Belly Page 12

  “What about Henry?”

  Eliza just shook her head. “He’ll be okay for a while on his own.”

  He said, “That’s great. There’s this man who’s stood by you and supported you and you’re leaving him?”

  Eliza blinked at him.

  “And you’re living off your dyke sister?”

  She rubbed the baby’s soft forearm.

  “Just great. Wonderful. Just like your mother. Just abandoning everyone right in the middle.”

  “Grampa, you’re an asshole,” said Stevie Ray, and Nora did not shush him.

  They heard a truck roar down Union Avenue behind them and that was the only sound. The rumble of the truck made brown pine needles float by the window, down to the dirt where no grass would grow. Then King began to cry. Belly watched the baby’s face contort and the tears coat his cheeks and he had no urge to comfort him.

  Eliza rose and let the screen door slam behind her, walked down the back porch steps to the dirt yard. She stood under a white trellis covered in vines that never flowered, cooing softly to the baby. He quieted in her arms. Belly thought about the architectural glossary in the back of one of the books they’d brought him, and about the definition of the arch: two weaknesses that, leaning one against the other, form a strength.

  Belly went to her, sidled up next to her under the trellis, and leaned against her a little, and she rested her head on his shoulder and the baby looked at him with his big brown eyes and father and daughter looked at the brown lawn.

  “Daddy,” Eliza said, and the word weakened him. “Ann is coming instead. To the confirmation. Ann is coming to see you.”

  She looked so hopeful, Eliza with her doe-in-the-headlights eyes turned up to him, the pale straw of her hair staticky against his shirt, and he said, “Eliza, this is a terrible thing you’re doing. This is absolutely unforgivable.”

  She backed away from him, up the steps and into the kitchen. He heard his daughters murmuring, chairs scraping against the tile floors, plates clinking in the sink. Then laughter. Nora pushed open the screen door and said, “Time to go, Belly. We’re out of here.”

  He walked through the yard to avoid going back into that falling-apart house, looking into the face of his falling-apart daughter. He didn’t want to watch her make the same mistake over and over again.

  Belly sat at Nora’s kitchen table drinking a beer, and he said to her, “I can’t believe this doesn’t bother you.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “Not one bit.”

  Belly took a swig and offered the can to Nora. She shook her head. “You know, Belly, this is something Eliza’s been talking about for years now, this whole book-making thing. Let’s just let her go, she wants to go.”

  “Why can’t she wait a week?”

  “Because it starts when it starts and it starts now. There’s orientation on Friday or something. It doesn’t make any more sense to me than it does to you, the artist stuff. I’m not saying I get it, but I get that it means more to her than her husband does.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice? Somebody must have done something wrong, if she thinks making these book things is more important than her family.”

  “I wonder who that could be?” She wiped the condensation off the table where Belly’s beer had rested. “There’s no use getting upset about it. She’s been planning this for months now.”

  A crackling, cooing sound wafted from the baby monitor and Nora put a finger up to keep Belly silent. She cocked her head to listen, but the baby’s voice faded away.

  “Good,” she said. “I need a few minutes off from motherhood.”

  “What you’re telling me is she knew about this before,” he said. “She’s always been planning to leave.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “She knew when I was getting out and she made arrangements to leave.”

  “I didn’t say that, either.”

  He stared at his daughter. He stared at the gurgling fat collecting under her arms. He stared at the stretchy blue fabric affixing her maternity jeans to her booming stomach.

  “What do you want me to say?” she asked him. “Tell me, and I’ll say it, and then we don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

  “You don’t see some sort of problem with Eliza leaving her husband, with her sister financing the whole thing?”

  “Ann. Your daughter’s name is Ann.”

  “Yes, Ann. I know her name is Ann. Ann is corrupting Eliza.”

  “Okay, that’s it. No more. End of discussion. You’re delusional.”

  “Oh, I’m delusional, that’s rich. You’re the one living in your little dream house with your boyfriend and no job.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Sure, sure, he’s just a friend.”

  “Belly, keep your voice down, the whole house is sleeping.”

  It was too late. The baby’s cries seeped out of the monitor and Nora scooted her chair back and headed upstairs.

  “The jig is up,” he called after her. “Everybody knows.”

  He walked through the TV room and the dining room and stood at the bottom of the stairs and called, “You’re supposed to be the strong one. You’re supposed to be the one keeping everyone together.” He heard her whisper to the baby, heard her tell him, “There, there, my little King, hush now, it’s okay, you’re okay, little boy.”

  He wanted to call Loretta, Loretta whose phone number had fled from his mind, Loretta who was silent and absent and somewhere in this town. But he couldn’t. So he left the house and walked to Springway Diner, looked in the window to see Maybelline cashing out, finishing her shift.

  “Let’s go to your place,” he said when she saw him. She was so glittery, big shiny teeth stretching out into a smile. It seemed she was the only person in the whole town glad to see him.

  “Don’t you want to take me home? Don’t you want me to meet your family?”

  No, he thought, but he said, “It’s late. They’re sleeping.”

  She rubbed the fuzz on his arm with her index finger. “Please,” she said. “You want them to meet your new girl, don’t you?”

