All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (39 page)

“Hey, is everything okay?” the tallest one said.

“Please, will you just take it?” Kellen said.

“I don't think she wants whatever it is you want to give her.”

“Why don't you just walk away, pal?” another Frisbee guy said.

“Why don't you fuck off?” Kellen said.

The Frisbee guys had a conference, and one of them took off running toward the library.

When Kellen took a step toward me, the tall guy said, “Dude, my buddy is going to get campus security.”

“I'm just trying to give her this.” Kellen held the ring up so the Frisbee guys could see it.

“I don't care, dude. You need to go.”

There was shouting up on the library steps and then several people started across the lawn toward us.

“Fucking fuck.” Kellen turned around and kicked his door again, twice, hard enough to leave a dent the size of his enormous boot.

“Okay, look,” I said.

At that point, I was willing to take the ring, just to make Kellen go away, because he was scaring the shit out of me. Before I could, Wavy got out of my car and came around the truck to Kellen's side.

“He's leaving,” Wavy said to the Frisbee guys.

“I'm not leaving,” Kellen said.

“You can't get arrested.” She held out her hand, and he put the ring in it, folding her fingers over it. He held her hand like that until she pulled it back.

Kellen and I both seemed to think there would be something more, but Wavy walked away and got back in my car. The Frisbee guy came running up and a few steps behind him was a campus cop.

“Sir, why don't you get in your car, and let this lady back out?” the cop said.

Finally, Kellen did.

For part of the drive out of town, we were behind his truck, but when I turned for the highway, he went on straight. I let out a long sigh.

“I know you love him, but what a psycho,” I said. “Did he used to do that kind of thing? Kicking in the door like that?”

“Sometimes,” Wavy said. She sounded exhausted.

“And your wrist? Did he do that, too? Rough you up?”

“He didn't mean to.”

“Right. They never mean to, do they?” I said.

We passed under the last row of streetlights before the highway went to four lanes. I looked over at Wavy, who still had her hand in a fist around the ring.

“Seriously. He's a crazy fucking asshole.”

“Don't, Renee.” The first time she'd ever said my name.

Because she asked, I didn't say the rest of what I thought, but my rose-colored glasses had been shattered. Kellen wasn't the love of her life. He was a dumb brute with greasy hands and a cheap haircut. A guy with no education and a bad temper. Big enough to kick a dent in the side of his truck, and stupid enough to do it, too.

After almost an hour of total silence, Wavy started making this soft hiccupping noise that I realized was her crying. She had been leaning her head against the window, but she slowly folded over until her head was resting on her knees.

The crying kept getting louder and louder, until it was hard to listen to. You can look up the word
keening
in the dictionary, but you don't know what it means until you hear somebody having her heart ripped out. It went on and on. I was terrified. I didn't think you could cry like that without hurting yourself. I drove faster, ten, then fifteen miles over the speed limit. Then I did something I never imagined doing: I reached out and laid my hand on Wavy's back. I wanted to comfort her, and myself, but feeling her whole body shake made me feel worse, so I put my hand back on the steering wheel.

The last ten miles, I cried, too. I went all-in for histrionic romance crap, but I'd never loved any guy the way she loved him. My heartbreaks lasted a month. I'd eat too much and mope around crying, but I always found a new guy. I was as fickle as those
Cosmo
quizzes said I was. I couldn't imagine being with one guy as long as she'd been with him. I couldn't imagine what it would be like losing him.

When I pulled into the driveway at our apartment, I was almost hysterical. I tried to get her out of the car, but she curled up into a ball and totally ignored me. Even as small as she was, there was no way I could carry her up to our apartment.

For half a second, I thought about driving on to her aunt's house, but just for half a second. That would be traitorous, taking her to a woman she didn't even trust to look at a picture of Kellen.

