Who Loves Her? (17 page)

So that was it
.  I was hooked.  Like I said, it wasn’t an instant transformation.  At first the only class I started to attend on a regular basis was Algebra.  I calmed down at home and made small peace treaties along the way.  At first I figured out that if I just didn’t answer Anna and her control-freak ways, then I could just eat breakfast, walk into school, out the back door and do whatever I wanted until Algebra.  Well, until lunch.  That’s when it was easiest to sneak back into the building.  There were attendance calls home every day, letters, and even long talks with my aunt in the third grade.  None of it mattered.  Dad quit talking to me for a great long while and that hurt.  Our close friendship and warm memories were frozen by me and my rude, obnoxious behavior.  Bob was the only thing that mattered to me.  Making sure he was learning and succeeding in his classes was all that drove me.  Occasionally, a bittersweet thought of my Dad would peek into my mind, but shame and guilt would push it away again just as quickly.

Bob was the only thing that was saving me
.  After I helped him out with Algebra we discovered his writing was atrocious and I started helping with that.  I told him it was a dirty trick because English was first period and it made it more difficult for me to ditch the rest of my classes.

His dancing blue eyes twinkled as he teased me,
“Why do you keep ditching class?”

“
It is easier.  I hate all the teachers harping on me about stuff I don’t care about.”

“Like the War of 1812?”

“Exactly like the War of 1812!  I am more interested in the War of Me!”  We laughed together and continued.  “Actually Bob, I don’t like the conversations about me and my future.  Everyone always wanting to know why I can’t be more like Anna.”

Bob shook his head knowingly,
“Oh….the Anna-syndrome.  They wrote a book about that, y’know.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Yep.  Called it the Anna’s Drama Duh!  Strain…get it Andromeda Strain…we watched the movie in seventh grade and you held my hand?” Bob winked.

“
No I did not!”  I mocked, “and besides, Anna drama makes my life hell!  Maybe you held Anna’s hand during the movie!  Hah!”

“Must have
been some other girl back then.”  He smiled.

“I like my version better
.  Anna flashes a red light and you just stop what you’re doing and spread an epidemic of stupid all over the country.”

I laughed hard at the image of Queen Drama Stupid then pushed him on his shoulder,
“Take it easy Bobtail.”

“Don’t worry about it
.  Just light up a bit.  She doesn’t have it all.  People who are that tightly wound don’t know how to have a good time.  And besides, you scare the hell out of people with all your crap.  Surely you know that.”

I jumped up to leave as he hit a nerve, a quick wave in his direction as I started on my way home.

I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but it ate me that he pinned the Anna thing down.  Nobody understood that it was easier to disappoint everybody than to be some shadow character of the almighty and perfect Anna.  It wasn’t until years later when Bob and I had been married a while, that it all evened out.

Part of what made Bob and I work was that we both had to lighten up on our expectations of life
, and when we did, things just seemed to fall into place.  He got his job.  I was still working on my degree and working as a waitress for Fran’s Fish and Chips.  The tips were good in the summer with the tourists, and Bob was always busy.  On top of that, Bob was such a good talker that he was always swapping and selling this and that, most of the time at a little profit.  Once and a while he would score big and refurbish a motor or relic and sell it for three times what it was worth.

Bob was a master genius mechanic
.  He would pick up a Yamaha motorcycle out of the barn of some farmer for seventy-five bucks and with a little TLC sell it for three hundred easy.  That’s how we got the houseboat.  He had been doing some swapping and trading so we could scrape a little money together for a house.  Turned out that one of his best customers had some situation come up and needed to sell a house and the houseboat for cash really quick.  We didn’t have quite enough, but Bob sweet-talked him a little bit and swung the deal.  We had the house free and clear and all Bob had to do in the contract was service a couple more boats until we had the houseboat.  We dreamed of fixing it up and wandering around the lake, or maybe even renting it out to tourists, to have a way for Bob to set up his own shop someday on the lower end of Lake Carlos.

