Why Sarah Ran Away with the Veterinarian (11 page)

“Nice apartment,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said, handing me a glass of wine. Little bits of something swirled around in it. “It's paid for, the furniture. Furman picked it out. And I paid for it. Can you believe that?” She swayed slightly and took a sip from her glass. “But I liked it too. Still do. It's lasted longer than Furman. Have a seat and I'll check on dinner.”

“Who's Furman?” I called as she disappeared into the kitchen.

“My ex,” she called back. She reappeared with a fresh bottle of Gallo. “Can you get the cork out of this thing? I'd rather have screw-off lids but when you get the best the Dixie store has to offer, you have to fool with a cork. I made a mess with the first one. Furman used to get the cork out.”

“So tell me about Furman,” I said, twisting the corkscrew straight down.

“Nothing much to tell,” she said. “Met him at the Wayfarer, the lounge. He was driving for the Dixie store at the time, so we had something in common. We got married and saved up for him a rig of his own.” She turned up her glass and finished the last sip. If her drink had cork crumbs she didn't seem to notice. “Then ole Furman drove away with my heart and kept going.” She wiped her lips. “Guess he was in love, like the song says, with the white line.”

The cork popped out and I poured Joanne another glass. “Not too much,” she said after her glass was full. “Got to save room for dinner. You like lasagna?”

“Sounds good,” I said, “and it smells good.” She laughed. A sweet laugh. I did too.

“Then welcome to my table, Jack Brighton.” She led me into the kitchen. It smelled like Pizza Hut. She slid two salad bowls from the refrigerator. “I tear the lettuce,” she said, “so it won't get rusty. They say you can slice it if you're going to eat it the same day but I'd rather tear mine.” She reached back in the refrigerator. “What kind of dressing you want?” She pulled three bottles, each a different color. “Take your pick. I grate my carrots too. Don't you just hate it when they give you those big chunks of carrots that you can hardly chew? Really ruins a romantic meal. I won't eat mine.” She took a sip of wine. “Those cherry tomatoes are from California, but they're fresh. Just came in this morning.”

“The salad looks really good,” I said, shaking out a blob of Thousand Island. Joanne turned off the kitchen lights except the oven hood. She lit two candles and put them on the table. “Make a toast,” she said.

“To a good dinner,” I said lifting my glass.

“For a good man,” Joanne added, looking from me to the candles and back to me. We both drank. It felt good.

By the end of the lasagna and the second bottle of wine, we pretty much covered the grocery business and world of automobile sales. Joanne produced another bottle of wine. It had a screw-on cap. “Didn't think we'd do in both bottles of Gallo,” she said, giggling a little. “This is my spare. It's white but I guess it's okay to mix colors.”

“Guess so,” I said, pushing back from the table but not ready to leave.

She wrung off the lid and refilled our glasses. It mixed with the last of the red in each glass and turned pink, pale like pink champagne. “Follow me,” Joanne said, leading me back into the living room. I sat on her couch underneath the matador and castanet player with the swirling skirt.

“How do you stay in such great shape?” Joanne asked, sitting beside me, almost touching.

“I'm not, not like I used to be,” I said.

“Bet you played sports,” she said, leaning closer. “Basketball? You're tall enough!”

I nodded.

“I was a cheerleader,” she said, “Made the uniform myself, royal blue and canary yellow. The skirt had little box pleats that kicked out when we jumped.” She smiled that really sweet smile again and I could almost see her in one of those little short skirts, legs like the castanet player, jumping up and down in front of crowded bleachers.

“Still have it,” she said, “packed away in my hope, uh, cedar chest. Right underneath the silverware I got for my wedding. Four forks, three knives, seven spoons, and a serving fork. It's sterling. Never got the complete set.” She stared at her pink wine. Then she looked up, smiling again, but not the same. “Tell me about your basketball days.”

“Nothing much to tell,” I said, and before I knew it I was reliving my entire memory of close games, bad calls, tournaments, and scholarship offers. I couldn't believe how interested Joanne was. I even promised to dig out my old scrapbook of press clippings and let her see them. She seemed pleased.

