Frank held the door open for me. “Your ex-husband? I didn't know you had an ex-husband.”
“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago.” I threw my keys on the bar and scratched my neck.
“How come he was arrested?”
“I don't know, Frank.”
I was trying not to be snappy, but I wasn't doing a very good job. I felt antsy and nervous and like I was on the verge of biting someone's head off. Too bad for Frank he was so handy.
Why did I have to face two of the worst things I'd ever done, on the same day? This was too much to deal with. Guilt and shame rolled around inside me, wrestling with pride and defensiveness. I latched onto the latter two.
After all, the thing with Scott was as much his fault as mine, right? And nobody made Tony sleep with me, either. I mean, sure, I did come on strong that first time, but he came back for more all on his own. He could have ignored me the next day the way the other guys had done. And it wasn't like I'd poked a hole in the condom. That was either a God thing or a Trojan thing, but certainly not anything that could be laid at my feet. I really hadn't wanted to marry Tony; I'd only done it because it seemed like the right thing to do. I hadn't wanted to ruin his life. I hadn’t wanted to take his future and screw it up. I’d never wanted to hurt him.
I never wanted to hurt anyone, actually, except maybe myself – and Mom, on occasion.
But I had hurt everyone else. I screwed up my life and Tony's life and Trisha's life and Scott's life. And now Tony was being put through who-knew-what and that was probably my fault, too, somehow. I didn't know how, but I was sure that when all was said and done, somehow I was going to be at the root of this, too.
To top it all off, my car was cratered. Man!
Since I couldn't drink, I opened the fridge to see what there was to eat. If I can't have alcohol, my second choice is always Mexican food. Beef and chicken enchiladas with lots of melted cheese and sour cream. Real sour cream, too, not that nasty fat free stuff I bought one time when my pants started to get too tight. And chips. Lots of corn chips with queso. And margaritas. Six or eight of them to make me loosen up and laugh about nothing at all.
I had to settle for peanut butter and apricot jelly. I tossed a loaf of bread on the bar and muttered, “Help yourself,” to Les and Frank.
Les declined, but Frank – damn his high metabolism – got a tablespoon out of the drawer and dug a good half cup of peanut butter out of the jar and smushed it across a piece of bread. He looked at the jelly jar. “Got any grape?”
I gave him a look, and he decided apricot was fine.
I thought about Trisha's sneer as she looked at me and made that remark about Fat Fighters. I dug into the peanut butter and stuck the spoon in my mouth while I spread golden apricot jelly over the bread.
“What you need is a quart of milk to wash that down,” Les said.
“No, what I need is a fifth of Jack Daniels.” I slapped the bread together and took a ferocious bite. I felt like my head was going to start spinning any second. “Do you ever feel like God is punishing you?”
Les nodded, which surprised me.
“When?”
“Like most people, when things aren’t going the way I want them to. When I know I've done something wrong and expect to be punished.”
“But what if you haven't done anything wrong? What if you're trying to do something right?” I tossed the spoon into the sink with a clatter. “What if all you're trying to do is live a good life and climb out of your hole, and God keeps thumping you back down? I was on my way to a meeting yesterday, for crying out loud. I did not want to find a dead body. I did not do anything wrong. I was trying to do something right. And not only do I get the joy of a dead body forever planted in my mind, but now I have Trisha thrown in my face, and Tony, too. I can't catch a break.”
I didn't want the stupid freaking sandwich anymore, and I didn't want Les and Frank there. I dropped onto the cracked leather recliner. Stump jumped into my lap with her heavy, bony feet. I kind of wanted to shove her off, but I didn't.
What I really wanted was a drink. Just so I could not feel so crappy. Just so I could take a break for a while and figure out what I was going to do. Just to make it go away for a while, just a little while. I knew drinking was the short-term answer for a long-term problem. I knew it wasn't going to solve anything. I knew that. But at the moment I didn't care. Right at the moment all these feelings were pelting me at once: shame, regret, sadness over what I'd done to Trisha, and sadness over what had happened to me and Tony so long ago. The reason we'd had to get married, the reason we got divorced, it all made me feel really sad, and I hate feeling sad more than anything. I didn't want to do it one second longer. A short-term answer would be just fine, thank you very much.