We were always dreaming
, and Bob was the reason most of the tears I shed over my sister’s world were dried.  Well that, and it ended up that Bob was right.  Anna had a dark side to her control-freak ways.  With all the success she experienced in school, it was impossible for her to develop any kind of friendship with boys.  She always ended up chasing men off.  Although she was lonely and really wanting a boyfriend like all the other girls our age, she just could not make it happen.  In some ways it was like she wore man repellant in her cologne or something.  It always started out the same way.  Some guy would see her, and he would either talk to a mutual friend or introduce himself to her.  She would be nervous but flattered, and then begin to believe he was going to be the one.  Before they were on their second date, Anna was decorating their non-existent first home and naming all their non-children.  At first I tried to tease her about it a little, but she would get up and burst into tears.  My mother would always side with Anna and remind me of how I was lucky to have Bob with the mess I was in during high school.

Bob and I really felt bad for Anna and her man troubles
.  We finally developed a plan to introduce David, a guy he worked with, to Anna and make them go on dates with us for a while.  Bob thought we could keep Anna from doing all her creepy wife behaviors until later in the relationship.  For sure the other boys thought Anna was cute, and would have dated her all the time.  The problem was that she was so perfect.  She made people really uncomfortable because she did not seem to fail.  When David saw her and agreed on the double date, Bob and I believed we had finally found an answer to her problem.  Everything was going great that first night.  We had gotten pizza and told funny stories about high school.  When we were choosing a movie to go see, Bob made the joke to go see a horror movie.  We were all grossing out and squealing with delight when Anna interrupted us in her controlled, motherly voice.

“Excuse me David
.  Do you often go to see slasher movies?” The car grew silent.

“
Uhm well…I guess I do.  I mean, I like them but I keep my eyes closed.”  Bob snickered and called him a pussy and we all laughed, relieved that the moment was over.

“Well David, I wonder, have you ever considered how you would feel if your children wanted to watch a mo
vie like “Friday the Thirteenth?” I froze.  She continued.

“I was reading an article that children
, even teens exposed to that type of graphic nonsense have a lower IQ and a reduced level of reading.”  I closed my eyes and shook my head as Bob checked the rearview mirror for the expression on David’s face.

That was it
.  Ultimately, we decided to avoid the IQ killing movie and call it an early night.

Anna’s tears flowed like a river as she tried to explain herself, “Susan you don’t
understand!  You don’t care about reading and being smart so you never think about it.  I love reading and I enjoy using my brain.  I don’t want dumb kids and I don’t want to marry a man who would take our kids to see bloody slasher movies with raw violence!”

“You are not marrying David
.”  I screamed.  “It was just a date!  One single first date!”

“But why waste our time dating if he is just going to turn out to be a disappointment who takes my children to
slasher movies!  What will be next? He might show our kids pornography movies!”

I screamed
: “YOU DON’T HAVE ANY CHILDREN, ANNA!”

I tossed my hair
as I bounced out of the house, “…and at the rate you are going, you never will have any children!”

It was a terrible date, a terrible night, and a terrible memory
.  Bob tried to reason with David, but it was too late in the end.  He met a nice girl from the next town over and they had a really great time going to slasher movies and getting grossed out together.  Last I heard, they were married and had three little ones.  Anna continues to claim she would rather be a spinster teacher than married to the IQ killing daddy David.

Most of those early Sunday dinners ended up with someone in tears
.  Either it was Anna at the table because of her latest break-up, or me at home with Bob after having to swallow all of Mom and Anna’s advice about my next piece of clothing or career move.  See, just because Anna couldn’t get a man, didn’t make her lighten up.  In fact, I think it was because she couldn’t get a man, she decided she needed to make me relive every day of my life where I had let down the family. I later learned that my mom and Anna would “bond” by discussing my lifestyle choices while Bob and I were off pillaging the other villagers.  Anna was quick to tell Mom when I had changed clothes before school, and my Mom was eager to tell Anna about the latest call she had gotten from the school regarding my behavior or grades.  My Dad would tell her to stop at the dinner table, but she would just chew me out in the kitchen when we washed the dishes.  The worst was when the men were in the living room cheering for the Vikings, and Anna and Mom were telling me why marriage with Bob was not going to work.  It was during one of those meetings that I blurted out I was going to college before I had even talked to Bob.  They both sat with eyes wide, and mouths hanging open like fly traps.

