The Jezebel Remedy (10 page)

“Funny you should mention cell phones. I need to borrow yours.”

“Now?” M.J. reached for her purse. “Who're you calling? Joe?” She rested her cigarette in an ashtray notch, the filter tipped up. “Or your boyfriend.”

“I don't have a boyfriend.”

“Right.”

“I don't,” Lisa repeated.

“Whatever.”

“I need to use it for a few days, please. Around the first of March. You can leave it with me, and I'll FedEx it back to you.”

“I have three. Which do you want? Equipment, radio or personal?”

“If the personal shows your name, I'd prefer that one.”

“I'll just bet you would.” M.J. pursed her lips. “Where are we supposedly going, you and me?”

“The Bahamas. Paradise Island. The Ocean Club. You might want to mention it on your Facebook page. What a great time we're having, sent from your laptop while we're there. Joe's your Facebook friend, isn't he?”

“Can I have sex with Joe after he divorces you? What's the dear-friend waiting period on that?” M.J. was bent over her purse, sorting through her phones.

“No.”

“Can I go too? I mean
really
go? I'd bring my beau, Brian, and we'd tour the island in style. My treat. I hear the Ocean Club's swank as hell. And I'd like to get a look at this Brett Brooks character.”

“I think we'll do better by ourselves.”

“How many times have you seen this guy? Besides your big night in Roanoke? A suitcase date is not too far below the hundred-dollar, diamond-chip, preengagement ring.”

“We had a nice sober lunch in Salem and a quick cocktail at a bar in Greensboro. Bowling and beers one night, which was a blast. Neither of us had ever bowled. Plus phone calls and e-mails. Brett's a handsome man, really hot, and good company, smart as hell, too, but you
and I both realize a big part of this is just the timing, sort of where I was in my life when he asked me to have a drink.”

“I mean, wow, how do you go from twenty years of model marriage and a dog by the fireplace to flitting off to the Caribbean with a guy you've known for a few hours? If you ask me, it seems too quick and half-baked. One day you're here, the next day you're in the Bahamas. Soon you'll be flying to California to screw a man you met on the Internet.”

“Brett Brooks has been around forever—he's not some con-artist loser sending me a bus ticket to shack up in his mom's basement. I've spent time with him. And I want it to be spontaneous. I want it to be off the cuff and sudden. Crazy. Romantic, with all the ribbons and curlicues, not some motor court in Danville. That's the point. That's exactly what I'm missing in my plodding life.”

“A happy house and a straight, faithful, employed, handsome, smart, funny man without needle tracks or a liquor demon are damn near priceless. Trust me on that.”

“True, but here's something I can tell you from a couple decades in the domestic-relations business: Crock-Pots and comfortable couches are the killers. The middle of the road often leads to a lawyer's office.”

“Well, even though I'm against this in principle, you know I'll cover for you and lie and scheme and do whatever it is accomplices are supposed to when their friend has a fling.” M.J. laid a cell phone on the table and slid it toward Lisa. “It has to be exciting, for all kinds of reasons. I get that part.” She leaned in and smiled mischievously. “The first of it, the front end, the start of a romance, nothing can compare.” She brought her margarita to the middle of their table and encircled the glass with both hands. “Nothing can top
new
. As my batty Uncle Luther used to say: ‘It's better than hard liquor and White Owl cigars.' ”

“I mean, I love Joe, absolutely, no doubt, but I've had so much fun lately it doesn't seem fair that I can't…do this and not feel guilty or damage my marriage. There's no going back, either. If Brett and I have sex, there's no way to cordon off adultery. Even if you stay with your husband, it's not the same. Big ugly scar. You're a cheater. You can't really patch it so it's repaired. There's a major difference between ‘I've always been faithful' and ‘I've only screwed around with one other
man.' And if I start seeing Brett, I'm thinking, well, how long would it continue? I'm sure not planning to leave Joe.”

“Listen, marriage was a nightmare for me. Talk about scars.” M.J. was briefly somber. She tapped a phone's screen for no reason. “I'm hardly the person to give advice on the subject. But years and years with the same guy, no matter how handsome, how perfect he is, well, I don't know if…”

“The worst of it is that I feel like a total ingrate and harpy. I
should
be happy with my situation. Who wouldn't be, right? Of course, you can't help how you feel. Not much I can do there.”

