All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (23 page)

I liked Patty okay. She was better than Casey the day nurse, who had a big smiley voice. It was Patty's job to be there at night and listen to Mama cry and say awful things. She sounded scared.

I was getting ready to go riding with Kellen, but I went downstairs.

At least the nurses didn't let Mama lie in bed all day and not wash. I was learning their tricks. How to say, “Let's get up and brush your teeth. Little steps. Sit up first and then we'll try to stand up.”

At first, Mama had been horrible to look at. Black and purple, and then green and yellow, but now she was just Mama. Crying and screaming, “Alone!”

I went into her bedroom and closed the door, trying not to be angry that she was stealing time from Kellen. I stood next to the bed, but I didn't touch her. All Mama wanted was someone to listen.

First it was Grandma. Grandma always liked Aunt Brenda better. Grandma never liked Liam. She never came to visit when Donal and I were born. But how could Grandma come visit if Mama never told her where we were?

Then Liam. Liam and his dirty whores. Liam always thinking with his dick. Liam Liam Liam. I was old enough to know there wasn't any real magic in the words
not to be trusted,
but it made my head hurt how Mama would say his name over and over without that protection. Like she wanted him to come and hurt her.

“You can't trust them, baby. As soon as they've got your pussy, they want some other girl's pussy. Liam, that's all he wants, notches in his belt. Sean, too. That's all I ever was. A score. And don't think that diamond ring means anything.”

Mama grabbed my hand and glared at my ring.

“Kellen bought you that, didn't he? Liam says, ‘Hell, in some countries I'd have to pay him to take her off my hands.' He thinks it's funny. And you're so stupid you think it's romantic. Let me tell you a secret, that ring doesn't mean shit.”

I jerked my hand away and hid it behind my back.

“Kellen is like every other man. All he's thinking about is getting to fuck you. That's all they think about. I thought when Liam put a ring on my finger, he would love me forever, but it was a lie. You want that ring, too? I sure don't need it.”

Mama tried to reach for the night table drawer, but her shoulder still hurt. She flopped back on the bed and moaned. Tears ran out of her, so much water it was like a flood that I soaked up with the corner of the sheet.

“Is everything okay?” Patty said outside.

“Baby,” Mama moaned. The mean went out of her eyes and they were only sad. “Be careful. Don't do what I did and get knocked up, because then you'll be stuck. Baby, are you listening?”

I didn't want to listen, but Mama petted my arm. So soft. Almost like Kellen when he touched my hair. I hoped it wasn't a trick.

“Make him get you on the Pill, okay? Or if he won't do it, have Dee take you. Will you do that?”

There were so many pills. The pills Sandy took so she wouldn't get pregnant. The pills she took to make her happy. The pills Mama took. I didn't want any pills.

“You can't trust him, baby. He'll get into you. You can't get clean once that happens. And then he'll break your heart, like Liam did mine. But you're special. Nobody can touch you, okay? Promise?”

Mama dug her nails into my arm.

“Promise me, baby.” It was a trick. She was going to make me promise something and I didn't even know what I was supposed to promise. Not to trust Kellen? Not to let him creep into me? To take the pills? That nobody would touch me?

Mama was trying to ruin Kellen. To make him bad like Liam.

I pried her hand off my arm. I didn't even care if it hurt her. If nobody could touch me, that was her, too. When I opened the door, Patty stood outside with her eyes big. I swerved around her and ran.

 

8

DONAL

Wavy was lucky. She didn't have to ride the bus to school, because Kellen took her. I wished he could take me, too, but there was only room for Wavy on his bike. Other times, not for school, he let me ride, but only because I was a boy.

Ricki got really mad one night, because Daddy took Dee riding, and left her and Sandy at home. So Ricki asked Kellen to take her riding, but he said, “Sorry. Wavy's the only girl who gets to ride.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means Wavy is a very jealous mistress,” Sandy said. She wanted to go riding, too, but she wasn't mad, because she took these special pills. I wished Mama would take some of those.

