The House on Olive Street (16 page)

“Come on, Beth, no one’s that perfect. Surely there are a few marital problems in your family?”

“I don’t think so. If anyone could spot it, it would have been me. I’m the only one—”

“Dysfunction like this doesn’t always run in families,” Elly said. “When there’s no gene for it, it can be accomplished with lots of practice.”

“I always suspected this,” Sable went on. “He’s been knocking you around for years. Some of those trips you took with him, those last-minute decisions to go with Jack to Amsterdam or Madrid or New York? It was because of the bruises, wasn’t it? You’d hide in your town house and pretend you weren’t there. Right, Beth?”

She slowly raised her head and nodded. “And I knew you knew. I thought that if I could make it
look
as though my marriage was good, it would be good. I always knew it wasn’t. I knew the first month and I know it now. But if Jack walked in the door right now and said how sorry he was, how much he loved me and wanted our baby, I’d want to give him another chance. Because—”

“Because this time it would be different,” Eleanor said. “I think you’d better go home, Beth. You’re not ready to leave Jack. It’s not bad enough yet.”

“Elly!” Barbara barked.

“It’s not,” she shrugged, unperturbed. “Beth hasn’t reached the bottom yet. She’s got a lot more bruises in her. She might even be willing to sacrifice the baby to this jackass.”

“We’re not
letting
her go back to him!” Sable proclaimed.

“Beth, tell Elly you’re not going to go back to him, even though it’s tempting,” Barbara insisted.

Beth didn’t exactly comply. “I wouldn’t ever let Jack hurt the baby, Elly. Surely he wouldn’t hurt a child!”

Barbara groaned loudly and put her head in her hand, tousling her own short, curly hair in utter frustration. Sable pressed her hands flat to the table, closed her eyes tightly and ground her teeth, but Eleanor looked at Beth squarely.

“Beth, did I ever tell you how it was I decided to stop drinking?” she asked.

“I…I don’t think so,” she stammered, instinctively knowing she was in for it.

“Gin or beer is what I liked, unless there was only wine—or bourbon or vodka. The only thing I’d hate to be stuck with was scotch. I hated scotch. I
knew
I drank too much. Most alcoholics do. I’d had mishaps. I woke up one morning to find myself asleep on the couch and a cigarette had burned a ten-inch-diameter hole in the rug. I wonder why I didn’t just go up in flames, I was so soaked in gin, living in that paper trap of mine. I had a couple of accidents. I hit a parked car once, rear-ended someone another time. I fell off my chair at a faculty dinner, tipped over a punch bowl at a function to welcome freshmen, and, of course, I mooned an entire class. I fell asleep—a kind term for passing out—in the middle of a student’s oral exam. You know, little upsets here and there. Embarrassing, but survivable.

“The president and the dean of students confronted me. I’d known these men for years. They were real clear about one thing—they knew I hadn’t been drunk a lot in earlier years, but from what they could see, it was getting worse and worse. I was offered a choice—my job or my gin. The president’s sister was a recovering alcoholic—so he wrote down her name and phone number for me. I was quite insulted, but I took it. He suggested three options—I could leave the college then and there, I could take a leave and go into a hospital treatment program,
or I could go to AA. The bastard didn’t allow me the option of just giving him my word that I’d do better.

“I thought I was capable of it, you know. I thought I could control my drinking, make a conscious decision to drink less gin. I don’t know anyone who has more willpower than I do. So, I made an independent decision to drink less gin. I had to go along with him to some degree. I didn’t have parents to bail me out, a husband, a savings account or a trust. All I had was the college.

“So, I went to AA meetings and brought my administrator little signed chits saying I’d been there. It wasn’t easy, but I went to a meeting after work when I was at Berkeley or here on my days off. I liked the four o’clock meeting because I could get out of there by five. I did this very successfully for almost three months. I had no mishaps, I was alert during classes and student appointments, and I quit tucking my dress in my panty hose. I was happier than I’d ever been. I’d finally found a way to manage my drinking so that it wouldn’t get me into trouble. And the president was very pleased. He wished I had called his sister, just to have a friend to talk to about this, but overall, he couldn’t complain.

