Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakthrough (11 page)

  She turned the oven on and shoved the casserole in. After the radio, at the top of her shopping list—a microwave. Who could have managed here without one?

  Now to set the table. Forget the spare, chilly dining room; they could eat in here. Placemats, plates, utensils, napkins— and voilà!

  Too utilitarian, like a table the Cleavers would eat at. Like Vivian without enough makeup.

  With more of that strange feeling of pride in a house that didn't feel like hers, she arranged red and yellow pears on a shallow glass dish she'd discovered in a nearly unreachable cabinet. She ducked outside and picked brightly colored leaves from the red maple on her front lawn, ditto sprigs from the blue spruce next to the garage, and ditto ditto from a bush with red berries clinging to naked black twigs. Pears never had it that chic.

  Next, truly inspired, on an old -lady fl owery -rimmed china plate, she stuck two red and two white votive candles retrieved from a drawer full of them—did Gran's friend hold seances?—and around them she poured a dusty bag of dried black beans, probably bought years ago and abandoned.

  She heard him in the bathroom, the sink running while he washed his hands, and for a second she regretted her attempt to fuss up the table. In the next second, she shrugged. Who cared what he thought? If she had to eat leftover casserole some sweet thing brought him, she should be able to leave her own mark.

  Mike appeared in the doorway and blinked at the table. "Wow. Who knew?"

  "Your neighbor is a woman of many talents: stripper, Playboy Bunny, murderess, and happy homemaker. Beer?" She held one out.

  "Thanks." He sank into the chair closest to the door with a long sigh. "This will hit the spot."

  "Tough day at the office, dear?" She sat opposite and plunked her elbows on the table, rested her chin on clasped fi ngers.

  "You might say that." He twisted off the cap with his strong hands, very clean for someone who worked so hard with them. "Spent most of the day at the Gilchrists'."

"Where Sarah offered you her nice warm buns?"

  He had to stop the beer bottle tipping toward his mouth in order to smile. "She did, in fact. I also heard you had fun at the Kettle Social Club meeting."

  "Oh, is
that
what fun is? All this time I never knew. Yes, I was there. Strangely, my ideas for the party weren't approved. Even the serious ones." She felt her mood slip back down, and got up for another beer. "How do you stand it here, Mike?"

  He shrugged. "It's home."

  "Don't you ever want to get the hell out?"

  "I did get the hell out. After my wife died."

  Ah, the saintly extra -appendage spouse. "When was that?"

  "Two years ago. Roughly."

  "Why did you come back?"

  He rested the bottle on the table, thumbs gliding restlessly over the label. "Too much of my life here to leave."

  "Too much of your wife here to leave."

  "Maybe."

  She turned away. Her gut tightened; pain started pounding her chest and temples. She did not need this beer or the last one or the one before that. "What was her name?"

  "Rose—" He cleared his throat. "Rosemary."

  She drank from the third bottle, a long glugging swig, staring out the darkening kitchen window at the fading sky and faint outlines of trees. "And you were in love with her like no woman you've ever known."

  "Right." His voice was fl at, dead.

  Her chest thickened; anger grew in her, anger that wasn't his fault, anger she needed to get the better of. "And she was good and gentle and sweet and everyone adored her."

  No answer. Her warning signal. She needed to stop right now, but the fury train thundered on, and Vivian was a fi rst class passenger.

  She turned and gestured with her beer. "And she was a member of the Kettle Social Club and worked at the library and volunteered everywhere anyone needed help and brought the kind of joy to this town it had never known before and certainly not since, because—"

  "Enough." He stood up.

  She couldn't stop. Rage filled her to where she was shaking with it. "Wild animals gentled at her touch, and—"

  "Stop it, Vivian."

  "—when she died, angels cried, and—"

  "Shut up." He lunged at her, grabbed her shoulders, and practically lifted her off the floor. Her beer slipped and exploded, bubbles hissing furiously. "Just shut the fuck up."

  The familiar fear adrenaline raced through her; she was gloriously and fiercely and unquestionably alive, free of the dulling, stupid, endless pain.

  "What are you going to do to me?" She gasped the words out in challenge, then laughed bitterly. "It's all been done, Mike. He was a goddamn pro, you're the dust beneath his feet."

  His grip on her shoulders gentled; he closed his eyes, bowed his head, jaw clenched so his teeth were probably close to cracking.

  
Get a clue, Vivian
. This was Mike, this was Kettle, Wisconsin. Taunting him would only get her what she hated most. Pity.

  "Let go." She started to struggle.

