You Believers (7 page)

Livy turned toward her bedroom, looked in and saw Lawrence propped up on pillows, dozing with his paper scattered across the bed. Livy looked at the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with.
You used to take me dancing
, she thought. He used to smile and stand when she entered a room, as if he couldn’t bear another second away from her. He used to bend a little toward her whenever she spoke, as if to catch the very breath of her words. Did all passion fade like this? She stood there, watching him, wondering if he’d wake and want her or just keep sinking deeper into the sheets. Either way it didn’t matter.

Livy stood in the doorway, just feeling the room, listening to the soft whir of the central air, the soughing sigh of Lawrence’s soft snores. She studied her life, the furniture solid on blue carpet in a white room with a wall of windows, drapes open to the night. A long way from Suck Creek. She thought this every night and gave thanks. She had her doubts sometimes about God and his ways in the world. But she believed in giving thanks for every day.

She crossed the room, went to the window that looked out onto a lot of nothing but trees. She’d convinced Lawrence to buy that lot so she’d always be able to stand at the window and watch the birds flitting in the branches, the squirrels digging, chattering, always a little nervous and hungry, it seemed. Other people’s children played there now. She liked to watch them, hear the high, happy sounds of children playing, digging, inventing who knew what in fantasy worlds hidden in those trees. Livy loved their innocence, so rowdy
and loud, pure as pups until something in the world taught them to be afraid.

She would have to warn Katy about marriage.
Maybe in the end kindness is overrated. Don’t give yourself away
. She felt a surge of sorrow. Tears rushed into her eyes, a queasy feeling that made her sit. It was too late to teach Katy to be selfish. Livy had seen enough bankers, lawyers, contractors to know that even though Jesus said the meek inherit the earth, the world belonged to bankers, lawyers, and investors like Lawrence. She knew that in the world of living, it is not the meek who win.

“Livy,” Lawrence called from the bed, his voice soft, curious. Livy looked up.

He squinted, leaned for a closer look at her face. “Are you all right?”

She smiled, shook her head. He was worried. This was a man who after ten years of marriage would still sometimes show up with flowers for no reason. She would have to remember that.

Livy wondered why she was feeling so selfish, so pitiful and mean. Self-pity was a sin. She’d learned that in church.

He sat up, pulled the sheets up around his waist. “Sorry I fell asleep.”

She went to him, rubbed his chest, thick and hairy. She just wanted to touch him a minute. She felt the warmth of his skin, stepped back, and said, “I think I’ll get some water. Want anything?”

He studied her. “Did something happen?” he asked. “I can see it in your face.” Lawrence was a gambler—that was what stock traders really were. It was his business to know how to read every line and shadow, expression, even on a stranger.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “I just had this bad feeling. You’d think I’d be happy Katy’s finally getting married. But it’s just that she’s so far away.”

Lawrence leaned back, gave a quick glance at a headline before tossing the section of paper aside, smoothing another across his lap. “Isn’t she coming up this weekend?”

“Yeah, but I’ve just got this bad feeling.”

“Call her,” he said, his attention now locked on something in the paper.

“She’s working.”

“She doesn’t work on Mondays.” Lawrence looked back to his paper and sighed. “My wife’s thirty-year-old daughter works in a bar. She went to college, for God’s sake.”

Livy didn’t want to start the old defense of the choices of her girl. “I’m calling her,” she said. But Lawrence had already dropped out of the conversation by the time she turned away.

She went down the hallway to the kitchen. She settled with her glass of water at the counter, and just as she reached for the phone, it rang.

Billy’s voice. She had trouble letting the meaning of his words sink in. Katy wasn’t home. Katy had left a note saying, “Be back when I can,” and she’d been gone all day. He said that note was a bad sign, a sign that she was still mad over a fight they’d had.

“A fight?” Livy said.

“Just an argument. Nothing real big.” Billy sighed. There was a weakness in his voice. He was guilty or lying over something.

“Billy,” she said, “anything you’re not telling me?”

He didn’t hear or pretended not to hear the question. “When things are good between us, she writes, ‘Be back soon.’ She only writes, ‘Be back when I can’ to let me know she can keep me waiting or come home. To remind me it’s her choice. It’s always gotta be her choice.”

Livy looked at the clock on the stove: 12:14.

“She wouldn’t run off?” He said it like a question. “Katy wouldn’t run off. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, Billy,” she said. “Katy would never just run off.”

“She’s coming to see you this weekend. I just thought maybe . . .”

