Time Trials (10 page)

“We’re what? Riding with…oh, oh no, not Regina!” Suzanne freed her arm and started backing up. “I’m not getting in that car.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous would be getting in that car. I can’t.”

“Yes. You can.”

“No. Oh God, I’m getting a hive.”

“I’ll give you a hive. Now move it.” Allison hated taking that tone with Suzanne, but after dealing with her mother for so long, her fuse was rather short lately.

Suzanne stood frozen in the middle of the family room, her eyes searching for an escape route.

“If you don’t move through that door in the next ten seconds, I will make you ride shotgun.” Allison folded her arms across her chest, ready to do battle with her fickle friend.

After Suzanne made her exit through the front door, Allison shook her head ever so slightly and gave her mother and Cara a loaded smile. “Works every time.”

“Don’t pay her,” her mother said. “She didn’t fix the television.”

Chapter 17

Janie – 1992

Wives are always the last to know. Wasn’t that the saying? Yet Janie had known Matt had been screwing around for quite a while. She clamped down harder on the steering wheel and glanced at her watch. An hour since her oversized drive-thru order at McDonald’s. Keeping her eyes on the road, she reached over and emptied a bag containing salted peanuts, a box of Hot Tamales, and a Snickers. She opted for the chocolate fix.     

Thinking about Matt and his infidelities always made her hungry. Hungrier, actually, since she spent most of her life in a nonstop yo-yo hunger frenzy. Now was not the time to think about her busted marriage. Maybe in a year or two she’d get her act together.

“Then I’ll leave his rotten ass. He’ll be sorry.” Either that or realize he really did love her. In that case, she’d have to “think” about it.

On the road for a couple of hours on her trek down to North Padre Island, she pulled over in El Campo at Prasek’s Hillje Smokehouse, her all-time favorite stop on the trip to the bay house. Always telling herself she was only stopping for a fountain Dr. Pepper, she could never turn away from the bakery, home-made tamales, or the piles of assorted jerky. It took two trips to the car plus purchasing an additional Styrofoam cooler to haul everything she’d purchased. Her rationale? A long weekend with the BAGs. Janie picked up a couple of peppered pork tenderloins, two dozen kolaches, an apple strudel, an Italian cream cheese cake, a fudge pecan pie, a loaf of pumpkin bread, and two pounds of their famous thin beef jerky. At the last minute she added a pulled pork sandwich to go.

Settling back in the driver’s seat, she grabbed a Kleenex from her purse to dab the sweat running down the sides of her face, then tilted the rearview mirror for a makeup check. Her rosy checks immediately beamed back at her. That and the turquoise bandana she had tied like a headband to tame her wild and curly red hair. The bandana accessorized her bright turquoise capris, checkered button-down blouse, and matching Converse tennis shoes. When she was a child her grandmother used to call her Shirley Temple. Well…add about thirty-five years and two hundred pounds and…there you go. Dimples still in place, just a lot more of her. A whole lot more.

She veered her Honda CRV back onto Highway 59 and resumed her southward course. This extended weekend marked the twentieth year since the BAGs had met. For the first ten years after college, her bay house on North Padre Island, just over the causeway from Corpus Christi, had been the host site of their soirees. Janie always headed down a day ahead of time to prepare the house on the canal for the special BAGs weekend. This get-together was for Denise. They hadn’t been together in quite some time, and now…well, now Denise was gone. Her sadness over losing her friend parlayed over into her own life.

“Mom, when’s Dad coming home?”

Her mind replayed the conversation she’d had with Marcus, the younger of her two sons, the night before. He was ten and looked up from his plate with dark hazel eyes identical to his father’s.

Janie had wondered the same thing. “Soon, I’m sure.” Although she wasn’t sure at all.

“But we never have dinner together anymore.” Marcus pushed peas around his plate.

She glanced at Chase, Marcus’s older brother. He stared off into space like he was reading an electronic sign from another planet. She couldn’t blame him. Their family life had become such a farce…even to their ten and twelve year old boys. Who said kids didn’t pick up on things?

C’mon, focus. We don’t have time to travel down that well-worn path. We’re more than halfway there.

What would she have ever done without her reasonable inner self? For as long as she could remember she’d accepted the voice in her head as an ally rather than an adversary, although these days she often wondered about that. When she was five she decided to give her then “friendly” ally a name.