“Yeah
!  I said it.  I’m going to college, so shut up!”

“Skylark Motel.  Best skyline in America’s best little town.  Can I help you?”

“Do you have any rooms available?”  It was a very soft voice.

“Excuse me?  I can’t hear you.”

“Susan…..this is….”

“Excuse me?  I can’t hear you.  You need to speak up.”

“Susan, this is Anna…
.”  The voice was barely audible and I could hear wind in the background.

“Please listen…I…
ve…somethi…you….”  My heart was pounding loudly.

“That’s a horrible joke, Billy!”  I slammed the phone down
.  I was so pissed I instantly called Mrs. Carlson to give her a piece of my mind.  It was a voicemail.

“I don
’t care if this is a damn voicemail, Mrs. Carlson, your son Billy is always trying to call down here and ask if he can rent a room.  I mean I thought it was a joke, but this time he’s gone over the edge and when I tell you what he’s….!”

“He-hello?”
  A garbled voice picked up like the person had been sleeping.

“Mrs
. Carlson?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Sorry, ma’am, but I think Billy just…”

“Billy is at school and I have a long shift
.  You’ll have to call him later, Sheila.  I need to get some sleep.” She hung up.  I let the phone just sit there in my hand until it started that beeping it does to let you know it’s off the cradle.

I pounded the
star sixty-nine code into the phone so that they would tell me the last recorded incoming call.  The computer said,

“
Five five five, seven two three, zero nine eight one.”

I punched in the number
.  “Mom?”

“Yes, Susan,” m
y mother sighed.

“Did you just call here?”

“Well, honey that’s a silly question.  Did you decide on what color of curtain you want for that office and apartment there at Uncle Lars’?  I’m still going through old fabric, and Lars says he’d be glad for me to help you spruce it up.”

“Mom, someone from
that number called and said… “but I realized the joke would be even more cruel on my mother, and I didn’t want her to think I was reverting back to my asshole ways.

“…and said what, d
ear?”

“Oh, nothing
.  Um ,the light blue fabric would be fine for the curtains, Mom.”

“With the yellow stripe or the little white flowers?”

“Jeez, Mom you’ve got a fabric store.  I guess the flowers.  Bob liked flowers.”

“Yes, he did, h
oney.  Susan…”

“I know, Mom
.  I just can’t.”

“Well, you think about it.”

“I will Mom.  Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I love you, Mom.  This all sucks.”

There was a long pause and I
was sure I had pissed her off or something.

“Mom?”
  A slurping noise came through on the other line.  “Sorry, Mom.” I whispered, and Mom hung up the phone so I wouldn’t have to hear anymore of her heaving sobs.

“I need a break from all of this
.”  I pulled the cigarette out of the desk drawer and went outside. Bob made me promise to quit before we graduated, and I’d held it together pretty well.  I’d relapsed here and there, so to try and get over the cravings, I kept my symbolic cigarette in the drawer.  I’d take it out and wave it over the alley like a wand out of the movie, and then stick some licorice in my mouth instead.  Sounds silly, but it helped.  I went inside and tidied up.  The sun was going down again and Mr. and Mrs. Vanilla came back from their walk to nowhere.  They were still hand-in-hand and made their way to Room Fourteen, smiling into each other’s eyes and remembering their wonderful day.

For a moment I watched
.  I remembered that feeling.  The instance of togetherness when you have no idea where you end and your mate begins.  Those moments don’t last long, fleeting really.  I pushed the thought from my head and turned off the lights.  I clicked the light off as I closed the back door to the office.  It just happened to be the front door to my little studio apartment.  It was a Wednesday, and so I’m pretty sure nobody was going to be piling off Highway 29 and checking into the Skylark.  They all just zoomed in off of I-94 and the chains with their pretty continental breakfast would scoop them up.  I was going to try again to figure out how to sleep with this suffocating hollow in my chest.