“There was only one problem with that four o’clock meeting—I had to drive home during rush hour. With my two-hour commute, it was a long time till I could get to that first drink. So, I found a little bar way off the campus where I could have one or two small ones. It took the edge off and it was much easier to wait until I got home where I could have a real drink. There was no chance anyone was going to see me for no one from the college would be there. It was in a seedy part of town, but I only stayed for a little while.

“I was leaving the place at about six-thirty one night. I’d gone about three blocks when I hit a woman. She was
suddenly right in front of my car. I had no idea where she’d come from. I couldn’t have fallen asleep. I couldn’t have been drunk, at least, I couldn’t imagine that at the time. But suddenly there was a terrible thump, a squeal, a crashing sound. By the time I realized what had happened, she was
behind
my car. She was a bag lady who’d been pushing a grocery cart full of all her worldly goods. The cart was way on the other side of the street and she was lying there, twisted and wounded and moaning. She began vomiting in the street. Another motorist came along right away and went for help. The police were called, the paramedics and the ambulance. I gave them all my ID and credentials, told them I’d been visiting a used-book store in the neighborhood, and was allowed to leave the scene. I wasn’t even cited for the accident. And the reason I didn’t get into any trouble was that the paramedics said the woman reeked so badly of gin that they assumed she had careened into the street in a drunken stupor. They were all making faces and fanning their noses. They couldn’t smell it on me because she had fouled the air. I had only had two drinks, was certain I couldn’t have been under the influence, but I
didn’t even smell it!
”

Six eyes watched Eleanor as she closed her story. Everyone knew she was a recovering alcoholic, but only Gabby had been around when she was actually getting sober. She didn’t tell her drinking stories to this group. In fact, Eleanor might not have told them at all except that part of recovery was unloading that stuff. She’d learned from the stories of others and told her own, but she’d never become a zealot outside of her AA circle. After sixteen years of sobriety, meetings were just a way of life and she rarely mentioned them. She went by rote, to keep a green memory, as they said.

“What happened to the woman, Elly?” Sable asked.

“Broken femur and dislocated hip. I’d have paid her hospital bills if she hadn’t gotten good care, but they took better care of her than I could have. I easily could have killed that woman and the only thing that saved me was she was more pickled than I was. I called the college president’s sister, at long last, and she became my first sponsor.

“Beth, addiction crosses all lines. Smart people, dummies, rich people, poor people. I don’t care what your addiction is—booze, food, sex, domestic abuse, drugs—it doesn’t matter. You are in denial at least as fierce as mine was. Understand this—the consequence is
always death.
Sometimes it comes real fast, sometimes it kills you slowly and by degrees. You need to end the denial and beat the addiction or someone will die—and it could be someone you love, like your child. You can kid yourself all you want, but you’re done fooling me. I’ve met you before.”

The women were quiet for a moment, then Beth weakly spoke up. “I feel so helpless.”

“Then ask for help. There are dozens of agencies in the phone book. You have friends who will help you, and family. You have options. You can have your child and a good life, but the minute you say ‘this time it will be different,’ you have signed a death warrant. And I give you notice. That’s when I withdraw my support. I will not be a party to suicide or murder.” Eleanor stood up. “I’m going to get to work.”

When Eleanor had walked out of the room, Sable reached across the table and covered Beth’s hand. “Me, too. I’d do anything for you—whatever you need—but if you give him another chance to hurt you or the baby, I’m out.”

“Oh, Sable, I won’t just
let
him—”

“Me, too, Beth,” Barbara said. “I’ll only help you if you’re willing to be helped. You have to give up the abuse, once and for all.”

“But what if he…what if he…” She got a panicked look in her eyes as they darted between Sable and Barbara Ann. What if he what, Beth? she asked herself. What if he’s sorry, as he’s been before? What if he
promises?
What if he begs? What if he slaps the baby? Her eyes focused on Sable’s and she almost gasped in sudden realization. Large tears were rolling out of Sable’s funny eyes—funny, because without makeup and brows she looked so much like an inmate rather than her beautiful, chic self. And it hit her then; this wasn’t the first time for Sable. She was reliving it through Beth. Perhaps Sable had nurtured the same denial for just one day too long.