“Ha. Now we're talkin'. Next comes the other monster cliché of adulterers and slip-arounds: ‘It's not him, it's me.' I'm waiting for you to trot out that beaut. Or the classic ‘I love him, I'm just not
in love
with him.' ” M.J. grinned at her, almost smirked. “And you're all ornery because he praises the dog and does a stupid little knock on your office door—stuff a lot of us would see as
personality
.” She paused, and they were both silent for a moment. “But fun is fun, and life is short,” she noted sincerely, “and nobody should be waking up miserable if there's a reasonable alternative.”

“Listen, you lose your mom and then watch your invincible daddy die on a rubber sheet with IV dope drips pouring straight into his blood, and you learn real damn quick how short life is. Okay? You wind up waiting by a sickbed, watching the suffering and indignities firsthand, and you can make the case that shit is just cruel and random and there's no honest scorecard at the end, so, hey, we all ought to have some leeway before we hit the line for our own heart caths or radiation treatments. You school yourself not to brood about all this, and after a while you stop talking about it, but
my
act one is finished and the curtain's dropped, and every single day I realize there's only so much left.”

“I'm sorry, Lisa. It had to be awful, especially your daddy.”

“White Owls? Aren't they called blunts now? The cheap cigars you fill with pot or more serious dope? At least that's what we see in court.”

“Yeah, well maybe crazy Uncle Luther was ahead of his time.”

“Could be,” Lisa replied, distracted. She was pointlessly tearing
strips from a cocktail napkin and scattering white shreds in front of her.

“I remember you had your Tampa Nuggets and Swisher Sweets too. But the Owls were the aces in his world.”

“It's also possible,” Lisa said, “that brown booze and a filling-station cigar aren't really all they're cracked up to be.”

A partially peeled banana with a bite missing, a black-stubbed cigarette and its ashes near the center of a bread plate, a tourist coffee mug from Niagara Falls, a saltshaker, a scrap of toast and a streak of grape jelly, a butter knife tipped purple with the jelly, a lighter and a wadded paper napkin were Lisa's accessories at the kitchen table the following morning, a Friday. She was awake at dawn, early for her, before Joe, and was lolling in a wooden chair when he and Brownie appeared, the dog in the lead, four sets of hooked nails clicking against the floor. Joe scooped dry food from a tin container and dumped it into the dog's bowl, then opened a Pedigree can and spooned half the wet meat over the kibble. He covered the can with foil and set it on the counter, next to the sink, the remainder saved until Brownie's supper.

“What's your schedule today?” he asked, bent into the fridge, shuffling cartons and bottles and Tupperware so he could get the orange juice from the top shelf. He wasn't looking at her when he spoke, was turned completely away, the words vanishing into the cold air and leftovers.

“Hmmm?” she said, though she had understood him.

“What're you doing today?” He had the juice now and was pouring himself a glass. He joined her at the table. He neglected the juice carton, left it beside the dog food, its white plastic top on the other side of the sink, dropped there as soon as it had been unscrewed.

“District court in the morning. Hair this afternoon. I've told you twice about my appointment.” She rearranged herself in the chair, no longer slouching.

“Oh,” he said. “What kind of case?”

“Do you think I should wear my hair shorter?”

“Sure,” he said. “If you want to.” There was no inflection in his voice.

“I thought you liked it this length,” she said.

“I do.”

“Then why do you want me to cut it?”

“I didn't say I wanted you to cut it,” he told her. “DUI? Is your case a DUI?”

“Why are you ignoring me?” she demanded.

“I'm not.”

“So you don't like my hair this length?”

“I honestly like every style you've ever worn,” he said, practically begging to be let alone. “If I don't, I'll tell you.”

“So if I cut it, you'll be okay with that?”

“Yep. Fine.”

“I might just tell her to trim the ends and try to grow it longer.”

Joe didn't reply.

“Maybe I should try some new color. Add some pizzazz. I'm so tired of the same bourgeois helmet. It's starting to look like crap. More and more gray to battle.”

“You have gorgeous hair.”

“So you think I shouldn't color it? Maybe some highlights? Could you please give me a little input?”