Les sat across from me on the ottoman. He put his elbows on his knees. “You know if you make it through this one you can make it through just about anything.”
“I don't care.” The future loomed pointless before me.
“I know you don't, not right now. But you will.”
“I doubt it.”
“You will. Things will even back out and you'll be proud of yourself for being strong.”
That almost made me laugh. “Believe me, I'm not strong. I'm pissed off.”
“That's okay.”
“I feel screwed over.”
“That's okay too.”
“It's not okay, it sucks.”
“That's good.”
“You're such a weirdo.”
“I know that.”
“I hate this! I don't deserve this.”
“We all hate it, Salem. No one likes being an alcoholic. Nobody wants it to be this hard.”
For some stupid reason, after everything else, it was the tenderness in Les’s voice that put me over the edge.
The tears sprang up so fast I didn't have time to stop them. Within seconds my face was soaked and I had snot.
I gasped for air between sobs and curled up as small as I could. Les rubbed my back.
“I was on my way to Moe's,” I said between hiccuping sobs.
“I know.”
“I'm not strong. I'm a complete screw up. I mess up everything.”
“Shhh.”
“I don't want to do this anymore. It's too hard.”
“I know.”
“It's not worth it.”
“You're right.”
“I was happier being a drunk.”
“Of course you were.”
I sat back and swiped the back of my wrist across my eyes. “What the hell kind of pillar of support are you? Where's my buck up speech? Where's my encouragement?”
“You don't need encouragement. You need a good stiff drink.”
I kicked him. Ugh. I’m such a freak show.
He's just as bad, though. He stood up and kicked me back. You'd think a gentleman would have gone easy on me, too, but he didn't.
“Ow!” I rubbed my shin. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I'm having a very bad day! I feel awful.”
“So? You feel bad. How do you think your friend felt, knowing the man she loved had sex with her best friend, the night before her wedding? Do you think she felt kind of sorry for herself for half an hour or so, and then got over it?”
“Of course not! She was devastated. It still hurts her. That's why I feel so horrible.”
“Good. You should feel horrible. You need to feel that. You haven’t earned the right to escape from it.”
I stood and paced the room, wanting to throw him out, wanting to slap Frank for sitting on the barstool and staring at us both like we were this week's episode of a reality show, but I figured if I did, he'd take his cue from Les and slap me back.
So I folded my arms across my chest and dug my fingers into my own flesh. “I don't want to feel it.”
“Of course you don't. It's not fun.”
“It's horrible. I want it to go away.”
“Feel it.”
“I want a drink!”
“A drink would make everything all better, wouldn't it, Salem? Just one drink, and things would look a lot better. The pain would fade, you'd be back in control again. Things would be back on an even keel.”
“Yes.” I swiped again at the tears running down my cheeks.
“You can feel it now, can't you? Liquid warmth going down your throat, reaching out all the way to your fingers and toes. It pushes everything else back down to where it should be, out of sight, out of reach. All the bad stuff is going back down where it belongs, back down into the cellar behind a locked door.”
I listened to Les, let the possibilities he described circle around in my brain. I waited for it to feel good to me.
But it didn't feel good. It felt just as bad as staying right where I was. It felt like failure. It felt like the final nail in my coffin.
I dragged my hands through my hair. “I can't get away from it.”
“Go get a drink, Salem!”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because I don't have any money.”
“I'll give you the money.”
“I don't have a car.”
“I'll drive you.”
“No, damn it!”
“Why not?”
“Because I don't want to.”
He was quiet for a long time. “Exactly. You don't really want to.”
“You know, Les, as a psychologist you really suck.”
“You want to get through this.”
“I want to get past this!”
“I know. But guess what? You have to get through it to get past it. There’s no bridge over it.”
I rolled my eyes and dropped back down into my chair. I wanted to sink right through it, through the floor and through the ground until impenetrable darkness closed around me.