Most nights I just hugged his pillow and cried
.  His scent was fading, so I made sure to wrap his pillow in one of his shirts.  The scratchy wool would absorb my tears until I couldn’t feel anything else.  Watching Mr. and Mrs. Vanilla, I could actually feel Bob’s hand in mine.  I knew each wrinkle of skin, and each little scar from the badges of work. I could close my eyes and remember his scent, and the way his hair glistened when the sun shone down on him.  Something else intruded on my memories.  Something glistening, dark and evil, but still it was Bob.  The phone started ringing, but I just let the answering machine pick it up.  Mom would always try to call and tuck me in over the phone and I just couldn’t take it.  The pain finally got too huge in the middle of the night and I took a pain pill.  My head pounding rhythmically in my ears as I drifted off to sleep; a dark, troubling memory hanging on fearlessly at my soul.

Bob was the one who got me to go to the doctor over this headache thing
.  He was really worried about me.  Now I promised I would take just one pain pill if it started acting up.  When some people get upset their stomach gets all tight.  When some people get upset their back tightens up.  When I get upset it just means that I get a killer headache.  Maybe they’re right….

“Susan…”

“What?...”

“
You’re a coward, Susan.”

I opened my eyes and realized with an odd detached sensation that Andy Griffith was over my bed, and I think he just called me a coward
.  Now I don’t exactly know why Andy Griffith was hovering over my bed, but he didn’t seem hostile.  I’d been inside enough of my dreams to know it didn’t help to fight it.  I would just fade in and out of black sleep and dreaming until it was morning.  Why would be call me hostile?  Suddenly there was McGregor’s fruit stand with his huge garden of corn there in the back.  My nephew and Marvin and Mom were standing in the garden at some kind of party there.  People were all laughing and having drinks to a brilliant sunset on a summer day.  Mom looked straight at me.  Her face wasn’t happy or sad.  Just like she was the only one that knew I was dreaming or something.  She was simply an observer, and she made no move to intervene.  Marvin was a great musician and Mom was telling him to keep singing.  He opened his mouth and it was like my head turned on a radio.  “
Bésame…Bésame mucho…”
started playing from Andre Bocelli.  My psycho band from the story I wrote this afternoon sat way off in the distance, and Andre Bocelli sat watching me with his blind eyes.  I just kept wondering why I was such a coward.

I mean, Andy Griffith watched me clean up all the stories I’d written and had rejected and tossed in the garbage
.  I kept one story about my family in an empty bucket.  Well that one story and the one I just finished.  Andy wouldn’t answer me.  I came to just enough to register that it was pitch black and there were crickets.  Well, not exactly pitch black.  You could see that it was almost a full moon.  I adjusted my pillow and about drifted off until the screeching cars from the crash flew back into my dream.  I bolted awake and just sat up in bed.  I clicked on the light and adjusted Bob’s shirt on his pillow.  With no volume, I turned on the late night comedy shows.  If I turned up the volume, RoomTwo could hear me and most of the time, they would pound on the wall for me to turn it down.  RoomTwo was Harris Fielding.  He was a traveling salesman that just ran a tab with us and paid at the end of each month.  He had his own key and got in really late from DesMoines when he was running this way or back home.  Guess it was a tough gig to be a seed and implement salesman here in the Midwest.

One day I asked him if he had family back wherever he was from
.  He shrugged and said his wife was kind of used to the circuit, and she had a good job with a hospital back there, so she spent quite a few overtime hours making sure it ran like a top.

Eventually
, three in the morning rolled around and I turned off the TV again to see if I could at least have a couple more dreams before I had to get up and open the office for people dropping off keys.  Who am I kidding?  The first time I had to get up was ten thirty to go clean rooms unless Mr. and Mrs. Vanilla decided to get busy on that piece of plywood covered with foam rubber Uncle Lars calls a mattress.