  He let go of her shoulders, then wrapped both arms around her so tightly she couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Her face was mashed against his chest, then he backed her against a wall so she couldn't even kick him in the balls.

  She fought, wiggling, lifting her feet off the ground as far as she could, so her weight would sag on his arms. Nothing. He was a goddamn fortress; she couldn't fi ght, couldn't move; she was totally helpless, trapped between the sunshine harvest wall and his body.

  She stopped fighting, worked instead to get air back into her squeezed lungs, gathering force for her next attack.

  Incredibly, a deep humming started low in his chest, then— oh my God, was she suddenly in
The Sound of Music
?—he started to sing.

  "
Over in Killarney, many years ago, my mother sang a song to me in tones so sweet and low.
"

  "You have
got
to be kidding me." She pushed against his stone wall body. "For chrissake, we're trying to have a fi ght here."

  He took a deep breath. "J
ust a simple little ditty, in her good old Irish way, and I'd give the world if she could sing that song to me this day
."

  His voice was smooth, deep, resonant, freaking Bing Crosby. Pure seductive evil that made her want to relax and give in, let him hold her all night. "So help me God, Mike, if you get to the too- ra-loo-ral shit, I'll—"

  "T
oo -ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too -ra-loo-ra-li."
He sang on, crescendoing, a grin in his voice now, rocking her back and forth as if she were his daughter. "T
oo -ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry
."

  "Mike." She pushed him again, starting to laugh in spite of herself. "Stop, I'm begging you."

  "T
oo -ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too -ra-loo-ra-li."
His head moved down next to hers, he crooned the last words of the chorus, the way Ed used to sing to her, only ten times better. She stopped moving, stopped fighting, just listened to the rumble in his chest, the tickle of his breath in her ear, more laughter bubbling up—only it didn't feel quite like laughter this time.

  "T
oo -ra-loo-ra-loo-ral . . . that's an Irish lullaby.
"

  He stopped, and there was no sound in her kitchen, in her yard, in the whole of Kettle, nothing but Mike's breathing. Instead of giving her what she'd asked for, what she deserved for making fun of poor Rosemary, he'd sung her a fucking lullaby.

  Tears came to her eyes, spilled over, and started rolling down her cheeks, two, then four, then a steady stream she couldn't stop and was past caring to try. He held her, rocked her, and hummed the song again, verse after verse, as if he had nothing else to do for the rest of time but be there for her.

Ten

Letter from Erin's fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Flatley

Dear Principal Hodgkins,

Thank you for your note, but I must ask again that you make time to speak with me regarding Erin. She showed up with bruises again this morning. As you said, she's an odd girl, certainly, but I don't think that can be the whole story. My impression is that she has no one to turn to and I'd like to help her.

Response from Principal Hodgkins

Dear Mrs. Flatley,

While I appreciate your concerns, I play golf weekly with Erin's father, and he takes care of our family's teeth. I can assure you he's had quite a time raising a child like Erin alone, but what you are implying is simply not possible, especially in this town. I have so far been very pleased with your work this year, your first at Kettle Elementary. I would like to see a long and healthy relationship develop between you and the school. It would be a shame if this issue got in the way of that.

  Erin adjusted her head on her pillow and turned to Chapter Seventeen of
What to Expect When You're Expecting,
called, "When Something Goes Wrong." There was a paragraph at the beginning, telling the reader not to read further unless something had gone wrong with her pregnancy. Otherwise, the authors pointed out, reading the chapter might lead to unnecessary worry.

  Erin liked the reassuring tone of that paragraph. She liked that the authors cared enough to warn their readers. Erin had read it anyway. She'd been too confident that her baby, Joy, was finally going to be her happiness. The fates could not be so cruel as to take away Erin's mother, leaving Erin alone with Dad, and then take away the one baby Erin had carried past the fi rst trimester, leaving her alone again with Joe.

  Turned out the fates were self -serving sons of bitches, like most everyone else.

  Or maybe they knew better. Maybe Erin was being selfi sh wanting a baby so much. Maybe the fates knew Joy could not have been happy with a father like Joe. Erin would have done anything to keep her safe, but maybe the fates knew her efforts wouldn't have been enough. Maybe it was better Erin stayed childless.

  It just didn't feel like it.

  The advice from the chapter didn't make her feel warm the way it usually did. She put the book away in its special spot hidden under her side of the bed. She didn't even feel like reading today. The world felt different and it was hard to concentrate. She was restless, twitchy.

  For the first time in years, she wanted to run. Not run away, she'd wanted that plenty. But just to work her body, like on the track team in high school, before she got pregnant. To feel a sense of freedom, however false. Once she lifted her head high enough above mere survival to realize how trapped she was in her marriage and in Kettle, she'd stopped running. What was the point? Going home after only made it worse.