“You will now be called Candy.” Which in retrospect may have been a clue to her obsession with food…especially candy.

Making her way down SPID, South Padre Island Drive, in Corpus Christi, she made a stop at the huge HEB Plus grocery store right before crossing the causeway onto the island.

“Now this is
my
comfort zone.” 

And Prasek’s wasn’t?
Candy taunted.

“Shush.” Alone at a grocery store and with carte blanche to buy whatever her pallet pleased, which turned out to be a lot, was truly her comfort zone. Yeah, it wasn’t the healthiest zone, but what the hell. She had Matt’s credit card and she didn’t give a flip.  Her prepared list had served her well, but she added more. Way more. After loading up her goods, it only took fifteen minutes before she pulled the SUV into the driveway of the bay house. Luggage and boatloads of food were carried into the house before she picked up the phone and dialed her Houston landline.

“Hello?” Matt said.

Yeah, right. I leave town and he decides to come home early.

He was supposed to be home when the kids got off the bus, moron.

“You’re home.” Janie twisted an already tight curl around her finger.

“I’m home. Wasn’t that the plan?”

“Uh, yeah.” Janie bit the inside of her lip. “Just wanted to let you know I made it okay.”

“Want to talk to the boys?”

“No, that’s okay, I just got here. I’ll call them tonight. Did you see the casserole in the refrigerator?”

“Already got it out. Okay honey. You and the girls have a good time. We’ll miss you.”

Honey, my ass. He n-e-v-e-r calls me honey when I’m at home.

Just shut up. Let it go for now….

“Give the boys a hug for me. Bye.” She didn’t wait for the obligatory return bye before hitting the end button. “Asshole.”

Here we go.

“No, I’m done. I want this to be a good four days. I’m going to unload the groceries, grab a beer, and go sit out on the deck. Happy?”

If you’re waiting on me you’re backing up, sister….

To her credit, after finishing in the kitchen, she pulled one of the Adirondack chairs from underneath the porch out onto the deck. She positioned herself and a cold Dos Equis toward the west. Several palm trees in yards across and down the canal framed the Kodak moment sunset. For the first time today she felt her teeth unclench and her body relax. Wandering clouds moved across the western sky, adding shades of purple and streaks of salmon to the picture-perfect scene she captured in the photo portion of her mind.

A reluctant smile eased onto her face. Years ago they’d had such good times here. She and Matt would bring the boys down to the bay house for a week. Sometimes her parents were here with them, sometimes not. Back then it didn’t matter because everyone got along. They’d load up her dad’s Jeep with an awning, beach chairs, a cooler, and sunscreen, and head to the beach only a short mile away. The boys would spend hours with Matt in the water while she walked the beach looking for sea glass, one of her many obsessions.

Four hours south of Houston, the north end of Padre Island held more of a tropical look than Galveston, a closer beach escape. Due to its location—being tucked up in the crook of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the run-off of nearby bayous and rivers—Galveston waters often resembled sudsy coffee. Occasionally, when the currents and wind directions were in harmony, settling the mud to the bottom of the gulf floor, Galveston mimicked the tropical look with the same clear blue-green water as North Padre. For consistent beach and water conditions, her parents had decided on a bay house four hours further down the coast.   

The Russos were a happy clan back then. She and Matt were still in love and they adored their boys. However, over the last couple of years, as her weight jacked back up while her marriage took the low road, she’d found comfort in her parents’ approach. They were her cheerleaders. Though dysfunctional, how reassured she felt when they’d gloss over her mammoth weight gain, which portrayed her as more of a Jabba the Hutt these days than the cute Shirley Temple she used to be. And if they knew anything of Matt’s indiscretions, they never said a word, which allowed her to stay in her la-la land existence…for a while. Until her two best friends pointed out the blaring truth with just a tad too much objectivity for Janie’s comfort zone.

“Janie. C’mon. This has been going on too long with Matt,” Frannie had said.

Dena, on the other hand, grabbed her by the shoulders one day. “You know I love you more than my box of wine, but get a fucking grip, girl. You don’t have to put up with that shit-heel.” As usual, Dena spoke like a true southern lady. Not.

She preferred her parents’ approach.