It was always nice to feel myself back watching the movie of my dreams
, because it meant I didn’t have to face all  the real situations, like what to do with the house Bob and I bought or why I can’t get my car to start, and I still don’t know who to call.

The fuzzy black blanket of my dreams took over again and the theme song to that cable show about superheroes started playing over and over in my head
.  Some eerie hum.  Got to give it to them, they made a great serial killer out of that one dude that plays Spock in the movies.  Somehow the memories of our house joined with the serial killer dude.  I could see the Evil Spock tiptoeing quietly through the living room that Bob and I had shared.  A part of me was horrified as the serial Spock reached up and jerked my drapes down off the window.  I whispered at Spock.

“My mom made those for me and Bob
!  For our house!”

“Well where
are Mom and Bob? Where are they Susan? Will they save you now?” he hissed.

I did not feel fear
, I was only irritated and worried about the drapes.  I rushed to pick them up and even jerked one from evil Spock’s creepy hand.  “Now look what you have done!  I am going to have to wash these things and hang them again!  You can not just come into my house and mess up memories of my Bob!”

The phone rang in my dr
eam and I picked up, “Skylark Motel.  Best skyline in the America’s best little town.  Can I help you?  Yes, that will be five hundred twenty five dollars a night.  No problem.  I have you down for Tuesday.”

I looked up at the motel
and it had turned into the Ritz Carlton they have down on the lake.  Anna worked there as a maid when she was finishing her teaching degree, and I tagged along one day.  Talk about plush.  Even dirty towels smelled better than our rooms here.  I turned to see Anna walking in with her toy poodle and turning her nose up at me as she scooted by with her rich husband, Jeremy, the stoner kid I kicked around with flashed through next, and we all piled through the hallway at school.

I was starting to run everywhere and saw Bob’s helmet on the ground, he was in the game
and I tried and tried to get to him to give him his helmet…then I handed the helmet to the volleyball bitch that almost got Anna fired and we were all laughing in the stands.  Someone motioned me into the hallway and all I could do was feel this burning anxiety inside my chest as I chased first down one hallway and then another, only to find myself back at the front desk of my motel saying: “…Yes, that will be five hundred twenty-five dollars a night.  No problem.  I have you down for Tuesday.”  I ran up and down streets and then down the main tourist strip with all the t-shirt shops and arcades and then again, “Yes, that will be five hundred twenty-five dollars a night.  No problem.  I have you down for Tuesday.”

The sun finally annoyed me enough that I just got up
.  I was drenched in sweat.  I thought about not showering, but that was a little too lame.  I plugged in the coffee pot and grumbled at the mirror.  It was the only coffee pot in the whole joint.  Uncle Lars was too cheap.  He just put a pixie stick of instant coffee with one pack of sugar and one pack of sweetner with a stir stick into the coffee mug.  He figured if they wanted bad coffee bad enough, they’d figure out the sink or the microwave.

For a while, when Starbucks was new, we had some coupons I could hand the customers
who would complain.  When those ran out, I would just shrug and give them a weak smile and a nod.  I remember the first time Bob and I went to Starbuck’s he just about fainted.  He spent three months trying to come up with money to buy a Starbuck’s after he paid for our two small coffees.  He was really amazed that so many people value coffee to the level that Starbucks has defined.

“I will have one medium coffee with sugar
, please.”

“That will be four dollars and f
ifty-five cents.”  Gasp, choke, faint.  Bob loved to act out the scenario, but I knew secretly he was trying to figure out how to get in on the coffee craze while it lasted.

I showered quickly
.  I never did more than toss on a t-shirt, some of Bob’s boxers and my hoodie.  When I scooted to the desk fast enough, nobody noticed.

My mom tried once
.  “Susan, what if an important customer comes in?”

“Like the P
resident?”

“Well
, no dear!  But what if the preacher comes by and needs a room? What will he think seeing you dressed like that while you are at work?”