Life After Life (37 page)

“I was in a school show one time,” Sadie told her, and then she told all about being in a show with Grover Fowler and they laughed and laughed. She always really liked Grover Fowler but she didn’t tell that part. Harley feels good there on her lap and he likes to put his nose up against hers and kind of bump. Yes, the children want her to move, but she can’t move. She has a whole business and people who would be so disappointed if they couldn’t come see her and have her make them up a picture. And Horace. When Horace was gone, she slept on his side of the bed so that instead of missing him, she was only missing herself and where she used to be. And she misses her bathtub, too. She might say she never knew until lately just what a comfort a good hot bath could be, but that would not be true. She knew as soon as she was without Horace that nothing could be taken for granted. She loved to lie there in the heat—her body not young but certainly younger than it is now—and she watched the light and in it the mimosa tree in the sideyard. Some call that a trash tree, but she said a trashy beauty with its little pink puffs and long seedpods she liked to shell as a child pretending she was shelling butter beans like she remembers seeing her mother doing. She heard kids and skates and car radios and yard sprinklers like a beautiful symphony. Call it July. And there could be a recording of each and every month and each and every day and that would be so nice, recording the days. She always wanted some day of the week underwear, but that seemed so extravagant, especially for someone who was married and taught school. But then she got Lynnette some and Lynnette never wore the right day at the right time, but that was okay. Lynnette was a child who hears that different drummer and Sadie is proud of the fact that she never tried to change what the child was hearing but instead encouraged her to do her best and be happy. In the middle of a dark night she liked to plant her open palm on Horace’s back and draw in the heat and then she would move her hand in slow steady circles. He will call soon. He always calls and she is always right ready to answer.

When it was time to go, Goldie just went. Goldie was old and blind and diabetic and she waited for them to go to the lake for the afternoon and then she took a little vacation, too. She wandered way up under the house to a cool spot and just drifted away. They searched everywhere, made calls and put up signs like little Abby did, and then Horace found her; he smelled her, of course, and it was hard to get her out from under there, but no one got upset with her about how she did it. They all knew that she had made her choice and done the very best she could. She was such a good girl and so was the one before her named for that young man who won all those Olympic medals. All of her children are good swimmers and it was important to her that they learned how. All children need to know how to swim. It is very important especially if you grow up in a place with a river and being so near to the ocean. She thinks she hears the children right outside the window there but she can’t say and she can’t quite open her eyes. They love to play kick the can and tag this time of day and when the streetlights come on, Horace goes out and cups his hands around his mouth and calls for them to come on inside.
Supper, children, supper.
That music is trapped in her head and she can’t get rid of it. It’s not unpleasant but she’s tired of it. She’s tired and maybe will take a little nap before whatever is supposed to happen next happens before Horace comes by.

“Goldie, dear, I think it’s time to go,” she says, and there’s scruffy little Rudy there at her feet and there’s Harley, sweet purring Harley, and his eyes are as green as Horace’s. Horace has beautiful eyes—sometimes green and sometimes gray and he always sends her a sprig of rosemary so she will remember him. She laughs, so silly, to think that she could ever in her life forget him. They have been together for years and they plan to marry in the summer. They both want children. He has left a message for her right there by the switchboard and she strains to read it. She needs her glasses. She needs to write back and let him know she is going now. She is going to find her mother because she has the grocery list of all they need: Clorox and paper towels and trash bags and some milk. He says, Oh honey, you can relax. I’ll go to the store so you can just stretch out there and relax and so she does. She does relax and there is someone at the door but it is way past her bedtime so she lets her mother answer the door. Her mother tiptoes and says shhhhhh.
Hush,
she says
, hush, now, my baby is sleeping. And her mother sits down beside her and holds her hand; she says sweet dreams, my baby, sweet dreams—she says Sadie? Sadie?—and she says it’s suppertime—supper, children, supper—and there’s money in the jar if a child should need some, there always is.

C.J.

C
.
J
. HAS THAT WEIRD
feeling that she’s being watched or like someone has been here in her space. She goes and checks in the bathroom where she keeps her journal and then in her top drawer where she keeps cash. Nothing is out of place and so she tries to relax, to think about how she can turn this night with Andy into a good one, get them back where they were in the very beginning when he was so generous and called her several times a day. She puts Kurt on his back and watches him play with the soft stuffed dog Joanna gave him last week. Joanna calls herself his fairy godmother, but the truth is that she is fairy godmother to C.J. as well and lately C.J. is trying to figure out some ways she might begin to pay her back for all the help and favors. She could give Joanna a manicure and pedicure—and
not
a French one, she would add. Or she could clean her house. She could fill in more at the Dog House—cleaning and refilling all the condiment bins after hours, which is something Joanna often does herself. Andy keeps asking if she has ever told Joanna about him, pressing to make sure that she has not broken her promise to him. “Who does she think you’re with all these nights?” he has asked, and “Isn’t she the least bit curious?” And of course, Joanna is curious and has asked a million questions but C.J. still has not told her anything even though there have been many times she has wanted to. She has even tried to imagine the look of shock Joanna would have with the news and then her asking,
How? How did you wind up with him?
And of course that would be the hardest part, telling her how she used to be—fucking old creeps for peanuts and doing things that now make her shudder—and how he hit on her knowing it would be an easy hit and then how he kept coming back and how then he really seemed to care, especially once Kurt was born.

“You’ll tell her when the time is right,” Andy had told her. “You’ll tell her when everything is out in the open and our news won’t hurt anyone.” By
anyone
he meant his own children, one of them not much younger than C.J., and his wife who C.J. has nothing against and so doesn’t like to think about. She reminds herself how he has said the marriage was over ages ago—she was not his first affair—but now she is his only and the longest and certainly the only one with a baby. She likes the sound of
our
news—
our news
like a couple, like a family.