I left Wavy in the car and ran up to the apartment, trying to think of who I could call to help. Her cousin Amy, but she was at the University of Nebraska. Even if she left right then, she wouldn't be there until the morning, and it was finals week. I was standing in the kitchen, holding the phone and crying, trying to think of who to call, when I saw the napkin with Darrin's phone number. I dialed and he answered. I don't think I made any sense, but when I stopped blubbering, he said, “I can be there in ten minutes.”

It was more like five minutes before he rolled into the parking lot in an open Jeep. Watching him jog toward me, where I stood next to my car, I could tell I'd gotten him out of bed. He was wearing sweatpants, a Marine Corps T-shirt, and tennis shoes with no socks. For a while, we stood there, looking at Wavy curled up in the front seat.

“Are you sure she doesn't need to go to the hospital?” he said.

“She's not sick. She just got her heart broken.”

Wavy was so far gone, she didn't even care that Darrin picked her up and carried her to our apartment. He laid her down on her neatly made, virginal twin bed, and she went on sobbing, that godforsaken ring clutched in her hand.

We left her there and went into the kitchen, where Darrin made us both giant glasses of rum and coke. While we drank, I told him the whole awful thing as far as I knew it. Mostly because I couldn't stand being alone with knowing it, but also because Darrin was a good listener. We had another drink and then another, and talked about everything. My nightmare year in a sorority. His eight years in the Marines. How my father thought I was too stupid to get anything but an MRS degree. How his father was in prison when he was a kid. That was why Darrin joined the Marines right out of high school.

When we went to check on Wavy later, she'd finally worn herself out crying. She was asleep with her arm flung out, the ring next to her hand. I turned off the light and closed the door, but then Darrin and I were standing in the hallway outside my open bedroom door.

“Do you want to stay?” I said.

“I could stay on the couch if you think you'll need me.”

“Maybe I need you in here.” I felt so stupid, because he looked down, kind of embarrassed. Had I completely misinterpreted his interest in me?

“It's not that I don't want to, because I really would, but in my book this falls under the heading of taking advantage,” he said.

He slept on the couch, in case I needed him. I thought about going out to the living room, and seducing him in the safety of darkness. All I did was think about it, though, before I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of typing. At first I assumed it must be morning, because what kind of crazy person types a letter in the wee, dark hours, but it was only four o'clock. Under normal circumstances, I would have yelled at Wavy, but considering everything that had happened, I let it go.

Just as I was starting to get used to the peckitty-peck of Wavy typing, this enormous crash brought me bolt upright in bed.

“Wavy?” I shouted, but she didn't answer.

I heard a man's voice in the living room, so I jumped out of bed and ran out there. Darrin stood at our open front door in his bare feet. He pointed out into the hall.

“Wavy just—uh—she came through here carrying a typewriter. I asked if she was—”

Another crash came from the stairwell.

We ran out in the hallway, and I yelled Wavy's name, but she didn't answer. Unless the sound of metal meeting wood that echoed up the stairs was her response. I hurried down the stairs with Darrin right behind me.

Wavy's typewriter was lying at the foot of the stairs, broken into pieces. She stood over it, and right as I got to her, she kicked it and sent the biggest chunk of it skidding across the floor.

“Holy shit,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Without saying anything else, she ran down the next flight of stairs, and then I heard the front door to the house slam open and closed.

One of the second floor tenants opened her door and looked out at me.

“Sorry about that. I'll just clean this up,” I said.

“What the hell was that?” Darrin said.

“I don't know.”

He and I picked up most of the typewriter parts and carried them upstairs. I didn't know what else to do with them, so we took them into Wavy's bedroom, where I could see what had made the crash that woke me up. Wavy had apparently thrown her typewriter across the room and put a big dent in the wall.

“I don't think you're going to get your deposit back.” Darrin dumped a pile of typewriter debris onto Wavy's desk and picked up the torn halves of a sheet of paper.

It must have been the letter Wavy was working on. The one that made her murder her typewriter. It was addressed to the lawyer who oversaw her trust.

