Look How You Turned Out (10 page)

When I get to Dad's room, I immediately notice how full the windowsill is becoming with cards and plants and bouquets.

How have they found these creations on Thanksgiving? Then I remember the market is open until five, and it sells the bouquets, and several of them are the same dyed carnations with the same sad plastic turkeys roosting in the baby's breath and fern filler.

Dad sees me at once, even though the nurse is adjusting his leg. He yells out from the pain. "Not the hell like that," he says as she moves the leg a careful inch. "Go slow!"

I am standing there. I'm sorry for the nurse, but it's really hard to watch Dad be in such pain.

"Here's your pie," I say setting it amongst an array of crap on his table.

"He's had a steady line of visitors," the nurse says.

"Why the hell do they want to stare at me in this bed," Artie grouses.

"He doesn't want to see anyone," the nurse continues.

"That's okay," I say to Dad. "You don't have to see anyone."

"Why the hell do people bother people in the hospital?"

I have some possible answers, but who cares anyway.

I sit on the miserable couch and stare at his pee bag. Dad looks at me. "Did you get any rest?"

"Did you?"

"Hell no. You can't rest in this place."

"Now Artie," the nurse says, "you better settle down."

"I'll settle down when you quit coming in here and poking on me."

She finds this amusing. "He's so cute," she tells me.

I look at Dad. He's anything but cute. He's mad.

So we are left alone for a minute. "You going to watch the parade?" I say.

"Hell no. I don't care about that."

"Since when?"

"You want to watch it turn it on," he says.

I clear my throat. "Marcus come by?"

"No."

"Maybe they wouldn't let him in."

"They know he can come in. And Juney. And…Teresa."

"Do you want your pie?"

"I can't eat."

"Why not?"

"I'm too damn nauseated."

"Teresa is going to bring you a plate…later."

"She can come. But I don't want food."

"Oh. Sorry." I tap my feet.

"You look like you want to be someplace else," he says.

"I don't."

"I do," he says. "Where's Marcus?"

"At his mom's I guess."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"You look like something is the matter."

"So do you."

"I just had a foot-long bolt shoved down my bone."

I'd take a foot-long shove, just to see if I’m anywhere around normal. Maybe not a foot-long, but six point five inches maybe…well, I Googled that and yeah…six point five. According to Teresa, I should be able to get over the hump, no pun. It's encouraging. And Marcus might love me. Also hopeful. But trusting Teresa's info is like using Wikipedia to write a dissertation.

"Hey, Dad…Myron came by today. Myron White from Chicago."

He keeps staring at me. "Marcus know?"

"Yes. He met Myron."

"And?" Dad is so grumpy faced.

"Myron offered me my job back." I am digging for vindication in the eyes of my father. I think that need comes more from me than him. By a mile.

"Did you tell him to take a hike?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

"You have to have conviction, Bedilia. Or people will walk all over you."

"I have…I told him to leave." Didn't I? I meant to.

"What did Marcus do?"

"He…," I remember Dad's penchant for handing out my confidences like they're condoms at a whore's convention. "He didn't like it."

"Was there an altercation?"

"Of course not," I say though there were moments. "But Dad, well Marcus and I…we've begun negotiations…you know?"

"Negotiations for what?"

I shrug. Am I really doing this? "Dad…Marcus and I were…we were realizing we might…be more than friends. I mean…I'm not sure it's happening after Myron showing up, but I think it's happening anyway."

"What's happening, Bedilia? Be specific."

He already knows but I'll play the game. I move to his bed, pinch the thin blanket between my fingers and roll it back and forth.

"Stop that," Artie snaps. "You're pulling the cover over my leg. I don't mean to snap at you, honey."

Focus. Focus. "Dad…I care about him…Marcus."

"Oh, son of a…, you have to be careful not to jar the bed."

"I didn't touch the bed."

"He's a good deal older than you."

"Ten years," I say.

