It's Not Like I Knew Her (28 page)

“What?”

“I remember you and Maxine rode your Harley to the bar the night of the raid. You came as Ted. And remember that cop said to the other that he thought one of us was a man?”

Teddy's brow gathered, and she stared.

“What if there's a dealer he's paid to protect, and he thought you were there encroaching on his territory—selling to the women at the bar? A rural territory could be as big as the entire county.” The reality of a personal vendetta tied to graft was starting to take shape. She'd figured the shots he'd fired were motivated by his rage, but maybe it was calculated.

“Shit, I'm history.” Teddy's voice broke, and neither spoke of the horrific thoughts they likely shared.

“No, not if you leave now.”

“I can't go till I know Maxine and those kids are okay. I've called her momma's five times, but she's not about to let me through.”

“Give me the number. And the name of someone she works with.”

“Betsy Wright. She sleeps with their boss.” Teddy scratched the number on a scrap of paper and gave it to Jodie. Then she pulled out an envelope and handed that to her as well.

“Get this to Maxine when you can. It's the balance of my stash. She'll need it for rent and utilities on that house.” Teddy paused. “I'm sorry, but I'm tapped out now. It don't leave anything for you and Dallas.”

Jodie nodded. “That's all right. I'll get there. Don't worry. How can Maxine get in touch with you?”

“On that same paper I wrote the number of a phone booth at a filling station I'll hit in about three hours. I'll wait there for her call.”

Jodie squinted at the number and back at Teddy.

“Living the way I do leaves little time for proper good-byes. I've always got a plan for a fast getaway.”

Jodie had thought she understood the high price of Teddy and Maxine's love, but not so. Fighting back her fears, Jodie embraced Teddy, and she felt Teddy's splintered heart floating in her heaving chest. Neither spoke of the unfairness of the situation. What was the point? Saving Teddy was all that could matter just now. There would be time for the other later.

“Drop me will you? About a quarter of a mile back. Stashed my machine in the woods and walked here. Quieter that way.”

Jodie reached into the glove compartment and withdrew her gun and a box of cartridges, and handed both to Teddy. She nodded her thanks and placed both in her saddlebag.

Jodie drove Teddy to her Harley and watched as she mounted the machine and kicked it into start, its familiar roar splitting the silence. Without a backward glance, Ted sped onto the highway and disappeared into a veil of obscurity, heading away from the life she, Maxine, and their kids had created. Their love had not been enough to save them.

M
axine's mama answered on the first ring. Jodie explained that she was a work friend, and their boss had asked her to call.

“What did you say your name is?”

“Betsy. Betsy Wright. And it's urgent.”

“Maxine, it's me. Don't talk, just listen.”

On the strength of a lie that a co-worker had taken ill, and that she was called in to finish out what was left of the night shift, Maxine met Jodie at the city park where she and Teddy had played Sunday afternoon basketball. She handed Maxine a coffee and explained what she and Teddy had figured out, then gave Maxine the envelope of money and the telephone number she was to call.

“Jodie, I don't think I can make it without Teddy. If it was just me I'd follow her to the ends of the earth. But if I take my kids and run, what kind of life would that mean for them? In time we'd be discovered, and I'd surely lose my babies.”

Maxine sobbed, and the truth of her choice burned in Jodie's belly. Maxine could be either Teddy's lover or her children's mother, but she couldn't be both. Maxine could never risk losing her kids. And Teddy loved the three too much to ever ask Maxine to make such a choice.

“Hon, something's bound to turn up. You'll see.” Jodie forced herself to speak the lie she imagined Maxine needed to hear but neither believed.

Yet she felt Maxine struggling to hold on to any part of the future she'd once imagined with Teddy and her kids. She stared out at the empty street, fresh fear building in her eyes, before pulling Jodie to her, each drawing strength from the other. Maxine forced back her tears, and in a weakened voice, she whispered, “I think it's best we don't see each other for a while. That's until the cop stops coming around.”

