You Believers (9 page)

She saw a rustling in the brush at the back of the yard, made it out to be the pair of deer that liked to come for the salt lick she’d
laid down. She liked watching the deer but had to keep her garden fenced. One year they’d snapped off the buds of all her lilies just as they were about to bloom. She saw them out there watching her. She made a little chucking sound, the way she talked to babies. She didn’t know deer language. They just stared at her for a minute and walked off. A breeze shook the trees. There had been such a drought lately. Here it was, late summer, and the leaves were already making a dry, brittle sound. She looked out at the field behind her house and ached for her husband, who used to plow that land, grew the sweetest corn in the county. She looked up, saw a shooting star, and made a wish for the safety of her daughter, who for some reason had decided to move up north.

She looked back at that field, remembered the lush corn that used to grow. And she felt a sorrow as if something very sad had just flown over. She wondered how many more years she’d have to walk this world, waiting to meet her husband in eternity somewhere. She was ready. She looked up, hoping to make another wish, but saw only a few blurred stars in a dull black sky. The humidity, she thought. Her daughter was always telling her to sell the farm and move to a place with milder weather. She sent a prayer to her husband, asked him to give her a sign to tell her whether she should give up the place and move or hang on and stay.
I’ll know when it’s time
, she thought. And then she thought maybe those were his words in her head.
Patience
was his favorite word.
You’ll know when it’s time
. That was exactly something he would say.

Love Calls Us to Things of This World

Billy woke in the dark, a jolt in the spine and a wide-eyed stare at the ceiling. Day three and she wasn’t back yet. He sat up, looked at the clock: 3:30
A.M.
As usual. Somewhere between 3:30 and 4:30, he would wake. She was always home by then, even when she worked late at the bar, partied with the wait staff. He stared into the dark. Not a sound in the house. Most nights he’d hear the clicking of ice as she brought her glass of ice water to bed. When she worked late, she always came in quietly, took a shower, brushed her teeth, and he never heard a thing but the clicking of her ice water as she set it on the side table, slipped so quiet, soft, and damp into their bed.

Three thirty
A.M.
What does a man do at 3:30
A.M.
? Five thirty is a civil time to rise. That was what Katy said: “Five thirty is a civil time to rise.” Farmers did it. Fishermen. Even those yuppies with some 6:00 spinning class at the gym. She said that getting up before 5:30 meant you were anxious or a nut of some kind or a workaholic. Katy liked sleeping in. In her ideal life, she said she’d like to be able to rise clean and clear-headed with the sun so she could watch the night turn to day. She said that as if she believed it. But Katy never got up early unless she had to. She wanted to be the kind of person
who got up early, greeted the day just for the beauty of it, but people did that only in the books she liked to read.

If she were there, she’d reach, stroke his back softly with her nails. She’d pull him to her where he could smell coconut, amber, some sweet-smelling cream she used. He’d nuzzle at her neck while she softly rubbed her fingers across the back of his head. “Come to bed,” she’d whisper, even when he was already there. He’d just nuzzle closer, breathing her sweetness.

He flicked on the light, threw a t-shirt over the lampshade to soften the glare. Katy hated when he did that, said he’d forget the shirt one day and burn the place down. Right now he didn’t care. He looked around the room as if looking would reveal some sign of her, as if all that time he was looking she was right there, the way you looked for a drill bit you needed in a toolbox. You looked and sifted and looked, and you gave up, made some other drill bit work. You went to put it back, and there it was—the drill bit you needed was sitting right there.

He ran his hands over the tangle of sheets. Katy would have had them smooth, tight, and clean. He could see a stain. She hated stains on a sheet, kept saying she wanted new sheets. And so he’d bought these eight-hundred-thread-count sheets she’d wanted. He was saving them for a wedding present. Their first night married, they’d sleep on those ivory-colored eight-hundred-count sheets. “Katy,” he said, “I got you those great sheets you’ve been wanting. Come home.”