"Twelve," he says.

"I don't care."

"Of course, you don't, you're twenty years old."

"Twenty-two."

"Round it off, Bedilia."

"Dad…I know you're not against this. I know. So why are you fighting me?"

"You have to be sure. He'll take it seriously, Bedilia. He's a grown-ass man, as Teresa would say. He won't do this lightly."

"I'm not some…feather…flitting…."

"Alright," Dad grabs my wrist. "He has a girlfriend."

"She's a mistake," I say with certainty.

"That doesn't make her go away. He's mad at himself. He gave up. You do realize he was waiting, right?"

"He never gave any indication…."

Dad lets go of my wrist. "Trust me. I warned him off way back."

"You what?"

"He knew I was right. You were too young, and he had Juney to consider."

"Dad…."

"He wanted to come clean before you went to Chicago and I told him I'd accidently shoot him and lay him up right here in this place if he so much as moved a big toe in your direction. And don't think it wasn't hard for him, but he won me over when I saw he could put his needs second to yours."

"Dad I…."

"I was wrong."

"You were?"

"I should have stayed out of it. Once you got through school…not before. Now get that damn nurse back in here."

Once I'm back home looking frantically through the bag I haven't unpacked, I finally find it, a dress crumpled like a newspaper on moving day.

I dump the whole thing on my bed, and there it is…my Chicago life. I pick up that dress and take it to the mirror and stand there like a putz as I hold it in front of myself. Not good for Washington. I settle on leggings, my brown leather boots to the knee, a tight black sweater. It looks like I'm not trying which is the only way I can have confidence.

It's a pretty full parking lot in back of Teresa's. I have extra cans of cranberry sauce cause you never know. Inside the kitchen, it looks more lived in than normal because Teresa keeps it tidy, but today she's out front visiting. I leave my jacket there.

In the dining hall, I am greeted warmly from all corners. Teresa's sons are here, and they're both married, thank God, but Coy hugs me just a beat too long, so I guess the sweater is working.

Dad's cronies are here and one of the single guys from the station. The others are probably working or visiting with family, like Marcus is.

Football on the flat-screen and the jukebox is playing, and Teresa is in high spirits. Two little kids are singing at the karaoke machine so we have duel music, and a couple of toddlers are running around. One is holding a hot roll which he stops to gnaw on before squealing and taking off again.

For the first thirty minutes, it's all about Artie, one to another I repeat how the surgery went and how long he'll be laid up. I guess this is how it happens for him about me. You don't set out to spill someone's business all over town, but you do anyway cause people ask, and you find yourself saying there's no blood in his urine, and that's a good sign.

They love the turkeys, and I give Marcus the credit, and yeah it feels great to say his name, and I get this feeling, maybe a glimpse, that someday I'll do that all the time, talk about Marcus…I want to.

And it isn't long after I eat a small plate of food that the door opens, the cold blast, and it's him, and Juney pops in under Marcus's leather-jacketed arm and goes right to Teresa, then he's looking for me, and I wave. Marcus is looking over the room, and I lift my paper cup and hide my face in it, but our eyes connect, and a force field grows from his eyes to mine…well, sort of. We're staring.

He's tall and cleaned up, and I can see he's tired, but that makes him more beautiful somehow. He takes off his jacket like he plans to stay, and the old factory kicks like a horse, you know what I mean.

I'm tapping my boots. He's coming my way.

Marcus doesn't make it over to me, so when the dancing starts, and it's joke dancing at first as we have Miley on the little stage and Clint Black booming from the back. So in between that people are dancing. All the kids.

So everyone takes turns dancing with everyone. Marcus is not involved. The old guys have him cornered talking about the state of affairs with Artie laid up and does he have it under control and the future of the department and the last four guys who were sheriff and how each one could have improved his performance. I can't actually hear any of this, but then I don't have to.

