Текст книги "Everything I Left Unsaid"

Автор книги: Molly O'Keefe

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

An hour later I had gathered up all of my dirty clothes, my generic laundry soap, and another one of my books—Pride and Prejudice. The cover was new and featured a Hollywood actress. The one that was all chin and cheekbones.

My dog-eared and beloved copy from high school English class had been burned in the burn pile.

The laundry was on the other side of the rhododendron with the families, where the trailers were packed in a little tighter. But most of the trailers were in really good shape and a few families had worked hard to make them look homey with scrappy flower gardens, and a few of the little wooden decks were hung with twinkle lights.

Or maybe those were just Christmas decorations that never came down.

The trailer right next to the laundry was one of the few double-wides. And there were balloons tied to the door. Birthday streamers across the back of the trailer.

A line of kids screamed around the corner of the trailer, five in all; a few of them I recognized from that day at the grocery store. Danny was there. The others were strangers. But they all had face paint on. There were two pirates. A tiger and a Spider-Man.

I sidestepped the kids and flattened myself against the aluminum siding of the laundry.

“Boys!” The mom, the woman from the grocery store, came out of the trailer, carrying a little tray of paint and a paintbrush in her hand. Two little girls clung to the long, colorful dress she wore. One daughter had a rainbow across her forehead. The other, in diapers, had half a sun. “Boys, take it over to the playground. We’re going to have cake in a half hour!”

The boys switched direction on a dime and raced over to the swing set and slide that were set up across the dirt road.

The mom turned to go back inside and I wished I could somehow vanish before she saw me, but no such luck.

“Hey,” she said, looking as awkward as I felt. “You do live here.”

“Over there,” I answered, jerking my thumb over toward the rhododendron. “It’s your son’s birthday?”

The woman reached down a hand and cupped it over Rainbow-face’s blond hair. “Yes. Danny. He’s five.”

“That’s great.”

“It’s loud is what it is,” she laughed. “I’m Tiffany, by the way.”

“Annie.” The second I said my real name, I wished I could suck it back.

“Mommy!” cried the girl with half a sun. “Finish me.”

“I’d better go,” Tiffany said.

“Have fun,” I said.

“Thank you.”

I ducked into the laundry as fast as I could. For some reason my heart was pounding hard. That woman stressed me out.

All my clothes together made only one load. Tee shirts, bras. Cutoff shorts. My nightgown. A few of the towels. Underwear.

I shoved the blue ones with the white flowers in first, as if someone might come in and see them. Smell them, even, and guess my secret. Know what I was doing.

I was smiling as I dumped in the half-cup of soap and a few of my precious quarters.

In the far corner of the small room there was a lawn chair with frayed plastic ribbing and I grabbed it, took it outside to the other side of the building, away from the birthday party and Tiffany with the bruises and dark eyes who somehow managed to still give her son a birthday party with pirate face paint.

A gesture so full of love and hope it made my heart hurt.

I settled the chair down in a small copse of dandelions next to a dark trailer that seemed empty. The sun was hot today, but there was a rare breeze blowing, keeping things moving, and in the shade of the trailer it was actually quite nice.

It had been years since I’d been able to sit down in the middle of the day to read. It felt…decadent. Sighing with pleasure, I opened up my book and slipped seamlessly into Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet’s world.

It took a while for me to notice the girl standing nearby, but when I finally did, I jumped, startled. The little girl had three suns, one on each cheek and one on her forehead, with a flower on the bridge of her nose.

“Hi,” I said with a smile.

“Cake?”

The girl held out a plate with a piece of yellow cake with chocolate frosting and roughly a pound of sprinkles on it.

“For me?” I asked. The girl nodded and walked over to me, nearly tripping on the uneven ground, but I caught her and the cake in the nick of time.

“Thank you so much!” I said.

“You welcome,” the girl said, with very nice manners and a sparkly grin revealing a mouth full of little teeth. She had a pink barrette barely hanging onto her curly light brown hair.

She skipped off as quickly as she came. And I looked down at the cake. The sprinkles, the half a Y written in blue frosting.

Birthday cake.