“I have,” he said. He sipped his juice, lowered his gaze. “We've plowed this field a million times, Lisa. Your hair's great—long or short or medium. You're beautiful. You are. I promise you are.”

“I should leave it alone?”

“I'm not sure I have a lot to add.”

“Maybe I'll just have her shave my head and dye my eyebrows green. How would that be?”

“Different, for sure.” Joe stood up. The dog was crunching the dry food, the occasional brown chunk falling back into the bowl.

“For sure,” she repeated. “It's like you have zero interest in my appearance.”

“Sorry, but you always choose well. I'm easy to please.”

“How about you declare long or short? Could you at least do that much and stop being so damn passive-aggressive?”

“Listen,” he said, pique etching his voice, “we have this same conversation every month. Same predictable, tedious discussion, and there's no good answer for me, is there? Even worse, no matter how your hair looks, even if Vidal Sassoon himself manned the scissors, I can guarantee that when you get home from the beauty parlor—or whatever you call it—you'll be pissed about the results and snap at me and be grouchy for at least a day. It would be great if you'd simply leave me out of it, make a choice, skip the harangue and be happy about the hundred bucks you've spent.”

She glared at him.

“No offense intended.” He put his glass in the sink, next to a pot of last night's shoepeg corn, the kernels covered over by oily scum.

“Thanks, Joe. Thanks so much. You're a champ. The best. Brilliant. You and Vidal Sassoon both.”

“Fine, okay. I'm an ogre and a stooge. You're a minor deity. Far be it from me to offer advice that might actually be worthwhile.”

She scowled at him. “And please make certain you leave the juice right where it is with the cap off so I can deal with it, okay? Leave it there on the counter like always. Talk about predictable.”

She did, by god, correct her hair, stomped into the Hairport Salon still nettled and exasperated and anxious about Nassau to boot, and she told her gal Melanie, even before the cape was in place, that something had to give. “I swear,” Lisa groused, “I look like a cross between the Cowardly Lion and a guest-star hussy from
Knots Landing
.” Three hours later, she walked to her car with her hair styled dramatically shorter and its color noticeably softer, satisfied and pleased with her choice, snips, strands and thick brunette chunks ringing the chair, sliced from their roots, waiting for the broom and dustpan.

To his credit, Joe made it a point to compliment her, not when she came home on Friday, the both of them still miffed, but the next morning at the bathroom vanity, where he told her the changes were truly an improvement, very original and sexy. “Great googly moogly,” he unfortunately added as she stood, clad in nothing but her underwear, a handheld mirror put away in a drawer before she left to dress.

“Thanks,” she said.

The following Sunday, they met Neal VanSandt at his mother's property. Neal was already at Lettie's trailer, ahead of their three o'clock meeting time. A white cargo truck was parked parallel to the porch, its rear door rolled open and wire cages stacked inside. A tall, muscular man, conspicuously tanned and groomed, was standing with Neal. “Ross Sanctuary” was woven into the fabric above the left pocket of his short-sleeve shirt, “Don” was embroidered above the right. He was not wearing a jacket, even though it was forty degrees at best.

Neal was his usual skittish, incomplete self, a collection of shuffles and tentative handshakes and scattershot glances. Don from the Ross Sanctuary introduced himself and thanked Joe and Lisa for coming to help with the rescues. He seemed bullish and clumsy chasing down the cats and dogs, but persistent. He cursed a cat that was nimble and difficult to trap. Neal took forever to cage even the friendliest dogs, appeared timid and halting, reluctant to shut the wire door on any of the animals. They needed over an hour to gather all of Lettie's remaining creatures and load them into the truck.

“How long will it take you to get to Bradenton?” Joe asked as Don was fastening the cargo door.

“It's a serious haul. Near twelve hours.”

“What about the animals?” Lisa quizzed him. “Certainly they can't stay jammed in a dark cargo area for that long.”

“I'll stop at a motel tonight. Too far for me to make it home today. I'll set 'em all out in the parking lot, feed and water them, and make sure everybody's safe and sound.” He finished securing the door, pulled a lever tight, metal against metal. “I'm not supposed to, but depending on the weather sometimes I'll carry a bunch of the littlest ones with me and let them stay in my room. Dogs, mostly they'll be okay in the truck. I'll have the whole gang at the shelter for the vet to check by noon tomorrow.”