  But then Vivian came. And Erin had allowed herself to imagine that the rigidity and sameness of each day, of each week, month, or year, could vary. And that maybe the people who held her down would get some of their own back from someone strong enough to give it. Because that person sure wasn't Erin.

  Two days ago in the meeting, she hadn't been able to take her eyes off Vivian. She was twice as beautiful in person because you could feel the energy and confi dence radiating from her. Vivian probably wouldn't stay in Kettle forever, but for as long as she did, things would be better. Even something as little as her suggestion they have a hand -job booth at the Halloween party.

  Erin had a terrible time not laughing out loud at that. Even that night as she went to bed, she'd had to stuff her pillow in her mouth so Joe wouldn't hear her still laughing.

  The best part of the meeting was how Joan felt uneasy and threatened. On the way home she'd barely stopped badmouthing Vivian long enough to breathe. All of a sudden she'd met more than her match in this vibrant, sexual woman who had conquered the man keeping her down. Joan had to understand now that victory was possible. That all women weren't going to lie down and take it like Erin. And that even if they did for a while, it was no guarantee they wouldn't rise up sooner or later and find strength in their own hands. Maybe that made Joan think about what Joe was doing, even for a few minutes. That would be progress.

  She got out of bed and made it carefully, tucking the bottom corners of the blankets, leaving the tops loose like Joe wanted. Vivian could live her own life now. Tuck her bed, cook her meals, spend her time any way she wanted. She'd freed herself.

  Once Erin bought a bird from a pet store, back a few years after she got married, when she realized the blissful bargain to get away from her father was slowly and inevitably turning into the same prison. She thought a bird would be a good companion. One day the painfully obvious metaphor clicked into her barely adult brain and she'd taken the bird into the woods, set it free, and dumped the cage on the ground. A few days later she'd come back and found the bird lying dead next to its cage. It must have died trying to get back in. Apparently this wasn't the type who knew how to get by in the wild.

  Stupid bird.

  Except if someone set Erin free, would she know where to fly? She'd run away a few times after Joy died, to her grandma's, to her cousin's. Joe always found her. But if he hadn't, maybe she'd have come knocking back on his door after a few days, too. And if he wouldn't let her in, maybe she'd have frozen to death on the sidewalk. Maybe she didn't know how to survive in her natural habitat, either.

  Maybe Vivian could teach her.

  She took a shower, dried herself off, and reached for the pretty dusting powder in the white porcelain box, part of the set her mom had given her for her seventh birthday, which she refilled when it ran out. She didn't wear it often, but today she thought smelling good would be nice. On Thursday, when Vivian had breezed into the ugly, stale meeting room, she'd brought with her a light floral perfume. Erin loved that Vivian could bring a room alive for every sense. She'd love to be able to do that. Mostly she crept in and people didn't notice.

  She pulled on baggy beige pants, then dug in her drawer until she found the deep rose -colored sweater Sarah had given her two years earlier for helping with the Halloween party. Erin knew Sarah well enough to know the sweater was not a gift, but an attempt to make her over into something better. Sarah had meant to be helpful, but Erin had put it away and never worn it.

  Now she pulled it on and checked the mirror in their dingy and out -of-date bathroom. Erin would love to redo the whole house. Joan had horrible taste. Erin had seen enough home improvement shows that she could probably do the entire renovation herself. But God forbid she change the house Joe grew up in. The one Joan let them live in through the tremendous warmth of her heart, while she languished in a smaller house on the outskirts of town and never let them forget it.

  The sweater looked good. She needed makeup, but if she started wearing that, Joe would freak. In fact, she'd have to remember to take the sweater off before he got home or he'd start in with the questions and make her feel guilty for nothing.

  Her doorbell rang and she ran to the bedroom and peered at the clock on Joe's side of the bed. Nearly noon. Joe was out playing golf, Joan never came by unless she knew he was home; who was this?

  She ran to the front hall and peeked through the peephole. Vivian. Erin turned and flattened herself against the door. Oh my God. A breathless laugh, then she took a deep breath and opened the door, unable to stop smiling. It was like having a movie star show up at your house.

  "Hi Erin." Vivian looked stunning, sunglasses pushed on top of her head, fancy -stitched jeans that hugged her hips, a fuchsia suede handbag that matched the stitching in her jeans. Erin window -shopped online a lot, imagining herself in outfits she'd never wear. She was pretty sure that purse was a Kate Spade.