The sun had long gone, though twilight still lingered in the sky as faint stars begin to appear. She heaved herself out of the Adirondack chair and marched straight to the picture in the living room of Matt taking off in his kayak at dusk for some night fishing. She’d actually taken the photo and it had hung in this exact spot for years. One end of her mouth screwed up in a grimace. Closing an eye in a Popeye-pirate squint, she removed the picture, which left an outline where the frame had protected the wall over the years.

“Something needs to go here.” The small desk nearby held an array of odds and ends, typical of a bay house desk, not typical for a regular working desk. Opening the top drawer, she dug around and found a small, odd-shaped pewter bottle opener. It appeared to be a woman lying across a surfboard. At first glance, the woman appeared nude, but on closer examination she could see the vague outline of an old-fashioned one piece swim suit. A big notch had been cut out at the top of the board to open bottles. “Bo Jons” had been engraved on the surfboard between the notch and the woman’s hair. Janie had no idea where the hell this bottle opener had come from or how long it had been hiding in the desk drawer. 

“This’ll work.” She hung the unusual bottle opener on the nail where the picture had hung and shrugged. She returned to the kitchen, her favorite room of the house, only stopping at the trash can to toss the picture of Matt and the kayak.

The BAGs would arrive tomorrow. She always spear-headed the menu, but delegated some items out, like the famous chicken and rice casserole a la Dena. Since the bay house was her ante to the pot, everyone else chipped in a designated dollar amount to cover food and lodging. Putting together menus was her forte. In fact, anything involving food was her specialty. The first night would be a shrimp boil with piles of toasted garlic bread. Dena and Frannie would stop at one of the fresh seafood places down by the bridge and purchase the required poundage on their way down in the morning.

Retrieving her mother’s cookbook from the louvered pantry door, she opened to where a paper clip held her mother’s hand-written recipe for Maxim’s famous remoulade sauce. Maxim’s had been Houston’s first real upscale restaurant back in the fifties and sixties. The business had closed, but not before her mom had wormed the recipe out of the owner.

The remoulade and red sauce completed, she pulled a large pepperoni pizza from the oven and set up shop in front of the television. It had been a long time since she’d seen anyone except Frannie and Dena. They’d all been in their late twenties at their last little soiree and mostly full of themselves, from what she remembered. People changed. Personalities changed. So do bodies, she thought as she smoothed her hands down her rounded shape. But then again, this weekend wasn’t about those kind of things. Denise had died. That’s why they were coming back together after all these years. It was going to be a hard weekend, although she actually looked forward to seeing everyone. Well, except for Regina and Piper.

“You never know about those two.”

Chapter 18

The Drive - 1992

The four hour drive to North Padre seemed like six. If Regina had used the same energy on the gas pedal as she did with her incessant jibberish about herself, they could have cut the time and agony in half. Suzanne sat strapped in the back seat, looking as if she was moments away from being shot out of a cannon. Allison listened politely for a while before blatantly interrupting the monologue coming from the driver’s side of the car.

“Well, sounds like your life is going pretty well.” Allison really tried to keep the teeth-grinding sarcasm minimal. She turned to the back seat. “Don’t you agree, Suzanne?”

“Huh? What did you say?” Suzanne’s panicked expression mimicked a grade-schooler totally embarrassed for picking her nose when called on by the teacher.

“What are you doing?” Allison asked, puzzled by the contents of Suzanne’s purse scattered across the back seat.

Turning a color that matched the crimson stripe of her Gucci messenger handbag, Suzanne gathered her belongings closer to her. “I’m…uh…cleaning out my purse.”

“By the way, Suzanne, I love your handbag.” Regina eyed Suzanne through the rearview mirror. “I adore mine. And Michael Kors has—”

“Pull over at Prasek’s right before we hit El Campo, will ya?” So much for trying to shut down motor mouth, Allison thought.

“Why?” Regina readjusted the rearview mirror to check her make-up.

“Because I said so!” Allison winced at her own tone of voice. She downshifted and continued. “Because…there are a couple of things Janie asked me to bring for the weekend.”

“We just passed the sign. It’s coming up in five miles.” Regina fished around in her purse for lip gloss.

Thank God
, Allison thought.
There’s enough wind blowing through the vehicle to launch a hot air balloon
.