“Just in case you’re wondering if it can really happen,” Sable said, “let me tell you, it can. It has.”

“Oh God, it can. Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Help me.”

Barbara Ann grabbed Beth’s hand, Beth grabbed Sable’s and Sable grabbed Barbara Ann’s. “Okay,” Barbara Ann said. “First things first. We get all your stuff out of your town house and store it in the garage here. You might be entitled to the house but it’s too risky for you to stay there and deal with him. Sable, can that security guy of yours get us a truck of some kind?”

“He can do anything,” she said proudly.

“I’ll call home and ask if any of the boys are available to help, but if not, we’ll manage. You’ll supervise, we’ll lift and carry.”

“Jeff can get us a couple of people from Petross Security.”

“We’ll get you an appointment with a good counselor. You need to meet some women who have gone through this. Whether you like it or not, you have to get proactive about this. We’re tough old broads, but we’re not professionals. You have to learn the ropes here and do something about getting emotionally untangled from this jackass.”

“I know. I will.”

“You’ll call your mother,” Barbara Ann said.

Beth looked stunned, reluctant.

“Yes,” Sable concurred. “Inform your family. Tell them what’s been happening and that you’re out. Tell them where you are and that you’re safe here until you
move
back home. We’ll get on the phone with you, to give your mother some peace of mind.”

“I do want to go home,” she said, tearing up again. “But I can’t think of leaving you.”

“You won’t leave us until it’s time,” Sable said, the strength in her voice reassuring. “But eventually you’ll go home where you belong—with your brothers and sisters, your mom and dad, your nieces and nephews. We’ll visit you twice a year and you’ll come here. Everything is going to be all right now.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Beth said, considering it for the first time. He won’t get mad at me again, she thought, because I won’t be there. He can’t hit me again because I won’t be there to be hit. He can’t threaten the baby, can’t screw around on me, can’t leave me at home when he goes off fishing or skiing. God, wouldn’t it be good not to
worry?
Wouldn’t it be good to stop struggling to make it right? To stop hiding out while the bruises heal? It would even be good not to wonder why he’s being so nice to me all of a sudden. “Oh God, the plane,” she suddenly realized.

“What plane?”

“His plane. That was it. That was why he was being so nice to me. He wanted to buy a plane.” She laughed suddenly, but her tears overflowed again. “I bet if I could go back through old calendars, I could find the reason for every good spell we’ve had in our marriage.”

“He was nice to you because he wanted to buy a plane?” Barbara asked.

“A sports car, boat, lake property, plane—all his toys. How could I pretend not to know that?”

“It’s not as if he needed your permission….”

“He didn’t need my permission, he needed my money.”

“I thought airline pilots made a lot of money,” Barbara Ann said.

“Oh, they do, but Jack never made enough money for all those things. Plus, he pays child support, and he’s going to get stuck for half his kids’ college costs. I’ve made a good income. In the last three years it’s been great. And I never bought myself anything. I didn’t even pay for plane tickets to my mama’s. I flew standby.” She laughed hollowly. “That’s how I got this baby,” she said, her hand going instinctively to her abdomen, not even swollen yet. “He wanted a plane. He wooed me.”

“Well, how interesting,” Sable said, a devious light coming into her eyes. “Looks like we’d better move a little paperwork out of that town house as well. Then we’ll call one of my little legal bunnies. Congratulations, kiddo. Looks like Junior has a half interest in a lot of costly toys.”

B
arbara Ann was exhausted, aggrieved, anxious, rushed and bone-tired. She’d managed two entire households, two full families, for a month. She had her own brood—sloppier and hungrier in summer when their various jobs overlapped and they kept hours of which only the young are capable—and the family of women, with a menagerie of troubles and life-styles to strain the most patient housemother.