“That's quite a ring you got there,” Lisa noted. Don was wearing a garish gold ring, chunky and bright, the surface almost the size of a quarter. “Very nice.”

“Gift from my wife. Thanks.” Neal was standing beside him, silent, toeing into the dirt drive with tiny staccato kicks.

“Hope we didn't cause you too much trouble,” Joe said.

“Believe me, it wasn't so bad.” He grinned and offered his hand to Joe. “I need to hit it if I'm goin' to make any kind of schedule.”

“Safe travels,” Lisa told him. They shook hands as well, then she covered her mouth for an instant. “Oh, I didn't notice your manicure. I hope you didn't ruin your nails chasing these varmints through the mud and bramble.”

Don held his meaty brown hands in front him, at chest level, and ran his eyes across all ten fingers. “Nah, I'm good. No problem. Wouldn't be the worst that's ever happened to me in this line of business. Least nobody was bit.”

“How long you been working at the shelter?” Joe asked.

“A while. Several years. Started in 2004. Promoted to the office in 2008. Air-conditioning and a desk sure as heck beats shoveling the pens.” He chuckled. “Thanks again. And thank you, Mr. VanSandt.” He placed his emphasis altogether on the first syllable.
Van
Sandt. “We're glad we could arrange this.” He patted Neal's shoulder.

“Okay,” Neal replied. “Me too. Thanks for comin'.”

“The paperwork's at the office,” Joe told Neal. “How about you swing by, and I'll sign everything and turn over your mom's keys and checkbook to you? It'll all be yours from here on out.”

“I'll, uh, follow you,” he said.

The Ross Sanctuary truck left first, straddling ruts and gullies, slowly weaving a path to the hardtop, its brake lights flashing red for most of Lettie's driveway. The Stones came next, trailed by Neal.

“Are you getting some weird vibe from this?” Joe asked Lisa as he eased them toward the state road. “I have pretty dull antennae, so it takes a lot to register with me, but did you sense something peculiar? Maybe it was just being at Lettie's, her being burned to death, the finality of it, and Neal's a fucking basket case, so you toss his general strangeness into the mix, and maybe that's it, maybe it simply is what it is.”

“Yeah, the whole deal struck me as off-center. Can't say why either. For me, Neal is creepy. Bell-tower-and-sniper-rifle creepy, so maybe that explains it. I'm glad to be finished with him. Delighted to put this behind us. Especially since we've done this pretty much for free, Joe.”

A scrawny cat, yellow with fixed round eyes, appeared on the
side of the drive, ramrod perched on a red-clay bank, in the midst of quartz rocks and wan winter weeds, and stared at the caravan departing Lettie's.

“Damn it,” Joe exclaimed. “We missed one.”

“Huh?”

Joe pointed. “There. A cat.”

“Well, stop,” Lisa told him. “What a pitiful little thing.”

He pressed the brake pedal and shifted to Park, but as soon as Lisa opened the door, the cat was gone, slipping through a thicket into deep woods, so quiet not a leaf rustled or a twig sounded, away from Lisa and Joe and help and steady, store-bought food and clean water in a silver metal bowl. Lisa climbed the bank and searched several paces into the trees, called “kitty, kitty, kitty,” in a sweetly inviting voice, but nothing came of it.

They waited for Neal outside their office, and then Lisa and Neal stood alongside Joe while he sorted through his mess of keys, the three of them silent, not even small talk. Joe inserted an old key and jiggled and coaxed the balky dead bolt until it finally clunked open. He flipped on the waiting room light, and they walked down the hall into his office. Joe sat behind his desk, Lisa leaned against the wall and Neal kept standing, hovering at the corner of the desk, at loose ends as always.

Joe removed a sheet of paper from a drawer and reached toward Neal with it. “Here's the document I've prepared renouncing any interest in your mom's estate. I'm resigning as executor and transferring everything to you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stone.” He took the paper but didn't examine it.

“I've already signed it, and I had it notarized on Friday since I knew you'd be here when our secretaries are off. Lettie's estate is now yours, free and clear.”