The kitchen shook, righted, shook again. An earthquake? The house held, but the world was slipping. Katy had said something about coming home for a visit, but nothing had seemed wrong. Livy thought it could be something with Frank, but she wouldn’t mention Frank, not to Billy. “Have you tried calling her?”

“Her phone is here. You know how she tends to forget her phone.”

Livy could feel panic rising in her chest.
Stay rational
, she thought.
No need for fear, not fear
. But the word and the feeling hummed in her head. “So check who she’s been calling.”

“She keeps her phone locked, and I don’t have the code. Funny how she forgets her phone but never forgets to put the lock on.”

“Have you called the police?”

His voice, she understood that weakness in it. He was high. Of course. “They say it’s too early to declare her a missing person yet.”

A wave of nausea rolled up. “Don’t say that. She is not a missing person, Billy. She’ll come home.” Katy had never run off. She threatened to sometimes. The only time she’d ever done anything like run off, she’d moved to Frank’s houseboat. But she’d called Livy that same day just so she wouldn’t worry. Livy checked her cell phone charging on the counter. No missed calls. “This isn’t like Katy. Tell her to call me as soon as she comes in,” Livy said. She hung up the phone, gripped the counter for balance, then walked softly down the hallway, one hand touching the wall as if she were a blind woman feeling her way down the long corridor of an unfamiliar home.

What This World Needs Is a Little More Awareness

Jesse stared into the open refrigerator at Mike’s granny’s house. “What a waste, man. What a fucking waste of a day.” He was looking for something to eat but kept seeing the pawnshop metal door going down, the “Closed” sign, and the owner, Larry, walking away. They were five minutes too late because they’d had to dump the truck on a back road out by the lake. They couldn’t risk driving it back to town. He hadn’t seen that the truck was on empty. He should’ve noticed. But no, he’d fucked up, too busy worrying about Mike up there driving stoned. He turned, saw Mike sitting at the table eating a chicken leg. Without a word, he smacked the back of his head.

“Ow!” Mike grabbed his head. “What you do that for?”

“It was the weed. I’m back there worrying about you driving stoned, and I don’t think to look at her fuel gauge. Boost a truck that’s out of gas. Zeke would really like that.”

“Keep your voice down, man. You don’t want my granny hearing this.”

“I thought she was deaf.”

“Half deaf,” Mike said and went back to his chicken.

“We fucked up because I had to keep my eye on you, making
sure you drive straight, and there you go driving in circles and I’m trying to watch her, make sure she doesn’t flip and run.” Jesse turned back to the refrigerator, pushed past the foil-covered bowls. “I could use a beer. Don’t y’all keep any beer in this house?”

“She’s a Christian,” Mike said. “There’s some sweet tea there in the jar on the counter.” Mike took a sip of milk. He was glad his granny was half deaf back there in her bedroom, falling asleep, staring at people on TV. She’d never liked Jesse, said he was like that Eddie Haskell kid on TV, always smiling and nodding and up to no good. He was glad she was too weak to come to the kitchen without her walker. He’d had the sense to sneak in, grab her walker, and put it right in the kitchen by the stove. He’d make sure he put the walker back once he got Jesse settled down and sleeping on the sofa.

“I don’t want any sweet tea.” Jesse sat, looked at the cabinets. “I need something to eat.”

“Your stomach better now?”

“Yeah, I took care of it at that McDonald’s back there.”

“You always had that stomach thing?”

“Since I was a kid. Doctor says it’s nerves.” He went back to the refrigerator. “I don’t have any nerves. But I do need to eat something.”

“Have some fried chicken.” Mike lifted the foil off the platter on the table. “It’s good, man. She makes great fried chicken.”

“I don’t eat fried chicken.”

Mike took another chicken leg. He’d grabbed the first one while Jesse was outside pissing in the yard. “I’ve heard you say you like fried chicken. Everybody likes fried chicken.”

“I eat chicken strips,” Jesse said, “nice lean chicken strips. Nothing with a bone. It’s nasty.”

“Nasty?”

“I had this dog once, choked on a chicken bone.” Jesse glanced
back, saw Mike looking at him. That was one thing he liked about Mike. He liked Jesse’s stories. He could listen to Jesse’s stories all day when most people didn’t give a damn. Except his mom. And Jenny. She listened to his stories. Jesse went to the kitchen window, looked out at the dark. “Her name was Pup. My momma didn’t want me having no dog, but I kept her, fed her scraps from my plate. I didn’t know a dog could die on chicken bones. But she choked, bone got stuck in her throat, and she just laid there, twitching on the sidewalk.” Jesse glanced at Mike, sitting there, just listening. “I was yelling to my mom to help her, but hell, no, she wasn’t home, just this man she kept around. He just sat on the front stoop, sipping his beer and watching.”