Elly had brought a long trestle table into Gabby’s old bedroom upon which to line up and stack the pages of her project. She fled there each morning after her bran flakes and wouldn’t let the others browse through what she’d found until she felt she’d organized it. Beth was moved out of her town house, a fiasco that took two days even with the help of a couple of Jeff’s employees. She and Sable literally stole all the financial papers they could find—deeds, loans, bank statements and tax returns for the past seven years. Sable copied them, keeping the originals to be given to Beth’s lawyer and returning the copies to the town house. Beth’s bruises were fading, her worldly goods were stacked in Gabby’s garage alongside her car, and she crept off to a support
group for battered wives every afternoon. She slept in the guest bed beside Sable who reacted as though she had finally found herself a surrogate child. Sable, at least, had been convinced to alter her hairstyle from two-tone to one shade of brown, something she had to do from memory. She still looked more like a health-spa escapee than her old self; her bare feet, baggy clothes and absence of makeup were so unlike her.

Sarah, Lindsey and Daisy, Gabby’s golden retriever, dropped in almost every afternoon for moral support. Even after months, Daisy still ran sniffing through every room in search of Gabby before she settled down close to Sarah, a ritual that ripped Barbara Ann’s heart out each time. Evenings, Barbara heard, were just as active, filled with drop-ins ranging from this elusive Ben she’d finally been told about, to David and his partner, Ed; Jeff, the security man who had somehow become more than a security man to Sable; Dr. Don on occasion, just to see how things were going, but really because he too missed Gabby; and often a second visit from Sarah and the baby if she was lonely, blue, or pissed off at Justin. “Maybe it’s the house,” Elly said. “This is more or less how Gabby lived, as a traffic director.”

If Barbara Ann had an ordinary life, going home from that circus would be a rest. But there was no rest for the wicked, as her mother used to say. The boys, out of school for the summer, had more time to create their individual and group havoc. There was more time to work on their cars or various other projects; in every corner of the garage, drive, house, yard there was something in some stage of repair, renovation or construction. New wheels were being installed on Rollerblades; remote-control airplanes, crashed, were being repaired; parts were being bought and collected to upgrade an old
computer, mainly for games and online fun; someone was tinkering with the weed-whacker motor (For what? she wondered. No one had bothered to whack weeds in a millennium). And the kitchen was in constant upheaval.

Along with the four boys came their friends. If each one had only one friend over, it was eight large, hungry, sweaty, smelly young men. And then there was Mike, who seemed to be oblivious to turmoil. Who seemed to be able to sleep through music, television, laughter, shouting, and God knew whatever else through the night. And in the morning, when the tired ones slept in, Mike was already gone to work himself. He wasn’t home to see the occasional presence of boys who didn’t belong to them wandering into the kitchen in the morning looking for breakfast. Barbara Ann had announced that when some
girl
wandered down from upstairs, she was through. And there were girls, even if she didn’t personally encounter them very often. She knew of their existence by the appearance of little square foil packages that had floated out of the pockets of jeans in the washing machine. “At least they’re using protection,” Mike had sagely offered.

The house paint was chipped and peeling, the yard overtaken with weeds, the driveway spotted with oil drips, the walls smudged with fingerprints, the carpet a sight of spills and stains. She begged. She threatened. She cajoled. She warned. She went on strike for a couple of days and found there was only one person in their household who couldn’t live with the animal-house atmosphere of her home—her. The backbreaking labor of taking care of them, keeping them fed and somewhat in line, had her just shy of blowing sky-high. It was a good thing she didn’t know how to load any of the
hunting rifles Mike and the boys possessed or she might lose it and start shooting. She was at the end of her rope.

It was in just such a frame of mind that she found the pot.