God, how long had it been…

Even though I didn’t want to, because the memories were bound to disappoint, I tried to remember the last time I’d had one. For myself. Or for Mom. Hoyt. And the only one I could remember was when I was really young. Walking with my mom out to the cabin behind the barn where Smith lived. He’d opened the door to his cabin, wearing his jeans and a white undershirt and nothing else, and Mom had looked away, her eyes on the far fields.

I stared at his tattoos. He’d had lots. Army stuff from the Gulf War.

“Morning,” he’d said with that rough, gravelly smoker’s growl he had, but Mom had stayed silent. Eyes averted. Cheeks red in the dawn.

“We made you a cake!” I had said, jumping a little because there’d never been a cake-making experience in my life.

“Take it,” Mom had said, still not looking at him. She shoved the plate at Smith, who caught it just before it went all over his white shirt. “Come on, Annie, we got work.”

And there’d never been a cake-making experience again.

My long sigh came out in shuddery stages, the memory an uncomfortable one. All those adult motivations and feelings still shrouded in shadow and mystery. Mom had been…unfathomable, at best.

I stood, my butt numb, and went to push my wet things into the dryer.

In the distance there was the rumble of a car engine that needed a serious tune-up. Which was weird, because almost no one got off the highway on this road, or used it to get to the highway. It was nothing but swamp and forests past the campground.

The engine roar got louder and then nearly deafening as it turned into the drive of the RV park.

Heart in my throat, I glanced out the door of the laundry only to see an old blue Dodge muscle car come to a stop right next to Tiffany’s trailer. Blue and red balloons collided and bounced off the side of the trailer.

When the man behind the wheel turned off the motor, the silence was deafening. And my old sixth sense about danger crackled.

This wasn’t good.

“Hey, Phil,” Tiffany said as she came out of the trailer. No little girls clinging to her. No face paint. Just her and enough tension to make the air too thick to breathe.

There was not anything about Tiffany that I didn’t recognize from my worst memories. That false smile spreading only so far over a fear she could not hide. The rounded curve of her shoulders as if she was already figuring out how to protect herself from his fists. The preemptive kiss, dry and full of self-loathing, placed on the rough plane of the man’s cheek once he got out of the rusty blue car.

“I didn’t think you were going to be home until next week,” Tiffany said to a small man wearing a tee shirt and jeans a few sizes too big. He had mean eyes and big hands. A terrible combination.

The hair rose on my neck.

My throat closed with fear.

Quickly as I could, I ducked back inside the concrete walls of the laundry room, but through the open door I could still hear Tiffany and Phil talking.

“No, I fucking quit that bullshit job,” he said.

“Wait. What?” Tiffany asked, her voice suddenly shrill.

Careful. Oh God, be careful.

I moved my wet things from the washer one at a time into the dryer, wishing truly that I were anywhere but that laundry room.

“What happened?” Tiffany asked, obviously strained.

“It was bullshit. The whole thing. Supposed to be such a hotshot, but that dude was just an asshole like the rest of them.”

“Phil, we need that money—”

“Jesus Christ, Tiffany, I just got here and already you’re ragging on me?”

“I’m not…I’m not, I’m just saying, we’re already behind on everything—”

“Maybe if you wasn’t spending money on shit like this?”

“Don’t! Phil!” Tiffany cried, and I jumped at the sound of a balloon popping.

I wiped my hands under my eyes because I was crying. Terrible stress tears.

Desperate, I looked for a back door or something, some way to get out so I wouldn’t have to walk by them. Wouldn’t have to see them.

“It’s Danny’s birthday,” Tiffany breathed.

“Where is the little shit?”

“Please,” Tiffany begged. “Please don’t ruin this—”

“Ruin it? The fuck you talking about, Tiff? I’m paying for this shit. Your mom sure ain’t giving you enough to pay for jack.”

“You’re right. Phil. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But we’re having a nice party. Look, there’s cake, honey. Why don’t you have some cake?”

This conversation was engraved on my heart, beaten into my brain. I knew exactly how this was going to go.

Tiffany would keep apologizing. Over and over again, swallowing all her anger so that this man wouldn’t raise a fist to her. To her children. So he wouldn’t demolish the small bubble of normalcy she’d so painstakingly blown for her children with all the air and hope she had in her.

But in the end it wouldn’t work.

It never worked.