“We need some music,” Joanne said, “some classic rock.” She jumped up, steadied herself with one hand on my shoulder, and walked over to a huge stack of album covers. Then she collapsed on the carpet and folded her legs, Indian style. “I've got the Beatles, the Stones, Neil Diamond, Johnny Rivers, mystery music, and a whole lot more. Good ole 33-and-a-thirds. Request line is open, Jack Brighton,” she said, smiling up at me.

“Surprise me,” I said. She closed her eyes, chose four albums, and pulled out the records without looking at the covers. Then she opened her eyes and dropped them on the turntable.

“I'll surprise us both,” she said, easing back onto the couch beside me, this time closer. Her thigh touched mine.

The first album dropped. The song was vaguely familiar—“magic moment … sweeter than wine.” I couldn't believe I was listening to the lyrics. Sarah always did. If she liked a song, she could just about quote it, word for word. I never paid that much attention. She'd say, “How can you like a song if you don't know what it's saying?”

“Know who that is?” Joanne said, interrupting my thoughts. I didn't answer. “Jay and the Americans.” She shifted slightly. Her skirt caught on my thigh and slipped up a little. The song was soft and sweet. I put my arm around Joanne and touched her hair. Bright blonde but softer than it looked. She leaned against my chest. We stayed that way through two more songs, both love songs. Then I reached around with my other arm and pulled her to me. She slipped her arm around my back and laid her head against my chest. I couldn't believe how good it felt to hold a woman, smell her perfume, feel her arms around me. It'd been so long. Too long. I didn't even care about kissing her, not yet, I just wanted to hold her and to be held.

I'd still be there if it wasn't for the next album. It was a woman singer, a screamer. As good as it felt to hold Joanne, I kept getting distracted by that voice. “Who is that?” I asked Joanne, straightening up a little. “I know I've heard her. I think I've even seen her.”

“Janis Joplin,” she said. “Remember her group, Big Brother and The Holding Company?”

Something stirred in my memory, like pieces of a bad dream. I could see her on stage. The voice kept screaming.

“Her album's ‘Cheap Thrills,'” Joanne said, pulling me closer. “She's dead now.”

The singer went into “Break it … another little piece of my heart” and it hit me like a bolt. I felt a rush of emotions I could barely hold back. I stood straight up. “I've got to go,” I told Joanne.

What I couldn't tell her is that the other time I heard Janis Joplin was at a jam or concert—or whatever the hell you want to call it—with Sarah, on our honeymoon.

I look at Sarah, still sleeping. “Damn you, Sarah!” I say out loud. “You screwed my life up without even being here.”

I meant to call Joanne the next day, apologize, and ask her out for dinner. But that was the same night Sarah's mother died. I didn't even know she was sick! I'd quit going over to the Crawfords' after Sarah left, but Donna Jean should have called. Of course, I don't put a whole lot of stock in what she says. If she had told me her mother was deathly ill, I'd have taken it for a bad cold. Donna Jean's still cute-looking but dingy, one hundred percent. And quite a talker. Half the time about nothing, like what's going on at the beauty shop or who she read about in one of those grocery-store newspapers. Don't know how Andrew stands it. Sarah says the same thing about Andrew and Donna, only the other way around.

The whole family babies Donna Jean to death, Sarah included. They should have named her Prima Donna Jean. When she had the twins you'd have thought she died and came back to life. And Andrew made like he delivered them. The way the Crawfords carried on, I don't see how Sarah stood it. She'd already lost two. And all she'd heard from her family was “It was probably for the best” or “You can always try again.” And there was Donna with one she expected and one she didn't. Sarah lost so many.

Lying here, she looks like she did in the hospital after she lost the first baby, so thin and frail and tired. Maybe that's it! Maybe she's been too weak to leave. Or brainwashed! Like with Patty Hearst where the victim identifies with the captor. And maybe it took her mother's death to snap her out of it. Or maybe it was just a guilty conscience.

I heard about Mrs. Crawford the morning after she died. “Heard” nothing, I read it in the paper. How do you like that? I'm in the family for twenty years, then I have to read about my own mother-in-law's death in the newspaper. Vivienne was the closest thing to a mother I ever had. I should have at least gone to see her. By the time of the funeral I was feeling all kinds of emotions—guilt, sadness, regret, and anger, anger mostly at Sarah.

