The Longings of Wayward Girls (15 page)

In a moment she was down the path and in the woods, near the spot she believed it might have landed. when she glanced back at her house she was surprised to see her mother standing in the basement in front of the sliding glass doors. she held a cup of coffee, a cigarette. she wore her pale-colored summer robe, and sadie watched as she smoked and stared out the doors. she couldn’t see sadie there in the woods. she moved back and forth in front of the glass, and then she untied the robe and let it slip from her shoulders. she wore only a pair of panties, blue and shimmery. Her breasts were full, outlined by the darkness of her tan. she stared out the doors, and sadie realized she was looking at her own reflection in the glass, the outside world still dark, the sun just hitting the rim of the hill behind her. Her expression was pensive. even then sadie could feel her terrible longing. Her mother reached out and touched the glass, bent down and retrieved the robe, and disappeared into the basement, as if she’d been summoned.

sadie turned away and continued to look along the floor of the woods, though it seemed to matter less now if she found the small box. she parted the ferns and found a tarnished silver candlestick, left there from one of their old games. It saddened her to see it, this reminder of the girl she once was, who seemed about to slip away from her.

“what are you looking for?” a voice said.
sadie spun around. There was ray Filley, leaning against a tree with his cigarette. she realized she was still in her pajamas.

“what are you doing there?” she asked.
“oh, I’m spying on you,” ray said. He exhaled and laughed. “what do you think I’m doing? Having a cigarette. what do you have there?”
sadie dropped the candlestick. “nothing.”
she felt childish in the pajamas, the baby-doll kind everyone’s mother bought for her in the department store’s children’s section. “Mortified” is the word she would have used if she’d decided to tell betty.
And there he was, just standing there in the ferns, watching me. I was in pink baby-dolls and I was mortified
.
“you’re up early,” sadie said.
“I guess we’re a couple of early risers,” ray said. He put his cigarette out on the tree. everything he did was cocky. oh so full of himself, sadie thought. she hated him, and loved him. she wanted to grab the candlestick and throw it at him. she wanted his hands to slide beneath her pajamas and up her bare back the way the characters’ did in Mrs. sidelman’s books. Instead, the two of them just stood there in the woods, staring at each other.
“Do you have an extra cigarette?” she said.
ray smiled. “An extra one?” He took out a crumpled pack and shook it. “no, sorry. no extras.”
He had on a pair of madras shorts, a sloppy T-shirt. He wore tennis shoes. every so often he shook his long hair away from his eyes. “you should run along back to bed,” he said.
sadie slitted her eyes at him. “what for?” she said. “I’m up now.”
“Go have yourself a Pop-Tart or play with your dolls,” he said.
sadie put a hand on her hip. “And what will you do?” she said.
ray’s face seemed to still. His laughing eyes darkened. “none of your business,” he said.
sadie remembered times that ray Filley would throw the football with the other boys on the street, when he’d helped build the tree fort, dragging heavy sheets of plywood from the new development going up on butternut Drive. At one time, he’d been a child, and now suddenly he was not. she saw a furtive, darting movement in the woods behind him, and she tilted her head to get a better look. ray spun around to see where she was looking.
“what?” he said.
sadie shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t see anything now. Maybe it was just beth, following you.” she knew this would anger him, but she didn’t care. He moved through the woods and came down the path into sadie’s backyard and stood in front of her. He smelled of sweat and cigarettes. He brushed back his long hair and grinned, the smile false and sarcastic.
“you know you look just like one of beth’s friends—what was her name? linda? lisa? no, that’s right, it was laura. Aren’t you afraid to be out in the woods by yourself? you wouldn’t want to end up like her.”
sadie felt a spark of fear, but she refused to show it. “you’re in my yard,” she said.
“once, all of this was
my
yard,” ray said.
sadie was certain that her pajama top was sheer, that he could see her breasts. she felt her face flush.
Oh, the total humiliation,
she might have told betty. He bent down beside her and retrieved the candlestick. He hefted it in his hand, the fingers long, the tendons flexing and tightening.
“you should bring this inside,” he told her. “seems like it’s worth something.”
Then he handed it to her, and turned and headed back up the path into the woods. sadie watched him until he’d disappeared within the green shade of leafy saplings. she returned to her house, and when she got to the top of the porch steps her mother was there at the screen door.
“what are you doing out there?” she said, her voice sharp. sadie startled. Her mother still wore her robe. sadie smelled the coffee, her perfume, the scent of her skin, and the cigarettes. she was breathing as if she’d been running or dancing. They looked at each other, their chests rising and falling.
“I was looking for something,” sadie said.
“what is that? where did you get it?”
sadie held the candlestick up. “we used to play with it—I found it in the woods,” she said.
Her mother opened the screen door. And when sadie stepped into the house her mother reached out and slapped her across the face.
“what kind of girl are you walking around outside like that?” she said. “what is wrong with you? what if someone saw you? what will people think of us?”
sadie felt the sting on her cheek and the anger from the indignity all at once. she tasted blood in her mouth where she’d bitten her tongue. she slipped past her mother into the house, everything dark and cool, the light just coming through cracks in the drapes, the family room foggy with cigarette smoke. behind her she heard her mother begin to cry. she got to the stair landing and her father emerged from the bedroom.
“what’s wrong with your mother?” he said.
And then her mother weeping behind her. “I’m so sorry, sadie,” she said. “so sorry!”
Despite the burning mark on her face sadie was prompted to accept the apology, to allow herself to be held by her mother, enfolded in her arms, the Chanel no. 5 slightly sour on her skin. Her mother’s tears wet sadie’s shoulder, seeped into her pajama top and into her hair. she had to wrap her arms around her mother in the semblance of an embrace, while her father ambled down the stairs, scratching down the back of his shorts. but sadie was starting to realize that her mother never felt any remorse. All of this was just a manifestation of some other sadness—one that flitted around her wry smiles, that revealed itself when she stared into her drink or exhaled after a drag of her cigarette. Maybe a dreamy, sweet look masked it, but sadie knew it was there, had always known it.
Her mother finally let her go. Her face was wet. “Don’t ever make me do that again,” she said. “Good girls don’t talk to strange boys in the woods, sadie.”
sadie felt a little bolt, like a charge, run through her. she had been watching her. They had been watching each other. “It was only—”
Her mother reached out and put her hand on the sadie’s slapped cheek. “It doesn’t matter who it is,” she said quickly. “you don’t ever really know someone.”