“Did you really buy her that diamond ring? There's something seriously twisted about that,” Ricki said.

“Don't be such a tight-ass,” Sandy said. “They're in love. It's sweet.”

“No, it's fucking creepy. What is she, like ten?”

“Wavy's thirteen,” I said. Ricki was bad at math.

“There's nothing wrong with me buying her a ring. She's my girl,” Kellen said.

“Yeah, except for the part where you're a pedophile.” Ricki wrinkled her nose up.

“That's not the only thing love means. You just got your mind in the gutter. Come on, Donal, let's go ride.”

That night, I was the only one who got what I wanted, but I never got to ride to school. I had to go on the bus, because nobody ever got up early enough to take me. If I asked, Sandy would call the school to say I was sick, but if I stayed away too many days, Wavy would come down to the ranch and make me get up. Then I was in trouble.

On the weekends, it was easy to get up early, even earlier than I got up for the bus, because I could sneak up to the farmhouse and see Wavy. If I was lucky, she would let me get in bed with her, and she would talk to me.

Before Christmas something funny happened. I didn't get to see Wavy for three whole weeks because I had chicken pox and got really sick. When I went back to school, I didn't get to talk to her all week, because she was at the new high school, and then Friday night was Kellen's birthday. So I got up early, early on Saturday, and I put on my Superman costume from Halloween since she never got to see it. Then I went up the meadow to the farmhouse.

When I went in, Kellen was coming down the stairs in his bare feet, carrying his boots. He must have got in a fight on his birthday because somebody gave him a black eye. He made a funny face when he saw me, I guess because of my costume.

“Hey, Superman. You want a ride down the hill?” he said.

“I just came up the hill. To see Wavy.”

“I think she's still asleep.”

But why was he upstairs if she was still asleep?

Here's what I think happened: Kellen went earlier than me and got in bed with Wavy. What made me mad is that he stole all her words and didn't leave any for me, because she didn't want to talk. She let me get in bed and she hugged me, but she didn't say anything. And she was naked under the covers. I felt her boobies against my arm.

“Yuck. Where's your nightgown?” I said.

She lifted her hands over her head. I wanted her to talk to me, but she was looking at her ring. The rule was
nothing belongs to you
, but I think she was breaking the rule. If somebody tried to take that ring, she'd sock them. It was
her
ring. Kellen bought it for her so he could marry her. If it wasn't Wavy, I didn't know how he could like a girl that much. They're kinda gross.

She let the sun sparkle off the ring, so it made little rainbows on the walls and on me. I liked that almost as much as I liked her talking.

 

9

CASEY

December 1982

On the last Friday of Casey's duty, Wavy came home in the afternoon and took a shower. That was strange enough, but then she went up and down the stairs a few times between her bedroom and the bathroom. Casey listened to it all curiously, while she coaxed Val into doing a few exercises. Val's lassitude wore even Casey out, so they were watching TV when Wavy came downstairs.

Instead of her usual jumper, she wore a pale green dress with a fitted bodice and delicate shoulder straps. She was starting to develop, and the dress showed that off, fitted around her little breasts and her narrow hips. The outfit looked expensive, but of course, she wore big, heavy boots with it.

In one hand, she carried a matching sweater and a camera. Under her other arm, she had a wrapped package. She put the box and the camera on the coffee table and sat in the rocking chair next to the sofa, carefully, like she was worried about rumpling her dress.

“You look very pretty. Are you going to a birthday party?” Casey said.

Wavy nodded and reached up to adjust her hair.

She'd pulled it up into a chignon, but it was already slipping out. Delicate strands of blond fell around her ears, and it looked like she had sneaked some of her mother's makeup. Thirteen seemed too young to be wearing makeup, but Casey wasn't her mother, who was sitting right there on the sofa. If she thought Wavy looked too adult, she didn't say anything about it.

All Val said was, “What's in the package?”

Wavy didn't answer.

“Is Kellen coming to get you, to take you to the party?” Casey said.