But they’re not there yet and now she is starting to worry that they might
not
get there; she is nervous about how pissy he has seemed lately. She’s worried that he might have changed his mind about her or found somebody new. They haven’t slept together in several weeks and his messages have been so weird the past several days. In the beginning he just talked about how much he wanted her, how he wanted to build a perfect little world and keep her there, dress her in expensive clothes just so he could rip them off and fuck her morning noon and night. “When Kurt is asleep, of course,” she had added, and he laughed and said
of course.
He said he loved what a good mother she is to Kurt and how he hoped they’d have another one just like him. She could go to school if she wanted. Hell, she could do anything she wanted. And now she wants to get back to all of that, back to the good parts.

She makes sure there is nothing in the playpen Kurt might find and put in his mouth and goes to take a shower, leaving the door open so she can hear him in there making those cute little squeaking sounds. The bathroom window is open to let out the steam and she can hear the voices and laughter of people in line at the Dog House. It has become a regular hangout for a lot of teenagers, especially now that that girl who is all into vampires works there. She practices how she will approach Andy, practices how she will try to get things back to the way they had been. She decides to wear the white silk blouse he gave her for her birthday even though it is not her style at all; the price tag was still on it when he gave it to her and she almost said how she wished she could have the money instead, that she could get about ten shirts she liked and still have lots of grocery money, but it seemed to make him happy when he thought he was teaching her something so she laughed and said how beautiful it was and that it cost almost as much as her car.

The kids crowding the picnic tables outside the Dog House all turn and wave when she straps Kurt into his child seat and leaves; though they all seem like nice enough kids, something gives her the creeps. She has had the weird worry lately that one of them or some of them have gone in and out of her apartment when she’s not there even though she keeps the door locked. Why else does she keep having that feeling? The linen closet door wasn’t closed all the way, but lately she has had so many thoughts about what she wants to do for Kurt that she is in and out of there all the time adding to the list she keeps in her journal, for instance one of the nurses at Pine Haven had told her about a book she should read about child development and she had written down the title. Even if someone had been in there, there wasn’t anything worth stealing. Now that they know that, there would be no reason to go back unless they wanted a place to smoke pot or have sex and surely she would know if they had done either of those. She would definitely know and they wouldn’t do that. That would be stupid and she is being stupid, the whole thought of having to go back out into the cemetery giving her the creeps, but that’s stupid, too.

Kurt is asleep when she gets to Joanna’s house and so she carries the whole car seat inside. Joanna’s kitchen looks like a yard sale is happening, the counter covered with all kinds of pots and vases and junk.

“Whoa, look at you,” Joanna whispers. “I’ve never seen you so dressed up. And so conservative-looking. What on earth happened to C.J.?”

“Not a biggie,” C.J. says, and tiptoes into Joanna’s room to avoid looking at her. “I’m putting in an application at Macy’s, hoping to maybe work the cosmetic counter and thought I should look good.”

“Work? When? You’ve got a job and our deal is that you help me.”

“Oh, I know, this wouldn’t mess that up.” She places the car seat down in the corner where she can still see Kurt from the kitchen.

“I thought you had a date.”

“Oh, I do. And I’m meeting him there at the mall. He works at the Olive Garden.” She talks fast, all the answers she prepared for all the questions she knew Joanna would ask. “What’s with all the junk, are you having a yard sale?”

“No.” Joanna reaches and fingers the silk blouse and raises a questioning eyebrow. “I told you I want you to take something. Every time you come over you can just take something.”

“I thought that’s what we were going to do at your wedding.”

“Yeah, right. The
wedding.
Well, I’m impatient,” Joanna says, and holds up a giant white vase. “How about this beauty and I can throw in a never before used knife sharpener and colander?” She laughs. “Seriously, C.J., who is this guy and why are you being so secretive? Do you need money because I can loan you—”

“No. It’s just that I don’t want to jinx it,” she says. “But I promise to tell you soon. Either way, I will tell you soon.”

“What does that mean
either
way?” Joanna steps closer. “And why do you look like you’re about to cry?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m nervous and you’re making me
more
nervous.”

“About?”

“It’s stupid. It’s as stupid as you giving away all of your junk.” She blots the corners of her eyes and forces a laugh. “Really. I should be quizzing you like you’re not planning to off yourself or something are you?”

“What do you mean?” Joanna turns and the look on her face is one C.J. has never seen, clearly very upset. She puts the vase down. “That isn’t funny. I told you my story and you told me yours and neither one is a joke. I would never do such a thing and I can’t believe you’d even joke about it.”

“Good,” C.J. says, “ I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Jesus. And I do mean
good.
Kurt needs you.”

“And I need him.” Joanna starts putting things back in the cabinets. “Do you even
know
this person you have a date with?”

“Yes, Mother,” C.J. says. “We were in high school together. And by the way, I need you, too.”

“Yes, I know you do which is why I
do
ask all these questions. I worry. You’re so secretive lately and I don’t understand why you feel you can’t trust me.”

“It’s not that and you really need to trust
me.
I worry, too. Like I think you need to get all dressed up and go on a date. And I worry because Kurt is starting to roll all over the place and you have to watch him every second and your house is full of crap everywhere.” She points to the floor as if he is there rolling and turns quickly to leave. She hates if anything ever makes her cry; she hates how ugly crying makes a person, the way your face gets all twisted and ugly and fucks your whole face up.