  He did not remind her that they’d only been out once.

  The younger the girl was, he thought, the faster she moved. He’d forgotten so much about women, about how clingy they could be, how fast and how far they leaned over. No one had tried to hold on to him for so long.

  She brought him a brand-new pack of Newports and a watery cup of coffee, and he felt reborn. He lit his cigarette with his cherished de-childproofed lighter, and they sat in a booth, smoking and drinking. Belly slurped a big sip. “Shit. Burned my tongue,” he said. “I’ll have to put some whiskey on that.”

  “How long you planning on staying with her?”

  “With Nora? Jesus, I don’t know. Till whenever I feel like it.”

  “She doesn’t mind?”

  “Why should she mind?”

  Maybelline rubbed his hand with her pointer finger. He tightened his grip around the coffee mug. “You’re interrupting her life,” she said.

  “What do you mean? I’m her father.”

  “Okay, okay, sorry, don’t yell.” She scooched in closer to him in the booth and said, “Kiss me.”

  “My tongue is burned.”

  “Where do you want to go? I’m off. Let’s go somewhere.”

  He finished his coffee. “Let’s go.” He pushed himself up from the back of the booth.

  “Where?”

  “Come on. Get in the car.”

  He directed her down Broadway, toward town, told her to take a right onto Spring.

  “Where are we going? To a bar?”

  “Nope.”

  He motioned for her to turn into Nora’s driveway.

  “Where are we?”

  “Home,” he said.

  His truck was in the driveway, and the house was dark. He parked May’s tiny Hyundai on the cracked and drying line of tarmac. When he un
locked the back door and led her through the kitchen, a heavy silence nested in the house.

  “It’s so nice,” said Maybelline. She ran her hand along the cupboards.

  “It’s getting there.”

  “Everything’s so new.”

  “They’re fixing it up. Nora wants to get the plaque. She’s the only person on the block without it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The plaque thing. That thing you see on the houses around here that says what year it was built.”

  “What do you have to do to get it?”

  “Dole out ninety bucks and fix it up the way some assholes tell you to.” He pulled her close to him. “Kiss me,” he said.

  “I thought your tongue was burned.”

  “Fuck me,” he said, turning her around and pressing her against the kitchen counter, her back to his front.

  “Not here, Belly. Where’s your room?”

  “In the damn attic.”

  “Take me there.”

  They climbed the red-carpeted stairs to the second floor, sweating in the muggy night, his hips aching the whole way. He took her through the creaking door and up the rickety back stairs to the attic.

  “It’s hot,” she said. “And dirty.”

  He took her to the little single bed.

  He heard a car pull in. It must be Phil, coming home. He heard the door open, and the murmur of wife meeting husband, and then Stevie Ray’s voice calling to his father.

  “Take all your clothes off,” Belly said. The house filled with the sounds of a late-night family, and he tried not to think of anything but the feel of this woman beneath him. “Make some noise,” he said. “Say my name.”

  She was loud like last time, her voice bouncing off the rafters, and when they finished he did not want to touch her. She pulled him toward her on the narrow bed, she tucked her orange head into his armpit, and he stared at the slices of streetlight seeping though the cracks.

  Afterward, they sneaked down the stairs and out the front door.

  “Can’t I meet them?”

  “Not right now,” he said. “It’s so late.”

  “You don’t think they heard us, do you?”

  He opened the passenger door to her car and helped her in.

  “Don’t push me, Belly.”

  He took her keys and sank into the driver’s seat, turned her car on, but Phil’s pickup took up too much space behind them. “Shit. I can’t get out.”

  Nora was standing on the back porch, arms crossed above her wide stomach.

  He stuck his head out the window. “Nora, move your car.”

  She walked down the stairs and over to his window, leaned in, eyed Maybelline.

  “It’s Phil’s truck.”

  “Move it,” he said.

  Maybelline started to extend her hand across Belly and toward Nora, but he stopped it with a karate chop.

  “Ow,” she said, and blew on it like her nails were wet.

  Nora and Belly stared at each other. “Move it,” he said again.

  Nora stood up so her pregnant belly filled the driver’s side window, then she leaned down again. “Don’t come home tonight,” she said.

  “Oh, Nora, don’t be like that.” He reached his hand out the window, up toward her, but she slapped it away.

  “I don’t want to see your face again today. Come back tomorrow and try to act like a human being.”

  “Move your car.”

  Nora backed the truck out. Belly put the car in reverse, backed out with a squeal. It was the first time he’d driven in four years. “Your car sucks,” he said to Maybelline. “It’s got no pickup.”

  Maybelline cried softly.

  “Jesus. It’s no big deal. She’s always like that.” He turned left on Circular Street. “Okay, listen. Stop crying or I’m not going to your house.” He pulled over, in front of the garish flower display at the entrance to Congress Park. “Chinese fire drill,” he said. Maybelline didn’t move. He leaned over, opened her purse and found a tissue, handed it to her, and got out. She stayed in the passenger seat, still crying. He walked around to the passenger window, leaned in. “Bye,” he said.

