Random Acts Of Crazy (27 page)

Trevor and Joe probably knew that in their home town. Maybe not. It sounded so…cold. Relentless. Calculated and stifling. A different kind of conformity, but still – in so many ways, the same.

The three of us, though, didn’t conform to
anything
. Not as a…threesome. God, even thinking the word seemed so sinful, so abnormal, so filthy. Three people together. At the same time.

No one was around, so I sat on the hood of my car and let the night air wash over me, my mind giving me permission to think this through without judgment, pushing aside my knee-jerk reaction to label even the consideration of the thought to be a bad action. Who planted these judgments in my mind? Mama sure never said, “And by the way, Darla, don’t ever do two men at once. It’s bad and you’ll be a slut forever and your hoo haw will turn purple and fall off.”

No one had ever said that – least of all Mama, whose entire talk about sex with me had been to give me directions to Planned Parenthood when I was sixteen and to tell me my virginity was something best not handed over in the back of a car. Too bad she was a year late.

Yet there it was, the all-pervasive feeling that I couldn’t even
think
about Trevor and Joe at the same time.

Fuck that! My mind was my own. I could
think
whatever I wanted. Didn’t mean I had to
act
on it. If Mormon men could have more than one wife (informally, now), why couldn’t a woman have more than one husband or man? In my Introduction to Anthropology course I’d learned there was a word for that: polyandry. It was extremely rare and mostly done in African societies, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen in rare cases.

The two men and one woman thing, I mean. Not the marriage part.

Mama used to read romance novels, before she found sweepstakes. Every month a new book would come in the mail from Harlequin, and she’d hole up in her bedroom and read it. She called them her “reading stories,” to separate them from her other stories – soap operas – which she also used to enjoy. Money got tight and she had to quit the book clubs, but her room was still filled with those old Harlequins, and nowadays she entered some contests to get free romance novels.

When I was thirteen or so I started reading them, too, and they were great escapes, entire worlds that were so foreign to me – with men who were ranchers, doctors, vets, or cops – but that helped me to see that men and women could be together and talk to each other in ways I didn’t see in my life.

And then there was one book where I learned what the word “ménage” meant. Threesome, I guessed pretty fast, as I read it. Four hands on you? Two penises? Two mouths? The woman in the story wasn’t torn about her feelings. Damn if she didn’t lap up (pun intended) every second of attention from both men. Those guys were hot, too – the cover showed abs so tight you could put a piece of coal on them and have them do 500 crunches and get a diamond.

Two men and one woman. Seemed like something in a fantasy novel, you know? Except now there was an electricity between me and Joe and Trevor, as if uptight Joe were looser, and Trevor – he certainly wanted me. He seemed OK with the fact that Joe wanted me, too. That damn kiss. Shouldn’t I regret it? Wasn’t I supposed to have some part of my conscience that told me I was breaking some moral code by kissing Joe and being caught?

And that offer. They were both in Joe’s hotel room, waiting for me to show up, extending to me an invitation to tip over an edge into an abyss. A line that, once crossed, can never,
ever
be uncrossed.

Was I ready for that?

“Darla Jo!” Mama’s voice called out to me. My ass burned from sitting in one spot too long, my knees propped up, wrists aching from leaning back. All my body felt a bit sore, as if the past two days had exercised me beyond my normal routine. And it had.

“I’m coming,” I answered, knowing it made no sense to shout out into the inky darkness and piss off the neighbors. Mama sure wasn’t coming down those ragged steps, either. I’d need to fix those.
Before you move
, a voice in my mind said. That fucking voice. It needed to shut up.

No, I don’t
, it retorted. Sounded a little too much like Aunt Josie.

Mama was holding an old guitar in her hands as she sat at the table, a thin wisp of white smoke rising up from her lit cigarette, the concentrated column curving this way and that as it made its way up, dissipating into nearly nothing. A chill spread through me.

I knew that guitar. It was Daddy’s, buried in the way back of their bedroom closet, deep under his clothes and a bunch of old checks and magazines. For Mama to dig that out, she had to go to a pretty major level of effort – for her. My eyes filled with tears, because I knew what was coming next, and my heart rose in my throat, palate burning, my body so overwhelmed I was frozen in place.

“Mike told me about Trevor’s music,” she said quietly. “Said your face looked like you were watching an angel sing to you, like God sent him. And that Trevor has real talent, too.” She took a long drag off her cigarette, the cherry burning a little too bright even after her mouth left it, her hands so practiced, fingers nimble and knowing how to set it down even without having eyes on it. If nothing else, Mama was very good at the few things that made up her life: smoking, sweeping, and loss.

Tapping the top of the guitar, she rested her fingers for a fraction of a second too long on the blond wood. Her hand shook just a bit now.

“Mama, you’re shaking. Have you checked your sugars?” I asked. That wasn’t a real question, and we both knew it. I just wanted to give her an out. My brain was on fire because Mama didn’t
do
this. She didn’t talk about feelings or Daddy.

“No, Darla Jo.” She sighed, a long, slow sound like something was draining out of her. Something other than air. “My sugars are fine.” Now her voice was shaking, too, and so help me, God, if she started crying I would never stop.

She straightened her spine best she could and her eyes caught mine. “I want you to give this to Trevor. No use having it sit buried under all that stuff. Charlie – ” her voice choked at saying Daddy’s name. I hadn’t heard her use it in years, and it made my throat close up with salty tears, too, my eyes following suit. “Charlie always said that instruments are like people. They need to be a part of the action to be useful.”