Jesse turned back to the window. “Pup finally stopped moving, and I guess I was crying or something. I was standing there, looking at Pup and all that blood. And he yells at me, ‘Just put the dead bitch in the trash.’ But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t stop looking at her. Then the bastard smacked the back of my head. Hard. It’s like I went blind for a second. I heard him saying, ‘Quit crying. Throw the bitch in the trash.’ I wanted to bury her, but he laughed and kept hitting. So I did it. I scooped her up with a shovel, and I tossed her in the Dumpster. I knew the rats would get her by morning. And that bastard, he sat there laughing, said, ‘You think that’s the worse thing you ever gonna see?’”

He turned back to Mike, who was tightening the foil over the platter of chicken. “Damn, Jesse. That’s about the saddest thing I ever heard.”

Jesse went to the refrigerator, grabbed a hunk of cheese. “It ain’t the worst thing. The bastard was right. There’s always another worst thing you’re gonna see.” He pulled a knife from a drawer, sat at the table. With a smooth stroke of the blade, he cut a slice of cheese and slid it into his mouth. He shook his head. “You got any crackers?”

Mike got some saltines from the cabinet.

Jesse cut another slice of cheese. “Zeke was all set to move those guns from that pawnshop. And we boost a truck out of gas. We don’t have shit but a fake hundred-dollar bill.” Jesse put the cheese down. “This ain’t real cheese. I can’t eat this.” He sat back, rubbed his belly. “I need something, man, something solid, something easy.”

“Want me to make you a fried-egg sandwich?”

“Yeah, man. That’d be cool. Thanks.”

Good
, Mike thought.
He’s settling down
. He’d never seen a man shift moods as fast as Jesse. You never knew what could set him off, and sometimes it took the simplest thing to calm him back down.

Mike put a skillet on the stove, scooped in some bacon fat, reached into the refrigerator for an egg. He felt Jesse watching him. “You want this on plain bread or toast?”

“Toast. No butter. Just toast.” Jesse’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He looked. His mother. He clicked the phone off. There’d be hell to pay for this. She would yell, then cry, then give him more jobs to do around the house. Her car would be off limits for a while. He watched Mike leaning over the frying pan, studying the sizzling egg. Zeke cooked like that, studied whatever he cooked in a pot, kept leaning over it, smelling it, stirring it. Made the best fried trout Jesse’d ever had. Mike was tenderly flipping the egg. Jesse watched him. “You do that like Zeke, man. The man loves his food.”

“Did you call him yet?”

“Yeah. While you were making sure your granny was in bed, I called him, said we didn’t do the job.”

Mike put a piece of toast on the plate, slipped the fried egg onto it. “He pissed?”

Jesse shrugged. “And lay that top piece of toast on real gentle. I don’t want it all mashed down.” He watched to make sure Mike did it right. “Nah, he wasn’t pissed. He’s too cool to get pissed. He did this
repo once. A man tries to sic his dog on him, big fucking Doberman, Zeke just turns real calm to the back of his truck, pulls out a chain. The dog just studies him. And Zeke, man, he ain’t scared of nothing. He just keeps looking at the man and winding that chain up, getting ready. Man keeps trying to sic that dog, gives it a kick, and it runs up to Zeke like it’s gonna jump, and Zeke just stands there. Dog sniffs at his crotch. And Zeke must have some kind of magic in his crotch ’cause that dog, it just steps back and starts wagging its tail.” Jesse laughed and slapped the table.

Mike put the sandwich on the plate in front of Jesse. “I guess ol’ Zeke’s girlfriend likes that magic in his crotch.”

Jesse glared up at him. “Don’t be talking about her that way. She’s his wife, and she’s a good woman. Nicki Lynn is the only woman in the world worth keeping, or Zeke wouldn’t have her. You gotta be some hell of a woman to catch Zeke. And now they’ve got this baby on the way. Due any day, I guess.” Jesse studied his sandwich, turned the plate to make it look just right. “Yeah, Nicki Lynn. She loves that man. Cooks, cleans, keeps his books. And Zeke, he can’t keep his hands off her. Always patting her head, her ass. Now he just pats that big ol’ baby belly of hers.”