August 29, 2003

A

t three o’clock Sadie dresses in her new skirt and blouse and takes Max and sylvia back to Kate Curry’s. she is jittery, as if she’s drunk too much

coffee.
“I need saffron,” she tells Kate. “I need it for a recipe and it
will be so much quicker if I can go alone.”
Saffron
, something
she knows the woman won’t be able to pull from her orderly
spice cabinet.
“oh! what are you making?”
Kate leans on the counter, chin in her hands. If sadie’s
grocery-shopping outfit gives her pause, she doesn’t let
on. outside the glass doors the humidity has broken. The
backyard trees thrash their leaves, signaling a late-afternoon
thunderstorm. sadie has no idea how to answer Kate’s question. she cannot remember the last time she made something requiring any spice more complicated than pepper. she
is flustered, thinking about ray waiting for her, the smell
of the meadow flowers through his windows, his hands on
her hips, his mouth. she staggers toward the woman’s door.
“oh God,” she says. she waves her hand. “I’ll tell you if it
turns out.”
“Drive carefully,” Kate calls. “It looks like it might storm.” Her children are seated in the wood-paneled den in front
of the television. They don’t respond when she calls goodbye, so she returns to the doorway and says it again. Although

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she feels an overwhelming desire to go to them and take them in her arms, a simple trip to the grocery store doesn’t merit it, so to avoid suspicion she stands in the doorway waiting, her heart thudding.