The cops had said it was probably prewedding jitters. He was worried she had run back to Frank, the asshole who never remembered her birthday or Valentine’s Day. Frank, who seemed to want her just enough to hurt her. Some guys were like that, and some girls just couldn’t leave it alone. And now there was this other guy called Randy. Who the hell was Randy? Katy’s mother suspected
Frank. But even Olivia—he could hear it in her voice—was scared. Olivia didn’t know about some guy named Randy. Billy didn’t want anybody to know about Randy. He’d read about him in the journal, the journal he’d promised not to read. She’d written, “Randy the randy man. Yikes! Ha ha!” What kind of grown woman wrote things like that? No hearts around Randy’s name the way she did with Frank, just little doodles of firecrackers and stars

He glanced at his bedside table, the half-empty bottle of Jim Beam, the bag of pot. Nothing worked. He sat, nerves jangly at 3:35
A.M.
If he finished the bottle, took a couple hits of weed, he could sleep again and maybe wake again when it was a civil time to rise. But his mouth was thick and dry as cotton, so he drank the glass of water instead, what should be Katy’s glass of water, and there it was, in case she came in, on his side of the bed.

He grabbed his phone, punched in Frank’s number—of course he remembered Frank’s number. He’d gotten it off her phone when they’d first gotten together. She knew he’d done it. After that the phone stayed locked. It was a sign of guilt that she had to keep her phone locked. She just sighed and shook her head when he asked about Frank. “We’re friends, Billy. Old history. Sometimes old lovers, the chemistry dries out. I’m marrying you, Billy.” She said it like it was the biggest news of the world. Then she’d turn away, say something like “Sometimes old lovers can just be friends.” Yeah, he knew that. But he knew she was lying. He’d seen the heat between them, the kind of heat that never fully went away. And now he had some guy named Randy to worry about too.

He listened as the phone rang a few times, wondered if Frank would bother to answer. Probably not. He’d be with some girl. Maybe Katy. The phone kept ringing. Well, it was 3:45
A.M.
Hardly a civil time. It switched to voice mail,
blah blah
, Frank’s voice, “Leave a
message.” He sat in the silence. What could he say at 3:45
A.M.
? Frank had to be sick of him calling just to ask, “Is Katy there? Tell me the truth, is she there?”

Then there was a click and the deep, thick voice. Frank, with the kind of voice women liked, dark and smooth. A goddamned white Isaac Hayes. Shaft and you can dig it. The voice said, “Hello,” but Billy could hear it really saying,
Yeah, what now
?

“It’s me,” Billy said.

“Billy,” Frank said, “I’ve got caller ID.” Billy could hear him sitting up, maybe readjusting the pillows. “She’s not here, Billy. I swear I’ve got no idea where she is.”

“Yeah,” Billy said. “I’m sorry, man. I know you said that. But you’d tell me if she’s there? ’Cause I’m going crazy not knowing. I mean I’ve called her mom. Nobody knows where she is, and I just keep thinking if it’s anybody, it’s you. ’Cause, oh, hell.” He sucked back a breath. “Hell, everybody knew she still loved you. I was just the safe guy. You’re the danger guy, and the girls, they like the danger guy.”

“Billy,” Frank said, calm like a doctor, like his daddy, who had this preacher’s soft way of saying just about everything.

“What?”

“She’s not here, Billy. I haven’t seen her since y’all came back here for the engagement party.”

“Are you alone?” Billy said. There was a pause. “You’re not alone, are you, Frank? Shit, guys like you never sleep alone.”

“I’m gonna hang up in one minute, Billy. I’m just trying to be decent here. I’m trying to help, but I got no idea where she is. Hell, I wish she was here, and I don’t mean for me but for you. I know it’s been three days, and I know this ain’t like Katy.”

“Her mom’s coming,” Billy said. “Her mom’s so worried, she’s
coming down.” Billy didn’t know why, but it soothed him just to have her mom come down.

Billy heard Frank saying something, then the mumbling of a girl’s voice in the background. She sounded sleepy. She sounded pissed. It wasn’t Katy. “I’m sorry, man,” Frank said. “It’s just three days. Sometimes girls run off longer than that.”

“Maybe the kind of girls you go out with. Girls I go out with don’t run off. They want to marry me. She wants to marry me.” Billy felt the crying in his voice. He leaned toward the ashtray, picked up the half-smoked joint. Relit it. Held it. Breathed. Billy held the joint away from the phone as if that could hide what he was doing.

“Get some sleep, man,” Frank said. “We’ll all feel better if we can get some sleep.”

“Yeah.” Billy rubbed the joint out, looked at the bottle of Jim Beam.

“Look,” Frank said, “call me if you hear something.”