The thing about actually experiencing stuff is, I don't have a lot of practice at it. I learned early on how to daydream, how to use my mind to get away from my body. When I was a kid my daydreams looked a lot like Sesame Street: singing puppets, patient and loving adults who kept their hands to themselves – save for the occasional appropriate hug and tweak on the cheek – and nutritious after-school snacks.
I wished I could make up some world for me now. For a second I considered using the old fantasy world coping technique, but almost immediately abandoned the idea. Right away it started taking on “Real Housewives of Sesame Street” overtones, and that was just disturbing.
I couldn’t concentrate very well, what with Trisha continually popping in. I wondered if my showing up at the TV station had her as freaked out as I was.
From there my mind went to Tony, in a jail cell, I supposed, he was sitting on a metal bench with flaking burnt orange paint, arms crossed over his chest, waiting.
Frank left not long after that, but Les hung around until I finally told him I was going to bed and he was welcome to camp out on the sofa if he wanted. He didn’t trust me that I wasn’t going to take a drink, and if he felt the need to be my personal Secret Service guy, I didn’t have the energy to fight him. He settled in to watch TV and told me he would let himself out.
Later I heard him call his wife and tell her he would be late. That woman was a saint. Les was always out helping keep somebody out of the gutter, which is nice, but can’t make him the best candidate for a husband. Later, I woke for a second when he peeked in on me, then slipped out the front door.
The next morning I woke early, took my shower and got ready for work, then went to my prayer room for my morning devotional. I couldn't concentrate because I kept thinking about Tony. Maybe I could help him in some way, make up for all the garbage I'd given him. Maybe I could remember something from the crime scene that would help exonerate him.
I started to ask God to help me help Tony, but I remembered the day before, how mad I'd been at God and the entire world. The Bible says if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive them, but I wasn't sure exactly what my sin was. I mean, I knew I was wrong, but I wasn't exactly sure what to confess to. I did a mental run-through of the Ten Commandments to see what my day had fallen under. I hadn't murdered, I hadn't stolen, I hadn't lied. What else was there? Did calling God a jerk mean I’d taken His name in vain?
“God, I'm sorry I got mad yesterday and called you…you know. I'm sorry I was rude to Les and Frank, and I'm sorry I really wanted a drink and I planned to get one. Did you send Les to keep me from going to the bar?” I suddenly remembered my car with a sick feeling. “Did you make my car break down so I couldn't get to the bar? Because if you did…well, I wish you'd thought a little longer and come up with something a little bit…not so expensive. Because you might remember, as I told you yesterday, I'm broke. I don't have money for car repairs, and I don't have money for a new car. Even a decent used one. Even a junker. I have no money. And if I have no car I have no way to work.” Okay, I was getting overwhelmed again. I hated to be rude while I was in the middle of prayer, but I looked at my watch. I had half an hour to get to work. and no way to get there except to walk. It was, what…eight or ten miles away?
“Anyway, I need help. I really want help, and I'd really appreciate it if you'd send some help my way. Amen.”
I started to get up, then went back down on my knees. “And, PS, if I can do something to help Tony, please let me know what it is. I owe him big time.”
I got up and went to the front door, looking through the little rectangle window at my old junker car in the driveway. All by itself. I admit, I had kind of been hoping God was going to throw me a nice new V-6 bone with a bow on top. “Happy You’re-Not-Really-A-Total-Loser Day! Here’s your band new car!”
I put on my shoes and grabbed my purse. Stump came trotting up on her little stub legs and danced around my feet. I looked at her and chewed my lip. I seriously didn't know how I was going to get to work, and I figured I should leave her at home. She was used to going to work with me except for on Mondays. Probably she didn't know it was Wednesday, but maybe she did. Maybe she'd be heartbroken if I didn't take her with me. Maybe in her despair she’d shred the entire house while I was gone.
I sighed and opened the front door. She trotted down the steps, her black bottom bumping each riser on her way down.
I locked up and said a prayer on the way to the car. “God, I would really love a new car, but if you've decided to send my miracle in the form of this car being healed, that will work, too.”
I opened the car door and Stump, bless her ever optimistic heart, tried to jump into the seat. She lunged and hung, scrambling, from the doorway, until I put my hand under her butt and hoisted her up.