Dear Mr. Osher:

I'm writing to request that you draft a letter on my behalf to be sent from your office to Jesse Joe Barfoot, Jr. As the conditions of his parole prohibit any contact with me, I'd like you to communicate with him regarding a 1956 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which has been in my possession since 1983. It is currently located in the garage of my guardian, Mrs. Brenda Newling. I would like Mr. Barfoot to take possession of the vehicle at his earliest convenience. It is my wish to sign the motorcycle over to him as a gift, as it belongs to me personally, and is not included in my trust. As it is unlikely that Mr. Barfoot will be able to receive the motorcycle directly from Mrs. Brenda Newling, I will of course pay for any expense related to the delivery of the item into his possession.

 

Enclosed, please find the name of a motorcycle shop in Garringer which can arrange transportation, as well as the signed title, and Mr. Barfoot's current address.

 

Sincere regards,
Miss Wavonna Quinn

I didn't even think about what time it was. To be honest, I didn't care. I took Wavy's address book out of her desk and called her cousin Amy. She picked up, sounding groggy and belligerent, but once I identified myself, she got quiet.

“Is everything—is Wavy okay?” she whispered.

“No. I would not say that Wavy is okay.”

“What happened?”

“What happened is she just found out that Kellen's been paroled, and under the conditions of his parole, he can't have any contact with her,” I said.

“I know. He can't be within a hundred feet of her. Also, no phone contact or letters. She knows that.”

“She did not know that! Do you think she would have gone to see him if she'd known it could get him thrown back in jail?” Wavy kept a lot of secrets from me, but there was no way she'd have gone to see Kellen knowing that. It certainly explained why their happy reunion had crashed and burned.

“She went to see him? Why?” Amy said.

“Why? Because she loves him! And how did you know he'd been paroled when Wavy didn't even know?”

“My mom told me. Like a year ago, when he was paroled.”

“Your mom? How does she know? He got paroled last year? Wavy didn't even know he'd been paroled until yesterday.” I knew I was screeching, but I wanted to reach through the phone and slap Amy until she said something that made sense. Darrin sat down on the couch next to me with a concerned look on his face. I was so glad he was getting to see me at my screamiest.

“How could she not know? They sent a letter to say he was up for parole. Oh, crap.” Amy went totally silent, so I knew she was figuring out what I'd just realized. “The letters went to my mom's house and she never told Wavy.”

“But you knew! And you never thought to mention that in any of your letters?” I said. My opinion of Kellen changed about every five minutes, but Wavy loved him, and her aunt had no right to keep that kind of secret from her. Neither did Amy.

“We don't write those kinds of letters. She—she writes to me about NASA launches and medieval urban planning. Besides, we don't talk about Kellen in my family. We just don't, okay? You don't know what it was like when all of that happened.”

“I thought you were on her side.”

“I am. But Mom thinks she's doing the right thing,” Amy said. “What would you do if you thought somebody molested your thirteen-year-old niece?”

“She's not thirteen anymore, and you don't know what this is doing to her. She thought they were going to be together! She still loves him!” Normally, I would have been crying by that point, but I was full of righteous anger, so when Amy started sniveling into the phone, I did not feel sympathetic.

“Is she okay?” Amy said.

“No, she spent about five hours crying her heart out, and then she went tearing out of here at four a.m., going God knows where. I don't know where she is or when she's coming home. I guess, if you hear from her, let me know.”

I didn't wait to hear what Amy said. I just hung up.

“Do you want me to go look for her?” Darrin said. He squeezed my hand, which surprised me, because I wasn't sure at what point we'd started holding hands.

“No, if she's mobile, she'll be alright. You wouldn't believe some of the crazy shit she's survived.”

“Do you want me to leave, so you can get some sleep?”

“I'm too awake to go to back to sleep,” I said.

Darrin's hair was mussed from sleeping on the couch, and that early in the morning, his beard stubble was coming in. I'd thought he was so baby faced when I met him, but without the close shave, he looked kind of rugged. When I scooted closer, he put his arm around me.