Riding Shotgun (38 page)

Harleyetta eyed Woodrow who was now on his back, the paper between his front paws. “Simple pleasures. Oh, I forgot to tell you. While you were out there in the mists the sheriff removed that skeleton. They laid it out and his left rib cage was smashed in—like with a sledgehammer. Some of the bones had been cut clean through. Weird, huh?”

“Means he faced his enemy.”

Harleyetta considered that. “Had guts.”

“Yes, he did. His name was Patrick Devlin Fitzroy.”

“It was?” Harley was incredulous. “How do you know that?”

“Just do.” Cig shrugged. “He was ambushed by Indians and he turned to fight them so his friend could escape. I hope he died fast, God bless him. Before the Revolution. 1700, almost.”

Harley cocked her head. “You sound as if you were there.”

Cig pushed the shortbread tin toward her. “Maybe I was.”

“Well, I
believe
in past lives. I just can’t figure out what I did wrong. It had to be a whopper, like being Lucretia Borgia. Otherwise, how did I end up with Binky in this life?”

People glibly made comments about past lives. Harleyetta, no doubt sincere, didn’t ease Cig’s worries. Not that she would confide in Harleyetta. That woman had enough on her mind.

As she defrosted the hamburger in the microwave, the green digital numbers counting down, Cig wondered if everybody ultimately knew everybody.
Maybe we’re all recycled
.

The mud room door banged shut.

“Hamburgers or meat loaf?” Laura walked over as Cig removed the ground beef.

“Meat loaf if you’ll help.”

“Deal.” Laura retrieved bread crumbs from the pantry as her mother fetched two eggs from the refrigerator, plus milk, and tomato paste. “Got an A on my history test.”

“Good.”

“I like history.”

“You’re always good at what you like”—Cig paused—“and pretty good at what you don’t. It’s one of your better traits. Naturally, I take all the credit for it.”

“Sure, Mom. Know what else?”

“What?”

“Seth Eisen made a crack about me going to the dance with Parry. Said I should wear a tuxedo and get a buzz cut. What an asshole.”

“Did you inform him of your opinion?”

“Yeah.” Laura kneaded the ingredients into the ground beef as Cig poured them in. “Why are people that way?”

“Meanness married to stupidity, I guess.”

“It’s not like Seth is poor or anything.”

“Being poor doesn’t make someone stupid,” Cig replied.

“Seth thinks he’s so cool. Wears his baseball cap backwards.” Laura watched Cig turn on the oven to warm as she kept squeezing the meat through her fingers. “He’s pissed because he can’t have either one of us.”

“I think I’ll cut up some olives.” Cig reached for a jar inside the fridge door. She would have loved to sidestep this but she couldn’t figure out how to do it without upsetting Laura or herself. A major row would do her in; she was still queasy inside, trying to get her feet under her.

“Hunter says that guys like Seth say sexist stuff because they think it’s a guy thing. Like pushing around Paul Vrana.”

“Why is that a guy thing?”

“’Cause everybody thinks that Paul is gay.”

“Seth is small potatoes compared to Paul’s father who is understudying Jesse Helms.” Cig sighed. “School’s a real hotbed of bullshit.” Thought a minute. “Well, why not? It’s a reflection of what we are.”

Laura washed her hands and clicked on the small kitchen TV. She flipped the channels. The image of a scantily clad buxom woman working out was replaced by a scene of body parts around a car bomb in an African country, which Laura wiped off with another click; the happy face of a shiny Shetland sheepdog begging for treats appeared.

“Ah yes, the pet food and Tampax channel” Cig recognized the number. She wiped her hands on a dish towel, then unplugged the TV.

“Mom—?”

She picked up the TV, walked to the mud room door, and threw it in the trash.

“Mom!”

“I’ve
had
it. I’m working in my kitchen and I don’t want to be assaulted by troubles I can’t
fix
or advertisements for things I don’t
need
. The hell with it. The hell with the whole damn twentieth century.” She kicked the trash can.

Laura, frozen to the spot, watched.

“And furthermore, I don’t give a shit if the microwave helps, if the stereo lets me hear Joan Sutherland. It’s not worth the anxiety. I’ve been home two days and I’m bombarded by requests, phone calls, and piles of dead people in a city street on the other side of the world. It’s insane.”

Laura, quick-witted, shot back, “Then you’d like this meat loaf seared over an open flame?”

Cig stared at her daughter. She felt as though she were seeing her for the first time not as her daughter but as a woman. She finally grinned. “Point taken.”

Laura slipped the Pyrex pan into the oven. She’d garnished the meat loaf with strips of bacon. When she completed her task she sat down at the table. “What’s Harleyetta want?”

“Leaving the Bink.”

“Oh.” Laura understood that such events were extremely painful but as she had not yet experienced anything close to it she could only listen. “Crisis, I guess, huh, Mom?”

“Or a real bad comedy act.”

“You feel okay?”

“My back hurts.”

Laura folded her hands together. “You think you’re still shaken up or something?”

Cig shrugged. “It’s my midlife crisis.”

“You going to get another TV?”

“No
, I’m not. Number one, I don’t have the money. Number two, I really
have
had it. I feel like my head is full of noises. I want quiet. Think about it, baby, an advertisement is a form of assault.”

Laura wrinkled her nose. “Yeah—but.”

“But what?”

“I want to know what’s going on in the world.”

“Read a newspaper.”

“I do, but if I watch the news I know right this single second.”