Maxine squeezed Jodie's hand. Then she turned and walked to her car, got in, and slowly drove away.

J
odie poured a second cup of coffee and returned to her seat on the trailer steps. It was early evening, hours before she'd start to ready herself for work, and the day's humid air still hung heavy. The sun-parched cornstalks in the field surrounding the clearing had begun to smell scorched. A slight movement in the broom sage at the edge of the field drew Jodie's attention to the nearly imperceptible approach of the stray cat. It hesitated and glanced cautiously about, its long black tail stiffened with alertness, its tip flicking back and forth like a periscope, before it emerged into the clearing and approached.

A limp field mouse dangled from its clamped jaws, blood showing in the corners of its velvet lips. At what the cat must have judged as a safe distance, it dropped the dead mouse onto the ground, sat back on its haunches, and watched her in the distant self-containment she'd come to expect before it disappeared beneath the trailer.

J
odie tossed a pair of inspected jeans into the hamper and glanced up at the clock on the wall. Two hours and ten minutes into her shift, she was off her best pace by two bundles, digging herself a big hole. At this rate, she'd be lucky to turn even the required bundles by quitting time, and the super would be leveling accusations of slacking.

Two months of rigorous conditioning meant she survived on four to five hours of sleep, leaving her little for the job. Eight hours, five nights a week, standing on a bare cement floor with her head throbbing at the roar of machines, had taught her all she needed to know about the full cost of her dream. Yet she was more determined than ever.

She glanced along the line to the inseam machines to better gauge the black eye and busted lip Bitsy would lay off to a drunken fall. Those who knew the truth would nod, add stories of their own clumsiness, meaning to make lying easier than the harsh truth for all their sakes. Why not grab up her kids and run, the so-called footloose ones were bound to question. Running was never that easy, the fearful would reply, declaring their kids were better off with no-account daddies than without them.

If bruised faces were their worst pain, Jodie believed they would surely run. But most had stopped thinking about ways out. They stayed, wanting to believe that the beatings would stop when they learned to please their men. But Bitsy wasn't like these women, and Jodie feared that her beating had a different story.

“Jodie, the super wants you,” a wide-hipped woman sewing belt loops onto waistbands called with a quick jerk of her head. Her hands were blood-red with the rash she kept, though it never slowed her frantic feed of denim under the pressure foot.

Jodie cupped a hand to her ear, bracing for a bitching, the supervisor's words scattering in the swirl of blue dust like a flock of blackbirds in a hail of buckshot.

“Long distance,” the woman relayed, her eyes bearing the dread that such a message might hold. She nodded toward the narrow hallway where the telephone hung on the wall.

“Take it and it'll mean your break,” the super called. “It's company policy. You girls get one emergency a year put back here.”

Jodie turned and faced the super. “Yes ma'am. And I'm most grateful for a policy that holds my shitty luck down to one mishap a year.”

She left the super glaring while likely struggling with a proper punishment. Walking along the hallway, Jodie wondered who was about to become her emergency.

“Yes, ma'am, operator. I'm Jodie Taylor.” She wiped sweat from her face onto the sleeve of her shirt, and more ran along her spine, soaking into the waistband of her jeans.

“Hey, gal, how you doing?” There was no warning in his voice.

She loosened her grip on the telephone and exhaled. “Silas, you damn fool. You mean to put my ass in a sling worse than it is?”

“Hell, woman, if it'll get you fired and back to God's country, I'll call every Tuesday.”

“Cut the romance. What the hell's this about?”

“Jodie, Red's had a bad stroke.”

His words ground their way into her brain while she watched Sammie the Snake approach the break room. A once-in-a-blue-moon roll of dollar bills tucked between the breasts of a co-worker was the honey that kept them buzzing whenever he showed. Bitsy was a regular numbers player, but she played on credit, and that was likely the sorry story behind her battered face.

“Jodie? You still there?”

“How bad?”