“This will work,” I said decisively to her as I sat. “Absolutely.”
She cocked her head and looked at me like she wasn’t buying my BS. I said another quick prayer that was really just a, “Please.” I cranked the key.
Ruhr-ruhr-ruhr-ruhr. I turned it again. Ruhr-ruhr-ruhr-ruhr.
Stump laid her head on her paws, looking bored.
“Okay, well,” I said, pulling the key from the ignition. “It was worth a shot.”
I sighed and opened the door. I had to go around to the passenger side to get Stump because she refused to get out of the car. I hitched my handbag up on my shoulder, tucked her like a football under my arm, and took off walking.
We made it out of Trailertopia and onto Llano Boulevard before I started to think maybe I should have taken the gamble of leaving Stump unattended at home. Good Lord, the girl packed a lot of weight into her little body. Plus she kept squirming around, digging her rear paws into my back for traction. I shifted her from one arm to the other, but by the third block into it, I figured by the time I got to Bow Wow Barbers my arms were going to be too exhausted to lift. I stopped dead on the sidewalk.
At that moment, a car pulled up beside me.
Les was leaning over from the driver’s seat, rolling down the passenger window. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, cheerful as ever.
Because I was a complete and eternally grateful sap, I had to blink back tears. “You didn’t have to come get me,” I said, making my voice light. I had not forgotten Les’s speech about getting through the tough stuff. “We were going to walk.” See how full of BS I can be? I hugged Stump to me, partly to hide the shaking in my arms.
“Long way to walk,” was all he said.
He dropped me off at Flo’s and asked, “What time should I pick you up?”
“No need,” I said. “I have a ride home.” I would get one, I decided. If I had to call G-Ma, I would do that. I could not keep imposing on Les for the rest of my life, no matter how much he didn’t seem to mind.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” was all he said. He drove off, presumably to get to the jail so he could find other lost lambs.
I thought about Les as I went about my morning routine. He must have gotten a hefty emotional payoff, with all the helping people he did. It wasn’t just me. Okay, it was mostly me, because, let’s face it, I’m pretty much a full-time job. But still, there wasn’t an hour of the day when he wasn’t doing something for someone. It made me wonder what it felt like, being someone’s last hope. Which in turn, made me think of Tony. If there was anyone I would love to be the last hope for, it was Tony. Also Trisha, and Stump, because I would basically do just about anything for her.
When I had two dogs left to finish, I worked up the nerve to call G-Ma. G-Ma is not the type to bend over backwards for anyone, but most especially not her beloved only grandchild. It wasn’t that she didn’t love me. It was just that she’d read somewhere about tough love and setting boundaries and, boy howdy, she’d taken it all to heart where I was concerned. This inconvenient attitude was aggravated by the fact that she had learned all these golden theories after she’d raised my mother, who had gone on to lie, steal, use, and beg her way through life. Even though I wasn’t always thrilled with G-Ma’s no-handouts rule, I had to admit I admired her. There were plenty of times when, if she had given an inch, I would definitely have taken the whole damned yard.
“I thought you said you were staying out of trouble,” she said when I told her what I wanted to do.
“I am staying out of trouble,” I said. I remembered that verse in the book of James about not swearing on anything, just letting your yes be yes and your no be no. I’d spent so many years lying through my teeth that I could swear on the original stone tablet, with my hand firmly on the “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness” part, and it still wouldn’t hold a lot of water with G-Ma. “I am staying out of trouble. I just want to go visit a friend, and my car is in the shop.” See? Even when I was telling the truth, I couldn’t help but lie a little bit.
“You don’t need to go be seeing any friends that are in jail. You need to stay away from friends in jail.”
“But G-Ma, it’s Tony. Remember Tony?”
“Your husband Tony?”
“My ex-husband Tony. Yes, that’s him.”
“He didn’t do anything.” She said it with all the conviction of the close-minded. Like most people – most people including me – G-Ma believed that Tony was much too good to have married me.
“I know,” I said. “I want to go visit him and find out if there’s some way I can help him.”