We shared a sad smile. I didn’t want her to stop, so I kept my mouth shut. It worked.

“And Darla, he’d have been so proud of you.” Her voice broke and I just let my own tears come, my throat hitching with sobs that I struggled to keep in my nose filling as I wiped my face with my sleeve.

“He would?”
Why?
I wondered. Why would anyone be proud of someone like
me
?

“Because you have a way with people, Darla Jo. You’re a kindhearted young woman who has blossomed into someone who is always striving for more, even in hard times.” The words poured out of her as she took another long drag off her smoke. Jesus Christ, I hadn’t heard this much come out of her mouth that wasn’t about sweeping or medical issues or what was wrong with me in – hell, forever.

“And you need to give this to your boyfriend when you go visit him right now.”

Hold on. “Right now?”

“Go. You know you want to. Go with your gut.” She shook her head slowly, rolls of fat around her neck moving and twisting a bit, her eyes shining with tears that nearly spilled over. “I wish I had,” she muttered.

“What do you mean, Mama?” I asked gently, reaching out to touch her hand. She jumped a bit, as if shocked, then relaxed.

Blinking hard, she mulled over my question and I worried I’d pushed too hard. Her face closed off, and I decided if ever there was a time to push, it was now. Eighteen years of nothing wasn’t cutting it.

“Mama? I’m twenty-two and this is the most you’ve ever said about Daddy.” I squeezed her hand. It stayed limp. “Please,” I pleaded.

Closing her eyes, she reached for her cigarette and took a long drag, knowing through muscle memory where it was, never burning herself. “I knew Jeff had too much to drink that night. And I wanted to say something but I was just too damn polite. Too hesitant. Marlene can be a big personality, you know?”

I made a snorting sound of agreement.

“No, I don’t mean like she is now. Before the accident, and her brain got hurt, she was different. Nicer. Friendly and a little crazy, but in a good way. A fun way.” Mama swallowed hard. “So I kept my opinions to myself because if I said anything, she’d have shooed it off as me being a nervous Nelly, and I didn’t want the flak.”

Whoa. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. Mama must have been carrying that guilt around for this whole time, but it’s not like it was her fault. “You couldn’t have known, Mama,” I countered.

“No. I realize that. Took me a long time, and God certainly gave me my own burden to bear,” she said, looking at her missing foot.

“God didn’t do that to punish you,” I insisted.

“He took Charlie, Darla. That’s all the punishment I needed for not following my gut.” A long drag, then she pulled a fresh one out of her cigarette case and lit it off the old cigarette’s cherry. “This foot was just a little something extra the devil threw in.”

Mama didn’t talk about God like this. Not much. Where was this crap coming from? “You really believe that?” I asked softly.

“Not really. I think it’s something I say to myself when I’m trying to throw a pity party and no one comes.” We laughed, the sound a bit tinny and forced, but better than nothing.

She inched the guitar my way. “Go. Take this and give it to him.” Mama stood and I followed suit, our bodies reaching for each other awkwardly, her hug the first I’d had in years. It felt good to be embraced, to have Mama stroking my hair and whispering, “You’re such a good girl, Darla. Now move far away and live your life.”

I pulled away as if stabbed, disbelief coursing through me like poison. “What?” I practically screamed.

“I’ll kick you out if you don’t do it on your own.”

“No, you won’t!”

“All right. No. I won’t,” she admitted, chuckling to herself. “I do think you need to just go and visit Josie for a while and see where your life takes you.” Her eyes shifted to a more protective, withdrawn look, and I could tell she was retreating back under her mask. And that was OK – it must have been so hard to show herself to me after all these years.

I’d take what I could get.

Right now, though, I needed to go take what had been offered. I gave Mama a quick kiss on the cheek, grabbed the guitar by the neck and sprinted out the door, headed toward something so new, so random, I couldn’t even name it.

Trevor

The ride from Darla’s house to the hotel room wasn’t a painful, silent trip, which is what I’d expected from my long-time friend. Shades of grey weren’t exactly his forte, and right now Darla, Joe, and I were about as grey as you can get. Some sort of unexplained phenomenon was developing between the three of us, and now that we were down to just us two, it felt empty. Darker. Forlorn, yet not tense. Just…unfulfilled.

Fortunately, I remembered how to get there, the roads laid out in an orderly manner, so unlike the Boston area, where the road map looked like it had been drawn by a nine-year-old drinking his second double espresso. Yet another point for this place that until two days ago we’d have considered fly-over country, a vast green expanse with faded beige corn fields in between, a checkered patch quilt of nothing. Not now. Now it was far, far more.

Joe was in that half-drunk stupor that made him so much more fun than his normal, tightass state. How a guy who could attract women like light bulbs attract moths could be so insecure had puzzled me for years. Something about Darla made him daring, though – that kiss had come out of nowhere. Coming upon them in that state, his hands groping what had just filled my own shortly before, her mouth so passionately entangled with his I could feel her need – being able to observe that, to share in that without feeling like we were competing for her – that blew my fucking
mind
.

You can do that? Really? Because no one told me that before. Ever. Not in the UU church’s sexuality class, not in any human psych class in college (not even abnormal psych), and not in any late-nights talks in the dorms, high as a kite and sharing sex stories (or even having sex while talking about sex). Who did this? Who felt like this? How could I make sense of it if no one explained it to me?