She had been on a mission in the detached garage to find the mousetraps she knew were stored somewhere; she had found evidence in Gabby’s pantry that mice played there. She thought they’d last used them in that garage and that they might be in a box full of stored paraphernalia—one of many such boxes stacked against the wall. Once inside, she instantly remembered why she avoided the place. It was a disaster. They worked on their cars, bikes, skis, in peace here; Bobby and his friends “jammed” here on their ear-splitting guitars; they never bothered to straighten the place up. She had to blaze a trail through the scattered junk—pop cans, food wrappers, plates, glasses with permanent rings in them, discarded clothes, rags, paint cans, tools—to get to the storage boxes.

She hurriedly ripped through three or four boxes, glancing within for mousetraps, and closing them up as quickly when she didn’t see them. Then she came upon a box that was neatly stacked with what appeared to be one-pound square packages of marijuana…six of them, skillfully wrapped in plastic, lining the bottom of a box…and on top of the pot, a bong. Unmistakable. Hidden there. Enough to keep them and all their friends stoned for a good long time. Out here, where the fumes would not alert their parents. Out here where they could pretend to be working on their various projects at all hours of the night when in truth, they were getting ripped.

Something snapped.

Barbara Ann placed the box of grass and equipment
by the door and began tearing through the other boxes with a vengeance in search of more evidence of drugs. She didn’t bother putting things neatly away as she searched and discarded boxes. Were they sniffing the fumes from all these discarded paint cans? Were they all brain-damaged now in addition to being slovenly animals? She didn’t find anything else in the garage, but that didn’t bring her any comfort or calm her hysteria. When she was done in the garage, she took the box of pot and bong to the house, placed it safely in her bedroom and began on their rooms. She dumped out drawers, flipped mattresses, emptied pockets, cleared closet shelves with one swipe, looked behind furniture, dug under beds, searched behind shelved books. She didn’t come up with much: some rolling papers, a roach clip, a pamphlet on growing marijuana, eyedrops and a couple of ordinary-looking pipes. She had thoroughly destroyed four bedrooms to collect a half shoebox of what she considered to be drug paraphernalia. Part of her was extremely relieved not to have found what she considered to be even more dangerous drugs—pills, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, LSD, crack—but she was not naive about the seriousness of what she
had
found.

Barbara Ann was no wimp. She had not raised a group of quiet little Sunday school boys who wouldn’t push the envelope from time to time. She and Mike may have hoped for more control, but they hadn’t really expected it. Bobby and Joe threw a kegger at their house one weekend when Barbara and Mike had managed to get away. She knew it the minute she walked in the door upon her return—her house was cleaner than the boys had ever kept it. They were all grounded for weeks. Matt had been arrested once a couple of years before, the
charge being something like “crawling with attempt to walk.” He was nineteen, out drinking beer with his pals, and was too smashed to run from the police when their party was busted. Barb and Mike let him suffer till morning in jail, which seemed to alter Matt’s level of respect for alcohol. There had been a few fights, though her boys were not typical thugs (in her opinion) but rather, loyal friends willing to take a side. And of course there’d been enough traffic violations and minor accidents to put Mike and Barbara Ann’s auto insurance through the roof. A family of four could
live
on what she paid in car insurance. But all in all Barbara Ann considered them fairly typical boys—rough, messy, irreverent and irresponsible, famished and ungainly, uncertain about their futures and their talents, or the lack thereof.

That is, until she found the nice big cache of pot in the garage and her thinking instantly shifted. Right now she considered them spoiled goddamned brats.

She put all that she’d found in the middle of the table and set about cleaning her kitchen for what she considered to be the last time. Joe was the first of them to enter the house. Joe had just graduated from high school and was “taking a year off to find himself.” She had wryly suggested he look under the bed. He glanced at the goods on the table, then his panicked eyes darted to his mother.

“Would you like to claim any of that stuff?” she asked him with dangerous calm. He shook his head, his mouth open and his eyes very big. “Fine,” she said. “Then have a seat. I’ll be with you shortly.”

“Can I…uh…get a Coke?”

“To drink?” she asked sarcastically. “By all means, be comfortable.”

Next, a half hour later, came Bobby. He was not interested in claiming the goods either. She invited him to sit
down beside his brother while she went about the business of loading the dishwasher and opening jars of prepared spaghetti sauce. “You can get a Coke,” Joe whispered to Bobby, “then she’s going to kill us and feed our parts to the McCloskeys’ dogs.”