For me, G-Ma would have said no, but for Tony, she relented.
One of the things I really like about G-Ma is, she believes in having the best, whether she can afford it or not. She'll go without before she'll buy generic. I think there's an intrinsic sense of worth in her that failed to trickle down. I feel like a spendthrift if I buy Charmin instead of Walmart brand toilet paper.
The best car, in G-Ma’s eyes, is a Lincoln. Not as showy and obnoxious as a Cadillac. Cadillacs are for people who just want to get attention, she says. For the discriminating person who simply wants luxury, it's got to be a Lincoln. She manages to slip into conversation at every opportunity that Lincolns cost just as much as Cadillacs.
After I finished my dogs I sponged off with the brown paper towels in the bathroom and tried to fix my makeup, then waited out on the sidewalk for the maroon Lincoln to come careening into the parking lot. I paced up and down with Stump and tried – without success – not to stare at my reflection in the shop windows. I wondered how Tony would see me. Probably he'd be too preoccupied with possible long-term prison time to notice that my bangs needed a trim and that my thighs had grown to enormous proportions.
Of course, this was extremely shallow thinking about when there were much bigger issues than the size of my thighs on the table (so to speak), but I never professed to being that deep. I tried to be deep. I wanted to be deep, but the fact was, I felt better when I fished the lipstick and powder out of my purse and freshened up a little. I also said a prayer for a thirty-pound weight loss miracle on the way to the county jail, but the Bible does say that prayers without faith don't really work.
G-Ma bounced the Lincoln into the parking lot and pulled up beside me. She hit the button and the passenger window slid halfway down.
“You're bringing your –” The window slid back up. G-Ma’s not very proficient with buttons, or technology in general.
I saw her mouth the word “dog,” though. I nodded.
The window slid back down.
“I can't leave her here because Flo’s going to close in an hour and I don't know if we'll be back before –”
Whirr. Window going back up. I waited until it slid partway back down. “Is it okay?”
Experience told me that it would be okay, as long as I groveled and gave her a few minutes to complain about it.
“This is a nice car. This is a quality car. I don't want it full of dog poo.”
“She's not going to poo in your car, G-Ma. She's trained and besides, she already did her poo for the day.” I'd walked her after lunch; I knew firsthand the poo issue was taken care of.
“Does she get nervous riding in cars? Because getting nervous does bad things to a dog's stomach.”
“She rides everywhere with me. She's never been nervous before.”
“Once that smell gets in you can't get it out, you know. Doesn't matter what you use. It's permanent.”
“I promise you she won't go in your car, G-Ma.” I looked at Stump and mental-telepathied what I'd do to her if she made a liar out of me.
“I'd have to sell the car and I love this car. There's not another one this color within two hundred miles.”
Now we were off on that fable. The guy at the dealership had fed her that line, and despite the fact that I'd seen at least five cars exactly like G-Ma’s in town, she clung to the notion that she had the only Midnight Maroon Lincoln between Dallas and El Paso.
“I'll hold her in my lap,” I said. “So just in case it will get on me and not the seat.”
G-Ma pursed her lips and didn't say anything else, and I decided that meant she was through arguing. I opened the door and belted myself in, holding Stump tight on my lap.
The Lincoln was a V-8, and G-Ma liked to make sure all eight cylinders saw action between every red light. A lot of people grumbled when Texas made it illegal to sit in the front seat without your seatbelt on, but I was relieved to have a reason to strap myself in when I rode with G-Ma. She played a little too fast and loose with the driving rules – such as staying between the lines and using only the middle lane for turning – for my comfort.
She hit the divider in the jail parking lot and shoved the gearshift into park. I climbed out with a silent prayer of thanks for a relatively safe arrival – along with another plea for a new car so I wouldn't have to keep bumming rides – and told Stump to be good while I was gone.
G-Ma raised one penciled-on eyebrow. “It's not staying in the car.”
I lifted my hands. “I can't take her inside.”
“It's not staying in my car.”
I cleared my throat and chewed my lip to push back my frustration. I was well-versed in G-Ma’s looks and tones. Stump wasn't staying in the car.