Within five minutes the Lexus 400 sedan pulled into Prasek’s parking lot. She was actually surprised Suzanne waited until Regina came to a complete stop before bolting from the car. Allison headed straight for the restroom, assuming that would be Suzanne’s destination. She perched in a spot so she could see anyone exiting a stall. She waited until Chicken Little made her way to the sink before grabbing her arm.

“What is your problem? You act like you’re being held against your will. Gonna write SOS on the mirror?”

“Are we almost there?” Suzanne patted her cheeks with water.

“No, we’re not almost there.” Allison shook her head. “We’re not even halfway.”

“Oh no.” Suzanne gently pulled down the soft skin under her eyes, inspecting each closely.

“What are you doing?”

“When my nervous system gets compromised, my eyes turn red before the body itching starts.”

Allison grabbed her delicate friend by the shoulders. “Suzanne. Knock it off. Regina is not the enemy. We used to all live together, remember? We were the BAGs and we had a blast. Stop acting that way.”

Suzanne’s entire demeanor slumped as if she’d suddenly developed a severe case of scoliosis. “I have a hard time relaxing.”

“Really. I hadn’t noticed.” Allison cocked her head to one side. “Remember at Chili’s after Denise’s service?”

Tears immediately appeared, rimming Suzanne’s eyes. She nodded.

“You asked what happened to us. To us. The Bad-Ass-Girls. The girls we were back then…you know, before life really got serious with families, careers, PTA, that kind of stuff?”

Suzanne turned to study her image in the mirror. “I don’t remember that person. The one with no responsibilities.” Grabbing a Kleenex from her purse, she blew her nose.

“Well, I do. Yeah, she was shy and yeah, she occasionally had to be coaxed out of her shell, but when she did…she was a blast.” Allison faced the image of her friend in the mirror. “That’s the one I’m talking about. I know she’s still in there. Let her come out and play…just for the weekend. It’s us…your friends…and we’re coming back together to have fun, to catch up….” This is where Allison tiptoed with her words. “And to honor Denise.” She moved to wrap an arm around Suzanne’s shoulders. “You can do that, can’t you? Just for the weekend?”

A long moment passed as they stood in the middle of the busy, but first-class, restroom. A released sigh seemed to inflate Suzanne’s height. She straightened her spine and threw back her shoulders. “You bet your ass I can,” she said, and marched out of the restroom.

“Did she just say ass?” Allison bolted forward to catch up with her friend. Together they gathered the items on the BAGs weekend list, checked out, and found Regina engaged in her one-woman-monologue-performance with the poor female tending to the bakery.

“Let’s go.” Allison nodded toward the parking lot. As Regina made her exit, the bakery woman looked like she’d been hit with a stun-gun. Allison walked over to her and whispered, “Be very glad you work here. We’ve got another three hours in a car with her.”

The remainder of the trip actually flew by. With Suzanne back to reality, and Regina knocked off her pedestal, the three reminisced about their time in college. They laughed, remembering how traumatic everything in their lives was back then, which now seemed so trivial. The tone turned bittersweet when conversation turned to Denise. The threesome fell into a silence for a few minutes, then Allison broke the sadness.

“And she’d rather us talk about the good times, wouldn’t she? Suzanne, remember the time you and Denise built that wall of empty beer cans across our bathroom door?”

“Hey, I remember that. That was when I was head drum majorette,” said by guess who?

“I couldn’t believe we got that many beer cans into the dorm.” Suzanne had freed herself from her seatbelt and scooted up toward the front. “Took us over a week, and Denise had me wash out every single one. We hid them in our chest of drawers. She bought boxes of baking soda so our clothes wouldn’t smell like beer.” Suzanne giggled, something she probably hadn’t done in a long time. “That
was
fun.”

“It was hilarious!” Allison turned to pat Suzanne’s hand. “Those were some good times.”

“And remember Dena and her language?” Suzanne’s eyes rounded. “I’d never heard a girl talk like that.”

“She always said her mom said she talked like a sailor. And I’m bettin’ that hasn’t changed.”

“You think?” Suzanne cocked her head. “But she’s got kids, doesn’t she? Surely she doesn’t talk like that in front of them.”

“Bet she does.” Allison remembered all too well how mundane the F-bomb got to be whenever Dena was present.

“Remember when we tried to get her to use something else? Some code word that wouldn’t get us kicked out of school?” Suzanne pushed up her sunglasses. “What was that?”