Every time I look at him, he's looking at me. He's talking to them, but he's looking at me. He's leaning on the wall, one knee bent, his hand there holding a cold one. He's got on a dark blue shirt and black jeans. I love those jeans. That shirt.

I love him.

Coy is talking to me. Yes, this is my second go with him. His wife is watching us closely as she jostles one of the babies on her hip. There are a couple of feet between us, besides our own, and his are really big and he better not step on a toe again and scuff my four hundred dollar boots.

Then I get Juney and it's more lively. Juney pumps our joined hands and takes enormous steps. He's telling me how great it was at Elaine's. "Better than here?" I say cause yeah, I compete.

"No," he says, then, "hey will you dance with Mr. Lar for a minute?"

I turn, and there are the waiting arms of Mr. Lar. He's eighty.

So it goes that way, and I'm doing the twist with a five-year-old girl when I feel the tap on my shoulder. Marcus asks my little friend if he can cut in, and the friend nods shyly then runs off.

"Bedilia," he says, and we put our hands on one another, and we start off like I'm Elaine, and he's Coy.

"Hello," I say, suddenly remembering the sting from 'turtle shell.'

"You look…nice."

"So do you. Juney had a good time at Elaine's."

"He has a good time wherever he goes," he says.

Marcus flinches the fingers on my back a little. I think we've moved closer.

"How's Artie?"

"Crabby."

"Normal then," he says."

Is he mad at Artie? His god?

We do that thing like in the movies where we say each other's names, one over the other.

"You first," I say. I have the stone tablet and chisel in my hand just waiting for what he says next.

"Sorry, I was…abrupt earlier."

I feel tears, and I know we're closer now.

"I said that…I said that in kindness and you…." Emotion fills me, and I can't get it out.

"I know," he whispers. "I…liked it." His eyes dart around, and his hand applies pressure to my back, "Turtle shell."

His hold eases, and we recreate the respectable space.

"I'm going to go back in the kitchen," I say.

"Oh no."

I look up at him. I swear you'd think I was talking about the weather. "I'm going in the kitchen, back in that cubbyhole where she keeps the milk cases. Don't make me wait in there like a total freak."

"Bedilia we can't."

"You need a new 'can do' attitude." I step back then, ruffle Juney's hair because he's dancing with the five-year-old his dad had cut out. I laugh and talk my way back to the kitchen, then I ninja through it and quietly make my way to the back corner that segue-ways into a storage area. I go in there and sit on one of the cases and try to slow my heart down before it falls on the floor.

As soon as I hear him, I'm on my feet and panting like a two dollar whore in a red dress. He rounds that door, fills it pretty much, and I go to him, I fling myself on him, and somehow I'm standing on a milk case, and that makes me a little taller than him, and Dad is right, he's serious, the way he's looking at me. I am against him, and his arms are squeezing the air out of me, but it's the best hurt I ever had. We go in slow. When his lips touch mine oh my God in heaven, there will be no bliss like this until heaven.

He pulls back and tells me shhh, and he's laughing a little and saying God, and I don't know what he's talking about. I latch right back on, my arms around his neck, my hands remembering to dig through his hair, one leg off the crate and wrapping around him, and he pulls the other one up on the other side, and we're all in.

He has made his way through to the wall, and I am against it, and his breath. "You have to be quiet," he whispers, and I am being quiet, and I seal my mouth onto his again.

My ears are filled with the rush, my head thunks against the wall and he kisses down my neck, and the hallelujah chorus comes out of nowhere I swear.

"You, you, you," he chants and breaths against my ear and I lift into it, and he says shhh. And I am, I am, I am, and I rip at his hair, and he's gasping. "Bedilia…God…God."

We are still, mangled against the wall, my hand on his sweaty neck, the other claws first against his back, his shirt. He's dead weight, his face buried against my sweater, we're halfway to the floor where my butt hit a crate and saved us.

He lifts his face, and he's looking at me, a grown ass man. There's love in his face. He loves me.