The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (102 page)

Glenn seemed to be making a point
not
to stare at her as she climbed dripping out of the pool (she imagined water pouring off her in sheets as if from a surfacing submarine). She trudged over to retrieve her towel, the fifteen feet or so to the chair over which it was draped seeming more like a mile. With each step she felt her thighs jiggle and heard childish voices in her head jeering,
Moby, Moby two-by-four can’t get through the bathroom door.
She burned all over as if she’d been baking in the sun for hours.

She snatched up her towel, hastily tying it around her waist. Now it was her breasts on display, jouncing like—an old taunt came to mind—two pigs in a sack as she walked back toward Glenn.
Please, God, let this end soon.
Hadn’t she suffered enough for one day?

Together, she and Glenn managed to haul Monica out of the pool and onto the chaise. Anna was patting her sister’s legs dry when her own towel slipped off. Glenn quickly averted his eyes,
too
quickly it seemed. She was awash with shame, tears prickling behind her eyes as she hurried off to the pool house to change.

When she emerged, clothed once more in her wraparound denim skirt and blouse, Glenn and Monica were seated in the shade, laughing over some long ago exploit of Monica’s. “I’ll never forget the look on that man’s face! You’d have thought I’d offered to sleep with him instead of telling him to fuck off.” She adopted a playful look. “Maybe I
should
have … just to tweak him.” And who knew better the many and varied ways to torment any man foolish enough to fall into her trap?

“Are you sure you didn’t?” he teased. A reference to her drinking, no doubt.

Monica eyed him narrowly before letting loose another throaty laugh. He was the only one allowed to tease her like that, probably because it meant that she wasn’t someone to be tiptoed around and that his dropping by could just as easily be to offer her the latest hot script as to relive old times. There’d been a time Anna had wondered if Glenn and her sister were lovers. But if that had ever been the case, which, knowing Monica, was entirely possible, the relationship was now more eternal flame than old flame.

“Well … I’m off.” Anna forced a smile.

They glanced up as if surprised to see her standing there.

“So soon?” Glenn put on a bereft look.

If he’d been poking fun at her, or even if he were the stereotypical sleazy Hollywood agent, she’d have been less forgiving. But despite his rough edges, Glenn wasn’t a bad guy. His only fault, if you could call it that, was that he did everything he could to disguise the fact that he’d come up the hard way, down to the preppie khakis and polo shirt he was wearing. The result was that he seemed to have dropped from nowhere; even his speech had the modulated, unaccented tone of a radio announcer’s. While it didn’t make sense to Anna—in Hollywood the scramblers were kings and queens of the heap—it was what he and Monica had in common: They’d both reinvented themselves.

“I should get home,” she told him. “My mom’s expecting me.” She realized too late she’d said “my” instead of “our.” But in some ways it did feel as if she were an only child.

Glenn brought a hand to his chest. “Sis, you break my heart every time.”

Anna turned quickly so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. However benign, his teasing was that of a kindly uncle humoring a fat kid he felt sorry for. He wouldn’t have joked that way if there’d been the slightest chance she’d take it seriously.

She was almost out of earshot when she heard them laughing. Blood rushed to her cheeks. That was the thing about being fat, she thought. There was no safe place. When you heard people laughing, you always assumed it was at you.

It was almost six, the sun riding the shoulders of the distant mountains, when she let herself out onto the columned front porch. When she’d called home to say she’d be late, Edna had grumbled a bit, which didn’t bode well. Betty was acting up again; Anna could hear it in Edna’s tired voice. There would be no warm bath or book to curl up with tonight. She’d be lucky if she could grab a bite to eat.

Anna drove slowly nonetheless, nosing her ancient blue Corolla through the tall, wrought-iron gates that guarded the entrance to the estate—the most impressive in Carson Springs, with its twenty pristine acres that included a lily pond, an orchid house, and a rose garden to rival the White House’s. No sense taking unnecessary risks, she thought as she wound her way down the steep canyon road toward the valley below. What would become of Betty if she were incapacitated in some way?

She knew what people thought: that they’d both be better off with Betty in a nursing home. But had they seen some of those places? Did they know what went on there? And it wasn’t as simple as finding the right one. Medicare didn’t cover extended care, so she’d be forced to sell Betty’s house—the only home Anna had ever known.