But I wasn't prepared when I saw her this afternoon at the funeral. Sarah was thinner, eight pounds at least, and she looked strung out. That's when I started thinking again that she might be on something. When she fainted, I was almost convinced. I carried her out by myself. Had to. Mr. Crawford was too grief-stricken to notice and Andrew looked like he was about to pass out too. I just scooped her up in my arms. The church was packed but I elbowed my way through the crowd. Then I drove straight here. The whole time I could hear Janis Joplin screaming in my head, “Take another … piece of my heart …”

Carrying her like that, all limp and helpless, reminded me of our honeymoon. I had an uncle in Palm Beach, Tommy's brother. He didn't come to the wedding, but he offered Sarah and me a place to stay for the weekend. I'd planned for us to go to a big auto race down there, but it was the wrong weekend and there was a rock concert instead.

Sarah wasn't nearly as disappointed as I was about missing the race. She begged me to go to the concert. My uncle called it a love-in. It was more a smoke-in. Throughout the day and half the night all kinds of groups performed, names I can't remember now. Most have split up or died since. But there was this one singer, a gal of about twenty, I can still see and hear her in my mind. Her singing was more wailing or mournful screaming than anything I've ever heard. She was wild—her hair, songs, voice, antics everything about her. Janis Joplin. I'd forgotten her name until the other night at Joanne's. I remember her more than the other performers because of the wild sadness in her voice and because Sarah kept singing her words.

On the day of the concert my eyes were still recovering from oats Kate threw at the wedding, and after hours—about eight—of looking through a sea of smoke I was almost blind. I told Sarah I had to get some air and left her for a while. It was a mistake. All day long the joints had come by, one right after the other. I just passed them on. Now I don't mind some wine or beer or smooth bourbon, but I'm not into killing my brain through my lungs. Never was. But while I was gone, Sarah took her turn, mine too evidently, because when I got back she was walking around in circles, stepping high like she was in briars.

She said she couldn't get her feet down and she kept yelling “Take another little piece of my heart!” She finally passed out. I could have strangled her, then and there. At the same time I would have fought anybody and anything to protect her. That's the way I felt at the funeral, too.

Sarah moves. It's almost dark. I must have dozed off too. “Sarah,” I whisper, “are you okay?”

She doesn't say anything. She just looks at me. Those green eyes I thought I'd never see again.

My throat tightens but I say, “You're home.”

She pushes her hair back from her neck. “I know,” she says.

“I'll get you some water,” I say and start to get up. But she catches my arm.

“Hold me,” she says. “Please, just hold me for a little while.” Before I can think, my arms go around her, pull her to me. I feel her hair underneath my chin, soft against my neck. The control I've worked on for so long explodes and a whole year's emotions come falling down on me. She clings to me like she's drowning. It's like we're both drowning. And I'm not sure if we're saving each other or pulling each other down. We make love, desperate love. A year's worth of passion rips me apart.

The next morning I wake up in Sarah's arms. I want to stay in bed, start over, but I have to clear my head. I don't want to wake her until I have control of myself. So I slip out of her arms, pull the sheet back over her, and dress quietly.

Breakfast. We'll need breakfast. Then we can talk. I head out for the Dixie store. Eggs, bacon, bread, butter, milk, grapefruit. I've got coffee at home but I remember tea. Sarah always loved hot tea, the expensive kind in little tea bags like Earl Grey. I throw in a box. I reach for a jar of orange marmalade. She used to like that too. Before I know it, I'm going through Joanne McJunkin's checkout line. I should have avoided her and would have if I hadn't been so wrapped up in my thoughts of Sarah.

“Morning, Jack Brighton,” she says, with that sweet smile, but watching me closely. “You're out awfully early this morning.”

“Yes,” I say, feeling kind of guilty, “guess I am.”

She fluffs her hair back from her ears. Then she starts sliding my groceries across the bar scan. She's slow, slower than I've ever seen her, turning each item two or three times like she's studying it or can't find the bar code. She reaches for the silver tea box. “Earl Grey?” she says. “I never figured you for a hot tea drinker.”