He took her to school every morning and he was the one who brought her home so late or not at all, according to Patty. As for Mr. Quinn, Casey had seen him maybe half-a-dozen times in the four months she worked for him. At first, he was attentive and gentle with Val, but the last time he came, they argued. The kind of argument Casey had overheard many times.

Him saying, “You're not trying. You don't even want to get better and be with me.”

Her saying, “Why should I try? Is Dee still at the ranch? Is Sandy? Is that little cunt Ricki still at the ranch? I wish you'd left me there to die on the side of the road.”

“Well, you know what, baby? I wasn't the one who called 911. Kellen did that.”

After that, Mr. Quinn kept paying Casey and Patty, but he didn't come back. His brother, Sean, visited occasionally and that seemed to do Val more good than her husband's visits. He got her talking, made her laugh.

On the last day of an assignment, Casey liked to “wrap things up” by offering last-minute advice and encouragement. With Val, it seemed like wasted effort. Instead of talking, they sat in front of the TV, as Casey's time there ticked away. At six o'clock, she would go home for the weekend, and on Monday, she would start a new assignment.

Normally, Wavy went outside as soon as she heard Kellen's motorcycle, but that evening she stayed in the rocking chair, smoothing her dress like she was nervous. The engine cut off and for several minutes, there was silence except for Val's TV program. Then the sound of boots on the front porch.

Casey had never seen the front door used, but that night, Kellen even rang the bell. Wavy got up and opened the door for him. He came in, looking nervous, and frowned in confusion when Wavy handed the package to him. Casey scooted forward on her seat, curious despite the fact that she might never get to tell Patty about this.

“This is for me?” he said. “You didn't need to get me anything.”

The rocking chair groaned under his weight when he sat down. After he tore off the wrapping paper, he looked into the box with a blank look on his face. Then he lifted out what looked like a cast iron pot. No, a motorcycle helmet. He turned it over in his hand, forcing a smile.

“I really appreciate it, sweetheart, but you know I don't ever wear a helmet.”

Frowning, Wavy slid her hand around the back of his neck and into his hair. Kellen nodded.

“Yeah, you're right. If I'd been wearing a helmet that day, I wouldn't have gotten my head so banged up. Okay. Okay. You ready to go? You look really pretty, but it's cold out there. Are you gonna be warm enough in that?”

Out of the closet she took a fleece-lined leather jacket and put it on over the sweater that matched her dress. Then the camera was remembered and the jackets came back off. Casey didn't wait to be asked. She picked up the camera and posed Wavy and Kellen, side by side. Because of the size difference, the camera had to be turned on end to make them both fit in the frame. Neither of them smiled for the picture, as awkward as high school prom dates.

 

10

KELLEN

For the longest time, I'd been trying to give Wavy her poker winnings, but she kept saying no. When she finally asked for some money, it was to take me out for my birthday, to this really nice steak house in Garringer. I'd been there once before with Liam and some of his friends, but they were all tweaking and made too much noise for that place. It was quiet with nice carpet and leather booths and chandeliers.

I didn't want the waiter looking down his nose at Wavy, so I got a haircut, and I wore a new pair of jeans without grease stains, with the one and only dress shirt I owned—the one I wore to my ma's funeral. That was about as dressed up as I knew how to get. I wasn't too sure about me, but Wavy looked like she belonged there. She went floating across the dining room after the hostess, that fancy dress swishing, and her neck all bare. We had a corner booth with candles on the table that made Wavy's hair like a halo around her face.

“You're so pretty,” I said after the hostess was gone. I'd already told Wavy that a buncha times, but she seemed to like it. And she was beautiful. I figured her dressing up was part of my birthday present, so I ought to let her know I appreciated it.

I ordered for both of us, which I'd been told was what a gentleman was supposed to do. Then I ordered a bourbon and coke, which was probably not a gentleman's drink. After the salads came, the waiter left us alone.

“You know, this is the first time a girl ever took me on a date,” I said.

That made Wavy smile. She pressed her lips together and held her breath.

“Happy birthday,” she said.