“Sure,” Billy said. “Sorry, man.” He flicked the phone shut, opened the bottle, but when he went for a swig, a heaving rose in his gut, and he ran to the john to throw up.

He retched and heaved until his whole body was shaking and tears ran down his face. He leaned back against the cold tub, grabbed a towel off the rack, and wrapped it around his shoulders. He pulled the bath mat under him for a little cushion and leaned back against the tub.

He reached up to the sink, ran the water cold, filled a glass, leaned back and sipped.
Easy, now
, he thought.
Small sips
. He leaned back, closed his eyes, felt the pounding in his chest ease. Olivia had said it would be all right. Olivia had said that there was an explanation for these things, that her daughter would never run off, but sometimes a girl just needed girl time. Maybe Katy was off with her
girlfriends. Olivia didn’t know about some guy called Randy, and Billy couldn’t bring himself to tell her about the name in Katy’s last journal, the one Billy had sworn he’d never read. So let Olivia think Katy was off with girlfriends; let her try to believe that. But Billy had heard the shaking in her voice. She wouldn’t have booked a plane if she thought it was all right. And even if Katy had run off with some guy named Randy, it wasn’t like her not to call and tell him where she was. She’d at least text if she didn’t want to talk on the phone. Unless she’d really left him for good.

Billy walked to the living room, saw the photos of Katy spread on the coffee table. The REV lady had said she’d need a photograph if he wanted her to make a flyer. Billy stood there, afraid to go closer to the photographs. He couldn’t believe this was really happening. The REV lady was coming tomorrow. You didn’t get calls from searchers if everything was all right. He’d seen her on the news. Shelby Waters. She helped cops find bodies, although that wasn’t how she’d put it. “No, I don’t go searching for bodies, Mr. Jenkins. I support people who have lost . . .” She went on, but that was all he heard.
People who have lost
.

He went back to the bathroom for another glass of water. He looked down at the grime caked at the base of the tub. It was his turn to clean the bathroom. He grabbed a piece of toilet paper, scrubbed at a black spot in the caulk where dust and dirt and moisture made that black mildew not even bleach could get out. He spit on the toilet paper, wiped at the spot. The toilet paper fell apart. He tossed it into the toilet, slammed the lid down, sat up. The cops had asked, “Are you sure nothing’s missing? Toothbrush, birth-control pills, perfume?”

He looked around. She’d left her cell phone. But she was always forgetting her cell phone. And all her favorite things were here. The birth-control case. Her Vitabath soap, the stuff she loved and they couldn’t afford so her mom always got it her for Christmas and her
birthday. And there were her other things: Amber Shea Butter, bath salts, her makeup and cleansers and lotions overfilling the two drawers, cluttering the shower. It was no wonder he always put off cleaning the bathroom when he had to go to all that trouble to move her things. She could always tell when he hurried and wiped the rag around whatever was on the shelf, said, “Do it right, Billy.” But it wasn’t like she was perfect. Her truck was a garbage can on wheels. He hated to ride in that truck of her daddy’s, but the truck was one good thing he’d left her, so she kept it running, new engine, transmission, but something was always going wrong. She said she’d drive it into the ground, and she drove it hard, filling the floorboards with Coke cans, beer cans, chip bags, candy wrappers, and rocks and leaves and branches she’d found from walking around the lake. She was always filling the truck bed with driftwood and broken chairs and lamps she’d pull from the garbage on the side of the streets. “We all have our sloppy spots,” she liked to say. “We’re all entitled to our sloppy spots, and Daddy’s truck is mine.” He figured it was hers to do what she wanted with.

At least she liked the house clean, and Billy was grateful for that. No matter how messy his mind felt after a day on the job, when he came home to see the prettiness, the brightness, the clean sheets and shelves she’d brought to his house when they’d made it their house, it was all peace. She took one shabby brick house and made it something wonderful just out of scraps of things she’d find, stitch up, repair, and paint. Only one month after she moved in with him, he asked her to marry him, please. She gave one little blink and looked around as if the answer hovered around her head like a little bugging mosquito she needed to catch. She looked at him as if there were a sudden solution to something she had been puzzling over for years.

“Yes,” she said. “Billy Jenkins, I’ll marry you. I’ll even change my name for you if you want.” But later they’d talked about that. She
didn’t see why a woman would give up the name she’d been born and raised with when she married some guy and odds were they’d end up divorced, and then she’d be carrying around some name like gum stuck to her shoe.