Because guys like Phil—like Hoyt—they walked into the room knowing what was going to happen. Whether they would smack a person around or not. They had all the power. Her apologies were for naught. Her pain and fear—irrelevant. All that mattered was what that man wanted to do to her and he’d made that decision way back in his lizard brain—miles ago. Maybe years ago.

I have to leave.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t sneak out, that I had to walk right past them and their awful domestic drama, the miserable unhappy end of which I knew too fucking well. Gathering up my book and laundry soap I ducked out the door, my head down, hoping not to garner any attention. This was the last situation I wanted to get pulled into or bear witness to.

Holding my breath, I got past the rhododendron bush and ran smack into someone.

“Careful,” Joan said, picking up the book I had dropped. Joan wore a pair of short cutoffs and a tee shirt with the neck and sleeves ripped out, the ties of a bright pink bikini visible underneath. She had her eyes over my shoulder, trained on Phil and the blooming catastrophe.

“You shouldn’t go over there,” I said.

“I shouldn’t?”

“No. It’s…they’re fighting.”

“And you think we should all just stand around with our thumbs in our asses while he beats her up?”

That was what was going to happen. That was exactly what was going to happen and I was walking away. Head down. Eyes averted. Thumb in ass. “No…but—”

“Get out of my way, kid,” she said, clearly through with me. Joan brushed past me, stomping past the rhododendron, making the leaves quake as she went by.

“Hey, a birthday!” Joan cried, out of sight. “Sorry I’m late, Tiffany. Hey, Phil—”

“Get the hell out of here!” Phil yelled. “You fucking bitch.”

“Honestly, Phil, you should dress up like a clown for birthday parties. You’d be great,” Joan said. “Is there assigned seating or can I sit anywhere?”

“You’re not wanted here!” Phil said, low and mean, and I could just imagine him saying that through his teeth, right in her face.

“Joan,” Tiffany said. “I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“Bullshit it’s fine,” Joan said.

“You know something?” Phil yelled. “Fuck this shit. I don’t need this. Later, cunts.”

A car door slammed and the Dodge revved back up and drove away.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Tiffany snapped in the silence after the car’s deafening departure. I could see, through the leaves, Tiffany yelling at Joan, who stood up slowly from her seat, looking older. Looking pained.

“Saved you from another black eye, so…you’re welcome!”

“We have no money! Oh my God! What am I going to do?” Tiffany cried as she collapsed onto one of the seats at the picnic table.

“I can float you—”

“I don’t want your fucking money!” Tiffany yelled and I knew what she was doing, how Tiffany had all this anger and rage toward herself and her husband and her life and it was only because Joan was standing there that she got it smeared all over her.

“Fine,” Joan said without any heat. “If you need help—”

“You’ve done enough,” Tiffany said, low and defeated.

Joan came back around the bush before I could get my legs to move. I stood behind that bush like a gaping coward, and when Joan saw me she didn’t even spare me a sneer, she just walked on by, head up, shoulders back, armored in her righteous bravery.

“Come on, kids!” Tiffany yelled, her voice just a little broken. A little worn. The fake amount of cheer she had to put into it nearly hiding the trauma. Nearly. She’d clearly had lots of practice. “Let’s open presents!”

The kids came back from the playground, more subdued. Their eyes wary. Their smiles gone.

“Did he leave?” Danny asked.

Tiffany nodded.

“Good,” Danny said, his chin up, and Tiffany sagged against the picnic table.

Enough, I thought, feeling sick and wrung out and worse, so desperately glad I’d never had kids with Hoyt that the guilty relief made me nauseous.

I went back to my trailer and hours later, when it was dark and silent, I went back to get my dry clothes.

And there on the counter, the sprinkles glittering silver and blue in the moonlight, was the piece of birthday cake the little girl had brought me. I picked it up to take it back to Tiffany—I didn’t want it, and there were three kids in that trailer who’d probably love another piece of cake.

Outside the door, Tiffany’s trailer was quiet. The balloons drifted slightly on the breeze, dark bruises against the lighter sky.

“Take it.” Tiffany’s voice made me jump. I saw one of the shadows by the rhododendron shift and detach and Tiffany walk over toward the door of the laundry room. She had a garbage bag and was dumping a handful of paper plates into it.