“Frog.” Regina and Allison spoke in unison, which surprised both of them.

“That’s it!” Suzanne brought her hands together in a clap. “But…didn’t work, did it?”

“For about five minutes.” Allison twisted around to Suzanne. “Until the first time she said Mother-Frogger. Even I had to admit it was just wrong.” She readjusted herself in her seat. 

“I hope she brings that casserole of hers.” Suzanne slowly morphed into Chatty Cathy and actually monopolized air time. “I’ve
got
to get that recipe.”

“It’s her signature deal, I’m sure it’ll be there.” Allison checked on the driver, who had become unusually quiet. “You okay over there?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, I’m fine.” Regina ran a hand through her shoulder-length perfectly colored hair. “I was just thinking about an assignment I got yesterday.”

Glad the topic centered around something other than the reigning head drum majorette, Allison prompted Regina to explain.

“There’s a set of dog tags that have been recovered from a guy who died in Vietnam twenty-two years ago. His mother lives in Houston.” Regina paused. “I’m supposed to cover the story.”

“Do you know the name?” Not that Allison thought she’d know, but she liked Regina talking about someone other than herself.

“Michael Middleton.”

“So…when is this going down?” Allison actually thought this to be a pretty cool assignment.

“Sometime next week.” Regina dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her little finger, obviously not wanting to disturb the newly applied lip gloss. “I’ll just interview the woman after she’s presented the tags.”

“Wow.” Allison sensed something in Regina’s tone, something few people other than herself would pick up. There had been no flare, no ta-dah about the assignment, although it seemed like a really big deal. What was it? Dread? She cut her eyes toward Regina and saw a profile devoid of any flamboyance. “What else?”

“What do you mean?” Regina’s eyes never left the road in front of her.

“There’s something else.” Allison felt safe enough to push Regina on the subject. Suzanne, who still balanced near the front console, appeared a bit confused, as if trying to figure out what she had missed.

Regina gripped the steering wheel with such force her knuckles turned white. Her head swayed slightly toward Allison when she whispered, “I know the woman. She’s my apartment manager.” Regina’s voice died off so low her words were barely audible. Her gaze returned to the road.

“What’s…wrong with that?” Suzanne looked back and forth between the two women in the front seat. “Isn’t that good? I mean, this could get you’re a lot of exposure. People love stuff like that.”

Silence filled the car like a pushed mute button. After several long moments, Regina broke the quiet. “She hates me.”

“Your apartment manager? But why?” Suzanne had apparently forgotten the long list of people who didn’t see Regina in a favorable light.

Oh, the picture began to unfold in Allison’s mind. Someone with spunk who saw right through Regina’s façade. Someone who took pleasure in bringing self-serving, narcissistic people down to size. “You’ve had some run-ins, I take it?”

“A few.” The grip on the steering wheel tightened, if that was possible. “My one big story.” Prying a hand loose, she shoved her hand in the air as if presenting the situation on a platter. “And then this! She’s
such
a bitch.”

They rode in silence for a good fifteen minutes before Allison spoke. “When did you say this is going down?”

“Next week sometime. It’s a human interest piece, so maybe after the major headlines one day.”

“Maybe Suzanne and I’ll be there,” Allison said. “You know, to support you.”

One of Regina’s manicured hands clamped across her forehead. Allison clearly saw tears fighting to stay in place. Regina’s voice cracked just the tiniest bit when she replied, “You’d do that? For me?”                                                                                                                                                                                                       

“Damn straight.” Suzanne almost lifted herself off the seat.

“Down girl.” Allison smiled at Suzanne’s pizazz. “Maybe you’d better get buckled back in.”

Their conversation remained light after that brief solemn moment and carried the threesome all the way down to the Laguna Madre Bridge, which crossed over onto North Padre Island.

“You remember how to get there?” Allison dug into her purse for the directions while Suzanne gawked at the three-story high mermaid sculpture perched like the Statue of Liberty in front of one of the island’s souvenir shops.

“I know it’s down here by one of these convenience stores.” Regina slowed to look at street names.

“Not this light.” Allison pointed to the left. “That goes down to Port Aransas. It’s the next one.”

In less than five minutes they were pulling into the driveway of Janie’s bay house.

“We made it.” The words uttered in unison sounded rehearsed.