“I love you,” she says. “I’ll be back soon.”
sylvia chews on a hank of her hair, absorbed in the television, but she turns, as if sensing something in sadie’s voice.
she nudges Max, who says, “bye, Mommy.”
sylvia waves, her eyes suddenly wary. she takes in the skirt
sadie’s wearing, the blouse. “what time?”
sadie makes a pretense of looking at her watch. “In a little
bit.”
As she closes the door she hears Kate ask in her bright voice
if they want an ice cream cup. How she envies this woman
whose beds are made, laundry folded—her efficiency in attending to all of it. she drives away from Kate’s, from Gladwyn Hollow, and feels a weight lift; the things behind her
dissolve, as if she’s never been responsible for any of them—
the dishes in her sink, the cobwebs, the clothes the children
have outgrown that need to be replaced, the handprint on the
front window, Craig’s creased brow, his sighing on his side
of the bed. she’s left her cell phone at home inside her nightstand drawer. Craig is always after her to take it with her, but
most times she does not. leaving the phone behind will not
make him suspicious should he discover it, and she feels let
loose in the world—unmonitored.
she turns quickly, recklessly, into ray’s gravel drive and
leaps from the car, eager to fall into his arms. she knocks, a
noise that resounds through the empty rooms, but he doesn’t
come right away, and she stands there, watching the sky
darken, feeling the wind pick up, listening to it drag at the
tree limbs overhead, and wonders if she’s made a mistake,
misread his letter, his whispered reminder. she thinks she’s
come on the wrong day. but then there’s a sound of footsteps and he is there, his white dress shirt damp with sweat, his eyes blank and cold. He apologizes. He tells her he is working on
the house, things are a mess.
“I didn’t know if you would come,” he says.
He takes her chin in his hand, and his expression changes,
his eyes slowly warming. He draws her into the house. “I can’t
believe it,” he says. He pulls her into his arms and lowers his
head to her shoulder like a child. sadie holds him and feels his
sweat-stained back, his alarming trembling.
“what?” she says. “what is it?”
“I’m just so glad that you’re here,” he says.
He leads her toward the stairs, and she follows, not sure if
she believes him, not sure now about anything, the darkness
of the storm outside seeping into the house’s rooms, a presence enclosing them. she tells him she has left the children
with Kate. “I can’t stay long.”
“who?” he says. “who is Kate?”
He takes her into the same bedroom, to the unmade bed
and the scattered clothing, and he pauses there in the doorway. “I have to make a phone call,” he says, to her surprise. “I’ll
only be a few minutes.”
And then he is gone; his footsteps sound on the stairs.
she is left in the room filled with shadows, the sky darkening
beyond the window. she hears faint, far-off thunder. she sits
on the bed to wait, torn between staying and leaving, hating herself for her indecisiveness. she hears ray downstairs
pacing, then his voice—short phrases that sound like an interrogation.
Beth
, she thinks. she can tell from the tone of
his voice he is talking to her, and she feels slightly resentful.
Then she sees the suitcase. It is still there, behind the chair,
and she stands up, unsteady in the darkened room. she squats
down by the suitcase, lays it flat, and this time the latches flip
easily and the suitcase pops open. she smells the perfume
first—that scent she’s shunned as an adult, because it is forever her mother’s—attached still to the clothing inside. For a moment, she just looks at the contents before putting a hand in and stirring the clothing about—the panties, underwire bras, a dress made of silk in a bold black-and-white pattern, one she saw her mother wear out to the officer’s Club for dinner, to a cocktail party at a neighbor’s. she tells herself that surely her mother must have loaned the dress years ago to Patsy Filley, that these are really Patsy’s things left here in this old suitcase.
sadie reaches in and takes the dress in her hands, holds it up, and smells the decay beneath the Chanel no. 5, sees the sad little rings of perspiration under the arms. she puts it back and sorts some more: toiletries in pink-capped bottles, facial cream, tweezers, manicuring scissors, a compact with pale powder, Chanel eye shadow and mascara. she recognizes her mother’s linen slacks, a cotton blouse and bright print skirt she wore that last summer. sadie finds her bathing suit—smelling still of sea & ski, of chlorine. The gold sandals. she imagines her mother choosing the items, placing them inside, but she cannot imagine how this has arrived here, in the old Filley house. she takes one of the gold sandals in her hands, traces her mother’s toe prints marked on the insoles. she places it back and reaches into one of the satin pockets and discovers an old piece of construction paper, folded like a card, and her own first-grade handwriting,