“Is everything…okay?” I asked, lamely.

“Define okay.”

I didn’t know how. What did okay look like to her? To any of us?

“He’ll come back,” Tiffany said. “He always does.”

“Would it be better if he didn’t?”

Once Smith had taken me out to check a trap he’d set for a coyote that had been harassing the animals, eating chickens and killing the barn cats. And we’d found the coyote, caught in it, crying, its strength nearly gone. Tiffany’s laughter sounded like that coyote crying.

“I have three kids under the age of six,” Tiffany said. “I can’t do it without his money.”

I thought of the three thousand dollars I’d taken from Hoyt’s safe and knew that was the truth sometimes. Sometimes, a woman’s freedom all came down to money.

“Take the cake,” Tiffany said. “We’ve got lots. My kids will be eating it for breakfast.”

Dessert for breakfast.

“Thank you.”

Tiffany nodded and went back to cleaning up what was left of the party in the dark.

I took the cake and my dry clothes and headed back to my trailer.

Birthday cake for breakfast.

It felt all wrong, and not in a good way.

The next morning dawned hazy and close. And the heat made my head ache right above my eyes.

Sweltering, I pulled open my little fridge, steam rolling out of its depths as the cool air hit the hot. On the top shelf, next to my milk and butter and what was left of the pasta sauce, was the yellow cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.

For a long moment, the cold air brushing across the exposed skin of my thighs and arms and neck, I stared at the cake.

She said you could have it.

But the cake felt like a means to an end for me, like I was building a palace on top of bones.

“Stop it,” I muttered and grabbed the cake, shutting the fridge door.

I took the first bite and it was a bit stale, the cake nearly hard, the frosting thick to swallow.

That’s right. I should not enjoy this.

I took a sip of coffee and then another bite and my mouth must have been warm enough, because the thick frosting melted slightly against my tongue.

Oh. That wasn’t bad.

But the thought made me feel guilty and awful.

Just eat it.

The second bite was at the center of the cake, where it was moist and untouched by the cold air of the fridge.

The next bite was practically a mouthful of sprinkles.

When the cake was demolished, only crumbs and thick waves of chocolate frosting against the paper plate, I stared down at a blue sprinkle and green colored sugar and felt like vomiting.

And I didn’t know if it was from the sugar or from last night.

Buzzing and jittery, I dropped a few ice cubes in my coffee and headed out to the field.

I thought about Phil, and I thought about Hoyt.

And then I thought about Dylan.

I’d never felt so safe with a man. And I didn’t know if that was because we were on the phone and not in person, or if it was just because of who Dylan was.

Or maybe it was because of who I was becoming—I didn’t know. And it didn’t really matter.

I was safe with Dylan and I would do all the things he asked because of it. The realization warmed me from the inside.

For the first two hours I mowed the northernmost part of the field, which was largely in the shade, giving the big rocks I’d marked a wide berth. But by eleven a.m. I was soaked with sweat, and on the far side of the field, that oak tree with its rope swing and the swimming hole were too powerful to resist.

I rode the mower to the side of the watering hole farthest away from the little bridge and the rest of the trailer park.

The weeds and cattails were dense, their tips waving far above my head, and I had to push them aside in order to get to the edge of the pool. Which was surprisingly wide and big. The water was clear, with no scum or algae. It drained off in a stream to my left.

Must be spring-fed, I thought.

The oak tree was on the other side, and on this side, the swimming hole had a muddy little beach and a few big rocks close to the shore.

For a skinny-dipping location, I supposed it didn’t get better than this.

“I’m going to do this,” I muttered, bouncing on my toes. And then, before I could stop myself, I peeled off my sweaty, awful clothes. Leaving on my underwear, because I was still Annie McKay after all.

And then with a squeal and a smothered yell, I ran into the pond until it got to my thighs and then I dove underwater, touching the grainy bottom with my chest and my hands before rising above the surface again.

“Oh my God!” I cried, panting because the cold water took my breath away. But oh, how good it felt! If dessert for breakfast had mixed results, skinny-dipping was utterly amazing. All checks marked yes.

I kicked up off the sandy rocky bottom and floated on the surface of the water, my breasts bobbing just slightly out of the water, where the sun felt hot on the white skin that had never, ever seen the light of day before.