  "Hi Vivian." Her voice came out shaky.
Come on, Erin
.

  "I'm passing out leaflets about my new aerobics classes,

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at fi ve -thirty. I'm teaching at my house until I have enough people to get a bigger place. Are you interested?"

  Erin took a leaflet. They were done on thick cream paper with a design of fall leaves in one corner and in the other, a woman jumping, arms up, as if she didn't ever expect to land.
Shape Up for Fall.
"These are nice. Did you do them yourself?"

  "Yes ma'am." The low, sexy drawl made Erin want to smile again. "On Mike's computer."

  "They're nice." She just said that. Could she sound more stupid?

  Vivian was studying her; Erin could tell without looking up. Probably thinking the same thing everyone else in Kettle thought, only Vivian wouldn't know about Joe. Erin wished she could toss back her hair and say something brilliant that would convince Vivian they could be really good friends.

  "Have we met before, Erin?"

  She was so surprised, she jerked her head up and met Vivian's dark, beautiful gaze. "Yes. When we were kids."

  "I thought so." Vivian narrowed her eyes. "The dollhouse at my grandma's, did we play there together?"

  "Yes. Yes." She couldn't stop nodding and smiling. It was like Vivian was validating her existence. "That was me."

  "No kidding. How cool."

  "We played at my house once, too. And in the woods behind it. At the stream."

  "Hmm. I don't remember that."

  No. She wouldn't.

  A truck drove down the street. Joe's. How could he be

home already? The golf course was always jammed on Saturdays, and today was warm for this time of year.

  He turned into their driveway; the garage door creaked up.

  Vivian glanced behind her. "Your husband?"

  "Yes." She tried not to sound anxious. "He's back from golf early I guess."

  "Introduce me?" Vivian was watching her carefully.

  Erin met the dark eyes again and held them this time, communicating what she wasn't saying as hard as she could to someone who would understand. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

  "Really." She took a step back. The garage door went down behind Joe's truck. "You sure?"

  Erin heard his truck door slam, his heavy steps coming up the stairs from the garage. Suddenly she wasn't sure. The familiar adrenaline surged and started her heart pounding, but not entirely from fear. She wanted Joe to meet someone with strength to equal his.

  "Erin." His voice, now his steps behind her, coming toward the front door. "Is that the Lorelei girl?"

  "Woman." Vivian shifted her weight even on both feet. "I haven't been a girl for decades."

  "Joe, this is Vivian." Erin dropped her eyes so she wouldn't have to see him leering.

  "I'm passing out flyers for the aerobics class I'm going to teach. Erin would like to join."

  Erin flinched. She hadn't said that.

  "She would?" His voice was hearty innocence. She could feel his eyes on her. "We'll talk it over. Nice sweater, by the way, Erin. Have I seen that before? I don't think so."

  Damn, damn, shit, and damn, she didn't have a chance to take it off. "First time I've worn it."

  "What's the occasion?"

  She shrugged, willing Vivian to understand, wanting that bond between them.

  "Pretty color, it looks great on you." Vivian pushed her sunglasses abruptly down onto her nose. "So. I'm off. Yours is the last house on this street."

  Erin's heart sank. What had she thought, that staring at Vivian would magically enable them to communicate? Vivian probably thought she was touched in the head. Most people did, even Erin sometimes.

  So Vivian would move on, and Erin would be left with Joe, who would question her. Why was she wearing that sweater? Who was she trying to look nice for? Why did she want to take the classes, wasn't her life good enough with him? Was she trying to meet someone else? He'd die if she left him, she was the best thing that ever happened to him, he loved her so much sometimes he thought it would kill him.

  Sometimes Erin almost wished it would.

  "Thanks for stopping by." She couldn't look at Vivian again, or Joe. Erin probably knew more of the sidewalks and yards and streets of Kettle than anyone but bugs.

  "Bye, Vivian." Joe's arm came around Erin in an embrace that felt like a threat.

  "Nice to see you again, Joe." Vivian reached out and touched Erin's arm. "Erin, want to walk with me? I have a bunch more of these to deliver."

  A short, shocked silence. Joe would say no. He'd say they had plans. He'd say he needed his lunch.

  "Thanks, I'd like that." Erin nearly fainted. She'd been thinking the words so hard they actually came out.

  "Great. Let's go."

  "Erin, what about lunch." Joe's voice dropped lower; his arm squeezed her tighter. She'd get it either way now, whether she went or whether she didn't.

  "Peanut butter and jelly, food of gods." Vivian grabbed Erin's hand and pulled her out of Joe's embrace, propelled her down the steps. "You can handle that, I'm sure."