  He stepped into the park. Goddamned Congress Park, where everything happened to him. He got one foot in the park and could go no further. He was so thirsty the whole inside of his throat hurt. He turned back around to Maybelline’s little car, where she sat like a sick child in the passenger seat, chewing on her palm-tree-painted nails. He drove her home.

  On the way, she kept asking about Labor Day. Picnics and barbecues and did he want to meet her sisters.

  “Are they hot?” he asked and she punched him in the shoulder, too hard for not even a week of sex. Especially cause she was into the gentle sex, all this “slow down, slow down” and talking and stuff, all the stuff that gets in the way of actual sex. “I’m gonna be with Nora and my grandkids. Sorry.”

  She pouted. “Well, I don’t have to hang out with my family. I see them all the time.”

  “No, you should be with your family and I’ll be with mine.”

  Her eyes shrank to dark little slits. “I’m sick of my family. I can’t stand being with my sisters and their stupid, boring husbands one more minute. I want to hang out with your family.” She put her hand on his, the long nails on his bitten-down stubs. Then she squeezed his pinky. “I haven’t even met them yet.” She kept squeezing his pinky nail, hard, then harder, till he had to snatch his hand away. “Except for that incident with Nora.”

  “Maybelline, listen.” He didn’t mean to use the break-up voice. He saw her twitch, hands tighten around her purse, her back in the air like a freaked-out cat. Then he saw it come off her like heat monkeys: the psycho vibe.

  He knew women like this. He knew their possibilities and their limitations and he knew what a woman like Maybelline was good for. She was the kind of girl he took to family events, to parties, to places where he could show her off but might not have to talk to her. A filler for the times Loretta snubbed him, a way to get other women to pay attention to him. He would not love this girl, and the realization depressed the shit out of him.

  At her house, she brought him whiskey and he put her on the lacy bed. Turned her on her stomach. She was ready for him with that stretchy black skirt and no underwear and he pulled her hair up, exposing the back of her neck, the one part of her that was not orange with fake tan, and he put one hand on her ass and tried to take her from behind like that, closing his eyes and pretending the face pressing into the frilly pillow was Bonnie’s, that his hands were scooping the perfect globes of her high, white ass.

  But it wouldn’t work. He tried, but nothing happened.

  She turned over in the bed and drew him toward her, and he let himself go down, his face wedged between her prematurely saggy breasts and he felt her heart beating against him, the lonely girl he would never love. “Take me home,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “Yes,” he said. She lifted his chin and placed those bleary, orange-smudged lips on his, she parted his lips with her tongue but his mouth would not cooperate.

  He said, “Yes,” again and he pushed on her this time, just a light shove but she was too soft, she was made of water, and she slid away from him and he was drunk and he was tired and he was not in love.

  Maybelline slipped her skirt back on and he followed her out to the car. As she drove him back toward town, toward the bright fluorescent Stewart’s sign beckoning from Route 50, the place where Maybelline used to work, he fantasized that she maneuvered the car toward the high-octane gas pump that glowed from the road and then erupted into a mushroom of fire when she drove clean into it, turning the whole place crazy orange, with little cups of blue that ate at the bricks and sipped the dripping metal.

  Belly crept into the house like a naughty teenager. He tiptoed up the stairs and as he reached the top he saw the light go out in Nora’s room. The door was still open a crack and he pushed it open a few inches more and the moonlight and s
treetlights came streaming in the window and he could see how her eyes were wrenched shut.

  “Nora,” he whispered. “Nora, honey, I have something I want to tell you.” But she did not open her eyes and he only said, “Good night.”

  CHAPTER 4

  BONNIE THE Basset Hound came through the TV room carrying a big frame backpack, a bandanna on her head. Her clomping steps woke him and she stood there in a tight tank top and he tried not to look. He tasted stale beer on his breath, his head pounding like someone wanted setting free in there.

  “Climbing Everest?” he asked her.

  “Heading home today. Back to Ann.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” He smiled.

  “Is there anything you’d like me to tell Ann? Any message?”

  “I’ve got nothing to say to that homewrecker.”

  “Okay then.”

  “Nothing.”

  “I heard you.”

  “Not one word.”

  Bonnie put her pack down. “Why don’t you come with us to the bus station? Nora’s dropping me off.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “What else are you going to do?”

  “There’s a point.”

  Nora called from the kitchen, “Take a shower first, Dad,” and he thought he heard forgiveness in her voice. So he climbed up the steps and peeled off his clothes—again he’d slept in his clothes—and he took his fifteen-second shower, a bodywide ablution, and climbed to the attic and changed.

  Bonnie waited for him at the back door, and then offered her hand to help him down the side porch steps. “I’m not a gimp,” he said. “I just had my hips replaced.”

  “I thought you could use a little help,” Bonnie said. “You seem worn out today.”

  They leaned against the car, waiting for Nora and the boys, and Bonnie told him, “I talked to Ann this morning. She said to tell you hello.”

  “Sure she did.”

  Bonnie cleared her throat. “She feels bad about everything that’s happened.”

  “What’s happened? Nothing happened. Nothing that should matter to her.”

  “She feels responsible.”

  “For what?”

  “About what happened to her sister.”