“Ain’t something burning?” Eric yelled again.
Shirley tiptoed and removed the smoke alarm from a nail in the wall.
“Yes!” she shouted. “Your breakfast!”
She heard him cursing. The gall of that man. He’d come home late last night, after midnight, sweating, his pants unzipped, talking about the truck had broken down, he’d had to walk.
He’d justified everything, but one thought dominated her mind: he’s cheating. Again. Yet she didn’t confront him.
She stepped out onto the back porch and placed the smoke alarm on the window ledge. In the backyard a large raccoon pilfered through trash scattered around an upended trashcan.
It stood on its hind legs and bared its teeth. “Git!” Shirley shouted, feigning to throw something at it.
It grabbed whatever it was eating and disappeared into the pine trees lining the back of the mobile home park. Confronting Eric a waste of time; he’ll only lie.
Maybe she was jumping the gun. He could have taken a leak and forgot to zip up. If he’d been cheating, surely he had enough sense to tidy up before coming home.
No, Eric wouldn’t cheat on her the day after her father’s funeral. She heard the doorbell ringing inside the house.
Eric was tiptoeing to the front door in his underwear when she stepped into the living room. “You expecting company?” he asked. He looked into the peephole. “Darlene. Blabbermouth Darlene.”
“Come in,” Shirley said, and Darlene—tall, thin, two diamond studs in one nostril, braided hair extensions brushing her butt—pushed the door open.
“Get out of here with no clothes on!” Shirley told Eric.
Eric just stood there, eyeballing Darlene. “You need to gain some weight,” he said. “A strong wind might carry your narrow ass away. I don’t appreciate you coming over here filling Shirley’s head with bullshit about me. Why you ain’t got no man, huh?”
“Don’t disrespect my friends,” Shirley said. “I don’t disrespect your friends.”
“I don’t have no friends.”
“Wonder why,” Darlene said under her breath.
“Say what?” Eric said, moving toward her. “Say it so I can hear it.”
Shirley cut him off at the path. “Go put on some clothes. She didn’t come here to see you.”
“She came here to talk about me. She had a man she wouldn’t be over here all the time dropping salt on me.” Shirley pushed him toward the bedroom and he circled back. “A buncha men round here and she can’t snag one!”
“Let’s go outside and talk, Darlene,” Shirley said, frowning at Eric. He started to say more, but Shirley walked out behind Darlene and slammed the door in his face.
Cumulus clouds blocked the sun, granting a brief respite from the stifling heat.
Darlene stopped at the foot of the stairs, started to speak, then gestured toward the house.
Shirley turned and saw Eric looking out the window. “Forget him,” she said. Several houses down, her nine-year-old son, Paul, was playing tag with one of his friends.
“Shirley,” Darlene whispered, “you know I’m not one to dip in people’s business, but it’s something I feel I should tell you.”
“What?” Shirley said, knowing this was something she didn’t want to hear.
“Shereka called me—you know her, don’t you? Donnie Ray Hall’s wife?” Shirley nodded. “She called me from the Blinky Motel. She and Lucky Davis were there—that’s another story. Anyway, she said she saw Eric there.” Darlene paused and glanced over Shirley’s shoulder. Shirley looked too; Eric was no longer in the window. “In the parking lot. Girl, he was flat-foot, bucky naked!”
“Darlene, please!”
“Ain’t the worst of it. Shereka said he was pulling on a woman, trying to rape her or something.”
Shirley’s face warmed. If her right leg started shaking, she would go into the house, or else Darlene would be at risk for serious injury. “Is that it?”
“Ain’t it enough? Shirley, don’t denigrate ’cause I’m telling you what Shereka told me. Eric was trying to assault a woman, and if this white man hadn’t stepped in, Lord knows what Eric would’ve done.”
“Darlene, we’re girlfriends, been girlfriends for a long time, right?”
“Right. Shirley, I’m telling you—”
“No, listen. I don’t talk about your man”—if she ever got one—“and I don’t appreciate you talking about mine. Besides, that’s the craziest shit I’ve ever heard. If what you say is true, why isn’t Sheriff Bledsoe over here kicking the door down? Eric’s not a ugly man—he doesn’t have to take it! Please!”
“Hmmph!” Darlene snorted. “He might be handsome, I’ll give him that. He’s still a dog, Shirley. He’s a dog other dogs don’t mess with. Remember what happened with him and Linda Riley? Not for me you wouldna known what was going on.”
Shirley inhaled and held it for a beat, not wanting to recall the episode when Darlene paged her at Wal-Mart and told her to rush home, which she did, and discovered Eric and Linda Riley in bed.
“Darlene, that was a long time ago.”
“Nine months ain’t a long time ago.”
“To me it is!”
Darlene frowned, her small features squeezing to the center of her face. “You hating me with all you got, ain’t you? He’s handsome, but he ain’t good for shit!”
Shirley felt a slight tremor in her right leg. “I’ve got to cook breakfast, Darlene. See you later.” She started up the steps.
“Where’s the truck?”
Shirley stopped. “What?”
“The truck? Sheriff Bledsoe searched a black S-Ten pickup parked in the back of the motel. Who you know drive a truck like that?”
Shirley’s temples started throbbing. Bastard! “See you, Darlene. I’ll talk to you later.”
Eric was not in the living room, the kitchen, nor the bathroom. She found him in the bedroom, and the sight of him lying in bed fully clothed, eyes closed, snoring, as if he’d not been at the window a moment ago but asleep all the while, made her blood boil. She stared at him a long time.
In the kitchen she took a pot from the cabinet, filled it with water, set it atop the stove and… Her fingers were on the knob. This isn’t right! It also wasn’t right for him to cheat on her again and again.
The arrow moved from OFF to HI. This would be the last time he humiliated her.
Twenty minutes later she stood at the foot of the bed, holding the pot with a large bath towel. “Eric,” she said softly. He groaned and rolled from his side onto his stomach.
“Eric, sweetie, we need to talk.”
“Woman, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Where were you last night, baby?”
“I told you I was checking this guy about a job.” He grabbed a pillow and covered his head. “Don’t believe everything Darlene tells you. She wants us to breakup so you can be in the same boat with her. Lonely. Depressed. With a stinky two-way dildo.”
“Last night you said the truck broke down, you had to walk.”
“Yeah, right. After I checked with the guy about the job, I was on my way home and the truck broke down.”
“Look me in the eye, honey, and tell me you weren’t at the motel last night with some woman.”
He snatched the pillow away and quickly sat up. “What the hell are you—” The words caught in his throat. His Adam’s apple yo-yoed and somehow he managed to cast one eye on the pot and the other on Shirley’s face. “B-b-b-baby…”