your kind slip back inside to fool myself. If you wanna think you’re a new man, hell, that’s fine. But don’t think you’re looking any different in anyone else’s mind.”

I put out my cigarette and shook my head. “Any of your cons ever take a swing at you?”

Billy Blakes made a real smile this time and leaned in close. “Just once, Luce. Just once. Had him back inside so quick his goddamn head spun right off. Think he’s still making license plates down in Marion, if my memory serves me right. Why, you feel like taking a swing at me?”

“If I thought I’d knock anything good loose.”