“Happened yesterday. In that overgrown field back of the house.” His tone was such that he could have been talking about a local fender bender. He paused, sucking air as though he was having trouble talking and breathing at the same time. “From the looks of the scuff marks on the ground, he was down for some time. Hadn't been for old Buster, they might've missed him altogether.”

“None of that's what I asked you.”

“Shit, Jodie, I'm no doctor and I'm sure as hell not God. But I believe he's knocking on death's door.” He paused, then added, “Jodie, there's no one but me and Maggie to look after him. And we can't be with him all the time.”

“What about Miss Mary?”

“Her? Hell, I was sure I told you. She's staying here in town with Hazel and William. The old bitch flatly refuses to step foot back in that house.” It was as if he believed he'd made her going back easier, but there was still the harder part: facing Red.

“If you need a little extra, I'll wire you what you need.”

She knew he'd drive forty miles to the next town to avoid the local Western Union operator, his wife's gossipy cousin. He had the strange practice of straddling fences while nibbling around the edges where he claimed the honey was the sweetest.

“That's all right. I got it.” She hung up, Silas still talking about duty.

Jodie walked back along the hallway to the production floor in search of the super. She was up in the face of a new hire, reaming her for having stiff fingers connected to a brain too easily scattered.

“Ma'am, about that call?” The super paused and the terrified girl wiped at her face, grateful for the distraction.

“Taylor, I told you. No break. You're way off pace as it is.”

“Yeah, I know. But what I've got to say isn't about that.” The super's scowl signaled that whatever Jodie might say was already suspect.

“Red … the man who took me in after my mama died … what I mean is, he's had a bad stroke. I need time off to go down home.”

“Time off? There's no time off for family mishaps.” Her tone was absolute, as if she quoted scripture, chapter and verse.

Jodie stared out across the floor at women harnessed to indifferent machines, her tangled tongue betraying her. If she'd been smart, she would've warmed things up, promising to catch up her production before the shift ended. It was too late for that, and now good sense dictated that she cut her losses and move on. But a small part of her still wanted to believe in the notion of fairness in circumstances that seemed to demand the setting aside of rules.

“A week's all. And if he's as bad as .…” The thought of Red dying hit her hard, and she took a step back, bumping into the hunched shoulder of a startled ticket-tacker.

“Taylor, the manager depends on me to hold you girls' feet to the fire. I got production quotas. I know you understand.”

“No, I don't. At my slowest, I'm still faster than any new hire could be in a week.” Before she started training, her claim would have been justified. Now she wasn't sure.

“Taylor, I'm done here. Now get back to work.”

“Hell no. I'll do you one better. Screw your precious job. I quit.”

The break whistle sounded, followed by the shuffling feet of those who would be first in line to use one of the two toilets. To reach the exit, Jodie would need to walk the gauntlet of questioning women.

“Hey, Jodie, wait the hell up.” Bitsy's husky voice sounded over the low chatter, but Jodie kept moving toward the door.

The night air felt damp on Jodie's face, and in the direction of the trailer, heavy clouds built toward her. Her anger now cooled, she dared to consider the enormity of her decision. A bout of anxiety fired through her nerves, and in spite of her effort at slowing her habit; she reached for the bottle beneath the truck seat.

“Damn, girl, I guess you got cause to piss off your job?” Bitsy huffed to a stop, and an up-close look at her battered face flipped Jodie's stomach.

“Yeah, I do. Taking a little time off to go back down home.” Jodie tilted the bottle but didn't offer it to Bitsy. They took a seat on the tailgate.

“Thought you were on the wagon.” Bitsy grinned.

“I am.”

“Uh-huh, I can see that.”

“You going to tell me what happened to your face?”

“Bad happened. That ain't nothing special.”

“That's all you got to say?”

“What the hell does it look like? I got the business end from a brute who don't cotton to holding debt.”

“Snake?”

She nodded. “Crusades come and go, but bad habits stick around. Same as with that damn bitch, Lady Luck. Now I owe two hundred dollars I don't have a snowball's chance of whoring up.”

“You got anybody?” It would take most of what she had to get her back to Florida.