Barbara Ann lifted her brows. Not a bad idea.

When Billy came in, Barbara Ann felt her heart sink. Her baby. Her pretty, sweet boy. Billy was almost no trouble. He was good-natured and the quietest one of the group. He was equal in sloppiness most of the time, but he was seldom disrespectful. She hated to tie him in with this mob, but there was no question he was one of them. It almost brought tears to her eyes when she asked him if he wanted to take responsibility for the collection of stuff on the table. He checked eyes with his brothers; they warned him to speak up at the risk of his safety and he shook his head.

At five forty-five Mike came in; he was unconscious to the danger he walked into and did what he always did. He growled appreciatively at his wife and grabbed her in his bearlike embrace. He so loved seeing her in the kitchen, at the stove preparing his daily feast, that he treated her much like prey he had to shake to death before eating. Sometimes she loved this; Mike might be lacking in the many refinements of social graces, but she was smart enough to appreciate certain things about him. In twenty-three years he had never strayed, never abused, never lost his sexual appetite for her. He took her for granted, yes, but he worked hard, turned over his paycheck, was devoted to his family even if he wasn’t responsible for much of the raising of them and never stopped adoring Barbara Ann as much as the day he’d begged her to marry him. The only problem with Mike was that he seemed oblivious to the fact that she needed
more than to be devotedly loved. She needed a little fucking
help.
“Go shower,” she told him. “We’re going to have a talk with the boys.”

“About what?” he asked. She inclined her head toward the table. He walked over and studied the collection. “What the hell’s this? Is this what I think it is? Who the hell is responsible for this? Well?” Six eyes stared at him in a combination of shock and fear, though the worst he’d ever done was blow his top and yell at them. Of course, Mike’s yell was pretty impressive. “Well?” he asked again.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Go shower,” she said. “This is my party.”

Matt was the last to arrive. Barbara Ann couldn’t have planned it better. It was a rare night that all four boys were around at dinnertime. Matt was Barbara Ann’s firstborn, the leader, the shining star. He was working full-time and going to college part-time, though it would take him years to finish at this rate and he still hadn’t decided what he was going to do with his life. Matt was the most experienced and least hardheaded of the group. He was ready to slip into his father’s role—done with child’s play and ready to settle down. He’d probably move from his mother’s house to some young woman’s and do for her what Mike had done for Barbara Ann—love her intensely, work tirelessly, eat her meals with gusto and lie on the sofa to watch sports every night. Unless it was hunting season.

“Okay,” he said, “it’s mine. I’ll take the rap. All this stuff. Mine. I did it.” He was also fearless.

“You’re too late,” she said. “I collected it out of four bedrooms and you’re too late. But it was a nice gesture. I’m sure your brothers appreciate it. Sit down.”

“You can have a Coke,” Bobby whispered. “Then she’s going to cut your balls off.”

In the time it took them to gather, Barbara Ann had heated spaghetti sauce, boiled noodles, torn up lettuce, cut up vegetables for the salad and heated French bread. She wasn’t planning a dinner meeting, however. It was a Last Supper.

She couldn’t go through this ritual without briefly considering all the boxes of memorabilia she had stored all over their bursting house. Handprints made in school. Mother’s Day cards their teachers had forced them to make in which they listed all the things they appreciated about her. Photos by the hundreds—of birthday parties, camping trips and graduations. She remembered the times they tried to make her breakfast and the time they tepeed the front yard for her and Mike’s anniversary. There were many times they cried and came to her for help. It was not a question of love. She loved them. Hell, she lived for them. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes, but she’d be damned if she’d cry. It was a question of limits. And they’d reached hers.

“You little bastards have had the last piece of me you’re going to get,” she began. “Do you know I have never shopped at the grocery store with one cart? I’ve never gone a week without doing laundry? I’ve never had a food bill that couldn’t support a third-world nation? Any one of you could live for a year on what I pay in car insurance alone!”