It’d be useless asking Monica to pitch in. She’d made it clear that the extent of her responsibility, as she saw it, was footing Edna’s salary and the portion of Betty’s doctor’s bills that weren’t covered by insurance. Not that she couldn’t afford to do more, but what would be the fun if they weren’t dancing like marionettes on her purse strings? With each penny squeezed from her, Anna had to jump a little higher … and button her lip a little tighter. As for their mother, it was almost as if Monica were punishing her in some way. Probably because in her mind Betty hadn’t done enough to protect them when they were growing up. As if anyone could’ve gone up against their dad.

A memory surfaced: She must have been six, seven—small enough to fit under the bed. All she could see from where she lay pressed against the floor were two pairs of feet, one in low-heeled black pumps worn to a slant at the heels and the other, her dad’s, in scuffed brown work boots. They’d seemed unconnected somehow to the loud voices overhead. She watched in fear as the boots advanced … and the pumps retreated. There was a scuffle, her mother’s voice pleading, “No, Joey … please … the children …” Then came the awful choking sounds, Betty’s strangled cries twisting about Anna’s own throat as she lay motionless, a fist stuffed into her mouth to keep from screaming.

It was months before she’d been able to sleep through the night.

They’d all suffered. Liz, too. What made Monica so unique?

As she made her way past the Carpenters’ sleek trilevel, its glass and steel expanses afire in the lowering sun, she thought of Alice and Wes, which in turn reminded her of Laura and Hector. If she had it rough in some ways, at least she was blessed with caring neighbors. That included Finch. Adopting her was the best thing Laura had ever done besides marrying Hector. Finch, who was sixteen going on forty and no stranger to life’s travails, had taken Anna under her wing instead of the other way around, stopping by several times a week to help with Betty.

The road flattened, oaks and sycamores taking the place of manzanita and scrub pine. Even after a lifetime Anna never failed to be captivated by the scenery, shifting from one extreme to the next like postcards in a revolving rack. To the east lay a forested lake and to the west chaparral-scrawled hills, with orchards and orange groves in between.

All of it nestled within a ring of snow-capped mountains. If she lived to be a hundred, Anna would never take all this for granted. Though if a landscape could be too bucolic, such was Carson Springs. Where was the grain of sand to chafe at her dull and at times desperate existence? What pearl would ever come of this rut she’d trodden for herself?

Evening shadows stretched across Old Sorrento Road as she neared home. She rattled over the cattle grids and bumped over the potholes. There was a time when this stretch of country road had been nothing but grazing land. Not much had changed except that there were more houses and fewer animals. At night her headlights still picked out the gleam of feral eyes—possums and raccoons, and the occasional bear or bobcat that had wandered down from the hills.

Before long she was pulling into the driveway of the modest frame house where she’d lived the belter part of thirty-six years. It beckoned from the dusk that hid its peeling paint and the shingles missing from its roof, the glow from its windows making her feel all at once hopeful that things would turn out okay.

Her optimism vanished as soon as she climbed from her car. Even from this distance she could hear her mother’s screams—like those of a scalded cat. Her stomach clenched. As she trudged up the walk, the house came into focus, its long-dead nasturtiums clinging in brown squiggles to the porch lattice that framed the sagging steps; the blisters on the clapboard siding, which Hector had repeatedly offered to repaint—as if he hadn’t done enough already—and which looked like an advanced case of leprosy. There were days, like this one, when she imagined herself to be like this house, growing spongy with dry rot while she settled on her foundation. Would she ever be free or, God forbid, end up like Betty?

Anna walked in the door to find Edna locked in mortal combat with her mother. It might have been a comical sight, an old woman, no more than ninety-eight pounds soaking wet, kicking and thrashing while her paid companion, twenty years her junior and broad across the shoulders from a lifetime of working with horses, struggled to subdue her. “Nooooooo! Legooooo! You son of a bitch!” Betty wailed, hammering at Edna with her fists. “I’ll call the cops.
I mean it this time!
”

Anna dropped her purse and rushed to Edna’s aid. “It’s okay, Mom. No one’s going to hurt you.” She grabbed hold of a flailing arm, and after a moment Betty quieted, allowing Edna to release her. “Dad’s gone. Remember?”