“No, you don’t. You see a carefully selected image that is fed to you like pablum. You don’t know the source of the trouble, both sides of the story or a possible solution. If it can’t be said in a minute, it’s cut. That’s more damaging than not seeing the image.”

Laura leaned forward. “But everyone is seeing that image, Mom. I
am
missing something.”

Cig thought about what Laura said. That wasn’t easy to refute. “Why
is
it so important?”

“Well—well.” Laura, resembling her Aunt Grace, gesticulated. “I want to know!”

“Let me think about it. Still doesn’t change the fact that we don’t have the money.”

“You threw away a perfectly good television.” Laura’s jaw hardened.

“Since I paid for the damn thing I can throw it away if I want to.”

“If I said that you would accuse me of being childish.”

“Laura, are you spoiling for a fight?”

“No—I just think you’re kinda weird. Even if you paid for the TV that doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong to Hunter and me too.”

Hunter came in, sized up the situation, and started for the library.

“Hunter, Mom threw out the TV!”

“Broke?”

“No, Hunter, I had a fit and fell in it and threw the damned thing in the trash. If I’m not seeing mayhem and blood on the news someone is trying to sell me Depends for when my bladder goes!”

“Cool.” He left the kitchen.

Hunter and Laura listened as their mother paced downstairs, occasionally banging a door. Sometimes they could hear objects flung into the trash cans liberally scattered throughout the house.

Under the guise of studying, never Laura’s strong point, she had retreated to her brother’s bedroom to use his encyclopedias.

“What’s she doing?” Laura tiptoed to the doorway and listened.

“Cleaning.” Hunter twirled his pencil between his index finger and his second finger. He was beginning to worry about his mother but was not ready to let Laura in on it.

Laura strained and heard a faint “Shit,” from down below. “Maybe she’s having a breakdown.”

“Why now?” His face turned toward the open doorway. “I mean, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have one when Dad died?”

“I don’t think breakdowns are about sense,” Laura observed. “It’s harder for her than for us. She worries about the money.”

“I worry about the money.” Hunter’s eyes flashed.

“Yeah, yeah, but she sees the bills. They’re piled up on the kitchen desk. We don’t go through them. Aunt Grace said Mom’s been juggling bills since Dad died and she hasn’t had a single month where she’s been able to pay all of them. She pays a portion and then pays more the next month… and I think she’s getting behind, big time. That’s what Aunt Grace says, anyway.”

“Aunt Grace has so much money you’d think she’d give Mom some.” Neither Hunter nor Laura knew that Grace had been helping out.

“Would you give me your money?”

“Would you give me yours?” he countered.

“Would depend on the situation and if you were
good
to me.”

“I’m always good to you.” He closed his math book. “Where’s Aunt Grace? She’s usually around and Mom needs her now.”

“So, you
do
think something’s wrong with Mom?” Laura triumphantly asked, having led him to the confession.

“Uh—she’s stressed to the max.”

“She’s been stressed to the max before. This is different. She never threw out a TV before. She looks lost, kind of.”

Hunter pushed aside his math papers. “Don’t women go through a change—you know?”

“She’s not old enough for that.”

“Oh.”

Laura sat cross-legged on Hunter’s bed. He returned to his math assignment. She pulled off her socks.

“Hey, no toenails on my bed.”

“I’m not going to cut them. I’m thinking about painting them.”

“Gawd.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Personal adornment is a mark of civilization. I read that in
National Geographic.”
She rubbed her toes.

“Laura, get a grip. Painting your toenails flamingo pink isn’t a mark of civilization. Means you’ve lost it. Next comes the pierced nose. Great when you’ve got a cold.”

“Ha ha.” Laura rose and walked to the doorway, heard
Cig thumping up the stairs, and hopped back on the bed, quickly opening her American history book.

Cig stuck her head in the doorway. “I can’t believe you two are cooperating on your homework and the stereo is silent. To what do I attribute this?”

“Midterms.” Laura smiled at her mother.

“It’s not time for them, is it?”

“Yep.” Hunter punched numbers into his calculator.

“Hunter, if you don’t learn to do that in your head you’ll never really understand the problem.”

He clicked off the calculator. “Mom, do you have any idea how long it would take to solve these trig problems if I didn’t have this?”

“Yes, I took solid geometry and trig, too, remember. Got an A as it just so happens.”

“You got an A in everything.”

“Laura, did I tell you that?”

“No, Aunt Grace did. She said you were disgusting. And you missed being valedictorian of the class by a point.”

“Just as well. I hate giving speeches.” Cig sighed, remembering how devastated she was when that total creep, the nerd of all time, George Atwell Rivers, was declared valedictorian. The same George Atwell Rivers who took one acid trip too many at Dartmouth and was now a holistic healer in Aspen.

“What were you doing down there?” Hunter inquired, feigned neutrality on his features.

“Housecleaning.” She saw her children glance at one another. “I was. I’m reorganizing.”

“Does that mean we have to move furniture?”

“If I say so,” Cig pointedly answered her daughter.

“Aunt Grace could help.” Laura wanted to get out of an evening of lifting sofas and chairs. “She has a good eye.”

“I am sick of hearing about Grace, goddammit!”

Laura’s head snapped back a tiny bit and Hunter’s pencil stopped over the yellow legal pad. Both children held their breath for a moment.

Then Hunter smoothly said, “Mom, you have a fight with Aunt Grace or something?”

“Something.” Cig’s face reddened, knowing that she needed to confront her sister yet dreading it. She felt like a coward.