I opened the door and hooked Stump's leash to her collar. She hates her leash. She screams like she's dying and fights so hard she makes herself throw up. And yet up against G-Ma’s stubbornness, the leash hooked to the bike rack in front of the jail became the path of least resistance.
Stump began to whine and gag as soon as the leash was attached. Never mind the fact that the collar around her neck was exactly the same size as it had been five seconds before, and that absolutely nothing was restricting her air flow in the least. She detected a leash, and she wasn't having it.
Be firm, I told myself as I sat Stump down by the bike rack and looped her leash over the bar. Just act like it's no big deal; you're the parent here.
Before I could figure out a way to get the leash knotted, she'd tugged it off the pole and was barking furiously at me.
I gave her the hairy eyeball but, as usual, she was unfazed by that. If I ever had kids I would have to learn how to be more menacing.
I tucked her, squirming, under my arm and unhooked the leash from her collar. She stopped wriggling immediately and licked my jaw. With my free hand I looped the leash over the pole, threaded the clip end through the looped handle, and pulled the clip back up. I clicked it back onto her collar and sat her down on the sidewalk before she knew what happened.
She looked at me with outrage burning in her big brown eyes, looked at the leash wrapped securely around the bicycle rack, and began to gag.
“Give me a break,” I said. “I've had a bad week. I have enough drama of my own to deal with. You can be the drama queen next week, okay? I promise.”
She lay down on her side and wheezed loudly. The slack in the leash pooled onto the sidewalk.
G-Ma laughed. “Would you look at that? I believe that dog's playing possum.”
“She's playing Meryl Streep on her deathbed,” I said. “She passed possum a long time ago.”
I asked the girl at the front desk if she'd look out every once in a while, and make sure my dog was okay. She wrinkled her brow and looked at Stump. “Is it okay? It's lying in the sidewalk. It looks like it's gasping for air.”
I scooted over away from the door where Stump couldn’t see me. “Now what's she doing?”
The girl drew her head back. “She's up now. Her tail's wagging.”
I nodded. “She'll be fine.” I asked if I could see Tony.
The girl checked a computer at the desk. “He was bonded out this morning. He's probably –” She turned and looked at the clock behind her. “You might be able to catch him at the back door. Go back out this way and around to the west side. That's where they're let out, but you'll have to hurry, because they started letting them go ten minutes ago.”
“G-Ma, will you grab Stump and meet me around there? I don't want to miss him.”
G-Ma protested but I pretended I didn't hear her. Now that the time had come, I was nervous about seeing Tony and realized I could dawdle and have the perfect excuse for not having to talk to him, but I hurried anyway, maybe just so I'd be able to pretend I was really disappointed when I missed him.
I didn't miss him. Mrs. Solis was walking with him toward her car when I rounded the corner.
I recognized him immediately, even though he'd changed. He was bigger now, not fat, but solid, stocky. A man. He'd been a boy when we were married. His face was broader, harder. His d eyes pierced mine when he saw me.
I wondered if he'd recognize me, but I didn't have to once our eyes met. As usual, I couldn't read much of what was going on behind his dark gaze, but he definitely recognized me.
He stopped at the front of the car and waited as I hurried up to him.
Now that I was here, I had no idea what to say to him. “Hi,” I said. I swallowed. “How are you?” Salem, your word for today is ‘inane.’
He nodded, not pointing out that he was under suspicion of murder.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Stupid question. I'm just…are you okay?”
“What do you think?” Mrs. Solis said, gesturing wildly. “He's been arrested for murder. Maybe for you that's a normal everyday thing, but not for my family.”
I wasn't going to let her divert me from the mission at hand. I'd come to see if there was anything I could do for Tony, and I was going to at least try.
“I heard that. I came to see if I could help you somehow.”
“How are you going to help him? Oh, I know. You're a lawyer now,” she said with a sneer. “You're going to defend him in court and keep him out of prison. You went to law school and now you're here to save the day.”
I took a deep breath. “I'm not a lawyer, of course. But –”
“Oh, I know, you’re a detective. You’re going to fi