Betty’s pale blue eyes stopped their panicked rolling and fixed on Anna. The tension slowly drained from her limbs. “Anna, honey? Is that you?” It always took her a moment or two to adjust to the fact that Anna was grown; in Betty’s mind, her children would be forever small. “I thought you were in school.”

“No, Mom. I have a job, remember?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Betty was hoarse from screaming. Her hair floated about her head like smoke from a doused fire, patches of pink scalp showing through.

Anna exhaled wearily. “Have you eaten yet?” Edna shook her head just as wearily, as if to say,
What do you expect?
Keeping Betty out of mischief was a full-time job in itself.

Betty was getting that wild-eyed look again. “What time is it? Where’s my coat? The bus will be here any minute!”

Anna seized her by the shoulders, forcing Betty to meet her gaze. She could feel the hard knobs of bones beneath the skin that encased them like tissue paper. Her mother had always been petite, but now there was almost nothing left of her. “Calm down, Mom. There’s no school today. It’s … it’s a holiday.”

“Oh.” Betty’s shoulders sagged.

“Why don’t you watch TV while I fix you something to eat?” She guided her mother to the old, seat-sprung recliner, reaching for the remote while mentally scrambling to recall what was on this time of day.
People’s Court? Sally Jesse Raphael? I Love Lucy
reruns? For some unfathomable reason her mother loved
Jerry Springer
, though in her right mind she’d actively loathed such programs. Probably because she’d had enough screaming in her own life.

“I need a cigarette,” Edna said with a sigh when they were alone in the kitchen. Smoking wasn’t permitted in the house, but Anna didn’t say anything as Edna fished a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her oversize corduroy jacket.

“Has she been like this all day?” Anna spoke in a low voice, though her mother, happily absorbed in a
Cheers
rerun, couldn’t hear. From the living room came a hollow burst of canned laughter—to Anna’s mind the loneliest sound in the world—and her mother’s faint cackling in response.

“Ever since the PG&E guy came to read the meter.” Edna lit her cigarette and took a long drag. She was ruggedly built, with graying hair plaited in a braid as thick as a horse’s tail, her leathery skin so creased it resembled the old chopping block out back.

“Pete?”

“She kept calling him Joe.”

They exchanged a knowing look.

“I’m sorry, Edna.” It seemed she’d been apologizing all her life for things she’d had no control over. “I know how tough it is. You’re worth twice what I pay you.”

“In that case, I wouldn’t say no to a raise.” Edna squinted against the smoke rising in a lazy wreath about her head, her brown eyes gentle despite the hard set of her jaw. She knew who the real boss was. When she bitched to Anna, it was as one coworker to another.

“I’ll speak to Monica about it.”

Edna snorted. “While you’re at it, have her throw in a new set of tires for my truck.” They both knew Monica would see Betty out on the sidewalk rather than part with another nickel toward her upkeep.

Anna sighed. “I’m sure if I explain to her—”

“Look, it’s none of my beeswax,” Edna cut her off, “but you oughta give some thought to what we talked about. Or the next thing you know it’ll be the men in the white coats carting
you
off.”

Anna gave in to a wry smile. “It’d be the closest I’ll ever get to a vacation.” She was in no mood to go over the same tired ground. Edna meant well, she knew, but Anna wasn’t ready to ship her mother off to a nursing home. Betty wasn’t
that
far gone. She had her good days as well as her bad days.

“I could use one myself.” Edna glanced about in search of an ashtray before tapping a long ash into the leathery cup of her palm. She carried it to the sink, where she stubbed out her cigarette with a wet sizzle and tossed it into the garbage. “Okay, I’m off.” She reached for her quilted barn jacket on a hook by the back door. “There’s macaroni and cheese in the oven. I didn’t get a chance to heat it up.” She tossed a meaningful glance toward the living room. “Good luck.”

I’ll need it.
As Edna was putting on her jacket, Anna caught a glimpse of the purple mottling on her wrist. With a grim smile, she pulled back her own sleeve to reveal the bruises that ranged from ocher to violet. “Look. We’re a matched set.”

“You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she’s strong as a horse.” Edna gave a half-admiring snort. “Stubborn, too. Once she gets it into her head that …” Her expression turned grim. “Your dad did a real number on her.”