Happy Mother’s Day
—a loopy cursive, written with the heavy pencil handed out to each student. There’s a drawing of a blue bird on a branch, a sun, and inside:
You are shinny like the sun / You are sweet like all the flowers / you are the only one / I want to be my mother
. There’s more in the pockets, but she hears ray’s voice downstairs— suddenly sharp, raised in anger.
“what’s in the hidey spot, beth?”
sadie stands up. she hears ray’s footsteps on the stairs, his angry cursing, and she bends again to the suitcase, quickly closes it with her shaking hands, and returns it to its place behind the chair. The smell inside the suitcase seems, as if by some magical force, to fill the room—she sits on the bed, wishing it away, her head spinning. ray appears in the doorway. rain strikes the window behind her, and she startles.
The shadows of the blown trees mark the bed, the floor. sadie stares at him, wide-eyed, numb, and confused by
the suitcase and its contents, by his behavior. His gaze darkens with suspicion, and he glances quickly to the suitcase
in the corner, then back to her face. Then he goes to the
closet, pulls down a duffel bag from a shelf, and begins to
stuff clothing into it—items from the floor, items that she
notices now he folded on the bed. He grabs a set of keys off
the bureau.
“we need to go.”
His urgency frightens her, and she lets him take her arm
and lead her back along the narrow hallway, down the stairs,
and out the front door. He moves so quickly sadie senses they
are escaping something in the house.
“what is happening?” she manages to ask. They are on the
stone front walk, and the rain lashes their faces. He tells her to
hurry and put her car in the barn, and he points down the drive
to a barn near his parked truck. beyond the barn stretches the
field, its grasses blowing. beyond that—the woods. she stands
by her car and shrugs off his arm. “why?”
“beth might be coming over,” he says.
His face is white, and pinched and altered. The wind
brings the rain, harder now, and sadie feels it through her
blouse.
“I told her not to come, but you know beth,” he says.
“she’ll probably just show up.”
“why do you have your bag?” she asks him.
He looks down at the bag in his hand as if he’s forgotten
it’s there. “I’ll tell you later,” he says. “we’ll go in the truck.” she shakes her head at him and turns toward her car, and
he yanks her back by the arm, his hand gripping her tight.
“Don’t tell me no, sadie.”
Then before she can protest he’s dropped the bag on
the gravel drive, taken her face in his hands, and pressed his
mouth to hers, a kiss that makes her weak-kneed, that she
doesn’t ever want to end. “you came here today,” he tells her,
his mouth by her ear. “you must want the same thing I do.” And without examining what she wants or doesn’t want,
she realizes that beth may arrive at any minute, and so she
does what he asks, pulls the sUV down the drive to the barn.
ray opens the barn door, and after closes her car inside, hidden from beth’s prying eyes.
“Hurry, hurry,” he calls.
They return to the truck. sadie yanks the door open. she
is soaked through, her hair, her clothing, and inside the truck
is warm and sticky. The lightning brightens the sky beyond
the windshield. ray starts the truck up, turns it around. It
bounces down the gravel drive, and the tires spin on the street,
where they hurtle away, as if in flight. sadie half expects ray
to check the rearview mirror. They curve along Duncaster,
onto route 187. His cell phone rings and he works it out of
his pants pocket, glances at the screen. He rolls the window
down—the sound of the rain rushes through the cab—and
sadie watches in shock as he tosses the ringing phone out the
window into the woods. His mood changes afterward, and
they leave the town behind.
“where are we going?” she asks finally.
He makes an exuberant hoot and tells her that they can go
anywhere she wants.
“Anywhere in the world, sweetheart.” He laughs, one
hand on the wheel, the other holding hers, shaking it like
loose change. The only problem is that sadie doesn’t know
where he expects her to want to go. she is still flummoxed by the suitcase filled with her mother’s clothing. weren’t the gold sandals given away years ago to the league of Mercy? The rain and wind rock the old truck on the highway. sadie looks over at ray carefully. she feels a little burst of fear, like a bubble rising to the surface and breaking.