The water felt lush, like not just a liquid, like something magical, even. It lifted me and wrapped around me like ribbons. Between my legs, across my chest, over my waist. Under my neck. I scissor-kicked in the water and laughed out loud as water slid up and into my body, slipping through my pubic hair.

My short hair was plastered onto my forehead and I pushed it off into the water, still lying on my back. For the first time since I’d cut it off, I wished for my hair back. Because how awesome would that feel to have my waist-length hair floating in the water around my naked shoulders, over my breasts?

I closed my eyes, imagining the feeling.

My face grew hot in the bright sunlight, so I flipped over on my belly and dove down to the bottom of the pond, well aware that my butt and my see-through underwear had just breached the water for anyone to see.

But no one was there to see it.

So I did it again. And again.

When I’d had enough I did long, slow breaststrokes back to the shore where my clothes lay in a heap.

But damn it. No towel.

Rookie, skinny-dipping mistake.

I stood on shore and gave myself a big, long shake, trying to get all the water off that I could before putting on my gross clothes.

“Well, well, look who’s naked,” a sly voice said, and I jumped sideways, surprised to see Joan sitting up kitty-corner from me in a little cleared area in the weeds I hadn’t noticed earlier.

“Oh my God, what…what are you doing?” I cried, throwing my arms into my shirt and slipping it over my head. I jerked my shorts up my legs and fumbled at the button.

“Calm down, honey, they’re just boobs—I’ll hardly faint.” Joan pulled an earbud from her ear and stood up. She wore that pink string bikini like it had been painted on. Honestly, Joan’s body had to be one of the most perfect things I had ever seen.

“What are you doing?” I asked again, trying not to stare at the sleek, round muscles in Joan’s legs or the indentations around her belly button. She looked strong and totally womanly.

What is wrong with me? Why am I staring?

“Working on my tan lines,” she answered, and while I watched, Joan pulled one of the strings holding her top on and the piece collapsed off her body. “I work down at The Velvet Touch and the better my tan lines, the better my tips. Guys like it when they think they’re seeing something forbidden. Even when they’re paying to see all of it. Go figure.”

The little lines bisecting her back and the small triangles around her breasts were white, like milk white, made all the whiter by the dark skin surrounding them.

Joan stepped into the water and when it was deep enough, dove under.

I shoved my feet into my socks and tried to put on my boots before Joan got back to the surface. I could guess what The Velvet Touch was; I could guess Joan was a stripper.

“Running away again?” Joan asked, and I whirled to face her.

“No.”

She smirked. “You sure? Because I think that’s what you do.”

Oh, fuck you, Joan, like you know a thing about me.

Just to prove the woman wrong, I sat down on one of the big boulders on the beach and crossed my legs.

Two could play this rude game.

“Why’d you get in between Phil and Tiffany?” I asked.

Joan leaned back, her white breasts bobbing up, and I watched them for a moment. And then I looked away, cheeks on fire.

Heatstroke. I have heatstroke. Only reason I’m here. Staring at her like a sixteen-year-old boy.

It was the truck-stop parking lot all over again and everything about Joan was carnal and I couldn’t look away.

“Someone should, don’t you think?” Joan asked. “He’s a son of a bitch and she thinks she needs him.”

“She does.”

“No one needs an asshole like that.”

“The kids—”

Joan stood up, her dirty-blond hair a slick down her back.

“Would be a whole lot better off if they didn’t watch their mom get beat up.”

“That’s true, but without money, what’s Tiffany supposed to do?”

“Stop looking for excuses to stay, I guess,” Joan said. “You forgot your scarf.”

I clapped a hand to my throat. The bruises were fading. Mostly blue and green smudges now, but someone who looked hard could tell they were fingerprints.

“Look, kid,” Joan said, walking out of the water like Venus on the waves. “Forget the damn scarf—it’s like a fat kid wearing a tee shirt to the swimming pool. All it does is make the kid look fatter.”

I dug into the heart of the bruise just under my chin until it throbbed.

“All it does is make you look more beat up.”

I swallowed hard.

“That’s what you are, right? Beat up?”

No. That’s not what I am. That’s not all I am. I have a hundred more things about myself that I’m figuring out. I like skinny-dipping. I don’t like cake for breakfast. I like grinding my pussy against my hand until I come.

