She just got here, Luther said. We ain’t had no time to put her in her classes yet.
Well, she better start going. As it is, she’s got too much time on her hands. I’ll be checking back with you on this.
After he left, Betty and Luther tried to talk with her, but within five minutes she got fed up. Oh, fuck you, she said, and went back and lay down on Joy Rae’s bed. She didn’t come out for supper, but instead took the phone into the room and called Raydell to tell him to come get her. Raydell said it was too late. You better come over here, goddamn it, she said. You better come get me.
She stayed in the bedroom with Joy Rae until eleven that night. Then Raydell drove up in front of the trailer and honked the horn, and she came out to the front room where Betty and Luther were sitting on the couch. Don’t try and stop me, she said.
Betty began to cry and Luther said: You can’t go. Think about your mama.
Fuck you, you fat fucker. And I’m sick of my mama. Look at her. She makes me sick. This ain’t my family. I don’t have no family.
Then she slammed the door and ran out the path to the car. She slid in beside the boy and the car roared away, headed up Detroit Street, pointed toward the highway and out of town.
Hearing the car speed away, Betty threw herself on the floor and began to thrash about and wail and kick. She kicked over the coffee table. Luther bent over trying to quiet her. It’s going to be all right, honey, he said. It’ll turn out okay. She didn’t mean them things she said. The two children Joy Rae and Richie came out of their rooms and stood in the hall, watching their parents, not at all surprised by what they saw, and after a while they turned and went back to bed.
In her bedroom Joy Rae went through the items on her dresser but the lipstick and mascara were gone now. She looked at her face in the hand mirror. Only a faint trace of red still showed on her mouth.
34
IN THE NIGHT SHE WAS LYING IN THE BACK BEDROOM with the blond man from the bank. Dena and Emma were asleep in their room up the hall, and it was a springlike night and the window was open to the fresh air and Mary Wells and Bob Jeter were talking softly in the dark. You don’t have to leave, she said. I don’t care about the neighbors. There’s just the two old widow women next door. They’ll talk anyway.
I better go, he said.
Please, she said. She was lying on her side facing him, her arm across his chest. Isn’t it nice here? Stay with me.
What about your daughters?
They’re beginning to get used to you. They like you already.
No they don’t.
Why do you say that?
They don’t care for me at all. Why would they?
Why wouldn’t they? You’re nice to them.
I’m not their father.
Stay, she said. Just for a while longer.
I can’t.
Why not?
Because.
Because you don’t want to.
That’s not it, he said. He slid out from under her arm and turned away and rose from the bed, and in the dark he began to collect his clothes. Moving about the room he hit his foot against the leg of a chair. He cursed.
What happened? she said.
Nothing.
I’ll turn the light on. She switched on the bedside lamp and watched him dress. Unlike her husband in Alaska, this man was very careful about his dressing. He stepped into his underwear, settling the waistband and drawing out the seat, and pulled on his shirt and pants and stood spreading his knees to support his pants while he tucked in the shirttail, then he buckled the leather belt with its thin brass clasp and afterward sat on the bed and pulled on his dark socks and dark shoes. His hair was disordered and he stood bent-kneed before the mirror at her dresser and combed his thin blond hair neat again and combed through his mustache and goatee. Then he put on his suitcoat and shot his shirt cuffs.
She was lying on her side with the sheet over her, watching him. One of her shoulders was exposed, it gleamed and was very pretty in the light. Give me a kiss before you go, she said.
He stepped to the bed and kissed her, then walked noiselessly down the hall and out through the front room into the cool night air. She got up from bed with the sheet around her and followed him, watching him drive away on the vacant street, seeing him pass under the corner streetlamp, then onto Main and out of sight. Shadows from the lamp were like long stick figures thrown out behind the trees and all along the street were the quiet mute fronts of houses. She sat down in the dark room. An hour later she woke shivering and went back to her bed.
AFTER THAT NIGHT A WEEK PASSED WITHOUT HIS CALLING in the evening as he had before. She waited until the middle of the following week and he still hadn’t called, and then she called him twice in one night from her dark bedroom, but he made excuses about why he couldn’t talk, and the second time she called he hung up without waiting for her to say anything more than his name. The next day at mid-morning she went to see him at the bank.
His office was in the back corner, with a glass window that looked out into the lobby. She could see him sitting at his desk talking on the phone when she stepped inside. A woman at the reception desk asked if she could help but Mary Wells said: No, you can’t help me. I came here to see him. Then he was off the phone and she went into his office and sat down as if she had come to see about a loan or a second mortgage.
What are you doing? he said.
I came to see you.
I can’t talk now.
I know that. But you won’t talk to me on the phone. So I had to come here. You’re through with me, aren’t you.
He took up a long silver pen from his desk and held it in his fingers.
You are, aren’t you. You ought to at least be able to say it.
I think we ought to slow down for a while, he said. That’s all.
Slow down, she said. What chickenshit.
He stared at her and leaned back in his chair.
You’re very timid, aren’t you, she said.
No.
Yes. Yes, you are. I understand that now. You want your fun but you don’t want any complications. You’re still a little boy.
I think you’d better go, he said. I’ve got work to do. I’ll call you later.
You’ll call me later?
Yes.
No you won’t. You won’t call me. You think I’m that stupid? That pathetic? She stood up. And you have work to do now, don’t you.
Of course. This is my office. This is where I work.
That’s very interesting, she said. And you’d like me to leave, wouldn’t you. You’d like me to walk out and not make any fuss. Isn’t that right? She looked at him. He didn’t say anything. Okay, she said. Then she bent over his desk and swept all the papers onto the floor.
He rose up and caught her wrist. What in the hell do you think you’re doing?
She wrenched her wrist free and shoved the phone onto the floor. That’s what I think of you and your work. You little chickenshit. You timid little boy.
Are you going to go now?
You know, I think I am. Because you know what? I’m through with you. I’m dumping you. I’m the one this time. And don’t call me. Some night you’re going to get lonely and start remembering what it was like in bed with me and how nice I was to you and then you’re going to want to call, to see if you can come over for a little while, but don’t do it. I’ll be over you by that time, you scared little chickenshit boy. I won’t answer the phone. I don’t ever want to talk to you again.
She walked out of his glassed office into the lobby. The cashiers and the people in line at the counters and the woman at the reception desk were all watching her, and she looked at them and then she stopped. She stood in the middle of the lobby to address them.