But what I said was, “I guess so.”

“And you ran?”

“I’m running.”

“Good for you.”

Joan walked back over to the weeds she’d stomped down to make herself a little cove along the shore.

“But I had money. Not a lot, but some. Tiffany has none.”

“I’ve offered Tiffany plenty. No strings. She knows that. She wanted to go she could go.”

“You make it seem like it should be easy for her. Like it’s really black and white.” I was getting angry on Tiffany’s behalf. On my own behalf, too, maybe. Because I’d stayed for years with no reason other than fear. Fear and habit.

With no hope that things would get better. No love I could cling to and pretend about.

Nothing but fear that life without Hoyt would be worse than life with him.

“It’s pretty black and white. Guy hits you, you leave.” She took a drag from a cigarette. “Better yet, avoid them altogether. You want a joint?” Joan asked, holding it up toward me.

I shook my head and she shrugged, sitting down on the thick blanket she had spread out. She had an iPod and a few magazines and…a gun beside her.

“Don’t worry,” Joan said, taking a drag of the weed. She slipped the gun under one of the magazines. “I just keep an eye out for Phil and some of the other shitheads who live here.”

“Are there a lot of shitheads?”

Joan laughed, a plume of smoke sliding out of her mouth. “Enough.”

“You don’t seem so bad,” I said, sort of joking, and Joan laughed again.

“That’s because you don’t know me. And there are plenty more around here worse than me.”

I had no intention of finding out. I was minding my own business. Well, I guess my business and Ben’s business.

“What’s the story with Ben?” I asked, and Joan jerked back.

“Why?”

“He seems nice.”

Joan laughed. “The really crazy ones always do. The guy’s like Phil—they’re thugs. Just thugs. One-dimensional—what you see is what you get.”

“You’re saying behind Ben’s garden he’s a sociopath?”

“Where are you from, kid, that you don’t understand that guy’s tattoos?”

“A farm in Oklahoma.”

Again with the truth. A few more weeks of blabbing like this and I wouldn’t be hiding at all.

Joan smiled. “That explains it. Trust me. Just give him a wide berth.”

“What about his tattoos?”

“That big black square on his back, that’s a biker gang tattoo that’s been blacked over. He got booted. And you gotta do some bad shit to get booted.”

“What did he do?”

“I don’t know, and I’m not eager to sit down and have a chat with the guy. You shouldn’t be either.”

I looked away from Joan, out at the water sparkling in the sunlight, as if diamonds had been scattered over its surface.

“Why are you being nice to me?” I asked.

“This is nice?”

“Nicer.”

“Because I’m high. Because I just saw your tits. Because…those goddamn bruises around your neck.”

Again I reached up and felt them like they were still pounding against my skin.

“You’re a stripper?” I asked and she stared at me blankly, and I wondered if I’d offended her. Or if she didn’t want people to know. “You mentioned The Velvet Touch. I don’t want to make assumptions…”

“Yes, Sherlock Holmes, I’m a stripper.”

I ran out of courage for what I had intended to ask.

“You got something else you want to ask, you should ask,” Joan said.

“That guy…in your trailer the first time I met you.” What the hell was I doing? My mom would kill me for asking these questions. For prying. She used to yank on the end of my ponytail when I started asking too many questions. “Never mind, this isn’t my business.”

“Spit it out.”

“Are…I mean…do you?”

“Fuck men for money?”

I blushed so hard my eyes hurt.

“No. I fuck them for pleasure. But some of the girls do at the club. There’s one of those old-school comfort rooms in the back.”

“Oh.” I had no clue what an old-school comfort room was. No clue. And I was suddenly on fire to know. But I wasn’t about to ask her. I didn’t have quite enough courage to reveal my total ignorance.

We sat in silence for a minute.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Too long,” Joan said.

“It seems nice.”

Joan’s silent laugh made her breasts shimmy. “Depends on context, I guess.”

“Oh,” I said, “you’re from someplace wonderful?”

“No.” Joan shook her head and then slid her sunglasses down over her eyes. “I’m not.” She stretched out on her back and didn’t say another word.

After a minute I got back on my mower and rode through the weeds, avoiding the sticks marking unseen hazards.